TenThousandBrokenDreams/Session24

Mother Cypress speaks:

“Ah, children, children! Come closer, come closer, let me tell you a tale! And what tale shall I tell… Would you hear of the Seven Swans of Mirlak, blessed by the gods to choose one child in a generation to be a hero for the weak and the oppressed? Would you hear of how the Thaumatarch of Tessen-O bound the Seven Swans into her service, and of how she perverted their blessing for her own ends? Or would you hear more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, and of the turning of the Age?

“Well then… gather round, my children, and spread ears like elephants; that I may tell you more of the tale of the children of the Sun, and of what they did in the dead city of Kaihan.”

* * * * *

“I am not your sister,” said Tepet Aekino.

“Oh, but you were.” The Wisdom straightened in his baroque chair of old iron and bone. Despite his weak and frail appearance, the Circle stood back from the black miasma of power that billowed forth from his twisted frame as if from a glacial chasm. He eyed each of them. “I know you. I know each of you. You were Sharn Larenn once, circlemate, sister… and you?” His gaze shifted, eyes darting within the scarred hollows of their sockets. “You were Katsuro the Righteous, scourge of mortal rebels and of the Fair Folk, scythe of a thousand fields of battle. And you? You were Blessed Wind, briefly; and before that, you were Ambrani Rao, mighty and wise, the architect of all our woe.”

The Dynast shook his head. “I am not Sharn Larenn.”

“As you would have it.” The Wisdom spoke flatly, his words dry and drained of emotion, like the salt bed of a dead sea. “Once, you were Sharn Larenn. We were of the same Circle. But that was another time. You may not remember it. The visions are slow to take hold. Perhaps you are too young to recall; but they shall take root, in time.”

“You are missing the point. That was another person, another life. I have her memories, her power; but I am my own person. I have my own soul.”

“Indeed, you have your own soul. But the sun-soul that was of Sharn Larenn, that is yours as well. You have two higher souls now; and in time, they shall become one.”

Aekino gritted his teeth. “None of this is important. What is important, is that we have come for what is rightfully ours. You have stolen our grave goods. You will give them back, now.”

The Wisdom shrugged. “You claim not to be the Solar Exalted of old, yet you claim their goods as your own? As you would have it; it matters not to me. But as it is said, possession is four-fifths of the law. I do hold artifacts of ancient power in my vaults. Some of them belonged to you in your earlier incarnations. What will you do for me, that I should give these things to you?”

Hesitation. “What do you want?”

“I lack that interest in world affairs that bedevils certain of my brethren.” Despite his general lack of affect, the Wisdom spoke the word ‘brethren’ with distaste. “Nonetheless, there are certain things that you might do for me, certain boons you might grant, that would win you the things that you desire. For instance, you might choose to owe me a favor, a debt that I might call in the future. Alternatively, you might yield up your god-shard for a time, that I might study it for my researches.”

Thorwald grunted incredulously. “You can do such a thing?”

“Indeed. There exist certain vessels that were used long ago in the Betrayal to contain the shards of the Exalted, removing them from the cycle of reincarnation. Some of these vessels have come into my possession. I can remove such a shard, store it in a vessel, and return it after a period of, shall we say, forty days.”

“I think not,” said the Dynast. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes.” The Wisdom steepled fingers slick with scars. “There are certain artifacts of power, lost texts of occult lore, and the like, that lie scattered across Creation. Some of them would be of value to me in my work. You might retrieve such things and bring them here to me. Lastly… there are those among my brethren that are… aberrant. Dangerous. Their wild, reckless behavior threatens the stability of the current order. This I cannot abide. You may act as my agents in this regard, to investigate their activities and act against their schemes.”

“Aberrant? Dangerous? I am curious,” Aekino asked superciliously, “by what standard do you judge your fellows?”

“Life and death,” the Wisdom began, “are two sides of the same coin. Life is the root, death the flower. Death is the surrender of the flesh to rebirth, to immortality; it is an escape from the chains of blood and breath. It is the gateway to the perfection of eternity. And those who live cross the veil in their own time, upon their own terms, and it is not for us to speed the way. But there are those among my brethren,” he spat the word, “who would hurry the living wholesale upon the path to the dead. These careless murders cut short the flowering of life; they endanger the dead by incurring the wrath of the living.”

