Shadows & Sorcery #56
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This week, we hear the mighty legend of the Storm Crypt, we seek what lies within the Labyrinth of the Knight, we find ourselves stumbling across an Abandoned Tomb, we get the truth behind gods of a Royal Shrine, and we come face to face with a Graveyard Saint…
Storm Crypt
From out of the ice belt that rings the world did Strang of the Dunfing come, axe in hand and clad in beast-skins from head to toe. Skin like ice and hair like a mane of snow, this ghost sought life not in the wild steppes, nor the lava fields, nor the fog-laden black forests, but in the sky-flung mountains of the Zenith, the top of the world, wherefrom the divine fire of the sun descends over the earth and the mightiest lands vie for dominance.
Through every land Strang passed through, he sought out storm and disaster, for he was of a sorcerous race who practiced mighty elemental arts. Through biting gale winds did he wander, he let himself be enveloped in dust storms, he let the ice of blizzards cling to his skin, he soaked himself in the torrents of thunderstorms, and each and every one of them seeped into his flesh and his core. Their force and fury flooded his every movement, and the battlefields of the Zenith soon came to know the terror of Strang the Storm Walker.
His footfalls made the earth shudder, his battle cries were as thunderblasts, his axe hit like a lightning bolt, and slowly but surely, those who won his allegiance found themselves gaining the upper hand. Strang continued to dwell amidst storms in high and lonely places, and only return to the halls of his lords when battle called.
But over the years, something changed in Strang. In the uneasy intervals between battles, when combat had lulled but peace was not yet brokered, the Storm Walker became more and more restless. It would seem the calmness was anathema to him, and his intense Storm Eye meditation only did so much to keep him stilled. He inevitably left to wander the wilderness, seeking torrential rivers and downpours which offered the sensation he so craved.
Drawn less and less into the affairs of the Zenith, for he had won for the burgeoning alliance so much victory that battles were swift and decisive, the new reigning lords looked upon him with worry. How long would it be before this elemental berserker set his sights on these strong new lands? But let it not be forgotten, he was their hero, and a mythical figure to the people. Any notions of quiet assassinations with blade or sorcery were quickly cast aside. How long had it been since he had come to the Zenith? Generations had passed while thunder coursed through his veins, but if the tales were true, he had been at his limit for a long time now.
And so, in the end, the scions of the alliance sought out the Dunfing at the summit of a blizzard-wracked mountain, and bade the now ancient warrior, who had spent these twilight years passing from peak to peak, to return with them one last time to a place of deserved rest. Wild and terrible though he was, humanity had not left the warrior-ascetic, and he followed the kin of his old allies back into the warm lands of men.
It sits atop a great stepped, Dunfing-style pyramid. A thick-walled, seven-sided enclosure of stone and peaked roof. Its doors are barred with reinforced beams and wrapped in heavy chains. On quieter days, when the din of the city below calms, one can hear clearly the rumble from on high, from within the Storm Crypt. It's the only place he could possibly have been buried. In each corner is a wizard's focus, each one casting eternally violent winds that cascade within the lightless chamber, in honour of the warrior who could find comfort only in chaos. Or, perhaps, some folk whisper, to keep his wraith appeased...
Labyrinth of the Knight
Every so often, someone hears the Call. People have been hearing it since forever, so much so that has entered common parlance, and one might joke that a friend late to a gathering has "heard the Call". But you can tell when someone's really heard it. There's no mistaking the look people get in their eyes, the distance, the smouldering, the restlessness. They just look different. Those who hear it are freed from all bond and duty, for the Call is believed to be divine. Momentous as it is, the event is tinged with sorrow, for those who've gone on the quest to answer it have never returned.
That was, until Ser Serran Casimir stumbled back into town, two years to the day after departing to answer the Call.
Celebrations were held for a full week upon his return, and he was questioned by every scholar and peer in the land, to which he simply answered that he would speak when the time was right. He returned quickly to governing his land and reconnecting with his charges, while using his influence to construct, of all things imaginable, a colossal underground labyrinth. It was made to strict specifications, and no cost was spared in the grand undertaking. Many guessed it had something to do with the Call.
It took several years of intense labour, but it was finished to his utmost satisfaction, and a week after the workmen and architects left, Ser Serran Casimir vanished inside of it, never to be seen again. He left only one note: Seek The Center.
That's what knights, wanderers, sellswords, and adventurers of all kinds have been doing for generations now. The labyrinth, it is known, leads to a center point, it doesn't have an entrance and exit like others of its kind, or like a traditional maze. It actually has several entrances, each guaranteed to lead to the middle, as per preserved architectural records. Aspirants to the interior are permitted to freely study them, even make copies, and they proliferate in markets across the land. Though in recent times, there has been a knock-back against people seeking the center, because most who enter do not return.
