《The Timeless Tayl - Serib and The Synarchy of The Two Crowns》


 -Logue-

    Time has been murdered, and a child born.


    There are storms and eclipses across Courtdom. The sorts of signs and omens thought well known.


    ¡Þ


    Two grieving parents, dark their garb, flee to a world that shares no stars with their own, for their youngest daughter was born with two small tusks jutting from her jaw.


    Apparently it is the sign of a shaman; a soul between Nature and Human Nature.


    A shaman only if trained well; else a hole or wound in the order of things, if fear leads in wisdom¡¯s place.


    ¡Þ


    Why do they flee? The parents are no strangers to assassination and subterfuge, such is their trade. Their oldest daughter, Shay, whose name once meant ¡®Gift¡¯ and-or ¡®Tea¡¯ though no longer does, would follow in their footsteps as a Shadow of The Dam¡¯e, in contract killing and thievery adept, in those ages when Falsehood was not yet cold in its grave and Courtdom young in absolute reign over Humanity.


    No strangers as has been said - however - the eclipses had brought outer forces beyond their martial skill.


    Spiders they caught, trying to sew shut their doors with silk. Letters of ill word arrived, blood-scrawled, lavender-scented. Unsettling meetings proposed and ignored. Papers thrown into fires that will not burn.


    ¡Þ


    How long would their traps against intruders last? The family had to hide the younger girl, Serib her name, ¡®Truth¡¯ in a tower-lost language they had a fondness for.


    The Dam¡¯e gave the desperate family a name, a location, and that was the road they followed to a world that shared no stars with theirs.


    ¡Þ


    For if Serib was to protect herself, shamanism could not be learned on Humanity¡¯s cobbles, only among Nature¡¯s mountains is it clear, under stars or over oceans. For few humans live as they once did.


    Older and ¡®in the grace¡¯ may a shaman return to Humanity, a bridge between the Natures. So it is, that young Serib has been left in a master shaman¡¯s care, lest she become a wound in the order of things. Lest Falsehood steal her from herself, and into wizardry weave her.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡Þ


    Before and on the shadowed journey home, her mother made a hidden wish that Truth could be changed, and from that wish was much begotten.


    The sort of wish one sets their soul wholly towards, and so she embarked on an expedition unheard of to a place that we all thought did not exist. In doing so she left Shaw, the girls¡¯ father, alone with Shay.


    A strange grief passed from mother to daughters: a grief for the future and a fear of it.


    ¡Þ


    That was long ago.


    Timeless Tayl, you read.


    Indeed - so what would ¡®long ago¡¯ now mean?


    ¡Þ


    I must ask, which societies are you familiar with; what face does Humanity wear in your world?


    In mine, Courtdom spread throughout The Universe from ''one lone world an isle of isles'', teaching Truthdom. A simple tenet to adhere to Truth, though adhering was not simple for all. When faced with Truths disliked we turn to things-preferred, don¡¯t we?


    Truth despite, conquered all Falsehood defeated, for what strength have lies and all their spawn? To turn from Truth is to leave oneself without defence.


    And so - Truth prospered without all that once was hindrance veiled as virtue or normalcy.


    ¡Þ


    It is said that world of isles was named Ehl¡¯yiteth, and it cannot be denied the old traditions only there survive, traditions elsewhere as seeds replanted cyclical, for Human Nature cannot help but forget its origins in Nature. Ever they need reminding, to consult the good memories of shamans.


    Ehl¡¯yiteth is Courtdom¡¯s name for the planet, the sort of name a Historian may give to a thing honouring someone else, when they know not what else a discovery should be called.


    ¡Þ


    Ehl¡¯yiteth had four Lords. Master Shamans of Earth, Fire, Spacious and Wind. Courtdom named or renamed these forces Justice, Courage, Moderation and Wisdom - it is all the same.


    Without these lords, Human Nature cannot find its bridge to the Nature from which it comes. A fable unheeded, and Falsehood rests never truly dead in a grave not far from there.


    For each Lord there is an apprentice sought, whose duty is lordship when their master can no longer bridge the divide.


    ¡Þ


    Heirs of Courtdom make pilgrimage to Ehl¡¯yiteth to seek the ancient, unforgotten and unbroken Truth there in the four human seasons, and relearn how all our Human souls are bound to the Nature from which we are. Lest they start turning their back to Truth, and so leave themselves defenceless.


    Rarely, the shamanic lords will travel to Courtdom, ¡®knowing nothing for all they know¡¯, as pilgrims themselves to see what ¡®new¡¯ concerns Progress found, for not since the beginning have there been truly new things under the sun.


    The lords are as bridges between The Two Natures, as Serib may well become.


    The spiders and the letters spoke of other plans for her.


    ¡Þ


    Let us follow Serib and her master now, having journeyed from Ehl¡¯yiteth to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon: floating city-Courtdom where angels dwell.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter One

    Untethered isle. Young Serib stood watching the floating city of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, expecting any moment it would fall from the sky and all would panic. She blinked and was disappointed when the city did not vanish, as an illusion from the start. All this, to distract herself from a fear she kept secret.


    ¡Þ


    Unknown to her, a dwarven hunter in the distant trees - wearing the pelt of a werewolf - watched her through his spyglass. Even from such distance he could reckon her breathing. Sweaty from the journey her scent upon the wind - it helped him remember his prey from which he had been strayed by forces we have yet to meet, and further he knows Serib by her eyes that glow with tiny bronze zaps of lightning. A difficult soul to miss.


    ¡Þ


    He disappeared into the fabled woodlands of Gap¡¯elyhond where oakenstone ruins were all, leaving behind him a young werewolf dead, scalped and alone. An apprentice shaman butchered.


    ¡Þ


    Standing on a steel pier reaching into the lake, shamanic apprentice Serib was drinking the salve-tea her master had given her from a small clay cup; the sort of thing shamans drink to enhance their journeys and in spirit achieve what flesh alone cannot:


    To split their body from their spirit, and allow both to go walking - for the body to be more like the spirit, and the spirit to be more like the body.


    ¡Þ


    Her master had told Serib how the floating city of Haven once was buried deep inside the earth, a ruin of a far older age. A ruin many claimed could not be found, repeating the chants of the few. She wondered what myths the spires kept and took another warm sip, watching the reforged ruins soaring in conquered skies. The sun shone clear across the choppy Lake Arruikikn before her, the lightning-patterned robes she wore, and the steel pier hot under her bare feet. Hot as midday and as we shall see: a sun that will not set.


    ¡Þ


    She had never known a lake so large in her adventures with Master Gadail. The textured waves rolled almost to the horizon, where woodlands-after of Gap¡¯elyhond carried on Nature¡¯s eminent role. ¡®Arruikikn¡¯ being a word from a tower-lost language meaning ¡®to leave¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    Her eight heavy locks of hair she tied into a makeshift braid enjoying Spring''s breeze on her neck. Some trees were still gaunt without their leaves across the lake, patches of Winter across the world.


    ¡Þ


    To either side near the edges of the sharp pier, angelic guards watched her. Even their wings were armoured - one feathered, the other shaped and patterned as a butterfly, both in steel wreathed. They avoided her eyes, instead staring at the tusks jutting from her mouth.


    ¡°Would you like to ask me something?¡± she stared one of them back.


    ¡°Not a werewolf, are you?¡± The eagle-winged guard kept their chest high.


    ¡°Is it true¡­¡± the butterfly-winged angel stepped closer to ask. ¡°¡­you are a prophetess, and Far Sight is your gift?¡±


    Serib heard footsteps thudding behind her on the cooler steel shaded by trees, and the guards rushed to each other. A mumble was all she heard from their broken stance and she knew not who they spoke of: ¡®The prisoner¡­¡¯


    ¡Þ


    Still holding her cup and sipping-spitefully her salve-tea, she turned away from the angels to see Master Shaman Gada¡¯il to some, Gadail to others. His kind eyes and familiar limp calmed her. His straight tusks grew towards the sky over his rough cheeks from his lower teeth. His bulky clay armour was etched with ¡®tattoos¡¯ - scholars have for reasons unbeknownst been unable to agree on a clearer translation - the pigment-filled scratches depicted an effigy of himself against a dark spirit.


    ¡Þ


    Twigs lived happily sprouting roots in his madly unkempt hair, and two hammer-totems swung from his belt. Each hammer was Imbued.


    ¡Þ


    A totem without imbue is only a stick, you see - a trinket. For sticks, weapons and trinkets to be imbued is to be graced: is to be gifted a boon by an Ancestor of the elements after a long journey and deeper understanding.


    A shaman-proper will go on four of such journeys towards the end of their training to understand Earth, Fire, Spacious and Wind. And so shall end their apprenticeship, thinking they have learned all there is to learn despite being told over and over: they will never learn it all. The lessons of Love and Reason are learned again and again over one¡¯s life.


    ¡Þ


    A staff or a wand to a wizard, a spear or sword to a warrior, a totem to a shaman, so some sayings go.


    When Serib has her totem, such imbues of grace she too shall seek for it. Tradition would have her start with an Earth totem upon which the remaining three elements can settle, and so the name of this first Act shall be.


    ¡Þ


    For now such elemental power slept in Gadail¡¯s totem-hammers, as he did not wish to appear threatening to the angels, as for hubris they are known. Who else among Humanity would forge a city from Nature so far removed?


    ¡°Quell the storm in your eyes; let us not have another lightning related mishap.¡± He smiled sighing with his clay-armoured hand on Serib¡¯s little shoulder, and with his other hand took her clay cup now empty. ¡°I have two tasks for you that you will likely forget, my Tusker, as to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon we go. You¡¯ll earn your totem yet. Hush and heed.¡±


    ¡°They keep staring at me.¡± She justified herself, and disliked being teased yet again for an old mistake: when summoning lightning - she could not yet control where it would strike, and had once or twice caused small forest fires.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You¡¯ll learn the flame of your belly yet as well; where best to place its embers, what sticks are worth igniting. Flame misplaced can molten and muddy stone.¡± He spoke somewhat lifelessly his dusty mantras, mumbling though equally full of life knowing Serib was giggling at him, and he continued more in his own style:


    ¡°The angels would like to ask you how it all ends, that¡¯s all, and who would not? Imagine always the position of others, and why they are their way - the bores of their geography and nuance of their history - all context for your measure. And from that our duty as shamans is to serve. Why?¡± he tested his apprentice.


    ¡°Shamans can see the grace - we have been taught how to.¡±


    ¡°In the future all children will be taught how and there will be very few shamans needed to maintain justice, courage, moderation and wisdom through grace. For now we are higher-than, and that is why we must serve. A flower grows crooked¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­against a stone displaced.¡± Serib recited in nod, and they smiled together in the sun.


    ¡°And away from the winds, yes. Enough of all that - my master was full of all that. The breeze is nice here, hmm? Where Spring most with Summer meets. A hard Winter we climbed through.¡± Gadail reached over the abrupt edge of the pier, and Serib¡¯s clay cup from his hand crumbled into soil, returning to the shoreside earth.


    ¡Þ


    Serib asked him: ¡°How is the keeper of this lake?¡±


    ¡°A troubled spirit, much in need of counsel. I have seen to them and you will be next, after all cycle and revolution to settle whatever mistakes I¡¯ve just made that only Hindsight can see and repair.¡±


    She listened, though she could not imagine him making a mistake. As Gadail chuckled through his guidance, Serib¡¯s fear returned from all distraction and distance; the fear that her master would not always be there to travel with her. The same fear of change by her mother inherited or learned, the fear deep with settled roots long before her training under Master Gada¡¯il.


    ¡Þ


    His laugh reminded her of all she would miss about him. Reminding her how Age had even changed his voice; shown to her by visitors - when younger he was quick with wit in recordings she had seen of his lectures - now more gruff and wise.


    Reminded of one¡¯s duty as a shaman-proper, an apprentice no longer she could eventually be, and all the fear that comes with that. Although she is far from there, she has been trained to be brave for it. She wanted to be ready.


    ¡Þ


    She wanted to be strong enough, to know how to go alone when he was gone. A quiet she could not imagine. And there she stood lakeside wishing that she could change it all.


    As though reminded by her own lakeside fears, before starting her life with Master Gadail, Serib had glimpsed her mother sketching out the same wishes. Heard her sister planning with their mother, the two of them sleepless with obsession while Serib and her father watched the moon be nothing more than itself.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Fore-and-farsight are not our only eyes. You go all quiet when I speak of this, recently, of your responsibility.¡± Gadail knelt with a grimace and a groan, his knee having a small argument with him. ¡°A bark for your burdens?¡± he offered Serib a dried strip of tree bark, to our eyes.


    ¡°You saved some?¡± she grinned excitedly, almost hopping on the spot in sunshine.


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Known as farbark, it matures in Winter¡¯s cold and is peeled in Spring from certain trees of Ehl¡¯yiteth, if one knows where and how. It makes fine nesting for birds when the bears have scratched themselves of hibernation¡¯s dust, and thus the bark pried looser. Smoky and chewy stuff it is - not much liked by many at all who are strangers to or natives of Ehl¡¯yiteth. Now and then, there are those who can little do without it.


    ¡Þ


    There in the distant world of Hadaeon, which shares no stars with Ehl¡¯yiteth, a taste of home was welcome for Serib. Having left its then-barren glades in Winter, it seemed that blowy season had followed them all along their journey here. Their journey through the stars unshared, where only shamans go, made possible by salve-teas such as the one she had just finished drinking. By bark enhanced no doubt.


    ¡Þ


    A long Winter chasing the sound of a bell and breathy horn through the cosmos, of the floating city crying out for aid. A long Winter when the early face of Spring she much prefers.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡Þ


    If she fears loss, then how can any of us wonder about her love of Spring? Spring when all that was taken returns to all.


    ¡Þ


    Chewing and waiting, Serib greater felt the hum of the earth with the smoky spell and smell of farbark wafting. So smoky as to be almost spicy, burning her nostrils clearer with deeper breaths. She thought the waters of the sunny lake moved with strange currents, a gravity misbehaved, a force swimming:


    ¡°Is there something in the lake? I feel a sharpness in its earthen bed¡­ a wound.¡±


    ¡°You may be right - the bed of Lake Arruikikn was once a mountain peak, though Nature has its ways of ages and who can know what Human Nature may have buried in it. Let us return here if we can, and unearth what it is you sense. After our visit to angelic Haven. The salve-tea and our bark will help us see.¡±


    ¡°Can we trance without these?¡± Serib was curious, ¡®trance¡¯ being a shamanic state, of the line between body and spirit blurring.


    ¡°Without our salves and farbark? You know, I¡¯ve never tried.¡± Gadail stood awhile measuring all that, thinking a shaman capable of, would be grace incarnate.


    ¡Þ


    The guards meanwhile had listened to every word and stepped apart from each other back to their positions as a glinting shape was approaching the pier slowly from azure skies: a disc of steel shining against midday light, flying closer over the sun-bright lake.


    ¡°Why are we waiting here for transport if you can fly us up there to the city?¡± While Serib wondered what methods made that disc fly in such ways, she was excited to visit a city of Courtdom, having so far seen only Townships such as Imirka and smaller settlements, visiting shops-remedial to replenish their salve-tea leaves.


    ¡°Ceremony and ritual are irreplaceable in Human Nature; when Humanity finds itself equal only to itself, then it has itself most to fear. That is why Truth must reign over all you desire. Know this - as many you shall advise.¡± Old Gadail paused before countering himself. ¡°Vast as Courtdom has spread our Truthdom ways, you may discover changed symbols. Altered names. It is all the same to us that know History¡¯s etyms, but not to all souls who may only see Now¡¯s details. The future will see its generations better taught. For now, it is a sign of respect that I do not conquer their Winds.¡±


    ¡°Conquer?¡± Serib thought it a strange word, as she chewed her farbark. ¡°A shaman would never¡­¡±


    ¡°Do not be so sure! There are wizards, you know.¡± Gadail shuddered. ¡°Vampyric-those who could have been shamans, alas choosing Intelligence over Wisdom, and not Love aligned with Reason, but Reason to its end alone. As for me¡­ these angels have been invaded before - from the trees and sky above them when Haven was upon and not o¡¯er Hadaeon as it is now. Remember well the difference between upon and o¡¯er. And now - their flying citadels fear an assault from the ground they long have left behind; I am told their world even appears to no scope nor scan that starships bear, so we can suppose from that - they even fear an attack from the stars. Their Hadaeon steel made them a target in The False Ages, when force and fraud were rife. All weapons of myth you have heard of were forged here from such materials. Your intention and mine would never be to conquer, but think historically as all things must be thought, how my mastery of Wind would be perceived; by a people long scarred.¡±


    ¡°And in the other arts of Nature you¡¯re no novice.¡± Serib added.


    Gadail shrugged unsure of that: ¡°Intelligence would fly up there on a boulder without wishing harm, while igniting much of it.¡±


    ¡°Best if we take their transport, then¡­¡± Serib supposed as her master had. ¡°¡­as we¡¯ll be away from the ground, should I stand on the shoreline a while, before the vessel arrives?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°To centre yourself? Fine thinking - for who you were and are - not for who you will be.¡±


    The apprentice frowned at her master.


    ¡°Hush will handle that, as comes along your next lesson. A shaman can remain grounded and connected to the element of Earth despite her distance from it. Tell me, where do you most know justice?¡±


    ¡°When surrounded by injustice.¡±


    ¡°You know more than you knew! That is grounding proper¡­ not keeping pebbles in your pocket to remind you of home.¡± Gadail reached out his clay-armoured hand, and Serib reluctantly handed over the little stones she had been keeping since leaving Ehl¡¯yiteth. ¡°You have answered that you do not need them.¡±


    When the angels were not looking, Gadail let the pebbles fall to the steel platform and they rolled gently off with life their own, returning to their shaded beds under the pier.


    ¡°Best if they don¡¯t see that, either¡­¡± Serib smiled at the pebbles obeying Gadail¡¯s palm, and the master shaman continued a lesson:


    ¡°Gathering and centring our runaway and scattered thoughts. Knowing emotion, giving Love a place in our compass, but never sole reign over Reason¡¯s name. Nor should Reason¡¯s eye rule without Love¡¯s hand. With Hush enough you will be able to Heed what the floors and towers of Haven say to you about the Nature that made them, and the Nature they are carven from. A simple thing you can even see from here, but you will not realise what you are seeing, until you have been both far from the city and close to it. Only then can you know.¡±


    Palm¡¯s-shadow over her eyes against the glare, Serib stared hard at the gleaming metal form of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, floating weightless through waves of clouds crashing into its hulls and bellies. She hoped to prove her master wrong and more quickly guess at worse or figure at best the answer before then.


    ¡Þ


    Having waited a while longer for the disc to arrive and watched the city drift on, Serib asked, chasing her words:


    ¡°Haven is always moving? Even away from us as we wait here. Fleeing¡­ following the sunlight?¡±


    Gadail waited for young Serib to answer herself:


    ¡°Suspicious and mistrusting - the angels with good reason, given their history of invasions.¡±


    Her master smiled. ¡°Almost. Fearful, I would say.¡± He added. ¡°Clinging to what is already lost. Would you know anything about that? Your fingers cramping onto Spring when you know Summer is around all corners. Though why do these angels fear the dark particularly¡­¡±


    Serib smiled sadly with him, looking at his old face. His strong though crooked stance that had once been even stronger. He assured her or tried:


    ¡°Lose yourself not in my aging but in your youth, and more than paradise you will regain.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The metal disc was enormous as it arrived, comprised of two halves. Serib concentrated on this, gritting her jaw tightly so as to keep strange tears away. The disc¡¯s underside kept it spinning in obscure flight and the top half remained steady. The size suggested to Serib it was for welcoming either far larger groups of souls into the city, or souls of much greater size. Souls that could not fly their way to the angelic city that were otherwise welcomed or summoned. There were pillars jutting from it, from which broken chains hung swinging, rattling now as the disc spun towards stillness-almost, and she thought of what the guards had been muttering.


    ¡®The prisoner¡­¡¯


    ¡Þ


    The pillars were interesting to her - their peaks incomplete or cut off - as though a roof could have sat there once, and too there once were more pillars than still were standing, more akin to the bars of a cell:


    ¡°Did you take The Prisoner using this?¡± she asked one of the angels, not at all knowing who or what the prisoner was as the guards spoke with Gadail, escorting master and apprentice aboard bidding:


    ¡°Master Gada¡¯il. Master Serib¡¯il.¡±


    Leaving the disc behind the armoured angels flew off with great speed towards the distant city, themselves shining against the sunlight. Militant with spear, shield and plated wing. Serib thought they looked too heavy to fly, and she could not imagine the strength their wings must rest:


    ¡°They think I¡¯m a master?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail encouraged her, finding a free space upon the disc among its debris that will soon be detailed. His clay-plated legs, inflexible, scraped on the stone.


    ¡°Or they misunderstand our custom. Though you have a presence to you¡­. better that we sit, my young provoker. To our senses the way is long, even with the winds and weirder things at our back.¡±


    He knew there were other forces no longer at work, making longer the shorter journeys as shall be revealed.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°The road has already been a long one.¡± Serib sighed and slumped, happy to be carried by the angel¡¯s disc, soaking up the smoky smell of a bark far from home.


    ¡°Well¡­¡± Gadail¡¯s lips smacked as he too enjoyed a thin strip of it he had been keeping. ¡°What sense can you make of all this mess? What does your Far Sight tell you we most will meet above and ahead?¡±


    ¡®Far sight¡¯ is a shamanic term that has caused no small debate to Courtdom¡¯s more modern minds. To some it means truly predicting the future, all in chants and premonitions without explanation. Others interpret it as being knowledgeable in History and other arts, the fractals that repeat, the belief in nothing new under the sun. A thing that can be trained.


    ¡Þ


    For a moment, Serib¡¯s gut and centre were far below her as the disc broke inertia without warning, with technological ease. The grand disc then took them hurtling without hurtle through the air towards Haven - its pillars of chains swinging in strange chime - covered in signs of a battle. Broken weapons. Splintered wood and crumbled stone. In a slight dip of altitude, a broken spear tumbled across the disc and despite Serib reaching for it in instinct arcane to her, the broken thing fell from the edge. To fall in the lake below, she imagined.


    ¡Þ


    The world of Hadaeon grew barely smaller, and mythic Haven-o¡¯er far larger drew close, seeming yet vaster than the sky it assailed and the earth from which it had arisen in once-counted aeons ago. Shining piers jutted from its crust similar to the one in the lake, heavily guarded by winged dots of angels, themselves gleaming in recovered steel.


    ¡°I fear that my Far Sight fails me¡­¡± Serib admitted, as her knowledge of what had been could not illuminate what was nor what ought to be.


    Gadail encouraged her:


    ¡°Is that so? Well, that should tell you something, and you have other tools.¡±


    The earth smaller, the city larger, the wind stronger. The apprentice spoke:


    ¡°It looks more like a prison from here than a city. Because I do not have wings, and could easily be trapped. And - the angels spoke of a prisoner¡­ in a whisper away from us¡­¡±


    ¡°It was not always this way. While we are here, avoid that topic altogether¡­ all words of incarceration. These Hadaeon¡¯s need little to get them going. There will be moments when I cannot keep my eyes with yours, and you must not go looking about for the prisoner.¡± He smiled, knowing she would try.


    ¡Þ


    Smirking herself, Serib asked: ¡°You¡¯ll be speaking with¡­ was it Ithuriya?¡±


    Gadail nodded, sucking the bark from his teeth. ¡°The current Wing Marshal. Before The Emancipation and Eradication of The Languages, her name meant Truth, being just one of many names for Truth. You¡¯ll meet her and understand why we are called to advise and guide at all; particularly now. I may need to feign surprise at a thing unprecedented. We shall see.¡±


    ¡°You already know what she will speak of?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡­ there was an event, and its aftermath has not quite hit us, but I know its echo, which has somehow arrived before the rest. A profoundness that leaves our words inadequate. You have already felt its ripple - as your Far Sight fades from you, ¡®prophetess¡¯.¡± He chuckled to himself and the breeze. ¡°Memory leaves us to ourselves, and patterns seem as novelties. By night the closer stars are further away than they should be - their light travels faster and slower than light always has.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Having shown her master a strange look, Serib asked:


    ¡°Faster and slower? How can it be both? Or either at all? What are you saying?¡±


    ¡°How and what indeed. If only you knew as I do what was missing¡­ missing. That word is my only clue for your next lesson. Hush and Heed as through Haven we go, to centre and ground yourself so far away from any earth you know, and to find what is missing: the earth under the earth. These are your tasks. Enjoy your bark and let the tea do its salving-work. You will find yourself open to the ages. I know that you are ready.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib knew this was a test by chance; little rest does a lord of Ehl¡¯yiteth know. To accompany and learn from him on his many journeys was the path out of her apprenticehood and into shamanism. If that at all was what she wanted, as rode on those woven Seasons and with each she was closer to her old fears. Old for so young a soul.


    ¡®Earth under the earth?¡¯ she pondered her master¡¯s words.


    ¡Þ


    The disc swam between Wind¡¯s untouchable shores upwards to the clouds, and Serib dwelled on the sharpness she had felt; the wound in the lakebed. Sharp as a weapon in her thoughts, formidable as a totem.


    ¡Þ


    For all shamans have a totem, Imbued by the four elements. While Old Gada¡¯il had his two hammers, Serib had heard of necklaces and other things. She wondered how her totem would be; granted to her if among the skies she could understand the Earthen left behind, better than being among its roots and rocks. Having been both far and close.


    ¡Þ


    Or so Gadail had promised her - it was custom-most that totemless shamans would meet with an ancestor of Earth to receive their first totem, though she could not picture such a soul giving Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon their ancient, ethereal reside.


    ¡Þ


    ¡®What is missing?¡¯ she asked the clouds without her words, seeing how some of them drifted down to the ground as sick birds might struggle, wreathing The Woodlands-old of Gap¡¯elyhond in strange mist, or the clouds floated higher than they should away from their world and thunderous was their noise as they cracked hard, drifting frozen in the ink that soaks our finite stars.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Two

    As foretold. The shadow of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon cloaked the rising disc and Serib felt the city¡¯s pull. The transport was no longer moving of its own momentum but being taken back by the great mass that had first sent it out. Being closer with clearer vantage she could see the city in two - half facing the sun, the other dreary in shade - and it was this dark side unknown to the sun that their disc was docking towards, bringing master and apprentice to the floating city where angels dwell.


    ¡Þ


    Swarms of large insect wings buzzed not far - unarmoured angels, with their sinewed or segmented wings - were washing blood from the higher and lower towers, treading the air as water. Across their rooftops and around columned domes, smothering wall and mast, jagged words had been written in red, now smudged and smeared from recognition. Clutching burning sprigs of lavender they tried to mask the stench of rust. When Serib smelt that burning herb she felt very small, without really knowing why.


    ¡Þ


    Filling and fixing cracks formed from fight or load, those citizens mending ditches where claws had dug; those of werewolves, Serib judged by their size and shape, as such lupines are known to call Hadaeon home. From there she looked at the city¡¯s multiple hulls and bellies of its boroughs and then at the lake left behind:


    ¡°It is not all metal¡­ most of it is rock? More an island floating than a city, all veined with ore primordial¡­¡± she said to Gadail: ¡°I can imagine the lake was not always deep - the trees were growing too close to its shore. Ruins in the forest. Did Haven once rest there before leaving its world behind to climb its own skies?¡±


    ¡°If so, Nature has filled with a lake the crater angels made. Haven-upon-Hadaeon was then its name, now o¡¯er. And do you know¡­ it is hard to see this from the ground - the same side of the city is always yet only recently - facing the sun? Shall we wonder what was found or locked away in its shadows and the angels seek to keep it so? What have they done with their moderation¡­¡±


    ¡°The prisoner.¡± Serib suggested, and Gadail would only smile in reply despite all her protests: ¡°Why did the angels leave the earth behind? Not only to avoid invasion¡­¡± she asked without a clue.


