Shadows & Sorcery #135
The results are in, and it’s the one-hundred and thirty fifth edition of Shadows & Sorcery!
Nothing funny this week, folks, don’t worry. In fact, it’s deadly serious. Unrelentingly grim, you might say. Why’s that? Oh, desperate times ahead, what with all these dangerous cosmic phenomena, dying holy flames, and endless post-apocalyptic wars. Shocking stuff!
Now, next week is the next chapter of The Path of Poison and we are FINALLY out of those damn woods. Wait, what woods? If thou art new to the fantasy adventure serial, you should take a look at the nifty new subsection we (we meaning me) have for it on here!
The same can and will be said for last week’s edition, if you just got here or missed it! It’s a good ‘un!
And lastly, my friends, please take a second to let the stories know you liked them—tap that little heart button!
This week, we delve into the grim lore of Cosmic Oblivion, we join two monks on a desperate mission to save the Saint’s Fires, and we join an aged commander fighting in the War of the Forsaken…
Cosmic Oblivion
The eye slides over them, yet the mind can perceive something is there. Or rather, is missing. We know of them not because we can see them, but because of how the cosmos acts around them. In our expeditions into the pure aether, we have determined that nothing that touches them can continue to exist for long—existence fails to persist upon contact. There is a breakdown, a decay into nothing, a total erasure. And yet the rest of the cosmos touches them and continues to be, for they exist within the cosmos. They are utter paradoxes. Astromancers are obsessed with them.
It was once believed the world, as a whole, as a single unit or system or organism, even, had some kind of spirit or multitudes of spirits within or throughout it. Shamans in prehistoric ages would be able to commune with these spirits and draw their power out from the water, the trees, the stone, the stars, and so on, through induced trance, ascetic practices, or long bouts of intense meditation—all to achieve altered states of consciousness, or as well know now, receptivity. Everything had its own ability, was the idea. Man's was the channelling of these natural forces. It was what built the world we live in, this ability to channel or redirect or awaken or reshape the natural force everything had.
But now we know it isn't a spirit, but rather some quirk of creation, some higher law, that these aspects—not forces or powers or anything like that, but aspects, abstract and yet tangible descriptions that make up reality's functions—may pass and move about. The virility of plant life may be actively impressed upon something, heat may be drawn, or coolness spread over or into an object, the actual hardness of stone can be applied to those same objects. The list goes on, as far as one can see, as far as one's imagination goes. Humans are channel, focus, and catalyst all at once. It is in our biology.
And the most damning evidence of all for those pockets of oblivion, those cessations of being, is because, as the old wizards would say, their power can be drawn.
Remmad writes in a private letter, compiled by our master, Dynaseauz, that, in its smallest doses, the aspect of cessation, or erasure, had once been used in certain southern hospices to remove the pain in pox-afflicted victims. In one alleged case, after some fifty-odd failed experiments, it was used to remove the pox completely. In all other cases, the pox was removed, but the domino effect of oblivion consumed the patients whole over the course of a week. Near the end, Remmad writes, the wailing "ghosts" of the victims were unable to be contained, but eventually faded away. After that, records of the patients in the hospice and town chronicles began to vanish, too. It was only by the strong, consistent, and as far as we can tell, ongoing and secret application of other living, vivacious aspects of growth, that the mere memory of these all but erased victims continues to exist in reality.
But that, of course, is not all. Remember well that these things are paradoxical in their being, or contrast to actual being. Their paradoxy is no less something that can be applied to the world. You can begin to comprehend how negation and contradiction of being might be used, if you have the imagination and stomach for it. Wise astromancers have envisioned nightmares out of the mere suggestion that have made them set aside their life's work. Less wise astromancers have been killed for it.
I shouldn't even be writing this down. The aspects of oblivion and paradox, if ever they escaped containment within circles of morally conscious astromancers, may very well—no, they would without doubt spell the end of the world. No one can ever be too careful. Not even you who are reading this.
And yet, I am a naturalist. Before anything else in my life, I am a naturalist. The pursuit of truth, wherever it may be, whatever it may be, no matter how wild, how beyond belief or what we call reason, the attainment of TRUTH is the highest and most noble calling of any life, and it is MY calling.
It is your calling, also. You wouldn't be reading this if it were not the case. You would not be counted among our number. You would not be trusted with what awaits you just beyond.