But much like Ser Casimir, a small number have, and much like him, they are not loquacious about what it is they have experienced. What is known is this: no one has reached the center. The passages of the labyrinth are pitch black, and one must light their own way. Time has not been kind to the stone, many sections sag and drip, some are ankle-deep in stagnant pools. Corpses of exhausted aspirants are sometimes stumbled over, too deep in to turn around and seek an alternate exit. The corpses of beasts who wandered in are found too. A few folk have made it fairly deep in and survived their retreat. But they've emerged quite troubled, and it's taken much grilling and drinking to loosen the details. Something's not quite right, deeper in, they say. It gets louder the further you go, and you can't sleep because of it. It's Ser Casimir, they say with a strained whisper. He's still alive, and he wants us to release him.
Others have heard the Call since, but none have returned. No one is quite sure what to think about that.
Abandoned Tomb
I consider myself a seasoned traveller. I've been across the coasts of half the world, on and off, and have seen the winding routes of a dozen major river systems. Inland, I've walked, not ridden, the entire length of the Kamark Divide, and even spent several months surviving in the Grenerven Badlands. And for every region I visit, I make a point of researching local religious orders and cults, so that I might ingratiate myself with the powers of that region. If there is a temple, a monastery, shrine or what have you, I will make a donation or perform a small service. I consider it a necessary courtesy, and have encouraged others to do the same. I didn't always do this, you see. I will now let it be known now why I made the change.
Many years ago now, I was with a guide who'd fast become a friend, trekking through a region of singularly stark but striking cold desert landscape. Crags and crevices were what made up this wrinkled, windswept stretch, broken only by the odd taller butte. Utterly silent, save for our movement, and some curious shifting whose distinctness I was convinced was merely due to a lack of other ambient sounds. Though it did make me look over my shoulder once or twice. The going was difficult, a terrain suited more to mountain beasts than human beings, but each new summit rewarded us with another incredible view of this hard region.
He told me the tale of the land as we went. According to him, it didn't always look like this. Some two hundred years ago, a colossal earthquake, felt for leagues around, rent it all asunder, and that upheavel was responsible not only for the state of the region, but also for its absolute abandonment. It was like a great scar on the earth now. It had once been home to a small number of very old tribes, who kept pure some of the ancient practices this land was home to. Now not even animals lived here. Some old carvings and paintings still existed, some even uncovered by the disaster, which sages and scholars desired to study, but were kept at bay. Kept at bay by what, I asked. By the ghosts, my friend answered.
This land had been inhabited for thousands of years, long before the coming of the Lawgiver, the enlightened one who had come forth and set to rights the deplorable state of the land by spreading knowledge of the body's existence as a subtle instrument or tool. The body must be "tempered" or "tuned" through diet, moral living, ritual, by following the "Law", and then "played" or "applied" through the use of esoteric practices involving configurations of hand gestures called "locur", and various repetitive vocalizations, called "lomsor". According to this knowledge, all curses may be broken, wounds be mended, and spirits set to rest.
So, my friend continued, as we clambered atop a short, flat-topped mound of rock, the old tribes who lived here had become a kind of vanguard of the faith in this land. They'd been here forever, and the place was positively seething with ancient impurity. It was here, apparently, that the Lawgiver gave many lessons and passed much knowledge. The cold desert was a sort of holy place in that regard. But the old tribes couldn't contend with epochs of darkness under their feet, and the land was so discontent, so unbalanced, that it is believed it finally threw up the earthquake which destroyed it, killed most of the old tribesfolk, and sent the rest scattering to the winds.
It was never properly cleansed, my friend said with a hint of sorrow, and I think, fear in his voice. It is an unquiet place. Then he said, with a wry smile, that I probably noticed it myself. I said I didn't think so. Have you not noticed, my friend said, the shifting of the loose rocks that has been following us for hours now? Or was it something else that kept causing me to glance behind us so much? He chuckled as he said they were likely drawn to my impurities, no offense intended.
We were sitting atop the mound now, and he had closed his eyes and set his hands to chest in a curious gesture, and instructed me to try it myself. Yes, he anticipated me, we were being followed, and quite closely. About a mile or so back, we had actually passed an abandoned tomb. There were ones like it everywhere here, the dead of several thousand years, bones and ash and all, left to rot. That's likely what it was. If we just kept the configuration, it would leave. I was very explicitly instructed not to open my eyes. Not because it would break the "locur" we were making, but because he'd rather I didn't see what was going to appear.
There have been moments in the years past where I shudder to think if what I felt up there was a feeble desert breeze on my cheek, or something else. I've learned a number of the hand gestures now, and I practice them faithfully. I've even passed on a few to others. In my chambers or in my cabin, wherever I go, I recite them if I have a long voyage. Can't be too careful anymore.
Royal Shrine
The imperial cult has stood triumphant for nearly a thousand years. With every increasingly pompous and prolonged coronation, a new shrine is built and dedicated for the worship of the current god-emperor. It was tricky at first, a lot of scrabbling over succession, assassinations on crowning nights, and so on--it's what led to the existence of the demi-god and saint cult of the old noble houses, who are now mercifully obscure, and exist as nothing more than a footnote in the chronicles. It was Queen Caro who said that "whoever of the blood has placed upon their brow the crown of the empire in lawful and holy ceremony, they shall share in the measure of divinity that has pulled this land from muck and into heaven." And that was that.
