What follows is an attempt to introduce a mythology/cosmology for the Charali. As theirs is a oral culture, the most logical method in which it would be compiled would be through the interactions with established writing cultures like the Lithmorrans or the Merchant Princes of Vavard. For those that do not know, I played Balta Soyot for a good while on Atonement and often had to compose a variety of background material to support his character.
The following journal was penned after the start of the Consolidation. An Inquisitor from the freshly chartered Holy Order of Dav has made his way into the wild East through the ports of the Exiled Princes. What awaits him is the frontier of the Plains. His mission is to establish - in secret - the religious disposition of the inhabitants and, with aid of a Vavardian knight of old loyalty, assess their combat ability.
He comes across a holy man of the horse lords and becomes trapped in a battle of wills as he is exposed to a theogony far removed from the Lord of the Springs.
Maius 23rd, 125
The knight-captain soon brings me something of value from the borderlands. Early raids managed only to bring in children or warriors from the heathen camps. Their women, perhaps thinking we were more savage than they themselves, refused to be taken alive. If dul Eclat’s initial reports are accurate, what he has captured now is a different sort of animal altogether. A horse of a different color, as the natives might say. The Lord has seen fit to deliver one of their witches to my hands. With faith, my fact-finding mission into the East will be concluded within a few weeks.
Maius 24th, 125
This morning has brought the knight-captain to my slap-shod office space within the outpost, allowing me a face to face interview with my former protégé. Sir Guil dul Eclat, knight of the Stone. A pompous title, but given the crucible of the forsaken far east, it is most likely that he has earned it. His time in the wilderness, thank Dav, has mostly rid him of the affected mannerism which possessed him as an acolyte in Lithmore. He has since become lean and hungry in the knighthood; the cleansing of his sister, Geonesa, playing no small part in his zeal. Like any good Eclat, he had taken personal responsibility for her sins and led her from home to pyre himself. Her atonement had carried him to the borderlands and the seat opposite me in the outpost’s meager chapel.
Having taken up the sword instead of the cloth, this former pupil of mine retains a fair measure of cleverness. He spoke of the raid on the Seriat camps with dour expression, enumerating deaths and each gory trophy taken. I stopped him, thankful for the illustration, but requested information instead on the captured man.
Guil described in great detail how a call came up from the edge of the camp; far from the light of the burning yurts, a single hut, otherwise alone and unfortified, kept the company of a low fire. The light infantry refused to advance further, calling for Guil and the other cavaliers to support them. A lone figure was silhouetted by the fire, pale and naked, twisting in dance.
Were it merely a man, the knight told me, the infantry would have had no trouble gutting him, but the figure’s male body terminated in the long-muzzled visage of a horse. Afraid of neither death nor the harsh cold of midnight on the plains, the figure ignored all outside elements and gyrated around the flames as a hawk to a falconer’s arm. Guil, knowing some of the heathen tongue, barked a commanding ‘Cheradi!’ to the ghostly vision. Strangely, the man collapsed as if struck and fell to the dirt. It was then that the infantry rushed the figure and on dul Eclat’s order bound the beast. It was by is own hand that Guil removed the fierce head from its shoulders, revealing a man beneath. Men swore and chaliced themselves as the horse head fell to earth. The man beneath had blond hair. He looked Vavardi.
I must meet this thing that my old friend has spoken of. Alas, the litter and the infantry escort are another day away. Guil has told me that they had to take his big toe for biting a guard and trying to flee. A stronger cage had to be built.
Maius 25th, 125
The prisoner has arrived. The border fort of Laispierre, no more than earthworks and sharpened logs, has meager accommodation for prisoners within but allowances were made to isolate the witch from the other Charali prisoners; I refuse this prize to be spoiled. We are stationed well to the east of the merchant cities that have sprung from the purse of the Exiles. Guil, a man that may be marked as my son for his dearness to me, has agreed to protect us from both the heathen on the plains and the merchants. The only contention that remains is that this fort is also home to surveyors and other wild men that work for the Exiles. Every breath is tenuous because of the King’s movements in the West. They might slit my throat at any moment as War is a foregone conclusion, but I do not care. The prisoner is mine and I will see purification come to the East.
