Digression 2: An Abbey Buried in Earth and Drowned in Gold
38th Day of Ope in the Third Month of Snow's Fall,
4633 A.G.G. (Present Day)
The Old City, Beneath Castle Įcħor-Nåbįlå, North of the Yavan Mountains
The Continent of Kazakoto
2:30 P.S.R. (Pre Suns Rising)
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Aoleon
Not much bothered Aoleon any more; much like her father. Not the cold of the dilapidated cathedral or the catacombs that surrounded it. Not the slightly stale smell of the poorly recirculated air as she breathed it in deeply through her wide nostrils. Not even the sparse, slightly-too-dim-for-comfort lighting peppered throughout what was left of the ancient excavated buildings. Nothing had gotten under her skin for many years now. Not unless she focused on acknowledging it all.
Old open flame street lamps kept the derelict cobblestone streets outside the cathedral walls awash in soft light, forcing their dim illumination into the gloomy caverns, dank tunnels and all that was buried within as best as they could. Fed by modernized gas lines which had been run throughout what could be exhumed of the long forgotten city after it was decided that these ruins beneath the castle town proper would be the cradle of Įcħor-Nåbįlå’s coffers…among other things. Their glow serving to breathe some life into the dilapidated town; its overgrown walls and its soil covered streets. Sadly beautiful visages; damp and crumbling.
She scanned the airy space quickly but failed to find her quarry.
“Of course his kingship isn’t here.” she humorfully whispered to herself; the tone def tenor of her quiet voice still finding enough volume to reverberate through the ancient place of worship. “He likely won’t be in the winery “under-district” or cellars. Nor was he in the library archives when I looked about in the western remains. He wouldn’t be at the statue garden without mom and I doubt he’d be combing the murals this late. So if he’s not here, then he’s most likely to be down beyond the crypts…with them.” Not a thought she relished.
As she continued forward through the ruined abbey’s nave and choir, she admired the sunset architecture of the ancient elven structure. Stopping almost mid stride for a moment to look back behind herself out of the once decorative doors which were crumbling with age and neglect, through the near roofless narthex, and out to the stone steps which lead down and split from the building’s front façade to the silhouettes of separate collapsing shrines which were nearly lost in the cavern’s dimmer light.
Her gaze lazed about as she let her mind drift into thoughts of how the elegant design of the structure and its accompanying buried buildings showcased the sensibilities of the sunset elves who came after the dwarves who built the bulk of the lower city beforehand…and who built the bulk of Įcħor-Nåbįlå above.
“It’s been ages since the dwarves placed their beliefs in the Goddess and walked hand-in-hand with the sunset elves. A long time since their holds graced the surface.” Aoleon whispered with much sadness. “Who knows how much they could have accomplished had they remained close to both each other and the Queen of Queens?”
After a few long and contemplative moments, her eyes slowly shifted to the balconies over the isles and the rigging hanging underneath them. Their railings weren’t terribly dissimilar from the arm-mounted supports which were prevalent in the castle library, if not far heavier looking and more archaic; not surprising since they were constructed in a slightly more hodgepodge manner with normally incompatible equipment that her father was able to procure from non-Hesijuan sources. Ugly multicoloured wires poured from them like water from a faucet, falling about the riches below them. Their outmoded mechanisms’ internal fans starting and stopping sporadically. Knocking and rattling loudly in their sad attempts to keep the contraptions they were connected to cool.
Shrugging to herself and deciding to pay it all no more attention, her eyes then drifted downward about the aisles, past the presbytery and into the furthest reaches of the chapel and the high alter which were all drowned in mounds of mineral and material wealth. Silver, gold, jewelry, knick-knacks and fine furniture. Scepters gifted from neighboring monarchs, ceremonial weapons given in respect from visiting dignitaries, precious stones, tapestries and foreign rugs given in tribute from nobles. There were even heavy antique armoires, chiffarobes and zemrane trunks filled to bursting with paper monies and coin from all over the globe.
Thousands of times had she walked through Įcħor-Nåbįlå’s ever growing sea of wealth, and she never ceased to find it a little overwhelming.
It won’t be long before it all starts spilling over into the transepts. she thought to herself. We’re going to have to figure something out with all of this.
As she continued forward slowly, drinking in the atmosphere of the repurposed place of worship, she stopped briefly as a twinkle caught her eye. Moving to a trunk half buried in treasures, she lifted from it a beautiful tiara. It’s rubies and emeralds reflecting her visage back at her in each of their tiny surfaces. She placed it on her head for a moment and twirled this was and that playfully; pretending to be some other princess from some other land. Then, after a while, she removed the delicate item from her head and softly patted her kinky white knots to ensure that they weren’t disturbed to much during her play.