“Your pardon,” interrupted Zera Thisse. His eyes glittered with calculation. “There is one among your brethren who has attacked the city of Thorns…”

“Yes, the one who calls himself the Mask of Winters. He is one of those whom I speak of.”

The archer smiled. “Yes. Thank you. That is the name I sought. You are fortunate in this regard; I will do anything against the Mask of Winters.”

“Why are we dealing with this creature?” demanded Thorwald, his jaw clenched. “It is a robber of graves, a thief that slinks in the night! We should take what we want, not bargain to do its bidding! I should cut it apart right now before it speaks another lying word!”

“Strike me, then,” said the Wisdom, its voice as flat as ever. “You cannot kill me. You are incapable of it. You lack both the wit and the strength.”

Thorwald’s eyes bulged. Before he could draw a blade, Aekino placed a hand on his shoulder, saying, “That’s enough, big brother. Don’t let him bait you.” The Northman grumbled, but refrained from a smiting. Aekino turned back to their dark host and said, “All right, Wisdom. We’ve played your game. We’ve followed your trail of breadcrumbs, and we’ll do what we must to recover what you’ve stolen from us. And I’m sure ours isn’t the only grave you’ve robbed. You are clearly a thief, and we have no reason to trust your word. I think you should give us something.”

“And why should I just give you these things?”

“As a sign of good faith. To show us that you mean what you say, that you have what you claim. Bring out one of our artifacts. Then, maybe, we’ll think about your offer.”

The Wisdom stared at the sorcerer. Seconds passed, hissing sands through the hourglass of Time, before he spoke. “Very well. I shall fetch a thing from the vaults. You may wait here for my return.”

The Wisdom departed, and his choking grayness flowed out in his wake.

Li was the first to break the silence. “We should not be here,” she said. “We should not make deals with the darkness.”

Zera smiled. “Who better to tell us how to take down a deathlord than a deathlord?”

“It is a demon.”

“I have to disagree. I have seen enough of the dead to know one when I see one.”

“He spoke of being circlemates with Sharn Larenn,” interjected Aekino. “Perhaps he was once as we were.”

“Perhaps some part of him was,” Li replied. “It matters not. He is now among the ancient evils of the world. We waste time negotiating with him. We should leave.”

“Why leave?” rumbled Thorwald. “There are five of us and one of him. Do we not have swords, and the strength to wield them? We should destroy him!”

“That’s not why we’re here,” said Aekino.”

Li blinked. “Then why are we here?”

“To get the power we need,” Zera answered, “to free Tul Tuin.”

“Then let’s take it!” Thorwald pounded on a table so hard that dust puffed up from the grain. “Let’s fight for it and let’s take it!”

Zera shook his head. “We would die.”

Aekino spoke quickly before Thorwald could interject further. “There’s a lot of information we can gather here,” the Dynast said. “In just the last few minutes, we’ve learned more about the dead than we have in all the months before.”

Li’s eyes narrowed. “And what price shall we pay for that knowledge?”

“There are things we can learn,” Zera replied, “items we can gain, that will mitigate whatever price we have to pay.”

Thorwald grew incensed. “Out of principle we should not deal with this thing!” he roared. “Out of principle! It robs the graves of the dead! And now it tries to twist us into doing its dirty work for it. It is worse than the Fair Folk! Let us kill it, take what it has stolen, and burn this place to the ground!”

“I am willing to deal with this Wisdom character,” said Zera. “But he had best hold to his side of the bargain, or I will pull his library down around his ears. I am tired of diplomacy. We are dealing with a thief on his own terms, and I do not like it.”

Fetek sighed. He had found a niche among the shelves, deep in shadow, of the sort in which he liked to lurk; but he leaned out to speak. “It is foolish to risk your life against certain destruction for the sake of things. When a thousand years have gone by, your possessions will still be here… and you will be stronger.”

So went the debate. Our heroes were still talking when the Wisdom returned. They fell silent and watched as the deathlord lay a long, cloth-wrapped object upon a table. The wrapping fell open, and Zera gasped. He recognized the thing thus exposed: a bow of lucent black jade, inlaid with swirling filigree of green jade and orichalcum, wrapped with an unstrung bowstring woven from some unknown Behemoth’s mane. He reached out.

