| February 2006 | << January 2006 | March 2006 >> |
| Across the Land |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Felbled, Yeoman of Caravans |
I came from the Deepened Places of the people when I was young, from forests of sight to Misery's slumped back beyond cloud and mist. The Stars fell to the Land before I was Deepened from tree branch and the bones of the great deer, and the Hungry Dead grew and grew by Great Rage's tall rocks until there was no food for the people. Old and young went on a great journey to the place of Kindness, but there too was no food, and the people that were my people would not take from the people of Kindness. So the people came from the Deepened Places towards the Radiance.
It is strange that I am this, yeoman and trusted to keep Hungry Dead and dishonest hand from the caravans of Dimmos. The people were not hunters of men, for Misery flowed through the Deep and there was no Deepening of bow and club with Great Rage or Ill Will. In the Radiant places of caravans and the Land between Deep and Radiance, all made by the people has not life, is not of the blood of the people. I might cast away blade and bow and not be the lesser for it, for I have not Deepened that which I use. The people of Radiance are of a strangeness in that way, but I have become like them.
The caravans of Dimmos journey close to the Radiant Tree, the Enlightened Library, the Towers of Stars and the Dead - and places less known. Six times I have walked this far beside friend and companion, and seen many changed by Radiance or taken by Stars after falling to the Hungry Dead in thick forest. Yet I have not met again the people who were my people, who have melted into the Radiant Places as frost in the sun.
[ Posted by Reason on February 27, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| The Voice of Radiance |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Ennos, Touched by Radiance |
It took a time, a time to find the right place. Yes, but such an idea I had for raising the roof and walls! That is how I knew it was right, the Radiance and the need in once and the same day, all so obvious, so obvious. Jel has the view above the trees and across the vale, and he is happy.
The tools from then, no, I do not know. I cannot recall the use of them even; on days the Radiance comes and is gone just as quickly. Some have ways of remembering, or recallers by their side - but often as not who can understand later what they understood when Radiance shines? This as close as I will be to the Radiant Places further upstream, and Jel will tell you of carrying me away from there in a fever in a past time. I hear Radiance all the time, even here, like distant whispers instead of warmth from a fire - warming the blood but not the skin.
Look at this now; so obvious! Not like the last, when I knew the purpose but fleetingly, as in dreams, or that before, when I could not even catch the crafting of it. Bring yourself here, see how you'd hold it and ... there, is that not splendid? It is just as it was whispered to me, and I have it still.
[ Posted by Reason on February 26, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| In the Shadow |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Mas Lirren, Prime Hireling of the Enlightened Library |
Step forward, step forward! No, leave that, whatever it may be; it seems entirely too ramshackle. The Library will receive you now - please press your right fingers to this, then this, and again, this. It is as the Library directs, and not ours to wonder why. Mas Rell, please take these finger-marks to whence it is that it should be taken this day.
Yes, yes, simply step into the Shadow of the Library, look up and speak clearly. Be mindful of loose rocks on the slope, now, and don't walk into a tree like the last one! No need to shout - the Library is wise and hears every word, for all it is amongst the clouds today.
No time, no time! This is not the Radiant Tree where wishes work as hard as people. We are not Stars to enlist sorcery and the Dead to do our work! Mas Rell? Mas Rell! Show this one the way, and then please examine this new folding cloth roof of yours - it is visibly sagging and rain already falls on the far side of the vale.
Where is the time counter - does she count correctly? I can barely see the far end of the queue, and the Shadow has already moved too far. I fully expect to take finger-marks for another ten before we must move tables and cabinets downslope again. More haste!
[ Posted by Reason on February 25, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| And Stars Came As Men Atop Beasts |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Dead Hallas, Who Carries Upward |
The Stars of the Mountain Tower know all, for how else but sorcery to see when the Winter Sickness took me from life? Three lesser Stars came from the forest to carry Emmen and I away, shining in the form of men atop great deer of the Deepened Places of my grandfather. All shed tears save for we, the Dead, for all such of blood and heart is for the living and the Land.
The bright Star of the Lower Mountain hangs yet above the Open Hall, bright as bright, far below now and cold upon the Dead from across the Land. The Star of the Lower Mountain chose me from the Open Hall and spoke my name to the shelved skulls of the Old Dead, who do naught but count and recall. We who could as well be Hungry Dead, driven out into the forests, are honored and fortunate. We could as well be deep and far in mines beneath the mountains, not to see the Land spread before and about beneath the clouds. Our flesh has not yet fallen from us, and we will carry diamonds for new wall-tops high as is high, to the Mountain Star who fell here and now shines bright from the Tower top.
The Mountain Star will tell what will become of us, how long it will be before the Dead are guided from life by Stars once more. This, I hold and know in all the time we have climbed and carried, and in all the time we will yet climb and carry.
[ Posted by Reason on February 25, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Children of Children |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Old Man of the Third Hut |
I know not what this is you have brought me, food from Radiant places beyond the forest you say? It looks as no food I know; Radiance brings too much, too fast to those who were once the people.
When the people who were my people lived in the Deepened Places, where all things were of the blood and heart of the people, it was that children were made of the flowing Deepness - just as the Giants Kindness, Joy and Ever Wanting made the first people.
Deepening a child is not as Deepening the hunting club with the touch of Great Rage or as guiding the blood and heart of the people within and around the trees that sheltered. It is a great and difficult matter, and it was for all of the people to help those who called upon the Deepness for children.