    ¡°Is that not reason enough?¡± her master laughed. ¡°In Need¡¯s age, perhaps. No - they were misguided by their shaman. Think of all that earth is and your answers will already be there for you, as landmarks across your thoughts. Overgrown with an Age¡¯s moss, unchanged. Despite what pages may clearer say.¡±


    ¡Þ


    That same unchanged quality of mountains and their meadows occurred to Serib. Earth was a symbol of reality and truth to shamans, of one¡¯s limitations known - while ambition, wishes and inspired dreams courageous were more of Fire¡¯s domain. And in that sense she shared something with the angels of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon that was once upon-Hadaeon, she supposed: they too were fearful of a force they could not control, determined in their adrift to change what could not be.


    ¡Þ


    Did they fear death as she did? Or some other force equally unrulable?


    Her imagination sent the broad meadows through their seasons; Winter came taking Autumn¡¯s colours. Above the changing she envisioned smooth mountains somehow, that had never seen cause to be so jagged with spire and crag.


    She turned away from her frayed far-and-foresight almost in pain - her prophetic grace or reasoning strange ever since Lake Arruikikn - that her envisions were together with her wishes indistinguishable.


    Against all she had been trained.


    ¡Þ


    The disc in flight neared its spun and destined end. Armoured angels awaited their shamanic guests on a long pier cutting into the sky and out from it. Without sunlight, the metal pier was a dull marble. Serib saw the other piers and outstretched platforms, too the stellar crafts coming in to land still steaming cold from their sojourns of the stars, all metal shining in the sun. All escorted by spear-strong angels. All leaning away from the dark corners she and Gada¡¯il were about to roam.


    ¡°Should it not be sunset by now?¡± Serib asked Gadail, the flight having gone long enough by her reckoning.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You are heeding, indeed! Very good.¡± To her annoyance he gave no further answer.


    The battle-worn disc made its final revolution almost landing onto the shadowed pier, remaining a step apart kept in its place by some ringing magnetism unclear. Serib stood with her master waiting, watching the gathered angels watching them. She noticed:


    ¡°What is that symbol, on the pillars of our vessel? Between the chains¡­¡±


    Gadail did not turn his head of twigs and weeds having already seen the symbol, hidden not only by chains but by defacing scratches the well-meaning had tried to make:


    ¡°An infinity rune, the sort a shaman will place to remember where they¡¯ve been or remind them to return.¡±


    ¡°A marker.¡± Serib admired it, unhappy that weapons had tried to destroy the beautiful rune. ¡°Did you carve it there?¡±


    ¡°My last apprentice did.¡±


    When her master answered, Serib froze a moment; learning of an aeon before hers. Tales and journeys Gadail had not mentioned before and she had never thought to ask of. As though old he had become having trained only her.


    ¡Þ


    He urged her:


    ¡°Be close to me now, and quiet your thoughts in this loud - this most ancient place where much of Truthdom and Courtdom once converged and may again. The city has risen from the fire beneath the earth into these skies and fallen again into ruins more than our History can account for, for History lengthens always, and in doing so the task of a Historian becomes more difficult. Yet we must try as shamans to have fine memories¡­ we have no responsibility to our wants, so that in futures we cannot imagine, even Want can be no more.¡±


    As the disc slotted with a jarring thud into the lifeless pier, its previously loud gyrations mute, Serib thought she could hear a mournful choir from deep within The Winged Walls of Haven, her ears still ringing from the long revolve of their trip. Soon she would realise her ears rang no tricks, and her eyes saw The Winged Walls for what they were, wings of alloyed steel layered over one another multitudinous, having the look of scales-uneven from afar.


    ¡Þ


    A mass of impalement - she took a step back and met her master¡¯s palm on her shoulder - a wall where wings great or small all sharp were skewering the still rotting invaders that had failed in stealthy climb or outright siege equally left as warnings. She had heard the city could cover itself in blades a carapace when assailed from above.


    ¡Þ


    Vultures however navigated the sharp vertical with ease. She watched as the final dust of some flesh flecked with weathered age or was pecked away by Nature¡¯s scavengers, and bones fell at last to the open air. Falling and spinning almost hilariously as she did not expect them to. Some returning home, the rest forgotten in foreign lands. Her master explained:


    ¡°Its scaled design was by the Hadean¡¯s stolen from a far older city, whose name is only ink and memory now. Polis¡¯zwei, some say.¡±


    ¡°City of Two?¡±


    ¡°Something as that. Ravin its Lord, in humanity¡¯s first and most violent age.¡±


    The age of Need, Serib knew, the same humanity under Truthdom was slowly trying to leave behind having conquered Falsehood.


    ¡Þ


    Armoured angels bearing shields and spears said only pleasantries to her and Gadail, whom they all named Gada¡¯il, and the shamans followed their escort as was bid of them.


    ¡Þ


    There was no barrier to either side of the walkway and Serib feared she may fall, for what need have angels for such things? And apparently, what care had they for even invited guests? She knew there was no turning away from Haven pulling her inside, towards all she would become.


    ¡Þ


    The pier stretched naturally towards the city walls and she could no longer see the sky as wing-layered Haven dominated all horizon. The metal city in shade reeked of rust or of the blood that had already been cleaned away from its hulls and bellies. There seemed to be no opening at the end of the dark pier until an angel hummed a soft tune and the wall ahead wobbled as light and shadow in duel or play. The wings of the great wall flexed and flapped into invisible state and again scales were called to her, words of mimicry and illusion.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail halted for Serib to look before stepping inside: a tunnel of structures crystalline the metal wings had been hiding. Even in that passage there were words scratched with blood that had been scrubbed into indiscernible globs.


    ¡°Hold your nerves as we go.¡± he encouraged her. ¡°As mountains in storms - and cliffs against the seas - justice is always itself.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The angels passed humming sombre without trouble into the stony gloom, their forms stretching thick and thin before realigning on the other side as light with eyes played tricks. Their hums joined the grim choirs of the shade-forlorn city without distortion as though such a song had neither beginning nor ending.


    ¡Þ


    As Serib and Gadail walked together through the odd, certain ores in the shaking walls glowed different colours. Serib knew these veins and their stories, these minerals and metals untouched that had once been and still were in the earth, however risen into the skies they may be. The sorts of minerals that could be gemstones, given to Imbue a shaman¡¯s totem, beyond counting there impervious to her desires. Her eyes widened as the colours turned to sharp lights and Gadail held her shoulders under her locks, urging her forward into the sunlight as she struggled to turn away. Before they were fully through the tunnel a creature of ¡®furry stone¡¯ waved at her from within the wall, covered in gemstones uncut.


    ¡°Is that an ancestor?¡± she asked, squinting in the dense air too bright.


    ¡Þ


    As the shamans emerged through unscathed Serib heard all the overwhelm of a city yet far away, and closer more regenerations were underway, scrubbing blood from wall and tower. Splashing windows and soaking columns. Wings flapped frantically as to stay afloat on exhaustion¡¯s last winds. For all the advanced technology there seemed equally an absence of it. There was such a scene of rung cloths into overflowing buckets that in the unseen streets below, reports from unearthed diaries and the like of this era have been found saying that it was raining blood and muck. The lower streets awash, wet and unclean as never before.


    ¡°Those pointy lights in the walls were not of my plan¡­¡± Gadail admitted to Serib. ¡°Hush for now.¡±


    She in all the overwhelm had not noticed - the wall¡¯s layers of wings were grinding and shrieking against themselves in vile siren: the sound that an invader had breached the sacred.


    ¡Þ


    Over the deafening alarm Master Shaman Old Gadail spoke to the angelic escorts prior to any of their accusations, still holding Serib¡¯s shoulders:


    ¡°It is only our tusks, fair angels, that have upset the guardians in your walls, mistaking us for Werewolves. Your wariness encourages theirs, and these lesser-elements were nurtured by your last shaman, if I am not mistaken? And is that not the reason we have been summoned here? Against guidance improper.¡±


    Could Gadail¡¯s last apprentice be such a shaman of Haven, whom had - it seemed to Serib - led the angels astray? She breathed uneasily as all the angels watched her. Their barbed spears remained skyward aimed. Gadail stepped away from Serib back towards the city wall and placed his palm near its quivering form. To his smile the sharp lights faded and softer colours shined. The steel waves of scale-like wings slowed their flexing until in widespread pose the wall unfolded its elemental arms and closed its eyes appearing again as would any wall of steel undaunted having always been there:


    ¡°The Nature around us will often mirror us and our knowledge of it; will trees not be cut down to warm a hearth? Will rivers not run polluted when ignorance sups upstream? These walls though angel-forged belong always to the earth of their whence. Your whence. Ours all. The ancestor spirits and their veins within these walls are frightened, all around enclosed, not a gate in sight that is not of illusion¡¯s making. Just as your last shaman was Fear¡¯s ensign; that of my last apprentice.¡±


    He stepped away from the wall still calm and Serib bowed in gentle awe with much of her thoughts confirmed. Some angels joined her in reverence.


    ¡°You say us foolish, Master Shaman?¡± the apparent captain of the angels asked.


    ¡°Ill-educated by no small fault of my own.¡± Old Gada¡¯il too bowed his head where roots made their sprout.


    ¡°What say you, Were-hunter?¡± One of the more uncertain angels looked up and Serib''s gaze followed: ¡°The teeth they both have¡­ they look like fangs to me. Tusks they say but we have seen harpoons of spears made¡­ so what say you?¡±


    ¡Þ


    On the blood-rusting wall behind and above them, a dwarf was sitting in a vertical crater high, his short legs hanging in the air. An illusion untied. It looked like a catapult or similar war machine had battered into the wall, and the dwarf made a seat of its cratered rim surrounded with broken wings of steel. Serib wondered why the inside of the city ramparts had been so attacked rather than the outside: a prisoner trying to escape - perhaps - and she could not tell clearly which side of the conflict had been victorious - the civil war or overall unrest she was beginning to see signs of; for do content souls write red words across the walls? Words that must by others deemed, be cleaned away.


    What Truth is there in that?


    ¡Þ


    She could see the dwarf wore old leather under rusting chainmail, a faded tabard over it all, its coat of arms removed stitch by stitch and patched over with the bald or hairy scalps he had with incision and rip taken from many different beings. Varied sizes all his prey in the forest of his long beard; many scalps had the look of werewolves. Meaty, hairy ears still attached. By the dwarf¡¯s side scuttled slowly a large crab or scarab or amalgam of both, twice his size or more hidden by the crater¡¯s shadows, the tips of its legs sticky enough that it could walk the wing-scale walls. It made clicking noises as to communicate. Its multiple jaws chittering. Its eyes absorbing the sunlight, Serib believed for a moment that menace to be the source of this darkness, forgetting half of the city was lost in the other¡¯s shade.


    ¡°Nay, Dromiya.¡± The dwarf stayed his pet rolling his r¡¯s as Serib had never before heard, and his scarab returned to its caves inside the walls.


    ¡Þ


    Serib saw no glowing gemstones in the dwarf¡¯s crater nor up the tunnelled walls behind him; pocked with gaps however, as though plundered. She thought he had some resemblance to a Stalker, an elite scout, though peaceful Courtdom had not needed such souls there for aeons in Truthdom¡¯s heartland. If Serib remembered her histories well - such units had long gone extinct, decommissioned, by redundancy discharged as the age of Need fell replaced by the age of Greed, and the great re-education took place or was still ongoing, the same Gadail called: ¡®a future we cannot imagine¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    The werewolf-hunting dwarf reached for something in his little crater, pulled a thin spyglass from the obscure and poured his right eye into it.


    ¡°Two tusked illiterates.¡± The Stalker spat and set aside his scope. ¡°Nothing more.¡±


    ¡°Illiterates?¡± Serib called up to him with lightning in her frown, and the dwarf¡¯s seeking eyes met hers making short the distance between them, and all her nerves were challenged.


    She took a step back. She saw in his glare all of her weaknesses being measured. One would expect Gadail to step in and diffuse what was rising, though if Serib always needed his aid then in his task he had failed.


    ¡Þ


    With every moment locking horns and eyes with the dwarf, she could further see his strength. His broad solidity. His sorrow, where true strength finds conviction and emerges unstoppable. It was impossible for him to be there - for the age when Stalkers were sent by Courtdom to explore and chart its frontiers was too long ago, yet there he sat no grave robber but a ghoul from underneath. And though her eyes were hurling every threat she knew at the dwarf sitting there staring from Haven¡¯s crumpled wall, the fabled hunter had a greater calling than anger. Even with all he had lost, he was loyal. As shall be known.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail did however pull a certain spiked leaf from his hair seeing no give from either side, and in letting go of it the winds of which he was Lord carried that leaf up to the dwarf, dancing in the breeze to our eyes with innocence and chance, and the dwarf having taken the leaf into his meaty grasp inhaled its fragrance. Serib was unsure what had taken place in this wordless exchange. The gruesome hunter turned his gaze from Serib and the young shaman was wondering if the leaf had in its passing a warning. The scalper bowed his head not shying from conflict nor in respect, but deep into contemplation with a leaf long his. Long his, and yet returned to him.


    ¡°We have our farbark¡­ until you chewed it all.¡± Gadail began in quiet jest, taking Serib by her shoulder away from The Winged Wall with the angels in escort. ¡°¡­and he his leaves of an oasis finite.¡±


    ¡°Were those leaves not left on the graves of Stalkers?¡± she quietly asked having seen mere etchings of them, and her master smiled.


    ¡Þ


    The tense troop of angels continued their caution despite, leading away from The Winged Wall deeper through the renovations and repairs of the ramparts. The wings of workers flapped and buzzed a quiet hum across the cracked and bloody structures. Gadail walked with his arm around Serib following the angels, pointing at the sights she needed to see and explaining what should be known.


    ¡°What did he mean by that?¡± she turned back unable to ignore and saw the scuttling crab-scarab ¡®Dromiya¡¯ roll a sphere of fur out of the crater it shared with the Were-hunter, up the wall and over the other side to as one clump land in the woodlands below or hair by hair come apart as it fell, she did not know, though outcomes she imagined from their origins, as shamans must.


    ¡Þ


    She tried however to not imagine what corpses may have been inside The Winged Walls that Dromiya was plucking hairs from and eating the rest. Giving scalps to the dire dwarf, or perhaps he gathered his own. As is the way when we try not to imagine something, it imagines itself all the more. Gadail elaborated:


    ¡°I believe where he is from, priests are preferred to shamans, though we fulfil the same role. Remember - changed symbols. Altered names. Muddied by Now¡¯s details. We shamans pass our traditions through speaking, by campfires and longer trails away, and thus have finer memories. Priests chronicle into tomes and carry their books with them, which can be easier hidden through turmoil than living souls. The rest put it all into action. Though it depended on the age, if the enemy feared more the books themselves, or the souls writing them.¡±


    Gadail knew too well there were extinctions in past ages - executions - from which Truth survived only in the books of priests and the memories of shamans together, not one over the other.


    ¡Þ


    The walkways to come were poorly designed for feet, Serib thought, being in parts impractical or altogether nonsensical, and smaller discs were needed to ferry them across divides while the angels went with greater ease in their flight. It was common for footpaths among Haven¡¯s spires to loop back on themselves, and try as Serib might have to keep track, circles were all she felt. And thin air. All very deliberately so, her master explained, to make the advance of Werewolves or most other invading forces difficult, while still having a way for aided-welcome visitors to go.


    ¡°It was once full of its charm, with artwork and welcoming games, to make it all less a maze and more a marvel for summoned guests. I hope that you will see it as it was.¡±


    He went on that if any intruder managed to find their way inside Haven through its defences, the changing-paths would keep them from escaping with whatever prize they sought.


    ¡Þ


    Other discs surely could have easier taken them the rest of the way, but Serib sensed the angels¡¯ distrust in the whispers they were hiding. Their shared glances. A shaman had to see it not as nuisance but opportunity; if Gadail could hold back his gales then she too could try. Keeping his words close she repeated only for his ears:


    ¡°For now we are higher-than, and that is why we must serve.¡±


    ¡°Yes. We know what we do, and so justice falls to us.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Somewhere in the steel maze leading upwards, Serib asked Gadail, wishing she had some farbark left:


    ¡°¡¯Were-hunter¡¯ they called that dwarf¡­ Werewolves? From the woodlands below, must be. Tribes that have attacked Haven-upon-Hadaeon before.¡±


    ¡°Well remembered.¡± Gadail smiled, for Serib had listened by their fires under the stars along their journey. ¡°If my eyes and the winds are aligned, a tribe of werewolves hid themselves long ago in The Winged Walls, waiting for their chance to strike. Their most recent attempt.¡±


    ¡°How? Did they try to free the prisoner?¡± As Serib asked, the angels ahead muttered uneasily, and Gadail was subtle in his fleeting pride.


    ¡Þ


    Serib looked back again, though through all the twisting and climbing The Winged Walls were visible only through mist and mazework. Watching an island go into its fog. She was watched by the wall¡¯s statues atop their peaks - and she imagined - by the dwarf with his scope as well.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°The only way any great scheme is completed - from seeds long ago and by following through.¡± Gadail said. ¡°Sightings of Werewolves breaching the walls were commonplace, so the tribe waited. Their eyes learned darkness, and only when the moon was right did they strike. Waited until those sightings were legend only, and no sensible sort paid heed, so if a shadow was seen where it should not be, less alarm would be raised. The prisoner these angels keep was their aim indeed - and are you having the same as me - an uncertainty as to who is free and the other in chains?¡±


    Serib nodded: ¡°Fear keeps the angels.¡±


    ¡°Though not without good reason.¡± Gadail agreed. ¡°They have learned the fears of my last apprentice. An old fear relearned therein mixed as well - the sort Humanity has not known since Courtdom raised.¡±


    ¡°Old fear?¡± Serib asked.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I doubt this was my last apprentice¡¯s intention: the fear of the other.¡± Her master replied grimly, that the words themselves were sour. ¡°Werewolves and angels once were enemies before Truthdom¡­ Truth-led they joined tribes against Falsehood. There were happy marriages after hard victories, and these were as symbols of the unity, that any divide could be crossed. And here they are again¡­ in such old fears. Those statues have been torn down from The Winged Walls; though preference does not erase Truth. You are young and what was common in Falsehood is foreign to you - you would not dream of hating an angel for their wings alone. Though deeper than that the old fear lurks in its hunger - ¡®the other¡¯ within ourselves, when we know not which way to turn, and so despise ourselves. Being at once our own victim, torturing, finding shame over opportunity in our faults. And without Love or help we despise all light or dark aligning only with one where both should line, a chasm of fallen bridges, and the ridges that once were joined. How far is it from there, to believing that Reality is wrong and we are right? To raising a flying city, away from those who once were our friends.¡±


    Serib had been given much to dwell on. In serenade, sad choirs sang clearer over an already internecine aura and era:


    ¡®¡­the beauty of Truth¡¯s peace¡­¡¯


    The workers were loudest, scrubbing blood revealing rusty patches underneath that could not be cleaned, and some of the armoured angels had to hum their nerves soothed. Cleaning and yet a rot appearing. The warriors had said nothing as Gadail spoke, their own thoughts loud enough.


    ¡Þ


    Having been led out of one winding-skyward maze and almost into another, Serib at last had a proper view of the city such Winged Walls had long protected. Holy sunlight measured the looming marvels of a yet older civilisation, which though halved and fallen still were larger than anything the angels had in their glassy metals made. Among these were rocky mounds that Serib recognised as dormant volcanoes - spires aside Humanity¡¯s towers - the latter growing out of the former. Great trenches where ore had been yore were dark, dormant for their magma had been taken from them, smelted into moulds she surmised.


    ¡Þ


    Serib and Gadail were still well within the shadowed side of Haven, and the glimpses she had of the sunlight city were blocked by nearer buildings taller-than, each straight as the bars of a cell, and pity was her heart for a prisoner she had never met. Her mind filled with crimes unknown. Crimes befitting complete solitude apparently, keeping allies found in werewolves away.


    ¡Þ


    She walked away from this fleeting sight, and the smooth slippery path clanged upwards under her slapping footsteps as she asked:


    ¡°Are there other Were-hunters?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°That is only the angels¡¯ name for the dwarf. To you and I he is Ahlzvyr, The Hunter Lord of Aner Ba¡¯hyt.¡± Gadail¡¯s limp was causing him some bother, and Serib reached out her arm to support him wide as he was, clay armour and all.


    ¡°Strength beyond your size! Thank you.¡±


    Serib struggled to pronounce the hunter¡¯s name the same as Gadail had.


    ¡°A Stalker from The Sifting Sand-snow. His kind have hunted many to extinction as Courtdom willed it, as some of us shamans advised was best. Against The Regions Rabid - all while claiming that extinction was never their aim so much as redemption.¡±


    Gadail paused as though testing Serib¡¯s memory regarding Falsehood¡¯s Rabid, and she quickly replied:


    ¡°Those that did not adhere to Truthdom¡¯s ways.¡±


    ¡°Yes, and those for whom no Human place could be found. Those not content with cakes alone or Courtdom¡¯s devotion to that ending best for all. The Stalkers were scouts of a far larger army, present throughout worlds and lands before Courtdom¡¯s ¡®liberation-invasions¡¯ and after, helping The Shadows set up their discord or concord, whichever most was best, and converted or uprooted those of Falsehood that straggled in aftermath.¡±


    ¡°Courtdom an empire.¡±


    Gadail nodded when Serib seemed unsure: ¡°I doubt the angels know who he really is - scraped hollow Stalker - empty of happiness in his hunting, for The Grand Scarab he once served was claimed by the sands to which we all are subject.¡±


    ¡°They died?¡±


    ¡°Yes, their age ended far from well. Many rumours I will not detail here. And rather, the angels are glad he is here, adept at such exterminations. The angels¡¯ name long was prosper, and their prisoner longer slept. Though they flew too high and forgot their seasons¡­ so that when she their prisoner did awaken, their cakes had not prepared them at all.¡± He giggled softly in a brief sadness.


    ¡°How do you know this? We only just arrived¡­¡± as Serib asked, the angels hard at repairs took their breaks to watch the mythical pair of shamans pass.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°It is nothing I have not seen before, history is a pattern, novel as events may seem. One need only stand back and stop squinting. Are there lessons in it? It is for us to decide what we have found or not. Let us not speak of it further.¡± Gadail smiled as he planted seeds, for one cannot pull a trunk from a sapling and force branches to sprout.


    ¡°You started it¡­ I must ask¡­ The Stalker is from the Sifting Sand-snow¡­¡± Serib was unsure how to begin her question. ¡°¡­it was too long ago. How can he be alive? If he¡¯s not nostalgic for an age before his own, pretending.¡± she knew the sands were one of Courtdom¡¯s earlier ages, when the planets were hotter with greater energies - when Need was rifer an issue, not yet replaced by Greed¡¯s cakes.


    ¡°There¡¯s a little Historian yet¡­¡± Gadail grinned approvingly. ¡°We shamans need fine memories, as so many forget what is True in favour of what is Preferred. Ages go having come and what was once severe seems soft, or it is hard to remember what is known now was not always known. This can be both well and not. Yours is a great question, one that will lead you to discover what is missing if you rummage on. Do you remember that I asked you to find what is missing? Carry on your search. And another question I have for you¡­ how did you feel as we passed through The Winged Wall?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib turned back briefly yet again, half expecting to see The Were-hunter, allowing her words to wander plainly as she searched her thoughts:


    ¡°Welcome¡­ until the colours changed and we were under suspicion. Before that the shining veins of ore in the tunnel were untouched, as though never raised from the ground.¡±


    They seemed to her still brightly asleep in their graves unborn, in a state to humanity unknowable, colours just that, until we give them their purposes distinct. Gadail applauded the effort with a raised eyebrow, and Serib carried on:


    ¡°Something inside waved at me; an Ancestor or Lesser that did not share the angel¡¯s fright of us. The different ores there have lived in the ground much longer than they have floated in Haven¡¯s walls, and may return. It was bronze to me, though bronze is made rather than found.¡±


    She considered the metals found or made, all once stretched through mountains and under oceans, in those satellites-colder that roam the stars.


    ¡°All of it is the earth. Unchanged for all our changes.¡± She paused a while. ¡°Origin is the word that comes to me, from a great distance.¡±


    She kept another thought to herself - how Gadail had been accusing his last apprentice of some misguidance, yet the stone-soul in the walls had waved warmly at the shamans¡¯ pass. It had perhaps overcome or outgrown such misguidance. ¡®Unchanged for all our changes¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    There was yet another tricky ledge to surpass and the angels were no help at all, fluttering across with ease. Gadail helped Serib across:


    ¡°So now you feel: how a shaman far from home or ground may still feel centred and balanced even here in Haven-sky. Your mind is a meadow more than any meadow could ever be, though as most experience, one¡¯s mind can be darker-than. To see a clear sky through the rain, so it is to hush and heed, to truly listen and observe. Haven is unique among the floating cities of Courtdom, for Haven to be of such wholly earthen construction. Others will seem more than alien to you, and to ground yourself will be a harsher task. May this be your first step, let all your steps be so.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib collected sporadic sightings of the spent volcanoes along the cruel climb; mere echoes of their last all-forming spews. Where rock though molten lived, was rock all the same. Just as humanity - in anger or asleep. With Love¡¯s warmth or Fear¡¯s cold far from Reason¡¯s measure.


    ¡°I was welcome only at first¡­¡± she continued her previous thought. ¡°¡­you passed through quietly. The earth reacted sharply to me, in stranger colours of pain. A darker bronze¡­ bronze though bloodied.¡±


    ¡°Good. A sunset pushing down a sunrise. It is your fear those elements sensed, and twist the colour of your heart, and fools equally are without fear and those too that know only complete horror.¡±


    Serib shot a glance at her master, as though challenged.


    ¡°I am not afraid.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail placed his next step away from the narrow walkway¡¯s curving, stepping into the open air. Serib¡¯s heart had not moment enough to begin drumming, it froze, until Gadail¡¯s clay boot hit something solid yet soundless in the air. He glanced cheekily at the angels whom all were some steps away from them and unaware, allowing him to further his point. Gadail stood then with both feet in the open - himself The Windlord not floating there nor falling, but having found sturdy gravity in the world¡¯s breeze upon which to stand. As a clay tree he made his stance:


    ¡°You do not fear what Hurt nor Harm may come your way, apprentice. I think you may even be indifferent to your own death for the wrong reason. Yet, not only my death, even my aging, aches I have mentioned, pains and fading, pull the heavy Truth up from your depths where you try to bury it. There is strength in burying it, though a false strength; imagine digging and planting no seeds, leaving only craters.¡±


    Before the angels could turn back and see his display of power, and perhaps misinterpret it, Gadail leaned forwards and stood again upon the narrow walkway¡¯s curving, and knelt to Serib. He removed his clay gauntlet that he could hold her shaking hand. Her heart came back to her from its wasteland cold. He placed his rough palm to her face, her forehead. As bare feet in grass are calm. His tender guidance she never wished to lose.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail wore again his gauntlet and Serib walked one step ahead of him though always behind her fear, listening as he spoke:


    ¡°Of the four elements, Earth most of all in this risen place of steel and stone senses you. Warns you against you yet supports all you could be. Origin is the word, yes - and potential. Earth is certainty, grounded, solidity. A base and soil, a gravity from which all else, to which all else. Fear has its place in all hearts, it is our scout when tempered with enough bravery. Though when given full reign and grasp of our compass, too easily it returns only with the abyss it has led us to, the abyss it first wished to escape. Or understand.¡±


    ¡°Our shamanism, master.¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°It asks us to be inhuman. To not feel.¡± Her hand was still shaking.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I understand you, so I ask: do you think I am unfeeling?¡±


    Serib knew he was not, and listened on:


    ¡°Know this - feeling will come, and only the lost seek to be without it, and that true loneliness they will never find. What our shamanism demands of us is how we control ourselves when feeling could otherwise overwhelm. Blur what could be clear. Imagine trying to help an animal and it lashes at you, unable to communicate. Imagine loving the wrong thing too deeply, and all the rest of a life from there goes awry. Not all souls can do what we do. And even we need our reminders, our nets each other. Shamanism is no destination of peace, but a lore of how to make imperfection navigable. To be just with courage to face reality, and in wisdom keep humanity from going too far away - all this is our grace."