Supplementary: The perfume in my handkerchief has been rendered useless to my nose in the last two hours. The prisoner seems to speak only Charali, though it seems to be in effort solely to frustrate his captors. He understands Lithmorran and Vavardian well enough, especially with mention of ‘food’ or ‘water’. What brief exchange we held ceased when a surgeon was called in to cauterize the poorly bandaged stump on his foot. Cold and shocked with pain, his tongue stilled save for chattering bursts of his native language. Yet unnamed, the prisoner seems to be the proof I had so long hoped for of the Charali’s implicit walking on the tainted path. His light hair and vaguely familiar appearance still disturb me. Why does this beast, seemingly maddest of the lot look so much like us? Where is the shock of fire upon the crown that already hangs from so many belts of the Stone knighthood? I will inform his Holiness by rider come morning.
Maius 26th, 125
My prayers could ascend with no greater haste to heaven were they launched by a horseman’s bow. The morning came to find me shaken from sleep by befouled dreams and sweat-tainted nightclothes. The mage works upon me, I am sure of it, even from his cage. But my fortitude and faith is greater. Today, today, he will go hungry. His presence pervaded my senses; I saw a giant in the place where the cage had stood. It had no face, no sex; only the muscular stature of its body stood out. A cloak of red hair draped behind it, nearly brushing the floor. I am still terrified of what I saw. I beheld him to hold the same mask as Guil saw removed from him, but only panic found me as I realized it was not held but an extension of his arm. The horse’s head, stringy with sinew and blue from age, reached out to me with a murderous fire smoldering within its orbous eyes. Unable to escape, the beastly arm of the giant began to consume me.
Lord, give strength to one that has need of it. Come the next dawn, I will begin the true Questions – the answer is foregone, but I will have it from him. By Dav and the Waters, I will have it.
Maius 27th, 125
It is no small task to speak to this heathen beast. The stories of the Charali seem less like aggrandized faerie story when but a day’s ride from their hunting grounds. Still, this man – if one can call him that – is an enigma. He has been washed. The corporal punishment of his clipped toe has been dressed. Had I no more sense than the guard that stands outside his chamber, I would swear that he was a Vavardi gone astray. The heathen have corrupted this one, I am sure of it; his faculties seem cut to the quick. I can not help but question his separation from the others within the camp. Was he a prisoner? Was he captured? Guil promised me a witch and the attack on my senses last night confirms it. Give me strength, Dav, to act as judge.
When the prisoner had stopped covering his face in the food that he was brought, I asked him about the dream from the previous night. I understand implicitly that it was a machination of his; the dream was to show his power and my asking of it was simply the next move on the board. I gave him the gift. His life is mine to judge, I do not mind if he thinks me ignorant of his game if it provides rightful judgment. His answer follows, as best translated as his accent could afford:
‘I am a horseman. What you saw is only the truth. There is little difference between the horse and this flesh. What you saw is the sin we carry. It makes us strong. It is what makes us easy to hunt for westmen.’
The man smiled at me. In that, I know that he is fully one of them or else he was taken very young to look as he does. My expression remained as granite, the same face that the Knights of Stone took into battle. I could only ask him his name then, but even the answer he gave me for such a simple question was twisted. In simplest terms, he told me that he had none. He was the lone man within the ‘family’ of the Seriat, knowing neither his mother or his father. In that moment, he asked me to simply call him ‘cheradi’; it was, he said, both his name and his calling in life. I could only shake my head as I left the room. The man named Horse was certainly aware that he was going to die, but he did not seem to care. Lord, what salvation can this beast be given? Are all of his blood – if they are his blood – so well entrenched in their wickedness?
Maius 28th, 125
The acolytes have moved a desk into the private cell for my use. I have kept record here for His Holiness’s perusal, but I fear that I will miss some vital clue in Cheradi’s ramblings. A routine has begun to establish itself. I have asked him time and again to kiss the signet I wear and repent, but I do not think there is enough awareness behind those eyes for it to be valid should the words spill from that mouth. When this little game has ended, the horseman is fed and our conversation resumes.
After dwelling on his enigmatic answer from the previous day, I put the question to him again: who are you? Like some Farin monkey, he pantomimed the question back at me. In anger, I told him just who I was. An inquisitor that acted in the stead of the Lord and held power to make his death quick or prolonged. I was here, I said, to judge those that rejected the words that came to this land with us. I was here to watch, judge what was evil, and seeing it thus, have it cleansed.
