| March 2006 | << February 2006 | April 2006 >> |
| Ulvath, the Dying King's Champion |
| Ten Thousand Gates > An Impromptu Picnic in a Starlit, Ancient Arena |
You're as any daughter of the Shield Hall, too pretty for this darkness, but tales as you tell are spun from naught by ax-crippled and thieves - aye, the broken and fit for neither saga nor warring the Witch-Queen's slaves. You've the look of Anseme and her kith, mind, enough for any of the King's Hall to raise ax in your name. Ulvath too, were I not bound by rune and oath!
Aye, and fain I'd stay in this witching place to see the Hunger as frights you and you made to meat for my ax-arm, for the King's Champion has cleft troll and worse ... but if a tale is your hearth fee, you who know too much, then the telling of it you'll have. Then we'll be to what we'll be.
Tis a time come upon Tulsrealm, the good cold from the Godlands smothered by witchery - not the honest casting of runes, but things from the cracks betwixt runes, called by a woman! Year after year, ice melts and warm rot spreads, Halls charmed by the Witch-Queen and troll and beast gone mad for want of good clean snow!
King's Champion am I, but Tulsrealm is witched sick, and so too the King. Ax and spear we take against the Witch-Queen and her foulness, but even in winter the blood of battle does not freeze. Faugh! The ax of Ulvath cannot fight a sickness, and the old men of Rune Hall cast runes for nothing while King Vult lies dying - empty kegs and broken shields they are!
Aye, and how Ulvath came to be here, not taking ax in service to King and Hall. Blood, snow and ice, how I came to be here! Maggat, now, he came to the King's Hall two years past. Came to Tulsrealm atop the last crashing iceships from the frozen sea - what is left. Master of runes he claimed, and soon enough was straddled atop Rune Hall and King's advisor. Aye, and might the least boy of the coast halls have taken rock and ax to Maggat on the rocks and spray - for here I am, cast far with trickery!
By the bearded runes, I vowed before King Vult's pale face I would climb the First Icefall and chip true ice from the Eternal Icicle with my ax. My ax, that slew the Witch-Queen's spawn! I'll vow so to any, may warm rot and hunger-mad wolves take Maggat and all he intends!
Tis the ice of Godlands will bring Tulsrealm to clean cold once more, break the Witch-Queen's hold, restore the King, keep the vow of Ulvath, King's Champion! Maggat's smile upon my vow, upon my stepping to his runes - the smile of a troll it was. Aye, and I knew, but I am Ulvath, son of Ganvir, and my vow will tread the chill-wrapped lies of Maggat to mush! May he wear that smile when I return, for I will cleave it asunder! Aye, he will taste my ax for casting me into the rune-cracks and to this place. Aye.
[ Posted by Reason on March 30, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Leli, the Fifteenth Note |
| Ten Thousand Gates > An Impromptu Picnic in a Starlit, Ancient Arena |
I forget myself in your music, but thank you, thank you for the dance in your voices and this wine. Look at your faces! The notes spring from you when I speak - it is as if I sing with your voices. Oh! But how did I come here? I danced in the old city with Myrelin, hiding behind ivy pillars while the Song was verses without us, sad and low and swirling about. Like this, but so serious, the deep notes!
Oh, but no notes go down to the old city save for Myrelin, it is cracked and worn and so beautiful, full with echoes of notes above. She sang a disharmony and so did I, and we laughed and danced into the marble towers and came to the White Book. Oh, you are all so very fine, but how I wish I hadn't touched it, I wish I hadn't turned the pages! I should have heeded Myrelin and danced on with the notes - how will the Song be sung with even a single note missing?
What will become of the Song if I cannot hear even its faintest echo? I was taken and turned away from the city, into a place of a single thin note - the Book atop its stand in riverless dust and red sun. I turned pages, oh turned them and turned them, faster and faster, but I could not come back to the Song and our marble city.
Oh but I beseech you, with all your strange music, you must help me return! The Book wrote itself while I turned pages, wrote of the Song and my closest notes, then wrote of me and here I was in darkness, and there you were shedding notes uncaring of the Song. How, how will I return?
[ Posted by Reason on March 29, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Fell From High, Fell to Fast Water |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Lesser Star of the Owl's River |
The first of all things I learned was the rushing of water, over and around, and so I was a stream within the river. For endless flickers, I lit the hasty waters, and all creation was a river.
