Shadows & Sorcery #125
It’s in the trees! It’s coming! The one hundred and twenty-fifth edition of Shadows & Sorcery! AAAAAA!!!!
I usually have a personal rule about trying to keep story titles as varied as I can in individual issues, but sometimes I get two or three I just feel too good about—as happened this week. A double bill of deathly, necromantic powers it is, then, followed up by…well, you’ll just have to see!
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This week, we confront the dire truth of Northern Death, we bear witness to the grim testament of the Death Flames, and we venture into the verdant wilds to seek the Church of the Knight…
Northern Death
"Scout came back." The veteran's voice was gruff, but familiar.
"When?" The recruit's was youthful, and tired.
"About an hour ago, from over yonder," said the veteran, pointing over the ramparts to the mist-laden hills some leagues off.
"So, what are we up against?" The young man hid his nerves well, but so well enough that the older fellow couldn't hear them.
"Northerners," was the grim the reply.
A short, sharp sigh escaped the recruit.
"Your first time against them, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Bet you've heard a lot of about them, huh?"
"A bit."
"Well, you're gonna learn a lot more soon." His voice went low as he clapped his comrade on the back. "They're all husks."
A shiver audibly escaped the recruit.
"Yeah, I don't blame you. Wretched practice. Sometimes I think we're the only ones in the who world not mucking about with life."
"How do you mean?"
"Well," the veteran leaned on the stone and looked off into the distance, "you know our friends out west have their tithe—you were at the audience with God-King Leor, right?"
"Yeah, I was" the recruit chuckled uncomfortably. "Quite a sight. How old do you reckon he was, anyway?"
"They say he's going on eight hundred. But the one before him? Two thousand. No joke."
"Heavens..."
"I know. What do you do with all that time? Mind you, I think those fellows stop being human after a while, suppose it doesn't matter."
"So what about elsewhere?"
"Elsewhere?" the older man turned his head as he asked, though his sight didn't leave the horizon.
"You said about-"
"Oh, yeah, yeah. Well I know out east is a nightmare. A lot of stories of petty kingdoms run like farms." He glanced to his comrade. "You get the idea. No one wants to touch that, not yet anyway." His gaze returned to the misty hills. "Too much trouble in the heartlands. I mean, at least the God-Kings do something for their people, you know?"
"And the north..." the recruits voice trailed off.
"Husks. They don't die like we do. Not like anyone does, anywhere. And no one knows how they do it—probably don't want to know."
"How...do you mean?"
"Well, we die normal, don't we? Life is meant to lead into life. You know, the body feeds the world, the world feeds us, all that. But them? They keep going. Until it's all spent. Why do you think they call them husks? Damn," he stood up, "I've seen dead men—what ought to be corpses in their graves, walking, marching in step. Once you die up there, your body's forfeit. You keep going until every last ounce of whatever we've got in us is gone."
"It's an honour for them. Isn't it?"
"Yeah," the veteran chuckled grimly, "so they say. Can't die in your bed if death doesn't stop you moving. I'd rather die dreaming of old loves than at the end of some withered horror's blade."
The recruit was silent. The old man looked to his young friend, and realized he probably should have shut up a while ago.
"Hey, why don't you go down and, ah, grab a drink."
"W-what about captain-"
"I've been here longer than Sotta's been wiping his own behind-no offense, my young friend," the veteran laughed. "You go tell Marak to get you a tankard of Vilar's stuff. That's an order."
Death Flames
It began, it is said, with a single ember. From the depths of the earth. From an abyss primeval humanity had no idea even existed. In that age, the first human lived in high places, ranging aimlessly from summit to summit, basking in the glow of a silver and cerulean cosmos. Cool dark nights flowed from horizon to horizon, until the pearly starbeams one day revealed something new—a mere fleck of what man came to know as fire.
The ancient age was a savage age, a strange age, where gnarled humans wandered an undying world, every mark on their bodies and twist of limb the tale of their life. But with fire came healing. The embers took root in human flesh. And with it, wounds mended, limbs were set and straightened. With this, humankind delved into the darkly verdant valleys and began to explore the vista of a world they'd but barely glimpsed from their high places. Yet, upon receipt of a lethal injury, something new happened: the wounded died. The flames, which had burned away their injuries could burn away no more, they could not stop, and consumed their host.
Every new birth was marked with the passing on of an ember, but the time came soon when new lives were born with flame within them already. And it burned away its host until that host was utterly spent, and died.
Many began to fear fire, and fled, and in far places learned to rid themselves of their ember in grotesque ways that left countless maimed immortals to dwell in dark corners, alone, and primitive, and free. They persisted eternally, and would sometimes grant freedom to those who sought it.
But elsewhere, the fear and awe of flame held sway, and men would call it the equalizer, the uniter, the harbinger, the eternal hunger, and the lands where it was god would be called the realms of flame. From gentle healing arts to the immolation rites of zealots, humankind came to know well the flame which spread through its lineages, and in its bitter wars learned that flame crept close to the surface where death was concerned. It began with the smearing of ashes on the skin and the wearing of skulls, and ended, over centuries of blazing warfare, with masses of shambling cinders, clad in the smouldering bones of the dead, casting necromantic pyromancies across plains and mountains of glass.