He answered in kind, saying that he was the same. For this cheeky impertinence I could not stay sitting. With the help of the guard, I restrained a hand and, Lord help me, I broke one of his fingers. He shrunk back in his cage, howling in pain, as I tried to calm myself back in my chair. I took up the quill, holding it even as I do now, and waited for the true explanation.
I could see the heated tears streaking down his cheeks, pouring out of those vicious eyes like molten lead. He began to speak, and I listened. The tension in his voice was familiar with confession. I had every reason to expect the truth but all I received was this:
‘I travel into the same places you do, questioner. I am the one chosen to carry the taint for my people; in exchange, I am without name, without family, so I may fight. The Mother of Motion has given me this form and this task.’
It was strange to hear the words, much less their implications. To the ears of an inquisitor, this man had confessed; from our training as priests and inquisitors, we understand fully that the mage is corrupt. This corruption may be willingly fallen into or some, as Cheradi seems to think he has, taken up the mantle of the Void in favor of the power to do good. What of the soul that is turned to rot beneath such weight? How can this man deign to send such a thing back into the arms of the Lord when he dies? His people have condemned him or he has condemned himself into this position. Such a blackened soul will never rise. For these crimes, it is clear that both should be brought to flame as Lord Dav had done a century ago. There is no change in them, no repentance. Only now they may mime the speech of the King and sin in an accented Lithmorran. What of this Mother that has set him on this path? I have heard of the matriarchal leanings of the plainsfolk. Their leadership leads them astray then, these women. I will put that question to him tomorrow.
June 3, 125
Last week I asked about this ‘Mother’ and his people. I have lapsed in my chronicle because his answer took the entire day, from dawn to dusk, to reach my ears. He had no book before him, no parchment but the guards changed three times before he came to his conclusion. My skin still crawls from what I have heard and I pray to the Lord for strength; I have not dreamed of Cheradi again but he still works upon my mind as I do his. In my disgust and enchantment, I could not stop writing the words that slipped through the air. What follows is the keystone to the mind and soul of the Charali, I am certain; to know this is to know them. Somewhere within, I know that my betters will find way to destroy or educate these men. But I, at the front of it, can only listen and pray that I am not rotted beneath its tumult.
Invocation:
Let us speak of things long past, and by our speaking
Bring them back into the endless fields of our minds.
Hear me, Mother of Motion, for you distilled Chaos
Into endless forms – this child begs for voice enough
To do your Creation justice with the song of us all.
Hear me, Revered Siblings, for you were the first of
Forms made by your mother and through dance – Five
Fingers of the Goddess – the origin of our life and woe.
Hear me, People of Fire, for you are traced through a
Crimson line of mothers. You are brother and sisters to
Animal, plant and sky, bodied in ashen earth, lit by the
Stolen fire in your pale bellies. It is from us that Her
Eyes have turned. Only the Siblings will look at you now.
The Birth of the Goddess:
Behold, the birth of the world: in cradle of darkness
The whole of nature rests, mixed and yet unnamed.
A face of flint rest in the deep, solid and unmoving.
Its texture blindly reflected a lightless firmament,
For it was all things, and nothing, spending an eternity
Of hours in a silent song of unknowing stillness.
A thought stirred from within the endless mass,
A glimmer drawing away from the darkness;
What was one became two and time began for us.
These lines I have already begun to translate back into the verse-style that Cheradi spoke in. I could not keep up with what poured from his mouth, and so began to write as quickly as I could, trying to preserve all that emerged:
‘The waves grew larger in surprise, for the Ancient Sea suddenly knew of itself. “Return to me!” the Deep commanded, “Let us be all and nothing again, or there will never be peace.”
The nameless glimmer moved over the face of the shifting deep. It saw its reflection. Smaller than the great mass of creation, the first star said, “I am myself, Deep One. I would know rather than hide away in the Sea.”
The ocean waves grew as high as mountains, flailing upwards and outwards to try and catch the first star in its grasp. “Return!” the seas roared as the glimmer become enfolded within the great arms of formless substance. “No, Deep One,” said the star, “You shall not swallow me.”
The glimmer of light drew out its arms and began to cut up the endless beast, taking great chunks into itself. And the glimmer of light drew the Deep One into itself with great breaths. As the glimmer ate, its light shined brighter and brighter. The flicker swelled with its meal, taking the shape of a single, giant star. Within its body, the glimmer distilled the chaos, separating fire from earth, earth from water, water from air and air from the darkness that remembers the ancient Deep One. So swelled with Creation, the glimmer became First Among Mothers. Her new body took shape from the ephemeral point of light, swelling into a shape familiar to all. Her cheeks, breast, stomach and hips swelled with the fullness of creation.