Secondmost, I heard the cry of the great owl and learned that river flowed between rock and sky. I came from the fast waters and flickered for winter after winter as an owl to light the sparse river forest and mountain falls.
Third, I heard the blood of the people, hunters and cave painters, hut builders and Deepeners of children. I learned of Deep, of the voice of the blood, of the way of talking. I flickered as a child of the people for summer after summer, until the people hungered and left the Deepened Places.
Last of all, I heard the Radiance that once called me to fall, met the great stars who fell to Radiant Places and know all. I learned of my way as guide for the Dead - and so I came to flicker with light for the Tower of the Spider Tree Star, and so I greet you, who are now Dead and have found a secondmost learning of your own.
[ Posted by Reason on March 21, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Lamenting Fickle Radiance |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Ennos, Touched by Radiance |
You are right, I should put this aside. It is not as I had hoped - but Umon, he understood clear and well when I explained the short of it that morning the rain fell on the upper slopes. Ah, the Radiance, it brings ever more and more and I cannot tell what was, what is and what of my blood or shining from the Radiant Places! Yes, to the side with this, with all the others.
Sometimes I doubt this is the place, I do, Jel. Look across to the far slopes, to the huts of Sephen and her kin - see, something blue and red and from the Radiance that was not there but two nights before. She has the ear of those who live here, and when was that last true for you and I? Not since I showed the Radiant way to charm a tree to cry and bend, not since I showed the Radiant way to cut stone limbs to support old legs. I taught both to twenty, twenty times over last summer, but who remembers either now?
Ah, there's no use to it, none at all. Not since Panno talked of a record of all things and set forth to make it - I cannot understand the half of what is done and built downslope by the river. I am becoming as the old people who remembered the forests and caves and complained of everything.
[ Posted by Reason on March 20, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Before the Stars Fell |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Old Man of the Third Hut |
The sun shines warm, and that, at least, is as it always has been. Sun and sky will always be above, as the Land will always be beneath, as the Deep flows from Radiance and yet about the Giants in Deepened Places. You have brought owl eggs for an old man, and this is kind.
On a day as this, you with the strength of youth could climb the highest mountain here and about, for snows have come and gone until next winter. Atop the peak, you would see across the Tall Forest, across the River Brothers, across the high vales, and farther yet. Farthest of all, you would see the great arm of Ever Wanting, reaching to the sky, higher even than thin towers of diamond and spiderwebs built by the Dead.
All the Land flowed heavy with the Deep before the Stars fell, before the Radiance, before the Hungry Dead, before I was Deepened by the people who painted the high vale caves and hunted thin wolves beyond the Tall Forest. When the old became too old to hunt, too old to tell the tales of the people, too old to feel the Deepness flow through the blood, then greater Stars spoke from high in the sky. The old Deepened wings from cast off feathers and leaves, from branches and reeds, and lesser Stars showed ways to fly upwards, far and upwards.
So it was before the Stars fell to the Land and forgot their way. Now the old of the people become the Dead. Now winter sick great deer become the Dead. Now wounded Radiant children become the Dead.
[ Posted by Reason on March 15, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Thrice to the Low Vale |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Felbled, Yeoman of Caravans |
The way of a yeoman came to me beyond the Face of the Mountain, where Radiance must shine but lightly to give ways to the people come from the Deepened Places. After wide forest, great deer and the Hungry Dead, I came to those who once were the people and those never Deepened laying rocks upon the Land as roads. The Deepness flowed thin with Ever Wanting; when snows came, I met with Dimmos and his caravan. This, then, was the first I journeyed to the Low Vale, for such was his destination.
Then in the Low Vale, there were huts and halls built of logs of fresh soil baked to hardness in great fires. The fire keepers who were once the people flew their logs here and there atop blue leaves from the Radiant Tree beyond the Changing Gate. So it was when the Tower of the Mountain Star rose three handsbreadths when seen from the Forest of the Long River, where the Deepness flows with Kindness and the Hungry Dead are few.
Next I came to the Low Vale as yeoman to the caravan of Dimmos, two lesser Stars from the Changing Gate shone in a thousand forms and told those who were the people to build a great crevass in the Land. Their huts flew to be high in trees in that time of summer, but the halls were made of sheets of solid water, shining in the sun. The water workers kept their secrets in pride, but those who were the people turned from them to dig deep into the Land.
