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Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
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7:37 pm - Solemn-- The Book of Ycrad Nna
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For many days Ycrad traveled west on the back of the gift horse, living off what provision the saddlebags contained. The horse was the color of ashes, with sturdy build and cool temper; she named him Greyfame. His hooves pushed the mountains far behind them, and climbed new ones with alacrity. Ycrad, having dwelt long in exile, did not break silence except to hum to herself, and Greyfame-- who had heard naught but harsh cries and curses in his hard life-- came to love the sound of singing.
But then the lonesome pair came at last to a place of habitation, and it was no mean village. Rather, a mighty city with a perilous wall surrounding it, only lately superceded by the shanties and the stalls of desperate beggars and hawkers. The sudden onslaught of speech made Greyfame lay his ears back in dismay as they went among the wretched, and Ycrad pulled her cowl up to make a shadow of her face. She did not want to come here. The city was unavoidable, however-- not because of its girth, though that was broad enough to warrant ink on any map-- but because Ycrad had run out of food, and she hungered also for news of the world.
Bypassing the slums, she made straight for the city’s massive ironbound gates, unaware of the gazes she drew after her. Greyfame in his agitation adopted a prancing gait that made each hoof linger in the air, and Ycrad’s colorless fringed scarves and rippling cloak made her look something unearthly, a mendicant tattered and fey.
Only as she approached the gates themselves, and saw disturbance in the eyes of its guards, did she spare a glance behind her. A great knot of ragged people-- most of them children-- had become her train, some pleading loudly for coin or succor; others grimly silent, or mystified.
“Peace,” she said, and nothing more, for her breath was smote at the suffering she beheld. Greyfame fell still.
Two of the sentries approached, and the beggars drew back as does a beast before a fearsome man.
“What do you call yourself, and why do you come here?” asked one of the men sternly. He had a clean face, glimmering polished armor, and eyes that looked straight on-- but did not seem to see the beggars.
In that moment it became clear to Ycrad then that she would not be able to spend her coin-- what little jingled in Greyfame’s saddlepacks, abandoned by his former master-- on herself, or within that fair city. She said nothing, only gazing long at the sentries. “To lighten a burden,” she said, answering the second question and not the first. With that utterance she wheeled Greyfame beneath her and rode away. To the children who followed she gave her coin, and also to the women and the men, and any body who lifted a hand to receive it. She gave away everything within Greyfame’s packs, and even the packs themselves, withholding only the Mortuus Caudex. “Blessings,” she murmured, with each gift. “Be strong,” she said to a harrowed woman; and, “Be kind,” to a boy with fierce eyes.
At last Ycrad had given away everything that she could think to give, but three beggars waited still before her with empty hands. Two were children: one a young man, perhaps an older brother to the dark-haired girl. Ycrad bent and reached unthinkingly toward them with her bandaged hand. The girl raised her hands to clasp it, a question in her face. Her touch was light. Hesitant.
Ycrad Nna spoke thus:
“You will go to live in the towers of that city one day, and you will command many men and women, and you shall have food and drink and all else that you could ask for. But remember those who sheltered you when your life-tree was but a slender sapling, or else you shall not have more than a year’s happiness before it turns to dry dust. Mercy is life-water.”
The utterance had come straight from the dreamless darkness. But although she had learned much of Doubt in her years of study, Ycrad felt it oddly to be true. She looked upon the brother, who appeared very doubting indeed. “You will journey to a far land,” she told him, releasing the girl’s hand. “You will know sorrow and loss, yea, many years of grief. But they are only steps that you must climb. Stairs. And at the top there awaits you truest joy.”
“Fortune-tellers always predict doom and greatness,” the youth scoffed, tugging his sister’s sleeve. “I don’t believe it.”
“It will bide until you do,” Ycrad replied calmly. The boy snorted and hurried his stunned sister away.
Ycrad straightened in the saddle, her gaze coming finally to rest on the last of the beggars-- only to find that it was no beggar at all. A man dressed in threadbare clothing, yes, but his eyes asked for nothing, only sparkling with their own intelligence. Presently he said, “The sentries are growing uneasy, fair one. And though they are pitiable, not all the folk in this Shanty Kingdom have kind or deserving hearts. Best you and your horse shortly find an elsewhere to be. I will walk you to a safe place if you will permit.”
“Aye,” she said softly, surprised-- but also frowning some. The man turned and began to walk with a long-striding gait. Though he was thin, and barefooted, walking did not seem to tax him in the slightest, and he nodded or smiled at several of those they passed. His face was fair and open, lined not with age but hardship and quiet wisdom.
When they had slipped away from the immediacy of the city, and the wind wrapped itself around them with freshening gusts, the man sighed deeply, as though satisfied or pleased immensely. But he did not slow his rolling pace, guiding Ycrad away from the main road and deep into the tall, green grasses that ruled the hills alongside. Greyfame bent his head to snatch mouthfuls of the feast, likewise relieved to be quit of the foul-smelling and cacophonous City.
“I am solemn,” the man said, looking up over his shoulder at the maiden as he walked. His mouth quirked. “That is, Solemn is my name. I grew up in that slum, though I had to leave it before I learned that gladness and is as much a part of my nature.”
“You called it the Shanty Kingdom. Are you then its king?”
“Oh, no,” Solemn replied. He laughed softly. “No, not a king. A thinly-tolerated guest, more like. Nonetheless, I feel some kinship for my part. I was moved by what you sacrificed for those people.”
“What I gave was not my own to begin with.”
“Nonetheless,” he repeated. He slowed, placed his fists on his hips, and turned to gaze up fully at her as if to make some kingly declaration. But then a cloud seemed to cross over his sunny features, and something else entirely came from his lips. “Do you fear me? I mean no harm, maid. Your face has gone quite pale, and your eyes begin to dart.”
“No . . .” Ycrad fought to lie smoothly, but the denial fell flat and unconvincing on the grass between them. She bowed her head in shame. “I fear,” she admitted. “I fear that which wears a fair face and speaks becoming words.”
Solemn considered this. “Some do fear that, who have darkness in their own hearts-- thinking it might be revealed by the light of their companions,” he allowed. “But that, I think, is not the matter here.” He peered at her curiously, and then his eyes went wide. “Oh. I see now. You speak of utmost wickedness, evil which wears a charming mask. Tis a healthy fear, my lady. You mustn’t be ashamed to have learned it. Too few have.”
“Some say ignorance is blissful.”
“It’s also quite dangerous. You and I both know.” He seemed to be studying her hand. “Yes,” he murmured in a darker tone. “Even deadly.”
Her fingers stirred. “Is it?”
He shook his head-- not in denial, but in dismay. “Methinks you must hurry to address that hand, lady. My eyes are poor, but they know an unnatural wound on sight. In the drops of blood upon the cloth a fearful pattern begins to emerge . . .” His voice gave way to a heavy-thoughted silence. Then: “Old and new. Blood.”
“Sanguis casus.”
He looked up. “That means something to you, then?”
“Words spoken over the injury when it was given. I thought I understood it then, which was fourteen years ago. But fresh blood begs new interpretation. What do your wise eyes tell you, Solemn?”
She unraveled the bandage and showed him her palm.
“Oh,” he said, taking her hand between both of his own, which were warm and solid. “Such a chill in your fingers. Was it that same Wickedness--?”
“No. No. Just my own folly, this,” she said. “This hand took hold of a sword that was not mine to touch.”
“Did the rightful sword-wielder make this curse?”
She shook her head once. “Never.”
“The blade itself, then.”
“Mayhap. Or its maker.”
There was a small silence. Solemn did not need to say that he was at a loss. They both felt it, and she had expected it to go no differently. Yea: she would have distrusted him if he had promised otherwise. His muteness was greater testament to his goodwill.
“You spoke prophecy over those two children,” he said, letting go.
“Only words. And those, too, were not my own to give-- but like sudden fall of leaves they came to me and rushed through my lips on the current of the wind. I am no soothsayer. Nay. Only now do I divine the purpose of my approach to the city gates. It was not to acquire goods, but to relieve myself of burdens unneeded for the journey ahead.”
“To answer prayers, good lady. Whether you knew it or no.”
She looked away into the distance. “It will be a hard road.”
“And now you ride off to meet it without food or blankets or a single thing to aid you,” Solemn mused. “I would amend that.”
“Only tell me what news stirs out of the far west, and it will be more than enough.”
His eyes went narrow. “The stars are truly in your affairs. Yesterday I mingled with the caravanserai, who catch many secrets in the wind, and those who spoke of the west gave me strange news. Holy warriors have ventured forth in quest of a mystery. They belong to a new Order, or an ancient one perhaps, and tis said they possess-- or that they seek-- miracles.”
“It is news, and it is an old story,” Ycrad sighed. “Thank you.”
“No, thank me not for that. I feel quite useless. I have nothing to give you but my blessing.” He paused. “I have finally chosen what it shall be. So heed me, now.” He reached up and took her hand again in a firm grip. “So long as blood falls from one hand, boons will fall into the other.”
She stared down amazed, stricken wordless. Solemn patted her hand and smiled beatifically. “I must be getting back now,” he said. “And you must ride forward. Go!”
Greyfame laid his ears back and sprang into the grass, unwilling to obey any tug of the reins until the City was far, far behind them.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, February 10th, 2007
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12:36 am - Documents of the Bards
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done. (EXHIBIT A)
With this formulaic prayer or refrain, each new chapter of the Script†ocs is begun. As has been discussed, the Script†ocs is the most represented of the books in the "Yeoknight Cycle." However, several schools of thought claim that dozens of chapters from the Kcin Script and Scrawling series remain to be discovered.
The Prophecy of Ttocs Nuohlac, "Exhibit B," is arguably the only source originating outside of the "Yeoknight Cycle" that corroborates the rise of Ttocs Nuohlac. Supposedly hand-transcribed by the prophetess' secretary as it was told to his mother, Nived Nuohlac, two years after his birth.
-------EXHIBIT B-------
Nived,
You have a stability about you that gives people confidence.
He's going to build...
You are a woman of integrity.
I pray for Ttocsy - you're going to need supernatural revelation.
He has been chosen in your womb as a Jeremiah. All hell will break loose against him but they will not prevail.
You must pray for him by sp[?] of God and raise him by supernatural means.
You and your husband intercede together.
Ttocsy will need to be trained differently.
You have an angel, not a devil.
Call the angels to minister to him.
Your child will be one of the end time leaders- children will be used.
He has perceptions and will and you will need God's wisdom.
Many in the scripture who were used had a wonderful childhood.
Read about babes with supernatural calling. Raise him by gifts of spirit. Pray for intercessions on your behalf. This is a good word to you. He's given you a hard job, but you're capable.
Aigreog Snikwah 3-1-88
(EXHIBIT B)
Unfortunately other documents of this kind have not been found. Within this epic's tradition, whose composer(s) are referred to as Bards I, II, III, IV, and possibly V, the story also remains incomplete. Scholars and historians have searched in vain for the missing pieces, but it seems the heroes vanish off of the charts soon after entering the notorious Nodelacian Wood.
