Cara sighed blissfully and pressed the book against her chest. She lay in her bed with Gislain, Keelie and Kylie. Her sister was tucked in a ball, nestled against her hip, while her handmaids took up the left of the bed. Keelie lay on her back with her hands folded over her heart and whistled softly, while Kylie sprawled with one leg over the edge of the bed and the other over Keelie. She was snoring loudly enough to cause an avalanche. Cara couldn’t hear her snores, for once. Such was the beauty of the book the Director of the play had given her. The Book of Stars, it was called. She had devoured the first quarter of the book hungrily before even retiring to bed. It was an enchanting tale of the forming of the troupe, and the many battles they fought to show the truth of the tales they portrayed.
The troupe’s founder, a landed knight named Ser Azar, had been pressed to defend his lord’s lands from a rival lord. Lacking the numbers to defeat the rival lord’s superior levies, he gathered the cleverest fools and most compelling mummers from all Casimir, drawing them with promises of gold and fame. The fools were tasked with infiltrating the enemy camps, disguised as fellow soldiers, and to spread terrible tales of Ser Azar’s prowess on the field, and the brutality with which he tortured all captives. They spoke of a secret order of knights that wore impenetrable armor made of fog, and fought with poisoned spears that pierced maile as if it were parchment. The mummers then dressed in gray silk and light mesh, and put their costume maile on straw men and staged mock drills with real polearms. The rival lord’s scouts came back with tales of fog wraiths wielding partisans and halberds that punched through maile in a single thrust. The men broke and fled, and the rival lord’s knight was unprotected when Ser Azar rode out to him.
When Ser Azar lay dying from a festering wound some years later, his son Arash, then a squire, used that same tactic to avenge his father. The false tales were different, as was the foe, but the fools and mummers once again broke the armies of the enemy. Arash abandoned his future of knighthood, and spent was left of his father’s gold on a grand theatre. In years to come the Stars of Casimir would perform for the Shah, and then King Endric of Provosa, before the Arcadians swept up from the south conquered Endric’s lands. Then the Stars wrote a play of the fall of Provosa, and the founding of Eruhall, and the first Arcadian King sent word to all his vassals of their quality. They travelled the world, showing all Konistra the legends and doings of lands too distant for word to travel from. Kings, lords, counts, magistrates, peasants and serfs all saw the world beyond their walls when the Stars took the stage. Tales of their tales then spread, and they wove these new tales into more plays, and so their fame became legend.
Cara had put book down at one part. Ten years after the uniting of the Marches, when Rone the Red defeated the Arcadians and fell under a stray catapult shot at the end of the last battle, the Stars travelled to Ronehelm to honor the new High King. They performed a masterful play that was years in the making. Great care was taken to gather all the facts, and to present their history truthfully. They learned from goblin sellspies how many pieces Rone the Red’s helm had broken into, and spent a small fortune on a book said to have come from the Marches in the ancient past that contained a wealth of knowledge of their ways. The High King had praised them greatly, as did all the March Kings, all but the March King of the Shadow Moors.
Geralt Ysling was his name. He was brutal and cold, even for a Moorsman, and he was suspicious of where the Stars had gained their knowledge. He had the Director abducted and locked in a dungeon with his most feared torturers, the Domhain. Cara had to skip the pages after the Domhain arrived in his cell. Noxi had told her stories of their methods that made her blood curdle. The director was held captive until the book was given over, and he was given back a corpse, with the words of Ysling scarred onto his chest. Tread softly indeed, Cara thought. She decided she would never go to Ronehelm, and was reminded of Hale’s baleful words of their father marrying her to some cruel lord or king. She shuddered. But if I marry Ror, then I’ll have no reason to fear cruel men like the Yslings.
