A MATRIARCH’S RAGE (PART 6)
“At the hundredth year of his life, King Horeb, child, and champion of the Storm climbed the Peak of Stars with only a simple robe upon his thin body. At the top of the mighty mountain, he sat upon a stone and waited, watching the clouds gather in the east and blow towards him. Staring out across his kingdom, the King cut words into the rock before him. ‘I am going now, be well without me.’ Then the Storm reached the mountain and with outstretched hand took its mortal son to its breast and the King lay dead.”- Book of Miracles, Foundations 10:10
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One of the lesser-known skills of being a good spy is patience. The ability to simply sit, and observe for long periods without succumbing to boredom or distraction could at times be more valuable than any talent for lies or deception. So whenever Alexio Argentari found himself stuck waiting on someone, he considered it simply good practice for that subtle skill. This perspective was of course not shared by many, especially in circles of power, where forcing someone to wait for you is a simple but effective demonstration of authority.
The act doesn’t just say ‘my time is more valuable than yours,’ it proclaims ‘I can disrespect you without fear of consequences.’ Usually, this petty act of dominance is just supposed to ensure those involved know the established hierarchy. Everyone expected princes, great lords, and similar to arrive late to their own events; this idea was built into the very court decorum of the Holy Leagues. But what wasn’t expected was a vassal daring to reverse the dynamic and challenge their liege by being tardy.
Countess Lutisha Luitpold had been summoned before Prince Heinrich for a private audience and she was more than half an hour late; leaving Alexio and the Prince’s court sitting in the grand conference chamber waiting for her to arrive. The message her lateness sent was only marginally more subtle than a slap and thrown glove; the Countess sought to establish herself as Heinrich’s superior. Watching the prince’s lions pace back and forth, Alexio mused on how confident Lutisha Luitpold must be to offer such an insult. Fingers drumming on the locked chest on his lap, the Quicksilver Player couldn’t help but smile, tearing down the overconfident was a religious duty of his after all.
With an annoyed huff, Duchess Cleo got up from her smaller throne near Heinrich’s dias and started to stalk towards the door. Calling after her, the Prince asked. “Where are you going?” his voice caught between weariness and amusement.
Cleo snarled. “To have our guards bring that bitch to us in chains. If she’s not going to be polite about this then neither will I!”
A lion stalked over towards the Duchess and gently bit her sleeve, pulling the annoyed Cleo back towards the throne where the beast’s master replied. “Let’s not rise to her bait. When she comes to us we’ll make her regret this insult, but if we attack Countess Luitpold publically things will escalate out of control.”
Ignoring the thumb-long fangs nipping at her expensive dress, Cleo stopped with a huff. “Why are you being so placid about this?” Gesturing at the lion she added. “Normally I have to talk you out of feeding our problems to those two but now you seem perfectly content to let the woman who tried to murder us flaunt your authority!”
Heinrich didn’t answer for a long moment instead he stared off into the middle distance, mind lost somewhere beyond the chamber. Eventually finding himself he said. “Countess Lutisha will pay for her crimes but… I see no need to further her public humiliation by our family.” A slight smile crept across the Prince’s face then. “Besides, all that makeup wouldn’t be good for Jorg and Yacob”
As he spent more time with Prince Heinrich, the more Alexio found himself impressed with the young man. He had the makings of not just a good ruler, but an excellent one; especially with his sister at his side. Perhaps when he returned to Vindabon, Alexio might arrange it so a member of the Quicksilver Players found themselves serving Heinrich. The Holy League had enough corrupt and incompetent rulers, cultivating and protecting those with merit would be vital in shaping the continent’s future.
As Cleo returned to her throne, Alexio took stock of all those in attendance. Only one absence separated the current roster from those present in earlier meetings; Cole was still healing, his body doing its best to undo the banshee’s fury without undergoing true resurrection. A slight shiver went up Alexio’s spine as he thought about what exactly the paladin was. When speaking with Cole it was frightfully easy to forget for a time that he wasn’t human, or even anything natural. But then all those scars and the truth behind them would whisper in Alexio’s ear, reminding him he spoke not with a man, but an immortal creature born of twisted magic.
