Shadows & Sorcery #124
No funny business this week we’re getting right down to business, business being the one hundred and twenty fourth edition of Shadows & Sorcery
A triple bill of classic S&S-style dark fantasy flash fiction awaits ye below. Would YOU wear a cursed ring? Do you think this pilgrim will be the one? Let me know in the comments!
Missed the last edition? Or have you just signed up? No fear! Take a look at #123’s (my birthday edition!) deep dive into a world of undead magic HERE
Also, the 21st chapter of The Path of Poison came out last week, and the woods are getting weird, check that out HERE
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This week, we venture forth to seek the abode of the moon in Lunar Plateau, we discover the dire importance behind an Enchanter’s Silence, and we learn the weight of history and duty upon the Pilgrim’s Armour…
Lunar Plateau
On a clear night, he could almost see it. Whenever Zemyaz focused his lenses on the horizon, on the moon's upward ascent, he would swear to himself and his personal gods he could almost see it—the abode of the moon. It’s home in the sky. The countless records in countless archives in countless old palaces and temples, they had spurred him on, and he believed—no, he knew it existed because he had spent years of sleepless nights tracing the moon's paths across the soft dark heavens, upon perilous mountain peaks and minaret summits, gazing into the farthest reaches of the world.
It came always from one place, and to that place it returned.
Zemyaz was an astrologer, and the skies were his domain. No star, no comet, and certainly moon crossed the heavens without his knowledge. His charts were the finest in the land, and the sorcerer-kings held him in high esteem, for it was from his wisdom did they draw their awesome power, though none would dare say so. And neither would he, for though their magics depended upon him, they might still have a blade run through him just fine. As such, finding the moon's abode served two purposes: to quench his thirst for knowledge, and ingratiate himself to the court for all time.
With leave from the king himself, Zemyaz bid his underlings follow his charts to the very letter and dot—he did not desire to return to a smoking ruin. He gazed upon the gargantuan gates of the city as he departed in his cerulean robes, flanked by sandstorm-smoothed guardian deities and the warriors with their bronze blades which crowded under them, then out past low walls covered in cracked reliefs of the mythical journey the ancestors had taken to the valley, and out into the lush plains of golden grass and low, wide trees in whose shade farmers lazed and sang. A paradise.
Out past the sighing winds and gentle songs of birds did he go, into the arid, barren hills—the bulwark against old enemies long dead, and now a sombre burial ground of kings. Ancient tombs were scattered across these broad ranges, their jagged obelisks pointing to individual stars. Zemyaz knew the name and power of each one, and recited them as he walked the long burial path.
Over the final ridge of the final hill did he go, having known in his quest only the whisper of errant breezes, the scuttle of great shellback beetles, and his own voice as he filled the lonely nights with the names of the heavens and calls to the moon, as his campfires lit only a small ring in the desolate darkness. And then, there came the desert, the striking vista of snaking canyons, towering mesas, red clay and golden dunes. A parched, slumbering landscape whose absolute stillness spoke to ages beyond the ken of mankind.
It was a fortnight's ceaseless travel through gorge floors flooded with sand flows, around mesas more like vast petrified trunks than wind-shorn rock, and under storm-blasted arches, until he came to the edge of the map. He marked well his first footfall into a realm unknown by even his venerable race. This was history, he knew it. He felt it. He looked into the alien horizon, and let himself see the moon's own abode in heaven rise from beyond. For every night of his journey, he faced the moon's ascent, and believed it became a little clearer every time.
Then, one day, it rose suddenly from beyond the heat haze at the end of the vast stone corridor.
Amidst a plane of swirling dust whose furthermost distance melted into an unreal horizon of pale oil-slick cloud, a vast tableland rose from the bare earth. The ache in Zemyaz's bones told him this was it. As he approached, this plateau seemed encompass all the world around him. Thus he began a perilous climb while the distant sun sent down its searing rays onto the cracked stone, clambering upon great spans of shelves and snaking paths like the great steps of some giant's palace. Beetling spires were to him as towering pillars and minarets holding up the sky itself and gazing upon his reverent approach.
As the bright azure of the day melted into deep navy, Zemyaz attained the summit of the plateau. The great rugged expanse was cracked and uneven, and in its far center, he could see the landscape slowly descend into a colossal depression. To the rim of this did he wander in a daze for hours, until something new caught his sight, lifted the fog from his brains, and shot a nervous energy through his numb muscles.
A long, thin crescent first showed itself, as wide a mountain. And it moved. Against the inkiness of the night, it was dazzling, almost blinding. It showed, as it rose from the depression, that it was of swirling, almost pearlescent smoke composed of a multitude soft greys and the most curious reflections of light upon what seemed to be a glossy, polished surface of purest crystal. And it continued to rise until the thin crescent became a broad one, and then a full half-circle illuminating the entire plateau in a phantasmal milky radiance. It rose slowly, never ceasing its climb, until it was ready to begin its nightly path across the whole sky.