“I don’t know.” she said to no one as she studied the item for a few more moments, “I still prefer the crown my mother gave me.”
With the playful moment past and her purpose returned, she gently placed the tiara back into its overflowing chest and continued onward to find her father.
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The stair ways and passages throughout the crypts were well worn with age and disuse. Elvish architecture being the stuff of legend that it is, they’d mostly survived the ravages of time and destruction and were still largely traversable with the exception of a few collapsed tunnels here and there. Although there were the odd passages hither and tither that required the rudimentary support given them from makeshift wooden supports bolted to hearty cross beams. While other compromised sections had been secured with modified anchored rockbolts or dowels. Overall, it was as well of a situation that could exist for a place that had seen unremembered natural disaster, ages of sinking into the earth and being built over-top-of by another town. Which was something of a Goddess-send to those few trusted technicians and craftsmen who are continuing the thankless and ever-continuing work of repairing and restoring the crypts and caretakers who see to the needs of the caverns’ forgotten buildings.
The halls were empty and quiet tonight; cool and moist. The sounds of as-of-yet uncontrolled water slowly dripping down into the crypt’s flooded sections and scurrying animals filled the distant air with the music of quiet anarchy. And the smell of mildew and long dead critters all betrayed the fact that these walls had yet much work that needed to be done by the family’s dwarven builders.
These were walls that Aoleon was very familiar with. She’d explored tirelessly in the shadows of the crypt’s pillars and gothic statues as a child under the watchful brown eyes of her mother; laughing merrily and playing fearlessly with her imaginary friends. Cracked caskets, dust covered keepsakes and sporadic walls of mortal bones be damned.
Aoleon had always been a dark child. And her mother…maybe even more so, in her own way.
The tips of her metal fingers slid playfully through moist wall scum and algae as she continued downwards through a series of gradually descending stone passageways and through the streets of a half excavated shopping district; across a grandiose yet decaying courtyard and before long, she found herself walking into the gargantuan embrace of the crumbling remains of a massive amphitheater as the familiar golden glow of the torches about her slowly gave way to the more ominous dark light of purple flame.
So much stained glass covered the walls of the space that you’d be forgiven for thinking that the walls were glass. Massive pillars that used to support what was no doubt a beautiful ceiling now seemed to support nothing but earth and stalactites. What was once likely a center of entertainment and town meetings for the forgotten city's inhabitants, it now stood as the king’s most secure repository for items that, quite frankly, have little place existing in this world.
Aoleon often thought to herself how beautiful the chamber must have been when the suns’ light used to flood the structure. Now however, the only thing that sat outside those cracked or broken windows were walls of cold rock which no light from the suns had pierced in ages upon ages.
The room’s problematic foundation had long since allowed its floor to sink deeper into the surrounding ground and left it uneven, split and slant in different directions and the grass and mushrooms that pushed their way up through them tickled the skin between Aoleon’s toes as she walked forward. Around her, weeds, moss and vines enveloped and ensnared relics of both the dįvįnë and the dæmönic; most half caked in dirt, dust and soot. Things the monarch had supposedly acquired before and during the war. Much of it was inherited from the first of Åmbrosįå’s Drågons. Some were gifted or shared by Her Ångëls. And some were…liberated from the hands of Dæmöns and Fallen or recovered from far-flung expeditions or digs.
The musky odor that filled the air from it all was mixed with the underlying sent of wisteria, jasmine and rose, emanating from the direction in which Aoleon was traveling. Accompanied by mumblings in a deep voice. Aoleon followed the soft rambling through the disorderly space until, at long last, she came to the focus of her search. The ruler of these lands, standing near the center of a vast circle which was completely devoid of clutter. King Samahdemn. Intently ranting seemingly to no one and messaging an antiquitious isilivere chain bursting with small stones of different shapes, colors and some covered in carvings; rotating through the decorations one at a time as if meditating with prayer beads.
Braziers alight with purple flames surrounded the immaculately kempt circle which had been swept carefully with intent. The ground within was filled with deeply carved binding runes and symbols. The heka of them was strong. Oppressive even. The wards having been crafted by the hand of a duo of Åmbrosįå’s Pårålu and Kolumbkį directly; two of Her queendom’s powerful orders of Ångëls.
Occupying a space of prominence at the circle’s epicenter was a roughly hewn, unshapen stone fixture. Cut in an uneven stair-like fashion. Immovable in its heft. And much like the circle it sat in, it was weighed down by a plethora of binding wards. Upon it sat a group of bound weapons, forged of a beautifully gleaming silver-ish metal. Encased in heavy semi-open sheathes of Drågonhide and brass; somewhat openly displaying their blades for all to see.
One had the appearance of having been scorched or irrevocably damaged by fire and rust. Or maybe covered in grit and soot; an extravagant half-saber of untold age. Yet the chipping and cracking visible along its surface seemingly did nothing to affect its strength or sharpness.