But thankfully that terrible truth seemed happy to stay secret from those in Baiuvar. Even without dying and returning to life, Cole mended remarkably quickly according to Hierophant Ruth. His body accepted healing magic readily and Cole’s already impressive rate of recuperation reached near-record breaking speeds with Ruth’s arcane aid. In not even a full day and night Cole had gone from a half-dead cripple to a moderately wounded model patient. Alexio idly wondered if the Tenth Temple had run tests on the homunculus paladin, and if they’d be willing to share the results. Having an idea of what exactly Cole could do would be useful, and not just for planning contingencies.
The doors to the conference chamber creaked open then, pulling Alexio from his dour thoughts. A herald stepped forward and proclaimed. “Countess Lutisha Luitpold”
With no additional pomp, the Countess strode into the chamber, bedecked in a violently clashing mix of fine fabrics and jewelry. Alexio felt one corner of his mouth quirk up in a tiny smile. There was a certain fashion he’d long recognized among parts of the nobility that Lutisha might as well have been the prime model for. While overburdened with coin, Lutisha lacked any real sense of style or even enough awareness to hire someone who did. The Countess thought she looked good and no one in her household was willing to correct her, so despite having the wealth to purchase the finest in all things, Lutisha managed to look garish as a motley fool.
Head held high the Countess offered an insultingly small curtsy to Heinrich and came to the room’s center. “You requested my presence, Prince Heinrich?”
Cleo’s upper lip drew back in a quickly suppressed snarl that Alexio could guess the origin of. Heinrich hadn’t requested anything, he’d ordered the Countess to come, and Lutisha’s words were just another layer of insult. Letting out a breath, Alexio really wished he had the time and opportunity to take the Duchess under his wing, with the right training, her intellect, and fearsome streak might be sharpened into a wit capable of ruining lives with a single comment.
Still sitting casually on his throne, Heinrich spoke clearly. “Yes, I have summoned you before my inner court to discuss matters both pressing and personal.”
Looking Alexio’s way, Lutsisha offered a tiny sneer. “If this is a meeting of your closest, I must question the presence of the foreigner. My concerns over Vindabonian influence seem more valid the longer this minister inserts himself into our business.”
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Heinrich replied. “Minister Argentari and his associate, Paladin Cole have proven themselves exemplary allies over the past few days. They’ve done much to help this kingdom, dare I say more than you have.”
Lutisha’s back straightened, clearly not expecting such a blunt response. “My family has honorably served Baiuvar for-”
Heinrich cut her off with a snap as he gestured for a servant to come forward with a chair. It was set before the prince’s throne at the center of a large open space. Nodding at the lone seat, Heinrich said. “Before we continue, I permit you to sit.”
Sitting alone before the dias, the offered seat made the conference chamber look like an antique court of law, where criminals were brought before a lord for questioning and judgment. The implications were not lost on Lutisha and she eyed the chair like it was a torture device. “If it pleases you Prince Heinrich I’d rather-”
A lion growled, the rumbling sound quickly replaced by the Elector-Prince’s iron voice. “You may sit.”
Stiffly, Lutisha sat down, her jaw set like a granite cliff. Leaning forward on his own throne, Heinrich met his scheming vassal’s eyes. “I’ve called you here for a few reasons, Countess. The first is to command you to cease your attempts to undermine my authority both in our lands and abroad. Any and all efforts to depose, disgrace, or otherwise defang me will stop; including this conspiracy to enact a regency or shift the crown to another branch of House Conrad. Similarly, your faction in court will end these fruitless efforts to alienate Baiuvar from her sister kingdoms through trade machinations and general malfeasance.”
It was hard to imagine just mere minutes ago Heinrich seemed the kind one between the siblings; his words and manner were now filled with an unshakable authority almost unsettling in one so young. Watching the prince, Alexio could see some of his ancestry shining through, not the recent generations of rot and ridicule, but the older, harder, substance that let the original Prince Conrad tame lions and carve a kingdom from a dead empire’s corpse. Alone, that strength of personality might be enough to cow lesser vassals but Lutisha was no simpering lordling. While warped and corroded, her substance was akin to the prince’s own and she was ready to dismiss Heinrich’s fury like a spoiled child’s tantrum. But the Elector-Prince didn’t come armed with just harsh words buoyed by charisma, he had other tools, including the aid of a Quicksilver Player.
