Year 215. Ephela Pass - The Crest - Khirn
“In all my years of wandering this world and its myriad realms, there are few beings that compare to the Nujant Chhank. Courageous beasts. Intellectual. Stubborn. They would have made fantastic components of my empire.” - Acominatus, On the Nujant Chhank Pg. 1, Par. 1.
GÍLA SENGHU
She saw herself in the reflection of the icy pool. She matched the descriptions of legend this land used to tell for she was broad and overly muscled and overly fat and black-furred with golden eyes and long fangs that went beyond her lips, much like a sabercat. Her arms were long and her hands resembled a human's in terms of overall physiology, ending in clawed fingers that reached her knees when held straight. Her legs, like her arms, were long and clawed and were useful in climbing steep hills. She was a Nujant Chhank.
The wind cut against their fur and hides like bladed whips, splitting the ends of their hairs and chilling the flesh underneath. Even their leather clothing, designed to provide protection beyond what their physiology already did, proved marginally ineffective at preventing the damages of the mountain’s cold. They were four, sequential in height, yet all taller than the humanity that lived in Khirn and far more massive in muscle and fat. The oldest of them, their leader, was perched atop a small crop of stone. His feet were dug into the ice like picks, while his white fur hid the thick droplets of snow that beat against him. Black as a starless night, his eyes pored over the map in his hands.
Gíla smiled. A demon, he would be called. Straight from the horror tales of Old Khirn. Yet, he was the wisest and—when not driven to the utmost stress of a cross-continental adventure—the most loving. He was Helgol Senghu, Scholar of Asne Unarith, and Gíla’s most beloved father.
“Are you sure that’s the place?” Gíla was forced to eventually ask the wizened man as he traced a single clawed digit along the marked path on the map.
“Yes, daughter, I am sure,” Helgol sighed gruffly, stopping his point at the place they were supposedly standing. It was a large pass at the end of a winding, barely visible road that was likely once used for greater travel. Now, it was all but deteriorated and hidden in the constant winter. “We have followed every path from the Halflings, cairn from the Juushk, marking from the Orcin, tunnels from the Dwarves, and birds from the Gnomes to find this place. I am quite positive this is it. Not to mention the damnable thing appearing when I used the Call.”
“To be fair to my dear sister, the Call is just as likely to show someone a lie as it is the truth,” her brother, Daou, said as he crossed his arms in contemplation. “Perhaps The Crest is not where the Bastion lies. It could just as well be the Restless Summit, Gythale, or even somewhere in another nation.”
“The map shows it to be this place,” their father expressed with exasperation only a two-hundred-year trip could bring about. “We have crossed the deserts of Aqella, braved the City of the Judicators, and even the waves of the damnable ocean. We circumnavigated Druya and Belanore, all in hopes of reaching this place. And now we cannot find the Kallosse Gate though the map says we should. Something is amiss.”
“Father, Daou could be right,” Gíla said. “Riyu is finicky these days, more so here in Khirn where the humans have villainized it aside from their forgotten strongholds and tombs.”
“The Druyans have not forgotten,” her sweet mother, Tearhas, said. “Which is surprising, considering the recent history of this land. Perhaps we could enlist someone of their kind to assist us?”
“I would not count on those barbarians to help us discover a treasure trove of mystharinic knowledge and power was the Bastion,” Helgol grumbled, rolling up the map in his massive paws and stuffing it into his side pack. The wind billowed against him, making his cloak flap like wings. “I would more trust the Tahririans or the...Tearhas, what were they called? The ones to the north?”
“Veorisians, I believe,” she answered.
Helgol nodded and returned to his family, descending from the crop of rocks with delicate steps that belied his size. When he stood before them, the light eking through the clouds shadowed by his frame. “Yes. Veorisians. They are spiritual. The Druyans are brutal. Warlike. I would not trust them with the delicate nature of this place.”
“If you read the map right, that is,” Daou said with a low laugh.
“Quiet, boy,” Helgol lightly pushed his son’s shoulder. “I read it correctly. It is here. Come, let us ascend more.”
The four resumed their ascent of the mountains, paving their way through the split in rock and stone that was Ephela Pass. For three more days, they climbed, breaching the pass and crawling up the face of the mountains until they were granted a vista’s view of the land of Aslofidor as the clouds broke open for their eyes to feast. Miles upon miles spread out before them, grasses of many colors and trees of more visible as far as they could see and then some. More was presented as Helgol waved his hands and uttered The Call to see the world hidden from mortal sight. Tears welled in Gíla’s eyes as she was beholden to things she had not seen since the wide scapes of Aqella.
