Shadows & Sorcery #133
There’s a good chance that some 500 billion years from now, when the heat death of the universe has really set in, the final message some ancient biomechanical computational device will get, as it drifts in and out eternal hibernation, its liquid cell memory banks finally drying up, is a feeble electronic impulse its instinct-algorithms will decode as the latest edition of Shadows & Sorcery.
Anyway, this week we’re dealing with three tales of deep magics and forces, and you’re gonna read about them. You must. It’s the only way you’ll know.
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This week, we are in search of old lore in the Conjuror’s Archives, we muse upon the power of the Saint of Winter, and we join the wizard Alzared as he faces off against a Dragon of the Undead…
Conjuror's Archives
It sat the top of the tower, behind three locked doors, before each of which was a statue which would only move if the right word was spoken. Melicha had been mouthing the words over and over all the way up the ascent. This was the first time Master Auleim had trusted his apprentice to come up here. It may have been a small task, but it was important. It was in the archives.
The Master had been careful to impart nothing but the most terrifying facts to his apprentice. How they say the first conjuration was an accident. Something in a storm, perhaps, or on the slopes of a rumbling volcano. How it had plunged the whole world into cultish fanaticism for two thousand years as humanity slaughtered itself in the scramble to call its gods down from the heavens. How the things that dwelt beyond the veil were as petty and as violent as mankind was, and readily shared each other's secrets with their squabbling worshippers. How anything one desired could be conjured so easily, and how it had ruined and had broken countless souls, and had buried whole kingdoms under a tide of greed and avarice. How man now lived in a wasteland that had known the touch of powers beyond its ken whose foothold in this world would never be undone.
All of this and more echoed in Melicha's mind as she spoke the final word to the final statue. Yet no trepidation set in as perhaps it should have. There was only the trembling excitement of finally setting foot into the Master's archives. The air within was immediately cooler than the rest of the tower. It flooded the lungs with its damp stone smell. The ceiling was a large dome of blue glass, opaque from over a century of weathering and age. The further reaches of the place dwelt in soft, deep shadow.
There was a sound in this place. Like the low, long roar of a torrential river, or a raging fire, or storm wind. A crack in the masonry was the likely culprit in as old a tower as this. But still, it felt almost more inwards, like something pressed upon the inner ear. A sense of depth. The atmosphere only continued to grow as she stepped within the tall shelves of the Master's collection. What he wanted was close nearby, one of a distinctive set of thin red leather tomes—tracts upon a particular subject is what she understood them to be.
As Melicha began her search, reverential awe fell upon her once more. This was the collected knowledge, the fruits of a lifetime, and the wisdom of how to use it. And she had been admitted entrance. All about on the heavy wooden shelves were great stone slates, metal sheets bound by hoops, ornate scrolls with golden serpent rollers, loose leaves bound by thick twine or wire, and grimoires with spines more than four fingers wide. She couldn't help but sneak a peek deeper within, even if for just a second, despite the curious weak breeze that now rolled in from from somewhere beyond.
Everything, she noticed, seemed to have a film over it. A thin, barely perceptible drapery—she could tell what these things were, but not the writing on their faces. In the dim light of the archives, it only revealed itself upon closer inspection, like a skin of fine, pale dust. She reached for and brought down one of the thin red books. It too had that film. It was practically swaddled in it. Soft, velvety, it barely seemed able to stay in one's fingers. It looked as if it parted near the pages, out of which dangled dozens of thin strings with labels at the end. She must take the initiative. She looked up and around just as she slid the film away, keenly aware of her transgression, only to find a shadow at the end of the row suddenly step out of sight.
An icy shock shot through her body. In the moment of her fright, her eyes darted down to the book. It had opened in her hand. That caught her attention. An elaborate summoning circle, three layers of it resplendent with strange, flowing, intricate script in a dark ink, and between each layer, long jagged symbols. The full name and sigil of some spirit, right there, bare, in the open. Uncovered. She turned around, and another shadow stepped behind a shelf. In pulling up the thread to investigate the label—to what end she didn't know—the page was turned. A new feeling of pressure appeared, but this one was like the sensation of something hovering very closely over the skin, creating an unpleasant sort of nervous tingling. It was quite large, and it was around her neck.
About an hour later, in the warm glow of Master Auleim's hearth, she had stopped crying. The old summoner consoled the girl the best he could.