Letting out a dismissive snort, Lutisha snapped. “You lack the means to make these demands; so I assume you have something to offer me other than hot air.”
Nodding, Heinrich got up from his throne and surprised everyone in the room but Alexio by sitting on the edge of the dias so he had to look up to meet Lutsisha’s gaze. “I have a few things, but let me start with an apology.”
The iron was gone from Heinrich’s voice, replaced by warm amber that softened as he spoke quietly in a whisper audible to only whoever sat in the chair before him. Even if Alexio couldn’t hear the words he knew their general content, as he’d helped pick them, just as he’d found the right spot for Lutisha to sit exposed without having this little secret conversation be shared.
“I’m sorry for what my father and family did to you. It was cruel, humiliating, and utterly wrong. I can’t fix the past but I can try and end this feud right here and right now if you’ll let me.”
Whatever Lutisha had been expecting it wasn’t that, hackles raised she snarled. “Don’t you dare patronize me, boy! You don’t know what you speak about what-”
Heinrich said something, words soft enough only Lutisha could hear, but powerful enough to drown the great chamber in oppressive silence. Again, Alexio knew what was said even if he didn’t hear it. “I know about my half-sibling, I know what happened, or at least enough to guess.”
It was a curious thing watching someone with so much makeup on lose all the color in their face. For maybe thirty seconds, the Prince and Countess sat in that crushing silence before a hissing noise escaped Lutisisha, the serpentine rasp resolving itself into words. “Hhhhoooow dare you!”
Bolting out of her chair, Lutisha stepped towards Heinrich, only stopping as his two lions sat next to him, both issuing warning growls. Hands spasming in barely controlled rage, Lutsisha’s breath became ragged as she seethed. “You dig up my humiliation and then have the arrogance, the impudence, to try and apologize?! Your brain might not be pickled like your father’s was, Heinrich but you still have the sheer pig-headedness of the man. Your family’s debt to me can’t be paid with words, I will only have it settled with my child at their rightful place.” Single finger-pointing at the gilded seat behind Heinrich, Lutsisha screamed. “ON! THAT! THRONE!”
As those words finished echoing across the chamber, Lutsisha managed to recover herself slightly. Looking about at all those around her, she smeared an expression of haughty arrogance onto her face and turned from Heinrich, heading for the doors. Getting up from his seat of near-supplication, the Elector-Prince returned to his throne and almost causally said. “I’d wanted to resolve this with an apology and a mutual offer of amnesty, but if you won’t accept that, I have other options.”
Lutisha hesitated, clearly sensing the implied threat in those words. Slowly spinning to face Heinrich, she growled. “What could you possibly hope to offer me after this… this treatment? What paltry concessions does your arrogant, child mind think is enough to stop me from leaving here and only returning for your abdication?!”
Cleo got up and stalked over towards Alexio and snatched the locked box from his arms. Voice tight with tension she said. “We did this your way brother, now we do it mine.”
Pursing his lips, Heinrich offered the tiniest of nods. “So be it.”
Slowly, Lutsisha approached Cleo eyeing the box like it held some venomous creature. Teeth bared, the Duchess said. “I know returning a wedding present is uncouth, but I think you deserve this one.”
The Countess’s eyes widened in horror as Cleo dropped the box into her arms. Frantically catching the locked container, Lutisha stumbled into the chair set out for her as the box started to shake violently. The metal lock and hinges of the container creaked as it vibrated. Face showing nothing but bored disinterest, Heinrich addressed the stunned Countess. “Of course, the Paladin destroyed most of your secret gift to my parents, but we managed to salvage the important parts. By the way, did you ever figure out why the harpsichord never killed us all like it did the Volenscholoss branch? I’m guessing your grandfather, my great-grandfather never explained how he used stargent to bind the wraiths; or you simply didn’t remove enough of the stuff before smuggling the harpsichord into the Conradbau.”
