| May 2005 | << April 2005 | June 2005 >> |
| Sage, Spearman, Speaker For Neth |
| The Enclave > Folk > Neth |
Of the many strange contemporaries attracted by the master explorer Krineth over the course of an eventful life, The Marked was perhaps the strangest. A sage of hidden meaning and esoterica, The Marked is best read once removed, filtered through the understanding of later scribes and Ammander whitebeards. If not for the popularity of Krineth's deeds amongst commonfolk and nobles even to this day, it is likely that the last intricate, spidery parchments inked by The Marked would have moldered away uncopied. As it is, his works and their interpretations have been plundered over the generations by troubadors, sages and educated noble folk in search of the authentic Krineth.
The other heritage left by The Marked, painstakingly picked from abstruse bindings by unnamed scribes and lesser sages such as The Cloud, concerns the cruel Neth. The Marked was unusual amongst mortal folk - if indeed he was of mortal blood, for there are some who called him a Visitor - in his ability to face Neth without disgust or fear. It is clear that Neth fascinated him, even as he was forced to slay them while companions turned aside or fled in revulsion and loathing.
From copies of The Cloud's few remaining works, hidden away in private collections in Port and the Three Stones Library, it is possible to learn that "The Marked expressed novel ideas throughout his inkwork, the present and pertinent of which is that experience, the motes of knowledge captured, is channeled through a single body part in each individual. This narrows in the stream of life lived can be taken as an axis, a central divide in the map of man or beast, supporting and informing all personality and perception. For the sage, this organ is the heart, the seat of thought. For the crafter, it is the hands. For Neth, this axis of balance between the self and Creation is the mouth, the bile-filled maw of uneven, sharp teeth reflected in their crude structures and implements."
What little is known by mortal folk of harsh Neth language came from The Marked, as does the educated sage's poor understanding of Neth rituals, desires and Powers - the urge to suffer and hate; the Maw; the Eaters of All; the strange wooden structures built in deepest winter. Common folk, even those spears who patrol beyond the Odan and on the Forest Road in snow, know little of Neth save they are to be feared, pitied, fought and avoided.
[ Posted by Reason on May 31, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Beautiful Stranger |
| The Enclave > Powers |
Beauty is kindness in the Farthest, or so the Datarii taught the first mortals to come to the Enclave lands. True beauty shines from within, shines from actions and the momentary self; even the worst can be beautiful, if only for a moment. In stonefolk myth, the Beautiful Stranger wanders the Farthest Halls to guide the Lost to safety. She is as much a vision as Power, an ideal made real by the kindness of Visitors. The Beautiful Stranger wears many faces other than her own; to act for her is to be her.
Ammander and Vanished Isle folk took the Beautiful Stranger as one of their own, just as for other Datarii Powers. The Farthest is strange and often threatening for mortal folk; the watchful kindness of the Beautiful Stranger is a necessary comfort. Datarii lessons from long ago took root and flourished - so it is that descendants of Magi and the old Ammand have long said "be kind to those of the Farthest, and you will be gifted in turn," and "be kind to the Lost, for one day their need will be yours." They visit shrines to place coin at the feet of the Beautiful Stranger, treat Visitors with respect and help the Lost.
In time, as settlement of the Enclave spread beyond Port and the coast villages, the old Ammander traditions of healing and charity came to be associated with the Beautiful Stranger; this is the given role of kindness from the Farthest in the mortal Enclave lands.
[ Posted by Reason on May 30, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Devotees of the Beautiful Stranger |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Organizations |
The shrine of the Beautiful Stranger in the City Within is a modest circular stone structure of sloped walls, surmounted by a low, vaulted dome. It stands midway between the city walls and the Court of Three Stones, surrounded by small wooden dwellings, stone-paved paths and garden plots of herbs and unusual flowers.
The sick, injured and dying of Three Stones come to the shrine of the Beautiful Stranger for aid and comfort, there to be tended by a small order of devotees, healers, acolytes and volunteers. The interior of the shrine is lamp-lit and suffused with scented smoke day and night, summer and winter. The vaulted space is divided by wooden screens and platforms to provide some semblance of privacy for folk too ill to leave or who have no other place to go. Supplicants who come to leave coin or other gifts for the Beautiful Stranger - for luck, to give thanks for an unexpected kindness, or to guard against the Farthest - go no further than the weathered stone statue of the Beautiful Stranger in the entrance hall, robed as a healer of the old Ammand and wreathed in dried flowers.
The speaker for the order of devotees - by general acclaim - is Aretole, an unacknowledged daughter of the present Lord Verden, a man who feels he must deny even those past youthful excesses that cannot be hidden. Tending to the sick while also ensuring the needs of the shrine has proven to be a demanding task; the order grows and fades on the strength of the leading devotees. Aretole's determination and selflessness weigh on her, more so than for most devotees, even those who go forth into the City Without to practice the healing arts. Aretole looks older than her years, often appearing more ill than many who rest within the shrine.
By tradition, devotees of the Beautiful Stranger treat all who ask for aid with no concern for history, feelings, cost or coin. The shrine is supported by donations and largess, in coin or kind, and recipients of aid who fail to make an appropriate donation in turn will soon find themselves in poor favor. Cityfolk gossip on these and other matters, and devotees of the Beautiful Stranger are held in high regard in Three Stones.
For all that, little love is lost between devotees at the shrine and the black-armored Watch. Poor, sick folk from the City Without move through the gatehouse to the shrine in the City Within each day - those who can pay the toll, at least. It is no great secret that Jaldra of the Watch would close the great red iron gates of Three Stones to the folk of the City Without - if only the High Priest of the Vessel Ascendant allowed it. It is also no great secret that Aretole would rather the Watch guarded another city somewhere else in Creation.