From the swirl of her body, five children were born. Their forms mimicked their number. Each had four legs and a head. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind and Dark, daughter closest to the endless Deep One. These children wandered free, swirling about their mother in the vastness of life. Each dancing footstep marked the canvas of the void with their power. Earth moved slowly, its form lumbering like a bear to stomp out the high and low places of the world. Water and fire chased each other over the face of the growing world that their brother had made. Water fell to the lowest places, seeking refuge from the scalding embrace of her loving sister. Wind danced in her quick and slow circles, flying through the peaks and valleys that Earth had made. Darkness, coldest daughter of them all, chased each of her sisters as they moved through the world, acting as their shadows no matter how far away they were. Over all of this, the Mother rested, brilliant and glowing.
The siblings continued to play, even after the world was newly born from their dancing games. Mother watched as Earth’s long hair grew up into the sky, turning brown and green. Mother watched as Water and Earth’s embraces yielded little balls of mud. Wind picked up the tiny globs and proudly shaped them with her airy hands, offering up a remembering song to her mother. Fire hardened the clay shapes and Dark clung to their tiny figures, shy in the light of Mother. “Mother, mother,” the children cried, “Give them what we can not! We wish playmates for this land!”
The Mother of Motion breathed into these tiny clay shapes and animals ran, crawled, slithered and flew out into the world. All of these joined the dance, adding their voices to the song. Horse, Deer, Rabbit, Snake, Wolf, Hawk and others took feast with the divine siblings. They could not shape like the children, but they could sing and speak as clearly. And it was this way for many years.
One of Horse’s family stood in the fields of the world, eating endless grass under the light of the Mother. The Wind teased him, drawing him away by pulling at the horse’s mane. For days, the horse ran until it was weak and lost. Their game had stretched a little too far and the Horse had become lost. The Wind told him, “Breathe deep of me, and you will live.”
The Water said, “Drink deep of me and you will live.”
The Earth said, “Eat of me and you will live.”
The Dark said, “I can offer you nothing, rest in me still.” Dark curled around Horse, trying to warm the beast. It could do nothing, so Horse called out until Fire came.
The Fire said, “Stand beside me, but do not touch.” Horse became warm, but was filled with hunger in the barren lands. It cried, fiercely and its hooves pawed at the air. Quickly, it snapped at Fire and swallowed part of him. As Fire ran away wild into the world, the horse screamed in pain as the fire slipped to his belly. His hair fell away from his hunger withered body, leaving him naked and white. The fire tried to escape through his head, streaking his head with renewed flame. In pain and desperate, the creature stood on its hind legs and stretched out toward the sky. Eating a part of a siblings body changed it further, melting away hooves for five fingers and five toes, each like the great siblings before. With the shaping hands of the Gods, he stretched to the sky and howled in anguish.
Horse found its kin, misshapen and curled on the vast plains of the earth. “Your legs are no longer strong, brother. Let me carry you.” Horse carried its kin back to the rest of the races and the Siblings. Fire continued to run across the world, singeing the hair of its sibling Earth, chasing his sisters Water and Wind and Dark away. Mother looked down upon the naked creature and her thousands of fingers fought to contain her blazing child within the wood of the earth, the streak of lightning in the sky, hiding him away from the world.
She chided the naked horse, for she could not take fire from its belly without killing it. It is so that our siblings are the animals and we are no longer accepted by the face of heaven. Clothe your dead in the skins of their family so that Mother might judge them more kindly. For in our weakness, we partook of the gods and became like them.’
Lord and saints; Dav, mageslayer, wrath of Springs, Uniter… forgive me for putting the heathen tongue to paper. I have faith in this, that from here we may bring them to proper judgment. It has infected my mind; I wish to know how people may become so twisted away from you. Where are you in their lives? We are many leagues from the Springs, O Lord, but I know you are here with me or I would not have the strength to stand before their wild eyes. Keep my soul even if you do not preserve my flesh; tonight I know that my dreams will not belong to me.