When she came into bed she had to fight her way between Keelie’s mummified form and her sprawling sister. There was a beam of moonlight peeking through the window that gave just enough light for her to read. She found a chapter that contained the complete original text of her favorite play, taken, as the Stars made claim, directly from the Complete Esperian Catalogue of Tidal Truths. It was The Seven Sojourns, from Forever Man, the tale of a wild young goblin prince who lived a life of constant adventure. She ran her fingers along the edge of the first page, revelling in their crisp feel, then read the tale.
Chaka was an idle child, born in the house of the Green King. He despised the life of a prince, so his mother sent him away before he could bring trouble to the motherdark. He did battle with sellswords, travelled the world with a troupe of mummers, and sailed the nine oceans in a ship made of bronze and glass. He grew proud of all he'd done, and boasted there was no adventure too great for him.
The Paran Queen heard his boast and sent for him. Seven sojourns she told him of, to right the greatest wrongs she'd done her realm. "I am in the Autumn of my days," she said. "Do these things for me, that I may find peace in the long night."
"And why should I do these things for you?" Chaka asked. "I am a child of high and low, dark and light, my nature a dance of sweet and grim. My kin outnumber the stars, so if the Paran Queen's children fall to ill then good riddance. There will be more room above ground for me and mine, and it serves you right to bear the guilt of your sins."
The Paran Queen was sad, for she saw a bright flame in Chaka, and pleaded with him not to give in to pride. "Great knowledge awaits you at the end of these sojourns. Turn away from me and a great sadness will devour all. Be my champion, and the Hidden Light will shine, and you will live the lives of many men."
The Paran Queen showed herself wise, for she saw that Chaka cared nothing for gold or fame, but hungered for life itself, and so he lived it to its full, taunting death by dancing on its brink. "You will live through the ages, with waking knowledge of each, and they will call you Forever Man," she told him.
Chaka smiled in his heart, but his face remained in shadow. "Tell me of these seven sojourns," he said, "and how they will give me the lives of many men."
The Paran Queen then told him of her greatest wrongs. "Many are a monarch's sins, but these I cannot leave undone.
"A grand tome I stole. I kept it secret, and used its knowledge to become great among my people. I burned the library from whence it came, so the old man who kept it safe would think it gone and seek it no more. When the last tide sweeps me out to sea, who will be made great by its words?
"A high tower I had torn down, for it was higher than any other, and I wanted my palace to be the greatest height. Now my people are robbed of a splendid view, and their sight has grown dim.
"I taught my sons to sing, so they would be cherished among their subjects. Then a bard rose among the foreigners in my thrall. His voice is sweeter than a spring, and no instrument disobeys his hand. I sent this gifted man far away, so his songs might make friends of my foes and slaves of my friends. But my own realm is lessened with him abroad, and my sons would sing sweeter had they a rival.
"Life is a web, and a monarch must be the weaver or they will become entangled by another. Many are the webs I’ve spun over this world, thinking all other queens and kings my prey. Then I met a red king with the jaws of a bear, who's throne sits atop a font of fire. His virtue melted my heart, but alas, I'd already spun my strands. I would cut him loose, for he is a noble friend. If this cannot be done, then I beg you save his line.
"I saw a beast of peerless might, and had it brought to the safety of my garden, away from the spears and nets of wild men. Now the wild men have nothing to hunt, and they live in hunger and fear. I have since loosed the beast, but the wild men are now tamed. Winter has fallen over their hearts, for they have learned to fear my wrath. Who will go on their wild hunt and shine the sun upon their souls?
"My daughter built a fleet of ships to see what was West of West. I wished for her to find her joy within our walls, so I filled her ears with fear of distant lands. But what good is a queen who never leaves her palace and hides from foreign lords? Alas, she bid her ships to sail, and now despises mast and oar.
"A great horde of treasure I have, and my empire is guarded and fed. But look at the hovels my people live within. Is it enough to be guarded and fed? I would see my people shine like the stars, but my feet are too tired, my hands too small, and my back too old to carry bags of gold."
"This will take me many years," Chaka said, "and I will be an old man before I'm done. How am I to live the lives of many men if I spend the one I have laboring for some old woman?"