The following fragment "Exhibit C" was discovered late in the sequence of the Yeoknight Cycle. The consensus among philologists is that this is an alternate invocation (prayer to the inspiring muse [of the epic]) and contains elements of praepositio (introduction of the epic's theme). The text reads as follows:
-------EXHIBIT C-------
"Under this inscription is the attempt
to even the score on thy famed tablet,
O wondrous Muse, of this longest drought
of epic tribute to the pain of a hero,
and by this redress of greatest scale
lionize in script who was a lion in life.
Yet even the sublimest verse falleth short
until the wise come forth, as We do now,
Knowing there were seven heroes
so shortchanged by plund'ring time; not one.
& as we pine for thy lanterns glow
Locked in the sewers of Heaven, perched
atop this trembling attic of Hell
The sheafs of readied scrolls to mark,
And Far More ink than blood to spill,
Hear these stubborn mortals’ oaths
to honor thy treasured breath
if on these Otherworldly Myths
thou wouldst But once descend to teach.
Of those seldom-charted tops
whence thy visions hail, We will note not,
whether Oreb’s, Halicon's, or Megiddon's,
Or if from Peria's fount the story sprang,
Or if Boreus, Notus, Zephyrus, or Eulus,
the deeds in whispy speech wast imparted,
Prevailing that the summoned register
Wholly survive thy tincturing process,
unabridged nor missing tomes as those
Fed to flames on a foolish king’s tripod.
Only now, if we are right to invite it,
Sing the story once and only once
of those roaming secular knights
who cast their lots as one along the Route
most perilous in occident and Orient,
escaping no errand nor straying scruple
as Fortune fell like snow upon their backs
and thus, to the final straw,
were pushed to their redemption.
Sing of the seven Yeoknights,
O Flaw-defying Muse,
and our scripts shall race to follow.
(EXHIBIT C)
Top men have identified the author as Bard I, noting the common references and similar prosaic sentence structure.
Several apocryphal additions to the Epic cycle have been recovered from files believed to have belonged to each of the Bards. The following is a believed to be an account of a play performed by the heroes in the House of Sudluok. One philologist claims that this text actually predates the entire Yeoknight Cycle, and was a ruse deployed in order to expose a spy in the audience. The entire existent text of the play is repeated here. Note that Gydolino is played by Kcin, Laerso by Sodook, King Agneus by Kcaj, and Theatro by Ttocs.
----EXHIBIT D-----
"There came the call of a clarion horn.
King Agneus (off-stage):
hae to that! even a deafly crone could but see my ansetrean horses stamp their hooves in anticipation to know my mind, for well know they horses that clarion’s call!
[Sodook and kcin enter into the great hall, centered with the red-draped alter]
Laerso:
oh Prince Gydolino, why come we here? you’re apt to avoid your father’s path when he is declared for sojourn.
Gydolino:
true, but un-so-apt am I when I seek a word with he my father ere he’s off and lost in the festering hinterlands.
King Agneus (off-stage):
finest knights! dally do those to be left behind; follow me do they who art glory-bound! I know the way to total victory!
[laerso turns and looks out of a window toward the aft of the stage]
laerso:
he seems to me the living eidolon of hercules! how does he always have the perfect plan for such adventures?
gydolino:
he has no such plan, trust you me, dear laerso. it is the foolhardiest of blind inspirations that addles his mind, a fixation newest born in a line steeped in the stories of unlearnt-from consequences, the returning product of an instinct that marks no darker trappings of fortune with any real thought. verily, the most capricious zephyr has more design then he.
Laerso:
Is it so? yet still, the heart of confidence beats in his every knight that rides his counterpart.
Gydolino:
of course; he is the king. his majesty wears their hearts like amulets, and so they are bound to him.
[King Agneus bursts into the room, pausing at the sight of them, followed by two helmeted knights, divad and ttocs]
LAerso:
My liege!
Gydolino:
father.
[both prince gydolino and laerso kneel]
King Agneus:
Ah, my son, even you can see that this is the mission of the age, and so have you come to meet me here to observe my blessing. let the holy water be now brought forth!
Gydolino:
Father, In addition to my infinite reverence of your will, I have the most considerate of requests, if your ear will be lent to it.
King Agneus:
aye, my goodly son, my ear will attend the matters you’re inclined to speak of ere I go.
[they move to the front of the stage, apart from the rest]
what is it then?
gydolino:
it is concerning a delicate subject, father, but still my sense persists to have me to broach it. your trove, father, The trove of ansetra!
King Agneus:
the trove? what can I say of It?
Gydolino:
surely you know it is the apple of every nation’s eye from gardal to sasoom! Well, every time you’re off questing there is some newfangled plot to find it, and always I am he that must deploy the counter measures. If you could only give me the knowledge of where it is then such a better steward I will prove of this, the highest-prized treasure. Father and son, keepers together! I swear you’ll not regret it.
King agneus:
Nay, dear boy, nay. I cannot!
Gydolino:
Then shall I never know? forgive me father, but perchance you do not return, and the secret is lost beyond us, until rediscovered by some unworthy cretin? surely you do not guard the secret so closely that you would risk taking it with you to the grave?
King Agneus:
alas, my son, that will not happen, so you should not speak of it. you are heir to my throne and thusly the secret, and I will be sure they both come to you. but mark me, the trove is in no danger of discovery by these scrappy outland-raiders that you report of. the palace guards will be enough to thwart they. all you need see to in my stead is the tidings of the nobility. now! I will see to my blessing!
[King agneus leaves his son and takes a chalice of water from the ceremonial servant, nalyd, who then hurries away]
King Agneus:
Oh sacred mother, let the beneficent rays of your sovereign star so catch this aqua sacre that its draught may enchant the drinker in the wisdom of your aegis, fortify against misfortune, and render body and mind impervious to the forces of evil.
[king agneus drinks from the chalice and all behold it]
All:
Amen!
[King agneus holds the cup aside to be taken, not looking, and prince gydolino takes it]
king agneus:
then resolved are we here! ere our triumphant return, we reside no longer in the circle of walls but beyond, under the constellations of heroic old! to the gateway!
Knights:
Hae!
[king agneus and his two knights depart clamorously, leaving laerso and prince gydolino once again alone in the great hall]
gydolino:
and so it goes; to be a rock and not to roll is no anvil of wisdom upon which he forges his mettle. instead he is bent on boyish thrills that instead of outgrowing he channels all his growth unto.
Laerso:
My princely friend, you’re all critiques for your father, and with but a pretense of honor. patriarch Moses would break his first tablet over your skullcap if those Divinely-inscribed twins were not dust already.
gydolino:
yes, I reckon there would be no reasoning out of it if he meant to. but as for dwelling on that deified register, mark you, my companion, that in none of those ten is it said, ‘thou shalt honor thy son and daughter’. So are we children forever to be shut out.
Laerso:
methinks you refer to your chat with your father. What was said there?
gydonlino:
aye, laerso, thou hast it. if my father trusts me not, as he demonstrated by that chat, then he believes I am all that is good for bantering with the ninnyhammers of the robe and nothing more. what kind of son is that?
Laerso:
the same kind that is heir to all that your father is made of and therefore, the object of his greatest trust!
[Prince gydolino goes to a balcony at the front of the stage and looks out toward the audience]
gydolino:
oh yes, heir to his trust by the calendar of his own mortality, and not my worth, my faith, they which now wilt, languished, primes past...my troth, dead to in him, slain by him...
...and duely, so I feel a certain bitter genius to comport this disenchantment. I’m a simile to a warlock that has stumbled upon his powers by the charm of self-illumination. what good has my patience and goodwill to my father done? all this reverence and obedience that i’ve practiced are overwrought and hollow, an apple tree that fruits not, but gnarls and bristles over the ground like a pumpkinless patch. I should be free of that pitiful garden now, inwhich my father has ordained me saintily and sacrificially abide. the fields spring alive beyond it with much better prospects than my dogged tending to that unyielding, freakish orchard. Laerso, don’t you see it?
laerso:
Gydolino, your shift of mind is a bit alarming to me. I know you well, but with this you seem to cast your goals into peradventure, and so I’m filled with it. don’t do anything rash now.
Gydolino:
that’s just my motive, good laerso! and you can come with me! what do we risk the loss of? let us take advantage of this new pulse of life! we need but visit the same responsibility on our actions that dear father does.
Laerso:
but master, if you are so apt to rebellion it may cost you the confidence of the King. think of his displeasure-
gydolino:
I am displeasured! all this time he’s played me for a fool,; counted on my martyrdom for his lifestyle, king of the asinine! My life is not to be wasted on the confidence of this man, whose greatest ambition is to play his games of kingdom and quest, and who is absurd enough not to befriend and nurture his only son! he attests that My potential is spilth to him, and so I Have played his bonsai tree. I, made a stunted mimic of a respected, trusted man, so that he can live his life off of my ever-penitent existence! Well I cast off that habit, that dungeon rag, and pledge my heart not to him, but to be free...ah, and in this paradise of freedom, may fortune’s failure be redeemed; that I become the harbinger, and fetch him his rhadamanthine.
Laerso:
Oh Prince, do this not. I hope your goodness is but smitten. revive it, and surely you will see that these designs are but a product of a passing distress. think sir, how much good can come from your ill will?
Gydolino:
you say a will that must break the folly of another is ill, but it is that fool’s will that is the trouble. and so I am in the hunt to right it. It shall do a good upon him that teaches him the error in his way and how I was lost, thereby stinging him into the action he is loth to do; show appreciation for me, and use my trust for good. so will I be saved.
laerso:
still, am I more concerned for you then he, my friend.
[ttocs enters the great hall and joins them]
Theatro:
merry day, prince gydolino, good Laerso. I take it you weren’t hiding here when King Agneus was on his way out?
Gydolino:
In fact we were, theatro, and now so thankful am I that it was so, for to think what I would still be if I’d not been and done that which was here and then. how fortunate I am.
[theatro joins him at the balcony, not noticing laerso’s tension]
theatro:
and what fortune do you so claim, sir?
Laerso:
he is fortunate to have his health, and I would think best if he preserved it.
[prince gydolino wanders from the balcony, half facing laerso]
Gydolino:
health, yes, that is a blessing I now have; all the vitality of an awakened mind. but moreso, it is the very ability to gleen my affliction that underlies this lucky ease.
Theatro:
stay now; look, I spy a figure!
gydolino:
whose is it?
[Prince gydolino returns to theatro’s side at the balcony]
theatro:
I know not, nor can I fathom why a body would be there, in such poor disguise, and fellowless.
[Laerso joins them at the balcony]
theatro:
he fails to meet my favor, sir. ‘tis a queer disposition which he ..." [the script is torn here and further pages are missing.]
(EXHIBIT D)
It is hoped by this researcher --and all of my colleagues in history and seem philology at least agree on this-- that given enough time, the missing pieces will emerge from the ancient deposits and the saga will slowly be recovered. The anonymous authors of the Yeoknight Cycle and the subjects of the associated documents all seem to point to one thing: that a story needed to be told. And if the authors subscribed to philosophy of Gydolino, we can be assured that even in the face of the natural destruction of historical literature, the story will indeed be transmitted one way or another, just as he says:
"...and in this paradise of freedom, may fortune’s failure be redeemed; that I become the harbinger, and fetch him his rhadamanthine."
†
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
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10:17 pm - Script†ocs 14
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return, a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done.