Yet there were those young who were impatient, who brought great woe upon the people. A child of these children was Deepened in a hollow place where Deepness welled, made by the fingertip of Ill Will. A thing of malice and grey, it became, driven from the fires and vales of the people, for there could be no place for it.
This was as it was, just as the Giant Ill Will drove the people who were my people from the highs and vales, long before the Stars fell and the dead were slaved to building towers to the sky.
Twisted and horrible, Children of Children slope and rage in the Deepened Places, knawing on the bones of the people, for the people who were not my people taught their children unwisely.
The Children of Children who are most like the people have learned the Deepness, and take the oldest Deepened Places for their own. The Radiance takes the people from the Land just as the Children of Children take the Land from the people - in a time, the people will no longer be the people, this much I have seen.
[ Posted by Reason on February 25, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| First, Was the Deep |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Old Man of the Third Hut |
Give to the fire, young ones, Radiant children ... it will not warm you without gifts, for all that Deepness flows lightly here and about. Fire is not from Kindness, but from Ever Wanting - it will give you no heed in haste for what it wants. But here and about, the trees bend not to listen, craftings have no life to them, and you make children in the new ways, the Radiant ways.
Listen; I will tell what I was told, before Ill Will came to the highs and vales to drive the people from their Deepened Places, before Stars fell and the dead lost their way.
Before the Giants made the people, before the Deep eddied and turned the Giants into being, there was nothing but the Land. Deepness flowed beneath and through, as the waters, beside the waters, and far from the waters. It was the blood of the people without people, the heart of the people without people.
The Giant Kindness came from the deepest Deep flowing about the highest mountain, and so it was. Before the Giants made the people, Kindness brought forth all the others from Deepness, even Great Rage, even Ill Will, even Misery, for such is Kindness.
The Giants are of the Deep now and were of the Deep then; where they stood, the Deep flowed of them. It was of the people before the people, in vales where Deepness touched of Kindness mingled with Ill Will, Great Rage with Joy. All places are touched by the Giants, by Deepness that flows from them and with them - even places as this where Radiance changes the people.
You are far from where Kindness sits to cradle a place of the people, but Kindness and Ever Wanting touched this place before they Deepened people into the Land. This, I see in the fire, in the welcome given to the old.
[ Posted by Reason on February 24, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Beams From the Whisperwood |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Two Springs |
Was a time when all hereabout was just two hills and two streams from two springs; afore Three Stones grew its walls, and when stonefolk brought ancient wizardry to Port in dry summer seasons. We have our orchards these past generations, and stranger's trees besides, standing about and around, Lost as those who planted their seeds. But then and then, not a tree stood by the Stone Road. Whisperwood was all there was for beams and carpentry, and so the first Ammand folk to settle athwart the Road took up ax, rope and many a marker to ward against the Farthest; foresters they were.
So and it was, a fine living they must have made. The forestfolk ruins far to Whisperwood are grander than the Council Manse - a sight to have seen, I say, foresters living as if noblefolk! Cut often and cut well they did, for all the oldest beams here and about came from their work. This table here, mark me, this very table is of Whisperwood - and more the same you'll see under Jalla's thatch.
Now ruins they are and ruins they have been, mind, for no folk brave Whisperwood now. Who is to say what came to those commonfolk? Tis a cursed place, just as Lorn, where the Farthest presses close and the Beautiful Stranger walks not. Best for folk as us to remember well, I say.
[ Posted by Reason on February 5, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Tradefolk and Visitors From the Farthest Roads |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Two Springs |
Craws and spines! Look at this! You had the spears packing casks, aye, and packing them again you'll be, and under my eyes! We'll not be stopping on the Stone Road for an ill-laden mule, not this side of One Stone. Hurry now - the day is but started and already awasting.
Aye, and now villagefolk come to watch moonfaced traders who cannot seat a mule to work. Are you not done yet? There sits Telen and a seafarer's sash he's not earned his way to wear. Sets out chair and canopy each day, eel amongst crawcrabs, and fancies himself Lord of the Stone Road, aye. I could tell of the songs they sing of him on the dockside, mark me. Menas and his Isleblood kin pay coin for Telen's lazing, against those times strangers come from the Stone Road to trade.
Aye, to Port and Three Stones it may lead, but all Creation besides. Roads are as currents in the Unending Sea, I say. Strange beasts and folk with stranger faces come to Two Springs, and not all are Lost. Noble folk and sages chase such as Visitors have to trade; tis coin fished from the sea, thrown ashore by wave and spray for those with hands on the tiller of the Trade Guild.
[ Posted by Reason on February 4, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Ammand Spears |
| The Enclave > Lore > Wizardry |
Spears of the old Ammand, crafted of Ammand iron from mountains once home to cursed moon-worshippers and heartwood from the great forests of the Ammane, can still be found here and there in Enclave lands. Their old design is distinctive, a match only for the red-veined spears forged by smiths of the Red Iron Guild - by those who are privy to the old secrets of the Guild, in any case.
Tarurn of Port is said to have carried an Ammand Spear against the Trespassers of Farthest Winter, and two more stand in the manse of Lord Verden in the City Within of Three Stones. The Ammanene carried spears away with them to the Watch of Trees, but others no doubt lie buried beside graves from the earliest seasons of the Enclave, or were Lost to the Farthest Wilderness with the first explorers.
For all their age, battered and worn, these Ammand Spears never succumbed to the passing of generations. Troubadors and seafarers tell tales of spears touched by the Shining Ammanene of ancient times, spears that will be carried by spearman after spearman for so long as the ageless Ammanene still live on in the Enclave.
[ Posted by Reason on February 2, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