June 4th, 125
Today a rider has arrived from Vavard with word from His Eminence; he tells me to tread cautiously and to have no hesitation in killing the prisoner if I feel that the taint is too much. I could only shake my head; what would he think of me when he receives my entry from the week previous? Cheradi will be burned and I the next. The stories he told about men being born of god and animal. Preposterous! Is this witchcraft, the fire that he holds in his belly? Is that what enabled the Siblings to construct the world?
I must recover my senses and be rid of this man, but I am drawn to him now after mere weeks of study. I am hesitant to send him to the pyre; if he speaks the truth and himself fights evil among the Charali, what do they appear to be? The plainsmen are herded like the chattle they keep, the horses they breed. If they are animals to men of the west, what stalks in their night to scare them so? A man has been condemned, flesh and soul, for the sake of their primitive defense. If all tribes have such a device at their beck and call, surely there is something in the East that rivals even the sand wizards in the South.
At my request, dul Eclat has gathered together another expedition into Charali territory. The Seriat have dispersed along the border marches now that their shepherd has been struck. I have heard reports that some have come to even work as scouts for Vavard expeditions. We have need of their ears and noses as a man might a bloodhound in another part of the world; I am sure the knights do not mind the aid, especially if they can be put down as easily as a dog should they bare teeth.
Guil is to get me a Mother. Pray, Lord, that his luck remain from finding this witch – this shaman. I wish one of these lesser horse queens to answer for the tide of blasphemy that her kin has shown me. While he is gone, I will prepare to test Cheradi further; I want to know how he fights and what they look like. I want to know more about this ‘sin’ that he has already acknowledged. All of this, and more, will be taken back to the Church in Vavard. They will see this place cleansed.
To be continued:
Om'Seriat: The Song of Motion
The entries from this point onward are scattered at best. Be it from age or the obvious turmoil of the author, many entries are damaged and unclear. There are a few entries in which the Inquisitor seems to wait for the arrival of Guil, but the pages after are damaged by what appears to be fire. It is a miracle that what remains of the manuscript has survived at all.
We have taken to the plains. The Merchants, disparate as they are, have continued to grow more unified in response to the rumblings in the Capitol. The talk among most is that they rally under an old name for the riverfolk, the Vavardi. These men grow more bold with every passing day, rallying in response to the pushes from the West. My Lord, how these times take us by the collar and do not let go. Our accommodations at the fort have long been abandoned. Guil has foresworn his title, taking me by wagon into the night to escape assassins from Nimrock. I watched him die. I prayed, Lord forgive me, but I could do nothing else. I drove the horses onwards into the endless sea of grass and darkness, a man in an animal’s cage within the bed of my cart. He is my treasure and the key to this place. We make our way northeast, toward the frigid lands of the Vandagan border…
The text breaks here and several days seem to go by before the script becomes discernable again.
… pass slowly as I watch Horse move within his cage. The desk has been forgotten, as I too, crouch in the grass and wait for him to divulge another piece of the puzzle. I will not lie. He has spoken to me about his position as the honorary figure of the Dark Horse, that which was burned by Flame and tainted amongst its brothers.
He is able to fight the witchmen, the Baeldane, because he is ‘different’ from the others. He swears to me that he is like the first Man. There is something in his blood that is not of this world, certainly not of our Lord. I wrapped my hand around a bar, rattling the man’s cage, demanding that he tell me why. Why if his people commanded such power did they cavort about in loincloths and breed like dogs. Why have they not built cities like the civilized Lithmorran host? Even the Merchants to the west were turning hamlets into cities of silver and gold and they were without faith in anything but their purses.
The only other man with us, a half-Charali mongrel of the same family as Horse, is dressed in the regalia of a Merchant’s foot soldier. He wears his red hair bound underneath a cap, hiding it from the world. I know what he is. It is his accursed tongue and kinslaying ways that have enabled me to speak to Horse when he lapses into his lyrical babble. I look at him now, as the days go by, cursing his existence as much as praising it. I am only alive because of this man. No, I am alive because of my staunch faith in the Lord. I do not think I can keep him much longer. I am strong. There is much that should only be for my ears.
Horse begins to answer and Seriat translator slowly nodded his head, recognizing the tale. He called it the Story of the Man’s Sadness and the Presumption of Metal.
Though born in strange sin, it was not our last. The Man, weak and new, without either hide or claw to shield them from the world, asked their family to help them. Each animal gave what they could, treating Man like family and guest. The Hawk lent its eyes, the horse gave use of its legs, the lizard gave five-fingered hands like the Siblings. The Boar lent its might heart. But the owl, last and wisest of the animals, saw a hole in the man that the gifts could not fill.