"Old queen!" The Paran Queen grew wrathful, but quickly calmed herself, for she sought to save Chaka from his haughtiness. "This life, yes, you will spend on my atonement. But I will leave for you my greatest treasure, and with it you will climb the Old Oak, and hear words of secret truth. Then, Chaka will be Forever."
"The Old Oak?" Chaka was very pleased, for he knew the Old Oak's roots had once drunk from the Constant River, and eternity gathered like dew on its leaves.
Chaka swore an oath to the Paran Queen, then set off to find the old man of the library with the Grand Tome under his arm. The man had died, leaving his work to his granddaughter, and Chaka helped her copy the tome’s pages so that she might spread its wisdom among the people, while the original was guarded safely in the Palace of the Clouds.
He had no skill with stone, but many a night had he spent in the boughs of high trees. Amidst a grove of mountain ash he found an igdrus tree that rose to the moon. A stair he built, and a loft atop its trunk, and the people rose the stair to gaze at the wide world.
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He then travelled to the West to search for the Singer. The man was difficult to find, and yet more difficult to bring back. Two stones he wept over on his return, but before his morning hour he sang for the Paran Queen.
Westward again Chaka went, to the very center of the world. He sought an audience with the Red King, but he was a mighty man and paid Chaka no heed, yet Chaka gained the ear of his sons and they were spared.
Next he went to the Wilderland to the Wild Men of the Dunes. Such was their fear of the Paran Queen, that they dare not a lay hand on either spear or bow. But Chaka wooed the Wild Maids, and they took up the Wild Hunt to feed their people.
The Princess of the Clouds trembled at night, dreaming of the Darkness and its hold on other lands. The bloodstained snows of the North, the clang of steel in the West, and the Fog that howled out of the South. But Chaka brought to her a ship made of starry dreams; so beautiful it haunted her heart. She sailed the ship to the Tenth Sea and basked on the Evershore in the warmth of the Sunless Sky.
To the people in their hovels, he sent a letter writ in gold. A pouch of coin they'd be given, if only they would come to the Palace of the Clouds, and the Warriors of Light handed each their due from noontide on the seventh day till noontide of the first, the End of Dawn.
Then the Paran Queen went on her final voyage, but not without giving Chaka his reward. To the roots of the Old Oak he went, guided by a memory once found by the Queen. Unbidden he climbed, from the shadow to the sun, and he heard the Oak speak with wind and inner storm.
To Cara's surprise, another passage was added to the text. It was The Burning of the Oak, from The Dreams of Alon, easily the strangest chapter in the Book of Tides. It read:
IT sleeps, and while IT sleeps I am Lord
You cry for answers in your dreams yet stumble through mist while awake, and what is won with hard spilled blood you wish to barter for with a feebly broken sweat
The footprints of an abandoned hope have lead you to the gate, but there are no paths through the Garden for the curious or the haunted
The well is cold and faith is fire, so burn if you desire truth
Burn and become the flames that envelop you, so that when you are swallowed by the tide you may be tempered and not drowned
Now turn away from the River
The River is THEIRS and blood and bone bar the door
I am whisper, meaning and shrouded light, and still I was caught in the weir
But I am impaled within the Worm, a splinter stabbed into its thoughtless mind, and together we assailed the River and I confess that for once I aided the Worm, for I too desired the armor of eternity, and so together we dove from the precipice and drank deep before we were expelled
And thus I was knighted; the Soulmind and the Spirit Within, and along the River’s banks the Garden was planted
I speak when IT is silent, I hunt while IT recoups, and I am untouched by all save the final tide
I am no memory. I am the Speaker, the Refugee, the Dark Adaptation, the Inward Lamp and the ember that will not die
I hear with the waters, I feel with the wind, I whisper Othominian
I tell you now; for I have seen both the bones after the doom of ages and the embryo of time's impetus; that the future is not a stream to carry you, but an ocean to drown you lest you dare to raise a sail
Hear me, and know that my voice is the clarion call of the deepening silence between suns
Next came the rest of the tale of Chaka, which Cara knew.