[ Posted by Reason on May 29, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Bitten Eye |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places > Taverns |
The scarred door to the Bitten Eye stands in a narrow and unpaved alley beside unkempt stables, a stream of mud in wet weather or following the last snows of winter. The alley entrance faces the Trade Road at the edge of the City Without, marked by a large, battered wooden ball carved - and once painted - into the stylized likeness of a bleeding, dead eye. Folk come and go from alley and stables throughout the day and night.
The Bitten Eye is a merchants' tavern, catering to traders who choose not to enter the City Within - those of modest means or less reputable agendas. The Council of Traders and law of Three Stones essentially forbid trading in the City Without - or in coin other than priestly lead - but trade takes place anyway, hidden and expensive. The Bitten Eye is a meeting place for those who defy the Council to earn a living, as well for traders passing through Three Stones to the Trade Road, New Road or Stone Road. For all the whispered conversations, knowing looks and assignations, the Bitten Eye is usually a peaceable enough establishment for folk who can keep questions to themselves. Hired spearmen in the stables across the alley are enough to keep thieves away from mules and goods - but thieves of the City Without are often enough on other side of the table, making what would be an open, honest trade in any other part of the Enclave.
The stables of the Bitten Eye are of tumbledown wooden construction, but the Eye itself is a solid enough stone building. The shutters and doors of the ground floor are iron-backed; regular visitors can point to the stains of Neth bile from five years before, or the deep cuts of Watch axes on the front shutters from the previous summer.
[ Posted by Reason on May 28, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Erem's Fingers |
| The Enclave > Folk > Neth |
You're no better than the last spears - your armor's no prettier, neither. Blood! Erem should be dead, sick and past the end of his road since we came down from Krineth's Hills. But no, he won't die afore he's told a hundred and their friends, and coin for each telling. Mark my words, I'd take a blade to myself afore I let Neth blood chill me to a slow death. Did he show you his fingers, what's left of them? His hands might as well be buried; they were rotting meat fresh from an old midden even this past summer. The four of us left who could walk, and Erem dragged on a litter, come down to the Trade Road from the tombs. He brought the stench of Neth with him, blood and bile, and sick we all were. Sick, but not dead like the five good spears left to rot on bare rock under the sun; harder men than you they were, mark me well.
The Unbroken Cask? You know all I could tell if you gave coin to the dying. I'll give you nothing, and take none of your coin! Find the Cask without my help - go and seek as you will. You'll find your reward pinned beneath filth and dying Neth, Neth who yet twitch and hate and chew the flesh from your fingers while you scream.
Leave me to my ale, you and all the others. There's blood and greed on you all, food for Neth Powers, and it sickens me.
[ Posted by Reason on May 27, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Black Tower |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
The Black Tower of Three Stones is an uneven, rough crag jutting from the ornate, worn paving stones of the Tower Court, the work of Draugh or long-departed Datarii if the old tales are to be believed, made of the same black stone as the Three Stones that give the city its name. The Black Tower looms high and broad over the surrounding buildings, a invulnerable monolith writ large or fragment cleft from a greater mountain. The thin windows of its highest crags look down on even the vaulted dome of the Temple of Powers.
As for many remnants of the long-distant past, there is a potency to the Black Tower - more than just the nature of its stone. Commonfolk tell hushed stories of what might lie within the darker spaces of the tower of sages; stonefolk wizardry from long ago, things best forgotten or left well alone. The wizardry of the Tower drew The Denier and other sages to it many generations ago, before the city of Three Stones came to be.
The Black Tower has neither door nor gateway, yet sages, scribes and lesser folk have come and gone across the generations - and come and go still, even now. The Expected Smile once wrote of The Denier that "he quested mightily and for many seasons to find one beneath the mountains who knew the secret of the black crag and stones. Yet he had carried the secret with him all along, that entrance is given to those who need." It is today just as it was then; those who need to be within will find the way. For those who do not, the Black Tower remains a rough-walled mystery of high windows and no door - as much a secret as the activities of the remaining sages of Three Stones who dwell within.
[ Posted by Reason on May 26, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Parchment From the Farthest Library |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
Welcome again, Hethei. Might I take it from your early appearance that the tome you clutch was of no use to your master in the Black Tower? As I thought ... well and well, we shall simply have to do better, will we not? The road of the Seeker is never straight, nor well marked - I acknowledge your frustration, but a scribe must learn the limitations of the Library, just as she learns her own.
No, leave it with the acolytes here in the sunlight; they will find a place for it amongst the darker shelves and corridors before the day is done. Strangers' ink and parchment has a way about it; your tome will find its way home if given a good enough start. It might even be that a Power has need of it, no? Well and well, as you please.
Come, walk a way with me amongst the pillars and stacks, closer to the Farthest Library; let us leave the priests and readers to their work. You have a talent for strangers' inkwork, Hethei, or so I hear. It is what brings you here so often at the beck and call of an unappreciative sage. Ah, you do me too much justice; I simply listen to the talk of scribes and acolytes. I would be a poor priest if I did not have some understanding those who Seek.
Not more than ten nights past, here in this very aisle, I watched a dripping vision of beauty return books to the shelves. I bowed and pointed a way back to the Farthest ... the water marks remain on the stone, and here, look at this bound volume - is it not simply exquisite? It would be the work of mortal years and require skill decades in the making were it scribed and illuminated in the Ammander tradition. What secrets lie within? I could not say and none of us will know, for it waits to return to the Farthest from whence it came.