The animals had given everything to this strange creature, but nothing could fill that hole. The man will take, said the owl, to see it filled. Lives, land, things that do not matter or can not be taken. He is sad and this is where the sadness lives.
So man turned away from the animals and forgot how to speak to them. He looked for new things to make; the tepee, the yurt, the sled for the horse that was his Brother. Soon, his eyes turned toward other things. He stayed still, tended the plants with the hands that his animal kin had given him. He no longer ran like the horse, but watched the seasons go by. He knew, for the first time, death and the passage of the years. Men made Men and the gifts of the animals began to wear down for they were shared among many. The men began to dig in the earth and cut down the tree, looking for the things that the Siblings had used to make the world.
It was in these things that the gifts had been made, so they desired the raw material to shape the world themselves. Pieces of gold, the very veins of Earth, came first. They kept small fires, made from what they had stolen. The metal yielded from the earth and bent to the will of man. It was bright and divine, a piece of the Mother.
Soon, the fires grew hotter like the hunger of Man. The metal worked grew harder and colder like the Man that forged it. Bronze, copper, iron made to godly teeth and armor. The game was no longer fair, their animal kin died fast with little chase. The Mother shunned the children and sought to punish them; the land, a mix of 5 and overseen by One, was forcibly distilled into tools of a fallen animal. Metal, blessings and curse, saw the Men fall once more.
The Mother snapped their swords with beasts of earth and fire, seeing the men quit their sinful path and fall nearer the animal from which they were born. In their woe and rediscovered kinship with the animal, a prophecy was made by an old woman whose voice was like that of the Mother. If the Horsemen should stay again, a man of iron and flame would visit upon them to mete punishment. Half the Men feared this, but the others merely grew angry. Their fires roared again into the night, but not to forge the metals of the gods, but to bring ancient foe to heel that they wrought their circles of blood and flame. They bade demons to the earth and painted themselves with the red clay in the southern hillock. These men are the Baeldane, the accursed tribe. The rest see the end days at hand with the men of the West so near. They bring steel and fire will most certainly follow.
I have agonize over Horse’s descriptions and see the world in a fearful light. Whereafore I saw a desk, a man, a blade or cloth upon my back, I see now that they are the same and not at once. Made from these pieces of the Siblings, they each hold a balance of all but a character of merely one that is stronger than the others. This sin that Horse expounds is the imbalance perpetrated by the forger. The Forger’s Sin, to eliminate all that a thing might be in order to turn it toward a singular purpose. This is the Presumption of Metal; though these men think they are part god, their progenitors sought to claim the very power of the world, not merely be a product of it.
Again, the text drops away only to be returned to much later in the year. Pages have been torn away.
I have taken the life of the Seriat. Now only you know what has taken place here. Horse and I have been held up in a hunter’s lodge for several days. I will kill him, too, soon, once I have had my last fill of him. The snow has locked us in and there is only the cold between the two of us. My eyes sag for sleep, but I know that he will try and kill me. He is chained and blindfolded in the corner, missing an eye now since he attacked me over the translator’s death.
It hangs now, around my neck, a talisman against his damnable evil. I watch him as he sleeps, fitfully, in a ball in the corner. I want what secret is in his blood, but he will not share it. Perhaps, when he is dead, I will take what I desire and see the end of it. I know that he is a magician. His own stories, elaborate and wild as they are, attest to it greater than any tortured confession. He is an abomination, but his words still ring in my ears. I am like he more than I know and each day I have seen myself become more like the huddle animal. There is a keen smell on the wind as we are hunted. It may well be the Vavard or Lithmorran forces for all I know. It may well be the Baeldane, the accursed tribe.
He told me, many days ago, that when he was born, he descended into the Darkness and emerged so that he could bring safety to his people. He traveled in his dreams and shielded his tribe from the foul curses by spinning his own against the witchmen of the east. How am I to shield myself? How am I to judge this place? His stories seem to say that the witchmen will destroy any force that comes through to the East. No matter the armor or steel, our mastery of horse and the damned prophecy made of a man of steel and flame. I must have it. I must.