Saint's Fires
It sat on the end of two of Samiq's fingers. A frail little thing, wavering slow and serene, an opaque ember of amber hue, with an emerald tinge at its extremities. Samiq brought her hand back slowly, watching the tongue of fire trail in the air, her eyes wide with reverence and concern. That it found purchase upon her like this was an honour, but it still wouldn't take root. She stepped back and flashed a nervous smile to her brother monk whose gaze was fixed upon the more than half ashen remains of the dead saint. You could still see, amidst the piles of beads, talismans, wooden idols, bone charms, heaped coloured cloth, and robe-wreathed bones, the remains of a thin, burnt grey arm attached to a curved stump that once was a torso, and most of a leg, still in a meditative position. Over it all, like a skin, and creeping amidst the offerings, that same short amber flame with its emerald lining.
Samiq gave Marsho a moment as she turned. The fellow was rapidly mouthing prayers. One fist was held to his chest in a martial devotional gesture, the other was clenched about the sappo cudgel at his waist he had never relinquished. From the look on his brow, Samiq wondered if it wasn't desperation, and not the mounting frustration she had feared that she now saw in her friend's eyes. And then, when she watched Marsho remove the sappo and place it on the saint's lap, she did not say anything, but she knew.
It had been so long, and offerings would only go so far. But the ascetics trained their whole lives for this. She hadn't their training, but Samiq would happily accept immolation if she could. Dreams and hopes of a fresh new flame rushed through her head as they took their solemn procession through the sandy-coloured, vaulted temple passage. She imagined striding through these bright, airy, venerable halls to bring the flame upon the sick, to spread amidst barren lands, to cultivate and cleanse. These grounds were once centers for the highest calling of self-perfection. But these days monks were too busy running to and fro with sputtering embers that died all too soon.
The ascetic cells lay through an artificial cave, a liminal space to further separate them from the world. It was just deep enough so that at one point the sunlight failed entirely, and there was a moment of absolute darkness, save for two pale points in either distance. The flame on Samiq's fingers played strange light across the walls of that space, more like how light plays off the surface of water than anything. As the light began to grow again, as did the details on this half of the cave wall. For the entire walk, the carved images of past saints, scorched by holy fires, sat in oval recesses, one hand raised with two fingers held up. At intervals were ash pits to clean one's hands in. But Samiq and Marsho were delivering a holy flame, and were exempt from the otherwise necessary, and lengthy, ablutions.
The cells lay amidst an untouched wilderness of loamy earth, swaying trees, and small caves the ascetics dwelt in, emulating and reflecting the images of saints. But above all this, were two things: the heady, indescribable musk on the air, and the trails of lazy smoke that snaked between the thin old trunks, glinting particles in them catching the hazy, filtered sunlight. The breeze through the forest canopy was like a chant unto itself, how it flowed almost with deliberation.
The cave they sought wasn't too far in. It was flanked by two small braziers on stone pillars to mark them in the nigh formless greenery. Within was the ascetic, covered almost entirely save for the head in shapeless yellow robes. Arranged on little shelves, natural depressions, and upon the stone ground, were clay dishes filled with coloured substances which smoked, filling the recess. Around this, a dozen open texts and scrolls whose details were impossible to discern. A bushy, unkempt face caked in painted designs peered out of the dreamy haze. They eyes locked onto Samiq's out-held fingers. The young monk wasn't exactly sure what came next, so stepped forward while Marsho bowed low.
From within the bundle of yellow, an arm emerged, wrapped in loose bindings, inscribed with ancient, fire-tongue shaped script. The hand slowly uncurled and met Samiq's. With a tremble, the ascetic's fingers gently and with great reserve closed around the monk's. He did not grasp the finger, but held them, and the green-tinged amber flame upon them. A moment passed, and the hand came away, shaking. The fingers closed, and the arm was lowered with a perceptible shudder, bereft of flame. Samiq began to mouth something, but made no sound, utterly unsure what to even do. Without words, the ascetic took from behind him a black gourd, and a short, thick, curving dagger. He rose and walked with staggering steps back towards the cave. The two monks looked to each other, each asking the same question but unable to provide an answer, so followed.
On the other side, monks attending to mundane duties stopped to glimpse the long trail of yellow and its staring, despairing face enter the saint's hall. Samiq and Marsho followed, the latter moving aside several gathering novitiates from the entrance. He was about to shut the wooden gate after Samiq, but from the dais within came three words in a cracked voice.
"Please, leave me."
Samiq stumbled back out of the chamber, bowing quickly, while Marsho held his fist to his chest, and shut the gate as the ascetic was seen to uncork the black gourd and down its contents. A moment later, they heard a short, sharp grunt from within, but did not investigate.