“You favored this weapon in your last incarnation,” said the deathlord to the entranced Zera Thisse. “It is, of course, not one that you wielded in the First Age. Kuro the Raven claimed it from a tomb she robbed, as with all the rest of her panoply. It is called the Bow of Sixty-Seven Precious Venoms.”

“It’s wonderful,” said the archer. His eyes traced the patterns of filigree, the subtly inlaid script in the Old Tongue that he could not read. His fingers slid over every surface, touching, feeling.

The Wisdom continued. “You will, of course, take the bow and depart with it, giving nothing in return. It is no surprise.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Aekino crossly.

“You will take what is offered to you as your due. You will deny any obligation to one whom you consider morally inferior to yourself. You are of the Celestial Exalted. It is in your nature.”

Oh, there were angry words then, from Aekino, from Thorwald. Their words did not intimidate the Wisdom, but they did strike some chord deep within, for he spoke softly of times past, of the horrors that the Solar Exalted wrought.

“You accuse me,” demanded Thorwald, “of the deeds of Blessed Wind?”

“Blessed Wind?” The ancient ghost’s mouth twisted. “Blessed Wind was nothing. A mote. A spark. A flash in the storm of years. He came long after the Betrayal. No. You were Ambrani Rao. Mighty among the Solar Exalted. Master of the Solar Deliberative. You presided over all our kind in those days, over the black centuries of corruption and mayhem. It was your blindness, your faithlessness, your arrogant pride, that led us to the Betrayal.”

Thorwald paled. Visions sleeted through his mind; flying over strange landscapes in ships of ivory and jade, leading congregations to prayer before mighty altars of gold, standing in stern judgment among his peers, armies marching, cities burning, a shadow across the sun… He stepped back. The Wisdom’s red eyes raked the others in silent challenge.

“But you are young,” continued the Wisdom relentlessly. “You have not yet come into your full strength. Perhaps it will be some time yet before the darkness within you overcomes what you now are.”

“Is that why you want to take our essence?” said Thorwald. “To become what you once were?”

“I cannot. I am the shadow of my former self, not the substance. The sun-shard must become one, not only with the spirit, but the flesh, of which I have none. It was taken from me with blades and with fire. Now only my higher self remains, perfected through death and time. The sun and the flesh are not for me. No, I have other uses for the thing, should you still wish to offer it.”

There came then a brief silence. Aekino broke it. “Friends,” he said, “if I might speak privately with our host?”

The others complied. Those who sat, arose; and they departed and waited outside the door.

“What is your name?” asked the Dynast.

“I am known,” the shade replied, “as That Immaculate Wisdom Which Dwells in the Ashes of the Word. Why do you ask?”

“I have something to say to you, Dweller in Ashes,” said the Dynast.

“And what is that?”

“Just this: you are the most pathetic creature I have ever met. You whine and prattle on about how poorly you have been treated, about the good old days and the bad old days. And all you do is cower here in your library. You disgust me.”

The Wisdom seemed unruffled. “Is that all you wished to say?”

“Yes. We will discuss your offer. But until then, we are done.” And Aekino swept out of the room.

They wound their way back through the bowels of the glass library, along its twisting corridors and down its knotted stairs. And as they walked, they spoke softly of their meeting with the master of the place.

“You know, Li,” said Zera Thisse, “you had that creature all wrong. It didn’t steal our grave goods. It was protecting them… from us.” He shook his head in wonderment. “You know what our former incarnations did. It’s not just the stories of Anathema. It’s our own memories. Given what we did then, how is anyone to know if we can be trusted with such power now?”

Li shrugged. They entered into the grand foyer at the library’s base; they stepped out into the gray and starlit street.

“He did say one thing that was true, at the end,” continued Zera. “We need to do something grandiose. We need to become who we were.”

Li shook her head in crisp negation. “Accomplishment is an illusion. What you do is what you do. Who you are is who you are.”