He will not let me have the gift. I know that he is master of it and only taunts me. I must learn another way. Already I have seen the world differently than when I was within the confines of the capitol, but it is not enough. Lord, I am lost. These horsemen are evil, but there is greater darkness among them. I would fight that if you but gave me the power. And you have, in the form of this simpering beast. Would I become as this to fulfill your will? Body and soul I have at your command and I will do as you Will. Blood and fire, I must pass into the darkness so that I might see the light. Earth and Water, I must beat them at their own game and master both man and beast. I will kill him and be as him.
Be warned and do not follow. I will warn His Eminence against sending the lilywhite Jaridan to this accursed place. There is no hope for these people. What they are, what they fight in the night. He will become like them if he comes. He will see too much. I have seen too much. Lord, Lord, have mercy on that which has fallen and raise us up pure when it is our time to stand at Your side.
We have taken to the plains. The Merchants, disparate as they are, have continued to grow more unified in response to the rumblings in the Capitol. The talk among most is that they rally under an old name for the riverfolk, the Vavardi. These men grow more bold with every passing day, rallying in response to the pushes from the West. My Lord, how these times take us by the collar and do not let go. Our accommodations at the fort have long been abandoned. Guil has foresworn his title, taking me by wagon into the night to escape assassins from Nimrock. I watched him die. I prayed, Lord forgive me, but I could do nothing else. I drove the horses onwards into the endless sea of grass and darkness, a man in an animal’s cage within the bed of my cart. He is my treasure and the key to this place. We make our way northeast, toward the frigid lands of the Vandagan border…
The text breaks here and several days seem to go by before the script becomes discernable again.
… pass slowly as I watch Horse move within his cage. The desk has been forgotten, as I too, crouch in the grass and wait for him to divulge another piece of the puzzle. I will not lie. He has spoken to me about his position as the honorary figure of the Dark Horse, that which was burned by Flame and tainted amongst its brothers.
He is able to fight the witchmen, the Baeldane, because he is ‘different’ from the others. He swears to me that he is like the first Man. There is something in his blood that is not of this world, certainly not of our Lord. I wrapped my hand around a bar, rattling the man’s cage, demanding that he tell me why. Why if his people commanded such power did they cavort about in loincloths and breed like dogs. Why have they not built cities like the civilized Lithmorran host? Even the Merchants to the west were turning hamlets into cities of silver and gold and they were without faith in anything but their purses.
The only other man with us, a half-Charali mongrel of the same family as Horse, is dressed in the regalia of a Merchant’s foot soldier. He wears his red hair bound underneath a cap, hiding it from the world. I know what he is. It is his accursed tongue and kinslaying ways that have enabled me to speak to Horse when he lapses into his lyrical babble. I look at him now, as the days go by, cursing his existence as much as praising it. I am only alive because of this man. No, I am alive because of my staunch faith in the Lord. I do not think I can keep him much longer. I am strong. There is much that should only be for my ears.
Horse begins to answer and Seriat translator slowly nodded his head, recognizing the tale. He called it the Story of the Man’s Sadness and the Presumption of Metal.
Though born in strange sin, it was not our last. The Man, weak and new, without either hide or claw to shield them from the world, asked their family to help them. Each animal gave what they could, treating Man like family and guest. The Hawk lent its eyes, the horse gave use of its legs, the lizard gave five-fingered hands like the Siblings. The Boar lent its might heart. But the owl, last and wisest of the animals, saw a hole in the man that the gifts could not fill.
The animals had given everything to this strange creature, but nothing could fill that hole. The man will take, said the owl, to see it filled. Lives, land, things that do not matter or can not be taken. He is sad and this is where the sadness lives.
So man turned away from the animals and forgot how to speak to them. He looked for new things to make; the tepee, the yurt, the sled for the horse that was his Brother. Soon, his eyes turned toward other things. He stayed still, tended the plants with the hands that his animal kin had given him. He no longer ran like the horse, but watched the seasons go by. He knew, for the first time, death and the passage of the years. Men made Men and the gifts of the animals began to wear down for they were shared among many. The men began to dig in the earth and cut down the tree, looking for the things that the Siblings had used to make the world.
It was in these things that the gifts had been made, so they desired the raw material to shape the world themselves. Pieces of gold, the very veins of Earth, came first. They kept small fires, made from what they had stolen. The metal yielded from the earth and bent to the will of man. It was bright and divine, a piece of the Mother.