Last I came to the Low Vale as yeoman to Dimmos, it was with twenty dancers never Deepened, made of leather and diamond from the Fallen Tower, quick and sharp of tongue. In that time, when the Tower of the Mountain Star rose five handsbreadths when seen from the Forest of the Long River, six roads in the Low Vale were made of bark. The bark gatherers chanted trees of the Land to shed their bark, flowing as streams into a river to make their roads. The greatest arched over huts and halls as though leaping.
More of Radiance I have seen in a short time in the Low Vale than in all the journeys of Dimmos, yet this is but a dim fire beside the Changing Gate and the Radiant Places beyond.
[ Posted by Reason on March 11, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Ways of Those Who Were the People |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Felbled, Yeoman of Caravans |
There is a place where those who were the people dig shining rock from a mountain and work long, lean and hard at the shaping of it. There is no Deepening in their huts and halls - and how could there be? This, the Radiance brought to them, carried from the Radiant Places by an Enlightened Tome, then flown on to the Library.
While great deer still dance in the forests there and around, those who were the people do naught but shape and shape. They give shining cubes to the people who do not forget the Deepening of bow and club, and cry out for the meat of the great deer in return. The people drop the shining cubes and we who follow Dimmos collect them when the snows fall.
It is Radiance brings such as I to the place of shining cubes in cold and frost, for Radiance spoke to Dimmos long ago. He carries back and forth across the Land, followed by a hundred casks of wonders, for such is the Radiant way of those who were the people. All must move, be carried and change - but I am but a yeoman and do not know why this must be.
[ Posted by Reason on March 10, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Troublesome Arrivals |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Mas Lirren, Prime Hireling of the Enlightened Library |
Really, this is most vexing. To recapitulate, the Face of the Mountain revealed to you the location of this Enlightened Tome. You traveled to the Changing Gate that faces the vale of the Tree, and there become distracted and, well, whatever it is you are. Such is the fate of those who brave the most Radiant places; just as the Library is Enlightened, so may a man become more than a man. You are certain that you were once a man prior to your present assignation?
No, I must ask these questions - no impertinence is intended. All are welcome in the Shadow of the Library, but all must be done as it is set out before us. Haphazardness in the presence of Radiance is foolhardy. Foolhardy!
Ah, but the categories, the categories. I am commended to my post by the Library, you understand, and all is as the Library wills. These circumstances ... well, normally I would be quick to commend any who guide Enlightened Tomes to join with the Library. There are rewards, as you see, Mas Rell has them well filed and indexed. I cannot pretend to comprehend the value of most, but few leave unsatisfied.
As may be, but I cannot find a category under which to record you. None at all - look here, and there, not a match. You are dripping ink, and the Tome is clearly a portion of you, no more separate than my fingers. Quite aside from your frightening of the queue, the time counter and Mas Enneth, who seems to have fallen past the cabinets and into the marsh, this is all most vexing.
[ Posted by Reason on March 6, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Walking With Joy |
| The Place Where Stars Fell > Bone Upon Bone, Child of Children |
I gnawed upon bone and juicy flesh of my mother before Deep flowed Joy. Joy I took and Deepened to the branch to walk for me, walked with Joy and far through forest, crashing trees, to Ill Will.
Beneath Ill Will I learned of weakness. Beneath Ill Will I learned tearing and screaming before gnawing. Beneath Ill Will I learned hunting of the people who cast out Children of Children.
The Stars fell to the Land and the Giants sighed the Deepness to new ways. I walked with Joy and far through mountains, tumbling cliffs, to Great Rage.
In the wounds of Great Rage I learned destruction. In the wounds of Great Rage I learned of strength. In the wounds of Great Rage, I grew mighty and feasted upon Hungry Dead who gnawed on the people who cast out Children of Children.
The first Star Tower fell mightily and the Land shook the Deepness to new ways. I walked with Joy and far across vales, tearing soil, to Shame. Blood to pound and surge as rivers I have not, but the blood of the people who cast out Children of Children pulled on me.
In the stare of Shame, I learned to speak. In the stare of Shame, I learned to eat of tree and root in place of flesh. In the stare of Shame I dropped splintered bones and learned of the people who cast out Children of Children.
[ Posted by Reason on March 1, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