Shrugging, Heinrich scratched the chin of one of his lions as the box’s shaking started to make Lutisha’s chair rattle. “Either way, you failed in a deliberate attempt to kill your liege and his entire family via unholy means. In light of what my father did… I was willing to overlook that act and your years of scheming if you simply stopped trying to hurt me and mine. But instead of accepting my honest apology for my family’s crimes and trying to work with me to end this feud, you offered threats and insults!”
Teeth rattling, Lutishsa slurred. “Yoooourr faaather des-deserved to-to-to”
Heinrich exploded off his throne, his lions rumbling at his side. “What did I deserve, Lutisha? What did I deserve for being my father’s son? What about my mother, my sister, the hundreds of people who live and work within these halls? If you’d gone after my father I could understand and easily forgive you. But that’s not what you did, you tried to use a monstrous relic already responsible for one massacre to commit another! So now… now I’m going to return your gift and you should just be thankful I’m not following your example.”
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Even without a paladin’s abilities, Alexio could almost see the cracks spreading across Lutisha’s mind. She was being attacked from half a dozen different angles and being inundated with painful revelations spiced with just enough humiliation to let the truth slip past any mental armor. Cleo was going to get her way it seemed, she’d advocated for a strategy of fire and iron from the start; while her brother instead wanted to offer salt and bread in the form of an apology.
Pacing back and forth atop the throne dias, Prince Heinrich matched his lions in predatory intensity. “This is my new offer Lutisha, and one I will only make once. Accept my earlier terms and you leave the capital to never return. I will allow you a comfortable exile in your family’s castle and I won’t even smuggle the haunted keys into your basement to kill you and your entire linage. But if you refuse and keep up this idiotic attempt at revenge on a man who has already drunk himself to death, I will destroy you and your entire house. Not through arcane sabotage or tawdry blackmail over your tragedy. Instead, I’ll just reveal your family’s generations of treachery, how you’ve conspired with the undead against our kingdom.”
Countess Lutisha let go of the box in shock and it jumped from her arms to the floor before the dias where it rattled and spasmed. Outrage warred with confusion as Lutsisha stammered. “Wh-what?”
Stalking towards the countess, Prince Heinrich placed a single boot on the chest and forced it to be still. Lions at his side, the Prince practically growled down at the shaken Lutisha. “Isn’t it obvious? That harpsichord your house kept tucked away wasn’t haunted by any natural ghost; the wraiths bound to those ivory keys were twisted by a very unique form of necromancy. Paladin Cole uncovered the truth, and the temple conclave confirmed his findings; our shared ancestor had connections with the vampires. Who else could have supplied the knowledge to make a conjoined banshee capable of shaking apart a castle?”
Tapping his foot on the box for emphasis, Heinrich continued. “Prince Eberhard was engaged in dark dealings, but my branch of the family didn’t inherit any of them. So that bit of legacy obviously must have been passed down to his bastard, your father, and through him reaching you. Why else would you fight tooth and nail to stop Baivuar from helping our kin in the east? The only obvious answer is the leeches have you all bought or collared, just as Paladin Cole feared. I’m certain he’ll gladly lead Lowenburg’s priests in raiding your estates for any sign of corruption, and I’m even more certain even if they find no evidence of your dealings with the undead, other indiscretions and scandals will be brought to light.”
Finding herself, Lutsisha hissed. “This is a farce of rumor, moronic theories, and biased accusations! No one would believe such-”
Heinrich shrugged and took his boot off the container letting it slowly rattle towards the Countess cutting her off mid-sentence. Teeth bared in more threat than smile, the Prince replied. “We both know there’s enough truth to my story to give it wings. There is no denying what you did with the harpsichord; and honestly, your family plotting with the vampires to take my throne is much more believable than all this being part of a decades-long grudge about not being able to marry your own cousin.”
Lutisha flinched at the words and then started to shy away from the box as it crept closer. One of the lions batted forward with a plate-sized paw and pulled the container back to Heinrich. Picking it up, seemingly unbothered by the shaking, the Prince returned to his throne and said. “Well, what is your answer, will you end this feud and try to make something of the rest of your life; or do I have to destroy House Luitpold?”
Eyes shut, the Countess squared her shoulders, Alexio could see her answer in the way she held her head. Countess Lutisha Luitpold was going to fight, and even if she lost she’d do as much damage as she could to House Conrad before her own house fell. But the spymaster wasn’t the only one who saw what was coming. From her seat, Cleo said a few words that slid through the air and into Lutisha’s heart like an arrow.