It was Ttocs' turn to tell a dark tale, so they in the circle around the fire heard this:
The skirl of the pipes, the marching drums,
Our unsandled feet, wrapped in twilly,
Each band's floating pennon cries the heraldry
These and a thousand claymores shouldered
From the barrow of the father, limned with green,
We passed broch, loch, and burn, advancing
Forth to battle, forth to flame,
Forth to the gate, the breach, the hold,
And honor plied from deeds to name.
Now sieze the claim, shieldless warrior folk,
Sown from the earth; vengeance for the pain,
Might you win it here, and let us meet
Many years hence on the plains we took
Raising sword and cup to our friends we mourn
Who we'll not be seeing again
Though we wonder still if errant pawns
Such as we could ever forget so many paper-thin betrayals
As each we suffered from each other.
And so you are cast upon the sandy bar of exile,
And one day read a message from the sea-tossed bottle,
Finding, to your fury, that it tells your story,
Telling too well your words, your thoughts,
Whose swords you'd crossed along the marches,
But replaced your name with theirs,
Until, with rage's strength, you swam against the brine,
Swearing to silence the fool who dared quote you,
Stealing your very life, this traitor notary and theif.
Sooth, a thousand scrolls littered my shore,
All counterfeiting adventures of mine,
So I burst from the quarantine where I had lain,
Craving a justice only my sword could mete out,
Following the trail of this parasite,
Until each new chapter was fresher from the press,
The ink not two days dry, not one, not an hour's worth...
I flew upon his heels, mouth without taste, eyes shot with blood,
In a drunken rage, I caused my blade to run through him,
Spilling his blood, and paused to await the glee...
It did not come. My friend was dead.
Had I not caroused through childhood inventions with him?
Had we not marched together the same marches,
Had the same adventures? Were our thoughts not alike,
Our dreams, our exploits unparallel, unsymmetrical?
Would that I had forgotten all my deeds, so brave,
Rather than this murder committed, showing my horrid soul,
My false vengeance, guilt calling true vengeance upon me,
But comes not, leaving me to my wretched agony.
And my spirit is already cast into Hell's pitch, sinking,
Drowning, the tar of evil filling up inside me,
Until I cough up and bleed it's black pestilence,
And I know I am beyond salvation, beyond all shrift,
Blackened within, as the devourer of souls draws ink
To his feather from the open pit of my stomach,
And writes these fair-lettered words upon the last page of the book;
VICTIM OF THINE OWN TRAP, THIS TRECHEROUS MURDER AND MOCKERY OF VENGEANCE
HAS SPOILED GOOD LIFE, AND SO THINE SOUL IS HANGED BY THE FROZEN ROPE OF THE PESTILENT OGRE.
†
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, August 19th, 2006
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9:55 pm - Ocnarf Script 3
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“Kcin, hear thee well.
Blood will flow from this day forward.
You may not always be the cause nor the victim, but know from this day forth lives will be lost and in great numbers.
You and your companions may be embarking on a righteous quest, but many will suffer form your actions.
More than a few innocent lives will lost.
He who rules over the death of mortals has placed great stock in you and your brothers.
I warn you know so you might exert more control over the lives you take.
Your toll is already heavy. How many more must fall before your cursed blade?
How many more will perish before your soul and heart are as cursed as the steal to which you are bound?
W e know of your madness and the struggle which is yours alone. But if we can help. we will. Hear me and know true.”
A thousand singing voices. A thousand screaming voices to many to count, but still they persisted.
“You are not lost. Control your rage and thus your blade for they are becoming one. Control them and find happiness. Without the weight of steal or the stench of death, is there nothing within you upon which you can place hope? Hear me we can aid you seek us out. You will never be lost to us. Control the blade., Fight it!”
And then he heard only silence.
Kcin stirred in his sleep. This was rare. And before his conscious mind could grasp what he had heard, She spoke to him.
Soothing his mind and body.
“Dear Heart, I am here. You would not think I would abandon you in such madness. I am here, as I have always been. We have much to talk of, some of which lies down this road and some of what lies at the end of the path. Would you come and speak with me a while?”
For the first time Kcin realized he was awake.
“Yes,” he answered, not fully understanding who he was speaking to.
“Good. Lie still and sleep. I will take us somewhere without distractions, where we might speak more confidently.”
Kcin felt his body calm and lied still and at the same moment he felt displaced whisked away...
The moon rose above the ancient sundered battlements. He was sitting with his back against a petrified tree. He reasoned that he was in what was once a courtyard within the battlements. Moonlight glinted off what looked like a spearhead. An old banner was still attached to the sturdy neck.. Kcin, curious as to who had fought here, and where exactly here was, made to stand and have a closer look. That was when he found that only with great effort could he move his limbs, let alone stand.
H attempted this several times before beginning to struggle. With the exhaustion his efforts had brought upon him, he sensed panic lingering somewhere within him. The very thought sickened him, and just as he began to feel his mind focusing on the inevitable panic (and rage), he saw a figure upon the broken battlements. As the figure moved closer he saw it was a woman, and when she spoke, he knew her.
“One such as you, who has experienced far worse than this, you should hardly be panicking.”
“What is this place? Help me!” Kcin had rarely felt so out of his element. She came to stand directly over him, and as she came into the moonlight, he noticed she was completely without clothing and fair upon the eye. His panic ensued.
“Help--“ Kcin cried out again.
“Stop panicking, it does not become you,” she spoke softly, but there was a harsh and perhaps even deadly promise in that softness that Kcin was not deaf to.
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| Thursday, July 20th, 2006
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12:46 pm - ScriptTocs 13
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done. Off the cuff, with 7,305 days of learning behind these words, on it goes.
Dragged down by fatigue and spirits flattened, the six examined what they had done,
As the words of Kcin did scarcely sound beyond the enclosure none had known for a thousand years.
It was night, enough to lose sight by, and what they feared was an attack in the dead of it.
Unsure how they knew of danger's closing threat, they became all business,
Drawing their possessions into the courtyard's center where a tree stump still clenched the soil,
It's trunk of aspen not accounted for on the small fort-top, or signal station if it was.
Ttocs thought to sleep, knowing that such thinking detracts from the very point,
But did sleep, and with open ears, for it was as if the battle had already begun to his mind;
No watch was set that night, for they knew danger already was beckoned to them; already they were in debt to sleep,
So that tomorrow they could afford to raise blade against what rose.
And if their unsowrn enemies made the tactical error of allowing him to regain this strength,
There on the battlefield, that advantage would be for the Sword of Ttocs and it's Kin-Steel.
Their work had undone the stone grip of the Geis on his heart, and somewhere in his mind,
On the verge of real sleep, Ttocs heard again how if he cleaned his hands again, Sirhc would break them.
So he'd joked, but God's Wounds, let him have the chance to do so.
He was roused by Kcin and Kcaj, and there were still some stars in the west.
The earth was not lively, but caliginous with grief that the rekindling rays of Sol would not return.
Battle filled Ttocs heart and pain filled his mind, and he felt the edge of time approaching,
The only time he could ever forget the past and future, when his fate walked on the edge of his sword.
The water he drank, the air he breathed, all he saw, none of it was familiar.
Awaiting a battle is worse than fighting it, for it is then that one can still think.
Nalyd laid their plan, and Sirhc and Divad took up their bows, for the Yeoknighthood knew the arrow,
And a battle is often measured by the range of the long bow.
To the defendable wall of the East, holiest of their orientation, Nalyd appointed Kcaj's sword, sharpened to cut the air fast,
To the defendable wall of the West, Nalyd appointed himself, for today he was crafted for this noble purpose,
To the defendable wall of the North, the enemies would know the combat of Divad of Yvel,
And to the undefendable Southern wall, Nalyd appointed Kcin, and Ttocs found his place their also.
The southern wall, near to a copse of trees some further way down the slope, where ten men could take cover.
Ttocs' balance was even, which meant his sword was in hand, and turning away from peace,
He discussed with Kcin a variant of a fabled tactic known as the Lion's Mane,
For Malchis had procured a lion's caracss to equal the invincible beast Hercules slew in Aemen,
And save for the thousands of men on either side, Ttocs and Kcin thought it may work again.
"Aye, Geis-bearer," Kcin said, but Ttocs could already tell the mind he knew as Kcin's was fading fast away, consumed by you know what.
Alongside him, as the prelude to battle sounded, Ttocs no longer knew feeling but a lightning fury,
As if the bolt that had struck so close in Llagnitrof finally leapt from his being to strike anew,
And while doubt held out in his mind, stubborn wretch, only life beat in his heart, the sweet blood of Nuohlac, old wine in a new flagon,
And his heart gladly dragged his mind, kicking and screaming, and was up over the wall, following Kcin's unbelievable assault,
To strike as the first movement began; Calling the Incarnadine Dew.
The Sword of Nuohlac burned in his hand, and the first resurrecting spoke of sunlight lit the tops of the trees.
The bombardment of steel was a downpour, and his flesh was split through his thin armor, but pain slows in a sluggish mind,
And he who half-stabbed Ttocs in the back, Ttocs turned and gutted him, and then took off his head to see the banner of blood run from it.
Unfurl, flags of carnage! Look to the Colors! Let it lead the others forth. Sing your anthem, blade, and they will salute it.
Unfettered by doubt, Ttocs cracked his whip from aft to fore, then circled, blinding a man, then taking the helm of another in its sound-shattering course,
Until he'd reeled him in to be impaled on Nodelacian steel, until Ttocs was amoung the copse of trees, caught, fighting a man who bled from the mouth, and Ttocs' whip was useless in those tangles, and his brand hobbled only branches.
Ttocs heard the laughter of the incurably insane, and still he was game to fight, toppling out of the other side of the copse, until a Templar in full panoply came forward, the sun glancing from his blood-steeped blade. Whose blood was it? A passing thought. There seemed no man inside the suit of armor, only an awesome compilation of all the intimidation money could bye.
"Death to the Secular Knights," said he, standing there and pointing.
Not even back to his feet, Ttocs was as good as at sea; It made sense when from around the copse the lightly armored warriors stormed. The Templar continued to stand, unmoving, as if told to hold for the sculpter's eye.
In an instant Ttocs was balanced. The second movement of the battle began. Picking up the sword of their fallen, he sent it spinning into them, followed by a helm, a shield, whatever came into his empty hand, and each time they were sore to feel it, staggering up hill.
Retreat to the wall, Ttocs petitioned his muscles, each a free acting agent in the anarchy inside him, luckily still loyal, semper fidelis.
He climbed across the southern barrier, landing on a dead man, one of them. Wait to kill one at the wall- a miss. Something was out of alignment. A sword sliced between Ttocs fingers, so that it came to a stop in the center of his palm, and that was enough to dwell on. Fall back to the rally point; the court yard, the aspen stump. No one there. They must all have fallen. The din of battle was faint.
Ttocs turned back to the south. The champion Templar came forward, and then another. Two of them, the second carring a standard, damnable scourge, to plant on this soil. Where are Nodelac's armies? A message must be sent to Lad Adair.
The Champion came to challenge Ttocs. "Drop the sword, moss-trooper," seeing he was wounded. The din of battle came closer. The tide of song lifted Ttocs into motion. He saw Kcaj battling from the west to get inside the walls, followed by Nalyd and Sirhc. Together they rushed the Templars that had briefly held the walls against them. Striking the swords from their fists, they did not even bother to kill them. They lifted those embellished paladins off the ground and through them bodily over the wall so that they rolled and vivid-hues of fine plates and tassles flew from them. The yeoknights had a feeling something else would take care of them.