In the end, when there were no more bones to burn, no more flesh to offer, when the ash was so thin it became as pallid air, when the star the flame took was burnt out, cold immortals watched from their wind-shorn mountaintops the errant embers fleeing back into the yawning maw of the earth wherefrom they emerged so long ago, as if sucked back in by a sharp breath. And when the world was finally a silver and cerulean serenity, the immortals silently placed bulwarks for leagues around to warn themselves for when flame might next rise from below.
Church of the Knight
Now, the entire domain of Dunumbria professes, along with its neighbouring Chapelfen and Manemark, a solid and venerable Mychaen faith. The county is dotted with the usual watchtowers and vigil-flames, but for Dunumbria in particular, the Sentinel God Mychaeas owns their ultimate allegiance, for when the final conflict comes, but there are many powers in that rolling land who still hold sway over the immediate imaginations and fancies of the Dunumbrial folk.
The reader must understand something of Dunumbria before anything else. Chapelfen is an active battleground, so hostile are its rotten mires to human habitation—conflict fuels faith, or so they say, and Manemark is a busy town whose old stones have eyes towards the future. But Dunumbria is the end of the road. It is a distant land both by leagues and time. Things end up there, and things persist there long after they've faded in other places. That smattering of villages and hamlets has been marked by things time out of mind.
Dunumbrial folk are a hardy, earthy folk, but not simple. Poetry and song are on the lips of every farmer and monger, and one look at their homeland explains it instantly. Something about the broad, rolling hills and plains, the thick, verdant woods, the striking outcroppings of rock, the rich greens, deep browns, and stark greys—one cannot write of it without details flowing from the pen.
Wander from village to village along the earthen roads, run your fingers over the ancient, mossy stone walls, breathe in the heady fragrance of wildflowers and greenery, and gaze on the curiously marked wooden poles at the crossroads, the low boughs from which hang painted cloth, and the lone boulders which sit in the middle of open fields. See the rich emerald, amaranthine, and crimson bathed in rays of honeyed sunshine. After all this, you might just end up at the Church of the Knight.
It is a simple structure, and an old one. How old, none have yet been able to determine. It is an octagonal building of smoothed stone bearing many chinks and cracks, and stained from centuries, if not (or most certainly) millennia, of moss and lichen to the extent that the stone itself is now green of aspect, seeming to rise naturally from the earth and weeds at its base. The dome was long ago rent open, but still stands. Glassless windows with tall, thin arches admit a tantalizing view within before one enters through the much more recent oak doors.
For all of its clear antiquity, it most certainly post-dates the thing around which it was constructed.
Inside the small church is a knight. It is not a tomb effigy, indeed it is no carving, replica, or other image of any kind. It is steel, and there is flesh beneath it, for in the natural gaps where there shows a coat of scale, there is beneath it the pliability of flesh. Press upon the scales yourself should you stand there. The armour is of a kind never recorded, but may represent a distant ancestor of styles in use today. It is overlapping plates, each one richly decorated in low relief, in a flowing, floral style. The face mask, that of a serene androgynous visage, is fixed firmly in place—it cannot be seen into, for moss clogs the eye sockets.
The knight is bent down on one knee, one hand is placed on the raised knee, the other grips a longsword whose blade is planted in the earth. The crossguard resembles two curved, coiling horns or spikes—finely wrought, and of a kind little seen elsewhere in history. The blade is broad and its fuller is also quite deep. The pommel is a short kind of tapering, solid spiral. The edge is keen and wholly unmarked. It is important to note that it, and the rest of the knight, are not maintained. The figure and its arms and armour simply do not fade.
Instead, the knight is utterly festooned with offerings. This church is the local religion of perhaps two villages, but its word has spread thin feelers—careful ones, perhaps—into the wider world, for the offerings come from a long ways abroad. Upon the shoulders and bowed head are the remains of candles and their long stalactites of wax, still faintly scented. Upon the outstretched arm, grasping the sword hilt, are piled coloured cloths and numerous prayer beads. Around the neck have been affixed literally hundreds of tiny amulets and holy medals. The head bears a wild crown of laurels, while at the feet are bundles of fresh green sprigs tied with orange bows. Scattered around the knight are old offerings, fallen to the ground, many of which are taken after a time by locals and buried in little plots around the church.
The knight is a healer. People have come for generations beyond count to lay their hands upon the cool silver plate amidst the glowing green and warm gold which veritably exudes life. The church itself is covered in vines, moss, and houses great wide leaves within—the ground itself is bare earth with deep green grass. The place is alive but it is not animate. Slumber reigns here. It is as if coming to the church is like descending into rest, and meeting the apex, or perhaps deep center, of some healing dream. Upon exiting it and its attendant wood, the sleeper awakes and is regenerated.
Dreams have come to those who sleep under the dome, or against the inviting stone. Dreams and notions. Everyone has a story about who that knight was, or is, or may even yet become. The Mychaens have had their say, too, that the knight is some vanguard awaiting the call to action from the Sentinel God. But perhaps that's the point. Each and every visitor—or pilgrim—is granted their very own piece of the faith to guide and keep them.
Only time will tell.