The Circle settled around the library steps for a good old knock-down, drag-out argument about the nature of the dead, the uncertainty of evil, and their own plans (or lack thereof) for the future. Thorwald, having no taste for pointless debate, went out for a walk. It is, perhaps, fortunate that Li followed him. For when he wandered past a pack of ghost children, and one of the children chucked a rock and hit him in the head, he would have slaughtered them all in a sudden flare of mindless rage, had Li not restrained him.

The northman stormed back into the library. Surprised by his sudden change of demeanor, and worried about what it might portend, the others followed. Thorwald pressed one of the ghost-librarians into service, demanding to be taken back to the Wisdom. Upon entering the Wisdom’s study, he said, “You want to take the Sun’s power from me?”

“Perhaps. Do you offer it?”

“I may yet. I never wanted that power. I do not need it! It has brought nothing but trouble. But I need to know the truth.” He grimaced. “You have the spear that Blessed Wind carried in battle.”

The Wisdom nodded. “It is called Diamond Fire. Ambrani Rao held it, long ago.”

“I want to see it. I want to touch it. Bring it to me.”

The deathlord shrugged. “Very well.” And he departed.

Time passed. The Wisdom returned, the spear wrapped in gray cloth. He unrolled it, and revealed a thing of unguessable splendor. The orichalcum haft of the spear gleamed like a sunbeam in a darkened room; at the tip, a fist-sized diamond blazed at the heart of a sunburst cage of orichalcum blades. Thorwald stretched out his hand. He hesitated; blood flowed as he bit his lip, fearful of what dread memories might come to him at its touch.

He grasped it. He shivered as the visions came, sweeping over him in waves of years.

Sweat prickled on his forehead as he set the thing down again. “That is what I came for,” he said. And he left.

* * * * *

Some time later, as they gathered once more at the entrance to the library, Li asked, “Where is Fetek?” Soon, with the aid of the librarians, they found the Lunar ensconced in a large reading room, poring over histories of the First Age.

“How did you find this place?” inquired a curious Aekino.

“I asked a librarian,” Fetek replied. He didn’t bother to look up.

The Twilight and the Lunar immersed themselves in the texts. The others puttered around, poking desultorily at books written in languages they could not read, speaking in low tones of their plans, their fears. Finally, Fetek looked up from the books. “There is so much we can learn,” he said, “if we stay a day or two. Your names figure prominently in the histories.”

Zera shook his head. “Every day we wait, more innocent people die in Tul Tuin.”

“Knowledge is power, Iron Wolf. There are fragments of demon lore here, references to the demon that rules in Tul Tuin. That knowledge will save lives.”

“All right.” Zera mused as he paced the book-lined gallery that stood a few feet above the reading room floor. “I think we should stay the night. That will give you time to get some more information on what we’re dealing with.”

Aekino nodded. “You can go if you want, and do whatever you need to do. Fetek and I will stay here and read. We’ll meet here tomorrow.”

“Be careful,” warned the archer as he strung his gleaming new bow with palpable satisfaction.

“What, are you worried to leave us alone with the Wisdom?”

“I trust the Wisdom implicitly. But I don’t trust the Prince Resplendent as far as I can throw his horse.”

* * * * *

So Thorwald, Li and Zera went off their own ways, to explore the city of the dead. Fetek and Aekino remained in the library to pore over works of ancient lore, writings from the lost years of the First Age.

Zera stalked alone with his thoughts. Thorwald and Li, for their part, walked through a well-to-do quarter of the dead city, where ghosts mingled and made merry in taverns and open-air courtyards, lit by lanterns and pale corpse-lights that blotted out the starry sky. Some of the dead bore terrible wounds, while others seemed whole, and yet a few other folk bore the marks of life – living folk reveling among the dead.

Thorwald spotted an armed figure in the crowd, one who followed them along their route. He immediately confronted the fellow, who proved to be a guard assigned to assure his safety in the city, and with whom he had a most interesting conversation. The ghost soldier, one Owen by name, spoke of death and courage in ways resembling Thorwald's own attitudes. It troubled the northman mightily to speak with one among the dead who seemed much like the living, one who seemed to be a kindred spirit.

“I am confused,” said Thorwald afterwards. “Everything I’ve come to believe is slipping away, and there is no stable ground for me to stand on. What am I without my hatred for the Fallen?”

