And there is only Reality now...
She put the steel bar into the magefires of her Floating Forge, and stepped back.
-If you do not wish to join in, close your Door,- her /voice rippled through from the new light inside the head of the Fire and the Sword. Startled at the sudden interruption to her labor, he kept it open.
-The night wind comes, the world now breathes deep...-
His eyes widened despite himself as the Salute to Aethra sang softly through his mind.
She was a Forsaken, like him. The gods could not hear their prayers, could not see them, acknowledge them, neither help nor hinder them.
But she was still singing to them, because she had faith, and she believed, and that was all that was necessary.
Strong men and women around her lifted their voices in time, while Tremble hummed a sad and gentle melody, and Stand beat the measure slowly.
So this is true faith, thought Brother Firesword, astounded, glancing around at something he had missed all his life, and then down at The Map in his mind, scrolling across the face of the world, clearly indicating where night was coming, Aru falling and Sylune rising as the world turned.
And, of course, her voices, mental and real, were terrifyingly strong. He knew many Master Bards who would kill to have a voice like that, able to shake the soul and stir the heart. Even he couldn’t help falling into it, for there was no magic here, only pure ki and mastery of the music.
Gods. If she danced, I believe everyone here would follow her straight into Hell, he thought to himself, studying the expressions around him.
----
“...where rest the weary, and dream of the wind at dawn,” she /finished calmly. Breaths exhaled all around, not a few of them wiping away the tears from their eyes.
Then she took a deep breath, drew the ingot out of the fire, and got right back to work without missing another beat.
The Fire and the Sword sat back, his eyes deeper and more thoughtful than they had been in decades.
It was just like Briggs had said. Her mental presence was senior to all of them; powerful, active, with profound depth and hidden emotions that rippled like powerful currents beneath the surface. Simply nobody in the Markscape was her equal, they could sense it as clearly as seeing the difference between a strong man and a weak one.
In the Markspace, she was a titan. Outside it... she was able to slaughter Greater Warp demons. She was simply death!
He wanted to cross swords with her so very badly. She had known his Shadow Stalking swordplay inside and out, as well as the basic level of Crazy Flame he used to dual-wield when needed. Just brushing up against her Vajra, her ki... he had to admit he was feeling less and less confident of matching her with a blade.
He certainly couldn’t go up to and just off a Greater Demon like it was nothing special...
------
It was just past midnight, and she had just finished the Salute to the Silver Queen. His soul was shivering just remembering it.
She had no magic, yet he could feel the emotion behind that Salute was deep and true. It was because a Hagchild’s freedom was, one way or another, tied back to the Silver Queen, the very opposite of a Hag...
He knew he would never be able to kill a hagchild again. The Silver Queen was waiting to set them free, and he would see to it that they were... He would never be able to think of himself as a man again if he didn’t.
She didn’t go back to work. The fires of Forge dimmed low, and she went over to her Cabinets sitting there on the ground, going into one still closed, sliding open a drawer, and bringing something out.
As it left the Compression field, it swelled in size.
It was a book, a true Tome, and damn, it looked to be nearly as big as her chest, and more than a couple inches thick. While he didn’t consider himself a scholar, he held a breadth of knowledge in several subjects which would have astounded most sages, so he was naturally curious as to what was within a book so large.
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-This is for my Ironblood.- Her /voice was a whisper, stirring up an aching reminiscence for companions lost long ago that made his heart skip a beat. -Shut your Door if you do not wish to listen.-
He was looking out her eyes now, down at that monstrous book, clad in superbly tanned minotaur hide, held as lightly and easily as a carefree lady’s paper romance novel. It had no title to it, but there was an air about it, a solemnity that signified it had been handled many, many times.
-When I was in Nightmare, there came a time when the Curse could not best me with mere encounters, so it began to change the game, and whelm armies to fight me. In return, I began to marshal an army of my own.-
Slowly and carefully, she opened the cover, and on the pale browned page of crisp paper, was a title, wrought in ornate, loving calligraphy, for no other reason than that those within deserved it.
The Ironblood.