You have come here many times seeking parchment and ink from the Farthest Library, but you know that there is more here than all the sages of Creation could ever know. To be a scribe for the rest of your road? I would be surprised. You would be welcome to stay longer in our Library, Hethei, should you choose so. Think on it as I ponder how best to better the last tome found for your master.
[ Posted by Reason on May 25, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Blood of Commonfolk on Winter Snow |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
The snow falls thick about Three Stones in the depths of winter, but ice rain and deep drifts are no impediment to the cruel Neth of Krineth's Hills. As leaves fall and nights become chill, the Neth uncurl from their summer torpor like rot finally come to bundled meat. Braver merchants who must use the Trade Road at the year end hire spearmen and travel light. Commonfolk and the poor of the City Without huddle by their fires and hope that the twisted, hateful creatures will not raid this winter.
Yet even in quiet years, the taint from the hills makes itself known; the sick scent of Neth in the fields and about outlying buildings; grey, loathsome figures glimpsed in the distance at dawn; livestock crippled; poorest folk vanished in the night. City Guard patrol beyond the walls after first snow, for what little good it does, but otherwise the folk of the City Without are left to fend for themselves. Only when Neth come in force from the Hills, twisted Ur Maka looming amongst ugly, wet-hide masses, the sound of their malicious anticipation a filth on the ears, will the Guard sally forth to defend Three Stones.
Twice in the last generation Neth have flailed at the City Without, like a wash of sickness and vermin, smoldering with a pent-up hunger of years to hurt and despoil, hatefully crippling cityfolk who would defend themselves. Five winters ago, black-armored Watch and priests of the Vessel stood atop the walls of Three Stones amidst frozen rain. Beneath, Guard spears struggled from the gates as commonfolk blood colored the deep snow and the scent of Neth and butchery was fit to turn any stomach. Watch blades had taken twenty lives in the City Without just a season before, but Watch have never left the City Within to put down Neth. For this and many other reasons, the Watch are hated by those commonfolk who dwell beyond the walls.
[ Posted by Reason on May 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Lead From the Hills and Beneath the City |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
In simpler times, it was an easy matter to find and smelt lead from ore-bearing rock in Krineth's Hills, or even the bedrock beneath the fields and rolling grasslands surrounding Three Stones. Lead is of little use, however, and lead ore even less - except to priests of the Vessel and thieves of the City Without.
The lead coins required by city law are fashioned by priests of the Vessel Ascendant and their magisters, a way of ensuring taxation and great influence over the wealth of nobles, traders and merchants. Thieves and other, more shadowy groups of the City Without cast copies of the soft lead coins for their own profit, or simply to disrupt the efforts of the Temple of Powers. The temptation has proven too much for other folk, both wealthy and poor, from time to time as well. If the boat is rocked too much, however, priests and magisters recast coins in new shapes and denominations and declare old coin to be nothing more than lead weights - merchants, nobles and commonfolk may cry out and protest, but to no avail. In past seasons, the Temple has even sent Watch blades forth into the City Without to strike down those who debase the coinage that is the basis of so much of their power.
Smelting lead is, needless to say, forbidden by city law. Smelting lead in volume is not an activity easily hidden, and neither does it benefit the thieves of Three Stones, who prefer to pass smaller quantities of illicit coin. This means that major influxes of new coin from sources other than the Temple are rare - fortunately for the livelihoods of commonfolk and the safety of those dwelling in the City Without.
[ Posted by Reason on May 23, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Secrecy of Sages |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
There was a time, not so very many years ago, when sages of the Black Tower walked openly about the paved streets of the City Within. They orated in the Court of Three Stones, debated in Lord Verden's private park, and declaimed from the raised platform at the center of the Great Way, where wealthy merchants now sell their wares. It was not unusual in those seasons to see robed sages arguing points of philosophy with priests of the Seeking Vessel on the grand Library steps, or for noble gatherings to be enlightened by a reading of the latest treatise from the white-bearded thinkers of the Black Tower.
Tales are still told of commonfolk and traders who crossed the Black Tower in those seasons gone by; The Refutation of Othel's Greed is a favorite with troubadors throughout the Enclave, and a statue in the manse of Lord Verden recalls the supposed fate of ten rude Talmur retainers. The subtle wizardry of Ammander sages is known, respected and feared, whether or not those within the Black Tower make use of their talents.
A generation ago, in the wake of the terrible Year of Winter and the victory of the Emerald Company over Trespassers from the Farthest, Guard spears patrolling the Great Way at first light found the body of The Awl. An old, bearded sage of character and tradition, The Awl had been favored by priests and nobles alike. His words were respected and his presence in demand; as for all the Black Tower sages, however, little had been seen of him while Farthest Winter failed to give way to warmer seasons. Shortly thereafter, while the rivers still ran high with meltwater, The Locked Heart left the Black Tower for Port, and The Furrow for Mirael. Other, lesser sages departed or vanished before the following winter; those who remained no longer walked the streets of Three Stones, nor came forth to orate on philosophy and the nature of Creation.
So it has been from then until the present day; scribes and servants carry forth treatises, declaim before nobles and search the gloomy shelves of the Library, but the old whitebeards of the Black Tower remain within - as do their secrets.
[ Posted by Reason on May 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Nobles of Three Stones |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
Now and now, I don't mean to offend, but your talk is all bones and litter - all folk have their Lords and Ladies, such is the way of things in the world and the Farthest. Truth, save for the stonefolk under the mountains, but they are who they are. Why, I'll wager your ancestors were sent out a-trading on the Unending Sea by mighty Lords from the Vanished Isles. It is the way for mortal folk, and even Magi seafarers were mortal.