Li clasped his shoulder in a gesture of support. “Your hatred is not you,” she replied. “Neither are your oaths, or the strength of your arms, or your solar fire or your power. There is something deeper within you, more true than all those things.”

Thorwald slumped, gray on gray, in the shadow of a stone wall. “I’ve tried to keep true to the ways of my people. But they were wrong about the dead. What else might they have been wrong about?”

“I know you, and I know of your people. They were right about some things. They know the value of an oath, and the value of virtue.”

“There is nothing certain in this world,” Thorwald murmured. “Not even an oath. I was wrong. Even your word can be taken from you.”

“Your choices,” said Li with a smile, “can never be taken. They are always your own.”

* * * * *

Come the pale, watery dawn, the wanderers returned to the library. Fetek and Aekino greeted them from where they sat at opposite ends of the reading room. They seemed relieved at their comrades’ arrival, for it broke the tension that had arisen between them as a result of certain things they had read.

“So, what’s new?” Zera inquired ingenuously. “Found anything interesting?”

“Well,” mumbled Aekino, “there seems to have been some… involvement between ourselves and the demon.” He went on to explain how, in the First Age, Fetek’s prior incarnation had been married to the demon Amalion, and Sharn Larenn had attempted to come between them.

“In the end,” he concluded, “Ambrani Rao dissolved the marriage. Amalion withdrew from Creation, and Five Moons –”

“That’s him?” asked Zera, gesturing toward Fetek.

Aekino nodded. “Yes. And he returned to Ambrani Rao’s side.”

“So. Let me get this straight,” said the snickering Zera, pointing at his Circlemates. “You were married to a demon, and you wanted to sleep with the demon, and you broke everything up?”

“Whoever this Ambrani character was,” rumbled Thorwald, “he did her a favor. Every marriage I ever heard of ended badly.”

Fetek and Aekino went on to explain such few fragments of lore they had encountered regarding Amalion, regarding her multiple nature, her architectural gifts, her romantic attachments, and her involvement in the creation of the Imperial Manse. They mused on the implications of their discoveries for some time.

“It would seem,” Fetek observed, “that some demons are sympathetic to Creation.”

Aekino looked up from an intricate architectural diagram. “At the very least, some were more socially acceptable than others.”

“So not all demons are bad?” Once again, Thorwald cut to the heart of the matter.

“Some are certainly worse than others,” said Zera. “We made the right choice about which summoning to stop. When you think about that other demon, Amalion seems almost friendly and peaceful by comparison. The real trouble is her cult. We may not be able to drive her off, but we can stop the cult that’s acting in her name.”

They proposed plans – should they try and destroy Amalion? Destroy her cult? Convince her to leave Creation, as she did when her marriage to Five Moons ended? And what would take the place of the cult – would the cult worship them instead?

“We should not be worshipped by men,” said Thorwald.

Aekino smiled and leaned back in his chair. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be served by them.”

This led to yet another heated discussion between Aekino and Zera. The archer from Thorns accused his brother of callousness toward those of less prestigious birth, while the Dynast claimed that he felt it best to avoid intervening in the affair of others unless the downtrodden had the strength and wit to ask for it.

“And if they never ask?” Zera twitched with aggravation. “I will never stand by the wayside while others need help. Aekino, you disgust me completely. But then, I’ve come to expect nothing more from one with your upbringing.”

“I resent the implication that I’m sheltered by my upbringing.”

“You are!”

* * * * *

Ghosts came to deliver platters of freshly baked bread and other foods, and likewise jars of wine, all from the living world rather than that of the dead. “Courtesy of Ral Therin,” they said, naming one whom Aekino recognized as the outcaste who had founded the city of Kaihan in the wake of the Contagion, some five centuries earlier. They suspended their arguments while they ate. Speaking more calmly of plans, they realized that it would be ill to leave now, because they would not reach the border of the shadowland until nightfall, when the borders would touch the Underworld. They would wait until evening, then make their way out of the city.

“Will that be enough time to learn what you need?” Thorwald gestured to the walls of books and scrolls that filled this one room in the great library.

Fetek shook his head. “It will never be enough.”