    He read then from memory as his master had told him of an old fable, of twins lost in the cold:


    "Be attached, but do not lose your hands from holding on too tightly to that which is gone, as Benji holding onto his Anya. Do not be so sure as Anya was, and fail to see you are not alone. You will weep and sob, human, but stand tall with your virtues learned. Rage at the right things for one¡¯s fellow souls before you, and after you.¡±


    Serib breathed deeply, her shakiness subsiding into frustration, and compulsively she looked back for The Were-hunter, though behind all manner of twisted walkways-misty much of The Winged Wall was hidden. In the shadow of taller towers and yet taller volcanoes. Dull in sunless light as the quiet and the scrub of the inner city chiselled on its grating choirs:


    ¡°What is Ahlzvyr afraid of?¡± she asked. ¡°Himself a scout¡­ what abyss would you say he has returned with?¡±


    ¡°Ah, you are not interested in your own fears? We will speak more of it. Of yours and his¡­ for that may well be why he is here. His aim I believe, is to find the soul from which the Werewolves learned again to be afraid. As the angels are beginning to relearn. Hush and heed, now - as I too must concentrate for what is next.¡±


    The old master set his ear to the winds.


    ¡Þ


    Back at the crater in The Winged Wall, crab-scarab Dromiya returned to Ahlzvyr from its rites of mutilation. Abyss deep in its many eyes. The massive scarab scuttled and scraped its forelegs along its shell-plated hind and sides as to communicate. It received no answer from the dwarf.


    ¡Þ


    Pure in sunlight as the city finally turned its tide, The Hunter Lord watched a fistful of sand or snow pass through his thick fingers, seeing divination in its falling sparks unknown to lesser eyes. The leaf Gadail had blown to him was hidden amongst his many-sewn scalps, its spikes matted amongst the hairs of his beard. Nearest to his heart.


    ¡°I know, Dromiya.¡± He spoke to the bulky crab waiting for him, and spat into his growing puddle of spittle; ever since he discovered for himself ¡®what was missing¡¯, his mouth had been wrecked by a foul taste: the air all bloody to him.


    And later we will know why that is, whose blood has been spilt into the air itself.


    ¡°That apprentice has the scent and will lead us to The Dark Shaman. And if our prey proves Rabid then theirs, the last scalp of The Eight Minim, can as deliverance. And you will grow again from grub to Grand - The Grand Scarab of Aner Ba¡¯hyt, divining Truth from sand-snow. Time¡¯s regent.¡±


    Having stood from his manifest he patted his sandy fingers against his beard and picked up the dark, matted Were-pelt he had been sitting on, casting its defanged weight around his old mail and ragged leather a cloak. Over his own gaze stared lupine and blank the empty eyelids of his last prey.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Three

    Wing Marshal. Serib saw the choir was many choirs, preaching their dirge across the skies of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon as those with leaders no more. Dotted across the higher and lower towers, visible by their bundles of candles or their gaudy, artificial torches beaming from devices once capable of far more.


    ¡Þ


    She thought some were in favour of whatever had been lost, in rapture bittersweet paying all due reverence and respect. The rest sang shrieking and bellowing that an ending had come, beating one another with their fists and others all against all, and the armoured angels escorting our shamans sighed. Those guards leapt from the edges in flight to other posts, replaced soon by others more grievously armed, their spears bladed at both ends less regal, less ceremonial.


    ¡°Look, what it is they do with their freedom¡­¡± one such guard baulked.


    A return to an older, more violent age when none understood the other. The scrubbing and cleaning had ceased and Serib winced against the pungent, rusted wind, against the beating sun that would not set. They walked on, always upwards as things only worsened along the climb, unlike all she had ever read or committed to memory, where heroes of speech and thought always ¡®came down¡¯ from high places. The angels more gruesome in their speech and manner, grotesque with bulk and size Serib thought impossible unless:


    ¡°I have seen sketches, master¡­¡± She whispered. ¡°When they look less like their statues and more like their monsters¡­¡±


    ¡°Cannibalism.¡± Gadail nodded, his tone blunt in regard to the only custom that can produce such specimens. ¡°You already knew. Strange they did not look like this when we arrived¡­ stay close to me.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Mangled architectures, with all the incoherency of new structures all glass and steel creeping around more ancient brickwork. She found it pleasant to look at materials so opposed, the varied technologies at once, the candles or torches in the same scape as discs that float and go without strings to run along or combustions visible. She kept her questions to herself through all this, as ¡®what was missing¡¯ became clearer yet less believable.


    She readied how she would answer her master, serenaded by dirge and choir on those rusted winds.


    ¡Þ


    Nearing the end of their ascent, Serib and Gadail were climbing stone or metal steps far older than all the slippery steel that had been so far, winding around one of Haven¡¯s taller spires.


    She leaned constantly to her left as no railing or wall stood to her right - only the fall was waiting. Each step creaked as wood under her heels as she never would have expected, as her eyes told her it all was steel cold even in sunlight high above the world.


    ¡Þ


    Strange the stairs, winding outside the tower rather than inside. Choirs in the city below were being violently silenced or encouraged. Unrest at best, at worst a civil war beginning.


    ¡°Can we not help those souls?¡± Serib if winged or with Wind¡¯s knowledge would have leapt down there already to lend her aid, and Gadail smiled:


    ¡°We are helping. No matter how wilted a petal may be, the roots should be your aim if tree and flower are to bloom again. Attend the petals only if you can. The glory less, the virtue more.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Over all the noise of the groaning buildings, their once compact and buried ores melted-stretched into sheets wincing in the sporadic sunlight, the creak of those high steps captured Serib as she tried to turn her mind from ¡®leaves and branches¡¯ to focus on the ¡®roots¡¯:


    ¡°What material is this?¡± she asked Gadail, who was walking slightly ahead of her, his tattooed clay all dry in the higher sunlight.


    ¡°It is oakenstone; oak an¡¯ stone it might be said.¡±


    Before he would elaborate or Serib could ask further, walking and turning another cycle of the stairs winding around the final tower, a yet larger column appeared from its own nowhere blocking gone the sun and stone, and Serib gasped enough to stop walking altogether.


    From where the apprentice thought - had that behemoth-tower burst with immediacy¡¯s announce, taller than the volcanoes asleep with age - its crown-tall declaring into firmament¡¯s thoughts? Before she could, her master asked:


    ¡°Now, having gone around and around this tower, why has one turning in particular caused that to appear?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The deadly angels turned back to the shamans, covered in bruised armour, their wings feathered or fluffy as moths ruffled for balance. Emaciated they appeared now, with muscle and vein alone their purpose. Blood around their toothy mouths. Not one of their grim number reacted to the behemoth-tower, familiar with it. The armour of their wings had been torn from them. Bruised and battered angels - it is noted - having fought in battles Serib had not seen between there and the steps left behind. As though with each revolve around the winding Hadaeon-tower these soldiers of Haven had braved an entire aeon, while the shamans travelled only a step of oakenstone.


    ¡Þ


    Much to her seemed removed from the linear and the known. Separate aeons without gravity to one another. What was missing, and so had made all else so strange?


    ¡Þ


    A moment aghast Serib stared at the sudden structure most of all; behemoth-tower I have said - its stone crust engraved with the events of a story in separate scenes and tiles-relief. She had seen similar commemorative columns though none so extreme, as far below - far beyond all vision crafts with light she peered over the walkway¡¯s edge - she saw the tower¡¯s unfinished base still being constructed while its peak was almost complete. All the rest - defaced with blood and worser filth.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Where did it come from?¡± Serib asked as her stomach churned and rolled, as not only had the largest spire in all of Haven appeared from nowhere, but Dusk was also deep across the city and the skies were nodding with the fires of the stars. ¡°How can the peak be finished before the base¡­¡±


    Finally had Night come to end an endless Day, and the angels¡¯ candles tried to rival stars as none of their bulbs would shine.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°We¡¯re just behind you.¡± Gadail assured the angels, who turned their barbed eyes away and led on. ¡°Come along, and let us speak.¡± He took Serib by the shoulder, her lightning robes dimmer in the starlight.


    In the dark, the slap of her bare feet helped Serib not feel so far from the ground and all of sense - so too the creak of old wood - climbing the cliffs or mountains human-made of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, and at last the outside-steps spiralled inside the angelic tower.


    With the angel¡¯s permission and a gentle word Gadail set a torch on the wall to spark. Serib was relieved with walls here-there around her, a ceiling and floor.


    ¡Þ


    Therein her breathing was a loud echo lapping against the sides of the small room. She was waiting for Gadail to speak, and glad to be free of the steel maze of towers and climbs not meant for those without wings. She did not notice the infinity rune - the same shape as she had seen on the disc which had brought the shamans to Haven from Lake Arruikikn. It was etched in the shadows above the doorway. It was reacting to Serib¡¯s presence - pulsing with Bronze light - though webs had been spindled thick across it as to hide-discreet the hidden rune¡¯s glow. Hidden by a force we are yet to meet.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail said to her, kneeling to rest his weaker knee after their climb or better speak at her height:


    ¡°I must first apologise to you.¡±


    ¡°Why, master?¡±


    ¡°For any clumsiness in this next lesson of mine, as you and I find ourselves against a truly unique problem. I wish my own master was here. Strange as a dream all this - not since the beginning on Hemloch¡¯s craggy shores has there actually been something new under the sun - yet here we are with all our wonder under strain. The strength of our usual mantras meek.¡± He paused. ¡°Hush and heed. What is missing, I asked you before and again as I say this: do not think of where The Gravestone Column could have come from, that lumbering of grotesques we have just seen.¡± He brushed webs from his clay armour and picked them out of his hair. ¡°Ask not how its peak is finished before its base has taken root. Ask when. See the angels change, did you? And where did daylight go quick as a virtue-vanished temper and candle out, replaced by Dusk¡¯s stolen blanket? What replaced it¡­ and how. And why would it.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The angels were less fierce than they had been - there they stood deliberating in quiet murmur with one another, their shields larger and spears with clearer points. Stepping through the doorway had reverted or altered them - unaware of their weirdness - and left our shamans the same as they had been.


    ¡Þ


    Serib had her answer for Gadail though she waited with it unsure, for now unable to fully comprehend as she noticed: any sense of linearity had left long ago, and she could not count if few or many had been the moons, sunrises or sunsets since they had left their hut and home on Ehl¡¯yiteth journeying to Hadaeon. Unable to count such basic landmarks for reasons to Reason unknown, Serib instead turned to fathom the odd by other means:


    -Flying to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon disc-bound from the lake, when the sun would not set.


    -The Were-hunter, a Stalker present from another aeon long past when sand was all. As though death had come to his aeon, and not to him.


    -The angels armoured on one walkway and cruelly barbed the next. Devolved.


    -When at last the sun did set, it brought with its darkness The Gravestone Column, tallest of all Haven¡¯s pride and shame. Quick as a page can turn.


    Her answer was not only unchanged but affirmed by all she had seen and remembered. Her next thought was not her own, from a voice or voices similar to hers darker and more desperate, young for all its age:


    ¡®Is Time missing?¡¯


    That voice made a sound much like speech as it could manage through its hisses and moans, having long waited in those shadows her own. All this Serib thought to make the voice something other than her own though her own it was, else she would have felt no such revulsion.


    ¡Þ


    Holding her answer that was itself a question, she hid her confused smile as she imagined what could be if she was right, if Time was missing. Smiling at the thought of impossibilities made possible, in a mouldy little room high in the city she waited with Gadail as the angels, their deliberations apparently spent, went on through large iron doors into a hall obscure and the doors shut of their own design. And all beyond that echoing was quiet, as Serib could only hear her breathing.


    ¡°Master¡­¡± she whispered. ¡°Where is Time?¡±


    ¡°That same old and afraid look in your young eyes¡­¡± Gadail though smiling, gently shook his head, his shadow huge behind him a spectre up the wall. ¡°Your mind is right yet your heart is wrong - though a shaman¡¯s task it is - to align Love and Reason where we can.¡±


    ¡°Are you disappointed in me? Am I wrong?¡±


    ¡°What teacher would I be, expecting you to understand already?¡± his tender voice was a breeze against the room¡¯s close mould and over her nerves. ¡°A totem in your hands will help ground you to that earth. Chin up because you are right, Time is missing! And what are we to do about that? Though such a fact and state of things should not bring you lasting joy. A passing comfort for souls like us, inclined to Wish and Fancy, until second thoughts more dread.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib was absorbed by her comfort not yet passed, floating off and aloud:


    ¡°Can you imagine it, master¡­ if Time is gone¡­ how much of Suffering depends on Time¡¯s structures¡­¡± She saw the seasons leaving each other behind, in Life and Death¡¯s eternal dance: ¡°All can change as it never has before.¡±


    Her master leaned in, shifting the weight from his knee: ¡°How easily you slip down that tongued slope all-teeth away from duty and responsibility, for are words not the most internecine things of all? Away from love towards a strange love. If Time is gone, you will not need to take my place, as instead I wearily wade on forever having never begun. A breathless wind undead.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°No.¡± As Serib replied Gadail saw lightning in her eyes as one beholds such wrath behind their window in a storm and he hid his horror. ¡°Just as you have nurtured me to be: my Far Sight further sees than my own wishes, though I see now why it has failed me since the lake¡­ or even before...¡±


    ¡°Further than your own wishes? If you say so.¡± He chuckled. ¡°But yes - without Time¡¯s presence, what thread can our Far Sight follow?¡± he enunciated the word ¡®thread¡¯ strangely: ¡°History itself is harmed and so, how can our understanding of it not also be, as effects cannot be traced to their causes?¡±


    Serib smiled as she explained, admitting to him: ¡°It is not fear of being lord in your stead I carry with me; I fear losing you. My friend and guide, I never wish to see that ending where begins my every thought since I was old enough to understand that Forever cannot last. When vultures breathe and you do not.¡±


    And there was more she left unsaid, of his scent the winds carry, of how his steps shape the grassy earth, his counsel varied and wide a sea-bound estuary and for all that and more was existence greater than it was before him, and would lesser be without those souls among us whose lineage is the mountains.


    Whose breath from the first can be soft or storm.


    Whose blood is wave calm and river clean.


    Whose fire gives light to our torches.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail was for a moment quiet, his eyes up and down the brickwork¡¯s linking:


    ¡°How did sand and shore become if not from mountains ground small? Think of roots and origins and of thereafter sprawl. There are and will be worse things than death.¡± The master shaman replied strong, though his old heart was soft to have heard Serib¡¯s fears once his very own. ¡°Let this be a test between extremes - far from the ground, up here Fancy lives easier in the fantastic realms of loft and cloud closer to our dreams. I have imagined what you imagine, longer than you know. I have exhausted those plains and paths and gone through the mazes that only Truth can trudge a way into and out of - following as all shamans must: with the grace of Alyoshian strength. I have considered - is Time not the friendly enemy of all things? And how Entropy with Time is Ever? Both The Divine Twins unreachable for all our strive. Well indeed - but that is not the end of a shaman¡¯s reckoning - for ours are the hands of Nature and Human Nature both. The reach of our hands extends not to grasp at power absolute as wizards in Falsehood; who once brought themselves to their knees. Instead our reach extends to influence. To inspire. Now - there are some truths that can be taught and others must be by one¡¯s own lonesome learned, or so I am sure you have heard before. Let us see if you come to my same conclusions, or find something I never could. If you can ground yourself here in Human Nature¡¯s halls furthest from steady ground, when we return to Nature¡¯s cliffs and meadows where vultures prey, more than you ever need will be yours, and you will spend your life giving what you have taken; what you have been gifted. And you will be the gift you are.¡±A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡Þ


    Without knowing why, Serib¡¯s throat was full of words that would break her voice if she spoke and her eyes with tears were shy. The mouldy little room had moved away as Gadail spoke, and now that mustiness was all Serib could smell in its confines. Faster than she would have chosen, the iron doors screeched deeper into the long hall beyond their rust, and the angels - now wounded and splattered in blood their own and not - none seeming proud, bid the shamans to follow. Serib wiped away her quick tears.


    ¡Þ


    She had to step over dead werewolves, some-their claws as daggers long, most of them broken upon the angels¡¯ Hadaeon steel. A number of the fallen tribe - Shattyrspear their thorny flag - were robed in vermillion fabrics or with leaves sprouting from their fur braids, while others lay in wooden armour hacked apart. Moss-clumps across the bark of their armour had shrunk - blooms had wilted. There too were many angels slain, their wings slashed or altogether torn off, discarded about the indiscernible floor. One wing alone still flexed among many lifeless, trying to remain in skies it once had known.


    ¡Þ


    It is said of precious Hadaeon steel and silver that there are no tougher or lighter metals, and both to most blows are impervious, though Werewolves themselves were of Hadaeon-earth, and so a match in each other met.


    Some thinkers even believe they are the ancestors of these angels, and too possessed their own mythic strengths.


    A unity until a schism saw some werewolves sprouting wings, shedding fur.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You did not need us, I see.¡± Gadail grumbled.


    ¡°We did not think you would approve, Master Gada¡¯il.¡± A more gruesome angel replied, retrieving their spear from a skull or some mass of bone; Serib was unsure as she looked on with sorrow.


    ¡°That we would not¡­¡± Gadail brushed his clay-gauntleted fingers through and over the fur of one fallen Were, and of theirs he knew a poem well enough to speak it an echo through the dead-claw hall:


    ¡®¡­when I my last -


    lay me riverside


    under vulture skies,


    in Moon-woodlands-old of Gap¡¯elyhond.¡¯


    Gadail, Lord of Gale and Breeze sighed. Such weight his breath that the hall leaned slightly, against winds outside that he deemed should be calmer, and all in the tarnished tomb thought a tremor had come to the floating city.


    ¡°Throw them from your high walls, would you?¡± he asked the angels. ¡°Let them rest not so far from woodland-home¡­ burn them not as Rabids-spent for your furnaces¡­ let the vultures return them, as these-your heights few of Nature¡¯s wings can reach.¡±


    And to that the angels saw. With a grimace all imagined the corpses falling without grace to the earth-returned, though Gadail had deemed it the best of worser things, knowing the angels would agree to nothing more.


    ¡Þ


    Serib thought some of the fallen looked asleep, and others more clearly lay butchered. While on the other side of the iron doors she had heard no battle, no tearing and rending as there had taken place and she walked over or through, some veins were still spurting almost fresh, hearts completing their last routine.


    More infinity runes she had not seen were responsible for the strangeness - hidden by the spill of bodies and Gore¡¯s debris, their function far more than she yet knew. Markers once of passing shamans, reminders to return, that have in Timelessness changed.


    And in the strength of powerlessness accepted, she allowed her building tears to fall.


    ¡Þ


    The angels spread out their formation through the hall to do as The Master Shaman had asked, their spears and shields an array leaning wherever space allowed. Gadail was uninterested in the other rooms - their ruins bloody and decrepit; he knew what secrets or none they kept - reaching as branches from the main hall all strewn in gore the same.


    ¡Þ


    Dusk¡¯s falling light and subtle stars were visible through the broken ceiling, and Serib saw no sign of what had caused such damage. Rainbow-coloured glass crunched under all boots and she - preferring bare feet as some shamans do - passed unharmed, the soles of her feet hard for one so young. A wanderer of journeys she does not yet recall, Timelessness as it is, and her master knowingly mumbled another poem to himself from a different age:


    ¡®hard-sole -


    soft soul.¡¯


    She walked past Gadail to follow the angels slowly through the grim mess, as her master took a closer look at splatter-wrecked paintings and statues. Remaining starlight gave the sharp windows a passing glow; images once arranged in ornate pane had lost all lustre. Serib felt the rusty stench of Haven laying heavy on her skin, under her neck somehow. An air unclean.


    ¡Þ


    At the end of the hall a greatly armoured angel knelt before a crumbled altar, or so Serib thought. The angel¡¯s wings were those of a bee perhaps, without mothy fluff or avian feather and full of dusty pollens. The choirs there were loudest as though yelping from just outside the windows, and as The Wing Marshal stood and turned away from the ¡®altar¡¯ behind her, it was to Serib¡¯s knowledge instead a grandclock, decapitated and gutted, its bronze innards scattered about that one in haste and panic had searched those gears, hands and their numbers she no longer recognised, and ink-black blood had pooled long dry around the tall clock¡¯s final state. She could not fathom why ink or blood would pour from a broken clock, or even what a clock was, though knowing she once had known.


    ¡Þ


    The Wing Marshal held only half a spear. No wood tipped with steel but steel completely, clean of blood - that perhaps her foe had evaded her, Serib imagined - its shaft was splintered and its other half nowhere yet to be seen.


    ¡Þ


    Much of The Wing Marshal¡¯s silver armour was bent from blows, still blessed by bronze inlay, and eyes visible through her jagged helm pierced at Serib sharper than all shatter and splinter near. The bleak, brilliant angel looked at the young shaman for answers. Stiff and afraid Serib easier breathed as Gadail¡¯s footsteps thudded closer to her side, as Ithuriya, Wing Marshal of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, spoke:


    ¡°From horn and bell I summoned all lords of Ehl¡¯yiteth and only you have come, Windlord Gada¡¯il with a fledgeling, whose fear of Truth is of no use to us.¡±


    Ashamed as Serib felt, her fear was true, and Ithuriya continued her report:


    ¡°Scouts tell a myth of our brood attacked The Firelord - wounded they fled from that duel and no patrol has found blood nor corpse across the sand-snow of D¡¯neath. The lords of Earth and Water, whereas, we have of them no sight nor rumour at all.¡±


    ¡°A myth no longer. Dear Anaxagyr¡­¡± Gadail paused, knowing The Firelord well.


    ¡°You already know of what I speak?¡± Ithuriya raised her gaze through her broken helm to The Windlord, and Gadail nodded.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Lay¡¯d Ithuriya! I too have lost the trace of my fellows¡­¡± The Master Shaman paced, observing the dry pool of ink or black blood around the sundered grandclock. He crouched and sniffed, and pulled a twig from his hair to prod the stodgy scabs about.


    He stood and returned to Serib¡¯s side, leaving the twig soaking where it lay:


    ¡°Ehl¡¯yiteth is no sensible globe as Hadaeon, Wing Marshal. It is not in one place, its acres are a storm all its lords can traverse to or from on such tides. Its mountains separate, all are one adjoined.¡± He smiled at Serib, and she borrowed a breath of his spoken strength. ¡°The reason I suspect my lord-fellows are not here, is due your prisoner¡­ due the murder she is accused of committing somehow from her cell. How many Were¡¯s and angels here lay dead, who can say? The same reason we can no longer count all these numbers on your grandclock; or discern why the hands would point at them. I could once have told you how long this blood has been dripping just by eye or prod. What can I say now? ¡®A while¡¯ or ¡®less than that¡¯ or ¡®longer than it takes a wolf to become a dog¡¯.¡±


    What else could Gadail¡¯s words mean if not confirming Serib¡¯s previous suspicion and measure was accurate? Time was missing! Though murder was another range insurmountable to her. How could Time possibly be murdered? By who or what force would have such reach? What flesh would Time have or blood at all, or was that butchered grandclock bleeding across the hall Time somehow, an emblem of?


    ¡Þ


    Ithuriya, breathing heavily as though reliving whatever duel had rent her armour and made a splint of her spear, asked Gadail:


    ¡°Then you believe? Time has in being attacked been made flesh..."


    "And that effect is untied from its cause."


    "...and these their grandclocks in Timeless aftermath¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib thought of belief, of Truth and all its grounds of base and rules. Smelling rust from human metal she missed the earth, the mountains and their misty-Spring woodlands ancient with fresher air and quiet. A quiet far - from all that confusion - those walls containing that upheave. The quiet of wind through leaves and grass under fingers idle. The sweat of a journey. She was unprepared for what Gadail would say next, his hands weighing the winds he knew:


    ¡°I am not sure which of these to believe, as any could be certain in an aeon strange as ours: either Time is dead - wounded - or missing. I would be interested to know what The Were-hunter in your employ has found, across your frontiers and foundations. If Time indeed is no longer present it would explain much, and complicate what is already well known, what has always been well known! We may need to relearn what once was assumed and granted without our effort. The work of our ancestors comes unhinged. A miracle that we are still here at all, in Timeless aftermath as you say, when surely Here and There are words with lesser meanings than they once possessed.¡±


    After Gadail spoke, all eyes averted to their own dark, cornered thoughts. Comprehending the magnitude of his shamanic reckoning. And though no stretch of moments would ever be long enough to those that knew Time and its lost directions, its now vying dimensions, Gadail waited for their eyes to return to him, patient for their courage or curiosity or despair, and he asked:


    ¡°May we meet with your prisoner?"


    ¡Þ


    The other angels in attendance began to flap a discord throughout the ruined hall. Gadail smiled at Serib''s alarm. Ithuriya raised her splintered spear and all under its height was calmed:


    ¡°All Lillian says is secrets, woven into lasting lies. She would bereave us all of our freedom¡­ too many of the angels guarding her have fallen.¡±


    Serib looked at the dead angels around her, transfixed on that word ¡®fallen¡¯, and The Wing Marshal elaborated:


    ¡°Fallen to her allegiance, fledgeling. What Truth do they see in her Falsehood¡­ what dreams has Courtdom not granted them? In Heir Scholar Gargarensyr¡¯s words - is Truth not enough for them?¡±


    Serib was sure she had heard that name before. Gadail replied:


    ¡°Is Gargy about? How long has it been¡­¡± The master shaman jested for himself, unable to answer such questions. ¡°Are you so sure what Truth now is, as the impossible ripples all around us? And, bereave you of which freedom, To or From? Double-edged are all our once-clarities.¡± He smiled though determined in his sadness. ¡°If the same¡­ fate¡­ catches every soul tasked with keeping watch, then how do you now guard her?¡±


    ¡°It is well we are not angels, then.¡± Serib added through her tusks, somewhat late.


    Both Gadail and Ithuriya paused to look at her.


    ¡°Your fledgling has a brave beak. More than I thought.¡± Ithuriya¡¯s eyes were lighter, almost lifted from the sorrow that sat across her shoulders, her pauldrons once a proud silver and bronze of Haven alloyed, burdened by the same conflicted sorrow heard in all the choirs fighting or singing, and Serib wondered what could have brought the flying warrior low.


    The damage a duel can do, her weapon halved from it and lustre asunder, as the windows-once-a-rainbow all around.


    The damage made lighter, that perhaps the young shaman could help despite her fear, that all of Youth¡¯s rebound and vigour was not lost.


    ¡Þ


    The Wing Marshal of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon returned to the posture of her past and bearing: ¡°I have summoned you hopeful, shamans¡­ yet despair has grown in me while I waited, and I know not dark from light. I have not graced you as visitors, symbol as I should be.¡±


    Her eyes cast down to her halved spear-shaft, that beacon passed it is said from one Ithuriya to the next, and so too the name would pass from one to another, becoming more symbol embodied than individual soul. ¡°What is your guidance, Gada¡¯il? When all we once thought is not¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib silently agreed that they had not been greeted as guests. She glanced over to see if the other angels would find weakness in Ithuriya¡¯s beseeching, prideful-lot as angels were, though in most of their faces she saw only ardour and respect, having heard their Wing Marshal admit that the way and Truth was no longer known as it had been. When perhaps, in other angelic eyes, the young shaman did see Hubris sniggering, Gadail shrugged under his clay pauldrons from one uncertainty to another - as Humble considering all it can - often does:


    ¡°I will not join you in that despair. Look at us each: not all we once thought is lost. Well, I have never advised on an event so indescribable, and fundamentally upheaving¡­¡± he smiled at Serib and walked closer to Ithuriya, his sabatons squelching into the paste of scabby blood. ¡°Time, murdered. No shaman could imagine it, less imagine it condoned by Lillian from her cell. If she is your villain, I sense she was misguided in her aim.¡±


    For a moment the angels halted their redemptive work in carrying the dead from the hall, hearing Lillian¡¯s name.