Darting through the trees and the fields and the villages the size of towns and towns that were the size of cities—gaudy and overdeveloped yet inexplicably never veering towards inability to care for their people—were the sprites of Riyu. Ti Nam, her father called them. The All. Living remnants of a bygone age. Spirits, wraiths, energies, consciousnesses given form, dreams of mortal life given semi-corporeal shape. They were the foundations of the land and its cultures, born of the gods and cared for by the mortals. Now they were forced to endure an age of misremembered history, lies, deceit, and heresies where the gods have gone silent. Whenever he spoke of these ages—enhanced by the viewing of relics of the dead one—she saw a fire of fury in his eyes. It petrified her.
One of Ti Nam scampered with a speed beyond blitzing from the field at the mountain’s base as if reading the family’s thoughts. It raced up the mountain’s face, scurrying from outcrop to landing to sheer ascent. It stopped before them as they stood at the edge of a great ledge. Terrifyingly beautiful, shapeless, yet attempting to mimic theirs. Iridescent purple was its color, a single iris in the center of its ‘head’ as it stared at them with the curiosity of a child.
“Hello,” Helgol said to it, to which it made a humming noise before scampering off somewhere in the mountain. “Great things, Ti Nam. Terrible what has become of them.”
Gíla looked at him with sadness in her eyes. “Do you think they will regain their lost glory, Father?”
“Unless the gods return from their silence, no,” her father said stiffly before turning on his feet to continue the ascent. “But, that is for another day. Let us find this Bastion and see the fruits of our labors harvested.”
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“I think we found it,” Helgol exclaimed breathlessly as the strain of casting The Call wore down on him for the fifth time.
“That would be underselling this, dearest,” Tearhas grinned, holding him upright. Before them, near the very peak of the mountain across a ledge nearly half a mile in length and width, was a great fortress that defied the logic of reality as all mortal life unskilled in the manipulating powers of Riyu understood. Every aspect of it was grand, overt, and designed to withstand the greatest of sieges from below, from the walls to what seemed to be the main entrance that her father had missed entirely.
The portcullis, taller than sixty mortals standing on their shoulders with their arms held up, was connected to a series of rotating bridges that winded down into a field far below, barely visible through the snow-drenched clouds that covered the majority of the middle and lower range. There were many questions shared between the family as to how they had missed such an obvious thing, especially with the bridges facing the very part of the land that they had originated from, with the only conclusion—fantastical thought it was—being that the Call did not unveil it until they completed a trial of sorts. Riyu is finicky.
“Will it disappear soon?” Daou asked.
“No, I do not think so,” Tearhas spoke for Helgol. “We have found it and stood upon it. The Halfling that gave us the information on this place said that once we stand within it at any juncture, it will remain visible until we leave.”
“We had best hurry then, lest the humans find themselves a new place to corrupt,” Helgol wheezed, urging Tearhas to let him walk on his own and lead their children inside through the gatehouse. “Find out how to turn the bridges. I do not want the humans to get up here to ruin it.”
The interior beyond the fortress walls was incredible, and for each week that passed as they explored, it only grew more incredible. Gíla felt her breath leave her lungs as she beheld the magnificent sights of snowcapped buildings the size of three-story taverns, peppered with alleyways and signs written in old dialect. There were dozens of these buildings strewn about in an orderly chaotic fashion, each clearly designated to some purpose that eluded Gíla as she examined them. Each building that looked as if it would best serve as a smithy instead seemed to operate as either a medical ward or a dining hall. Months passed, the family splitting apart as they explored the inner and outer yards of the mountain’s external fortress.
“This place is as exquisite as it is confounding,” Daou stated as the family gathered for their weekly dining in the only identified building—a tavern with many rooms on its second floor, bathing on the third, and a magnificent kitchen in the back. “The structures are intact and in prime condition, yet nothing is operating, it seems. I have found more cold, frozen machinery than I have moving parts.”
“The same for me as well,” Tearhas said. “Everything on this level of the fortress—the Bastion, if we are to call it that—appears to be for gatherings or construction. Nothing of what we are seeking.”
“I would say it still fits into what we are seeking,” Gíla countered. “Though it may not be explicit knowledge of Old Khirn or the world that was, we are at least getting an idea of how this place worked.”
“Gíla is right,” Helgol said, pointing a stew-filled spoon at his daughter with a smile. “I believe this place was as Tearhas said. For gatherings and construction. Conceivably, when we open up that keep, we can find something of more substantial use. Doubly so when we find a way inside the mountain.”
“Let us finish our examination of everything first before we move to the keep,” suggested Daou. “I would hate for anything to be left forgotten.”