Divad limped into the vicinity, a stream of blood in his wake. Kcaj tended to him at once. There were no more opponents at the walls. Sirhc found an arrow and rushed off with his bow drawn. Nalyd appeared to have part of his chin dangling from his face, the straight line where the sword had struck highlighted with blood. They stared at each other, apparently in awe of what was done. The thrid movement was the finale, and it came when Ttocs rushed back to the South Wall, searching for the Ocnarf. No one stood on the south slope.
"There," said Nalyd, pointing to something. The Ocnarf ran, head on into the woods, away from his bretheren, cackling like nothing before.
"Devil's sport!" Ttocs cursed, he and Nalyd running after him. Ttocs managed to count at least 8 corpses.
"It's over, Ocnarf! Cease! Our hands are soaked enough," called Nalyd.
"And broken," Ttocs added through clenched teeth.
"Not mine!" Came Kcin's response. A Knight Templar came from the side, landing a lead-reinforced mace directly upon Ttocs' shoulder, near the neck, and his bones shattered into dust beneath it, and Ttocs was not long aware of it.
Darkness before, and darkness after Ttocs opened his eyes. The face of Kcaj was bent over him.
Ttocs let out a gasp of shock, and then chuckled at Kcaj's reaction.
"Bastard," rose Kcaj's voice, through a smile.
"Who did we lose, Kcaj?" Ttocs asked with solemn clarity.
"None. We live," Kcaj answered, "though I can not say where Kcin is. He seems to have tread off to rejoice with a fool, as they say. Nalyd came out only with a concussion and part of his chin cut, although that may have been from a hasty shave this morning, eh?"
Nalyd retorted incoherently from somewhere.
"Don't worry, we're far from the walls now. You and Nalyd were the only ones to escape the arrows," Kcaj observed, dangling a bloody arrow before Ttocs.
"Where?" Ttocs asked.
"Passed through my side like it was nothing."
"I'm not going to get up," Ttocs informed.
"As you shouldn't. We shed the blood of 3 yeoknights, today, all told. Divad lossed more than half of his fair share."
"Kcaj, we need horses."
"Ttocs, you know as well as I that there are few to be found this far north, especially in this wood."
"We can't go on like this."
"We've had the worst luck imaginable. I blame myself. Look what happened when I went out to find my fortune. That, and Kcin's blade..."
"There are only six of us. We need the seventh."
"True. The tale of that would not be forgotten among all the legends, even if it is told once, and poorly, and with many parts missing, by some drunken fool."
"But you would surely tell it more than once," Ttocs said, and went back to sleep.
"Yeah, me too," mumbled Nalyd.
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| Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
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9:59 pm - Thirteen She Drove Mad-- The Book of Ycrad Nna
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Ycrad Nna followed the course of a stream down through the mountains. Though she had set out before dawn, she found no other habitation until the sun was once again below the horizon. ‘Twas then she came to a place that she seemed to remember from long ago: a small dwelling that was seasonally occupied by shepherds who brought their stock to graze in the high country. A year and a day ago she had been here-- on her way up into exile. She saw a flock gathered in the valley by the stream. It seemed that a shepherd was once again in residence. She made her way to the door and knocked gently thereupon.
“Hei, and who comes!” cried a man’s voice within. He did not speak any tongue that she had studied, and yet his meaning seemed plain to her. Ycrad answered,
“A weary walker, and by your leave, I’ll lend you my poor skill for a night’s hospitality.”
“You speak strangely, walker, and you sound like no man!” returned the shepherd. “But I’ll decide on what I see with my own eyes.”
“Justly said.”
The door opened a crack and a lantern spilled its wan light over their faces. “By my gods, it’s the storm witch!” cried the man with some alarm, and he tried to close the door again, but Ycrad put her beaten sandal to good use against it.
“Even a witch may have something to offer a gracious host,” she said. “But I am no more than a scholar, and it is a clear night, besides.”
“Methinks I hear thunder,” he argued, struggling halfheartedly against her entry.
“Tis but the thump of many restless hooves against the mountainside.”
“Well, and now you’ve put both feet over my threshold, and I’ve no choice but to feed and water you,” the shepherd grumbled. He relented and ushered her to his table. It shared the interior of the hutch with a bed and other crude amenities. The shepherd sighed, setting down his lantern. “Little though there is to spare, after what lot passed through here six days ago. I won’t endure the summer.” She pieced together his tale of a band of marauders who had taken nearly half his stores, and several fine sheep, in the name of hospitality. “And if you should cross their path, they may not be so kind,” he warned her.
The shepherd volunteered his bed to Ycrad that night and placed himself before the door. She was moved by his kindness, and murmured blessings on him and his flock. For a few hours she was able to sleep, as the pain in her hand had diminished and finally gone sometime during the day. But something woke her in the night, and she sat up in alarm at the sound of hooves and voices close by. “Shepherd,” she hissed, but no answer came. As her eyes adjusted she realized that he had gone out, and left the door slightly ajar. Creeping silently from the bed, she went to the crack of the door and peered out through it. Under the starlight gathered a circle of horsemen who laughed as they discussed what to do with the young shepherd, who stood by in a silence that bespoke misery and terror. As she listened and heard no mention of herself, Ycrad knew the shepherd had valiantly kept the marauders ignorant of her presence.
“If I but had a sword,” she thought at first, and then shook her head at such folly. Even a mighty warrior would have been hard-put to menace thirteen armed and mounted raiders. And fleeing was out of the question, for there no way to slip off unseen, and besides-- she could not leave the shepherd to face whatever dark sport that his tormentors goaded on one another.
In sudden resolve she pulled up the cowl of her traveling cloak and emerged from the crude house. With her face thus covered, she heard rather than saw how the marauders startled at her appearance, and one of them issued a curse and a challenge as she came to stand before them.
“An ak had me uw,” she said. Some of the horses began to snort and shift uneasily beneath their riders. The shepherd looked on her with stricken eyes.
“What’s this?” said a raider scornfully. He spoke a variant dialect of the shepherd’s language, and yet she found it equally clear in meaning. “A scarecrow come to squawk at us.”
“Is ej siup,” she agreed. She gestured at his horse with her hidden hand. “Me uw tun. Me uw vard.”
And the beast stepped back a pace, shaking its head in agitation. Ycrad advanced as the raider fought with his reins. All of them were having difficulty now. “An ak me memir!” She flapped her cloak as she cried the words, and several of the horses shied away as if assailed by things that wore no shape.
But the marauders were not so easily persuaded to retreat. One of them shot an arrow at Ycrad that grazed her shoulder, and four others managed to regroup and charge with swords.
As they bore down on Ycrad and her hapless benefactor, a scorching sound burst from her lips--
--and the riders surged past her and the shepherd without landing a stroke, although they still wailed like vengeful banshees. They rode past the hutch and shot straight away into the darkness, still brandishing their weapons with fell intent. Ycrad and the shepherd hastily stumbled from the hutch and into the black belly of the valley.
Madness ruled there until sunrise. Cowering on their hands and knees among the dry grasses, Ycrad and her ally listened apprehensively to the racket of the marauders, who seemed possessed by fey rage and confusion. More than once their enemies met in the darkness and blindly fought each other, giving terrible wounds and increasing their own fury. Others chased or fled from phantoms.
But peril did not entirely overlook the two innocents who hid themselves together in the darkness. A marauder came upon them as he roamed the valley in search of his horse. He drew a knife on the shepherd, who had naught but a rock to answer him with. Ycrad threw herself against the marauder’s back when they engaged, and a few heavy blows to the skull ended his struggle.
When dawn finally bleached out the night’s taint, the shepherd found himself alive, unlike two of the marauders; and he was richer by three horses with various provisions and small treasures packed in their saddles. He and Ycrad helped each other back to his simple home and took inventory of their fortunes.
“What did you say?” he asked her when the sun had risen a span, and the dark memories felt like less of a burden. “What drove them into such madness?”
She made a small shrug. He had trouble understanding her speech, which was sometimes like his own, and sometimes a riddle of many tongues. “Nonsense. I don’t really know,” she said.
“Storm witch,” he murmured quietly to himself, giving her a strange look. And he insisted on giving her the finest of the horses with all of its gear. When the time came for her to go, Ycrad gave her name, and asked for his in return.
“Adnay,” she echoed thoughtfully. “I will remember your deeds, and your name will become immortal in my book.”
“I want nothing to do with immortals,” he said, giving her that uneasy look again.
She saluted Adnay in the old Nuohoqloc style, which was an archaic gesture even in those times. Then she reined her steed to the west and set heels to him.
Adnay the shepherd lived long and well, although from time to time he could hear angels talking in the dark of night, and he dreamed of strange places.
Of the remaining marauders, three fought to their deaths, and three were lost forever from this world. One drowned in sand; and another became a good man who called himself Seashell and performed many song-worthy deeds. Two marauders regained their senses and divided the bounty of all thirteen between themselves. They never had to steal again.
The last marauder wandered far away, and eventually came raving into a camp of knights who bore the Rosy Cross.
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9:55 pm - Blood Will Fall --The Book of Ycrad Nna
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One day she went secretly to the shrine of stone wherein the sword of her blood was housed, and she touched the unblunted edge with a mix of wonder and longing. That cruel tongue of steel, folded a thousand and one times in the heat of its making-- but as straight in its form as the geometrist’s perfect arrow-- would not be hers.
“Why not?” she asked, and she climbed up onto the altar, trampling the offerings. With great effort she took the hilt in her hands and wrested the sword from its rightful place. “Why not?” she asked again through gritted teeth. “Am I not strong enough? Is my blood not as pure? I will not wait by the hearthstones like chattel while my brother takes glory for his bride!”
But the sword, which was made to tax the arm of a strong youth, overcame her adolescent strength in moments. Down sank the point, wavering as her arms trembled. The hilt alone was nigh the length of her forearm, and the words embossed on the pommel flashed in the light like a warning: is ej siup.
If I can.
“Can’t I?” she snarled at it. “Some houses allow women to inherit blade and armor to match it! Why not Nuohlac?” Mustering all her resolve, she lofted the sword in both hands and made an impulsive plan to take and master it.
But in that moment, when the shadows seethed and she swore that she would earn her rightful place in legend-- she heard a voice within the narrow shrine. Cold and uncompromising, it whispered, “Sanguis casus.” With an indrawn breath she turned, dropping the weapon that she was forbidden to wield. The shrine was empty, however, and her folly was made plain against the sword’s edge, for it slashed her as it clattered to the stones.
For many years thereafter, Ycrad Nna, eldest child of Nuohlac, feared the shrine and the weapon it housed, and she would not set foot there for any asking.
When he came of age, her flaxen-haired brother became the master of the sword, and no sepulchral voice rebuked him for grasping the hilt in his hand.
Ycrad stood in the cool shadows on the day of his ceremony, for which occasion she had taken leave of university and returned to Nuohlac. As her young brother performed the blood-rite, pricking the heel of his thumb against the sword’s edge, Ycrad felt a sting down the length of her own hand. Wonderingly she pulled off her glove and looked at the scar that the sword had given her so long ago. It was a perfect white line, bisecting her left hand down the center of her palm and middle finger. A single drop of blood was smeared across her palm. Frowning, she rubbed it away, and put her glove back on.