    Veteran of the last battle with Falsehood, Lady of Haven and once an Heir-contender it is said, ¡®whose home has become her prison¡¯, and Serib knew finally her name incarcerate; the prisoner those guards back at the lake¡¯s steel pier had whispered of. The same that ¡®traitorous¡¯ werewolves had tried to free.


    ¡Þ


    Watching him step uncomfortably into the crackling pool of darker blood, Serib saw scratched into the grandclock¡¯s oak a symbol she had recently learned: the infinity rune. She would never see others were scrawled about the room as preparations made in haste and in haste abandoned, as gore and moved paintings - moved by whom? - covered them all.


    The grandclock¡¯s rune glowed - with bronze lightning-small and quiet in the star-dark hall.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Wait here.¡± Gadail said softly to Serib across that fallen hall, the breeze his domain, carrying his voice. ¡°And try not to touch this¡­ without holding your fear by the hand, and taking it somewhere gentler. This will lead you - eventually - to an ancestor of Earth, and your first totem.¡± his hand hovered by the gutted grandclock, before he and cleaved-Ithuriya stepped away towards another set of iron doors that creaked open to their approach.


    His words still on the wind, only for her to know:


    ¡°As it is for all apprentices, you have been trained and will now go alone being your own master, your own student.¡±


    One other angel went with them as Gadail bid them to - one of those that had sniggered with Hubris. An angel unarmed - totemless, Serib thought. Just as she was.


    ¡Þ


    She did not wish to take her eyes from her master. Would he soon be gone forever, or some cruelty visit him quicker than she could defend against? In that uncertainty of Timelessness she had found herself within, her heart froze as before. She did not flinch nor blink and eventually Gadail with Ithuriya among other angels closed the great doors behind them. Rust scraped on itself against Serib¡¯s every will. She wished immediately she had run after him, splashing through the thick blood, though so it is for some of us when our heart and mind are not aligned.


    Could he not have said farewell? If he had, would she have let him go?


    ¡Þ


    With Gadail¡¯s departure, Serib¡¯s quest had begun - away from apprenticeship and into shamanism proper.


    A totem-Earthen her own to find and thrice imbue with Fire, Spacious and Wind. Then her totem would be as the hammers of Old Gada¡¯il. Weapons only in direst need, and in all other instances a symbol to Humanity, a tether to Nature, and she the bridge between.


    ¡Þ


    The Windlord had asked Serib to avoid the grandcock knowingly, quite sure that eventually her youth would overcome her, as his own had once overcome him. She traded pleasantries with the dutiful angels that remained to carry the dead werewolves away, guarding the door Ithuriya and Gadail had passed through.


    ¡Þ


    Walking among blood that would not dry or had been dry too long, Serib sketched with her fingers the various artworks, the statues in particular. She imagined the shapeless chunks they must once have been. On the spirit-journey from Ehl¡¯yiteth to Hadaeon, she and Gadail had rested in a desert scarce of shade where an old potter-friend made their home. The two shamans stopped not long enough for Serib to learn such arts, only long enough for her to become intrigued, to wish they could have stayed longer.


    ¡Þ


    Waiting for Ithuriya to return, angels asked Serib what the future held, alas she could not answer as they wished, as Timelessness had broken a power once strong, as Far Sight on the patterns of History relies. She tried to explain that patterning - as it is known by some - the way of looking to the past to divine the future or how the present next should move to virtue, while reliable was not exact.


    What interest had they in limit, nuance or context?


    Further with Time missing, History had been among the first to fall. Hindsight was still a tool she possessed, though as she tried recounting to the angels, it seemed to herself and them she spoke of events which had not yet occurred. Events long old to her youth. In Timelessness would these ever come to pass? Thus among their number some thought her confusing, and therefore assumed her to be credible.


    ¡Þ


    Meanwhile the ceiling had its charms, Serib was sure, and she searched for those charms as she waited to know what she should do next.


    When has she not followed and been as her master¡¯s shadow?


    ¡Þ


    Waiting for herself, always in the corners of her eyes and thoughts the broken grandclock waited alike.


    ¡Þ


    Timidly she approached it at last, shuddering at the sucker-covered limbs hanging limply out of the coffin, feeling the blood thick between her toes. The limbs inside reeked as would an ocean¡¯s carcass washed ashore. She looked over to one of the barbed angels expecting them to step in and stop her, though as her brownish-bronze eyes met the strained, bloodshot stare of the armoured angel, the Hadaean said to her dismissively:


    ¡°What more harm can be done?¡± they joined their winged kin who each were listening to the dirge outside in the streets below.


    Some hummed sadly along; veterans enjoying Respite¡¯s presence. Serib felt that she and Gadail were too late to dispel what human Despair was cloudy over the city above all Nature. Or too early, it could be said, that only when it seemed too late to turn back, could they finally do so. By tome¡¯s end such thoughts of extremes shall make more sense, I hope.


    ¡Þ


    The clock¡¯s cold blood once warm, rich with the minerals of the earth. Veins among veins. A chill tinging red the hem of her robes. She almost tripped on a step hidden under all the mess and innards. With firmer footing she stepped and the broken grandclock was taller than any sensible soul; still it loomed despite its sundering.


    To spite its halving.


    ¡Þ


    There was foamy blood where the creature had tried to breathe. Lifeless from what motion she imagined it once possessed. Clinging onto its faded numbers that can no longer be read. The infinity rune, clearly to her reckoning added recently, was no longer bronze. It pulsed instead an unsettling meld of colours: here crimson and violet there. Its mechanisms of wood and flesh. Her master¡¯s words still a weight:


    ¡®¡­try not to touch this¡­ without holding your fear by the hand, and taking it somewhere gentler.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    A while her hand waited, unsure if she should reach out to touch the dire thing or walk away; what would happen if she did or not. Where else would she go?


    ¡°If Time is dead¡­¡± she whispered to the broken construct, to the fallen creature. ¡°¡­then can Spring be eternal? And Youth forever¡­ and Suffering banished never-born¡­¡±


    If Time was missing, no force of Nature had made it so. Only Human fear would dare that far and high, a fear such as hers she knew its shape: a fear of all Future brings and love of all that is or was, a love sworn to Spring¡¯s replenish and return.


    She only reached out slightly and slowly yet with full intent to touch the butchered grandclock, and that was all The Prisoner Lillian required.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Four

    Coiled dawn. Serib¡¯s eyes blinked hard as cliffs collapsing eroded onto their shores and all was darkness as a strange liquid surrounded her weightless and she awoke relieved - her feet on the ground again - standing in a similar hall-Hadaean though bright with sunlight through its all-coloured windows. Each complete pane dedicated to the distinct myths of Courtdom¡¯s founding. A roof unfinished and walls unlaid. Her left hand was touching the grandclock even taller, its form polished and anew. Its oak decorated or defaced with runed graffiti.


    ¡Þ


    She pulled her hand away from the construct stunned at her surroundings, and she had a sense that holding on a moment longer would propel her elsewhere yet. The forests of Hadaeon were around her, those ancient trees that made lush the shores of Lake Arruikikn: The Woodlands Old of Gap¡¯elyhond.


    No longer in Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, but upon the ground from which the angelic city once had come, she found herself lost.


    ¡®How¡¯ was furthest from her mind as she little believed her senses, squinting in the sunlight, thinking some waking dream had visited her, that Gadail¡¯s salve-tea or the farbark had been too strong.


    ¡®What was in that tea at the lake¡­¡¯ her thoughts wandered over the ruins that moss and root held together.


    With the roof unfinished and walls unlaid, it was either a ruin she stood among or otherwise abandoned plans.


    Wildflowers were in bloom everywhere - the ruins indeed of the same Hadaeon-hall she had just been standing in with Gadail and Ithuriya - yet smothered in Spring¡¯s leaves and petals as though having there lain untouched for ages. For a Spring too long.


    ¡Þ


    Question it as she did or may, sunrise otherwise was bright through the unfinished roof as has been said though it must be repeated, as she repeated such thoughts to herself deranged in her uncertainty, trying to understand what was and was not. For a mere touch had flung her so from one place-of-aeon to another. She recalled her training, flexed her toes through the rough grass, saw clear the snowy mountains crowning the warming horizon. Focusing on those details she could realise and return.


    She explored. In all rocks of old and brick unused she touched or held there was no sturdiness inherent, no foundation nor frontier for which the element of Earth is to shamans known. Even pebbles in her pocket, those Gadail took from her back at the lake, would not have helped her remain grounded. The windows were perhaps the closest thing, yet far removed with the process of their making.


    ¡Þ


    Awhile Serib stewed in thought until the grandclock, though similarly overgrown with vines and their blooms, began to discordantly chime out its former glory. As one note rang another would start and a third which had not yet begun would end abruptly. Unwelcome she felt ushered to leave, that in her absence would the dire chimes of dissonance cease. All of its inner slime was behind oak and numbered masks she could no longer read.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Only we know Serib has joined - since the lake or before it, and will join the rest of us - in Timeless aftermath. ¡®Aftermath¡¯ the wording Ithuriya had chosen, and so shall I.


    ¡Þ


    Cupping her ears from the chimes grinding unnaturally she walked away from the overgrown hall as to search for answers, as in her heart a dark hope had fully hatched. It seemed not only space she had travelled through with only a touch; she had trespassed through what once was Time¡¯s sole concern. A hope until then and now unthinkable, yet encompassing all she had ever wished for, ever since she was old enough to know her mother¡¯s own fears. If Time was dead then all she feared could be changed - rearranged - and who among us has not considered such reordering, sad with fantasy?


    ¡Þ


    Though as you might imagine, a shaman¡¯s way for which she has been raised, is a bridging between Nature and Human Nature, not a tale of one lording over the other. As far as she knew, all she wished for was a quake unsettling all that was true, against The Truth which had made possible cities soaring O¡¯er worlds rather than Upon them, and had dispelled tumultuous ages dark before her own. The Truth from which the stars and their darkness first spun: Reality and its laws ultimate.


    ¡Þ


    And which of these wonders Human or otherwise would have been possible without Time¡¯s pass? Without mistakes by Hindsight''s comfort discovered and discarded? Without ideas allowed to die through discourse, for is that not what separates us from the rest?


    How else could Courtdom have cured itself out of an age when Humanity was ruled by Need? Another tale for another tome, how Greed¡¯s age followed, when Need¡¯s mouth at last was shut.


    Cured, Serib knew, though in so curing Humanity had found a new uncertainty to resolve, and shamans more than ever were in demand. Entertainers as well; of all things what a strange pairing.


    ¡Þ


    Threading back to our tale here, what did Serib care for floating cities and all they symbolised? Better she thought if the angels had nothing of crawl or prowl upon the earth to fear at all. Her thoughts dwelled not on wonders but on suffering and pain, on the loss of wonders as is Time¡¯s impermanent, yet infinite way.


    Dwelled on the future loss of Old Gadail.


    ¡Þ


    Time flowed always with Entropy, whose name Gadail once had said, had a different meaning in a different age, though she knew well enough it was Time and Entropy that had given her master to her and would take him away. They had already taken her family away, or her away from them, lest her shamanic traits untrained become ¡®a hole or wound in the order of things.¡¯


    All these - the scenes of Reality¡¯s nameless frames.


    All these - the reality Chaos, Chance and Change have made of their happenstance without design.


    ¡Þ


    It is here or there in that forest Serib found herself and some believe, that she began to confuse Tragedy and Evil. For Evil was conquered when Falsehood fell under Courtdom¡¯s ways gone with Need¡¯s hungering aeon; and hearts as hers and Lillian¡¯s were left with one enemy.


    A tragedy incurable of the human fable, that shamans and entertainers were helping to ease as the new age found its footing.


    Do we not always want more and more?


    ¡Þ


    Time¡¯s disappearance had shown only sadness to her among the angels-Hadaean - sadness that the disappearance perhaps had already happened, sadness that it perhaps had not - and never could. And so with dark notions she went, her coiled heart marred and all at once certain of two extremes.


    ¡®Time is missing - what now?¡¯ she asked herself striding through the woodland-murk, her own master and student, and Gadail¡¯s faith went with her.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Five

    The Stalker. Missing Gadail¡¯s words and farbark most, awhile alone with her thoughts Serib was welcome among the feet of Hadaean mountains where woodlands tall were holy-green, trees unaware of Time¡¯s depart growing as they ever had, wind-blown leaves their song. She tried to heed as Gadail had told her - that she was there to know Earth as an element and all its ancestors; the shamans that had come even before her master-old. The ancestors they could eventually, inevitably join, should they leave existence greater than it was found.


    ¡Þ


    A history enriching the future. She could not imagine Gadail as an ancestor let alone herself, to whom young shamans would come in pilgrimage, for totem and boon alike.


    If not Chance, she had wondered before who or what decided such worthiness, in the cycle of Time¡¯s permanent finity.


    ¡Þ


    These are thought by most scholars, to be her first steps away from apprenticeship and into shamanism proper. Away from certainty and into doubts believed, doubts we all must take to their endings.


    ¡Þ


    Welcome as Serib was in Nature¡¯s woodlands-Gapel¡¯ond or was it Gapel¡¯yhond, in no cave full of humanity¡¯s artworks, nor meadow untouched of the mountains-Hadaeon could she find an Ancestor to greet her. She felt the presence of Earth nonetheless. Heard an older howl echoing and of that she knew not what to make, as when she followed the sound it seemed only further away.


    ¡Þ


    The ¡®presence¡¯ nodded sleepily and old in the bend of wind-touched trees. Moss-furred branches leaned above as to let the sunshine pave a path of light for her through the brush. Stones rich with iron cracked by giant tree roots. And though she wandered as her wonder sketched along that sun-tread way, not a soul did she meet, forgetting she was with herself.


    She felt guided nonetheless, by a force that did not yet see fit to meet her.


    For who can know who else might be reading?


    ¡Þ


    She tried to count the miles though beyond eight of them she could reckon no further before she had to start counting again, and soon - downwards led every path she found, away from the mountain¡¯s sheer - paths tread or not by human feet and otherwise. Signs she found abundant that to us would mean little, signs that other shamans had through here as pilgrims followed a well-worn path.


    ¡Þ


    Grimmer signs more obvious to you and I soon disturbed her: there were tufts of thick fur matted in the sharper leaves. Indifferent Death reeked upon the winds from the valley below and if she took too deep a breath she retched and coughed.


    Indifferent Death, faceless and everywhere, of great involve in the patterns of Time and Entropy¡¯s Elope; little mentioned and easily forgotten is the dread simplicity that all things are born and will expire, the shame that with Truth awry some of us can see no further than that, unsure what worth or purpose finite things can have.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡Þ


    She was jaded with such thoughts, as in that valley there were huts among the trees, large as houses resting weightless as bird nests. And above those rooting-rooves - readying their nameless rituals - vultures high soared as the death she had smelt was clearer: werewolves were hung from their homes, across the sunny path ahead where flies made their discord. Some homes had come unfastened and lay strewn over the mountain-forest floor. Homes of fur, oak and leather. Pots of stew still hot, spilt steaming across the grass.


    Something grabbed her.


    ¡Þ


    Her arm it clenched between its pincers, larger than the huts it had ruined was its size. Fat with the Werewolves it had swallowed. Insect wings buzzed wider than Serib was tall as it attacked her. Wings vibrating all that was near to take her away into a hollow it had carved in the clouds or bury her in its hovel underground she feared and fought against. Bronze lightning flashed from Serib¡¯s eyes and would soon strike the grand insect from the skies, though she heard shout from above a known voice that ceased her retaliation. The massive beetle released her sore arm from its pinch and she was glad to find no severe wound. The creature¡¯s master - unseen until it was his wish to be seen - was sitting among the leaves above:


    ¡°Nay, Enanti.¡± The Stalker had spoken, calling off his growing companion.


    The grand crab or beetle scurried off through the trees shouldering them out of its way and once it was gone from her view, Serib heard a dire rumbling, fearing the thing had burrowed into the ground.


    ¡Þ


    The Hunter Lord Ahlzvyr tucked away a sand-dusted page he had been reading and remained there perched up high. He watched her with the indifference of eagles and other raptors. Serib could not see if he was sitting or standing, or entirely integrated into the trees. Infinity runes had long ago been scored with frustration or desperate fashion into the bark around him. Into the stones at their roots.


    ¡°Confuse not Enanti¡¯s hunger with my hunt. They are a young grub growing always while I am pleased of your being lured here by chance. Another step and it all will change.¡± He warned or encouraged. ¡°Though which way will you choose? And so mine determine.¡±


    ¡®Another step?¡¯ Serib crouched to move aside the still-warm arm of a Were recently slain and scalped by her feet, and underneath the corpse was a crude infinity rune carved through the grass into cold mud. It glowed with a soft bronze light as her eyes followed its curve. She was dizzy staring at it, though something about the ¡®rune¡¯ was incomplete or ingenuine, and so she was not transported through the odd warps of Timelessness.


    ¡°You have been leaving these runes?¡± she called up to The Stalker, unable to see him.


    ¡°My prey began to, and I learned then the difficulty of our chase. She navigates this Timelessness with an ease I cannot yet.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail had told Serib it was his last apprentice who left these runes, and so she asked:


    ¡°You are hunting a shaman?¡±


    ¡°If my prey can still be numbered as one of your kin. A spirit I would closer say, having shed her corporeal flesh leaving order behind in effort to craft order anew and redefined on her path a radical. Step across my butchered rune and we shall see if you are caught by its spell, if I have learned what is known to her and at last made equal our chase. I will make clear to you what I know¡­ and perhaps you do not need to become my prey.¡±


    ¡°I do not fear death by your hand or the claws of your creature.¡± Serib barred her tusks at the hunter¡¯s words, at wherever she thought he was.


    ¡°I believe you. Then you are lost to all virtue as Fearlessness is a fool¡¯s retreat far from Bravery¡¯s famed grave.¡± Leaves rustled behind her.


    ¡Þ


    Vultures continued spanning their effortless circles through the mountain-skies waiting for rot, and Serib too young perhaps in mind or heart to decide between extremes of coming or going, felt a moment powerless against the deep mystery of forces beyond her. Or was she herself, her own barrier and momentum both? She could not with any resolve bring herself to step across the infinity rune in the mud.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Totemless illiterate.¡± The Stalker spat - Serib felt Ahlzvyr¡¯s heel in her back and she tumbled over the makeshift sigil. ¡°Let our chase convene onto another side.¡±

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Six

    His monument. The rune was not so incomplete as she first thought. The woodland much had changed from gold to bronze as Serib, disappointed to have been tricked or forced, opened her already frowning eyes. A final sunset was low against the horizon with its shadows long across the ground, and so her own shadow all the more was spindly.


    ¡Þ


    Standing bruised and brushing stray grass from her lightning-patterned robes, she dimly saw where The Hunter Lord and exterminated werewolves had been: there were instead strange angels among the trees, murmuring most of them, living among those twine-tops in buildings known to be made of oaken-stone; a branching marble to our eyes. As bees their wings, or butterfly or dragonfly, from insects much the same as she had seen on the other Courtdom-worlds of her travels with Gadail. The angels were humming void of any tune one¡¯s ears could recite, for what can rhyme be without Time¡¯s pass and contrast?


    ¡Þ


    Through rain and Winter¡¯s snow the angels¡¯ homes had not been tended to. Leafy branches rooted through glassless windows. Doors-overgrown could no longer open. The dreaming angels did not heed Serib¡¯s passing as she made tentative way, nor answer her calling up to them for aid and direction. Even when she knocked on their trees and with a shamanic glare asked the branches to bend and sway, the angels - bearing no armour nor weaponry - could not be unsettled from their ghostly hum unsung. Few wore clothing at all. She climbed one such tree to find firm shroom and lichen Viridian in colour had begun to grow over the angels¡¯ feet - across their wings and hands - they were perhaps deaf to Human Nature she thought, being of an age heavy with quiet having long gone unvisited. An age of Nature¡¯s more and Humanity¡¯s less.


    ¡Þ


    Concerned why The Hunter Lord would mention her totemless state, following the mossy way still downward through the flickering shadows of leaves overhead, Serib passed into an even larger shadow.


    ¡Þ


    She almost tripped over discarded bricks and stones, having found an odd structure jutting out of the uneven ground. It may have once been part of a massive gate or wall, though volcanic echoes had since ebbed and flowed so that rocks and woodland had longer thrown their tress-beards, leaving only the wall¡¯s wind vanes and the featureless heads of its statues known. And to her mind was called The Winged Wall of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, here perhaps upon-again. Returned to its whence and so reclaimed by it.


    ¡Þ


    The statues were of Werewolves and Angels aligned. Wolves though winged or humans fanged and furred. As all shamans are in part Historians, Serib understood what these figures represented - souls between Nature and Human Nature, ground and sky, Truth and its endless search - and the imperfect dance between. And so she saw them as kindred to her, herself being human though tusked, a shaman bridging Love¡¯s heights to Reason¡¯s depths, and Love¡¯s depths so on.


    ¡Þ


    Half on the lookout for The Stalker, a while she examined these statues intrigued, again thinking of Gadail¡¯s old potter friend in the desert, what statues they might have made or if tea sets for shamans were more their concern.


    She could not see this next part as we can, for the grass and confusion were too long: the name ¡®Iron-Chest¡¯ was etched commemorative at the foot of a monument nearby, its features worn and unclear.


    ¡Þ


    From the rough-fur arms of that nigh-submerged statue however, Serib heard a sound at which she almost laughed - an angel was deep in snores. Nostrils blocked with pollen. Wearing fallen leaves and holding a bundle of wildflower buds, the sleeper was startled by Serib¡¯s approach - stretching feebly from the statue¡¯s cradle unable to stand:


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Oh my¡­¡± the small angel had risen partly and in doing so, the mossy dust of ages fell from them. ¡°I have been here in tradition only. I was told the last pilgrim had been and gone, though the penultimate was yet to come, and I must have nodded off trying to understand! Welcome, wretched, wingless thing! What tusks and locks so long¡­ what a blessed number of locks you have¡­ come and be not wretched, for are all not responsible for all? And are you the last of all things...¡±


    Much of their musculature had withered in being so still for so long - Serib climbed and helped the angel down from their cradling statue. Their weak legs buckled under them when trying to stand alone and she felt foolish for not leaving them in those everlasting arms. Pollen or similar dust fluffed away from them, sparkling in the stray sunlight over Spring¡¯s sunset-glade. They reeked of moss and damp. Behind the angel shone a signpost claimed by dew which read a word to the young shaman:


    Orphan¡¯age


    ¡Þ


    ¡°What is this place?¡± Serib asked the angel who in their weakness, preferred with the young shaman¡¯s help a seat among the weeds and their flowers. ¡°What was this place¡­¡±


    ¡°Are you a refugee, the last of them?¡± the angel plucked their flowers and feebly tried through failure to throw the petals over Serib, who with her brow askew somewhat replied, bewildered in the angelic wilderness.


    When the young shaman seemed unsure, the withered angel said:


    ¡°Speak louder, prouder. Are you a pilgrim at least, penultimate to see Lady Lillian¡¯s cell? And walk into the smog beyond¡¯t¡­¡±


    ¡°Where is that?¡± Serib¡¯s focus narrowed.


    The angel seemed disappointed, thumbing through ideas: ¡°Are you¡­ are you an orphan?¡±


    The young shaman¡¯s heart was sore as she answered, forgetting her pincered arm: ¡°Not quite¡­ but, can¡¯t you hear me?¡±


    The angel squinted and sighed, looking past Serib¡¯s tusks and into her mouth:


    ¡°Dear pilgrim¡­ you cannot hear me¡­¡±


    ¡°I think it is you that cannot hear me.¡± The young shaman also sighed.


    ¡Þ


    Serib heard no gigantic beetle, only relentless flies as The Stalker¡¯s voice again gave his grim command:


    ¡°Nay, Dromiya.¡±


    His pet was nowhere, though Serib turned to her right and there he was close to her - Ahlzvyr, Hunter Lord - his short legs did not dangle as before but were firm on the woodland ground as he sat. The once-Winged Wall of Haven he sat atop was more a fence, to a walled garden forlorn with eroded partition.


    ¡Þ


    Flies came to bother the stale scalps sewn to his blond pelt and faded tabard. He stood from the walling stones with help from his halberd thrice his height was tall for hunting mighty prey indeed, and Serib feared it could butcher her easily. The lightning of her eyes flashed as in the halberd¡¯s grievous sight and curve she saw the ending of her dark desires. She had not feared fully for herself before, perhaps always aware that Gadail was never far and so her worries had been for him.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Dim your storm or I¡¯ll snuff it for you. Save your mettle.¡± The Stalker spoke lighter after that. ¡°This is close enough, eh? Seems I have learned somewhat the mystery of these runes¡­ each of us hurtled to other ends of the woodland, but in the same woodland nonetheless.¡±


    Serib growled and the weakling angel stared cluelessly at The Stalker.


    Though only an apprentice, rocks and lightning were names Serib knew and would have readied her defences, had The Stalker not already called off his pet and said through his sandy beard:


    ¡°Come with me - away from this angel. These gatekeepers have forgotten human sound and hear only Nature¡¯s songs, thinking The Ending has already come. Mess of a lineage you¡¯ve found yourself in, moth.¡±


    The Stalker set off into the trees. Her words followed him before her feet:


    ¡°You kicked me into it¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    At first reluctant to leave the helpless angel, she relented and ran to catch him up. Though young she was taller and he was much the wider, with a boulder¡¯s subtlety his free arm waded through the thick forest, his other hand for his halberd. Yet with all the grace and care of a fawn he placed each footfall leaving scarce trace he there had passed. Serib¡¯s bare feet thumped far clumsier behind him.


    ¡Þ


    Before leaving the hill-buried wall completely our shaman turned back to see the massive, crab-scarab Dromiya, clicking, clacking and bubbling at the angel, and that simpler soul tried prancing to dream elsewhere as it long had. Prancing with arms and giggles only, their legs without reply. She did not hear the angel say to the giant grub, though we can if we like:


    ¡°You are here to send the smog away? No, this is blissful¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    And Serib guessed that Dromiya hungry a grub as it was, had appetite only for the enemies of Time. Despite Time and Truth being the forces - or so Serib thought - that had ended the age of their lineage of the Sifting Sand-snow, Dromiya was loyal. As Ahlzvyr no doubt had raised them to be: raised to see in Time and Reality no Evil deliberate, only Tragedy to accept forthrightly.