Soon, the fires grew hotter like the hunger of Man. The metal worked grew harder and colder like the Man that forged it. Bronze, copper, iron made to godly teeth and armor. The game was no longer fair, their animal kin died fast with little chase. The Mother shunned the children and sought to punish them; the land, a mix of 5 and overseen by One, was forcibly distilled into tools of a fallen animal. Metal, blessings and curse, saw the Men fall once more.
The Mother snapped their swords with beasts of earth and fire, seeing the men quit their sinful path and fall nearer the animal from which they were born. In their woe and rediscovered kinship with the animal, a prophecy was made by an old woman whose voice was like that of the Mother. If the Horsemen should stay again, a man of iron and flame would visit upon them to mete punishment. Half the Men feared this, but the others merely grew angry. Their fires roared again into the night, but not to forge the metals of the gods, but to bring ancient foe to heel that they wrought their circles of blood and flame. They bade demons to the earth and painted themselves with the red clay in the southern hillock. These men are the Baeldane, the accursed tribe. The rest see the end days at hand with the men of the West so near. They bring steel and fire will most certainly follow.
I have agonize over Horse’s descriptions and see the world in a fearful light. Whereafore I saw a desk, a man, a blade or cloth upon my back, I see now that they are the same and not at once. Made from these pieces of the Siblings, they each hold a balance of all but a character of merely one that is stronger than the others. This sin that Horse expounds is the imbalance perpetrated by the forger. The Forger’s Sin, to eliminate all that a thing might be in order to turn it toward a singular purpose. This is the Presumption of Metal; though these men think they are part god, their progenitors sought to claim the very power of the world, not merely be a product of it.
Again, the text drops away only to be returned to much later in the year. Pages have been torn away.
I have taken the life of the Seriat. Now only you know what has taken place here. Horse and I have been held up in a hunter’s lodge for several days. I will kill him, too, soon, once I have had my last fill of him. The snow has locked us in and there is only the cold between the two of us. My eyes sag for sleep, but I know that he will try and kill me. He is chained and blindfolded in the corner, missing an eye now since he attacked me over the translator’s death.
It hangs now, around my neck, a talisman against his damnable evil. I watch him as he sleeps, fitfully, in a ball in the corner. I want what secret is in his blood, but he will not share it. Perhaps, when he is dead, I will take what I desire and see the end of it. I know that he is a magician. His own stories, elaborate and wild as they are, attest to it greater than any tortured confession. He is an abomination, but his words still ring in my ears. I am like he more than I know and each day I have seen myself become more like the huddle animal. There is a keen smell on the wind as we are hunted. It may well be the Vavard or Lithmorran forces for all I know. It may well be the Baeldane, the accursed tribe.
He told me, many days ago, that when he was born, he descended into the Darkness and emerged so that he could bring safety to his people. He traveled in his dreams and shielded his tribe from the foul curses by spinning his own against the witchmen of the east. How am I to shield myself? How am I to judge this place? His stories seem to say that the witchmen will destroy any force that comes through to the East. No matter the armor or steel, our mastery of horse and the damned prophecy made of a man of steel and flame. I must have it. I must.
He will not let me have the gift. I know that he is master of it and only taunts me. I must learn another way. Already I have seen the world differently than when I was within the confines of the capitol, but it is not enough. Lord, I am lost. These horsemen are evil, but there is greater darkness among them. I would fight that if you but gave me the power. And you have, in the form of this simpering beast. Would I become as this to fulfill your will? Body and soul I have at your command and I will do as you Will. Blood and fire, I must pass into the darkness so that I might see the light. Earth and Water, I must beat them at their own game and master both man and beast. I will kill him and be as him.
Be warned and do not follow. I will warn His Eminence against sending the lilywhite Jaridan to this accursed place. There is no hope for these people. What they are, what they fight in the night. He will become like them if he comes. He will see too much. I have seen too much. Lord, Lord, have mercy on that which has fallen and raise us up pure when it is our time to stand at Your side.
Last edited by Wolfie on Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hi Wolfie,
I actually read this a few days ago. Firstly, it looks awesome, I love this sort of thing- secondly, there are no obvious theme conflicts jumping out at me. Looking forward to the second half, and also to the other things we talked about!
Keep up the good work.
I actually read this a few days ago. Firstly, it looks awesome, I love this sort of thing- secondly, there are no obvious theme conflicts jumping out at me. Looking forward to the second half, and also to the other things we talked about!
Keep up the good work.
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