Zemyaz had all but touched a piece of heaven. And it had come from within the earth.
But, came the question unbidden as his world suddenly found its horizons expanding beyond what he could contain, did he dare gaze into the maw whence the moon had risen?
What returned to the city, a full three months after its departure, looked and sounded in all ways like the old sage Zemyaz. But it was not the same man. Not really. His wise counsel was passed from generation to generation, and disseminated far and wide. His charts of the sky are still without equal. His knowledge of the celestial bodies, their hours, and their corners, are still deemed formidable, and form the basis of many magical traditions.
And yet, when no one was watching, when there was no work, no augur to make, when he closed his eyes at night, his mind could not help but recall every moment of his flight through that world of blinking lights, shining metal, bodiless voices, flying chariots, living paintings, and eternal twilight, and all that he was taught, but must never speak of. When the moon would rise, Zemyaz would look up upon it, and know that somewhere, one of the masters was looking down upon him in kind.
Enchanter's Silence
Most rings are not true rings. They have seams, joints, they've been broken and reforged. They have been made in noise. Breath, whisper, even a mildly excited heartbeat may spell disaster during a ring's shaping, and this doesn't even consider any other potential sound from outside the ring-forger's chamber. Should even one of those three former things slip in, it would bind the enchanter's breath, voice, words, or heart to the spell. It would require the ring to be kept safe for til the end of time. It make a slave of the poor fool to whom it happens. This grim fact has historically been hung over the heads of convicts and traitors, or hidden from tyrants. Such things invariably occur, and thus the world is populated by countless cursed rings bearing heavy prices for their wearing. A damned art, most would say.
True rings, though, they are without beginning, without end, from their origin as a pool of molten ore fished from the earthen deeps, to the final finished band. There is no joining, no addition, a true ring is an utterly unbroken circuit down to its very core. And coursing through that circuit is the spell which is no less a part of the unbroken ring. Indeed, the ring is the spell.
True ring-forging is an elite vocation. Common, imperfect rings have, too, powers upon them, but they are of a lesser calibre. All things put into a ring exist in perpetuity. The difficulty in creating silence is costly and time consuming. But for those with the coffers to support it, the results are enough to build myths on top of. To wear a spell, is to wear power. This the makers and owners of true rings know.
A velvet-lined room, satin robes, padded slippers, and a silk mask and gloves. They are a necessity. The crack and sizzle of fire is permissible, as is the clink of tools. In fact, it is sometimes desirable. If not, gelatin covers can absorb the impact as needs be. The spell is prepared along with the ring. The sigil is not drawn anew, but taken from an existing impression—this is to create continuity. It must then be taken from an existing spell—an existing ring. To get a ring-bearer to permit this is rare. Most often they are killed for their rings. Death is as much a part of the unbroken circuit as the spell itself. No expense must be spared for those seeking a true ring of their own.
So, are you prepared?
Pilgrim's Armour
A small shrine sits where each one fell. You will know them. Six-faced spires, tall and thin, surmounting four arched gates in which sits an eternal flame that burns bright through fog and darkness, a beacon to those who come next.
You, pilgrim.
They all were clad the same armour you have come far to claim. The cloth that adorns it may change, but never the iron. They all died in it, too. Great pains are taken to recover it each time. Do not forget this.
The first of your kind heard the call in a land now far to the west, and long dead. The call moved east, to where we are now. To where you heard it. But the quest lies to the south.
Helm of Saint's Visage. Scales of the Deepfin. Breastplate of the Name. Bracers of Ghyron's Grip. The Giantsthew Greaves. They lie in the pentacle, go to them now.
Look to every smoothed dent, every dulled edge, every scratch, every mended rent, and learn from them. That is every mistake every pilgrim has ever made. They will remain.
But every step they took, pilgrim, those shall also remain, and be with you. Feel the weight and the motion and know you have never been and never will be alone. Their steps will carry you forward, they will make you strong and wise. Let them carry you. The power of a thousand pilgrims courses through this armour. We pray you are the last...as we have the others.
No pilgrim has ever seen the end of the quest—yet. We know all that they knew, as we have recovered the armour. Just as their shrines shall be your guide, they will, too, be your boundary. What dwells beyond the shrine of your predecessor, this, we pray, is only for you to know.
Is the world truly so grim? The peril so great? That no pilgrim has met the quest's end in time out of mind? It is so. But, we pray, not for you. Our prayers are for you—they've always been for you, should you be the one to finish the quest.