    As the angel tried to prance, it fell, and the massive scarab carried them back to their cradling statue: ¡®Iron-Chest¡¯ the monument¡¯s overgrown name.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Seven

    Entropy¡¯s sibling. ¡°Moth?¡± Serib grunted through her tusks at The Hunter Lord as a branch scratched into her hair and scalp. ¡°I thought I was an illiterate?¡±


    ¡°Both. Eating away at the fabric of things, drawn to perilous dawns without really knowing why. Keep to the path with me and ask as you will.¡±


    ¡°You said you would tell me all you know.¡±


    ¡°You needed much encouraging¡­¡± The dwarf¡¯s beard was too thick to show his sly smirk - his eyes a strong stare. Blank. ¡°¡­as I was told you would. A heel in your back to start your trajectory. There have been worse beginnings.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Ahlzvyr began foraging through berried bushes, his thick fingers sorting the sweet from the poisonous from the unripe when Serib refused:


    ¡°I am far from home and master - from sense at all - why would I go anywhere with you? Killer, scout and hunter¡­ flies and vultures follow you. With Time¡¯s disappearance, I can go where I must, in search of my totem.¡±


    She spoke, though unsure if she believed her purpose. An instability The Stalker seized:


    ¡°Ah, your nose and your eyes tell you enough? That I stink enough for flies, bones in my breath and my earned scalps offend your sight? What else was Courtdom built upon if not the age of Violence first and Greed thereafter? Do you know what hunger is? Have you ever been hated for your body or beliefs alone? Nay, all cured great before your ages. And all was well for a while longer than any while that was well preceding. And where else after that stability from the spoils of Violence and Greed, for in those hordes was a gem illusory: to be Free From Evil. Where else from there, other than to Freedom absolute, ideas too far that have us in this Timeless mess? Humanity thought it had cured everything else and even Nature was no longer safe. And when you shamans devised your rites, tasks and trajectories for lost Humanity, who do you think was first sent into chaos to chart and map the disorder? How else would a Stalker appear, if not as I do? From frontiers where war is law and lore. What will your ears hear in my words if you listen further than your fear allows?¡±


    He seemed to her a soul that had too long walked alone, and said everything that long had brewed on his solitary mind.


    ¡°Totemless moth - Earth is first for you lot, eh? Then Fire, Water¡¯s space and Wind the last. Why the wide eyes? I have seen the journeys. I have helped and hunted many of your kin and know your ways. I have long obeyed when it was necessary. Earth is in all you can touch, so here. Better know me - and see as well there are worse than flies and vultures.¡±


    He reached to shake her hand as to help Serib understand the answer: what if Time did not return? The end that Ahlzvyr was trying to avoid.


    ¡Þ


    Scowling she grasped him to his elbow and he to hers. His rough or hairy grip was a vice about her arm, a hand that had traced the tracks of many a soon-doomed prey and seen to the demolition of rogue stars, and other such hunts impossible.


    ¡°Why those stars?¡±


    ¡°Well asked. I was told they were in the way.¡±


    There was certainty in his strength, his stare and grip were one severe force. She looked into his eyes and saw he could not deceive. Truth was his only task, as was the way for all under Truthdom; following Truth wherever it lead. ''And so was Courtdom raised'' they say.


    ¡Þ


    His certainty in himself and task was the sort Serib had searched for in herself, holding bricks and stones to try and centre herself. The Hunter Lord was grounded in the sense that Gadail was, the same almost peaceful state that Gadail wished for Serib - the peace of knowing one¡¯s purpose and becoming its adherent, of giving oneself wholly. His words still home:


    ¡®¡­when we return to Nature¡¯s cliffs and meadows where vultures prey, more than you ever need will be yours, and you will spend your life giving what you have taken; what you have been gifted. And you will be the gift you are.¡¯


    How things began in Violence is not how they shall end.


    ¡Þ


    Having released from each other¡¯s grip, Serib then having absorbed all he had said - as even stones can grow damp - clearer saw through all distraction and asked:


    ¡°The grave-leaf my master sent to you with his breath¡­ back at The Winged Wall¡­ he guided you here? To help me centre myself and find my first totem?¡±


    ¡°Better, eh?¡± The Stalker grunted. ¡°An old favour called. When all the muck and mess is brushed aside: the rest straight as arrows. As I said - keep to the path. Away from the Viridian Smog.¡± He implored, walking off along the sun-tread and foraging as he went, offering Serib not a morsel: ¡°You were to meet an earthen ancestor here though all that remains of him in this aeon is a statue.¡±


    Serib stopped walking and turned back to see the ruins left behind, though the woodland was already dense between, covered now in greenish mist unwell, and the branching marble of oakenstone was gone from view.


    ¡°Away from the smog, I said.¡± Serib heard, and quickly trotted after him wondering what lurked in that sickly forest air.


    ¡Þ


    A suspicion clouded her: she should be going off alone to earn her totem, not overseen by Ahlzvyr despite Gadail¡¯s absence, a stranger to their ways. ¡®An old favour called¡¯. What worth would such a totem have, one to which her master had fully led her steps? Did he not trust her, or fear where her thoughts-alone could lead?


    ¡Þ


    She followed with her objections:


    ¡°Something has happened to Time¡­ murdered, missing or not. You should not be here in this age beyond your own. How can you and Gadail know one another enough for an old favour, he surely is not so old? Do you know how this is possible? What happened?¡±


    Strong enough and yet she missed her master¡¯s guidance, his handling that would not always be there if Time went its linear way.


    ¡°That deaf angel spoke to you of last¡¯s and penultimate¡¯s, eh? It is these we now contend with - inconsistencies and impossibilities. You and I both are trespassers on a page not our own, both trackers trying to bring sense back from nonsense because indeed Time is not what it once was and had always been: my age ended and yet there was no rest as there should have been. A rest that I remember going into.¡±


    ¡°A rest you remember, because The Sifting Sands turned to dust. To ash¡­¡± Serib wondered which was true - had rest been kept from him or not? How could both be true?


    ¡°The sand-snow.¡± He corrected her. ¡°And all was well a while.¡± The Stalker nodded without answering, spitting out the seeds of berries as he went, forgoing their crunch that more would grow where he had been.


    Grow, against the strange mist out there in the woodland Viridian-green, away from the sun-tread path.


    ¡Þ


    Serib knew both could not be true, though knowing Time was uncertain made the twisted seem straight:


    ¡°I understand that all stalkers had masters in your ages¡­ and their prey was yours. Who do you serve, then, far away from your own age?¡±


    ¡°For an illiterate you remember well enough. Truth is my answer here - though that will not satisfy you for Truth is not enough for you¡­ just as Lillian knows your fear as virtue and will call out to you if she has not already, your fear to me is pungent. Fear is the scent I follow. The Grand Scarab, my master when youth was mine - is now one grain among the infinite sands of their lineage. I know now - they were slain by Lillian ¡®before their Time¡¯ and such are her schemes - we loyalists were all convinced that our age had come to natural rot and raised little defence for what defence is there against the way of all flesh? That is all the old stories were ever about, and we learned from them. When Boiled Angels swarmed our amber-skies¡­ Truth had trained us to let it all go and we did to our graves. To in Change show grace. Some of us instead went to the seas we had never seen.¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Serib noticed every step Ahlzvyr made was away from the what if¡¯s and their if only¡¯s, tempting as those tunnelled meadows are. He remained in soft-leaf woodlands strange to him, missing sand¡¯s windswept course.


    ¡°Why did Lillian kill your master?¡±


    ¡°There is an arena.¡± The Hunter Lord began. ¡°Its ultimate prize The Gift of Anything so named, granted by Greed himself. What else would satisfy as entertainment with Need no more? One¡¯s time left was for many the only currency that had any worth. He and only he who from his piles of Everything could have imagined such contest once reserved for the rabid and other criminals. Fools though strong and victorious ask for foolish things, of course. Left with a vital frivolity to answer: what is humanity and Courtdom to do with its crown jewel: with its freedom from evil? And Lillian was the face of that discontent, veteran of Falsehood¡¯s endless conflict, fought to the arena¡¯s heart. What should such a soul do in such an age, to go from rogue stars to bread and cakes alone? She asked as her Gift of Anything for no armies nor armadas for spectacle further, no riches meaningless in this age of Greed, no wordplays inane. Having comprehended all the grief of the universe with Why in her own heart she asked as her Anything: Where is Fate? And with that location unheard of, she found eventually where Time resides unknown, uncovered that Time was a being as you and I. As her. As had never been before. My master, The Grand Scarab, was a defender of Time, keeper of Nature¡¯s few secrets from Humanity, for Humanity with destiny manifest, climbs all it can.¡±


    ¡°The Grand Scarab was in Lillian¡¯s way¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    The more Serib heard of Lillian, the more a traitor to all things she seemed; though she dared wonder: was treason what was needed? Was Time Reality¡¯s only way? Do words yet exist for what should be next or do old words need to change? Could Suffering and impermanent Seasons be amended? The course of things given and taken away.


    It felt that as The Stalker pulled Serib in one direction - a direction of Gadail¡¯s choice in his absence - her fear was weight and shadow towards a different path.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Then what is Enanti? An offspring of your old master?¡± Serib dreaded where that crab-scarab lurked, under the earth or among its leaning trees.


    ¡°An heir-hatchling, yes.¡± Ahlzvyr seemed for a moment impressed. ¡°As we go I see better the glint of what Old Gada¡¯il sees in you.¡± The Stalker went on to explain: ¡°I have become Enanti¡¯s regent, a word I use loosely as the titles of Courtdom mean little now with Time in states unsure. So I am - regent of what? Of hope that this exile in undeath is not the ending, that Time can yet be found and saved. That Time is not murdered but wounded and in hiding and can so be found, that the attempt on their life has not driven them rabid. I am hopeful that Enanti will grow and the sands will sparkle under the sun again; The Sifting sifted to fulfil what was destined, what Lillian has destroyed. That worlds will again turn with the stars of their divine, I hope. The sand-snow all turned to ash when dust should have sufficed. A sight I hope you never see lest it inspire your desires further or crush your hope completely. Though this Timelessness a weapon Lillian has unleashed is internecine at best, it shall be her downfall. I set out with only a halberd and a hound in my youth and have learned much from every prey. This hunt is no different.¡±


    ¡°Nothing new under the sun.¡± Serib added, and the hunter nodded:


    ¡°I will bring her home.¡±


    As he grabbed a tree on his path Serib noted the contraption on The Stalker¡¯s wrist and elbow, a small crossbow to her eyes. Bolts serrated and smooth lined his thick forearm. Her shamanic mind imagined him younger, him and his hound chasing prey, wondering on which hunt he had adapted to different tools. Her thoughts strayed from his past to his present prey; though what could he mean, that he would bring Lillian home? Was her death not his aim?


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Then you are seeking Lillian¡­ was she not in her cell, in Haven? Do you believe I can help you find her? With the runes?¡± Serib mentioned the grandclock to The Stalker, how its runes had from her view misplaced her from one hall to another, from the sky to the ground.


    ¡°Are even those dearest measurers no longer safe? At that point already¡­¡± he spat from his mouth a foul taste. ¡°I always know where Lillian is - for all her power she is imprisoned in Haven atop The Gravestone Column once pride of all angels, and she is not a force one such as I can kill. There are rumours of magical weapons that may such a task, though such myths are beyond our own. Some form octomni she has taken in our aged-pages here; spewer of ink where once thread sufficed, or threads as ink disguised. Invincible as she may be to me - I can sever each of her many limbs that are reaching out of her prison, those limbs such as you¡­ the Dark you may become or join. And so you see this Timelessness is internecine; a blade without hilt or loyalty.¡±


    Serib froze defensively, and the clear skies churned with her thunder as the ground shook gently to her warning:


    ¡°I am no prey of yours, Stalker. If you are hunting me then why tell me all of this?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Rest your earthquakes, illiterate - I have escaped such events before and your fear enacted would only slow the course. I share with you my partitions as we are not yet unaligned against one another. And even the extremely unaligned can come back into one another¡¯s locus. I have tracks to find and those will lead me to my prey. Lillian is not my prey - I seek her last remaining limb: the eighth as seven I have already seen to.¡±


    Serib¡¯s eyes traced across the scalps sewn to his chainmail, trying to count them as he spoke on, indeed seven there hung sewn and not all were lupine:


    ¡°It would be difficult for me to explain what Lillian truly is - though imagine a spirit of Change, perhaps that spirit itself that lives in us human-all. Why rocks weather under rain ancient enough. The reason at all that chaotic stars of light were born from cold darkness-calm in the beginning of all things. Order left behind as never before and a cycle ever since of orbits and oscillations.¡±


    Serib¡¯s mind flashed, and she pursued The Stalker with a mad question through the trees as he had walked on:


    ¡°You think Lillian is Entropy?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker¡¯s face moved under his sandy beard, perhaps into a smile: ¡°When I heard Time was ¡®murdered¡¯ I thought - whose reach could possibly extend that far? ¡®In Time¡¯ it is easier to speak of motives and opportunities. Many a soul may have wished Time gone in their idiocy though with Fancy such wishes remained powerless. In thinking of means only one name came to mind and if Lillian was so accused, herself admitting it without coerce then¡­ surely no other soul nor being could wound Time other than the Entropy humanity found at Star Lake? And so she must be. Though where did she get the idea for it? Surely no Natural font¡­¡±


    Serib stopped and stood as a statue in the sunset-woodland:


    ¡°If I am kind and assume insanity has not taken you¡­ if Lillian is Entropy, somehow¡­¡± she could not quite believe her own words. ¡°¡­then is attacking Time not suicide for her? As Entropy and Time are together The Divine Twins; but these are only stories¡­ why did she fight in Greed¡¯s arena to ask where her home was? Could she not remember who she was¡­ why would the divine be human among us?¡±


    The Stalker did not dispute as though it matched his own thoughts, adding only in a sad, distant tone:


    ¡°We must wonder. What powerless hopelessness must she have felt¡­ here we roam the ruins of Orphan¡¯age, and what was Entropy if not the first of all orphans? Were it conscious, what origin can Entropy know? With no place to come from¡­ with all that power, what would she be?¡±


    ¡°Potential.¡± Serib answered and The Stalker confirmed:


    ¡°Educated by whichever wayward got there first.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The stories were more than stories. When Gadail had said to Serib fireside that Courtdom used Entropy to win the final battle against Falsehood, she could not have imagined that Entropy walked among them strange with other-name, Gadail meant more that Courtdom accepted reality, while Falsehood turned its back to such Truth and left itself defenceless. She listened to Ahlzvyr through her shock, as he spoke on with his were-pelt-covered back to her:


    ¡°Motive left unclear but in means, it seems Lillian is unique in that. What of opportunity? How could this circumstance have come about? What say you, shaman¡­ with all your knowledge of history¡­ how are The Divine Twins Entropy and Time suddenly conscious? Human in their flaws and desires¡­¡±


    A while they shared in the quiet of the woodland, as Serib almost spoke and then did not, until at last she said:


    ¡°Humanity has gone from the age of Need to the age of Greed. With all other ills such as Evil cured, Tragedy is all that remains for Humanity to ¡®climb¡¯ as you said, but Tragedy is the Truth we all must accept, if we adhere to Courtdom¡¯s ways.¡±


    ¡°And why wouldn¡¯t we?¡± The Stalker almost warned with a nod of agreement, and Serib answered on:


    ¡°The corner humanity wrote itself and Nature along into: Nature has responded - somehow? Retaliated. Entropy and Time have become conscious¡­¡±


    ¡°So went my measure as well.¡± Ahlzvyr¡¯s tone was almost congratulatory.


    ¡°Again, if I am kind and you are not insane.¡± Serib added warily.


    ¡°Well. I doubt Time can die, Entropy I doubt more so. Perhaps I cannot imagine all this without them and prefer not to.¡± He gazed at leaves in wind and in his unwillingness he shared a kinship with Serib. ¡°Alas that does not mean we are not in a dire state with Truth upended and in need of rejuvenation or return. Thus I seek one that can die or can be convinced not to; one that can yet be converted as a wayward returned home: I seek The Dark Shaman of Lillian¡¯s schemes¡­ you are similar to this dark one¡­ similar to the trace I have of her. And then it was obvious to me - you are yet too young.¡±


    Serib¡¯s almost-summoned thunder simmered to more distant skies. Far aside from Ahlzvyr¡¯s insane theories she had never heard of a dark shaman and dreaded any similarity she bore. Wizards she knew well enough having helped Gadail against them in her training, but a dark shaman?


    ¡Þ


    She considered, could the dark one Ahlzvyr hunted have been Gadail¡¯s last apprentice, whom had led Werewolves and Angels once-alike to be so astray? Similar to Serib maybe, only because they had shared the same master and so his teachings.


    She had drifted off in such thoughts and upon return noticed Ahlzvyr had not waited for her.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Eight

    Weird willow. Serib noted The Stalker¡¯s wording carefully:


    ¡°Converted, wayward. You think this ¡®dark¡¯ shaman can choose a different path?¡±


    ¡°A beast hunting another beast has only one aim in its mindless mind. When humanity hunts itself, death should not be the sole option else only murder or execution have been achieved. No matter how sanctioned by state. There is another, older landscape.¡±


    ¡°Hemloch¡¯s shore.¡± Serib knew, and The Stalker continued:


    ¡°A stalker¡¯s core mark is to return with prey alive; no longer prey at all but a comrade brought in shivering from the cold of Falsehood¡¯s hypocrisy. To have turned a soul back from the Rabid edge is the stalker¡¯s victory. To have to kill is a failure of words. Stalkers that can no longer distinguish are branded as Killers, the worst of them Rabid-deemed and the rest you know about that.¡±


    There are few tales of such Killers, and in all but one they are hunted to an end by other Stalkers, rangers and wardens all.


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker walked on, his footfalls careful between fallen branches, choosing which his steps would break as a single snap can travel far, and in this percussion were words occult for Enanti to hear underground. His eyes watched for hidden runes and Serib was forced to follow him despite her troubled thoughts. She would have rather sat with the earth a while, chewy farbark between her teeth, lose herself in its smoke.


    ¡Þ


    Walking beside him she had been staring at the scalps of humans, angels and werewolves sewn across his chainmail swaying stiffly when she asked:


    ¡°By your words, then, have you failed the seven ¡®limbs¡¯ of Lillian; her followers loyal to her that you could not convince?¡±


    The Stalker nodded: ¡°And the eighth is yet.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°How are you tracking her? A shaman would leave healed the lands they passed through... you¡¯ll find no branches disturbed.¡±


    Ahlzvyr grunted that to eyes experienced as his there would always be a sign of who had passed through the wilds, though he understood Serib¡¯s notion:


    ¡°Nay this one, an illiterate as you are; I know her portents. She leaves blood in Water¡¯s place. Screams echo against Wind¡¯s breeze. I say this for she is always gasping¡­ The Wind has abandoned her. Flames burn longer than their fuel and into acid coil.¡±


    Serib stopped walking as she listened, leaning on a tree as a spiritual tether, and The Stalker turned back to continue his dire narrate, his eyes blank under the dead stare of his wolfs-hood relentless:


    ¡°If you freeze at any sight or mutter of shocking things then you cannot be the one I seek. Broken cliffs and unnatural divides are common of The Dark Shaman¡¯s presence, landslides muddying any tracker¡¯s route though all leading somewhat the way to her Throne of Craters, to the hollow tower where she squats in rest never long enough. Alas the throne of her dark making was empty when I found it, as her imagination yet exceeds the grasp of her power. When you better know the wilds, you will know them apart.¡±


    ¡Þ


    An inhuman and far from shamanic force had he described. Disgusted or confused, Serib was unsure what leaving ¡®blood in Water¡¯s place¡¯ and worse would achieve. What part could Nature¡¯s misery fulfil in Lillian¡¯s plan, in overcoming Time and Entropy? What command had this ¡®dark shaman¡¯ received? Serib asked Ahlzvyr in anger ill-placed:


    ¡°Why would The Dark Shaman do that to the elements? Enslave them, almost¡­ pulling them from their destinies¡­¡±


    ¡°Why? To control Nature wholly, as is Humanity¡¯s absolutist way if untampered by Truthdom¡¯s ways - we have a full circle as Nature was once anthropomorphised until Reason took such reverence and named it as superstition - until all Reason could find was Love. Only when beast and pond and tree and breeze are treated as our mute equals can we say we live in the grace of Truth. Enslave is the word now, and the lands of her passing have become as her mirror.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Hunter Lord ate his berries and eyed everything about Serib as she regathered her wits enough to walk again. More her feet, locked hair and shoulders strong for her age he eyed, to which she quickly frowned:


    ¡°Are you watching me?¡±


    ¡°Small details. Overlapping the repeating tracks for rue is all we can expect in leaving assumption to handle the fractals of our fates.¡±


    ¡Þ


    A while later Serib stopped again as to observe the woodland around them:


    ¡°Wait with me¡­¡± she asked.


    And The Stalker did, crouching to the ground and patting his chunky hand over the roots, finding disappointed only the footprints in cold mud of those he had already slain or had no reason to harm.


    ¡Þ


    Meanwhile, Serib saw as she suspected: the land was stuck in the sunset¡¯s Spring-Sworn sigh, dark with a Night-almost, never quite beginning its end. Remember that name, will you, of Spring-Sworn? Serib certainly will when first she hears it. A strange green smog or haze was over the lands. And these upon realising were her next words to Ahlzvyr, The Stalker of long-gone sand-snow:


    ¡°This forest is a cold trail to you¡­ it looks nothing like what you have described, that would follow the wake of this dark spirit you are hunting. You speak with me hoping that we can find a way out of its strange green-fog maze a dream. To continue your hunt. Why me?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker stared at Serib and she knew from his sniffing and scanning that she was being measured once more, that Gadail had taught her well. The hunter could not read Serib so easily as he would a sand-scraped page, and had himself been read:


    ¡°See you any darkness here as I have described? There is only Spring and no dark shaman has hexed these shores; this growing labyrinth a farse. Unless - is Spring-without-end her utmost aim?¡±


    ¡®Hex¡¯ was another word Serib had never heard, and took what The Stalker had said as a question and an accusation:


    ¡°A farse? I do not understand¡­ you think Hadaeon is unreal in some sense?¡±


    Ahlzvyr set off once more, with Serib close behind and hanging on his words.


    ¡°Can we be sure this is Hadaeon? Is all we see not a shared illusion by light and shadow played? Do we and moths see the same moon? Are colours all the same to us as to pollinators? You and I and all souls are like her, The Dark Shaman. Have you not felt the same tug and tooth in your heart imagining as all of us will when we were suffering - to reset things we deem best in the urgent haste of our pain? In the Fancy of our thoughts all powerful, where, without consequence or recompense. Could this not be such a place, a child¡¯s fathom rearranged from all that once was Natural? In Spring-without-end¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    Ahlzvyr seemed mad to suggest that, yet Serib did not dismiss him. Down a steep path much weeded over, soon the paths led upwards again from their brief ravine. The Stalker held a branch out of Serib¡¯s way to keep it from whipping back at her and together they passed into the mountains¡¯ shadows proper; it felt the sun had truly set as he spoke his cold observations.


    ¡°The winds of this world feel designed to me - blowing as winds ought but not as winds do. As winds in poems. The rest? Down to the smallest detail I cannot tell even with my face to the grass.¡±


    ¡°She gasps for breath, you said. Gadail would never condone it, surely no ancestor would grant the dark shaman their imbue.¡± She knew all too well, her master loyal to Reality, while her heart still considered Fancy¡¯s gifts.


    The Hunter Lord did not disagree: ¡°I visited Hadaeon in its more silver age and sensed no such design to its winds. And have you yet watched the stars by night since you first noticed Timelessness, moth? Too many moving parts up there for illusions to account for: all a giveaway.¡±


    Serib shook her head, having found no chance to watch the stars. Since the lake, only daylight¡¯s eyes had been open until she and Gadail reached the hall full of dead Werewolves, and though the roof there was ruined and stars stared in, not long enough had she stared back.


    ¡°When you do - see the stars spiral into strange orbits. Something has changed between my visits. My surmise is that Lillian planned I or others would be a fool here lost hunting her forever in these fabricated woodlands. How she or her Dark Shaman managed this maze of magic would be only a guess on my part. I have chased my tail through her Timeless Tayl enough - I picked for fur between blades of grass, made ledger of the shed claws among bark; a story of a Black Terror and a White Rat I saw without resolve and have turned my back on. I made pass eventually to Haven-upon-Hadaeon and from a perch with other falcons watched it rise to become Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, though the angels and Werewolves still are tied to a tale not mine. There I waited unable to die. It is the runes, moth, that keep me in these circles tied. Runes shaped as infinity once was. The runes that function in your presence for reasons I had not been able to align. Draw and scratch them as I might alone, I would remain lost. I have remained lost. Only with you near have the runes hidden in Haven¡¯s walls been as portals, as found-pages retold they would. The runes, I believe, are how Timelessness can be navigated and may lead us to my prey without whom Lillian¡¯s greatest reach out of her prison will be severed. I am leading you to the only rune in all this woodland that is out of place by my measure and practice, with hope alone that what was closed to me will open for you.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib had listened to The Stalker¡¯s claim and still noticed no such distinctions - no winds blowing ¡®as winds in poems¡¯ or similar compare. If the earth they trekked over was of an all too human design, then it was grafted of some absolute power she could not comprehend.


    ¡Þ


    A willow tree grew crooked ahead, much out of place far from the lowland glades of its kin, growing unlikely from the crags of a cliff whose protrude from the mountain larger was as a horn jutting, when all other nearby trees were dry of sustenance at so high a craning.


    The willow blossomed as such trees are not known for - with lavender sprigs and crimson poppy petals. Serib thought a human gardener skilled enough could have made it so, as no Nature she knew would have.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡Þ


    From this vantage some way up the mountain, the ruins of Haven-upon-Hadaeon were vast a crash from horizon to horizon - Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon had been brought down from the skies by some force or fraud and lay strewn into landscape, cataclysm overgrown by Time¡¯s display. The Gravestone Column lost or not yet built or amongst that dry mulch was one crumble the same.


    ¡Þ


    Having reached the weird willow, The Hunter Lord surveyed the mountain¡¯s lands below and Serib could not tell if the lavender tree-scent was sickly or sweet to her:


    ¡°I am only my master¡¯s apprentice, with my own task ahead of me to find my first totem¡­ lost as you have been, I am now as well. Aside from the task my master has set for me, I want to meet this Lillian you are trying to stop¡­ to know what, by helping you, I would be undoing. But if Gadail has sent you to me, it seems against all shamanic custom that a stranger to our rites would accompany me on a journey lonesome by tradition. How could a mere leaf say so much? Do you still have it? What favour did he ask of you - keeping an eye on me, making sure I do not stray?¡±


    Ahlzvyr placed his halberd to rest against the willow and Serib saw the leaf there growing; it had since sprouted a vine wrapped around the halberd¡¯s shaft. As some prey needs coaxing and calming with bait and prize, so the lord of hunters tried a different string:


    ¡°The leaf is not yours to speak of¡­ I know where you may find a totem. You already know.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib drew all her separate attentions closer to The Stalker, seeing past the frenzy of scalp-happy flies against which no palm was swat enough - not that he tried much. Himself a scout and patriot of Courtdom¡¯s search for Truthdom lost to Timelessness, from that place he spoke:


    ¡°Ah, all hair and nerves are alert now. Will you set aside all instinct you have about me and to the rune my escort? Then I shall help chart your trajectory to what you seek. Of all that is swirling and unsure I know that all tracks by chance or design have led me to you: to help or hinder your advance is my fate, if such a word I can still dare use. Whether your advance is to help the cause of Truth - the hope that Time still lives and Enanti though a grub now, may yet be heir and monarch returned to an age ended premature - or to finalise the irreparable downfall of all we know: you will need a totem your own to either achieve. Gadail¡¯s favour? That I did not kill you back at The Winged Wall for all striking resemblance you bore to my Dark Shamanic prey, that I take a moment to remember where I am from, for seven failures had dulled my hope. An ancestral shaman should have met you in this woodland, this much of your rites I know must be true, and instead you met me by their mossy statue-grave. A strange aeon is ours aligned, illiterate, when I must accept such exchange as this: that with my helping you, extinction is assured. Though extinction of which side we have yet to see. We must accept Chance¡¯s bludgeonings, whatever they may be.¡±


    So spoke it is said, ¡®a forthright instrument of The Truth¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker was right. Before their meeting Serib had been looking for any sign of an ancestor of Earth; as had always been custom when shamans go off alone without their masters, seeking task and trial to undergo and totem then to earn. Gadail¡¯s words on the matter seemed far from recent to her clouded recollection:


    ¡®¡­hold your fear by the hand, and take it somewhere gentler. This will lead you eventually to an ancestor of Earth, and your first totem.¡¯


    There was much for her to understand and accept, though keeping earth and task foremost, moving away from the uncertain magnitudes of which The Hunter Lord spoke, she asked:


    ¡°How do you know where this totem¡­ what sensitivity would you have to its ancestral call?¡±


    ¡°None at all yet more than you it seems, as aimless you go without.¡± He threw at her a brief, grim laugh. ¡°None at all had I not seen the one thread between two: one of these other-scalps I wear belongs to one of your kin; though a Werewolf she was a shaman as well, young an apprentice searching for the same object. Protecting its location. She was not one of Lillian¡¯s eight, but a scalp is a scalp.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib grimaced at the lupine ears and brow drooping with dried gore. Anger simmered in her before Ahlzvyr explained:


    ¡°Her end was quick enough, illiterate, for fools as you and her guided from their Truthful path deserve no punishment as those that first had erred, and thus lead many more astray. Let this be clear to you - that I found her already dying from a duel and there was no malice when I took misery from her. A fallen star she spoke of in delirium, though none had I nor Enanti scoped in the skies on our long watch. Only when I watched a different duel as did all in Haven, when Ithuriya clashed with Lillian Grey - that the spear of Ithuriya was cleaved in half. Few arrows fly so hot and straight as that rod down to the earth angels left behind¡­ and other clues tied together otherwise long and unconnected strides. I offer you this - that you may gain your bearing as to the half-spear¡¯s resting place.¡±


    Others would claim The Spring-Sworn duelled Ithuriya, though who can know?


