The 12th of Martius, the Year Thirteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven
This is my first recording of thoughts and memory. I have not done it before––but something tells me that it may prove useful with the long walk of time. Time is a strange thing––it is only four months past since my reunion with Octavia, in nightform both, but we are no closer to the answer than we were at the beginning. It seems that by searching what myths and stories exist penned by my ‘fellow’ humans, I suppose, we only deepen the murk created by the Magy’cal. It is a blessing that we even remember what we discover, provided the constant possibility of taint, but it must be true that memory forgotten, even for a moment, is still a color of time. The Magy’cal, beyond what of the plague doctors, must still walk this earth, after their glory of plague to eradicate us all.
Besides Octavia––who evaded their touch by turning nightform––and myself, who was spared, others must have done the same (and I briefly wonder that the Magy’cal must know of the surviving, but it is also true that great magic does not by itself make for knowledge). We have spent these months searching for like survivors, and have at last found one other, a former Ab’maluk named Quoi. The Ab’malukae, prior to the plague, took to nightform as rarely as the rabbar would take to water; but in both cases, it is done on occasion, and what better occasion than these times. Octavia found him as she found me––by showing her paintings at spare taverns. Tainted by the Magy’cal, her eight works more resemble religious triptychs of today, but to one of the seven––I exclude the humans, because their memory of the world prior to the plague has also been expunged––they show clearly the eight sentient races of Earth. Quoi she found, like me, wasting his hours drinking to wash away the memory of loss, and she tells me as I write, sitting beside me on the hard packed floor of her home under hill, that his reaction was of joy and not of confusion like my own. Well, no matter. Quoi at this moment is acquiring food and drink for our midday meal, and my human stomach very much craves it.
Octavia tells me to stop for now, and resume tomorrow or the day after. There are still far too many unanswered questions. For my sake, for my memory I will write, although I often wonder at the point, if the Magy’cal can take these written words away from me as well. However, I must make the endeavor at memory.
The 13th of Martius, the Year Thirteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven
Quoi in candlelight is truly a strange creature. He is Celbrian––human, I must get accustomed to using these words––in form; there is no difference between his appearance and that of the humans you approach on the street. But you know he is Ab’maluk, and while he can no longer enter your mind as he would, there is a sensation of incompatibility, as if his body cannot fit his form. He begs me to cease reading aloud as I write, as he is attempting to try his hand at stone masoning with some short blocks taken from the recent construction of a new tavern. I tell him that a formerly Zarr––Undier, as they are referred to in the myths sprung out of inexistence before our time––defined occupation unfits a former Ab’maluk, and he shakes his head. I need to write, he tells me, and focus less on quotidian rambles with my new friend, he quips.
He is right. I was primarily inspired to write these notes due to our finding of our depictions in the humans’ legends and fantasies. Our kinds, the seven eliminated, although I suppose six if we exclude the Magy’cal, who are surely still with us in some form. We still do not know where they sent those they touched, if they were not erased from the earth, which I do not doubt is within their capabilities. Octavia––she reminds me, as she does many a day, that they may still be alive. Just sent far, far away so that this world may only contain those lacking magic. How ironic, as the ones who committed this act are magic incarnate. I find it difficult to believe. But back to our discoveries.
For example, I inform you, my future self––remember these words. The formation of Elf, a word which comes to my lips and mind naturally, as it does for Octavia herself, and Quoi, does not exist on this earth. That is, I have searched monastery libraries for records of her race, and they do not exist. Of course, before they would not need to exist, for it was not myth, but real. Any mention, of any kind, be it inaccurate or exaggerated, would do. Octavia’s disappointment at not even seeing drawings of her ears, which are not that far from the humans’ in shape, just somewhat more pointed and curved, was immeasurable.
Quoi by fortune did not have a similar reaction, for there now resides much mythology of ‘shapeshifters’, which a library in Burgundy sourced an Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Odyssey which was entirely changed to myth and not, as it was, a real journey where the Purpleform Magy’cal called Circle (now called Circe) enslaved many Ab’malukae. That incident was tolerable––conflict is inevitable, and even the Inmortali had their disagreements with the Element’r on the proper use of fire. Now, those Ab’malukae were humans merely turned form into that of the swine. A hardy animal, and a good cleaner. The Ab’malukae, who resided in the bodies of animals anyway, wouldn’t have minded.