The other was half of a destroyed but equally unique broadsword. Although shattered, its finish was nonetheless flawless; seeming almost as if it could have been newly forged if not for the obvious. It gleamed like starlight and exuded a certain entrancing beauty even in its devastated state; its blade having suffered its fate in the midst of the Dįvonësë War.
Also among these instruments, a third weapon lay low near the stand’s base. An elegantly formed pipe tomahawk of a similar metal. Immaculately balanced and, as far as she’d been told, slightly warm to the touch.
The king’s dark natural eye, lightly peppered with dark flakes of purple, in concert with his artificially augmented one; the lens ringed in purple to match, scanned back and forth between and about the weapons as he spoke. Seemingly between the disembodied voices he was so fervently talking to. And as Aoleon’s eyes washed worriedly over her troubled king as he mumbled in his distressed state, she wondered momentarily if it was smart to try to stir him from his conversation with the intangible beings.
Ultimately deciding that she didn’t desire to shake him from his trance just yet as such a thing could prove to be dangerous to the unwary, she simply approached the very edge of the ring and awaited invitation into the circle. The heka of the wards wouldn’t have been disturbed by one as she, but she’d always been brought up to respect a Magi’s circle and the weaving within. And so, she always had.
As she stood patiently, her gaze was captured by a large wild feline of a thick white and gray coat lying down behind her father. Not that she was concerned in the least as the sight. After all, this was her kindred spirit; her sister, after a fashion.
A dire snow leopard she was. At nearly nine feet long, she was easily eight hundred pounds of fur and muscle. Very mighty. Aoleon had smelled the beast almost as soon as she’d crested the stairs. She was apparently clean…recently washed in point-of-fact. The albino watched the feline’s chest. The heaving of it speeding up from its previous slow and rhythmic cadence. Her coat shining beautifully in the light of the gas lanterns around the room.
She’d been sleeping soundly; the leopardess. But now she was beginning to stir at the pale woman’s presence. Her ears perked and her vibrant green eyes opened and dilated from slits to black orbs. The feline lofted her large head sleepily and got up. She yawned wide and stretched long. Extending her large, sharp claws against the cool grassy stone flooring.
“Hello Ayashe.” She whispered to the creature as she approached.
Samahdemn had always taken great joy in spending time with the massive feline. The truth of their relationship and their bond was admittedly somewhat lost on Aoleon, but she knew that they were rarely separated and ever protective of each other. The leopardess had been his companion through many years and many conflicts. And they seemed to love each other dearly.
Often would the family say that she was a family friend, not the family familiar. Yet by the castle lord’s own admittance, there was a magickal connection between them that wasn’t much unlike that very thing. They could feel each other’s feelings and emotions, communicate through thought just as well as if they were speaking aloud and he’d even claimed that they’d shared each other’s senses on occasion.
Emotions were powerful amplifiers in all forms of heka. Love was especially potent.
As Ayashe approached Aoleon at the circle’s edge, her feline eyes focused on the princess and she raised one of her large paws; claws retracted in the same way a domesticated cat would to swipe playfully at someone, as if to beckon her to cross the threshold. As Aoleon crossed over the wards, the leopard batted at the Hesijuan albino with a paw the size of a grown man’s head.
Although the amount of strength she wielded could’ve easily pummeled a full grown centaur, even in play, it was little more than the pawing of a kitten to one such as the young woman or her father.
Smiling from ear to ear at the leopardess’ gesture, Aoleon fell to her knees and tussled with her playfully. After a few moments the princess ceased and looked her in the eyes and lovingly petted the side of her enormous head. The leopard softly roared in response and licked her cheek…or more appropriately, given the size of her tongue, licked her face.
Hearing the commotion beside him, the king suddenly ceased talking to the unseen and spoke directly to his daughter; clearly but without turning his head. “I dreamed the dream again Aoleon. Just as I have nearly every night since the incident. I dreamed of the Grand Spire, burning more than a half-mile beneath the surface of the world.” His thick accent coated his words as they slid from his mouth; an accent that she’s always had a hard time getting used to since his change. It never sounded like it fit him. It was like the sound of three or four different enunciations melding into one unique intonation; it was so…alien.
He turned his purple highlighted gaze toward her; the iris of his vaporish natural eye reflecting the light from the torches like a mirror. To her, in the shadowy space, the gaze from this orb seemed like that of an animal stalking prey in the jungle in the dead of night.
“Whether selfish or selfless,” he signed to her, “I’ve done a lot of bad in my life for a lot of reasons. But nothing I’ve seen or done has weighed on me the way that has. I don’t think I’ll ever be free of it.”
“Not to fear. It was but a dream. You’re here, and you’re okay.”