    ¡Þ


    Half-spear¡¯s resting place. Serib wondered back to the Lake Arruikikn, remembering a sharpness she had felt in its earthen bed. Though she heard all he had spoken, most she remembered the poem-rite Gadail had recited in Haven¡¯s halls, surrounded by Were and angels dead:


    ¡°This young shaman you killed¡­ could the vultures find her body? As would have been her wish.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker again tucked away a sandy page he had begun to read while waiting for her thoughts to run their quiet course:


    ¡°You have your moments, illiterate, coming and going as a wave. I have hunted enough Hadaeon-Were¡¯s to know their custom and the shaman was left in the open for their rites. Was I not clear enough? I killed and scalped her as was best for us both, though another wounded her mortally. I ask you as may warrant your memory and to sharpen your straying focus - what does Ithuriya¡¯s name mean?¡±


    Serib answered quickly: ¡°Truth, as do many other names and words tower-lost, from the ages before Courtdom.¡±


    ¡°As did many others¡­ and yet there is a secret despite what should be bright. Less a secret perhaps and more something we have forgotten drowning in Timelessness. Ithuriya¡¯s spear was not always her own, and it was not always a spear. The metal was melted down from a larger weapon and many are the shards, the splinters, all with tales their own. Though longer has one shard remained in the House Ithurian - and one such spear passed from one Ithuriya to the next. Not all have been angels, not all Wing Marshals, not all confined to such halls as Truth knows no borders.¡±


    ¡Þ


    A staff or a wand to a wizard, a spear or sword to a warrior, a totem to a shaman.


    ¡Þ


    This called to Serib how Ithuriya, Gadail and other angels had sealed themselves in another chamber of Haven - as though a decision was to be made among them - if a new Ithuriya needed to be chosen; who would lead the angels through Timelessness, who would hold the splintered spear and wear the damaged helm?


    ¡°You waver as before a precipice.¡± The Stalker, The Hunter Lord Ahlzvyr began: ¡°What is your decision? I have all to lose while you have only a wish to evolve - a dream that all souls childlike keep until they shed and greatest emerge from young skin and shell.¡±


    If her heart chose for her, would he not turn crossbow bolt or halberd to her throat and his knife saw at her scalp? The rest of her limp having failed his eighth and last. If her mind chose in her heart¡¯s stead, would Gadail not rejoice? And so what choice would she have either made?


    ¡Þ


    She looked the willow up and down, how it leaned away from the mountainside of its growth, its roots and trunk alike in shape and texture - where even the roots with lavender and poppy bloomed - when roots surely should be bare and hidden, where even the branches suckled nourishment from the air¡¯s soil.


    ¡Þ


    She placed her palm upon the tree, hoping her shamanic reach would help her understand. The lavender sprigs interwoven over its bark were rough and dry. Her fingers further tapped and knuckles knocked on the bark as she searched for the infinity rune. The Stalker waited.


    Every path so far, the words of her master and this hunter, all against and away from her wishes and curiosity led, throwing her moulded and preordained, and in Time well would this have been. In Timelessness what could either say?


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Where is the rune on this tree?¡± she asked, meanwhile The Stalker sharpened his halberd-glaive on the cliff a whetstone in method known only to him.


    ¡°Excuse my preparations¡­ my prey may well await me on Another Side and if words fail¡­¡± He did not finish his thought and instead he summoned: ¡°Dromiya, Enanti¡­¡±


    Serib did not know if this grub of The Grand Scarab was called Enanti or Dyomiya, as Ahlzvyr had used both names so far as she remembered, though there it scuttled over from the cliff-face with all the menace of its royal line that ruled an age of Courtdom by itself. More massive than before, Serib could then and forever have fit inside its chewing mouth. Against the dark sunset its silhouette shifted through stances and symbols made with its pincers, scythe-claws and horns, its sinewy wings iridescent popping from its abdomen and retracting, stag-like in its lost regality.


    ¡Þ


    Serib stepped back as with a swift hack of his halberd Ahlzvyr sliced the tree-face of its bark and underneath there shimmered an infinity rune; a scar healed over, fresh with leaking sap. A wish evolved.


    ¡Þ


    Both Serib and Ahlzvyr felt the rune¡¯s inscrutable pull made dominant by her presence, and she glared for his answer as to the half-spear¡¯s location:


    ¡°My end is fulfilled¡­¡± she said to him, taking a step closer to the rune and it pulsed with greater life, its richness drawn by her desires.


    The Hunter Lord gazed at the finally-pulsing rune he long ago had found useless. The only of many he ever expected to be significant. Neither his fear nor dread with enjoined onslaught could overwhelm his duty:


    ¡°And soon mine. Answer and be answered yourself. Where did all this begin for you?¡± he replied, his sandy beard roughing up the wind. ¡°I saw you - standing on that steel pier that will be a giant¡¯s spear. Near the lakebed once a mountain¡¯s eyrie, waiting with Old Gada¡¯il for Haven¡¯s begrudge. All hunts and searches are patterns, moth - just as our celestials have their orbits¡­ humanity has its habits. As to roots and to eggs and to the start with you - that is Where you must go to begin an ending. An extinction. Though in this Timelessness, Where is not enough and When becomes a question. And how can ¡®When¡¯ remain sturdy in Timelessness? We are reduced instead to landmarks consistent across the inconsistencies and impossibilities. To the length of our hair. To our scars or softness. To our allegiances swarth or strong. Even our names may be altered from one stage of our lives to the next. All these factors and semblances that change and do not require numbers to notice as all beyond eight have gone.¡±


    The Stalker waited having laid out constants the same and variables rearranged it could be said; you may have heard such a phrase before. If you have not - then welcome - welcome to The Timeless Tayl.


    ¡Þ


    Serib tried to be cautious against the scope and sprawl of the hunter¡¯s words. Could he be trusted with so many scalps sewn to him? If his age to us is ancient, did virtue mean to him what it meant to Gadail?


    ¡°So I must return to the lake where Gadail and I were waiting¡­ somehow. Though what must I look out for, to be certain I am in the correct lineage of events? These landmarks as you have named them¡­ how tall will the lake¡¯s trees be? How tall is how tall¡­ what season should I find?¡±


    ¡°In my seven failures it was not always possible to know with certainty, though your path while not easier on your soul shall be an easier one to find. The Lake Arruikikn is the filled pit and crater that was left in the earth when Haven-upon-Hadaeon rose into the skies, becoming Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon.¡±


    Serib was well aware and grew impatient, the rune bright with expectation. Ahlzvyr continued, his eyes briefly closed:


    ¡°And before the city at all shined a mountain stood; richly veined with silver was The Greatmount angel-mined into fragility and other decimations of Nature, though leading to the cure of all our Needs. What else is the knell and toll of progress?¡± he waited for Serib¡¯s answer, though she only glared. ¡°The halved-spear of Ithuriya returned to its whence in orbit drawn and magnetised. A return to a sense of certainty you and I both seek.¡±


    ¡°The other half of Ithuriya¡¯s spear is on the mountain? The same mountain that Haven would become¡­ has become¡­ how is this possible, in two places at once?¡±


    As Serib asked in frustration, Ahlzvyr cackled and spat out another seed from his berries he had been chewing over:


    ¡°Made possible by Timelessness, illiterate. By the lack of linearity. By Lillian¡¯s whim of warp and weft. Anything permits itself now. Less two places and more the same place in different points of its lineage, I would say. Imagine if you now young could stand before your older self. Would it be yourself though another or otherwise? What would you say to you?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Hunter Lord grabbed Serib¡¯s hand to force it towards the shimmering rune: a wound reopened and a line of the story once thought resolved though always a thread undiscovered, a drop of ink escaped. All drops he had traced and threads followed to their nigh-fruition here on the mountainside, willow weird as the rest.


    ¡Þ


    Strong as Serib was she stood her ground still heavy with questions, wrenching her hand away from him. Though Ahlzvyr soon overcame her strength with old skill, and all of her weight was used against her. He hooked the hilt of his halberd behind her leg to thwart her balance and with a shove the back of her head smacked into the willow and with its wood she travelled-strange through Timeless Spacelessness - travelled with its wood destined for being carved - into a grandclock.


    ¡Þ


    At the centre of an angelic courtyard she stood frazzled and dizzy; a courtyard chiselled out of what was once a mountainside. A courtyard that would later be or had been a hall. The spacious close was hectic with souls shouting into ever louder and louder arguments:


    ¡°¡­not since Hemloch¡¯s shores¡­¡± one shrieked without dignity, doing harm to all around them. ¡°¡­whom among us is Alyoshian enough for this, the death of Time?¡±


    Her dazed senses scanned around, hoping Gadail would be there. Instead a grandclock loomed over her, ticking rhythmless despite the fuss of experts all over it probing their useless counts, and The Hunter Lord as was his wish could not be seen.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Nine

    The runaway. Out of breath. The oakenstone courtyard around The Spring-Sworn Syrib was loud with human sound. Above the clouds and into sunlight: through triumphal arches won bloody under curled roofs she had great vantage and survey of sun-swept Hadaeon - misty with distance its mountains that had not been hammered into winged towers yet, and the older volcanoes glowing with their last light, pouring their dominated lakes into the wilful moulds of angelic smiths. To cool repurposed.


    ¡Þ


    Wind searched for her - cold on the bald-shaved half of her head - rushed through her four thick locks of hair, for this was Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, the high city well in flight.


    ¡Þ


    You read correctly. Leaving Serib a while it is ¡®The Spring-Sworn¡¯ we follow now, whomever that may be. Her name is Syrib and indeed there is little difference between the names Serib and Syrib. Constants the same and variables rearranged.


    ¡Þ


    We know how Serib will reach this place through wood and rune, but how did The Spring-Sworn? How did she get here, to this courtyard of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon?


    Let us go back - to explain how one is not like the other.


    One night when nights still were, before she and Old Gadail were due to begin the long astral road to Hadaeon from Ehl¡¯yiteth to answer Ithuriya¡¯s horns and bells, Syrib stole a salve from her master, its alchemy of farbark and other materials.


    ¡Þ


    Such mixtures of certain reagents allow a shaman¡¯s spirit to travel far beyond their body, and the line between body and spirit blurs. ¡®Allowing the spirit to be as a body, and the body to be as a spirit¡¯ it is said, not without debate.


    Serib was drinking something similar in her first chapter, waiting on that steel pier that was once a giant¡¯s spear, by the lake that Haven¡¯s absence made; a Human chasm Nature filled.


    ¡Þ


    Syrib however stole the salve that night, for louder than the ancestral call of shamanism she heard different words upon the wind. A human voice where Nature should be loud. Promises. For just as Serib had, long had Syrib wished darkly that her hand would raise and all of Tragedy would shrink and Evil writhe under her Goodness. And when she wished this first, eyes opened in a distant prison cell. Limbs thought severed by Hunter Lord Ahlzvyr and the other allies of Time began to regrow.


    ¡Þ


    All in one go she had drank the stolen salve undiluted by tea, and separated herself wholly from her body. A cup now and then Gadail would have staggered the tea across their journey long - alas. And her body there lay breathing with life but without spirit, unable to wake and unwilling, and to the winds Old Gada¡¯il cast his difficult courage, his easy despair, and himself set out in search for his apprentice now wayward.


    Ancestors had come with concern from their scattered realms, and not few swore to guard her slumbering body in her master¡¯s absence.


    And in that absence they debated difficult things fondly as shamans do, ancestors more so - had Old Gadail¡¯s lessons failed? Where many quickly forgot, one remembered:


    ¡°No.¡± And that one to speak was Grog¡¯il The Small, whose pointed ears were big, himself Gadail¡¯s master. ¡°The parents failed these two sisters Shay and Serib, for one followed her fear of the future into Grief and the other did too little until it was too late.¡±


    ¡Þ


    When Syrib¡¯s spirit ran away from her body - when souls most with mystery she would meet, she took to calling herself The Spring-Sworn - to remain hidden from Gadail whom she knew would try to stop her. For if the human promises on the wind were true, she could return with such power that he no longer needed to be powerful, wisdom would alone be hers, and all others blameless.


    And then the name Spring-Sworn befit her more and more, for in her untouchable fantasies when all of Power was hers and she was the shaman strong, Spring would be the only season; where the Winter of her master¡¯s life would to Autumn¡¯s colours recede, and could she perhaps reverse all things? Could her two families become one, her parents and her sister sit by the same hearth her own, finishing stew with Gadail? And if all this for her, why not for all?


    ¡Þ


    And so. Do you know what most she heard upon the wind instead of Gadail¡¯s call, and from that all the rest of her dreams seemed possible? A whisper, a weakness though the bars of a prison cell:


    ¡®Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡¯


    The words of absolute freedom, if one had bravery enough to seize Timelessness controlled into a new order, and would only Tragedy under the heel be bruised and not the heel itself internecine?


    ¡Þ


    Just as Truthdom has its pillars of Justice, Courage, Moderation and Wisdom - named Earth, Fire, Water and Wind by some - The Spring-Sworn saw a different reality around her, a future already true where there would be no Death Indifferent and Life Proliferate; not with Evil conquered and Tragedy erased. With these four dismantled or rearranged, all else of their spawn would fall.


    She heard rumour that The Grand Scarab - emblem of Life and Death - had by assassination or invasion fallen.


    So the first had been topped by others of similar mind, why not the rest?


    And Entropy, ''whose might with Time is alway¡¯, would at last be no more. Or so it felt to Syrib hearing of ¡®The Lightning Crown¡¯ - lightning that force of Nature to which Humanity most responds with attention and respect. What higher ground or dwelling-under is shelter enough when wrath makes such sounds? A crown of such a force would be the crown of all.


    Despite Gadail¡¯s teachings, still Syrib and Serib carried that fear in their one heart, their mother¡¯s fear, leaving them susceptible to that whisper a weakness though the bars of a prison cell as has been said:


    ¡®Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    When first she heard this voice of freedom on the winds, she asked her master Gadail The Windlord what he knew of such a crown. He told to her no lies, that his youth too had been a quest to find it. Crownless he ended his quest, having in his words ¡®regained far more¡¯.


    He asked where she had heard of The Lightning Crown, and she recited what the ill winds had bid her. To hear from Syrib the phrase ¡®Time is dead¡¯, Old Gadail retreated into contemplation across the fire of their camp. Her Far Sight thereafter eluded her, which should have been no surprise with Time¡¯s depart, and when Gadail returned from his thoughts, under stars long they spoke by fireside and riverside as master and apprentice, of the effects Time¡¯s disappearance may cause. Or already had caused! Their extrapolation expansive into the extremes of thought.


    By Night the stars had strange orbits rippling from their exchange - their duel of words - and some even fell from the skies altogether, dropping as though from shelves, from dimensions upheaved. All that once was orbiting had become meteoric, unbound and boundless so.


    ¡Þ


    And though both master and apprentice were loving, they could not agree.


    Syrib wished Gadail would go with her and hear as she heard, yet in her growing loneliness and her anger, their ever-returning argument of old was pollution she could see through, or he through it could not see her Truth, and again she raised to him her utmost fear:


    ¡°Can you not see I am trying to save you from this sickness?¡±


    For his limp was worse, and he slept less or not at all, his appetite thin. His armour looser.


    ¡°What sickness is old age at the end of a good life, Tusker? Mine better than most! And with Need conquered, with Greed on the way, all will have a life good as mine has been.¡± Gadail said to her, rubbing his sore knees, his belly full of tea. ¡°I know. It is in Love¡¯s wandered name that you try, for Love has wandered us to the ends of things, and finds itself restless in our peace, in our relinquishing of so much beauty. It asks as it always has rightly: surely there is more we can give? Our work is not done yet, we still have far to go together, into this new age still young. I suppose, we should not be shocked that Time has been attacked. Time is all that is left. Was there not once a prophecy that cakes would not suffice?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Young Syrib saw hope in Time¡¯s depart, while Old Gadail comprehended only despair.


    It was that night when nights still were that echoing across Ehl¡¯yiteth, the horns and bells of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon sounded from Ithuriya¡¯s call, shaking the cosmos-all of those attuned, and Gadail resolved to answer, to take Syrib along with him.


    Alas that when his back was turned in preparation, Syrib drank the salve in full.


    And so Gadail, searching for his apprentice lost instead, could not turn his presence nor guidance to Haven, could not meet its Wing Marshal cleaved and calling out for aid. And all the variations that caused at once, and one of those inky threads we follow here.


    ¡Þ


    The journey from Ehl¡¯yiteth to Hadaeon, two worlds that share no stars, would have been impossible for The Spring-Sworn alone, especially dosed with tripping-salve as she was, opening at once too many paths. Mad with fantastic hope. Few other than master shamans can navigate such roads where the cold songs of solar systems ring. Though Syrib had the words to guide her through labyrinth field and fog - wherever they were loudest she leaned her young steps:


    ¡®Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡¯The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Towards that journey¡¯s end and another beginning. And so she came to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon using the stealth of her smaller size and lies against those Truthdom-souls whom can tell no lies - until she reached where we now meet her - out of breath in the angelic courtyard of oakenstone.


    ¡Þ


    Syrib hid behind pillars, in flowering shrubs, inching forwards whenever she could without being seen. You see and so does she: angelic sentinels armed with spears and shields were guarding an entrance to The Gravestone Column - suspended endless stair - where Lillian the supposed murderer of Time awaited incarcerate. Lillian¡¯s words on the winds Syrib had been following, spun from a wish. A dream in these variables rearranged.


    ¡Þ


    Never had the words been louder to Syrib than in the courtyard, loudest from the guarded entrance, the path-after beyond obscure. A sheer drop into open air she saw and a pier to which no ships were drawn and yet:


    ¡®Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡¯


    She long had wondered along her trip if The Lightning Crown was a totem; for hammers were known to her as those Gadail wields. Necklaces, bangles and armour were not unknown. Why not a crown? A crown to end the endlessness of Life Proliferate and Death Indifferent. Why not then in that age between ages, between Need and Greed?


    ¡Þ


    In awe she lost herself gazing at the commemorative pillar taller than all of Haven - depicting the life of Lillian Grey. A pride to which all bridges had been severed. All this she learned climbing from Haven¡¯s depths to its heights. Once Courtdom¡¯s Heir and a champion of the last victory over Falsehood, Lillian had become a prisoner in her birthplace. Half the angels Syrib met were in mourning and the rest rejoicing, while so many at heart in truth had no care at all, content with their cakes.


    ¡Þ


    Her lightning robes were tattered at their ends from the starry road. The streaks dull and tarnished, helping her better hide. She tried to learn the patterns of guards patrolling, making her way from obstacle to obstacle closer to The Gravestone Column¡¯s gate, hiding behind lavender bushes. Almost to the end she managed, alas, just when one guard was dozing alone too many would arrive to replace the one, all of them confused, unsure when their watch should end or start, and no pattern could she pull from the Timelessness.


    A strange feeling of having been there before.


    ¡Þ


    Quiet as she tried to be, exhausted from her journey alone, for all her panting all the air was stifling. Just as she was summoning what little strength was still hers to rush or sneak past the remaining guards, a shadow twice her height loomed behind her.


    ¡°Are you the lord of Ehl¡¯yiteth we have waited for?¡± the corner of her eye saw a clawed hand reaching for her shoulder.


    Syrib turned to see a Werewolf tall, broad in his steel where the banner of his tribe was bright across his curiass; stitches of a claw shattering a spear its image. Yet as Syrib stared frozen and off guard that threaded spear was bladed at both ends, and only one blade of two had been broken. Her knowledge came to her, of Hadaeon¡¯s history that unique banner was two woven into one: the spear of the angels and the spear-shattering claw of the werewolves from Gap¡¯elyhond. A unity of the angels leaving something behind and the werewolves¡¯ part in that.


    ¡Þ


    It could have been no clearer to her then - Syrib knew the werewolf-tall was loyal to Truthdom and Time, to Haven-o¡¯er. If she wished to find whoever had been calling to her upon the wind through the cosmos, the werewolf would be of no aid to her.


    ¡Þ


    Either end visible above his shoulder and from behind his hip, a greatsword was strapped across his back, curved and easily unsheathed from its crescent-scabbard if need was right. Taking Syrib further by surprise there was in his eyes a shamanic glare, a grace though raw as hers, and she wondered if he too was an apprentice. Grey around his snout yet he did not have a master¡¯s presence, though strange it would have been - for an old veteran to hear the call and start a new journey in apprenticeship - with all the look of a Warrior that long had walked a very different road.


    In some moment of kindness far from the darkening desires of her heart, Syrib hoped this werewolf was not one of those hunted and scalped by Ahlzvyr in lineages other-than. Here living, later a trophy sewn to the dwarf¡¯s chainmail she did not wish to imagine.


    You see, Syrib so far has avoided The Stalker, having heard only rumour of him from the angels tender or foolish enough to hide her in their homes. For all had seen the posters of her likeness, her eight or four great locks of hair, both versions bordered abreast each other.


    ¡Þ


    Then her darkness spoke to her. If this somehow-old apprentice could not tell she clearly was no lord, then the moment was hers to control. Away from Gadail¡¯s traditions and The Stalker¡¯s threats. She would not turn her back on the winds when their call was loudest, louder than the ancestors bidding her return, muting the gales of Gadail searching for her, runaway as she was. She would save them all, bearing what could not be and yet would be - impossibly - in Timelessness.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I am.¡± She lied to the tall werewolf - and it is from these choices of whether Truth or Falsehood leads us that such legendary falls can begin - and the return from such falls all the greater.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Your name, my lord?¡± The warrior bowed.


    ¡°Syrib, The Spring-Sworn.¡± Stumbling already, she had forgotten to add the honorific ¡®il to the end of her name and hoped it would go unnoticed.


    ¡°A strong name. I am Sentinel Iron-Chest. I wonder, do you see that I have answered the ancestral call of shamanism, or I try to? When I heard a master had been summoned, I made sure to frequent this post.¡±


    Do you remember the name Iron-Chest? Engraved though hidden by grass, in the foot of that statue holding the withered angel deaf to Human sound? Our Serib nor this Syrib had seen such words. However, the name Iron-Chest was known to them and many, and Syrib did not wish to dwell on the loose trappings of her lie for long:


    ¡°You glow with the grace of shamanism. I have heard of you, Sentinel - do you feel restless still, a veteran of Falsehood¡¯s last defeat?¡±


    ¡°Not only Falsehood¡¯s last defeat, I was tired from a few defeats before that, as well. But we tread on, don¡¯t we?¡±


    Syrib tried to smile kind as Gadail would, alas that more than kindness was on her mind, as Love ¡®without Reason¡¯ steered her course.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You are here to assist us in this Timeless matter.¡± Iron-Chest raised his grey chin to the column, the hairs long enough for a braid.


    ¡°I was summoned.¡± Syrib confirmed, better guessing as she went. ¡°I answer Ithuriya¡¯s bell. Where are the other lords of Ehl¡¯yiteth?¡±


    ¡°I hoped the first to arrive would recount the whereabouts of the rest. Though summoned, they have not come as bid, and Ithuriya is not pleased. You have a great presence for your size, Lord Syrib¡¯il, that will perhaps abate her.¡±


    The tired girl was relieved that the other lords were not there to expose her, that Iron-Chest so far had accepted all she said. She began to settle until his next question worried her:


    ¡°Why do you hide your greatness in different ways? I see about you only a feint glow¡­ As bronze left to the wear of wind and rain. As a sword in blood to rust. Shall I take you to counsel The Wing Marshal? See to you some warm bread and a blanket, as oldest poems go.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Comforting as warm bread sounded, having struggled through her first lie, the rest came quickly as they with truth were blurred:


    ¡°I am weary, Sentinel, resting before my next climb, from a long road through the stars that has not yet ended.¡± She thought of what else Gadail would say, visiting a lot so proud as the angels of Haven yet speaking with a werewolf: ¡°And you will know when you are a master yourself, that it is best to hold your presence back. You may appear threatening with the simplest gesture, when Humble¡¯s name is best.¡±


    Speaking as Gadail would, Syrib felt for a moment able to drop her state of runaway, to be The Spring-Sworn no more and call out her true heart that her master would hear her, and the end of all their distance. Alas she imagined going back there to his increasing age, his slowness burgeoning, the onset of a final Winter. Fearful of deathbeds, indignity and speechlessness. Fearful of powerlessness.


    The veteran sentinel had an affirming growl in his throat: ¡°I know already how these angels can be.¡±


    Syrib looked at his armour and measured what a mixture he was. A Werewolf wearing an angel¡¯s armour, the curved greatsword of unknown kin the weapon he chose. Being a ¡®Were¡¯ he would never be far from elemental majesty. In image alone a fine shaman he could make, if his prime was not already gone.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Will you show me to the prisoner¡¯s cell? Before we go to Ithuriya. I must know for myself.¡±


    Syrib received no resistance as she had expected:


    ¡°Come, my lord Spring-Sworn of Ehl¡¯yiteth. Wish you a seat at my shoulder? It would be an honour for this old wolf, if you are weary enough.¡±


    Iron-Chest knelt before Syrib, and though she was strong as crag and cliff, too long had been the way alone and spiralling the path ahead continued yet. With some gathered strength she hoisted herself atop the broad shoulder of the armoured sentinel, holding the pommel of his greatblade as he walked.


    From afar - some would later say she steered him - his hilt his rudder.


    ¡Þ


    The angelic sentinels bowed and bid welcome to the visiting lord of Ehl¡¯yiteth, arrived at last. Though small, she was not the smallest shamanic lord to grace their halls, though the tale of ¡®Grog¡¯il¡¯ is not one for this tome.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest walked with young Syrib on his shoulder past the last arches of the floating courtyard, letting out a deep howl and all that was dark seemed less. She held his pauldron tighter: if he did not stop walking he would fall from the courtyard tower along with her. Her heart drummed faster though before she could object, angels - their wings sparkling with dust and pollen - coated as yet invisible steps in their flight. From their pollen-snow a way was made clear - from the quiet courtyard to the massive Gravestone Column - across waves of sand obeying the column¡¯s orbit but not the world¡¯s gravity.


    ¡°To be winged in Haven must be well.¡± Iron-Chest commented, at the mercy of a strange road.