"There was nothing in that book that could hurt you, my dear. Nothing that could come forward in any way that could harm you. But you had to know. And there is no better experience than hubris."
Saint of Winter
Whence came that first folk, not even they could say. Perhaps out of the roiling mists of chaos did they emerge, given shape from some quirk of the formless primordial vitalities. If so, it was chance that bred will into the world-to-be. In that eldest time, it was all they had, and so imposed their orders onto the meaningless chaos that dwells under all reality, and whatever they envisioned, was.
Power was the mark of Being. Power must be exerted lest one ceased to be, and fall back into the formless fog of Might Be. This they knew from the tragedy and loss of their first kindred. And so they become Saints. In those first days, those of weak will exerted themselves on whatever they could, wherever they could, becoming little saints of squalid and forgotten corners that would fester for eternity. So instead of teaching vision, they taught faith. The saints are all dead but their power yet remains, as ghosts and forces to be invoked. Order must be imposed upon the world at all times, and that order is the saints' power and whatever man believes it to be. Faith, ritual, and sanctity perpetuates, and is perhaps the strongest force in all the world after will.
But what is a saint? In the latter days, it is a relative term. A saint is an exemplar, or a paragon, or merely someone of great or terrible power. In short, one with will to impose their own order, so whatever they envision, is. Such is the world, suffused with the countless visions of the first folk and their successor saints, such as the saint of the all-consuming sableflame, whose baleful embers are even now freely invoked, or the saint of stars who sought to weave a tapestry of occult mystery to guide the world, or the saint of sleep, and the saint of dream.
Or, perhaps, the greatest one of all: the saint of winter.
Why the saint envisioned winter will never be known, and that there have been no more saints of winter is almost a certainty. One great vision, so clear, so cold, echoing down through time, in all who see it. Beauty and brutality in equal measure. Death, stillness, purity, silence, slumber. Faith in winter finds its source in both fear and in fascination of these things, and so winter will continue to return forevermore.
One clue as to the reality of winter may be inferred from its most fervent adherents, an ascetic martial order of strict and noble hierarchy who guard the use and faith of winter. They are found wherever human beings are found, and in a way serve as both bastions against, and constant reminders of the existence of winter. Could be that their order is a new vision of winter, but ask any of them and they will claim a primordial existence.
That they name themselves Winter Penitents will often be the final say in the matter.
Dragon of the Undead
The blood always knew its own. That much Alzared could rely on. The steelfolk warrior by his side was loathe to admit it, but it had its place, if nothing else than as a way to sniff out the ancient enemy. This was too close to the Ice Belt for comfort. The land was cold, its stone and rough earth enwreathed in an eternal skin of hoarfrost, a foreboding charnel borderland where the humans of this region had set the fine ashes of their honoured dead for generations beyond count.
And where now something had been raising them up. There was nothing more abhorrent to man or greyfolk than this. Nothing. To the greyfolk it meant denial of entry into the Halls of the Great Ones. For mankind, it meant a return to the enslavement they had escaped so long ago. It was no dragonspawn that had wrought this. It was exactly the kind of malevolence a cult of serpent-men or cabal of draconians would enact, and had enacted far too many times in the past.
The greyfolk's hand tightened around the hilt of the broadsword at his hip, with its handsome basket hilt. He had not offered a name to the sorcerer who carried by his own side a sceptre bearing a globe of dragonblood. All of the greyfolk warrior was stately, stoic storm-grey steel, from skin to hair to eyes to armour. The pale sunlight gave the armour a hazy gleam, while the wizard's charcoal grey robes, mane, and beard, and dusky bronze flesh, were offset only by the searing blue flame of his eyes.
They were the only living things in this ancient ashfield. Or rather, soon they would be.
There was almost a sense of mocking coming from the blood as the strange roar echoed through the mountainside cleft. Cowed under the wizard's will so long, it took any opportunity to gloat. Alzared let it rattle its cage. The ground was an ancient covering of ash here, a hundred generations of human dead, brought together for eternity as one. But a space just ahead of them cracked, and the air above it began to swirl and coalesce. Dread flowed from the shape that began to form. The blood was daring Alzared to do it, even if in defense. There was a fine line between steadfastness of will, and domination. It was all too easy for even the most virtuous magicians to cross that threshold.