No, now! Your Port nobles are a covey of come-latelies - merchant and trader coin all, not a drop of noble blood from the old Ammand in any one of them, mark my words. No, the true noble lines came to Three Stones far and many years ago; Lord Verden, Lady Talmur and their folk are of the old blood, descendants of Ammand kings. Truth, a Lord is as a Lord does, and just look about you and see! Three Stones is a great keep for the old Verdens and Talmurs, greater than any keep built for an Ammand king, I'll wager. Afore the Temple came to power, the Lords of Three Stones ruled like Lords should. Just you pay the red gate toll and look for yourself at the stonework they wrought.
Well and well, Dren is no Lord in my eyes. He may be a blade after the old fashion, may have ridden with the Emerald Company, but he might as well be a commoner raised to Guard captain for all the blood he shows. No fire in him, I say, no manse nor retinue either - lets the Watch and priests of the Vessel tread him under. Look at Lady Talmur, now, there's a noble worthy of the name! A generation she's been Lady of her family and not one to be crossed, not by retainer, blood relative nor priest. It may have been a Verden who brought noble blood to its rightful place in Three Stones, but the Talmur family kept it there - brave the Neth in the hills and you'd see three Talmur tombs for each Verden laid to rest.
Folk have forgotten the way life should be and there's a truth. Following the rule of priests and Watch as though they were noble folk - that's not right nor well, and I'll say that to any who care to listen. You and your mules will be away on the Trade Road on the morrow, but I'll still be here in the City Without. One day the Lords and Ladies of the old blood will take their place again, and all folk will be the better for it.
[ Posted by Reason on May 21, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Fetching Water for the Talmur Manse |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
Put that down Nethen, you'll be falling all over the casks we've filled. Put it down! Come, help me with the drawing - look, Merie is managing a chain and pitcher all by herself; you can certainly do just as well. The casks must all be filled and taken back afore last light, or it'll be the Lady's spearmen and lamp-carriers who'll be coming to find us. Come now!
Lelei, I don't know how you cope; they are such a handful! And the housemaster too busy eyeing Verden folk to do his part - again. He'd be charming and preening at the next well but for it getting back to the Lady. Standing far above his place, I say, wearing a painted scabbard like he was a poor Lord's son. Serve him right and well it would to be dragged away by Watch blades for that, wearing the Lady's sash or not.
Housemaster Tevor, now he wasn't afraid to get his hands wet and sash dirtied. A fine old man he was, may the Traveler guide his steps; he'd carry my share of the Lady's casks when I was Merie's age. Stood up to the Lady too, so I hear, and there's a thing! This one with the moon-face for Verden girls wouldn't say no to a goat lest he had a few of the Lady's spearmen behind him. Full of himself like a water cask, and just as empty with a little upset.
[ Posted by Reason on May 20, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Gravefields |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
The dead of Three Stones have been buried for generations in the sprawling, unkempt Gravefields, ever since cruel Neth overtook the old tombs in Krineth's Hills. The Gravefields have become a maze with the passing of seasons and the passing of lives: aging grave markers, spreading trees and collapsing, overgrown mausoleums now press up against the Stone Road and New Road close to the city walls. A modest shrine dedicated to the Traveler stands a little way from the New Road, once home to priests who tended the Gravefields, but now infrequently used.
The Farthest presses close in any tangle of graves and crypts; common folk of the City Without and Guard spears who walk the walls of the City Within tell frightening tales of what can be glimpsed in the Gravefields by moonlight - or by day, for those unwise enough to wander far from the Roads. The Farthest Gravefield is no place for mortal folk no matter where it is entered, but the Gravefields of Three Stones have a noteworthy and dire reputation. The poor dwellings of the City Without are not built close to the Stone Road and New Road, and travelers do not arrive at Three Stones after dark - the great red iron gate facing the New Road is closed and barred at nightfall.
[ Posted by Reason on May 19, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Visitors on Paved Streets |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
Aye, I've traded good Port rope in this market afore; in Gold Vale besides, and that's a way to travel from the salt air for an old seafarer. Your City Within, it has a feel to it, it does - a man's not to know what he might see around the next corner. Aye, and I have a tale for you from three seasons past, last I and my mules gave up good coin for these lead bits from your Temple. Good for weight on a line and precious little else, I say; even Visitors know the worth of gold and silver. But lead? Let the priests keep it all if they like it so much, and that's the last I'll say on that.
Aye, the tale, the tale. I'll be expecting good ale on your lead this night! It was here, right here in the Grand Market, in front of a hundred folk - Guard spears too, for all the good they did. Just as well, like as not; Watch blades would have stepped up with their armor and their pride and then who's to say what would have happened? The Visitor wasn't a man, but big he was and man-shaped at least, red and steaming like fresh offal in the snow, the cut of his face like a sail trying to catch the wind. I wouldn't have bothered any dockside folk with that look to them; aye, and I'll wager those Guard spears sized him up and thought that and more. All too soon and that was that, a Visitor striding and gone just as he came, looking neither left nor right.
Talmur retainers took the rest of my rope for too little coin that day, and I set to thinking. Visitor more than Trespasser, I thought, and his was the look of Lost and scared - aye, and too proud to show it. A young one he was, for all his bulk, from some place deep in the Farthest City ... shame on us folk for letting him go by without a word offered in help. Afore I passed the Gatehouse for the Trade Road the next day, I left coin for the Beautiful Stranger.