Ousted he was, as the Oak had not summoned him to trunk or branch or leaf, and the unbidden may not look into the Heart of the Garden unscathed. But he did not depart without his boon. His mind was armored with the dew of the ages, and the Great Year will not pass without a life lived by Chaka, the Forever Man.
It was a strange tale, truth be told, but Cara cherished it still, even with the unexpected addition from the Dreams of Alon. She had finished the story just as a cloud passed over the moon. She leaned over Gislain and set the book down on the… well, the nightstand was moved to the other side of the bed, and the book landed with a loud thunk on the floor. Gislain stirred, Kylie paused in her snoring, and Keelie whimpered fearfully. Cara held still for a moment, waiting until Kylie resumed her snores before laying back down. She suddenly thought of her black stone. Hale had given it to her and she’d stuck it under her pillow. She reached behind her head and fished it out, then clasped it with both her hands and closed her eyes.
She quickly drifted off, tucked under the heavy dwarven blanket amidst the warmth of her sister and Keelie. Her dream found her quickly. It was a sweet dream. They were on Cavanal Hill, in the grassy space outside the city. The Titan’s Torch glowed brightly overhead, and the castle banners fluttered over the four towers of the Tall Hill. The Stars of Casimir played their lutes and fiddles while her people and Ror’s danced. Even Halfur was dancing, though he was dancing with a wolf that had been chasing him through the Coldwood. There was a dwarf she’d never seen there, a soldier with golden hair that looked as soft as wool. He was shockingly handsome, though he hooted like an owl. He danced with an elf girl with scars on her face and red fire for hair, and while they danced they argued about whether or not they should feed the dogs. It was strange, but it was a dream, and so long as she danced with Ror she did not care who hooted, who fed the dogs, or who’s hair was on fire.
The Stars played happy songs and the people shouted joyfully. Her mother danced with Queen Halfi, and her father and King Grar pranced in circles around each other, raising their voices in hearty laughter. Hale was singing, Dennel and Rowsby were running about with Keelie and Kylie slung over their shoulders, and Noxi had found a whole group of other goblins to dance with. One of them looked so much like him she could hardly tell them apart. Lobuhl appeared and asked Noxi if he had a brother, and his doppelganger jumped behind him. Ror spun her around and she forgot all about Noxi and the other goblins. He spun her fast, and faster, and faster still until the stars looked like arrows in the sky.
When she could spin no more Ror let her hands free and she fell softly upon the grass. She then sat upright, leaning back with her hands in the grass as she looked at the people surrounding her. Dennel had put Kylie down and was painting over the red stars on his shield. Ser Rowsby was sleeping, and Keelie was trying to wake him. Soon she found herself standing again and holding hands with her mother and siblings. Grar and Halfi had disappeared and Ror was dancing in circles with her father. That’s when the towers fell.
A thick and undulating mist had risen from the grass, like the fog under the Titan’s Arm, only she saw the shapes of children from all six kins swirling in the billowing mist as if they were one with the fog. As they rose higher into the air, the children in the fog let out a skirling wail that sent a rending shock into each of the towers, then vanished. The Pillar of Autumn fell first. The battlements at its top broke loose and rose into the sky as if they were falling from a cliff, then its large stones crumbled into dust and a hard wind swept them away. Next was the August Ruin, the far tower to the north. After it fell, the phoenix’s Roost, the tower to the east, sunk quickly downward as if the very ground grew hungry and swallowed it whole. Mount Obrus loomed dark and terrible on the horizon where the tower had been. She looked to the last of the Tall Hill’s towers, a tall and slender turret with a steeply rising spire. The Spear, it was called, after its design, and a spear it was that brought it down. Huge and sharp and glowing like lightning, it fell from the sky and pierced the tower and went through the earth, swallowing the rest of the castle into the black hole left in its wake.