“As are you I see.”
She stood and curtsied graciously. Hoping to tease her father to happiness. “At your beck and call as always lord-father.” she said as she signed; her mother’s accent flowing from between her thick lips.
The king rolled his eyes and waved it off playfully as he wrapped the prayer bead-like charm he’d been fondling about his arm. “Stop pulling at my chain before I have you flogged.”
Glinting in the light as he waved, the princess couldn’t help but be momentarily waylaid by the sight of his isilivere and steel Swalli bonding bracelet. A bracelet which rested comfortably, almost naturally, upon his dark skinned arm. Connected to it by a thick isilivere chain was an identical isilivere and steel wedding ring. The ring itself was wide. So wide as she understood it, as to occasionally cause slight discomfort; reaching from the second knuckle nearly to the webbing between his fingers. A reminder to the bearer that a bonding is not always a load easily carried.
Onyx accents adorned the entire accoutrement and formed proud characters on the bracelet itself. Words that Aoleon knew from memory. A phrase in sunset elvish. Lqfbf xqf imfx, r ñmttmj. Lqfbf xqf xÿvkēx, r ēfñfkē. Lqfbf xqf bfxÿx qfb qfvbÿ, r xÿvğ fÿfbkvt. “Where she goes, I follow. Where she stands, I defend. Where she rests her heart, I rest eternal.”
A beautiful sentiment.
“Of course father.” she stated with a wide smile and a laugh at length. Her plan had worked. She saw that he was smiling.
“But why’d you come here? I thought we were meeting in the library.”
“We were. Almost an hour ago.”
The king’s eyes widened to almost a comical degree. Looking down at the ticking time piece on his arm, his features were instantly filled with regret. “I’m sorry. I was-”
“-Distracted. I know. It’s ok. I understand. You don’t need to apologize. Besides, it gave me an excuse to stretch my legs a bit and walk around the old ruins and the abbey. I’m more surprised that you didn’t hear me walk in. I was standing at the boundary for a while before Ayashe invited me in.”
“No, not immediately. Too lost in thought I guess.”
“That much was obvious.”
His eyes widened yet again and he spun completely to face her squarely as he apparently realized- “Wait a minute. You mean to say that you walked all the way here? You actually felt like going through all of that trouble? Why not just-”
She waved a isilivere covered hand to cut him off. “I enjoy walking. From time to time.”
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“Yes…” He paused for a moment; staring thoughtfully into her face. “…Yes, of course you do. I’m sorry.
“Be that the case, then I assume you ignored the direct road through the murals and took the long way around through the catacombs.”
“You think you know me well, do you?”
“Well, did you?”
A short pause, a smile and- “Yes.”
He gave her a curt laugh. “You always did love it up there.”
As Aoleon returned his thoughtful glance and she looked at his eyes, the natural one anyway, she saw the soul of a being who was more than human. More than just a Magi. He was literally brimming with ethereal energies and Dįvįnë heka; very nearly formed of it in a way she couldn’t fathom. His body could barely contain what he was.
The eye she looked upon, while still conforming to the shape of a normal iris, was nearly translucent, and in constant motion. A vaporous mix of onyx and deep-purple-bordering-on-plum amalgamation. It was like seeing a vision of an eye, formed of a ball of constantly shifting smoke; as if it were ever on the verge of evanescence. Solid only when tensions were running high, or he was ‘crossing over’. It was one of the most beautiful aspects of the Drågoons; a gift, in memorandum of Her...
There are so few of his people left… Aoleon thought to herself. She often wondered as to how powerful he really was. Even with all of her knowledge, there was no way for her to quantify what her father was really capable of. He’d already accomplished so much in his life, and yet there was still so much more to be done.
He was the cup that overflowed with Her blessings and favour.
“Something wrong Love?”
She was pulled from her thoughts by his question. She’d drifted.
“Nothing’s wrong. I was simply…lost in thought. Like father, like daughter I suppose. So…?”
“Yes. Right. Please-” he stated as he gestured for her to stand closer. “Come.”
At the request, almost against her will, her gaze jumped instinctively back and forth between the cursed weapons and King Samahdemn.
“There’s nothing to fear. They can’t harm you. You know that. And even if they could, I’d never let them.”
“What they do isn’t always under your control father. Besides, I fear more for you and Ayashe than myself.”
“I don’t think your fear for us is truly necessary.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” the princess commented as her eyes drifted from his face to his waist. Where his pistol rested; strapped securely in a heavy leather holster with some sort of mechanized retention. A seemingly unnecessary armament for a being such as he. “Says the man who’s ever armed for conflict. Even when he’s safely at home.”