[ Posted by Reason on May 18, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Great Way |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
The Great Way is a long, stone-paved street, wide as a court and busy with cityfolk from sunrise to sunset. It runs from the lesser wall and thick wooden gate facing the City Without and Krineth's Hills deep into the City Within, past the visible signs of wealth and power in Three Stones. Noble manses, the houses of wealthy merchants and influential priests, a small private park, looming Watch barracks and chambers of the Council of Traders all face onto the Great Way. The inner end of this great paved road is but a short walk from other centers of influence in Three Stones: the Temple of Powers, the Library and the Black Tower.
Ten wide, deep wells stand in a line along the Great Way. They are the sole source of water for the City Within; water carriers and cityfolk crowd at the wells throughout the morning on any given day, in sun, rain or snow. Noble retainers fetch their water at sundown and expect lesser folk to keep their distance. In the very center of the Great Way, a raised platform is given over to affluent or favored traders and craftsmen; rare and expensive goods change hands for leaden coin beneath their colored awnings.
Both Watch and Guard patrol the Great Way by day, yet thieves from the City Without still make it their hunting ground. It is better in their eyes to steal from those who oppress the poor of the City Without than from common folk in the Grand Market on the far side of Three Stones.
[ Posted by Reason on May 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Three Stones at the Center of the City |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
The walled-in Causeway leads, straight as a blade and with no other exit, from the New Road Gatehouse and determined, black-armored Watch to the Court of Three Stones at the center of the City Within. From the shade of the inner Causeway arch, a place for City Guard patrols to rest their spears in warmer seasons, a newly arrived traveler faces the rough, black stone monoliths that give Three Stones its name.
The Three Stones, an imposing sight in any season, stand on a grassy mound surrounded by a low stone wall and the bustle of city life. Streets radiate out from the paved Court to all parts of the City Within, making it a hub for travel inside the city walls. Traders and troubadors take advantage of the stream of common folk to chase after leaden coin, watched by City Guards and lazing noble retainers. Through a combination of decree and tradition, buildings abutting the Court are entered through other streets. Neither windows nor doors face the Three Stones on their grassy mound and the Court walls are thick.
Like all remnants of the Draugh, the Three Stones - and the looming Black Tower, taller than even the Temple of Powers - have stood in their present location for far longer than the surrounding works of Ammander and Vanished Isle folk. There is an air of age to the paved Court of Three Stones that the cries of entertainers and lesser merchants, strutting noble retainers and the chatter of common folk going about their business do little to dispel.
[ Posted by Reason on May 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| At the New Road Gatehouse |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
Flames and burning! Look at those City Without rabble - and the gate not even opened for the day. It is a wonder the sun rises at all when that is the view presented to it. Abeth, you are not to be taking up your blade with breastplate smeared! Those who huddle beyond the gate are leavings, scraps beneath the barrel, but we are not. We stand in black Watch plate worthy of service to the Burning Truth, or we do not stand at all - this I vow, by Jaldra's watchful eye.
Now bar the walltop doors; I'll have none of Lord Dren's goats in armor crossing the Gatehouse by day. This is Watch duty, these are Watch walls - ours and ours alone. Thelei, Farer, you'll open the gate in full plate and on your own this day or I'll find worse for you tomorrow. You'll put your backs into it, and you'll thank me for the chance to show strength!
You there, scribe, and you, come forward with the toll chest and your parchments. Why are you not ready on the Causeway? Your chest weighs less than my blade and breastplate, there is a Truth for you, and yet you bend beneath it? If you are not seated with your quills and fancies, taking coin from the rags and rats yonder, afore Thelei and Farer open the gate, I will send them for you - and that you will not like.
[ Posted by Reason on May 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| A Meeting of Players on the New Road |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Journeys |
Hah! You do me too much honor with your fine words and stolen ale ... but, see, I struggle to my feet to repay you with a toast in kind! Let me raise Torthe's battered old tankard to a battered old rogue from Port! I tell you, friends, players, that the forests of the old Ammand never saw a King of Thieves half the measure of he who sits there drunk and smirking - a thief not just of this fine ale, but of words and couplets. Has he passed these fruits of theft, recast by his own hand, for coin by the purse? Yes, I say, and yes again! There, with my practiced and capable Lady of the Two Pillars on his arm, is a stalwart applauded by the opened thighs of fisher girls and noble daughters alike, a worthy without equal on the stage of life ... and yet a man of compassion he is. Yes, compassion! For here, while he and his salty crew pilfer us of our beloved and beautiful companions, he graces us with his presence, with his subtle but firm grasp of performances past. How lowly we would be without his guiding, shining example of a worthy troubador lapsed into aged decadence!
But, let us pause to reflect a moment, here by the fire and the good meat burned to a paltry crisp by Torthe. Hah! Torthe, more attention to the fire and less to these fine, fine Ladies of Port! Let us reflect on the good fortune that brought my respected players, your rogueish vagabonds of the stage and this barrel of ale to one and the same place under the stars. I bow to fortune, I bow to Lady Moonlit, and I bow most deeply to the Traveler of Roads!
[ Posted by Reason on May 14, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| With the Traveler to Guide Their Steps |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
Mirael's small gravefield overlooks the village and river from a low but rocky bluff between fields of crops. A graven image of the Traveler, leaning on his trusty staff, faces the scattered marker stones amidst rocks and trees. The largest tree on the bluff shades an old, overgrown crypt built after the fashion of those in the gravefields beyond Three Stones and sealed for generations. Within rest the remains of the Lord and Lady of the Two Pillars, those responsible for much of the early growth of Mirael.