    ¡Þ


    The way was not straight nor curving; it fell and rose changing always to mask sense from those that would intrude, and Syrib saw in the motions of the sands these were great stone or steel blocks shifting apart and slotting into each other, forged as to always change and confuse - as though invisibility would not thwart enough! - and it seemed uncertain that they would ever make it across. The entrance to or the way out of a prison indeed. Unseen if not for the pollen-snow coating their puzzling gyrate.


    ¡°I feel my heart is loud up here.¡± The Spring-Sworn spoke, the air thin and tough on her chest as The Sentinel walked over the sparkling nothing.


    ¡°I hope this is well of me to ask as you are here, lord. Have you an apprentice? Do they not travel with you?¡±


    Syrib knew better than others, if an apprentice was not with their master, they were on a trial to gain their totem and imbues as was custom. Just as Gadail sends Serib off though willingly as to let her grow - though always The Wind was at her back.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I do not, and I sense what you are to ask next. When did you first feel the call of your ancestors and of Truth?¡± Syrib answered.


    ¡°When this Timelessness erupted. I felt less ancestry, and more the call of those who still live; werewolves and angels alike lost in this, what should be Prosper¡¯s age. At first I thought my Winter had begun, though all my waking and my dreams are serene by the grace calling my name, the grace demanding the best of me. A warrior old yet I have been called to shamanism! And it has been said by those wiser: life is barely long enough to be good at one discipline. So I wonder what Chance is up to, nudging me - an old droop in Autumn - to keep on growing as though it were Spring, to give that I am not spent. What is your answer if you know what I am to ask¡­ could you be my master? To help me make sense of this, and serve Truth all the more?¡±


    Syrib¡¯s lie was swallowing her.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Are you not needed here as a sentinel?¡± she gripped his greatsword¡¯s pommel as the way grew tougher and Iron-Chest made ease of it, making incredible leaps across invisible gaps landing on the stone cubes of a puzzle barely there.


    ¡°I am needed. Yet I can speak freer to you here than in the courtyard of my fellow bulwarks: my shamanism has shown to me how I die. And this old sword on my back was a sword no longer in my vision - it was a totem, large as eyes the gems in its fuller. And just as your eyes with lightning-bronze are bright, your dirty robes as well, I saw my eyes the same. Would this in your view be Far Sight? Foresight?¡±


    ¡°There are two shamanic thoughts.¡± Syrib answered, bobbing along from Iron-Chest¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Some believe history informs Far Sight. Others believe in true prophecy.¡±


    ¡°I know not where to draw such lines¡­¡± He interrupted himself. ¡°What is that? Do you see it?¡±


    The symbol both Syrib and Iron-Chest saw glowing ahead was unknown to them - carved into one of the invisible blocks - filled with sandy starry pollen, the manner of its making full of gravity, beckoning specks into its groove. To be filled perhaps with dust and else, and hide itself revealed.


    ¡Þ


    It glowed to their approach, they both at once believed, as the block spun around for a moment hiding the symbol - the block fulfilling its duty in the maze of many others. Glowing brighter with each spin. Closer it flipped across the waves of sand until all they saw was the infinity of my design.


    Our Serib meanwhile, still stands in a similar courtyard dazed, though back to her we shall go when it is best. Let us follow where Syrib and Iron-Chest have been carried off to, as prey into a lair.


    As thread spun back to a spool.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Ten

    The Woven. The Spring-Sworn was no longer on Sentinel Iron-Chest¡¯s shoulder. Both souls were picking thick spiderwebs off themselves and each other, having fallen into a ¡®flowing place far from sunlight¡¯. Overwhelming, sickly lavender was all they could smell as they shuffled quick to each other¡¯s side, united against the strange. Weird ¡®fluffy¡¯ stars were ¡®brushing¡¯ their light over an uneven ground. Mounds that moved into one another as wind makes its waves. Though among those mounds none could claim to be of Water¡¯s name, it was a different texture they shared in the dark.


    ¡Þ


    Syrib thought of clothing, for indeed it was a room of fabric unfolding she and Iron-Chest had been brought to - then a palace vaster and world imagined from that room. Where-uneven the sky was rippling as a sheet to mast or flag await. Those fluffy stars of woollen craft or similar, and so in that scarce false-light could shaman and sentinel both see their breath.


    ¡Þ


    And upon the dark violet flag that was hanging everywhere, a symbol of a hand that too was a spider, through varied stages of unfinish and design or transformation. A new force still hatching and defining itself. Syrib was disappointed, her caution grew: what need was there for a flag if Spring would last forever? Were they not to leave such things behind? What madness had found the prisoner in her isolation?


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest sniffed about for a better sense of where they were and where next to go, as to stay there seemed unwise. If the woven place was a mechanism of the prison he long had helped to guard, he did not recognise it. The ground was a carpet unsettled, stretching to its limit and threatening to fold back again, almost wrapping Syrib and Iron-Chest in silk and cocoon. The walls and ceiling as poorly pitched tents waned in liquid air The Sentinel could see.


    In this flow and ebb they floated, they stood and fell, without falling to any ground or drifting off into whatever finality even there made claim.


    ¡Þ


    Only one of the walls was stiff. Fit for vultures. Covered in spiders sailing themselves in creep along taut threads that spun from a tangible nowhere. It was at that wall of tapestry Syrib The Spring-Sworn stared, kneeling and listening to its all-completing weave. And Sentinel Iron-Chest heard as Syrib had long followed - speaking from the woven corner of this impossible world:


    ¡°Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡±


    The tapestry under woollen stars detailed in sequence all of Syrib¡¯s dark desires, and she seemed less a master of Ehl¡¯yiteth to Iron-Chest¡¯s eyes:


    -Her rise to ultimate power over Nature¡¯s last ways untamed: Life Proliferate and Death Indifferent. Tragedy in human chains.


    -A girl forever remained, in meadow-Spring with Old Gadail.


    -Her parents she could not see even in artistic depiction, as neither her memory nor another¡¯s imagination could fathom back what has for so long been dark. Sketched shapes there blurred of happiness, a reward, a return to what was. A sister holding it all together.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°That cannot be Truth¡­¡± Iron-Chest¡¯s clawed hand grasped the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it from his back unsheathed.


    He thought, could he cut their way out of this realm? He feared every woven corner, loud with words or sounds to which Syrib was kneeling reverently. Kneeling as one consumed, absorbed and so one with it.


    ¡Þ


    A lady of Courtdom spoke from the nowhere that had been made - as meaty thumps thudded from corner to corner - as Iron-Chest listened to those thuds he thought the legs of some terrible spider were advancing and receding. The Spring-Sworn stared on enraptured at the tapestry of her glory. The Sentinel stayed close to Syrib¡¯s side as the words addressed him, as he saw his own likeness young and old and ancient patterned in the carpet same, in the tapestry walls that did not cease to move.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    He saw there as in his dreams: how he would die.


    ¡°Yes, you will defend her, Sentinel, though not yet. Not here from me. Do you see your layered destinies in these spindled walls of my making? You have happened by my palace in passing only. For in this version of the threads my Spring-Sworn needed brief aid across the chasm, to find the outskirts of the maze. She has come far alone¡­ and done so very well¡­¡±


    An assassin stepped into Iron-Chest¡¯s shadow and dizziness soon overtook him, with skill against skill alas he could not match the speed of darkness against him. His greatsword he swung at nothing. The assassin was already gone as a gas through his snout was sharp, his armour and fur too thick for blades, steel on steel echoed.


    ¡Þ


    As spiders emerge from their waiting to see what has disturbed the damp stillness of their webs, so Iron-Chest in nigh-unconsciousness found himself with silk and other threads wrapping him bound. Gigantic legs manipulated around him. The room spun him spun. Sticky webs matting his furred hands to his Hadaeon-greaves. He was no sustenance to her, but a tool for The Lady-arachnid he could not see.


    He felt himself unravelling thinner and thinner, that one of his hairs was pulled and all the rest of him was a knot coming undone. So it is - to be unthreaded from one story and sewn into another.


    Syrib was then and now alone.


    ¡Þ


    As Sentinel Iron-Chest was sucked taut as warp from one tale to another similar, the unseen lady spoke from the spun corners of all-else-things - narrating to Spring-Sworn Syrib her task, the young shaman¡¯s lightning eyes tracing the tapestry she had inspired and in turn would self-fulfil:


    ¡°Welcome to Frac¡¯tralien, where loom and will have wed. Your greatest adversary is yourself¡­ your conscience¡­ a lesson that is my own. You are Fear and Bravery both. While your adversarial Serib seeks the fallen starspear of Ithuriya¡­ I send you on another quest of an older sort. For Ithuriya¡¯s weapon was not always hers in Haven¡¯s Ithurian house - it belonged once to giants when young was the universe, and older still it was a titanic crown known as The Lightning Crown. You are not the first shaman to think these things. To have these wishes dread and pure. And this will be your quest. To join the crowns that were shattered. Smelted and spread into new moulds as to obscure their origins and give to all a lesser power that should have remained whole. For I have seen The Timelessness of my enemy¡­ even from her cell she has power yet. Now I understand Timelessness is unstoppable - a new nature - though I am Fate and all human things are my domain. We together shall order this new chaos as Truthdom ordered the old. You are core to my enemy¡¯s ending¡­ and to mine.¡±


    ¡°Is her cell not yours?¡± Syrib asked, with whatever last gasp she had.


    ¡Þ


    The same assassin as before, a woman masked and cloaked, stepped into Syrib¡¯s sewn shadow. She paused before doing what needed to be done: one of her bony fingers was a needle laced with what is to some a poison and to others a medicine: helping them remember or forget.


    ¡Þ


    And the lady so trusting of her masked servant did not see! The assassin had done nothing at all. And from this hidden inaction so much would be begotten. With the assassin gone Syrib stood unbeknownst from her reverence and held her hand out to the tapestry, to touch where she herself was portraited a lord:


    ¡°I shall be Lord of Nature¡­¡±


    ¡°And I of Human Nature¡­¡± Lady Fate added. ¡°¡­for we shall bear The Two Crowns in Synarchy. And that shall be how Courtdom rais¡¯d.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Now you know the planned sketch of Lady Fate, sworn arch-foe of Lillian, whose name is Freedom.


    ¡°Who will dare face me their saviour? I will arrange the elements¡­ even Life and Death mine to command with The Grand Scarab¡¯s bloodline dry in the sands of D¡¯neath¡­¡± Syrib¡¯s farsight foresaw as it wished to. ¡°¡­the runes-infinity I leave, I have left¡­¡±


    ¡°You will¡­¡±


    The Spring-Sworn spoke to her own heart with its different justice, to the winds with hope her master would hear her hope and not despair, in or from this woven place beyond all she knew: ¡°I will save you, Gadail.¡±


    And to parents she once had known, to her sister long dear, all the more she knew not what to say, nor where they were. From a distance the assassin watched Syrib, before stepping-gone into shadow completely, a smile hidden by her mask.


    ¡Þ


    The Spring-Sworn asked her arachnid-accomplice:


    ¡°How will all this power and peace be mine? My Lady¡­ if I am my greatest adversary¡­ I see her in your woven work. I hear her doubting my thoughts as I doubt hers. This Serib in my heart.¡±


    ¡°The ending begins with a hex.¡± All crease and corner crawled. ¡°An unshamanic hex forbidden and sealed away by your master no less in his youth¡­ and his ancestors before him.¡±


    ¡°Sealed away? Tell me, My Lady.¡± Syrib pleaded. ¡°I will bore down to any deep, force apart all vaults.¡±


    ¡°You have climbed high, and all roads from here lead down. In Timelessness through thread and fathom, with the aid of Silence I have found the hex for you, and to you I will bequeath its boon internecine. As the Serib in your heart strengthens so you shall strengthen, as you strengthen so she shall weaken. You are Syrib no longer. I name you among my Minim! Minim, The Spring-Sworn, The Eighth.¡±

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Eleven

    Gravestone Column. The oakenstone courtyard around Serib was loud with human sound. Above the clouds and into sunlight: through spacious arches under curled roofs she had great vantage and survey of sun-swept Hadaeon - misty with distance its mountains that had not yet been hammered into winged towers and volcanoes cold of their hollow. Nothing was in the shade now.


    ¡Þ


    Wind rushed through her eight locks, for this was Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon, the city well in flight.


    Have you and I been here before, dear reader? Or somewhere similar enough.


    ¡Þ


    Ahlzvyr was hidden or altogether gone. She walked away from the ill-functioning grandclock that was once a cliffside willow-tree, bumped dizzily into groups of elites - loud Werewolves and Angels with bellies full from a feast - deep in discussions going nowhere soon. Bickering over definitions, without which nothing could begin. No questions were being asked as to reach conclusions, nuance had shortened into chants and phrases more and more extreme. Some great dish had been served prior to her arrival, having since steamed itself chill and the occasional diner was still savouring each bite. Cleaning plate after bowl after fingers reluctant to stand, as duty called their name.


    Too long had it been since their leadership was needed or ever needed at all, with Falsehood¡¯s Last King dead long ago, and after that had Ravin¡¯s ¡®little¡¯ brother Greed not ensured everything would run itself? While unsettled by her here-there travel, Serib could see apparent: Greed¡¯s age of prosper, the greatest page of Courtdom¡¯s height was turning.


    ¡Þ


    One last cake, they told themselves.


    ¡Þ


    And duty was calling, for the courtyard was becoming progressively deeper in council or debate as Serib watched on unnoticed, snatching balance and bearing wherever she could. Those diners that could stand to discuss and detail, a small group remembered what were steadily named ¡®the old ways¡¯ of Hemloch: they asked questions gleaning Justice, Bravery, Moderation and Wisdom. Convinced a change had come but not an ending; they were determined to design a plan. As that, of chaos making order, long had been Courtdom¡¯s way under Truthdom.


    ¡Þ


    Serib budged her way through the crowds strong for her size, hearing the creak or scrape of ill-sized doors opening and closing over the shouting: an array of archways all leading to and from the courtyard to other halls or corridors. Doors of gathered ages carven from oakenstone some, infinity runes their handles and hinges, the smell of rust a sludge on the wind as other openings were of steel craft, inert and immovable, whether fully closed or midway-slid their technology a hindrance in Timelessness, only able to obey laws that now are being lost.


    Whenever any door closed it was more a slam thrown by the winds, and some debaters would fall to the ground that lightning had struck.


    ¡Þ


    And past one such slamming door Serib was sure she saw Gadail, and Ithuriya with her broken armour and halved-spear, in a hall moondark with butchery and shattered glass. The same she had left behind - though as she approached the door almost running as so much and many were in her way - souls entered the doorway and came from it. Runes pulsed. The vision of their curve was gone, replaced by other scenes.


    Gadail was no longer there nor Ithuriya with him. Had she been chosen again to lead, or would another in her place with her name? Who would hold the splintered spear and wear the damaged helm?


    ¡Þ


    To those who would speak with her, Serib asked what was happening. Most were scared to leave the courtyard, the rest mad with uncertainty. She heard their shouts and whispers; rumours that to go through those rusting doors or doors with rusting hinges was to be lost forever. For Time was missing, they said, and the ages were as pages flipped through a blur. And who wishes to be lost in a story not their own? Was all this true or did they repeat what had elsewhere been said?


    Just as she tried to recount all The Stalker had told her before rudely throwing her with a slam into the willow tree, a shadow twice her height was loom.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Are you our new master shaman?¡±


    A large clawed hand or paw patted her shoulder and Serib turned to see a Werewolf tall, broad in his steel where the banner of his tribe was bright across his chest; and with that worn-proud emblem Serib supposed he was loyal to Truthdom and Time. If she wished to find the prisoner Lillian and speak with her to know her side of the divide pulling ages as pages easily apart, this loyal soul would be of no easy help.


    ¡Þ


    A greatsword was strapped across his back, curved and easily unsheathed from its scabbard if need be. There was in his eyes a shamanic glare, a grace though raw as hers. A veteran with his last journey yet untrod.


    ¡Þ


    Serib thought if the apprentice in front of her could not tell she clearly was no master, the situation was hers to take control of, away from Gadail¡¯s plans for her and The Stalker¡¯s maps. All span and sprawl led to Lillian, and to that meeting she had set her ambitions. She had heard The Stalker¡¯s view and now she wished to hear Lillian¡¯s - the angel accused of harming Time.


    ¡°I am.¡± She lied to the tall werewolf - and it is from here - these choices of whether Truth or Falsehood leads, that such legendary falls can begin.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Wherever is your totem?¡± the Were-apprentice bowed. ¡°Your robes in the sun¡­ lightning of all colours.¡±


    ¡°Not all totems are large.¡± her robes being a totem was ruse good enough for now. ¡°What is your name? I am Serib.¡± She tried to add the honorific ¡®il, yet something caught in her throat.


    ¡°Ah yes, how vacant of me. A strong name - I am Iron-Chest.¡± The tall Were offered Serib to walk with him, and his growl soon cleared the busy way.


    ¡°I know of you - you were not always a shaman?¡± Serib asked him, for Sentinel Iron-Chest was a known warrior of the werewolves, having fought in many of defences of Truthdom against Falsehood, mostly for long-bombarded Haven.


    She knew from Gadail the woodlands of Hadaeon were in a lesser age used as fuel for Falsehood¡¯s primitive furnaces. Iron-Chest was among those formidable werewolves and angels allied that Falsehood met, when a mythical tree too many had been felled and treaties broken.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I am late to the shamanic calling.¡± The veteran admitted, grey around his nose.


    Many debaters looked at Iron-Chest as he spoke of himself and passed by; Serib saw pity in their eyes, or fear at his tall shadow passing.


    ¡°Though proper warriors as I once was and shamans as you have our similarities: Truth keeps our blood the same, I¡¯m sure you agree. You seem lost, my Lord, far from your Ehl¡¯yiteth.¡± Iron-Chest sniffed at her, his aging snout dry from the abrasive wind - so far from sturdy cliff and brook his homeland. ¡°It is good to at last meet one of the four.¡±


    The warrior thought Serib was among Gadail¡¯s number - one of the four lords of Ehl¡¯yiteth. Swift ambition had left her unable to plan out her lie:


    ¡°Your full name is much longer, if I remember rightly. Tower-lost things. You can smell that I am from Ehl¡¯yiteth?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I know its bark well.¡± He smacked his lips hungrily, and Serib smiled to have found another soul fond of farbark. ¡°After Timelessness stretched its unseen floods to us Hadaeans, though I am still patchy with grey I felt younger or renewed, that Gravity¡¯s long pull had lessened. And from then on since, grace has been known to me. I am called by it, ancestors calling my name through the present plight of voices. Did the grace grow with my greyness? Was it given to me a gift by some other force, is Chance¡¯s coin still out there spinning even now in Timelessness? These things I¡¯ve considered but cannot answer. In furlough and following my grace I went to Ehl¡¯yiteth¡¯s plains and steppes in search of a master, to turn this old thing into a totem.¡± He raised his chin towards his greatsword, its hilt jutting from behind his shoulders. ¡°Alas I found no lords, for its lands, rivers and fires had come under dark ruin. Only the winds were still free; in all my travels I¡¯ve seen no such despair as Nature in chains. Few were the known routes through that maze of loss and anger as all roads seemed to move or disappear into the changing world, as though on Whim¡¯s word alone. I drank and camped with nomads that found me struggling in the Timeless wilds of Ehl¡¯yiteth, and they told me of The Spring-Sworn¡­ a shaman once, the Dark Spirit that had corrupted and enslaved three of the four elements¡­ by slaying three of the four lords the fourth she seeks, breathless without rest for Wind forsakes her.¡±


    Dread was Serib¡¯s heart to know the meadows of her home under spiritual siege, as One Lord over all elements was an ancient aim, older than Truthdom and Falsehood when Intelligence over Wisdom reigned, when rife were Wizards vampyric and Shamans unheeded, went without hearth.


    ¡°Only the winds were still free¡­¡± Serib repeated as Iron-Chest had said, hoping: could that mean Gadail had survived The Spring-Sworn so far? The veteran nodded into his words with a hope his own, that the nomads had been spared:


    ¡°After that I devoted my efforts to battling The Spring-Sworn, earning only these burns for my trouble.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest showed his arm to Serib; patchy and bald where his armour then fur had melted away. The skin had bubbled; to her eyes the sore scars seemed unlike those a fire could make. She tried to recall what The Stalker had said, speaking of a Dark Shaman, that her flames ¡®burn longer than their fuel and into acid coil¡¯.


    She noticed Here and There converging: constants the same and variables rearranged. In one place a dark spirit, a dark shaman in another story, The Spring-Sworn both.


    ¡Þ


    Looking into Iron-Chest¡¯s eyes of Courtdom she knew he believed what he had seen. To know Gadail could be in danger and so far away on Ehl¡¯yiteth, in her own story or on some other thread of Destiny¡¯s great fray by Timelessness upheaved, sharpened all that was jagged about her. She had to return to Ehl¡¯yiteth. To see her master far from hurt or harm.


    ¡Þ


    More sensible thoughts than that came afterwards: how had he gone home without her? What had come of his counsel with Ithuriya? Had Timelessness made a long journey short?


    The wave of worry passed. If ¡®the winds were still free¡¯, could that mean instead that Gadail was safe on Hadaeon? Why had her first instinct been peril¡¯s ways? The darkness Iron-Chest had seen, was it a future already past or yet a state she could prevent?


    Her main mistake was that she still pictured events happening linearly, behaving as though Reason still reigned in this tale of Love without respite.


    ¡Þ


    Yearning for certainty, there came next a moment when her eyes locked more fully with Iron-Chest¡¯s, and Serib hesitated. Gadail, The Windlord though no novice in the other elements, would have used his mastery of water and healing rains to mend the burns of Iron-Chest as best he could the moment he saw them, with only kind thought his aim. Serib¡¯s hesitation however gave away her lie, as there she was on her task to find a totem and meet an ancestor of Earth; Water¡¯s mastery therefore was little known to her. She could try to heal his wounds and would try, though she was no master shaman, nor one of the four lords, especially so if The Sentinel knew three had been slain.


    ¡Þ


    On she twisted herself as one caught out and Iron-Chest, though an apprentice shaman masterless, was no pup in age once-fooled and twice-mislead:


    ¡°I among others have been tasked with protecting this entrance to The Gravestone Column, where Lillian Grey is clipped in her cell. I have caught you in a lie.¡± The werewolf took his burned arm away and returned a newly forged steel bracer to it with a click. ¡°Do you know how I know?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The bronze-lightning in Serib¡¯s eyes was gone waiting for Iron-Chest¡¯s reply. Far from threat and malice his words, closer to concern:


    ¡°You would know of The Spring-Sworn were you one of the four lords, were Timelessness not about. It could be you are from a different lineage not yet succumbed to such dark ruin; older than the history we¡¯re in.¡±


    ¡°There have been masters young as I.¡± Serib already knew she was exposed.


    ¡°It was worth a go for you.¡± Iron-Chest licked his dry snout. ¡°However¡­ you are not the first to try their advantage over my ignorance of shamanic matters - the last succeeded and I was led into a lair of webs that my Hadaeon-blood allowed me to escape.¡±


    Or so he remembers, for we read that Fate pulled one of his hairs and the rest of him unravelled into one long thread for her designs, didn¡¯t we?


    ¡°Though long a sentinel and defender, in my aggression I followed the liar out of that lair: The Spring-Sworn. In the end outmatched.¡± he ignored the burning itches of his scars, the merging of different versions. ¡°Returning to Hadaeon from Ehl¡¯yiteth was a long road made straight by following the bronze light¡­ a sunrise, my eyes saw. A horizon high and voice not unlike yours.¡±


    Iron-Chest did not understand why that same sunrise-grace which had led him to The Spring-Sworn had led to Serib as well. Back to a courtyard much the same for all its changes.


    ¡Þ


    Having seen Fate¡¯s words we already know: but Serib wanted to ask what Iron-Chest meant by ¡®this lair of webs¡¯, though his questions continued: ¡°Why have you lied, apprentice? To one of your fellows no less - I admit my ignorance though dishonesty would never occur to me. Are we not bound together by our shamanism thin as it is? Are we not in apprenticeship as one? Have you cause to distrust me? What are you up to or wish you were up to? No perdition stands strong nor long in the face of Truth united - if you are just - then let us be aligned. If you are unjust, let us speak of it and am I wrong, and will I to you align myself?¡±


    Serib stuttered before she answered, clear and certain: ¡°I am lost, though trying to find my way.¡± She watched the many open doors of the come-go courtyard closing and souls much the same here-there, and The Sentinel was warmed, disarmed by her difficult honesty. ¡°I doubted that the loyal Iron-Chest would help me.¡±


    ¡°You knew not my name at that point, though you may be right.¡± He waited for her.


    ¡Þ


    Serib too was waiting - for her mind to understand her heart into words. How panicked she just had been! Immediately assuming the worst about Gadail despite all other sense.


    ¡Þ


    She heard The Gravestone Column drift closer; for the choirs that had haunted her first visit to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon¡¯s mazes sounded again their dirge. Choirs of rebels and loyalists alike to both sides of the divide she saw, singing from within the cracks and grooves of The Column. Stairways up and down its prisms. Angelic guards flew up to those songs, to try and pull the choirs from their unity, from their climb towards Lillian¡¯s cell in pilgrimage. All the winds full of hope and despair, of all that words can be.


    ¡Þ


    Closer it drew untethered - as bergs to ships shall doom - and Serib thought of The Column¡¯s foundations. Were they still Timelessly unfinished as a tale still being written, floating freely through Haven, or was the city turning itself against the sun - casting shadows from its tallest tower? A sundial broken and compass lost, showing all its depictions of Lillian¡¯s impossible tale, commemorative in grotesque as gravestones often go.


    ¡ÞHelp support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    She hushed the great noise of her thoughts and the relentless drumming of her heart to better heed her spirit and those of the angelic city, whose path was long with examples of leaving Nature behind, of controlling it almost completely. Almost. And all the restlessness of trying, of being unable to accept what cannot change and does.


    She knelt and placed her hand to brick, to plank and cobble-oakenstone. Iron-Chest much the novice in such arts took a step back, on guard or with intrigue.


    ¡Þ


    It was in those sights and dirge-songs that Serib found her grounded voice, for in every tile and statue of the Gravestone Tall she saw from afar it was in Love that Lillian had left Haven long ago, ¡®comprehending all the grief of the universe¡¯ as the tale goes, returning with Falsehood¡¯s Last King slain. Though the latest additions to that Gravestone Tall were bloated, ruining its shape they showed Lillian¡¯s second journey: with Evil conquered under Falsehood fell, thus her baleful gaze to Tragedy turned, returning with Fate no more and Time¡¯s blood spilt.


    That blood washing ashore and soaking black once golden sands, those the last reliefs from wall to wall.


    ¡Þ


    The choirs were those of fear: their knees and palms on the earth along with Serib¡¯s. Resting before they would rise or kneeling as in praise. The fear that Lillian was imprisoned and her promised shores were no more, and all would remain as it was. And equally, the other-fear that she would escape, and bring about ¡®Spring-Sworn¡¯ dreams. For as Minim-Syrib had seen herself in Lady Fate¡¯s tapestries, Serib saw herself there in stone rather than fabric: instrumental in Lillian¡¯s plan. Her shamanic form though a woman-older, hammered dark into a gravestone not hers:


    ¡°I am searching for my first totem and if not for Time¡¯s strangeness, that would be my only task.¡± She spoke at last.