-They came to me across Dream, into my Nightmare, to fight for me. From Renewal to Renewal, they would be reborn, and forget what had gone before... but once I Marked them, their Names would rise to the fore, and that Name neither they nor I would forget.
-We fought together thousands of times. I watched them die, and return again. I watched them live, and we reveled in the victory for whatever short time we could.
-When my Nightmare ended, they were swept away, back into Dream, once more free to live outside the trap of my existence. I promised them I would remember them, and that this Book, that I made while in Nightmare, to help them remember what they had won, what they had done, would be there always, to remember them forever.-
She turned the page, as thousands of people held their breath.
The second page was blank, but the third was split in two horizontally, each half showing a grown man in armor, with a second close-up of their face, drawn with a light yet precise hand, bringing out the character of each with elegantly sparse lines. Every word and line was a work of art...
Along the sides of the pictures were lines of details; above them were the Names. All were painted with the same loving hand, yet were all totally, individually different somehow, as if the ink was bringing out the soul of each person there, and the style changed to match THEM, leaving its own heart behind...
“Corporal Meers, the First to Fight. Spear and saber.
“Promoted to Sergeant of First Spears Company, Day Forty-Seven.
“Promoted to First Master Sergeant of Spears, Day Three Hundred and Two.
“Honors of Battle: Day 39, Xenosym Queen. Day 118, Grave Knight Commander. Day 416, Hill Jotun Chief. Day 519, Firedrake Brood Matron. Day 823, Death Knight. Day 1322, three Manticora...”
....”Private Ars Tremplis, Meers’ Strong Right Hand. Spear and saber...
...”Private Neks Ombler, First Company, Spears.
...”Knight Lancer Sir Orm Tromwell, First Lance of Knights, the Hunting Lancer.
...”Lieutenant Anton Markov, First Company Spears. The Great Captain of Spears.
...
...
-----
She softly closed The Book, and the Doors in thousands of minds went silent.
Hands were trembling all around, emotions swelling that were hard to contain.
This, this is Thunder in the soul...
The Fire and the Sword had never felt anything like this in his life. Glory, flaring and brief, was not the duty of a Void. Theirs was to kill in the shadows, to eliminate the threats, and go on to the next one. Glory was a pointless thing to justify battles that should not be fought, purely a thing to pawn for power.
To fight under the sun, to defeat a foe before all the world, to receive the acclaim and recognition of peers, teachers, rivals, and underlings, was simply not their way.
Every day she listed had a churning mass of carnage behind every syllable of every word and number, of monstrous foes slain over and over again, in endless variety. Every Battle Honor rose like a moment of triumph over a foe no normal man could best. Every rank awarded was a recognition of effort and esteem by their peers, and acknowledgement that the woman who led them was watching, and had noticed.
Those days had gone into the thousands...
Each page, two pictures. Each so individual that they didn’t blur. Names, accomplishments, deeds, written down so that THEY would remember the things they had done, their own greatness...
And now, so that they might remember again, that they had accompanied her through thousands of days of her Nightmare, she had brought forth The Book she had shown no one else, and she had told everyone what they had done for her.
She had Remembered all of them. How long had it taken her to put together a Tome like that? Just from memory?
To be Remembered like that, to be held up again... what would a man do, even if he did not crave glory, authority, power over their fellows? To be remembered among those who mattered, to know that your deeds would be held up as a guide for those who came later?
To know that someone you loved and admired would remember you, even if no others did?
The histories of the Brotherhood of the Void were dark and secret things, buried where none would find them, opened only when a Brother needed information on a threat returned, or when a new Brother needed to be shown what had been done before him, to show him what the Brotherhood did.
She had quietly read off one hundred and twenty names, one per minute. There was absolutely no doubt that she recalled each person as clearly and cleanly as if they were her next of kin, and could doubtless spin stories about each and every one for hours.
Then, she slowly and carefully closed The Book, placed it back in its drawer, and got back to work on his Sword.
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Author’s Note: Of all the Chapters and words I have written over the years, this Chapter is by far my favorite.