“Touché. Old habits, you know.” Samahdemn took a moment to contemplate his daughter’s observation as he held the holster which seemed to read his biometrics at his touch, freeing the bottom of the pocket to separate entirely. Allowing him to smoothly withdraw the oversized sidearm which he offered to her handle first.
Some manner of magnetized coupling. she surmised to herself.
Illegal anywhere save for Hesijua, the weighty weapon was matte black with a slide coated in silver and engraved in all manner of tribal design. Along one side was a bold phrase in a very graceful script that read: “Åmbrosįå Įcħor-Nåbįlå is in Ëmpÿrë now”; as if this were the weapon that put Her there.
Aoleon forced out a laugh as she stood, walked to his side and removed the firearm from his grip. “Yeah. You know, I’m amazed that She’s never found the engraving on this pistol to be absolutely insulting.”
“No.” he stated looking at the weapon; possibly mesmerized with how the purple light was manipulated as it reflected off of its silver surface as the princess turned it this way and that. “She found it obtrusive, but not insulting. She is lighthearted after all.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Yeah…lucky for me.”
In one swift motion, Aoleon switched the hand cannon to safe and ejected its custom magazine. Locking the sizable slide to the rear, she cupped the extra round the pistol ejected in her hand as it was flung skywards.
It was a custom hollow point. Cast by the royal armourer. .500 special. 400 grain. 99% silver. Insanely expensive. The jacket of the bullet, like the pistol itself, was engraved and blessed. Even with Samahdemn having the rounds cast under his own roof with the silver from his own mines, it cost him roughly thirty and five zachar per round in Zachary’s currency. She was loath to imagine what it would’ve cost if he had to have them mass produced by a third party.
Walking past her father, she sat the bullet, clip and the empty weapon itself on a flat portion of the centerpiece stone before them; the bolt still exposed. Looking down at it, Aoleon noticed that even the outside of the barrel was masterfully carved with symbols. She shook her head and sighed.
“You don’t do anything small do you?”
“Nah. Never do. Your mother always understood that about me.”
“I swear sometimes you seem to be more sunset elf than human. Ostentatiousness is a part of their nature after all.”
The king looked at his daughter intently for a moment; his eyes drifting to her bare feet before stating- “Well…you know they say that there’s a little of them in all of us.”
“Some more than others I’d suspect.”
He laughed at that. “Maybe so.”
“Regardless though, that thing? That definitely skirts a fine line dad. It’s nearly impractical. Too flamboyant. Too large.”
“True enough Love. Several pounds heavier than most other…legal handguns. But a firearm is just like any other piece of equipment. In untrained hands, anything can be ‘impractical’, in your words. But with the proper amount of training and discipline, you can implement almost anything effectively in a fight. Besides, for me, there’s very little that is impractical. After all…” he nodded to the blades. “I’ve been known to use a sword or two in battle. I think I can handle an oversized pistol.”
“I suppose I can’t argue with that.”
The king turned his attention from the young woman and the display back to the giant feline who hadn’t yet moved from her position at the circle’s edge. From the look of concentration on his face, Aoleon could easily imagine that he was reaching out to her mind as she’d seen him do hundreds of times before. It was something he was able to do without almost any effort; focusing on melding his thoughts with hers and allowing his consciousness to drift to a place seemingly out of space and time. A place within the ether that’s the core from which the heka that binds the universe stems from. A place of absolute understanding.
Aoleon always wondered what it must be like for Ayashe to link with him mentally. To hear his thoughts as she met him in that place. Feeling each other’s emotions. Entangled together within a single instant in time.
Then, after what felt like a small eternity, Aoleon noticed her father’s attention being drawn to the forbidden blades. He’d told her once that when the half-saber would call to him, it was nearly impossible to ignore. Alluring. Compulsive. Less of a call and more like music. Just at the edge of hearing, yet as clear and as enthralling as the ringing of a silver bell.
Aoleon could tell by his wondering eyes that he’d begun to search for it…just as he always did when he heard it. Every time he heard it.
As his eyes locked hard onto the blades, the leopardess started pawing at his leg and verbalizing a roar that was almost like the sawing of wood. But her vocalizations must have been like white noise to him now; she was present, but ignorable.
“Dad!”
The princess’ scream had shocked him back from the abyss. “How long was I-“
“Long enough.”
Aoleon and her siblings knew that he tried to observe himself constantly. Outside-in type stuff. He had to. Yet he hadn’t realized that he’d gone silent. Hadn’t noticed that his eyes had shifted back in the direction of the stone and its heavy burden. He didn’t notice that he’d begun to approach them; that their song had grabbed him.
“What?” he asked in Ayashe’s direction.
Samahdemn paused. As if he were hearing a response. And after quite a while, he petted her hard on the side as she finally seemed comfortable enough to approach him again.
“What was she saying to you?” Aoleon asked.