Marsho shooed away the novices as he looked to Samiq with hollow eyes. Well, thought the young monk, with a mild tremor, they had their orders. There was a village that could do with this.
War of the Forsaken
Marshall Ceirach drunk deep of the rank, oily battlefield stench. That he recognized it as such, despite being the only smell he'd ever known, was one of life's little curses that made everything so much worse. But it also served to freshly inflame the anger and bitterness. No better drive in life was there than that. Maybe not even the Tower. It rose from the cloying smog of rotting corpses and smoke that was spread out like a vile ocean, whose tendrils seeped into everything. Battle never really stopped, but it came in waves, and lulled at points. Ceirach took these moments, like, he suspected, many of his kind did, to gaze upon that Tower.
Amidst the decaying scraps of the old world, the Tower was the only true mark of the gods that remained, a vast monolith rising into the eternally black, cloud-laden sky through which red thunderbolts coursed silently, bathing the world in blood red. Inside of it was salvation for the forsaken. Or so Ceirach, and those who still fought for the right to enter it believed, at least. But he had a sneaking suspicion his commander-general had begun to lose faith. Faith, Ceirach laughed inwardly. Now, where had that been for their kind? It had found purchase in them all too late.
A scout entered Ceirach's tent—really just a length of ragged fabric held up by four rotting stakes—and placed the report on the the stump before slinking back out. The fellow had lost his tongue some years ago. Ceirach unfurled the rough scroll. There was still a pretence of strategy and planning about all this. There were no less than seven enemy encampments, two lurking in the remains of an ancient Titan, one in the crumbling remnants of a Watchtower Temple—Ceirach wanted in there, he noted down, before they could use any of its magics against him—and finally the rest were spread about, one in the open, practically daring to be assaulted.
Ceirach was one of the original forsaken. He was old, gnarled, but rage spurred his limbs on still. He remembered the Great Battle, long after the Saviour and the Prince had each taken their faithful to whatever outer realm they now dwelt in, when the Vaesyr battle-gods had cast down the last of the Titans, and one final Song of Honour and Might resounded in the wake of their glorious ascendance to new world. He remembered that song, and the dim memory of it stirred him sometimes. The dagger-axe at his waist was a Prince-folk weapon, plundered from a half-buried Palace Temple, its intricate geometrical decorations clearly visible despite some decades of blood, bile, and slime that had washed over it. The twelve thin little medallions around his neck were his own secret stash of Saviour-folk grace-given gifts, whose regenerative, purifying properties were no longer needed by the corpses they had lain with. And soon, he'd be able to add some some magic from the nameless wandering folk to his arsenal.
All these marks of faith. The commander-general had been born long after the gods left, so he didn't know. He clung to these things only because he had not been there to feel the absence of any embrace, because he did not have the resentment and regret the oldest forsaken nursed in their hearts. For him, it was all just tools of sorcery and conquest. No tenderness, no potential. Ceirach had begun to think the commander-general was enjoying it all. A lot of his younger kind ended up that way. Even after the end times there were still further godless depths to sink to, it seemed. Would Ceirach rather the commander-general be trying to resurrect Titans? Not particularly. Or seek oblivion from the mistake of life? No, that was like giving up. Would Ceirach rather the endless war continue then? He didn't know if another choice existed. Not with the forsaken.
This free-for-all onslaught was the ultimate reflection of themselves: scornful, but hungry. The promise of salvation, or at least a purpose of some kind, tugged at their souls. The Tower was not in reach yet, not for his band. There were many who had made it much closer, only to be engulfed in conflicts of such fury that no one emerged from them. It was like the closer they got to the blasted thing, the worse they became. And he didn't believe it was the Tower's doing. It was them. Why not just wipe the world clean, then, he wondered of the gods? Why make us suffer? Because there was salvation in that Tower. And the forsaken had to work for it now that the time for freely given faith was long past. It was the only answer that made sense. Cruelty was the domain of the forsaken, after all.
A horn sounded. And then two others in the distance. So much for that wandering folk magic. At least for now, anyway. Someone else had come along, but Ceirach stopped himself as he went to jump up. There were thoughts—more notions, or impressions than thoughts really, that stayed him. Just for a second. Uncertainty, but not indecision. Not hesitancy. Futility that asked a question, rather than the usual pit in the stomach it made.
But standing here wouldn't get him or his people any closer to the Tower.