The family had barely finished exploring the first layer of the Bastion’s external fortress and barely gathered any proper information or relics when the humans arrived in force some odd days later. They were led by two, dusky of complexion and lithe of builds. Though armed and armored with nothing that could truly threaten them, numbers mattered, and the humans had more numbers than the family could manage on their own. More than two dozen archers had taken positions around the family. Arrows nocked and drawn.
“Do not attack them unless they are serious about unleashing those arrows,” Helgol commanded. “We are in enough trouble with these humans as is, and I would rather we avoid the tendencies of our people breaking out just yet.”
“You did want to avoid this,” Daou lamented.
“You’re a long way from home, bear folk,” one of the humans leading this force called out in the harsh, ugly tongue of the Aslofidorians. The family took their place in the center of the outer ward. The human had adopted a lackadaisical stance, leaning on their hip with a hand gripping the pommel of their longsword. He was bearded.
“Indeed,” Helgol said back in the same tongue, sharing a quick worried glance with his daughter. “How did you get up here?”
“Climbed the mountain,” the bearded human answered with a cock of their head, likely surprised that they understood their language. “Same as you, I assume, given the state of those bridges. Unless you turned them to keep others from following.”
“We climbed the mountain as you did. And we turned the bridges,” Gíla said with a shrug.
“Care to explain why you’re here then?” asked the other leader. He was bald.
“Exploring the land, human,” Daou answered, crossing his arms. “Researching things left behind by the ancestors—things left behind from a greater age.”
The bald one nodded. “Indeed? Well, would you mind if we joined you in such an endeavor? Whatever we discover would greatly help our campaign against the Vasileús.”
“Immediate thoughts to war. Typical,” Daou whispered to Gíla, to which she rolled her eyes in agreement and sighed, much like her father.
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“I would rather we did not have to kill them,” she whispered back.
“We might have to,” Daou admitted with a raised brow.
“I would mind, in fact,” Helgol declared. “You arrived suddenly and aimed weapons at my family without hesitation. You threatened them. I cannot trust you.”
“You cannot trust us? You are inhumans in human land,” the bearded one laughed. “Reports given to us say that you manipulated this mountain into some holdfast for your dark sorceries, and that seems to be the case as of now. We have every right to do this until we learn of your intentions.”
“A human land? Your land was once filled with ‘inhumans’ during the time of your Golden Lords,” Tearhas said. “It was no different than Aqella, save for the landscape. Have you so easily forgotten that?”
The bald one shook their head. “The books are quite clear on the history of our home. We are a human land, always have been. Anything else that we’ve discovered must be recent. After our arrival here. Like you people.”
“And if you don’t want to share your intentions with us or this research you are allegedly scouring for, then we have no choice but to take action against you, bear folk,” the first said.
“Well, that is a shame,” Helgol said to Tearhas, his voice drowning in disappointment and rising irritation. He turned his attention back to the human. “We, in turn, will have no choice but to take action against you.”
Gíla looked at her father and saw that fire of fury in his eyes. She knew what was coming. What he was about to do to the humans that dared threaten his family. That dared threaten the knowledge of the Bastion. Gíla shifted her stance uncomfortably as the first human flicked their fingers, drawing a tense re-aiming from the archers. She heard a growl escape Daou and visualized how he would kill the two humans leading this force. She saw her mother’s lips curl back to reveal sharp fangs and knew that in a few moments, they would be covered in blood.
“Stand the fuck down, gentlemen,” said a voice carrying like a ghostly wail in the chilled wind. “Unless you want these ‘bear folk’ to kill you all.”
Like shadows given shape, three figures appeared from the dark loom of the fortress walls: one short and thin, another tall and thin. The third was not human but rather something passing itself off as human with pale skin, golden eyes, and braided black hair. He was dressed differently than the others. The humans wore coats of furs and boiled leather, while he was clad in black mail and carried a distinct helm. In his other hand was a large dark wooden crossbow while a quiver of yellow-fletched bolts rested at his hip. Many of the archers lowered their bows at their arrival, though a few kept their bows drawn.
“I have never in my life seen such blatant acts of stupidity and brazenness in the face of overwhelming ‘do not try it,’” the short, thin human raged.
“We told you to wait!” the tall one shouted, storming up to the bald one. “You’re lucky we caught up to you when we did.”
It was the short one that spoke next. “These are Drayheller, you fools!” they said to the rest of the humans.
“What difference does it make? They’re inhumans. Shouldn’t that be all that matters?” one of the archers debated.