When her joyous brother spoke with her that evening, Ycrad found she could congratulate him with sincerity. Her bitterness over the sword had faded sometime during the intervening years, and likewise the livid scar on her hand had faded slowly from its initial scarlet to a pure white. She had since come to believe that the blade had not chastened her because she was a woman, but because she had sought to take it out of a conceited desire for glory. Still, when Ttocs smilingly offered to let her hold his sharp-edged prize, his sister found she had to decline.
Ycrad had not touched a weapon since that shameful day in the shrine; the sword had taught her an abiding aversion to blades. Her heart did not truly lust for bloodshed or the notoriety of killers.
But neither did she rest easy with the thought that marriage and childbearing were all that her life could amount to. In university she had studied languages-- a tame enough subject-- or so she professed, when people asked her. The reality was somewhat otherwise. Not even her mentors knew all of what she had plumbed from the ancient library, but therein she had discovered something that she loved better than swords or daydreams.
Hints and speculations about the Lingua Angelicus-- the angel tongue-- had piqued her interest from the beginning. It was a speech whose true power had only been revealed to Mada and Eve once they had eaten fruit from the forbidden tree of Nede, according to the Christian tale; while the Norse held that their fearsome war god Nido had acquired the Engill Tunga after he drank from Rimim’s Well. A thousand tales shrouded any truth that might remain intact, yet mention of the heavenly language could be found in every known culture. Nostraticists di Proto had been seeking to reconstruct the angelic speech for many years, hunting for patterns that lay scattered and hidden within all the languages that the fall of Babel had ever spawned. It was grievously imprecise work, and few of the hunters could agree on method or result. Ycrad studied with the Nostraticists for a year before she wearied of their fruitless bickering. Armed with their sorceries for teasing patterns out of nonsense, she began her own search. Rumor said that books existed which were written entirely in the Lingua Angelicus, but incredible legends surrounded such artifacts, if they were even real, and no library had ever yielded such a book to Ycrad. Eventually she began to fear that she would fail, all her years of searching wasted on idle fancy.
Her brother had likewise encountered difficulties in his studies, from what she heard. Some scandal had erupted over his accidental entry into a forbidden vault-- his letter about it had been vague, and she could learn no more details from her remote location-- but he had only narrowly escaped expulsion from his prestigious university.
Ycrad was not so fortunate in her aims. After university she sought three great linguistic masters and begged to study with them, but they scoffed at her ambitions. One master simply did not believe in the Lingua Angelicus, and he advised her to find worthier pursuits.
The second one believed, verily, but he thought it was folly to challenge Heaven with such an aim.
The third and final master was a renowned sorcerer as well as a necromancer, and that seemed a most promising quality, until he refused her flatly on the grounds that women made poor students.
Discouraged, Ycrad journeyed ever further from her homeland in search of the speech of angels, and that was how she came to dwell at last in the East.
And it was there, in the darkest hour of heaven and earth, that she awoke one night with a terrible pain in her hand; and fumbling to light a candle, she found blood trickling from the white scar as if it had come unsealed.
Shortly the pain abated, and she bathed her hand and examined it closely, but there was no break in the skin. Mystified, she returned to sleep.
Many days and nights of madness followed. Ycrad poured over her journals and found herself making wild inventions and leaps of imagination-- like the pitiable Nostraticists di Proto who finally became insane or desperate at their inability to recover any whole pieces of the heavenly tongue. She was lost as they ever were, and perhaps as mad, for at times she thought she had found fragments of what she sought, and she bound them into books of chaos. So it might have continued to an ill end: the afflicted sorceress amassing words of power or nonsense in her mind, and going slowly mad in her isolation.
How many days passed, she was uncertain.
But then came another night when pain roused her from dreaming. The scar was seeping from wrist to fingertip this time. She pressed cloth against it without avail, for the blood soaked through the fibers with frightening alacrity. There was no cause that she could tell for a fourteen-year-old wound to bleed, but a terrible chill overtook her body, and a sense of foreboding filled her. “Sanguis casus,” she murmured in disbelief, recalling the words spoken by nobody in the shrine: blood will fall.
Frightened but intrigued by this mysterious stigmata, Ycrad resolved to find the reason for it. She bandaged her hand tightly and hid it in the shadow of a voluminous ink-stained sleeve. As for her books, she kept only the Mortuus Caudex, which was her latest work, for it was light enough to carry on a journey of length. The others she should have destroyed, but at the last moment Yscrad found that she could not bear to make naught of all her toils. Instead of dashing oil and flame into the bound and unbound pages that littered her solitary hutch, she sealed the door and windows with spells of binding from her Mortuus Caudex. And if they were arcane words of power, then they would guard a repository of perils against all trespass but that of a mightier and more clever sorcerer than she was. And if she uttered nothing but a string of nonsense, then it would stop no one from entering-- but of course, in that case nothing but nonsense lay within, either. Not knowing which was the case, or whether it be a strange mixture of the two, nonetheless she cast incantations upon her hermit’s residence, and then she turned her back on it.
Be it curse or illness or some ominous sign, she would find out what made the blood drip from her hand. And for a beginning she would seek the Blade of Nuohlac, for his duty it was to shed the true from the twisted, and he had always answered, sword in hand.
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9:44 pm - Excerpt from the Book of Newlocke, composed by the Chronicler:
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“To the eldest son the sacred edge shall go, by which truth is cut from lie, and flesh from intent.” So it is written in the traditions of many houses, and so it is done in the house of Newlocke, which has a long and martial history. It is no empty ritual. In times of yore, and yet again in these strange days, the Blade of the Newlocke has been called upon to shed the true from the twisted, and he has always answered, sword in hand.
But the eldest child of the Newlocke was no man.
It was never writ, what she would inherit. For while the sword and the land-title would go by law to her younger brother on the appointed hour, it was the unspoken expectation that her only duty was to bear children to a husband of worth.
From whence sprang her vehement discontent with woman’s lot? The warrior spirit of the Newlocke lineage, I venture, was not lacking in this daughter.
Rumors have put forward the less favorable explanations of madness and arrogance. In her absence I have only this unfinished scrawl, which she left among her childhood belongings before she departed:
do all maidens dreaming hours spend--
asking who shall take my heart, and by what deed?
such fragile dreams! wan petals shaking on the stem
unaware that the rising sun will pierce them
and falling they will die under bright hooves
in the stillness before that dread hour,
a Shade of pleasing shape appeared
o knight fey and cruel! a sidhe prince
with sparking eye and visage fair
stole into my dreams by starlight
kneeling he kissed my hand and pled
for that right alone among all mortal men
to take my heart and keep it forever
I bade him yea, and so blindly I fell
upon the dagger of his immortal curse
smiling he rose and the darkness
swore to frustrate Love’s arrows
Perhaps when dawn broke she did not believe in fairytales, and she looked to her future with a changÈd eye. Or mayhap the ungentle Seelie are to blame; either may be true, or none. But all the rumormongers agree that after a certain age she scorned all things which were becoming of a woman . . .
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| Sunday, June 18th, 2006
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2:08 am - The Second Scrawl
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He must die, for the good of his people, for our own good he must die. Even now, so many nights past, Sodook heard those words as though they had been whispered in his ear for only him to know, his own intimate knowing of how he had surely damned the people his father and, by way of heredity, he was was sworn to protect. He did not remember his fathers liege men being so callous, but he knew so little of them to begin with that was hardly justification. The thing that truly disheartened him was the explanation; that this party of travelers, his fathers own counselors and commanders, was intent to journey out to the lords in the west and north to offer up the lives of their liege and his family, in exchange for reclamation. Sodook was to have been their sacrifice, their evidence that to support their cause would be to deliver justice.
The problem had arisen when they had found Sodook amongst the innumerable dunes surrounding the Sudluokian seat: scorched, dehydrated but still alive. Though he had not truly been what a man could call innocent for more than half his life, he would have provided a more than apt lamb on the altar, but he, apparently had not been content to curl up in the sand and die. And now he sulked, rehydrating, not a stones throw from the men who had meant to make him their martyr, and a majority of which, to the yeoknights dimay, still did. Days and nights had passed since those words had been borne to his ears, time had sailed by in a sort of delirium, all things came and went and though he was alone in his basin of water most all the time, he felt stalked, hounded, and run ragged by his constant flight. Running was not what he was used to, it was not what he was taught, he was taught to fight. However, he was also taught to survive, by himself as much as by his teacher, and this lesson above all others he intended to stay true to.
In the tepid, shallow pool about which he lazed, he would, on occasions both rare and brief, be loosed from his constant fleeing by the repose of his dreams. Dreams that seemed more than dreams, too real be anything but reality, though he knew not when or where. He sat in blistered, baked misery, when all at once the waking world sunk away beneath the weight of his eyelids. In the place of the parched world he knew, there surged forth great azure masses, endless stretches of open water like the ones he had wondered at on his journeys south, and even in his time in the west. This however was not south or west, no, for once he knew where he was, where this paradisiacal local might be found. He was in his home.
But this was not the same home that he knew, and despite what his eyes and ears and skin and tongue and nose were screaming at him, the impossible certainty that one can only have in a dream swept, omnipresent, through him, till he could not doubt that this land so alien was none other than his own. The human scent that mixed with dung and smoke and sand that had belonged to sudluok was replaced by the smells of growth and soil and the salt sea. The great limestone walls with their golden sandstone crenelations were no where to be seen, the arid expanse surrounding it replaced by a tangle of bush, shrub, and all manner of underbrush. Trees dotted the whole of the landscape, all spindly and hard, making a loose mesh with their leaves and boughs, where before dirt daub and waddle homes had speckled the lands just out side the city walls, and little enough out side that, only foliage grew. The sort of wood was familiar, but only because similar material was used as beams and backing in the most ancient parts of the Sudluokian keep, the stuff had become too sparse in the waking world to even make street signs or furniture out of. Battling for the title of most radical change was the ocean, which was countless leagues closer than it had any right to be.
The place was pleasant and peaceful, and at a glance, any man could tell that it would be no struggle to scrape out a most comfortable existence; this place was the antithesis of his own true home. A nice place to visit, but he knew that this sort of land bred what he and his ancestors had rejected most, the life of placid prosperity. Hard living had made a hard people, and instead of being filled with wealth and serenity, they were filled with discipline and hostility, this was not his place. As this hard fact dawned on him he became aware that beneath the nearly omnipresent tranquility there boiled something more, a discord that subtly pervaded the whole scape; a violent discontent within the world of which sodook was the source. He fell to his knees, all strength suddenly sapped from his body, the cerulian waters became as a witching black, the sky became its inky mirror. The ground trembled as though in fear, and for a moment, Sodook was certain some great portent was about to be revealed. It may be that something was conveyed, but his ears could not descry it. From the ominous black above issued a withering boom, one that hung in the air and became an immense thundering that rang out loud and long, and in that cacophic moment the heavens-turned-pitch seemed to writhe with immense life. The angry seas became froth and answered with a muffled sound that, though different in its higher, more bellowing sound, was kin to the thunderous din above in its sheer horror. All things moved towards some pitch and Sodooks head felt as though it were about to be torn to ribbons by the cacophony, and then, all at once, the veil lifted and he was again in his own wasted land, all tranquility gone, along with the discord, yet he was just as powerless as he had been in his dream.