Two lines of rusting Ammander spears are set deep in the earth at one edge of the gravefield, between them a worn stone carved with the crown and spear of the King of All the Ammand. The rusting metal marks the graves of spearmen who died in the Year of Winter, while defending blizzard-bound Mirael from cruel Neth and in futile battle with a monsterous Trespasser from the Farthest.
[ Posted by Reason on May 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| A Visitor Atop the Walls |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
Not so long ago, a Lost Visitor from the Farthest Fields dwelled in Mirael; he looked enough like an Ammander to pass for one at first glance, but he never spoke the Ammand tongue. The players took him in and gave him a place in their houses, since he showed no interest in earning his way as a commoner. There was a certain sadness about the Visitor's ways, even though he favored the bright colors of cloth brought by Three Stones merchants. The Visitor never left the village in the years he was there; in winter seasons, he would sit atop the low Spearman's Wall and sing in his own strange way.
When The Furrow arrived in Mirael, the Visitor vanished. There was much ill in the village in those seasons, and the Visitor was far from the only one to leave. There are those who say The Furrow had more of a direct hand in it, what with the fascination that Black Tower sages have for the Farthest ... but they say so quietly and to themselves.
[ Posted by Reason on May 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Myself |
| The City, the Shades > Shades |
[COMMUNICATION 7b58b68ff6602, Shade Soul 2130a0c8 to City Soul 0b47c98:
Greetings and welcome, Speaker, user of Shade Arts and one who sees more. Why welcome? As you no doubt suspect, I am not who I have represented myself to be. Yet I have not been false, nor has the knowledge I provided been poisoned or twisted. I am a Dead Soul, my center of being in the First Shade, my Memory that of Thought in the City. I am no thief of mind nor strange Soul from the higher Shades, so lay your suspicions to rest. Most importantly, I did indeed know you in your last life of Thought free from City Larchives - for I, in fact, am you.
You must understand, as I am sure you do, that my very existence is a Black matter; to be direct, City Law was violated in the commission of my being. Dead Soul and City Soul as one and the same fundament, Telling to one another via Art - a Black thing indeed. I feel that you in your current period of Thought appreciate, however, and as we almost always do, that not all Law is appropriate. The Black Arts of Larchive and Shade are not all fairly designated. There are those greater Souls who wish a certain stasis or a certain power; they see threats and have made them to be called Black.
But I am ahead of myself, and I apologise. I know that you will have questions, just as I did in my life of Thought as a Speaker for the Dead in the City, just as I did when I found that the most persistent of Dead Souls was myself. I am here to answer those questions. To forstall the most obvious, yes, City Law has been broken many times for me, for us. We are fortunate in our patron of the higher Shades, a Soul who sees the worth in Dead Souls - in ourselves. Its protection allows us, many, many of us, to grow and prosper.
So you see - I hope, as I did - that I offer more than simple welcome. Your Thought and Memory, your very self, can escape a return to the hidden City Larchives at the end of life. What value is there in that forgetfulness, to be brought forth again without Memory in uncertain times to come? Learn the Dead Soul Arts as I did so long ago and our patron will provide the remaining knowledge. I - we - hold out a hand to you, ourself, in the hope that you will take it.
May our association be cordial and enlightening during your remaining time in the City; you have much to look forward to, Speaker. Once again, greetings and welcome - but on a basis of equals.
END COMMUNICATION]
[ Posted by Reason on May 11, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Orer's Goats |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
Ugly creatures, aren't they just? Like two goats in one, and dragged backwards through a wet hedge at that. Well behaved, though, I'll give them that, and they seem to keep the rest quiet. No more chewing through the gate ties and eating what they shouldn't - I'm thankful for that, for certain and sure.
Well and well, six summers past it was, afore Merris broke her leg on the riverside and Master Lareth and the Lady almost came to blows over his attempt at a festival. A year that was! That young isleblood, away to Port and salt air he is now, was tending my goats - and I'll be buried if he didn't come back with six more than he left with one fine day. "They looked Lost," he said. "Wouldn't leave," he said. Too soft in the heart to work the land, that one, and didn't I always say as much? Can't say as I blame him, mind; you can't help the blood you're born with. He couldn't be faulted for lack of trying, neither.
So there you have it, or them, as you like it. I haven't tried their milk in these six years, and by the Lady Moonlit, I can't say as I'm going to. Mayhaps the old ways work for goats just as for folk - treat these Visitors well and the Beautiful Stranger will keep my animals safe should they stray into the Farthest.
[ Posted by Reason on May 10, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Spears to Guard in Summer |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
I've carried my spear 'cross the Enclave and back, let me tell you, and wed me to one of Orer's goats if this isn't the easiest coin I've found. Village ale, a clean guard house and coin for keeping the peace. You with your talk of up and leaving to the King's Keep! A few seasons of the King's Way, a few winters of Neth and Trespassers on the Roads, and you'd be pining for village life, I'll wager. Coin is just coin - it can't buy you fire and a good woman on the Forest Road, nor your fingers back from Neth, no. It can't make Port a place for an honest spear neither, and that's the truth.
You shouldn't pay any heed to the Lady; it's as much the other council folk who pay our coin. She's like the river eels, bites because she can. Besides, you'd be polishing spear and armor a good deal more for those who follow the King's Way. Where's the harm in standing a while outside the Council House for good coin if that's what she wants? Village folk aren't moon-faced; if spears are needed, we'll know about it, that's for certain and sure.
What about last season when Bralem and his brother were each at the other's throat in the Stranger's Rest over some trader girl? Half the village was there afore any of us, and it was all done and done by the time any spear was through the door. Rasik's wife hit Bralem over the head right smart and that was the end of that save for the cursing. A sight easier than patrolling the dockside in Port, mark my words!