In some lands, kings and lords are treated as gods, surely, but here? They really are gods, at least in practice, but don't let a magistrate catch you doubting. The idea is we really were pulled from muck to heaven, and as we are heavenly, our leader is a god. This is the logic of the magistratum. Why should be deny our closeness to divinity?
Of course, that hasn't stopped centuries of scholarship being given over to the secrets and sources of the imperial cult's power. The leading theory, in incredibly deep circles, to which your speaker is honoured guest, is that each consecutive ruler has piled atop them the lifeforce or soul, or what have you, of all the previous ones. The soul has power over its immediate surroundings--the body. Keep adding to it, the range of power extends. Our rulers don't die, they don't pass on--indeed, where is there for a god to pass on to?
It didn't take much in the past to shock and awe, so those old kings got a couple souls' worth of power, and could do things no one else could. But it's been centuries of kings and queens and regents and emperors, some lasting years, some lasting months. Some mere days. And they all, regardless of reign, count towards the divinity of the next emperor. New crownees find themselves possessed of the power of a colossus when it meets their brow. No one but them can even begin to imagine the rush of power, the reach, the possibilities.
But what's to stop them from becoming tyrant deities, ruling with iron fists? Nothing, really. They are gods, and they wield influence over every single inch of stone and earth and flesh that their crown grants. But to have that, it is said in these deep circles of theurges and even secret sorcerers, they need to feel it all. Every hope, every prayer, every misery, every sorrow, every mark of history on the whole of the land and the people. Fact is that most emperors are moved to tears when the crown rests upon their heads.
And so it is that each new generation of cut-throat aristocrats with an eye on the throne and designs for a cult shrine of their own is humbled, imperator willing, by their new god's words.
Graveyard Saint
Suitable burial grounds are tricky to find, and in times of war and sickness, dowsers have to go out and find a place that will accept corruption. Few of us are pious or blessed enough to simply whither gracefully; we rot and putrefy, and spread our worldly malevolence around us. The land itself must deal with that until someone good finds their way to the cemetery, and it is usually at that point, that the land elects a pure soul, bereft of or with so few impurities that the land infuses it with its own lifeforce, and sets it as a purifier and guardian of the burial ground. This is what folk call a Graveyard Saint.
The relationship between saint, land, and other dead is...poorly understood, at best. People tend to think of them as kinds of tutelary deities, attendants or mentors to the dead, avatars of the earth, sometimes a mixture of these. Skin like bark, or dusty cloth, greyish, brownish, dry. They have on them weathered garments hanging limply, but, it must be said, remarkably well-preserved. They come in and out of the earth...maybe at will, maybe when called by the dead, or sent from the land itself to perform some function only they know of. The sight of a Graveyard Saint wandering amongst the low mounds is more than a little eerie, truth be told. It marks the point at which the living are no longer required to tend or visit the graves, or perhaps, it is believed by some, no longer welcome.
Such places are quickly abandoned for fear (or respect) of the saint's wrath. Measures have been taken over the years to ensure that the boundaries of graveyard land are well defined. When first dowsed, its reach is tested over and over, then barriers are erected. Nowadays good stone walls shut in the usually irregular plots, but this wasn't always possible, and sometimes still isn't.
Imagine a traveller in a lonely stretch of countryside with which they are not familiar. The kind of country that has maybe one long, meandering road passing through it and naught else, surrounded by a monotonous, wild mess of ridges, knolls, and almost absolute lack of shade in the form of high flora or trees. But now our traveller sees, by the roadside, what looks to be the remains of a trampled dirt path leading off to the side, fast becoming overgrown, but still quite visible. Well, once the road remains in view, what harm could come from a small excursion to break the drudgery?
Imagine now our traveller beating back the high grass, the weeds, throwing the odd glance back to make sure all is as it should be, following the worn track, only to stumble into a mound of earth hidden in the vegetation. Cursing, the traveller pulls the plants back to inspect their obstacle, only to notice the curious regularity of its shape. The traveller looks around, stepping over this mound, and removing more of the wild growths, finds more and more of these mounds, each one headed by a small plinth of stone. The realization slowly creeps to the front of the mind as the traveller looks ahead into the sea of green beyond and notices that one tall, bent frond is moving in a wind that cannot be felt, moving, and turning towards the traveller. The traveller calls out a hesitant greeting, only for it to turn, and the face of the Graveyard Saint to peer back before rushing with an inhuman sound towards the traveller.
All our traveller can really do is hope that the threshold they are utterly ignorant of is close by, for there exist places that only ever had small stones long sunken in, or wooden stakes long rotten away, to mark the boundaries of places the living no longer ought to exist in.