Without the ruddy red slant of light pouring into the tent, he might have thought 60 years had passed, though 60 seconds seemed just as likely. As the sun sank he reached deep and found a little strength, he slid down, his legs flopping out of the basin as he shifted and let his dark, lengthy locks enjoy the liquid nourishment the rest of his body had. Only when he decided to resurface did he realize just how heavy sodden hair was, and how much lighter it had been when the desert sun had made it brittle. Though it had stolen what little strength he had managed to regain, he deemed it a worthy trade, for such a refreshing sensation. Such dips, though slight, could be deadly in his dilapidated state, but one who lives life in a desert loses much in fear. Fear, and so much else.
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1:34 am - ScripTtocs 12
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done.
See the age in mirage, retiarius scribe. Mete with the trident of VII points reprisal for the jetsam saga cast up where Nede's hill be high, lush with nectar, ale or wine. Reign on, ye flashy, silten irony.
Ttocs, whose hair stuck out as does the laurel wreath,
Knelt to cup his hands into the moss-ringed pool,
And a chilled breath clung to his splashed face.
Thus he drank directly the magic waters there contained,
Here where the proselytizers had not yet meddled.
Those six equals drank at the well, each refreshed
By a far tributary of Manannan Mac Lir's wisdom fount.
"A good thing for this vein-charging drink, a blessing
On our taxed nerves amid so selfish a jungle
That escapers would could only hope for supernatural aid,"
Commented the sagacious Divad of Yvel.
"I feel the spell is about to be lifted," Ttocs said,
Savoring the excellent mineral taste of the pool,
And the panorama of trees he shrewdly surveyed.
They followed Ttocs on a winding path that circled up,
To a place that stood out from all the woods entire;
For it shone with the great constant bolt that is the sun's,
A grassy edifice with stone shoulders at whose foot
They stood fast and praising fortune's current turn.
Ttocs swayed at the feeling of turning to stone inside,
And then slowly raised his sparkling-clean hands,
Seeing that the recent well visit had made them so.
"I have to excavate this ruin," Ttocs declared simply,
Unslinging his pack that rattled with tools.
"A ruin you say? Ah, so it is," observed Sirhc,
Smiling as does a champion best deployed
On fields like these, singly warmed by the day star.
"Come again, Ttocs?" Kcin said, darkly eloquent.
"Are we not in need of pointed speed at the moment,
What with vengeful zealots fast upon our heels
And for once a clear indication of the way to go?
I daren't slight your noble line of work, but surely
Even the most commendable skills can, at times
Go against the grain of what is called for."
"Carry on, for you are right to the utmost.
I must do this, though, for I've made a grave error;
My hands are clean.
"Clean? Do you not mean tied?" assumed Nalyd.
"It is the same thing," told Ttocs, still petrified by duty.
None of them found comfort at this impasse of sense.
Ttocs was obviously no fool, his mettle proven
In numerous encounters, but it was also true
That times were not unknown when Ttocs would take
A weird or stubborn trajectory with things,
And now he asked much of those who already had gone far.
"I can easily explain," began Ttocs as only he could.
"Alas, I should have done long ere we saw this day,
But I never saw a clear segue, and now it is painfully clear;
My history is called out, as unavoidably as if called by name.
You see, I need to excavate this ruin unless I wished
To violate my Geis, and that would mean death.
It is Geis for me to set foot on an ancient site
With clean hands and not excavate it to the fullest."
"I've not heard the word before," alerted Kcaj.
"The Geis, as the Tlecs know it, is a supernatural contract.
Under literal circumstances, certain deeds must be
Performed or avoided, and any who break their Geis
Are known to perish soon after as a direct result.
Call it curse or wyrd, mortals are known to bear such things.
I can already see that I am not alone even among you;
For Kcaj bears his mantle of gloom, less visible
To us than to those unenviable knights who descended
The steps of the necropolis found somewhere in Sutrop Elac.
And of Kcin, nothing needs be said. We have seen proof of such things.
I am only lucky enough to know the exact wording in my case.
"But we've been over so many ancient works before now,
Came Kcaj's reminder. "Have your hands been always stained thus far?"
"None of our hands have been clean," told Kcin, darkly eloquent,
Whose resolve always caught on quickly.
"They are blackened by the touch of the wild
And the grip of the sword," he went on.
Ttocs nodded solemnly, saying "That was our good condition,
At least until we drank from yonder hidden cistern,
Which so clensed our slates. Is it not sorely obvious
How the bow snaps as we aim our arrows to the clear?
Regardless, I must pay this debt forthwith, and if truth is told,
None of you need suffer this labor as I am bound to."
"If we helped you, would you still appease this Geis?"
Inquired Divad, looking too fargone to be talked out of anything.
"I've never tried that. There is no wording against it,
Yet the lack of that distinction doesn't award the opposite."
"The question is," Kjac spoke now, "is it of strict or loose construction?"
"I strongly doubt that logic is at work here," Kcin made clear.
"What will matter in the end is our beliefs, here and now,
Not some lawyers technicality that reeks of split hairs."
"Then let's all get it done," concluded Nalyd,
"For we did not come all this way only to break formation at this.
How in blasphemy did you come upon a curse like this, anyway?"
"I plan to fully tell that, Nalyd. Like I said, my history is called out.
I would wrong you all with anything short of the truth,
Now that my past has cast its net on me and ensnared us all.
As for the work, I am not worried if I have your help,
(Rather I salute your willingness like thunder salutes lightning)
For as Kcin tells, nothing in my heart protests.
But are each of you sure of this day-squandering ordeal,
Even as we have just rediscovered that the sun shines on
And hope to remain undiscovered by our enemies.
It is much to ask during these demanding times."
Ttocs finished and looked searchingly to his friends.
"Lets-shall," they concurred, a necessary miracle in Ttocs' eyes.
Ttocs and his brothers broke out their digging tools,
Still dirty from the dragon-slayer's loch-side grave,
And Ttocs began the laborious task much abetted
By his friends, always true to their words.
And so, to the melody of shovel-strokes,
The Nuohlac initiated what they would remember as
The Story of Ttocs:
In the post-school days, I was Yeosquire of Nuohlac,
Restricted to weilding my sword left-handed,
Though already fully trained with the right,
So that I could not operate what is so easily
An instrument of death; so I could not kill with it.
That was when we each chose a peaceful trade
Onwhich to hinge our future lives, though
For some of us there was little choice, or peace, involved.
I knew, always since I recovered the box I'd buried as a child,
That Archaeology's call was the strongest on my soul,
So I harkened to that, a path that sent me towards
Earning my laurels at the University on the east shore.
[Ah, right on, Nalyd. Here, I think, we have found a battlement]
I went to a school with a tower in it's center
Called the Locked Tower, and sometimes
The Tower of Fool's Fire, that being it's nomen omen,
The sign of its name, but when I asked the Professor
if all the stories about it were true, his immeadiate remark
Was that a if a person finds a story interesting at all,
It is because it confirms their deepest desires.
We care nothing for uninteresting stories,
Despite whether they have truth or any kind of useful knowledge.
Talis Qualis, just as such, the Tower of Ignus Fatuss,
Fool's Fire, and all the stories about it,
Are either not suitable to those interested because
They would serve only to compliment a fantasy,
Or are not suitable to those disinterested because
They would be a terrible bore. Such is Man's folly.
Of course, so it is, said I, but consider:
If you can not tell me if I am interested
Nor can you if I am bored of the subject,
At least tell me because you are a teacher,
And I am a student, and we shall have to
Make the best of our human foibles.
The Story of the Locked Tower, (for there is only one, per se)
Is indeed true, the Professor seemed to think.
He agreed with me that it is the only thing left
Of the ancient campus, and that it was surely
Twice as tall in those gone days, with bells at the top
Which rang out poetry and proverbs. (If you have not
Yet heard how bells can be made to sing words,
It is a wonderful idea involving the lettering of each bell.)
"Aye," interjected Kcaj. "We've a similar and still-standing
Bell tower at my school further to the south of yours."
Yes, it is true that the Tower was connected to
The Great Library, which linked together every proper library
In the world, and even those learning halls of the Otherworlds,
Whose scholars have their own cosmologies and brands
Of knowledge. Undoubtedly it worked, and a scholar
Could see Emor, Airdnaxela, and Drofxo all in the same day,
If he had the mind to. But mark those words-- for if one
Hadn't straigtened out his Virgil from his Horace
He will be immeadiately lost and end up no where at all,
For it is only by profound intellect and learnedness
That the Great Library could be navigated safely.
How? Really, it was by some conjunction of labrynths
And mirrors and some magic or other; I know not how.
The skill and architecture of those halls are all but extinct today.
But it was a very enlightened time at first. Never was
There so much traffic between schools, nations, and worlds,
As there was then. I'm not certain how long it took
For the corrupt sorceries to rise to power, but what is certain
Is that they soon became the plague of learning,
Perverting the function of books so that they no longer taught
But tested their readers, or served only their authors,
And there were terrible discoveries committed to writing
Along with infernal traps to ensnare the innocent.
Meanwhile, the alchemists and cabalists were mining so deep,
They threatened the very perfection of Nature.
I believe it, and no wonder the Angelic Hosts suddenly
Laid waste to all their works and magic roads,
Just as they struck down Babel.
Our own bell tower was broken at the middle,
Giving it that jagged crown we know today.
The upper half toppled sideways and was shattered into dust
Upon the reclaming face of the Earth.
It took the worst with it, for the tower was kept such that
Each with each new level a more grave and toxic lore was found
Than the the level below it.
But the lower collection remained intact, verily,
(For the Professor had seen it) and even as a fraction
Of that near infinite archive, you have over ten thousand volumes,
Countless rooms and passageways, and a most
Perilous dead end on your hands.
What rattles the windows, booms as thunder, and flares up at night,
these are the loose powers unlocked by all those fools,
Still potent and hungry after all these centuries.
But this rumor of a solitary sorcerer that yet endures,
Raging as eternal captive of the tower's monument,
This is as false as any exaggerated fear to be expected of novices.
The school was rebuilt, but the tower was not touched,
Save that it was locked to all but the most adept meditators,
For even in the lowest levels there are books
That prey on one's sanity, or cause one to sleep, dream,
Or abide by any number of peculiar conditions.
It is a daring life, to wish to be so wise.
Stupor Mundi, the Professor called it;
the Wonder or Stupidty of the World, I never know which.
'Stupor Mundi' he said, shaking his head.
But he was done humoring the giddiness of schoolboy,
As he called it, adding that if I remember anything
Other than conspiratorial sorcerers and mysterious adventures,
The telling of the Story of the Locked Tower
May not have all been for nothing.
Well, there you have it. I am living proof of the Professor's warning.
For in his observations about interests and foolish desires,
There was the oldest warning in the world: not to play with fire.
As you look up from your trenches I can see your suspicions,
And it now shames me to confirm them: I have been in the Locked Tower;
My Geis, and our current project, a direct result of it.
Over those days that tallied my green year
I took to searching antique scripts further than assigned.
Where I was responsible for one passage, my eyes
Would wander over whole chapters, for classic times
Stir up a jealous zeal in me, and just like one can't help himself
As he pulls up the rusted chain, link by link
From a sea famous with the tales of warships, serpents, and treasure
I poured further over those manuscripts,
In search of some ideal and magnificent anchor.