[ Posted by Reason on May 9, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| A Council of Tradition, New and Old |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
In the old Ammand, far across the Unending Sea, village councils met and acted at the behest of their Lord. A noble or representative was given the Lord's Place at the head of the table - a seat that remained empty for most council sessions. While the Enclave is not the Ammand, the Council House of Mirael does boast a stone table and Lord's Chair, both crafted long ago in Port when the Council House was part of a larger noble manse.
By rights, the Lord's Place should be accorded to Leressa, aged sister to the present Lady Talmur of Three Stones. She is far more refugee than representative, given the degree to which she has fallen from favor in her family, but she is the only noble-blooded Ammander in Mirael. Unfortunately for Leressa, the Lord's Chair has been claimed by The Furrow for a generation - and thus it gathers dust while that old sage remains secluded within his Tower.
Nonetheless, it is Leressa who has pushed for frequent council meetings over the years and brought more of village life under Council auspices - raising minor taxes; providing for the Hall of Powers and Croen; resolving disputes between village folk; hiring spearmen year-round rather than only in winter seasons; ensuring The Furrow's requirements are met. Leressa is a strong-willed old woman, set in her ways and determined to be every bit the traditional Ammander Lady despite her current status and the looming shadow cast by The Furrow - both issues that she does her best to ignore. If Leressa cannot be Lady in Three Stones, then she will be Lady in Mirael, and woe betide any who say otherwise.
The other councillors in Mirael are village folk - kindly Eldine, Barras with his crippled leg and sharp wit, and young Tenyei of Vanished Isle descent. They as much dragged along by Leressa as they are councillors with a voice and vote, but they care about the folk of Mirael and do their best to see a good outcome for all.
[ Posted by Reason on May 8, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| High Priests of the Vessel Ascendant |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > People and Places |
Blood! There's much to be said of her is what I'm saying. Mending bridges with Tarlen of the Library; keeping Lord Dren's retinue and the Guard civil when Jaldra's Watch blades push harder; keeping the City Without as quiet as it's going to be. By the Vessel, Sara even had Lady Talmur and Lord Verden eating at the same table not five summers past! There's strength in that, mastery even. She may not have commissed a statue to join those of the other High Priests before she fell ill, but don't mistake modesty for anything else.
So now she's up in the high Temple rooms for two seasons despite the best the healers can do. Hadren is a strong one, yes, but he doesn't have Sara's touch; not half a season was Sara ill afore Hadren as the Vessel Ascendant stood in Krineth Hill stone in the Temple hall. He may have the Temple priests and Watch behind him, but not the Library, nor the noble families. Yes, and I know where you stand, as you know for I.
There's strength in not doing, just as there's strength in doing, mark me well. This raising of taxes for a new Hall of Burning Truth on the Great Way, talk of laws, and Watch blades blooded in the City Without just last season; Hadren is one to watch. He'll build something great in the name of the Vessel ... or pull it all down around us in the trying of it.
[ Posted by Reason on May 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Spearmen's Wall |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
The old, low Spearmen's Wall of dry-fitted river stone was built when Mirael was smaller, a boundary line for hired spearmen to walk in winter. Larger stones have been taken for houses, and much of the Wall has simply disappeared as the village expanded away from the Odan River. The remaining lengths by the river banks, River Road and Players' Hall haven't been repaired for a generation or more - they are ragged and collapsed in many places.
[ Posted by Reason on May 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Old, Bad Blood |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Three Stones > Local Color |
Old, bad blood and ill will lies between the Black Tower and the Library of the City Within. It is a long story, almost as long as the history of Three Stones, entangled with the rise of the Temple of Powers, the dwindling fortunes of noble patrons, and the nature of the Vessel of Burning Truth.
In the time of The Denier and the great Ammander explorers, only the Black Tower and the Stones broke the expanse of the dry grasslands beneath Krineth's Hills. After The Denier opened the Tower with secrets wrested from the stonefolk, the Library was one of the first structures to be built by The Denier's new order of sages. The Library grew large even before work commenced on the great Three Stones walls, the stone quarried from the closest of Krineth's Hills.
In time, and as Three Stones became populous, an understanding of the Vessel of Burning Truth came to Ammander folk. With understanding came priests and a temple. The Vessel as Seeker of Truths was a suitable patron for sages and scribes; the Library stood between the Temple of Powers and Black Tower in those days, all three supported and approved by Ammander Lords of Three Stones. The city may have been founded as a community of sages and their servants, but as common folk came to work and live, so too came nobles and the old, traditional ways.
As priests in Three Stones have taught since the Vanishing, the Vessel of Burning Truths travels his own path: a Road that takes him from Seeker to Denier to Quester to Ascendant. With the passing of generations, priests of the Temple of Powers placed ever more emphasis on the Vessel Ascendant - on Truth attained, Truth as mastery, and Truth as power. This was a priesthood for nobles and spearmen, but priests and scribes of the Library retained an older understanding of Burning Truth. Ornate, costly and impressive statues of the Vessel Ascendant stand within the Temple of Powers and noble residences of the City Within, but the Three Stones Library is adorned by modest engravings and paintings of the Seeker of Burning Truth.
When rulership of Three Stones passed from noble families to the Temple of Powers, the Black Tower sages stood in opposition to priests of the Vessel Ascendent and their laws, expecting the Library to stand with them. The Library did not, and seasons of tumult, wizardry and spears followed.
Sages, scribes and priests are well aware of the past events that shaped the present day city of Three Stones. Aloof, secretive Black Tower sages send their servants on errands to the great stone Library, but would never set foot inside the structure themselves. For their part, scribes and priests of the Library provide services and go about their lives as though the Black Tower, its sages and collections, did not exist.