Then Obrus stood, rising from its haunches and shaking the snow off its back. Its eastern foothills lifted from the ground and whipped through the air like a lizard's tail. The Brow split in two with a rending crack and spread out like a pair of wings. Great vents opened up in the rock on either side of Malgond like gigantic stone nostrils, spraying fountains of hot steam and ash as it gurgled and snarled. Armies of dwarves in bleeding armor came pouring out of its fingers by the tens of thousands. They were weeping as they charged, and instead of heads of spiked steel, their flails bore the heads of their own fallen soldiers. Obrus opened its mouth and a red glow emanated from within. It then reared back its horned black head and belched a river of blood and lava into the sky. Lurching slowly forward, the World Dragon began to stride hungrily towards High Alden, shaking the ground under its immense feet and setting fire to the air with waves of purple lightning.
Then the great beast slumped and fell as if it had been mortally wounded. A quake spread from under the monstrous beast and tore deep rifts in the ground. The Coldwood was ripped from the earth, its ranks of pines and alders floating into the air and drifting off into the night. One by one the stars came plummeting to the ground until the sky was empty save for the Titan's Torch.
Then Cara was alone, the only speck of color on an endless waste of grey sand. She could hear waves but there was no sight of the sea. The sky was lit with a pale and hazy glow, as if there was somehow daylight without a sun. Only there was a sun, but not the golden life giver Cara knew. A great black orb loomed overhead, ringed by a halo of searing white fire. Other than the crashing waves of the hidden ocean, there were no sounds of any sort, nor was there wind or scent, and Cara felt suffocated by the emptiness. She shivered too, as she was bitter cold as in the dead of winter, but there was no snow, only the hollow air and endless stretches of grey sand.
Awake, a voice said. She wanted to look around, to search for the voice, but the sound came from all directions at once, both far and near. Walk with me, she heard it say. She saw a light in the corner of her eye and she turned to it, but it was gone the instant she moved her head. The pale sky was turning to dried and crusted sand, thin cracks spreading like a web across it. Grains of sand fell from the cracks in the sky, and when they landed they were the size of mountains.
Walk with me, the voice said again. She looked back to where the light had flickered, but the black sun had grown huge and swollen, and all the sky was going dark. She felt the mannarim stone in her hand and clenched it tightly, and then she saw the light glowing against the shadow waxing above her. It was blue and fierce, and while it seemed no more than a pinpoint she could feel that it was strong and alive, like a bolt of lightning trapped in a marble, trembling with power and eager to burst free. Walk with me, the voice said a third time. Cara looked down from the light and saw a castle the size of a city underneath it, its battlements were gilded with gold.
Castle Gwynd? she thought, recalling Hale's stories of Eruhal’s capital. She looked up at the blue light. You want me to go to Eruhal? She asked with her mind. Tread softly, the voice replied. What will I find there? she asked in thought, Am I not safe here in Thrond? There was no reply. Someone whistled behind her and she whirled about. It was the little drow boy in his yellow vest and green trunk hose. He smiled, and she started to go to him. His arms were behind his back, and when she got near he brought them in front. In one hand was a writhing cluster of worms with horned jaws, and in the other was a dagger, a viscous pus was dripping from its edge.
Cara woke with a start. Her flesh felt cold and damp under her furs. A thin beam of moonlight had once again found its way through the window, piercing through the darkness like a spear. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, pulling a clump of matted red curls out of her eyes. She was tempted to throw on a gown and sit by the fire, or go into the citadel where there were thousands of dwarves awake and milling about. It would have meant waking her sister, as their legs and feet had become entangled as they sept. Gislain was a monster when woken prematurely. Cara decided to remain in bed and let Kylie’s rhythmic snoring serenade her back to sleep. Walk with me, she thought. Walk with who? She felt instantly foolish, and tried to stifle the nervous twinge that had pitched its tent within her stomach. It meant nothing, she told herself. She closed her eyes and lost herself in memories of home, galloping her silver across Cavanal Hill, when the day time sky was only blue, white and gold, and all her dreams were sweet.