That was the source of my interest in history;
The thrill of recovering long-faded golden ages.
I should have heeded the Professor better,
Then again, he himself had a look in his eye
That told you he had seen dragons.
(I wonder if we have that look now. No, no;
If we do, we wouldn't notice it. Only those without
That experience can recognize it in others, I suspect.)
My bad habit of searching for trouble in old books, as it were,
Lead me of course to learn of the Detector.
It began as a tantalizing hint or an esoteric bit of marginalia,
But the more I looked for it, the more I found, or the more
I imagined to confirm my idealistic vision.
[See here, this is a legionary's gladius, a Moran's sword.
This will be a Moran fort, back when their standards flew on these grounds.]
I gathered that the Detector was some kind of artifact
Which by some magic practiced in the Classic times of learning
Could reveal the location of a hidden site, such as a tomb,
Ceremonial hoarde, or even an entire lost city
Such as those they say are buried under a mile of sand.
Not only would it unerringly locate these places,
But it was written in plenty of places that the Detector
Could move earth, even pull up coins out of the ground,
And generally be of great use to any one looking for lost things.
The fire of ambition in me was fanned bright by these findings,
And hunting for the secrets of the Detector became my hobby.
At the time, though it now pains me to recall it,
I was preplexed by the conflicting accounts of the Detector's form.
Every source seemed to attest to a different item;
A stone, a forked rod, a staff, a ring, or even a box
Carried at either end as the Lost Ark was.
It never occured to me that the Detector didn't exist
As a real artifact lying hidden somewhere, and that
All the other arguments about it being a golden fruit
Or a mirror and what have you, these were just rumors
And speculations born of embellishing minds.
There was one thing about the Detector that was consistent,
Besides it's abilities. There was a book called the Uncopyable Text,
Which is said to contain so many secrets and spells that the author
Imbued it with a property that made it indecipherable to anyone
Who tried to write down what it said. Naturally, those who tried
To memorize passages only suceeded in perfectly recalling
Long strings of a very mysterious gibberish.
The secret to the power of the Detector was supposedly
Among those that enriched the tome.
Of course, the Professor gathered from our many discussions
That I was drawing close to some profound discovery
(So I thought), and that the next step was naturally
To find out if the Uncopyable Text was kept in the Locked Tower.
But it was never my intention to actually enter the tower myself.
I always hoped that I could draw the Professor into my game
And stir up the fire of curiousity and genius in him,
So that he would himself find the book, if, indeed,
It existed. However, I failed to break his scorn for fantasy,
Despite the uncountable times I saw flickers of triumph in his eyes
Deep behind the stinging smog rising from his pipe
During the reports of progress that I made.
At long last, I did a regrettable thing.
One day I brought together every single reference
Of the Detector that existed in the main library,
Which despite the infamy of its predecessor,
Is reasonably vast and forbidding, occupying
Hall after hall jammed with bookcases, all deep underground
And lit naturally by well-positioned overhead light shafts.
Deep in those recesses I piled on a table every volume
There was that shed any light at all on the Detector and
The Uncopyable Text. This was a mistake.
I had learnt all these texts so well,
And been so thorough in focusing them together in one place,
That I unwittingly attained the very circumstances by which
The scholars of old navigated the Great Library.
After some hours of contemplation,
I experienced an abrupt bolt of understanding,
I don't even remember what about, now.
Unable to remain sitting, I sprang to my feet
In giddy agitation, reveling in that sudden clear-sightedness.
It was not long before I noticed that I did not recognize
My surroundings. Those walls were no longer the arched
Subterranean cloisters and dark bookcases of the library,
But stange, sculptured panels, like in a church,
Gargoyled and peopled with imponderable scenes,
And I thought I saw flames without torches
Moving through the neighboring rooms, but always
Retreating to the next as I followed them.
Their were books there too, of course, stored in every manner,
Along with scrolls and inscribed tablets.
Still without comprehension, I came upon a gilded lectern
Where there lay a minute little diary, it seemed.
I opened it, not aware of the stupidity of doing so,
Because I was still under the delusion of being underground,
In the library, even quite excited that I had found this
Hitherto unknown wing of the collection.
I paged through the small but heavy libretto,
Murmuring outloud titles of chapters.
I began to repeat them, wondering what they meant.
I would be saying; Lacfris Stilmork Prisgonta...Lacfris Stilmork Prisgonta,
What in the world does that mean?
When I read the words, I understood them, but when I
Repeated them to myself without reading, as one does
When they are in the habit of studying for an exam,
They became confusing and tongue-twisting beyond coherence.
It was, of course, the Uncopyable Text.
Without delay, upon this realization, I found the renowned passage
That divluged the secret of the Detector's power.
What it told me, was that the Detector was activated and deactivated
Several times over the course of history by the use of an incantation,
Which was quoted verbatim in the following lines, to be spoken out loud
With the Detector at hand. Unfortuneately I decided to forgo this
Technicality. The Detector was lost, as it had been for five hundred years.
Surely, I thought, I could activate it by reciting the formula,
And then it would reveal itself, where ever (and whatever) it was.
So, I, fool in a Tower of Fool's, spoke the secret lines.
What were they, you ask? I'll never forget them:
Scythyth beretnon esit zyv decantme glis teon soxwe ere zyv hafirous...
Naturally it's all been addled into raving madness.
I'm sure you've all put it together in your heads now.
Because of my reckless misstep, I had activated the Detector,
But without selecting any proper object, and thinking only
Of my own fantasies and granduer, I myself became the Detector.
My own being sufficed in the absence of an artifactual device.
By the time I noticed the window just behind the lectern,
And looked down hundreds of feet to the ground below,
Only then did I realize I had put my very existence in danger
By setting foot in the Locked Tower.
All the time I had thought the Uncopyable Text
Was there in some tucked away section of the ordinary library,
But no, I had somehow moved thousands of yards,
And up several flights by some residual connection
Left unrazed by the Holy Wrath of yore.
I did not manage to get out the way I had come,
Because all the knowledge I had accrued had flown out of my head
When I realized what had come of my own doing.
I thought I was doomed to some unimaginable torture-
The horror tales of unlucky persons who cross paths with those
Unfriendly archives....you have no idea.
I managed an admirable thing, and that was
To navigate my way down several staircases,
Constantly haunted by those will o' the wisps
That hovered in the next room and just around
The bend of a spiral staircase.
I submitted to despair when I came to the entrance to the tower,
Which of course was bolted beyond the means of undergraduates.
Sealed inside, I sat there, trying to clear my mind
Of the voices that kept intruding, for that is another diabolical ploy
Of those accursed books; their words echo in your head
Without you having even looked at them.
You need only be close by, and they will begin muttering inside your skull.
I decided to wait until someone opened the door from the outside,
For the meditators use that access several times a day,
And I then fully comprehended why it was only meditation
That granted access, because otherwise the mind
Falls prey to the madding crowd of ill-made scripts.
Thanks be to God for my Mantram.
If I had not had taken a meditation class in my second year
I would have been done for, no doubt.
Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani Padme Hum.
Those words saved my life.
I don't remember my rescuer, but I do remember
The Professor. Much later, smoking his pipe
While I recuperated next to a fountain,
(The sound of the falling water is supposed to calm the mind)
And all he told me was: nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur
'One must like a subject in order to study it.'
There was an investigation and the full
Consequence of my actions was revealed.
I had activated the Detector in myself.
I was able to avoid serious punishment
(There were many who wanted me expelled)
Because of the uncanny and innocent way
In which I gained access to the tower.
It was proclaimed a Geis type affliction after it was discovered
That the very nature of my ideal of getting my hands dirty finding lost things
Which I was obsessed with at the time I brought all this upon myself,
Came to be incorporated in the function of the Detector.
Thus it only comes into effect
When my hands are in need of dirtying, as in clean.
This was all explained to me then, and I still don't really
Understand it, but I have proven it many times since,
Because I have known where old things were buried
(and been compelled to dig them up) where there was absolutely
No way of knowing otherwise.
Of course, I argued that the Geis could be undone
By simply reciting the evil verse again to deactivate it,
But no one could remember or copy the incantation
And I could not be brought within the tower
As it would further endanger my life
(In addition to it being against school law).
The faculty thought this was fitting--that I live with the consequences.
The irony of it is complete, no?
"Not quite complete," Kcin amended, darkly eloquent,
As he raised his sword into his grip.
"In the time we've been delayed here,
Our pursuers have found and surrounded us."
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| Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
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12:16 am - Script†ocs 11
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return, a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done. Keep everything that falls into thine lap, for we are but dust and many thoughts, and while a long story is unknown to travel quickly, the spark bewteen heaps of ash is brief. So as the words fall through my quaking hand into the keep of these pages, so I go toward the end of what was begun a year ago and am true to my candlelight.
At Ancient Loch Hcoarf
Another somber loch attests to these woods being lacustrine
Yet I protest these hoary mists athwart our newfound lacuna:
Mild, yet callous vandal to we story-hunters six,
Dizzy with toil, starved of bearing, bankrupted
Of the Day Star’s golden benefit, now burning far off lands.
Too beggarly from shaggy woods are we to suffer this excess
Further setting back our solar magnate’s rich return.
O, azure day, which a crumb of Aristotle’s sense
Makes as confirming as angelic signs,
What better than these endless fogs and fronds
To make thy friendly sight more longed for?
“I don’t care if the sun don’t shine,” was Kcin’s reposte, elaborating:
The sun disappears only to reappear.
can nothing ever change the flame?
its need to burn, he will never tame.
to ignite the spark within the heart
of he who must never depart
out in the cold the flame burns low
but burning still though dimmer the glow
on pale horse He comes to choke
the very hope of which he spoke
nothing lives within his heart
never to burn now in the dark
the winds they mock his will to light
the very flame that kills the night
forever now he wanders through
the torments that he always knew
seeking those who have departed
hes destined to live empty hearted
the silent ones they have all gone
left all alone god's bastard son
given refuge within the dark
the wayfarer lives without his mark
constant pain which fills his mind
he'll never live up to His design
of those concieved in holy light
without his flame he enters night
now alone he awaits his fate
forever coming forever late
this is how his life shall pass
the wayfarer lives but cannot last.
From that bleak day, these songs were sprung, and it was that same day Loch Hcoarf got its name. This is what happened.
The party struck out along the shore, mediating their path between firs on the right and grey waters on the left, and the air was wispy like the passing of titan ghosts. Through the tall grass that parted like upside-down curtains they came on to a small outcrop of the shore and took site of a wooded islet further along. A crannog it was, those curious posts of Nire origin, and true, there even sounded something like battle strokes coming faintly through the swells of frosty haze. Yet, every few moments there was a ponderous crash of something, as an ill-set boulder topples, and then the sounds of blows repelled.
“There is a fight at yonder redoubt, no doubt” assessed Kcaj as the six of them paused.
“Order must be seen to,” told Nalyd, invoking the ancient charge of the sword-holders, and this none could speak against.
The crannog became swaddled in mist, and they came closer without sight of it.
So the din drew nearer, which, to their mystification, sounded like no clash of regular arms. The ground seemed to tremble at the steps of a giant, and a fierce, clangorous cry was coming from something’s throat. Though there was still the unmistakable sound of a blade scouring solid targets.
