Shadows & Sorcery #68
New year, new edition of Shadows & Sorcery! The sixty-eighth one, in fact!
This week, we’re starting the year off with a traditional edition of everyone’s favourite microfiction minizine—five short tales of dark fantasy adventure, with the first very relevant one free to read. But all the same, I do hope everyone enjoyed the experimental festive edition, because you’d better believe I want to do something like that again. In fact, I have some pretty interesting experiments in mind for this publication…
Lastly, my friends, if you liked what you read here, give that little heart icon a quick tap and leave it a like!
This week, we ponder the power of the Temple of the Stars, we hear the grim predictions of the Prophets of the Blade, we encounter the dread Iron Witches, we seek what dwells within the the Sealed Shrine, and we witness the creation of the Night’s Steel…
Temple of the Stars
A solemn procession passed through the city streets. Painted lanterns littered every step, every balcony, every corner, the ancient winding passages were flooded with prismatic radiance, and the shouts and cries of cheer and mirth flowed through the cool night air. It would only get louder and more boisterous towards the break of dawn, but that was many hours away. The people were sending out the old year with merrymaking, and seeing the new one in with a warm welcome. Whether or not this really affected anything, as the people believed it did, was of no importance to the long line of navy-robed magicians who emerged from the tangle of old roads and paths and into a vast court, in whose middle was a great, natural mound topped with a long, many domed structure--the Temple of the Stars.
Up a wide, winding path did the mass of learned sky-sages ascend. Later on, many would join the people below, and some would retire with a pleased weariness to their quiet beds. But now was the time for their gathering, this annual ceremony. Into the gaping maw of the temple did they disperse, each one to their appointed spot within the great stretch of the building. The ceiling of this open vastness was a tapestry of the sky in its absolute fullness. The high noon, the deepest night, the break of dawn, the settling of dusk, each one was here, and at certain points on the flat ceiling were seven domes, each one housing the placements and charts of cosmic formations. Crimson, fiery orange, pitch black, darkest and brightest blues, each one flowed into each other and each one was studded with suns and stars of gold and steel and silver. It was the majesty of the universe itself contained within a form built by human hands--a most potent symbol.
Every magician there took some time to contemplate it all. The gravity of what they were about to do must remain in the absolute forefront of every single mind. This world of human life and endeavour lies at the center of the universe. But there must be no mistaking this for hubris. Indeed, this world lies at the center, and has the immensity of the cosmos all around it at all times, dwarfed by incalculable magnitudes. The world is the culmination of the cosmos, all these powers and forces mixing and coalescing into this lump of clay and water.
But, the magicians knew and taught, as above, so below, so within, so without. Everything that we are, that we experience with our senses and intellect, its ultimate source lies in that unimaginable gulf beyond. But, again, as above and so on--we ARE that source given form and function and expression. Most importantly, we are alive and aware of it. An esoteric doctrine, to be sure, and one not too easily disseminated amongst the populace, to whom a milder, humble, but nonetheless empowering doctrine of "taking fate by the reins" is professed. They are more than happy with it. It is such beliefs that led to the ecstatic new year celebrations happening right now.
Every step of this ritual of the stars was calculated over the year, taking every major event and transpiring into account until a plan was drawn, and a guide made. This was their power--not to glimpse dimly fate's warp like the common soothsayer, but to weave it themselves. As above, so below--all that the cosmos is, is contained in the world, which is but a reflection of that macro-existence. But, too, as within, so without. The world is the culmination, not still and serene, but hot and living and moving. So, their work was, as it had been for thousands of years, to make small, single, exact motions here which affect, over spans of ages and in subtle modes, the whole cosmos, which will then be reflected below. This was the purpose of the temple. It was a shrine to the holy universe, but also where they would enact union with it. There was no true distinction between here and there, not in the temple.
Each stood and recalled the vision they had together crafted. The vision of the coming year in its fullness, and all that would befall them, of how it felt and would feel. Here, the absolute needle-point focus of their thoughts and the warmth in their chests was bolstered by the merrymaking beyond in the city. This is how it was below, and would be again and again. They chanted the rhythms for hours, unwavering, and at last all felt as one the flash of immediacy, of genuine physical sensation, and knew that a balance had been momentarily shifted. The dawn was coming, and the laughs and shouts of the city reached even then into the temple of the stars.
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