My kind was given a rich mythology, even older, and we are still parsing the texts for older mentions. I am in the body of a human now, though, and my name is Render. I am near forgetting my former name, but ‘Ren’ is a quicker appellation with my human acquaintances. There are other, even older, birds of myth and like entities, such as the Egyptian deity Horus, who reminds me somewhat of the Inmortalis’ physical form.
As for the Magy’cal themselves. Even older. Mesopotamia, a civilization which existed of course, but where the Magy’cal had large involvement in their flourishing culture. Records now indicate that such ‘divination’, nothing but another form of myth, was in use for defense against the dark arts. I will scoff to that, at least for the near prognostication of who the Magy’cal ultimately became. I–– Octavia has returned, with more tomes from a monastery. Theft? For our purposes, I think not.
the 4th of Aprilis, of the same Year.
It appears, as I peruse my last recording, that I neglected still to describe the true nature of the Magy’cal’s taint on history. Casting their many-colored wings over the reams of history and civilization is one thing, but to characterize the six which they removed from the earth as either nonexistent or––I am now getting to the Mark they made––more different than we actually were to the human race. The Inmortali were not mere birds of resurrection, with various powers. The Inmortali were carriers of the Flame, and were as tall as their human counterparts. See my allusion to Horus above. Horus is a closer approximation to the Inmortalis, without the body below the head, than whatever depictions you will find of the so-called ‘phoenixes’. One thing the Magy’cal chose to leave untouched is the changing depiction of color. This was right. The Inmortali, while not choosing their color at birth like the Emulae, were born naturally in all colors of the rainbow. The same goes for the Element’r.
I can go on at length about how the Element’r too differ––before I forget––from their depictions in myth. If there is one thing I have learned from my months as a monk (I jest), the only thing of substance that history has for us when distilled is the manufacturer’s imprint, the precise fact that it has been altered, constructed to please the writers and present satisfactory vestiges of meaning for those reading it in the future. This in mind, then, what I write now and what you, future self, reads is not a history, but a log of memory. Keep it close.
the 30th day of Iunius, year 1367
It has begun to slip my mind. My original name. I will write it down here, immediately after rising––the candle is flickering in our cave, casting shadows on the wall, I imagine figures––REDDUS NERALT. There. I will forget it tomorrow––but I have it here. The name my parents christened me, my name before Render. Render is a good name, though, I will grant the fiend that. Ah––I must return to the stuff of dreams. Good night.
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First Day of Quintilis
I have just returned from another day in the monasteries, and spare revelry with my old friend Loire. His crops are faring well. My name is Render. I must not forget this.
The last I wrote, let’s see––the fourth of this past Aprilis. Yes, the differences.
It seems that I will become a librarian. The one not in Burgundy––one in Champagne. Quoi has at last found success in his work as a stone mason, proving that anyone can become a stonemason, not just the . Octavia is a hand-reader, uses cards. She is rather good at it. However, I will not have her tell my future. Such a thing is a work of magic, a thing of fairy tale.
Sometimes I wonder, why I am doing this. ––Yes, Quoi quips that it is a poor occupation, although it does suit the librarian. I duly ignore his jokes.
“A fine day to be alive, and to be human,” I express, as I sit up on my bedding and stretch, almost brushing my arms with Octavia, who puts them off gently. She looks at me as if I am ill, which I am not. “With the war taking this country, that is a joke to start the morning,” she says in suit.
“Octavia, you need to place faith in the House of Valois. They have Charles the Wise. Wisdom––that is precisely the thing we need in these times to remember for years to come.”
“That’s not the problem, Render,” she tells me, shaking her head in impatience. It is not the first time she has done so. “You’ve been spending your days as a librarian, and Quoi as a stonemason. You are both doing good for France.”
“That’s right. Hence it is good that we are alive,” I respond. “Our small efforts, mine for maintaining our glorious nation’s records and notating this war in my leisure, and Quoi’s work on Aquitaine’s borders. What have you to say?” It is the year thirteen hundred and seventy, and she is still spending her nights in taverns, whiling away the hours with the sort of clientele that seeks fortunes told by pieces of paper. What is there to gain?
“It has been two years since we left your home under the hill.”
Octavia sighs. “You’ve just forgotten.” She stands, letting our blanket fall; unclothed, as finely formed when I first met her, one rough night playing cards in 1367. Her soft brown hair, which she keeps short, is as yet splendid to see as it ever was. Her eyes, grey as the moon on a dim night. I think of words to describe her, as I do each morning, and as I fail each morning, to put them to paper in some form or shape. My own body makes paltry flight in comparison, for the human being.