“Are you really going to let your hate for a man who stole a family from you destroy the one you actually have?”
For a long moment, the Countess sat perfectly still, her mind grappling with the strike threatening to undo her. In her face and body language, Alexio could almost see the cracks spreading as something deep within the woman shattered. Those simple words carried a truth bitter and potent as any medicine right to the core of the Countess’s being. Something within Countess Lutishsa was breaking, the only question was it what Alexio intended. Head lowering, Lutisha shakily got to her feet. Turning from the thrones, she spoke in a very small voice. “I’ll leave Lowenburg by the end of the week.”
Without a drop of the sneering confidence she’d worn into the chamber remaining, Countess Lutisha Luitpold fled. As the doors shut behind her, Heinrich let out a tired half-laugh and set the vibrating box on the ground next to him. Alexio twitched a few fingers and the shaking stopped instantly. Glancing, the spymaster’s way Heinrich gestured at the container. “Your spell was excellent.”
The Quicksilver Player rose from his seat and bowed at the compliment. The actual ivory keys and their attached ghosts were far too dangerous for use in a little political theatre, so while they sat within a temple vault awaiting exorcism, Argentari did what his kind did best: trickery. The box used against Lutsisha contained a set of domino tiles he’d magicked into vibrating with unsettling intensity; a stage prop that played its part perfectly. While in her hands the box shook violently enough to hurt but with a thought, Argentari slowed the vibrations whenever Heinrich touched the container.
Straightening himself out, Alexio replied to the Prince, “Judging by what Paladin Cole shared, the Countess has strong memories of the harpsichord. Those ghosts were probably something of a childhood horror for Lutisha, and age can only blunt those old terrors so much. Exposing her to something she thought was the keys was an excellent way to keep her off-balanced in the face of your verbal assault.”
A tired grimace escaped Heinrich then. “It worked, but I wished it hadn’t come to that. I dislike playing the tyrant, it’s too easy a role to get stuck in.” Expression turning contemplative, he added. “Do you think she’ll listen? I still don’t know how much of what I said was a bluff and how much wasn’t, and I’d rather not find out.”
The dark-haired footman who’d given Cole his cloak and eventually been revealed as the Conrad sibling’s whisperman, said. “She will, I saw it in her eyes.”
Cleo sneered. “Lutisha better, a pleasant exile is more than she deserves.”
The Prince shrugged. “Perhaps, but I can find some empathy for anyone hurt by our father. Besides, I’ll gladly take a peaceful conclusion to this mess even if it means offering mercy where it might not be deserved.”
Getting up from her throne, the Duchess approached Alexio. “What do you think, Hierophant? Did this production go to your specifications, and will it have the intended result?”
Face quirking in a small smile, the Quicksilver Player shrugged. “It went as well as could be expected. We broke something in Lutishsa, and even if she eventually recovers her fury and focus, that will take time. Without her leadership, I imagine the coalition building to depose your brother will crumble quickly. You’ve bought yourself that most valuable commodity: time, and if used correctly I’m sure it will pay handsomely for itself.”
Heinrich nodded. “Yes, once I reach the age of majority things will get much easier, so defanging her for even a year or two is worthwhile. Well, I must thank you for your aid Hierophant Argentari, and ask you to deliver our gratitude to the Paladin, he suffered badly in the defense of my throne; that won’t be easily forgotten.”
Bowing deeper, Alexio said. “We both did our duty as all must. I’ll convey your appreciation and well wishes to Cole, he is healing quickly and will be ready to travel within a day or so.”
Chamberlain Norrich spoke then. “I can have the salt agreement drafted by the morrow, it might take a week or so to gather the political support in the wake of the Countess’s exit but it will be done.”
Smiling, Alexio nodded. “Good, good.” Turning his focus to the Duchess he added. “My words at are earlier incognito meeting still hold, Duchess Cleo; if you or your brother need a trickster’s advice then call upon me.”