“Hmph. In the future, it will be best to learn to see words on paper.”

Aekino looked up from his reading. “I’ll teach you.”

But Aekino found himself unable to tear himself away from some rather embarrassing accounts of the life of Sharn Larenn (depicting her as a helpless, weepy figure, prone to days-long bouts of hysteria when her talents were most needed), and so Thorwald wandered off again. When he returned, he seemed full of good cheer. “I’ve come to bring good news to you,” he said. “I bring you more time.”

“What do you mean?” – Aekino.

Thorwald grinned. “I have spoken to the Wisdom. He has tried to frighten me with his ghost stories, but I have showed him that I fear nothing! I have agreed to his terms. He shall take my shard for forty days. This should give you the time you need.”

Faces fell; eyes rolled. Aekino spoke neutrally: “Did you say you’d do it now?”

“No, but I could.”

“I would really rather you didn’t.”

Li’s eyes moved in their nest of tattoos, locking with Thorwald’s own. “And what has the Wisdom offered you in exchange, brother?”

The northman’s grin grew broader. “He tried to offer me the spear. But I refused it. My price was that no one may be given the spear. It must be taken.”

Dumbfounded stares. “Could you trot that by me again?” coughed Aekino.

“I think I spoke clearly. He will not give me the spear. Instead, I shall win it from him in battle.”

Fetek licked his lips as he considered his words. “And how does this benefit you, Pillar of the Sun?”

Thorwald cracked his knuckles. “It will allow me to prove my strength. I am not some soft Southerner, to take such a thing as a gift.”

“I see. So it will be foolish and strong.”

“I am in awe,” marveled Zera with a straight face. “It is very brave.”

Li approached. “Are you not worried about what he might do to your shard?”

“Hah!” Thorwald seemed amused. “What could he possibly do?”

“That’s an open question,” said Fetek.

Aekino nodded. “The possibilities are horrific.”

“I don’t see how this is any business of yours, anyway,” snorted the northman.

“This affects all of us!”

Thorwald and Aekino began to argue. Thorwald knocked a book out of Aekino’s hand. Aekino got in his face. Thorwald tilted his head to the side, sizing up his Twilight comrade. “So… is it going to be a fight?”

“If it needs to be.”

“I think,” said Fetek quietly as Thorwald slammed Aekino through a table, “that this place is affecting people’s minds.”

* * * * *

After that? Well, Aekino and Fetek and Li managed to subdue Thorwald. But upon awakening, the Zenith proved just as stubborn, argumentative and violent, and another fight broke out. By the time the fight moved out into the street, the reading room was a shambles of shattered shelves, shredded books, and fluttering sheets of parchment.

Li left them struggling on the steps, with Fetek holding a red-faced Thorwald in a hammerlock, and climbed the many stairs to the Wisdom’s study. The deathlord looked up, his scarred face as impassive as Li’s own.

“Respected elder,” said the swordswoman. “We thank you for your hospitality.”

The Wisdom nodded, but said nothing.

“I wish to apologize,” Li continued. “My companions have damaged some of your property – ”

“Show me.”

They descended through the twisting ways of the library, all worn stone and uneven glass, to the reading room. There, the Wisdom gestured, and the heaps of broken books and shelving ignited with a pale and colorless flame. Gray light blazed as everything burned to ash. The Wisdom gestured again, and the ashes swirled upward and took form again, restoring themselves as parchment and ink, leather and wood, books and shelves restored as if they had never been harmed.

Li bowed respectfully. Then she left to rejoin her comrades.

They made their way out of the city with some difficulty, as Thorwald needed constant distraction, lest he attempt to assault the ghosts of the city. The ghostly captain, Autumn’s Breath, led her company of dead cavalry at a good distance – a fortunate thing, for Thorwald might well have rushed them if they had come close. They passed by the farms and villages of the shadowland, and reached the border shortly before the dawn.

“Why do we not leave now?” asked Thorwald.

“If we leave before dawn,” Aekino replied, “we shall be trapped in the Underworld.”

Thorwald considered this. “Well,” he asked, “are there things to fight in the Underworld?”

“No.”

So they waited. The sun rose. And they left the gray shadowland behind, and emerged into the clean, sweet light of day.