“It matters a lot if you want to live, boy,” the tall one said. “Old Zetus had a book that described them as things you wouldn’t want the Devil Himself to face alone. They haunted my dreams when I was a child. And our friend, Svend here, has told me more than what that book did. They are near-unkillable, strong in the old magic—mystharin. They are strong in body, too. They will rip the head off your shoulders in a single tug. They rule Aqella from the shadows and the front lines. So tell me if that's something that matters, you idiot.”
“With respect, Sir Coronos, you are fooling yourself with legends,” the bald one said with a grimace. “Inhumans always want to paint themselves as unkillable.”
"Not legends. Fact made real by them standing here," the thing said. He walked to Coronos' side. “You go against orders and suggestion, see the proof, and challenge still? And you're the elite? Let me ask you: you ever see a walking, talking creature that big before? One that can use sorcery?”
“Can’t say that they have, Svend,” the tall human, Coronos, answered for them. “And I think it would best serve us all if none of us learned the truth behind the legends just yet.”
“Cowardice,” the bearded one spat, refusing to look away from Coronos. “You’re-”
“Being logical, Orcus,” the thing called Svend said. “Hate the things all you want, but woe befall you if you choose not to listen to reason because I am not tussling with them for your mistake. Especially that white-furred one. How tall are you?”
“Does it matter?” Helgol asked with a sour crook of his lip.
“Numbers matter,” Coronos said. “Might be enough to get this young idiot and his other idiots to stand down.”
“Nine feet,” Tearhas said. “That is what our apothecary said before we left our home in Aqella.”
“Nine feet, Orcus,” Svend said with a whistle. “Nine feet tall. Now consider its size, the weight of it, and the fact that it has three others like it. Do you think you can take them on? Our orders were to investigate and stop them if they were doing ritualistic things.”
Coronos nodded to this and stared hard at Gíla. “Are you doing ritualistic things, Drayheller?”
“No,” Gíla answered honestly. “Only that which was necessary to find this place. Everything else has been pure archaeology.”
Coronos flapped their arms out and turned to Orcus. “See? Now, I, for one, am not looking forward to fighting Drayheller, and I am positive the Dioúksis will be just as happy seeing these things calmed and non-hostile as he would seeing them dead. So what if we all just took a seat somewhere and spoke about all of this?”
A moment’s silence was passed around like a coin purse between thieves before, finally, Helgol nodded. “I am...okay with this suggestion, but only if this Orcus and their fellows stay under the eye of my son and your second.”
Coronos smiled with painfully white teeth. “Acceptable terms.”
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Gíla poured the stew into Lord Coronos’ deep, wooden bowl, followed by the one called Svend and then her father and mother. Coronos, fair of skin and blonde of hair, took a large bite of the stew’s potatoes and beef, nodding to each delighted chew of the contents.
“This is excellent food,” they said. “Who made this?”
“I did,” Gíla said, raising her hand almost sheepishly.
“Fantastically done,” Coronos smiled again before taking several more bites and wiping the broth from his mouth. “Now, let’s get down to the unfortunate business here.”
“Yes, let us,” Helgol grunted, leaning back uncomfortably in the chair he had resized with a few snaps of his finger some weeks ago.
Coronos cleared his throat. “Helgol was it?”
“Yes.”
“Helgol, I would like to first formally apologize for my subordinate’s actions. They can be quite zealous when the standards for our work are removed. Stealth, subterfuge, guile, deception, and the like. I would almost put them on the same level as an Aedo we have known as the Akaios Opos.” They gave a small simper at their words as if they said something humorous. “But, be that as it may, their actions are understandable. You are, at the end of the day, inhuman in human lands, practicing an outlawed practice, ritualistic or not.”
“We are,” Helgol said. There was a hidden glance towards Svend that brought a tinge of worry to Gíla's heart. “And that calls for immediate hostilities? The immediate threat to our lives?”
Coronos nodded. “Unfortunately, for most, that is exactly what it calls for. And if this conversation goes awry, it will call for it more. You are Drayheller, which they are now rightly afraid of-”
“They should be,” added the one called Svend.
“They should be. If we can walk away from this table with hostilities ended, that would be best for everyone involved. I would very much like that.”
“As would we,” said Tearhas. “Understand this, Coronos, we are not harming anyone. We are not getting involved in your politics, your war, or your culture. Nor do we have any intention to. We are merely excavating a site hidden from those who have no means to see it-”
"Or no right," Helgol added.
“If it is on their land, would they not have the right?” Svend asked. There was a hint of informality to his tone. Familiarity that both knew what Svend was.
“No,” Helgol stated bluntly, keeping his attention on Coronos. “You humans denied yourselves the means to see this place, to uncover it, to access it. You cut yourselves off from mystharin and thus rid yourselves of the right to see it. To use it. To explore it.”