“Before I got distracted? I asked her if she’d keep me company a while longer.”
“As if she’d ever say no. And after?”
“In a nutshell?” he asked as he looked towards the cursed blades again. “She said that they’d be the death of me. And I can’t really disagree on that front.”
Unwittingly, even as he acknowledged the problem, he continued to inch towards the stone; his gaze once again fully captured by the twistedness of the darkened blades. He couldn’t take his eyes off of them even to talk to his doting daughter.
The rough silver-green substance that comprised their hilts, said to be Drågon bone, were sturdy in their wielder’s hands, as if they were made for them; accented with Drågonhide for comfort. The odd metals of the blades seemed to twinkle. Something that should have been an impossibility given their filthy appearance. But then again, their edges, still keen beyond all imagination, were forged by a Dæmönic technique lost to the void of time in the thousand years after the Ten and Five Year Wars. So who’s to say? Their lavish scabbards were stained black. Their brass accents tarnished and their weighty leather straps soiled.
The tomahawk however was…of a different lineage. Not as angry. Ångëlįc in nature. The metal of its blade, neck and tobacco bowl reflected what its sister weapons should have looked like; a shade of deep silver that was unlike any in the natural world. Clean and polished. Untainted in any way. Its haft was carved of hollowed out bone of a felled Dark Drågon and embossed with blessings in Ångëlįc script. Heavy full grain Drågon hide leather was wrapped intricately around it for added grip; only slightly warn with time and use. Two Ångël wing feathers dangled playfully near the haft’s stem, held fast by isilivere rope.
I wonder if the amount of peaceful smokes taken with that tomahawk overshadows the number of lives taken by it. Aoleon often pondered to herself.
While the pale royal pondered the nature of the tomahawk’s existence, The leopardess followed the king’s movements with her eyes as he slowly continued to reach for the older of the three instruments; the more powerful of the trio.
The vengeful looking claymore-esque half-saber.
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On the Subject of Half-Sabers
The half-saber, a unique if not obtuse weapon, allows for slicing and gutting in close combat with its straight, nearly waist high blade. And it’s lengthy staff-like hilt is normally utilized as a kind of focus for releasing the Magister’s spiritual might who wields it. A single Magi wielding one of these fearsome weapons was said to have the ability to send an entire company’s worth of men to their graves in open conflict. A myth that was put to the test and founded in truth in the throes of the Dįvonësë War.
Half-sabers became the weapon of choice for frontline abyssinians and fulani as far back as the Ten and Five Year Wars; known colloquially as Battle-Mages and War-Mages respectively. Almost exclusively. And they became weapons to be feared in battle. Men and women were known to rally to them when they appeared on the field as they would to their general’s banner.
Battle and War-Magi numbers were few before the time of the Magi War. In the modern world, they were a downright rarity. Learning to harness and focus the violence of nature on whim without the luxury of time and prep wasn’t for the faint of heart. And doing so effectively without tearing yourself to pieces was difficult. And as to be expected with such aggressive use of heka, their life-spans were rather short in comparison to most other Magi, with the exception of the necromantics and askews.
But what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer destructive force by leaps and bounds.
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Even among such a powerful and fearful lineage of weapons, this particular half-saber was altogether different from its historical peers. Its long staff-like Drågon bone hilt was carved into the likeness of the mighty creature it was taken from; coiled tightly about the weapon’s otherwise exposed blackened tang. Its wings held sleekly to its body. The claws of its lower legs bleeding over, as opposed to a cross guard, a halberd-like beak and crescent blade which were so ornate that they were almost decorative, before clutching the base of the “sword” end of the weapon proper. Meanwhile its upper taloned “thumbs” (nearly indistinguishable from the wings themselves) reached up over its head to hold fast to a large and roughly hewn chunk of red crystal nearly the size of a man’s fist, which was engulfed in carved silver-green flames which blasted forth from the bone Drågon’s gaping maw.
Within its large sheath, the blade stirred energies that were nearly unfathomable. A consciousness that shared a thousand thousand consciousnesses. And they were all speaking to Samahdemn with unrelenting fervor as his daughter first entered the room.
The feline’s tail settled low anxiously in this moment and poofed out to twice its normal size as her fur stood on end. Moving closer to protection near Aoleon, she crouched down slowly into a tense, attack ready stance; prepared to attack the castle-lord if need be. Aoleon couldn’t communicate with Ayashe as her father could. But even a blind man could see in her body language that she’d never really liked it when he held the swords. Even at the best of times. It was as if he was never himself when they were in contact with each other. It scared her. And the albino princess found herself tensing up in much the same manner as she realized what was happening.