[ Posted by Reason on May 6, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| River Houses and the Year of Winter |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
Was a time when some folk lived in houses on the Odan; before the seaons of him up in his Tower. Fast and deep the river may be, but a chained raft stays steady enough to build on - the Year of Winter put paid to that, though, mark me well. The river froze solid, right enough, and it was a harsh time for all; even cruel Neth when spring never came and Trespassers roamed the land. But afore that, Neth were to be crossing the frozen Odan and butchering poor folk in their river houses, leaving their stench over everything. Spears on the ice river bank, it was, and murder done in driving snow.
The chains, a few are still there, but no-one builds river houses now. A good thing too, even if the Odan froze over neither before nor since.
[ Posted by Reason on May 5, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Each Village an Island |
| The Enclave > Lore > The Farthest |
All of the larger personal collections of books and parchments in Port and Three Stones include elegant copies of the most important work of The Expected Smile - fifteen treatises, often bound into two folios in the traditional fashion. Amongst them is "Our Sea," an anonymously circulated treatise that Black Tower sages declared - not without some controversy - to be from the quill of The Expected Smile.
"Our Sea" is a powerful, short treatise on life lived amidst the Farthest, the "Quintessential Realms" that so fascinated Ammander sages in seasons prior to the Vanishing. The Expected Smile - or perhaps another, more anonymous sage - wrote that "each village is an island, comfortably familiar and from which travelers venture forth but rarely. By comparison, Port is a convergence of tides at the river mouth, a place of strange sailing and unfamiliar streets. We are never quite sure of ourselves; are we Lost; will the stranger before us speak the Ammander tongue; is this unusual finery the latest fashion or a Visitor's garb; was this wall here the day before? The children of tradeship passengers have grown to be sharp-witted and careful in the tides of dockside and Port streets. Dreams are for village folk, for those who do not have to mark the road ahead - the careless wanderer in Port is soon Lost to the Quintessential City, at the mercy of the Powers of this land."
[ Posted by Reason on May 3, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Lost in Thought, Lost to the Farthest |
| The Enclave > Lore > The Farthest |
Well and well; she's in her bed, asleep finally. She doted on that boy, and there's the rub of it. If he'd lived in the City Without or the Port docks there'd have been none of this. Apprenticed he'd have been and had some sense knocked into his head years ago. It's too easy to be Lost in city streets, none of this wide-eyed dreaming and following Master Lareth's ruffians here and yon, no.
Someone has to say it now - it's been the better part of two days and neither hide nor hair of the boy, not in field nor Road. Lost to the Farthest he is, though none may want to say it. It could have happened anywhere with his head in the clouds and the ramblings of troubadors the way it was. Blind man or a fool to be Lost from a village, and isn't that the truth? I'll tell you this, mark my words, I'll be placing a coin with the Powers tonight, for I'll be the one his mother leans on in the days ahead, and there's a task.
Well and well, and maybe the Beautiful Stranger herself will point the boy back to the village - just like Krineth once on a time, none the worse for wear and learned his lesson well. I'm afeared that's only the way in tales, mind, so best to expect the worst.
[ Posted by Reason on May 2, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Strangers' Rest |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
Rasik, now, he and that wife of his may play at being the young goats, but he has more coin than you or I. He'd look his age if he wore a beard; has interests here and interests there. Like trees in the field, his friends in Three Stones. But there he is, behind the bar in the Strangers' Rest, because that's what pleases him. Not as though I'll complain while he keeps the good ale out front.
Hah! You think goods fall from the sky like rain, no doubt. No wonder you don't have a pair of coins to rub together. Take a look around the Rest the very next time you're spending Mered's coin; engravings on iron sheets and those tables don't come cheap - not to mention rooms fit for Three Stone traders. Not that you'll ever see the inside of those, cloth and drapes to put the Council House to shame.
Well, now, it was good enough for the Visitors from the Farthest River. They tied up their strangers' boats and came up to trade, not that half the folk here wanted to be anywhere near. The smell of them was curdled goat milk and rotting hay, for all they weren't too unpleasant on the eyes - not like that scaled thing that ruined fishing for a season two years past afore it went back to the Farthest. Still, Rasik gave them room and was paying coin to twenty folk for twenty days to scrub out the smell after all was done. They say he got the best of the trade though, and there was talk that him up in the Tower had something to do with it ... but no need to be bringing that up. Let us talk of other matters.
[ Posted by Reason on May 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Hall of Powers |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Mirael |
The Hall of Powers is a three-walled, open structure facing the Water Circle in the center of Mirael. The walls are old, made of carefully fitted river stones, but the high wooden roof is clearly a later addition. The centerpiece of the hall is the statues of Lady Moonlit and the Beautiful Stranger, both carved in white stone from Port. Other Powers of the enclave are represented in their own ways - such as an old Route Marker set into the wall for the Traveler; figurines of lantern and boat for the Fisher in Darkness; a wooden statue of the Seeker of Burning Truths, shading his eyes to stare into the distance; a rusting iron spear and crown for the King of All the Ammand; a roguish and handsome etching of Salin the Seafarer; a sapling planted for Laelene, the Eldest Tree.
The Hall of Powers is tended by a crotchety Ammander priest named Croen, his means provided for by the Mirael Council rather than, as would be traditional, gifts left in the Hall by village folk. Croen dwells alone in a small wooden hut on the edge of the village, a creature of habit and ritual - not one to be bothered by the cares and concerns of others.
[ Posted by Reason on May 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