Out of the dense cloud of ash, a figure shambled forward, a tall skeletal form of thick, warped bone, the ribs packed tight with ash, the limbs encased in clumps of it. Dust trailed from its hanging maw as it let out a sound like scraping stone. Around it, new cracks shot open as a malevolent growl resounded across the mile-high walls of the cleft, and new bonewalkers were thrown together by the violent winds. The first one lunged forward, as like a puppet on a string. The steelfolk warrior drew up his blade in a flash, meeting the gnarled, claw-like fingers on the basket hilt of his sword. He didn't budge an inch as he knocked aside the limb and threw out his blade in a singing downward arc, cleaving through the undead's arm.
Alzared dealt with the others. He brought forth his sceptre and threw out a wave of flame that blasted clouds of ash from the bonewalkers' bodies.
You could do more than that, the blood said.
The warrior leapt into the fray, crushing a skull with the pommel of his sword and sending a mailled fist into the chest of another. But a third leapt upon him, grasping the steelfolk's head and sword arm, while the last lumbered forward, talons aimed for his face. Alzared thrust forth his sceptre, and with the will of the dragon within the blood, tore the bonewalker from the warrior, wrenching it in two, and melting it back into the dust. That was as far as he was willing to go with that.
The steelfolk deftly dispatched the final undead. He turned to see the wizard's sorrow-laden blue-fire eyes smoulder into an anger he'd barely thought conceivable. For all he was a practitioner of dragonmagick, this wizard was certainly human.
Through a thin passage they went, from whose dusky heights thin streams of ash fell and dissipated before even hitting the ground. The people of this cold region buried their storied dead in special mass tombs, where it was believed some of their might and valour remained to inspire future warriors. And in the middle of this sombre, stately shrine, line with legend slabs, the dragon crouched. Not a cult of serpent-men, and neither a cabal of man-dragons, but a bent, wretched, withered, wyrm-like dragon with snarling visage, tattered wings, and twisting talons. As it lifted a gnarled limb in summoning, and gurgled in its throat, tongues of greenish flame lapped from between its bared teeth.
A dragon's curse is eternal, no matter what it is laid upon. It is the absolute imposition of domination upon a weaker victim, and may only ever be lifted with supreme effort. The race of orcs had been trying and failing that for millennia now, and such seemed to be the goal of this dragon. Enslave the bones of human heroes as a show of its own will, to overcome its curse. The blood by Alzared's side felt it, too. Knew it was among a lesser cousin. Well, thought Alzared, letting the maddening fervour of the dragonblood at his side well up, your curse ends today.
A whirlwind whipped about the inner shrine as ashen skeletons began to form, but the magician flung out his sceptre with a blast of pure force. He knew full well he—or rather, the dragonblood, could command those bones to rise against their tormentor, or to simply dissipate. But he would have no human, dead or alive, swayed by a will not its own, no matter who was in power. The cursed dragon reeled under the weight of the attack, and the half-formed undead shuddered, and began to collapse.
The dragon shirked back. The steelfolk warrior flanked the beast, blade point held out in challenge. Alzared strode forth. The dragon's tail whipped out and sent flying a legend slab. A simple swipe of his sceptre held it in the air, and dropped it to the ground. He thrust the globe out again with a rippling roar that made the dust dance and the cursed dragon buckle in agony. Come on, thought the wizard. This is pathetic.
Anything, man or greyfolk or beast or dragon, backed into the corner, is dangerous beyond compare. Alzared of course knew that, but in this moment, he didn't feel it. Not even as the dragon reared up, and spewed forth of a screaming torrent of verdigris-hued curseflame. The sorcerer parted the stream with his dragonblood sceptre, and a flick of the wrist quelled it at the source. As its talons worked some desperate spell, the steelfolk warrior rushed in from the side, and thrust the broadsword blade through the bony chest and into the knotted mass of its heart. With a choked roar and final spurt of impure flame, the dragon writhed in the air for a second before collapsing, its corpse curling up as if being burnt.
He had enjoyed that too much, thought Alzared. Not that he wasn't entitled to some satisfaction in defeating the ancient enemy, but the blood had enjoyed it, too. Instead, he took solace in the final undead which had fallen to its knees, sigh as if in relief, and crumble back into slumbering ash.
Mayhap now he had earned the warrior's trust, and thus that of his order. A fine ally for all coming battles.