As Samahdemn’s hand continued to move forward slowly, almost instinctively, Aoleon felt compelled to speak aloud, lest he continue. “Dad, I think it’s time we headed back to the red room and-”
“It’s ok Aoleon.” he interrupted with an upturned hand to silence her flat tones while the wild feline continued to look on nervously at him; seemingly still connected with him mentally.
“I said I’m fine Ayashe!” Samahdemn spoke into the ether.
Aoleon didn’t know exactly what the leopardess had communicated to him but it was, without a doubt, the same thing she’d attempted to say.
Completely ignoring their protests, he progressed further and came within hand’s reach of the half-saber. “It’s funny…how they all resonate softly to me.” he explained to neither his daughter or his friend, but more to himself.
“You should pay more attention to one more than the others I think.” Aoleon advised. “It would do you well.”
The tomahawk, the one of which the princess spoke, much unlike the half-saber which sung songs of longing and the broken broadsword which sung of pain, instead sung a song of warning. This much she knew from her father’s many experiences with them and what he’d relayed to her about them. The odd crescendos of the three was almost musical he’d once said. But the good was more often than not drowned out by the bad. Two voices drouned out by thousands. It was tantamount to holding back the ocean with a broom.
“I almost wish you could hear them sing. Maybe you’d understand.” he whispered. More to the air than to Aoleon.
“I think you should stop dad. Please?”
He seemed not to hear her plea as he touched the hilt of the half-saber; the look of elation on his face betraying the fact that he was allowing himself to drink some of its energies. The principal gifts of nearly a dozen Drågons and untold Ångëlįcs. Their experiences and memories, suddenly pouring through him.
“Father, let it go. Do you hear me? You need to let the half-saber go!”
Seeing that her father was no longer listening to her or whatever Ayashe may or may not have been impressing upon him mentally, she decided that she had little choice and Aoleon made a desperate plea to the very spirit that threatened to rise in him. “Zåkÿntħos! Great Drågon! Please hear me!”
Sadly, Aoleon’s cries to her father’s other half were likewise falling on deaf ears.
The allure of the weapons was powerful indeed. Powerful and dangerous. He was slowly drowning in the pleasure of their Dæmönic energies.
The air was suddenly split by Ayashe’s deafening roar; screaming at him in her way since he was obviously ignoring her through the Flow. But it was of little use. He was far removed from the both of them and she might as well have been verbalizing to the wind.
Aoleon and Ayashe both braced themselves for the worst…
----------
The man who held the swords and the man who was her father were rarely the same person. His disposition would always darken when his hands were wrapped around their grips, even when he was fully focused on controlling the moment.
They allowed him to be at his best when the time when such extremes were needed. When he had something to focus that sudden rage on. The enemy who stood before him when he had the half-saber in hand was a person who wasn’t long for this world. But when there wasn’t an outlet in sight…
Aoleon was told about the last time he allowed himself to lose all control to the swords. To lose himself to his rage and his gifts without focus. As she heard it, he became something that was not himself. His sane mind seemed to no longer be present. Without thinking, and seemingly without effort or meditation, he’d sunk into the vileness of necromancy as if it had been his forte for a lifetime and pulled from the void a…creature. Impossibly powerful. Neither alive nor fully dead.
And it killed so many.
It was a summoning that should have been impossible. A casting that would have dragged any mortal to their grave in the attempt…but he was a Drågoon. And such a soul knows no limitations.
It was narrowly able to be sent back to the depths from which it had come. And before it was felled, it left all before it burning; ripped open. It gorged itself on the mer-blood and man-flesh of all. Friend, enemy, it didn’t care. And neither did Samahdemn.
Could that happen again? Could that happen now?
I really have no idea what he’s truly capable of. Aoleon thought sadly and fearfully.
And before he could completely lose himself to the power from the blade, Aoleon, who could think of nothing else to do as it seemed to her that her father wasn’t in his proper mind, made one last attempt to jerk the king back into reality.
She jolted forward and secured the pistol from the stone, slid the magazine into place and hammered the slide into a ready position. She then proceeded to slap him as hard as she could with the back of one of her metallic pseudo hands; tearing the skin along his jaw asunder…and stood ready.
Aoleon’s physical exertion jerked Samahdemn back from the edge and he finally realized that lifted from its pedestal and firmly in his grasp was the freshly oiled blade of the half-saber; the eloquent Dæmönic writings, engravings and binding runes etched along its edge half exposed from its open-air sheath. The pained faces embossed on its surface seemed to cry out to him; a fact reflected in the king’s horrified expression. And with that sudden realization, the king quickly and with much obvious dread, slammed the blade back into its casing and tossed the entire thing back to the stone.
“Stop calling to me!” he spat at the half-saber in whispers. “Why am I forever cursed to hear you calling to my spirit?”