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Cole stared up at the surrounding mountains, enjoying the gift of sight. It had been three days since his battle with the banshees and while he wasn’t fully healed, the worst of his injuries were gone; allowing him to be here for the ending of the tale. Pulling his gaze from the snow-capped peaks, Cole drank in the wind-blown valley where he and a dozen priests waited. In a few months, the drifts of snow surrounding them would melt and turn this space into a meadow, a place of unparalleled natural beauty and not insignificant magical potency. Long ago the ancient tribespeople who first lived in these lands would come to this valley to celebrate the arrival of spring. It was a holy place, connected to life’s awakening and the passing of seasons, where magics of Mother Earth and Master Time might resonate more than even within a great Temple.
It was that spiritual pedigree that brought the priests and paladin to this windy cleft between the mountains; here a rite of release more powerful than Cole had ever witnessed might be performed. A circle nearly eight meters in diameter had been cleared of snow and lined with ocher, its sleeping topsoil carved with symbols of rest and return. At the center of the whirling glyphs and pictograms was a slab of time-polished rock, its edges worn soft by uncountable ages. Long ago when the gods were young and their worshippers still learning what it meant to be human, offerings of blood and ash once painted this great stone. But now in this wiser age, it lay clean of sacrifice, and instead held a small box containing mistreated remains.
Armored with a cold greater than even the gale coming off the mountains, Cole stood at the circle's edge, waiting for the moment in which the ritual might start. It fell to him to intervene if something went wrong; he alone might withstand the banshees' final fury before they were freed. Looking up and to the west, Cole watched the dim winter sun begin its final approach to the highest peaks. When dusk fell it would be time.
All around him the priests waited, some were servants of Time and stood unbothered by the bitter cold, while others were wrapped in heavy cloaks trying to keep feeling in their fingers as the shadows lengthened around them. At the easternmost edge of the ritual circle stood an old woman glowing with an earthy radiance, motes of green, gold, and brown dancing about her ungloved hands as she exalted the setting sun. Across the circle from Hierophant Ruth, was Reubain servant of Master Time, cloaked in silver-blue light as he knelt atop a hourglass sigil cut into the soil and lined with bloody ochre. As darkness fell across the valley both senior priests started to sing, their saint-speech taken up by the others of this ritual choir. It was a lament, one saved for the funerals of those lost to childbirth. Light flowed from each of the priests, spreading into the sigils and igniting them with an inner glow whose coloration defied easy classification.
A steady pulse of magic grew as holy power crept closer to the stone slab where it found lines of ochre waiting. Like the flowering tendrils of some luminescent vine, the light climbed up the rock and onto the box where it dimmed momentarily before growing brighter with every thrum of the priest’s combined power. Cole let out a breath of relief as he watched this; it looked like his presence might not be needed after all and the ghosts would be banished without even opening their short-term prison.
The priestly conclave had debated for hours how to safely free the banshees; they’d considered all manner of ways to remove the stargent without disrupting a ritual or giving the ghosts the chance to scream. In the end, it was Hierophant Dival, a servant of Uncle Maker who came up with the solution. Stargent blocked magic, but only to an extent its purity and quantity allowed. Thin sheets of the substance, hastily enclosing the banshees’ remains might be enough to silence them after Cole’s botched attempt to free their souls; but when faced with enough magical power stargent failed like any armor before overwhelming strength.
Normally the rite prepared by the priests of Lowenburg was used to purify entire battlefields or other scenes of disaster where it was virtually impossible to physically find and free every trapped soul. With some clever alterations, all that consecration might be focused on a single point instead of a wide area and put to a more precise use. From what Cole had read, the usual purpose of this modified rite was the destruction of a lych’s phylactery or other similarly tenacious undead. But after all that happened, the temples of Lowenburg weren’t taking any chances, hence them bringing the ivory keys to this place of power where an already formidable spell would become unstoppable, or so they hoped.
The light spread across the box making it hard to look at as the illumination swelled to searing heights. Holy magic, focused like sunlight through a magnifying glass poured onto the box and a loud crack echoed through the valley. Cole’s hand was already on his axe before he realized the sound’s source, the sturdy wood and metal of the container had split, spilling the keys and stargent free. The Paladin only got the barest glimpse of this before the light flowed around the banemetal and over the keys. Within a few seconds a new sound replaced the crack, a high-keening wail that sent a shiver up Cole’s spine. The ever-growing light warred against the shriek as both filled the surrounding valley. Looking away from the burning ivory, Cole briefly wondered if the banshees could cause an avalanche in their weakened state.