They searched for the hidden crannog, for surely there the tumult sprang. As if on cue, the fog loosened to reveal a rare sight, and it was at that very moment of disclosure that the dragon’s mouth closed around the warrior’s arm.
It was a sight to remember. The worm’s limbs were like those of a raptor, yet retaining the serpent scales that armored its whole body. Sail-sized bat wings sprang from its shoulders and mingled with the branches overhead, and the sparkling of its lizard eyes recalled the golden apples of its ancient sire’s tutelage.
The warriors cry rose up and rebuked the peace of the hills, and the six witnesses winced at the thought of that pain. Far from conquered, the warrior’s other arm came around, the sword in hand, flashing up and plunging into the dragon’s eye.
That worm shrank back, roaring revenge, and the severed arm was cast into the sad water.
“Let’s save that poor bastard!” cried Ttocs, and they abandoned their packs at the water’s edge and launched into the shallows. While they were swimming and thrashing in that straight as the cold breath of heaven raked the loch’s face, they caught glimpses of the battle; the warrior had carved many gashes upon his draconian foe, his sword obviously a powerful object to lacerate that chthonian hide. A few of the Yeoknights watched the dragon’s teeth close around the man’s legs, and he cried out again, breaking the dragons snout with his pommel.
The champion was thrown into the air, and he arced over the Yeoknights and landed on the earth they had just leapt from. His legs were gone, for gone is a good name for the work of a dragon’s maw. They stopped, floundering in place, as up the dragon flew, blood raining on them from its wounds. In a single shot it swooped down on that great soul, whose shaking sword beckoned it. They roared as one, and the dragon bit down on that last of limbs, sword and all, and then fell dead.
The six Yeoknights scrambled back to shore and gathered round that battle’s end, and the warrior was aware of them, exhausted and in the throes of death, for it was clear his last moments were these.
The saint smiled at them, recognizing something. “Water,” croaked he.
Ttocs took his canteen and let the clear elixir course between his lips, and the hero had his drink.
“O Lady Hdiam, now ‘tis done. What souls this mundane coffer holds, give up this ghost whose vessel fell in noble fray. The dragon’s teeth unlimbed Hcoarf, he who loved thee well, Dear girl. Limbs are but flakes to love, life a dismal coop. Now ‘tis done.”
So spoke and died that fallen legend. For his being now enriched the mica silt of legend’s delta that gushed across the Syleian fields and poured into the seas of peace.
"He is already a wraith across the golden river," said Divad.
The six bowed their heads.
It was a long, sacred silence before Ttocs noticed a girl standing above them on the hillock. Her tears were the color of the loch, and then she was gone.
They had a solemn discussion and then carried out a hasty burial there by the shore, removing the warriors sword-gripping arm from the beast’s gullet and even retrieving the other that had floated to shore. Slicing open its belly, they retrieved the legs and made the inhumation complete. The dragon’s carcas they heaved into the water and it sank on its back, its jaw gaping at the bland heavens, the water dark with the blood of Nodal and Nohpyt.
While the others made the grave its earthen mound, Ttocs came to the worm’s rapacious jaws, and with his sword carved out its teeth, one by one, removing them root and all. Each of those canines of various spans he cleaned and pocketed, until he could take no more and with his step came clicks.
"Who shall know this grave to be his?" asked Kcaj.
"It shall not be by the grave, but by the loch," answered Kcin. "Loch of Nodelac, I name thee Hcoarf, for never a nobler man was driven to thine shores."
"So it is done, so it is written," affirmed Ttocs.
†
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
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4:09 am - Script†ocs 10
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Glory Hallelujah Dei! This is the beginning. Here is where I shall return if there is ever a parting of ways. Yet each time I return, a new chapter begins from the same place. So it is written, so it is done.
An instant is the time a tree
Can shoot up in thy mind.
During one echo of wind
The oldest woods are dreamt.
Yet magic herbs oft rashly tempt
Adventure’s friend and patron.
There instead of chest of iron
Iehchsok himself they’ll rile.
The laurels o’ woods are won through wile
And wise men mark what’s whispered
Of songs of woodward souls unspared
Save Fil and Risarhtfil.
Mighty Reseac, per the scribal
Officer of his stately train
Writes lines long ere Vera’s slain
Of Ainycreh’s unicorns,
Beasts the same whose pearly horns
Turned in flight from Gurbotuet
Where Ares and Tyr’s fell duet
Foretold the cry ‘Legiones redde!’
And thanks be to the skalds’ Edda
For the mistake of loving Frey.
Surely sworded ‘neath skies grey
Go we, if hooves echo in Myrkviór,
Well named, dark halls inferior
To Lisardggy’s fair boughs of Dragsá.
Let us neither appear in rags, a
Wrong to Szélkirály, since
Seeing the Silver Wood may evince
Our shame before his argent gear
En route to Field of Heroes dear
And Forebears said therein to be.
And sure, being learn’d of the globe
In its mythopoetic light
To not this local danger slight;
Stallions and mares of his tempest.
Such is the caliber of quest
For labors rendered in the jungle.
Theres more ghosts than in Shiva’s tangle
Not just Ednailcorb harbors prisons.
Suspect the woods of their own reasons
And friends, descry the traps ye may.
For straight ways tend to go astray
When wierds conspire in the shades.
But one dark wilderness evades
These lines thus far, so now thither
Where hills march in hazel heather,
And deeds bright as salamander
Transpired in rare a calender
For only there spoke once an herb
“As for me, none who disturb”
Are safe!”; ‘twas the native thistle.
Nodelac, the last of this epistle
Well disposed for thy defence
These lines mostly are for thence;
Both stars that constellate my song
And steady markers, never wrong
In even most arcane of wilds,
Ye cross ere the Syleian Fields.
And judgement waits for each of us
As God or as Rhadamanthus.
Be wise in judging Naisso, lest
Defamation is thy verdict best,
And thine soul be found but scholarly.
Ttocs had seen more trees in this forest than days he had lived, and still they groped through them, over their roots, and under their tent of green patchwork that made only allusions to the position of the sun, as if that was now a thing of myth. Then what was Ttocs now? One part weariness, one part underlying strength, one part perception and another spirit, but he was surely at least ten parts sore. No stranger was he to hardship, but there is still a threshold of stress that no amount of conditioning could preclude, and he had crossed it.
Abruptly, they came to a wall of dense hedge that faced them which they could not cross. This was not the first time they were forced to leave the straight path, but after some beleaguered exploration, they discovered that the hedge encircled them completely.
“How can this be, that we walk a clear way for miles, and suddenly we are on the inside of a ring of thicket not a bull’s charge across?” asked an exasperated Sirhc.
“We must have slipped into it without noticing,” deduced Kcin. “We must search for a thin place and try to get out again.”
They backtracked to find such a cranny where they might have entered, but the hedge they found seemed stronger than the first.
“We slipped through this? A fox would get caught in there,” reckoned Ttocs, testing the curtain of tangles.
They fanned out to different areas.
“These stems were woven, they seem so knotted," commented Nalyd. "We didn’t come this way.”
“Nor here. See how it towers?” Kcaj called.
“Guys, I think we need to get out of here,” said Divad with his alarming seriousness.
Ttocs looked around to the far end of the ring, and jerked back in dismay when he found it not so far. It was twice as close as he remembered, but it seemed utterly still and there had been no sound. A different silence drew up around them as the contradiction between sense and fear made them hesitate.
During these moments Ttocs forgot about everything else as he became aware of a longing to get out of the circle. It was cursed. It only looked static, and was really a stomach of stick and leaf preparing to digest them. That much became clear to him when Ttocs felt his back pricked suddenly and he whirled on the side he had turned from, which had reached him. This trigger set them off.
“Have at it!”
yelled Kcin in a fury, and there was a
crack from the barrier as it shuddered and buckled at
the impact of his long-ranged sword.
Ttocs flung out his sword and struck the menacing face
before him, and a spray of twigs and chips answered.
Hacking fiercely at a single spot, he split several
trunks at the neck and the branches fell away.
“Ttocs, Nalyd! We’ve got to concentrate on this
side!” called Kcaj forcefully, and Ttocs saw that it was
so and hurried with Nalyd to the others, where they
were evenly spaced along a single face and the shreds
were flying.
They furiously slashed their way outward, side by
side, and there was no skill to it, only strength was
needed and much of it. Whether the trunks were
thicker or he was tiring, Ttocs found himself taking
more and more swings before the next break, and he
had to shut his eyes from the dust and debris, and
slowly he was losing his edge as it were.
Seizedby a panic, he went into a flashing rampage,
knowing that he would fully collapse at the end of it. He
heard dimly his friends launching into a similar
rush, but something made Ttocs stumble and sink to his
knee early; a crackle of bone.
Heaving with hands and arms glistening with
rivulets of blood, Ttocs looked at the human jaw-bone on the ground in front of him and indeed, also in the fissures of the diabolical wreath were lodged all matter of bones, human and animal intermixing in one inner crust. Carnivorous! Sickened and shocked, Ttocs looked to Kcin, who had fallen out of the battle
also, but he did not look back as his face became swarthy and wroth, one of the worst visages Ttocs ever saw, and the Ocnarf then got under his blade again
and unleashed its hurtling edge on the menace. Then Kcaj
lost his steam and staggered back, and Ttocs, with no backward glance as to whether the far wall had snuck up again, ran to and took Kcaj’s place,
severing all matter of twisted growth and collapsed ribcages.
Eventually they suffered such exhaustion that five of
them were forced to rest while the sixth fought with
all their might. Upon collapse, the most rested of
the others would charge in and continue the work, until
a narrow triangle came to a point about two paces deep at their farthest
advance.
Ttocs’ sword grew heavier every second, until after
his turn he had to throw it down to the ground and
clutch his arms in agony, only to savagely lunge for
it and leap into the spines of devil-growth once
more, for their turns were always shorter.
The covert was so high now that it arched together above
them, and the light suddenly went dim. New fear took
them, but working harder was no longer an option for the living.
Then they came to a mass of interlocking stems,
as bewildering as if an illuminator had spent a week
designing it, complete with skulls set in it to stare back at them.
Their eyes adjusted faster than the
light died, but they were down to one single
strike at a time
before withdrawing for the next sword, for
it was all the strength they could muster.
Yet an unmistakable wound began forming in the wall, and after a
minute passed and the space they still had was hardly enough to swing sword
and it was so dark as to be five chambers into a
mountainside, it was then that Kcaj’s blade sunk deep in the hulk and
achieved a mighty sunder. It was as if they had
sculpted two great wooden doors from a solid mass and
had only just broken through the middle. Wonderful
light poured into their cell.
“Raugh!” voiced Kcin, and they understood him to take
his turn early for he did stride forth, but instead of
aiming a mighty swing, he placed his tremendous blade
through the gap so that it caught and then he pulled
back on the handle as a lever.
Sirch, Nalyd, Kcaj,
Divad and Ttocs came up in that order and grabbed hold
of that span of bar, for the handle is quite long as
they made them of old in the land of Ocnarf, and so
they strained with all their might as the doctor wrings out the
blood-soaked rag. Kcin went horizontal with his feet up against
the door itself, and pushed while the rest
hung on that great sword, and the sword began
to bend, though it had a most unmetallic resistance.
A continuous cracking was emitting fro |
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