Voices. Always the voices. He begged them to stay silent and leave him be. To stop calling him home. To stop pushing him to pick it back up. To stop pleading for him to kill with it again. To stop telling him that they wanted to taste mortal entrails and blood and sorrow.
“Dad?”
It wasn’t normally outside of his strength to ignore the swords…it wasn’t outside his power. But this lapse in vigilance? He’d been too lax.
“Dad?” she repeated.
Unbeknownst to himself, he’d begun crossing over when the half-saber was in his hand. His nails, which were normally sharp-ish yet well-manicured had lengthened. His adzæ-like teeth had grown, making him look more like one of the so-called vampiri than he oft cared to. His once smoky iris had solidified forming a terrifying contrast between his natural and artificial eye that was accentuated by its bright glow, radiating its purple flakes in striking patterns. And the smell of flowers emanating from him which had once mixed somewhat interestingly with the muck of the room had intensified to such a magnitude that the sweetness of it was almost nauseating.
“Dad!”
He looked up sharply at his daughter, and he finally saw her; saw that she was afraid of him. Ayashe stood ready to pounce from behind her and his own pistol was aimed at his head.
Not that it would’ve killed him; not in her hands anyway.
The gash that had been made on his face from the skin splitting under the sharp impact of his daughter’s metal hand had already completely healed, as if it never happened. She’d learned a long time ago that killing a Drågoon wasn’t something easily done. A lesson that they’d all learned. But Aoleon would always do what she could. She was no fan of running away; no fan of going quietly into the night.
She was of his blood, after all. It wouldn’t do for her to be anything else.
He ran his tongue across his teeth as if he’d not realized that he was transitioning and a look which was the personification of guilt overran his face. He closed his eyes and breathed deep and slow. He seemed to be attempting to breath in the very essence of the nature growing on the walls, the smells of moss underfoot and the burning of the gas lanterns. His teeth and nails shortened. His eye calmed. Aoleon noticed that the smells of the room’s decay reasserted themselves over his body’s odor.
He was normal again.
“It’s ok.” he signed shakily. “I’m ok. I’m sorry Love. I…forgot myself.”
“What did you see?”
He shook his head. “Before? I can’t remember. Just now after I dropped that damnable saber? Things that upset me. Vexed me. They awakened the part of me that’s-”
“-Like your father.” Aoleon asked as she and Ayashe slowly relaxed. “I don’t really care for…that.” Aoleon said uneasily.
“I’m sorry Aoleon. That was…very stupid of me. It wasn’t my intention to scare you. I knew better. That should not have happened.”
She nodded. Satisfied to a point that her father was under control of himself, she once again ejected the clip and the extra round from the chamber. However, she was no fool and she didn’t want a weapon with a ready clip so close to him right after a near awakening. So she continued to thumb the remainder of the silver tipped bullets from the magazine; allowing them to fall harmlessly to the ground.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Aoleon said clumsily after she’d finished, placed the empty clip back in the weapon and, in a demonstration of the trust that she could muster, handed the gun back to her father. “Seeing the change is awe inspiring…when it’s under the proper influence. You strike an inspiring figure as a Drågoon. It’s just that those swords-” She paused; her words failing her. “You should trust more to the tomahawk father. You don’t grip it nearly enough and you hold the others far too frequently.”
He frowned to himself as he stared at the empty pistol.
“Emptying the clip was…fruitless.”
“Believe me, I’m well aware that a Drågoon doesn’t need a pistol to wreak havoc. Least of all you. Considering your bond with the half-saber. But humor me and my desire to have something to grant me some measure of piece of mind however insignificant. Not all of us is blessed to be able to call upon the crushing power of heka or the Dįvįnë strength of the Drågons to protect ourselves.”
Samahdemn sighed. “I don’t know where I was going with that comment. You’re my flesh and blood. My most beloved child. I shouldn’t-”
“-That anger’s not yours. It’s not your fault.”
“No. It is my fault. Ayashe’s always telling me that I let it in too freely; that I need to do more. Do better.” He looked to his feline companion then back to his daughter. “You did the right thing. Both in attacking me and trying to remove the gun from the equation.” he said at length as he shoved the weapon back into its holster.
Aoleon’s tensions eased even further. They seemed to ooze out of her every pore. The sudden looseness in her muscles betraying to all the fact that she was more than happy to get past that topic of discussion and move on to something else.
As was he, judging by the smile blossoming on his face, however forced it may have been.
“We should go back to the surface. Get some distance between us and those things. Besides, you called me for a reason and I doubt it was to fumble around down here in purple tinted darkness.”
“True.” he said as he hazarded one last sad glance to the weapons on the stone. “Let’s go. I need a drink.”
Aoleon nodded.
“And once we get up to the abbey, could you wire ahead to Katherine from the line there, Love? Ask her to set up my usual. And some smoke wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”