I watch as she dons her day’s garments. “I heard that you met someone interesting,” I say. “Quoi told me yesterday. Someone who did your card-reading for you, something of the like.”
She stares at me, as if I told her something new. “That’s right, Ren. I’m actually going to see her again, she does puppet shows down by the Rivière de Rouge. Fascinating skill! You should come along, before you take the horses to the monastery.”
I ponder for a moment. I pluck at a meandering hair sticking out from my bare chest. “I can certainly use the early hours away from dusty books,” and she laughs, in her full smile that is so natural. I too get out of bed, and before I know it we are both emerging from our home and into the thoroughfare of morning Champagne. I am dressed in my librarian’s robes, my knapsack with books over one shoulder, and my favorite walking staff held firmly, even though I do not need it. It is a bright day, and I shade my eyes with my fingers.
“This way,” Octavia says, and we walk together to the river.
“Good day!” the puppet-dancer exclaims, waving to Octavia with a peculiarly shaped miniature person wearing what looks like a large bird-mask, not quite a plague doctor. The plague’s bout three years ago was, after all, a lingering aftertaste from the original Black Death that ran across the continent. So I can tell, with my bookkeeper’s knowledge, that it is not a plague doctor, but something strange. I do not recognize it.
“Good day to you, Décala,” Octavia responds politely. She looks to me, and I dip my head. “Good day, friend,” I say in greeting. Décala nods, and faces the rest of the onlookers once more. She is wearing what appears to be rags and cloth sewn together out of spite, with red and blue attempting dominance in the fabric. Her hair, too, is a deep mahogany, almost red but still brown, and examining it next to Octavia’s well-kept strands, it more resembles the mops we give to the acolytes in the monastery.
First the bird-person dances to the left, and then to the right, back and forth as it dangles loosely from Décala’s deft left hand. The puppet maneuvered by her right, what must be a wizard with its orb-gripping staff and pointed hat, seems to dislike the dancing, and pouts, facing away from the lunatic. As a lunatic it must be, and the crowd laughs. Myself included, for it is a comical sight, and well performed.
“Why do you dance so strangely, sir?” the wizard asks in a tiny child’s voice, aptly spun by Décala, and the bird-man cocks its head as if curious, or wondering at the wizard’s question. “Dancing? No, no, no. I am trying to fly.” More laughs, although Octavia, I notice, is not smiling. “Fly! But you have no wings!” the wizard. “In a dream, I did,” comes the response, and I find myself laughing uproariously with the rest.
“Octavia, is it not comic?” I ask her, and she gives a half-smile, not genuine. “Only because I have seen it before, Render. Come––I must show you something further.” She taps the puppeteer’s shoulder, and the woman named for ‘Shift’ nods, without breaking stride from her motions. Octavia takes me behind the crowd, along the riverbank as the water laps to and fro, and to a dilapidated shack that, to my eyes, struggles to stay upright, but is roped to a good oak tree that clings well to the bank.
More laughter from behind us, as a child runs out of the shack, not more than three or four years, with hair as dark as Décala’s. Ah, she must be the daughter. Octavia goes to her knees and the child happily grabs at her fingers, giggling with unadulterated joy, and I shake my head. I know Octavia wants children––is this what she desired to show me?
“A cute child. What is your name, young sir?” I ask.
He stares up at me, and stops smiling. “Restor!”
Restor. I look to Octavia quizzically, and she smiles. “His surname. Décala Restor, and her son, Premi. Cute, is he not?”
I must nod, although I wish to return to the puppet show. “Octavia, is this the best time? We have discussed this at length.”
She nods firmly, gently pushing the child back into its hut. “Come here, Render. Here is the one who read my cards.”
I shake my head, but follow her into the makeshift home, whose ceiling barely reaches above my height. I watch as the child of Restor laughs as it tumbles to the floor, and as Octavia extends a card from several lying in disarray in a circle around the boy. Premi takes it, still giggling naturally, reciting “Horse!” and the card, which I had barely caught sight of as the Knight, shifts and shows a horse. I stumble. “Falcon!” the child screams, and the King becomes the bird of prey, servant to nobles, and as I feel a burning tingling in my forearms, the child of Restor yells a word that rings of immortality in its power, and the scent of paper burning fills the hut, and I see myself reflected in the card he holds. But it is not myself I know, but a terrible being with eyes of fire, and I know I am not dying but that were I to die, I would somehow return to this world; and one word now clangs in my head like the bell I order the acolytes to swing for midday toll; and it is SCION.
END OF ACT IV