Before that thought could escalate into serious concerns, the wail started to change, losing its teeth-aching pitch and becoming a deeper clearer note almost like a trumpet call. Movement pulled Cole’s focus back to the ritual’s heart where a cloud of vapor bubbled off the edge of the false star conjured by the priestly conclave. Vague elephantine shapes started to form from the ectoplasm, two heads sharing a conjoined body with stretched proportions and too many limbs. Trunks raised to the heavens, the banshees' cry warbled between keening wail and bugle blast. Drifting up and away from their remains the two ghosts started to grow indistinct around the edges as they faded from the Mundane. They’d been severed from their anchor and with every passing moment the Beyond called to them.
But as Cole watched, his physical and arcane senses both focused on this most unique exorcism he felt the world shift around him. Stumbling with an earthquake that wasn’t real, Cole barely avoided toppling over, as something monumental brushed against his soul. The light of the ritual flickered as all the priests felt what the Paladin had. Head spinning, Cole stared up at the sky where the first stars shown bright in the clear winter sky. Among the countless constellations, something moved, a shape against the blue-black of night that defied perception in its magnitude. Eyes wide, peering into the Aether, uncaring that he now kneeled in deep snow, Cole realized his exact error of conceptualization. Something in the sky wasn’t moving, part of the sky itself was.
A river of darkness dotted with twinkling stars flowed down from above the mountain peaks and into the valley below. Fear tried to push itself to the forefront of Cole’s stunned mind but found no room as wonder and alien contentment filled his being. The entire Aether was awash with the ripples of the moving sky, waves of emotion and intention crashing into Cole’s soul speaking to an ancient wisdom and love his paltry brain couldn’t hope to understand. As it drew closer the river narrowed and became almost serpentine as it slithered through the air toward the fading elephant ghosts. Cole watched, his mind grappling for context as the river’s end formed into a round opening bisected by an impression of warped space that somehow reminded him of a….snout.
Voice lost even to himself, Cole whispered. “A trunk?”
The great trunk made of night and stars gently coiled about the conjoined ghosts, where they shimmered and split, forming two separate bodies both held in the protective grasp of whatever entity filled the local Aether. Then as quickly as it descended the trunk retreated up into the heavens, whisps of soul-stuff trailing after its cargo as they and it faded into the night sky. As the Aether calmed and Cole collected himself, the Paladin slowly came to his feet, ignoring the dampness on his legs, and simply stared up at the sky in wonder.
Nearby a voice spoke, that of Hierophant Reubain. “The Book of Miracles tells us all who follow the Covenant are protected in death. That their souls are shepherded through the Beyond by the Gods themselves and into Master Time’s halls where they face judgment. The book also says in times long past, the Gods would manifest in the Aether to collect special souls before they could come to any harm. It seems to me, our Pantheon is not alone in such activities.”
Throat dry, Cole managed to ask. “Was… was that?”
Reubain nodded. “I think we just witnessed an Elephant God come to collect one of its wayward children.”
Stunned, Cole said. “But the Gates, they’d stop such a direct manifestation?”
Ruth shrugged. “Maybe she thought the price was worth paying if it meant seeing these long-lost daughters returned home with haste. Or perhaps Saint Mira’s protections don’t apply to animal gods? Either way, we’ve succeeded and in the process been blessed. I doubt more than a handful of humans know of the being we just witnessed.”
Slowly as if waking from a dream the priests got to work, cleaning the scorched ochre off the stone and ground while carefully collecting the warped sheets of stargent. Cole simply stared up at the sky above, lost in what he’d seen. Even without the elephant goddess’s presence, a sense of great calm flowed over Cole and left him in a state of wonder. Slowly a smile started to work its way across the paladin's face as he recovered and went to help the priests. It was fitting, that this story of wronged matriarchs and their lashing out at the world ended with the greatest example of their kind bringing peace. Offering a wordless prayer to the goddess whose name he’d never know, Cole got to work.