“Yet it is on their land,” Svend said again. “By the rights of their home, by the rights of their god, they-”
“You cannot rip off your own arm and then cry out that you should still have the right to use it as an arm,” Helgol proclaimed with the tune of a weary general. “This place was hidden from you for a reason, and you have all lost the means to see it. We have not. We were given the journey to find it and uncover its secrets. And we will use it for those means. You will not. You can not.”
“Father,” Gíla whispered.
“Husband,” Tearhas muttered.
“Helgol, I must impress upon you that your presence is now known to this land,” Coronos cautioned. “If we do not return with something even resembling beneficial news, then you and your family will all be at risk against more than just a group of humans you could easily kill. You would face an army without any hope of diplomacy or survival. We are called the Curators, not only for our ability to collect and safeguard information but also to serve as the custodians of peace between willing parties. I implore you to be a willing party, even if for a moment right now.”
“Listen to them, Father,” Gíla pleaded. "We are Nujant Chhank. We are more than this. We seek knowledge, compromise, and peace. We taught the Orcin these things. Do not let your frustrations with Ti Nam cloud your judgment now. Please.”
Helgol breathed once as he visibly thought on his daughter’s words before acquiescing with a nod to Coronos.
“Helgol, I thank you for taking this moment,” Coronos said. “This is already a monumental occasion. As for what can be done, I must ask you to please inform Svend and me of what this place is and where it came from.”
“This is the Star Bastion, though we have known it more formally as Sayy Whirma,” Helgol said after a long pause. “It was supposedly crafted long ago, before the time of your Golden Lords. I believe it was crafted before the first inhabitants of humanity were here on Khirn, as well. It was used as a repository of academics, formulae, war, peace, destruction, and creation.”
Svend looked around the tavern’s dining area. “How big is this place in total? I mean, the fortress outside alone is monumental, but-”
“In the legends, it is said to span the entirety of The Crest and even more beyond it in subterranean tunnels and chambers. We long thought to be just legends, but after many encounters in Aqella that changed what we knew, we were led here, and it proved to be real —to some extent. You arrived before we could enter the keep or the subterranean levels.”
“How long have you been searching for this place?” Svend asked.
“Two hundred years,” Tearhas answered to the shock of Coronos and his third.
“Highest Above,” Coronos said in a hushed voice. “Two hundred years to find this place. You must be...driven by willpower unobtainable by our people.”
“Greatly unobtainable,” Helgol softly grinned. “Being here is the accomplishment of a lifetime of study and research into the lost ages. This place, this Star Bastion, can provide us answers to our most critical of questions. Where did the Golden Lords go? Who came before the first humans in Khirn? How is it so well known in Aqella by so many names? The formulae alone in the sciences could advance us in Asne Unarith ten-fold if the legends are true.”
“What of war? You mentioned war,” Svend asked.
“I will not tell you of what it can do for war,” Helgol snarled. “You humans do that well enough without the aid of this place.”
“But what of saving those from war?” Coronos asked, much to Helgol’s visible confusion. “Could it serve as a haven to our people if our cities and towns were to fall? Could it provide protection from them in a siege? In a raid? In a storm or other weather?”
“More than enough protection,” Gíla said. “If the legends of its scale are true, you could use it to protect millions.”
Coronos' eyes widened, his face pale at the mere thought of this amount. He bore his gaze into the eyes of Gíla’s father. “Sir Helgol, I must ask you this: consider having this place be open to Dioúksis Audax’s people. Not for developing our abilities in war, not for abuse of its contents, but for saving his people. At worst, we could use it to hold our soldiers, to plan in safety, while you and your family would be free to explore it as you wish. To deem what we could know or not know.”
“I will not have soldiers-” Helgol began to say, only to be cut off by Tearhas placing her hand on his shoulder.
“Husband, we cannot face all of Khirn,” she said with a sad smile. “We have to make this compromise. If this human returns to their leader without news of something being gained, we will face the world alone. More alone than we already did on this journey. We have to do this.”
Helgol’s face contorted into a rage at the pure fact of this statement. Gíla clenched her eyes shut. Denying even a sliver of compromise would risk everyone and everything they had worked towards.
“I want to speak to this leader of yours directly, this Audax,” Helgol grimaced and growled. “I want to speak to him directly.”
“What will happen if you leave?” Svend asked.
Helgol leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. “Once we leave this place, it will vanish from sight, and none of you will be able to access it. And if you want to access it again, I must speak to your Audax and come to terms with them. Not you. That is the price of your compromise, Curator. Do we have a deal?”