    ¡°A fellow apprentice.¡± Iron-Chest¡¯s long lupine face smiled and whiskers curled over his war-known eyes. ¡°As I thought. And what other task has Chance¡¯s bludgeon or Timelessness given you?¡±


    ¡°My master told me not to, though all the more such weight has become intense, and I feel compelled beyond my control¡­ I do not know if you know of him, another soul - Hunter Lord Ahlzvyr his name? From Timelessness, from a past faded aeon he has returned to ours a sworn defender of Time. A believer Time yet lives or can be saved, as you are?¡±


    Sentinel Iron-Chest nodded, and Serib carried on her burden aloud:


    ¡°Despite his words at my throat giving me chance and choice to avoid being his prey, I will meet with Lillian, at The Gravestone Column if that is where she rests, with clipped wings as you said. Its shadow is already over us. Through all objection I will make the climb.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Soon it was not only Iron-Chest listening uneasily to Serib¡¯s blasphemy, but some of the busy elites showed to her their uneasy glances. Were¡¯s and Angels alike there involved, before civil war had torn the city-Hadaean entirely into sides dark and light, seen by the sun and not: those loyal to Lillian and those against her. Serib began to understand the divide and the craters of The Winged Wall, battered into its innermost side. How storms begin with smaller clashes of frost and flame.


    ¡Þ


    Whether Iron-Chest was an apprentice shaman or only wished he was, answering the ancestral call, he knelt with Serib as to less impose his shadow over her, as he saw about her the grace that shamans see, in the courtyard where shadows gathered by The Gravestone Tall. The grace of understanding History and oneself aligned:


    ¡°Serib-strong, you¡¯d need better than a lie to slip by me twice; and with simple Truth you¡¯ve already gone a step to win me over. Though, we¡¯ll see. Do you know the human fable?


    Of Warrior, Worrier,


    Wanderer, Wonderer.


    From being a Sentinel I know the first road too well.¡±


    He paused as some grim warfare of the past glazed over a veil his eyes, and he continued:


    ¡°Listen to me and know as well without having to tread it yourself, I hope: that across Falsehood¡¯s battlefields it was horror. The wounded and the maimed. Not enough soil to strew us over. Too few vultures to return us all. And there were those souls that lost themselves under the shrieking horn of Violence dressed as noble War. Yet - it is not these mechanical sights from which I still reel - these scenes of bodily cruelty. Falsehood¡¯s true horror¡­ the lies told in its parks and bed chambers, in its arts and temples, misinformation regurgitated without question. The lies conjured from its last king, told by the king¡¯s states, systems and provinces conglomerate, holding bitterly onto the fantasy of the king¡¯s kingdom fallen, as Courtdom Raised inside the king¡¯s walls and from beyond them. Before the glory when some say Lillian herself bested the king in duel, and Rejoice began. Yet we all are descendants of that same king; humans still, from humans-other who made choices we cannot now imagine. Furred, winged, bah, humans still and all. From small cuts became the gored divide between souls in Falsehood¡¯s Dark Ages, for as one lies, the others feel they must as well. From Distrust¡¯s slobber stems much of our being soaked with human fear, and why else would the corrupt be so covetous? What is taken must be given back! Warriors as I, keeping watch as Sentinels from walls or as soldiers marching to the front, can scarce manage a skirmish without trust in one another. Battalion between two and all. Do you and your master share Trust¡¯s way?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Without really knowing why, Serib felt shame unable to answer that question. We may know from a chapter already past - is it the little runaway in her heart somewhere, named Syrib once and now Minim? Iron-Chest¡¯s suggestion to follow brought her back from her innermost:


    ¡°Let us do away with that concern from our first step, and set yourself apart from The Spring-Sworn. With lies she slipped by me, with lies won my trust. It has been so long since any would do such a thing as lie - ¡®soft from Courtdom¡¯s cakes us all¡¯ - what nose had I for it? And being a warrior alone was not enough to heal her corruption, not a battle one wins with battle.¡±


    Serib listened uncomfortably to The Sentinel¡¯s view. It is with lies that Falsehood rises, and reigns miserably over a miserable aeon in Truth¡¯s place, over all that could have been. Or so she had always been told. These things she had heard and had never seen, from before her ages short a wish already granted. So it is to be young in Prosper¡¯s age.


    ¡Þ


    Or - on her journeys with Gadail had she not been attentive enough to details and diction? It can be difficult for youth to see from its vantage of dreams - though too can age be clouded by wisdom misnamed? Which truths can be taught, which others must be learned on one¡¯s own lonesome road?


    ¡®¡­to align Love and Reason where we can.¡¯ Gadail¡¯s gale and echo.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I¡¯m still worrying.¡± her defences fell, as Iron-Chest had implored her with his questions to speak the truth her own.


    The courtyard was loud around her with Hadaean elites in calm panic, and she said worrying, from there wondering what could be instead of all this; under Time¡¯s rolling fins:


    ¡°My master and The Stalker have tried to lure me away from Lillian onto a path already laid, but does all this Timelessness not begin with her? She is imprisoned but this has not erased her. I want to know what they know without question; and her cell and grave grow only larger the more we turn away. If Lillian and her words are terrible then it will be clear as she speaks, and I will see through Falsehood¡¯s mask as I have been trained by my master. And I will join the rest of you.¡± Her cliffs and walls fell further, exposing strength, her frustration visible to Iron-Chest as she asked: ¡°Does my master not see that I am strong? Does he think I will fall under the weight? Or fear his ways are wrong¡­¡±


    ¡°So far¡­¡± The Sentinel interrupted, a bark in his throat. ¡°¡­all that speak with Lillian fall under her influence. It was only angels, but now a shaman has gone and fallen dark, and rumours abound that The Woodland Duke of my kin has sworn allegiance to Lillian. To seeing her free. The Were-Tribes have begun to bicker, and rogue groups have already led an attack on the city.¡±


    Serib had seen The Stalker sitting in the aftermath of such an assault or one such as, a crater made by those trying to escape. She had walked the future Iron-Chest spoke of next:


    ¡°After the attack, some angels have in secret adopted old practices; seeing my kin as inferior. Such a divide between Were¡¯s and Angels¡­ not since Falsehood¡¯s ways.¡±


    All these plans and potential threats The Sentinel had been made aware of, by The Stalker Ahlzvyr perhaps, as to better keep watch over the moving courtyard leading to Lillian¡¯s always-moving cell, in the tallest tower of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry these things are happening¡­ I can¡¯t imagine¡­¡±


    So genuine her heart, that Iron-Chest knew Serib would do anything to unwind or cut what Tragedy¡¯s depart was loosening or pulling tighter. He listened closely as she asked:


    ¡°What if speaking with Lillian will help you and your woodland kin? If her words are Truthful, we must follow Truth wherever it leads and be as light for others. Is that not how all our sayings go? Let a shaman decide; apprentice as I am; I do not know where my master is and I have not been trained to be idle nor to hide. Will you let me pass up to Lillian¡¯s cell? You have been lied to before but I am not The Spring-Sworn - hear me - I do not know what to do, where to go, what to say.¡±


    ¡Þ


    When Sentinel Iron-Chest seemed unsure, especially as Serib asked more desperately or severely, she held all The Sentinel¡¯s words in her thoughts as pebbles gathered along his speaking, looking for patterns as The Stalker had said to her. She took her own fear by the hand:


    ¡°What do you fear most, Sentinel? When you are alone in your thoughts. To hear from you that Ehl¡¯yiteth is in despair¡­ from birth my shamanism has decided for me what road is mine. What of my older sister, my parents, more shadows than memories. Without my family I fear losing my master, who in all ways is all I know. I fear lordship in his stead¡­¡±


    ¡°Grey around his snout, is he.¡± Iron-Chest checked the courtyard with an experienced glance, nodding at his fellow sentinels confirming: despite the multitude of souls around, the only threat was the tusked girl he was speaking with, who soon replied:


    ¡°He is old¡­ when he is gone I will be lord, and I feel so far from the strength that should be mine. I feel I can learn the lessons he has to teach me, all except how to live without him. To be a shaman of Truth, a warrior, worrier, wanderer and wonderer alone.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib felt a cool breeze across the bridges of her tired feet, on her neck high above the world, and Iron-Chest was a while with his thoughts until:


    ¡°You speak bravely, as a warrior should. It is difficult here with thin air and mountains far away to imagine ourselves present - and strong as stone. You and I miss the woodlands. I suppose your future seems even further away - that you may eventually have an apprentice your own to guide. An apprentice that loves you as a master, as you love yours.¡±


    So he spoke, having trained many warriors and sent them on. Who, wrapped in such grief-to-come as Serib was, could imagine an apprentice of their own? She was a while speechless, deep in imagination of a future unthinkable little thought before, listening to Iron-Chest¡¯s answer to come. Though having never met one, in some words he was everything she imagined an ancestor to be - yet in others he admitted his fears, doubts and ignorance, that all the more made whole his wisdom:


    ¡°What does this old warrior fear most? I fear that I will die with the Courtdom I love still trapped in this Timeless tumult¡­ as I feel powerless. Just an old sentinel and these are no invasions as I am used to defending against. What frontiers can we build our walls across that Timelessness cannot unbuild or is already inside? How can one reason with a flood? Who can know what a storm desires from us? The city has been cleaned and it still is filthy. What allegiances last forever, from which our past and future selves have no defence? I am loyal more to the ideal of Truth than I am to any one soul or flag, Serib. Courtdom¡¯s waging against Falsehood has afforded me no family, for returning home to the treetops of Everwere and Gap¡¯elyhond was never certain, and so I turned from that. In a way certain that violence would be my end. It was my choice, for I was afraid. Instead I have outlived to see tall the trees I helped to plant, alas that I have lived too long and seen forces come to cut those parks and woodlands down. To perhaps have never planted them at all, their Timeless aim.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°What do you see in me, past my strong name?¡± Serib asked him. ¡°Have I come to tear anything down?¡±


    ¡°You do not seem Rabid to me.¡± The Sentinel folded his armoured arms, his scars and balder patches shiny in the passing sun as his new bracer was ill-fitting; make of that what you will. ¡°You¡¯re the only soul here speaking from her heart. Look at them all. Dignitaries, confused and terrified and devolving every moment with inaction. Uncertain of Courtdom¡¯s Truth they dare not follow their own. They are forgetting that play¡­ what was its name¡­¡± he rolled his lupine eyes in irony and laughed: ¡°¡­now the name escapes me, but in its last scene the sound of Golden Hammers being dropped in Turynya is a scene one does not forget. The sound of bells that will not ring again¡­¡±


    He explained to Serib he had seen the play off duty as a young soldier, and found much foundation in it which had since seen him through. The veteran stood tall over many, sniffing and comparing all that once was and he had seen.


    ¡°I fear it is happening again.¡± He held out his clawed hand or paw for Serib, patchy with burns still sore. ¡°Shall we be allied in our confusion, on our quest to understand? I too would like to know Lillian for myself, with my own nose. I follow orders not from fools, as those around us flailing. There is enough mystery already in Timelessness without the Enemy being so close to us, yet sealed away from discourse. There should be no Truth only few know. If Time should go away¡­¡± he paused, his claws still lingering for Serib¡¯s choice. ¡°¡­or they already have¡­ well, nothing can come into being that is not true. In following Truth, Evil was cured and only Tragedy remained. If we venture together, Serib-strong, and Time is gone, then Truth it is and Truth is not as we thought it was; and it is us that must change.¡±


    ¡Þ


    In returned gesture, Serib accepted his claws and shook his furred hand. His armour clinked. Just as when she joined arms with dwarven Ahlzvyr and saw his certainty, that he could tell no lie, in the gaze of Iron-Chest she saw instead a soul unsure of many things, a mountainous countenance battered by Timeless change and Courtdom¡¯s rise long before. A soul that had lived through both ages. His next words surprised her:


    ¡°The old warrior in me says I should throw you from the walls of this city, now I¡¯ve a good grip on you. The apprentice in me¡­ though untrained, I see a sunrise around you. A bronze grace not yet tarnished as all this silver is becoming.¡±


    Despite the busy courtyard The Sentinel drew much attention in admitting his doubt. Angels armed with spears turned their gaze towards Serib and her new companion. As he twice had fallen in his duty, once with The Spring-Sworn and there he was again despite.


    ¡°I will throw myself before you have to.¡± Her smile joined his and she told him: ¡°Careful.¡±


    ¡Þ


    To distract the other sentinels, Serib again placed her palm to the wind-cool cobbles. A tremor belched up from the deep of the floating city, an earthquake-small the likes of which floating cities never know. She called to the gemstones in the walls she had seen with Gadail, passing from pier to rampart. Angels beat their wings to safer flight and Werewolves howled in warning, and the wingless races clambered for balance. Soon her head was wrapped with aches of concentration - she struggled to stand though stand she did.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest walked with Serib away from feasts and debates, and they found a more garden-like corner of the courtyard to themselves, in the shadows of pillars where he could explain the elites¡¯ reluctance, as doorways of infinity filled and emptied of souls brave and afraid:


    ¡°I am not sure how we will convince them and my sentinels. The passage is under guard heavier than I alone. The last shaman that spoke with Lillian was The Spring-Sworn. She returned dark, Serib, and was young much like you. Similarities and differences alike have many throwing guesses, myself among them; and to end it all Ahlzvyr has us on the lookout for one of your description and you have wandered directly into his predictions.¡±


    ¡°Do the words of the great Iron-Chest count for nothing?¡±


    ¡°Not for as much now¡­¡± The Sentinel was honoured. ¡°¡­as The Spring-Sworn and I once travelled together. I was by shamanic grace mislead, or perhaps led on the longer path, to you. Following sunrises.¡±


    Serib¡¯s eyes widened and the lightning about them softened. Her focus narrowed on The Sentinel, away from the rambling courtyard.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Despite all that is no longer linear, as though by curse or design, souls here remember my trespass: I was seen leaving this courtyard with The Spring-Sworn. The Bronze grace I see about you¡­ a sunrise of the new age. I saw the same about Syrib, alas I was wrong, or right in the wrong age.¡±


    Serib was distracted in her dread at how similar two names could be. She could not ignore it, nor believe Chance was enough to explain the strange.


    ¡°Returning burned and beaten I was under Fortune to be accepted back by Courtdom after my poor judgement, and I was due sentencing, though Justice saw my task for the realms was yet undone. Released from chains back into the service of my life, spared an ending in the arena of Greed.¡±


    ¡°Your more shamanic senses see what others cannot¡­ whatever grace you see with me and Syrib, it cannot be the same.¡±


    ¡°I hope that is true.¡±


    ¡°Will you tell me about the lair of webs? You were taken there - after The Spring-Sworn lied to you, you said? Does that¡­ place¡­ await us if we climb Lillian¡¯s gravestone?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re jumping ahead¡­¡± Iron-Chest whined anxious as a hound before he spoke, leading Serib through the crowded courtyard gardens to another safer nook, moving with the long shadows.


    ¡Þ


    He explained to her best as he remembered, when once he walked with young Syrib on his pauldron broad:


    ¡°After I followed The Spring-Sworn¡­ I believe I was wounded by some small blade in that woven lair unseen, perhaps small as a needle though much with poison. Enough to make an angel woozy, perhaps, but the constitution of my woodland-kin may not be known to those foreign to Hadaeon, and following ancestral grace from rune to rune I found star-laden path away. The voice of that sewn realm called herself Fate without any of Humble¡¯s prose¡­ a blasphemy to think one soul could control all things. The voice spoke of crowns, Serib-strong. Of vulgar totalities in power.¡±


    Serib remembered Iron-Chest¡¯s description of Ehl¡¯yiteth in reign and rule under The Spring-Sworn, where only the winds were still free. Ahlzvyr¡¯s own words went with her again, of fires burning beyond their fuel.


    ¡°What did these runes look like?¡± she asked, and The Sentinel pointed out the symbols of infinity all around, the rusting hinges and handles, ¡®there all along¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    After Iron-Chest had laid out all else he remembered, Serib added and asked again:


    ¡°If a shaman is involved, the crowns sound like totems to me. Will we go as well to the woven place, if we make the climb to The Gravestone Column as you did with Syrib?"


    Iron-Chest answered not aloud, but with the uncertainty in his eyes; he knew not the rules of these runes, as by Chance¡¯s luck or grace he had made it home from those dimensions of other-than and else.


    ¡Þ


    Serib followed him as he prowled away from their quiet corner of the courtyard, towards the busy doors slamming shut and throwing uncertain souls to the ground where they could in such crowds find stealth. Her summoned tremor had settled and in the clarity she saw other sentinels all angels had found them.


    ¡°I will not take you there, Iron-Chest. If we cannot get through here without violence and violence still would take us to that webbed lair where you are harmed, then we will find another road to Lillian.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Though soon, they would be surrounded. It was not Serib¡¯s wish to summon another tremor lest in her aim to merely confuse far worse damage she would wreak upon a city already in civil war.


    ¡Þ


    Two Crowns.


    Totems.


    Where she began and The Spring-Sworn ended she did not know, as from her confusion she remembered the reason she had come to this courtyard at all from that weird cliffside willow sprouting red and violet blooms; to find route somehow back to the lake - to the fallen starspear-halved of Ithuriya and potentially, her first totem. She determined if those forces ¡®Fate¡¯ and ¡®Spring-Sworn¡¯ were searching for totems of power, then her own task must remain as straight.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You know Haven well¡­¡± Serib grabbed Iron-Chest¡¯s burnt arm by mistake and his attention therefore, as he kept locked his eyes with those angels who once were under his command barging through the crowds, his other hand-paw curling around the hilt of his back-sheathed sword.


    Serib pressed him: ¡°Which of these doors leads downwards?¡±


    ¡°If Timelessness was not awash?¡± as he began to answer the crowds dispersed, leaving only sentinels in array. ¡°There.¡±


    He motioned her to the only door through which no souls were going nor coming from - when Serib listened she heard from its arches the pebbled shores wrinkling to the lap of softer waves and wind gentle through the horizon¡¯s trees. All this - the shore of a lake she heard - yet saw only a dark corridor waiting.


    ¡Þ


    Further alas between Serib, Iron-Chest and that door alone, the other sentinels had begun to make of themselves apart one phalanx together, some in linked flight and the rest in march advancing over the cobbles towards them. Spears long and shields tight.


    ¡Þ


    Being one against many, some say Iron-Chest murmured this old poem-rite, while others claimed the howl could be heard in the forests a world apart, quiet or aloud giving pause to those against him, to learn he was prepared to fall:


    ¡®¡­when I my last -


    lay me riverside


    under vulture skies,


    in Moon-woodlands-old of Gap¡¯elyhond.¡¯


    His howl or mutter bolstered himself and Serib while demoralising his new foes, with all the sadness of a kinship lost. His greatsword curved he unsheathed from his back and Serib saw how moon-like it shined cratered and chipped across its length; in his howl she heard the depth of the human fable upon which she too had set, of Truth to its ending.


    ¡Þ


    The skies of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon brewed darker, the bronze lightning of Serib¡¯s eyes flashed as thunder overhead was deep, and it was no quake from below the sentinels next should have feared as Nature¡¯s force above.


    ¡°Fellow apprentice¡­¡± she spoke to Iron-Chest. ¡°¡­I stand with you.¡±

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Twelve

    Lakebed strange. Some recounted when asked - or so wrote in their diaries unearthed from the ruins that could not be found - claimed they saw Serib¡¯s lightning though inaccurate in apprenticeship helped break the guard and phalanx of the sentinels, allowing Iron-Chest to pry their ranks.


    Others claimed her lightning struck his sword deliberate and made him all the more fierce to face, blurring his movements in her light. Such are the stories we have from dignitaries-there who fled rightly as the fighting began.


    ¡Þ


    Regardless his curved greatsword was sweeping and swift for all its heft; in mastery of Defence¡¯s art, Iron-Chest killed not one angel while keeping himself and Serib protected, as her lightning again twice from the darkening skies, for all its clumsiness struck down one angel quickly and with ease the forking spread a chain from armour to arms stealing two more of life.


    Foul the stench of their boils on the suddenly stormy wind, their screams abrupt.


    ¡Þ


    Serib rushed through the broken line of angels, jumping over the smoke of one lightning-struck and fallen as Iron-Chest was close behind in prowl, his blade and armour thwarting spears from above.


    ¡Þ


    Finally Serib reached the doorway sure that Iron-Chest was behind her - alas she turned and The Stalker was there with the angels, covered in Were-scalps - halberd in hand and scarab-grub crawling massive across the columns. It seemed to Serib that The Sentinel, her fellow apprentice, had all intention of staying there fighting to cover her escape.


    Her eyes flashed with bronze - her hands she raised with fingers gnarling in their conjure - the skies over Haven turned black with venomous stormcloud and relentless lightning reigned down onto the courtyard. Using his halberd-tall Ahlzvyr poled to safety while the angels flew and ran to what cover they could find. Enanti or Dromiya its name, the crab-scarab indomitable behind its shell repelled Nature¡¯s force.


    From that sight Serib ran.


    ¡Þ


    Greatsword in hand, Iron-Chest sprinted over using not only his hindlegs but his free hand-paw as well for greatest speed his bounding, and together with Serib leapt into the dark.


    ¡Þ


    She knew the infinity runes of the door''s handles and hinges would take them far, though Iron-Chest was prepared for a corridor leading down where he could easier fight one by one those-many that came following them, turning from sweeping strikes to thrusting attacks in the narrow.


    Instead after slipping through dimensioned pages - as all pages are bound by a spine - the curved portals of runes-infinity spat them out and a quiet Night greeted them both with a cold breeze against which their panting was hoarse.


    ¡Þ


    They had found themselves in the woodlands of Hadaeon, where only moon and starlight shone cloudless and blue. The moon in full bloom with oceans and plains celadon in their glow. The wind was cruel and bitter; those nights in Spring that still keep a remnant of Winter. A large beech they stood next to - pulsing with a rune scored into its ancient bark. Iron-Chest was most confused as he turned breathing hard with sword in hand to defend them both, seeing only an old tree indifferent to his growl. Though spat from one realm of space to another he had landed dextrously and strong.


    ¡°I believe when we pass these runes, it changes when we are.¡± Serib shared with him as she staggered up to her feet, and he thought back to the woven place, to the rune of odd he and The Spring-Sworn had passed crossing from the courtyard to The Gravestone Column, over the bricks of a maze.


    ¡°And they cannot follow us through¡­ here?¡± Iron-Chest did not yet sheathe his greatsword as he pawed at tree and rune, full of bronze light almost a lamp in the dark forest, casting long its shadows as low sunsets do.


    Animals had come to witness the human light disturbing their rhythms, as moths and bats made swarm and shadows all the more.


    ¡°Let us not wait to find out - and if not, I doubt this will stop Ahlzvyr for long.¡± As Serib stepped away from the tree-a-portal, the bronze of its rune faded and the ancient dark was quick to welcome its shadows back. ¡°He must think I am Syrib, The Spring-Sworn.¡±


    ¡°He would know your head is full of hair while hers is halved, and odd that he entered our melee, giving away his position. Why not strike us hidden from afar¡­¡± Sentinel Iron-Chest sheathed his sword to his baldric-scabbard and in that nightly-quiet words returned to him that he kept to himself, words of ¡®Fate¡¯ spoken from the corners of a place all-woven:


    Yes, you will defend her, Sentinel, though not here. Not yet. Do you see your layered destinies in these spindled walls of my making?¡¯


    And there he had seen indeed his layered destinies, where his greatblade-curved was wreathed with lightning-bronze.


    ¡Þ


    The Sentinel dwelled not on what strings could be pulling him, as he felt his will untouched was still his own. Yet similarly or not so, the bronze grace he saw around Serib and Syrib was clear, and that was the Truth to which he set the Autumn of his life, wherever a glow may lead.


    The strings we choose.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Where next?¡± he asked her, and she soon knelt to the cool earth untouched by sunshine, that no days had come to banish a night too long.


    A root of the old beech was there exposed, covered in moss older than her, all blue sparkling moist in the moonlight. Her palm there a while remained to see if her guided hunch was right, remembering the scattered words of Gadail and The Stalker, of her tale so far:


    ¡°I know what we must find, though not where to go.¡±


    ¡°Is that not always how it is?¡± The Sentinel¡¯s long, hairy ears were alert at something nearby Serib did not yet see.


    Then above and gone, a bird darted through leaves in the dark. Serib asked:


    ¡°Being of these woodlands, do you know where we are?¡±


    Iron-Chest sniffed the winds:


    ¡°These trees are well known to me, though grow closer together than I recall.¡±


    ¡°In strange gravities with Time¡¯s disappearance.¡± Serib supposed. ¡°There is a lake nearby? With a steel pier for visitors to Haven.¡±


    Iron-Chest nodded. ¡°Arruikikn. Stay close to me.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Following Iron-Chest¡¯s nose, Serib could feel the sharp wound in the world nearby had reopened. Once the lakebed left behind when Haven rose into Hadaeon¡¯s skies - overgrown with Nature¡¯s kelp and rainfall - had become the resting place of Ithuryia¡¯s star-spear halved. Marine snow and sediment in a storm of currents under the surface she could not yet see, all this from senses she did not know she possessed without Gadail present, from instincts he had helped to train.


    What need had she for these senses with him close? Only with distance would she find her own voice.


    ¡Þ


    Walking through moonlight¡¯s woodlands she was drained from summoning her lightning, and imagined Iron-Chest must be moreso, having turned from a life long served:


    ¡°How do you feel?¡±


    A while The Sentinel thought before answering, his hind paws rustling the night leaves of his homeland-world:


    ¡°With stronger focus than I can for a while recall. Heavy on my heart I have betrayed my fellow sentinels, mere in the face of oaths made to Truth; will Timelessness tell that they first betrayed themselves? I have been up there too long¡­ Fancy¡¯s Loft, my mother called it.¡± joy he took, walking through the wilds once again.


    ¡Þ


    Just as Serib had struggled to imagine Gadail with an apprentice other than her in an aeon before, similarly disconnected was the notion of Iron-Chest as a pup, a mother-wolf fussing over him.


    ¡°Was your armour smaller?¡± she asked, and The Sentinel barked amused.


    ¡Þ


    Some while later through the woodland, Iron-Chest slowed his pace to a growl and cautioned Serib: ¡°We are not alone in these trees.¡± His hand-paw reached for his greatsword and the scars of his fur-strobed arm shined in the moon-glow night.


    Through dense growths Serib could not see ahead if the lake was near or far. The trees all leaned on one another for support and made tight the way as braids almost. She however sensed the same presence The Sentinel had found through scent: ¡°Leave your sword sheathed¡­ it is a shaman ahead.¡±


    He believed though with caution said: ¡°Yet I see no such grace leading me to them¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    Bitter winds after snapping twigs, getting closer to the open shore. It was not long until the sounds of a lake trickled through old oak and beech - those sentries of Nature that had seen the angels depart and ever older grown. Owls hooted further and further away. Iron-Chest spoke of when he was a pup as they walked:


    ¡°This is the sort of moon-bright night when the tribes all would howl together in festival, pyres across the forests. Rejoicing in the sight of Lillian¡¯s shield, huge and round as the moon. Her hammer-spear¡­ the line and the loop.¡±


    Serib listened fondly, having so far not heard anyone describe Lillian in such a way. Imprisoned, involved in Time¡¯s disappearance, though what villain could she be with a shield? And hammers being a long-divine symbol of building and breaking both.


    Had Lillian broken what needed to be broken? And would she be the one to remake it? Had the inevitable only been interrupted?


    These the hopes Serib kept close. Hope for one and so for all, that even Time¡¯s apparent murderer could be redeemed, keeping in her heart what The Hunter Lord had said of failures:


    ¡®A stalker¡¯s core mark is to return with prey alive; no longer prey at all but a comrade brought in shivering from the cold of Falsehood¡¯s hypocrisy. To have turned a soul back from the Rabid Edge is the stalker¡¯s victory. To have to kill is a failure of words.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    When Serib following Iron-Chest at last stepped onto the shoreline shadows, the vast water dark with mystery reflected Hadaeon¡¯s moons and stars to themselves, as a mirror blurred and egress unknowable chopped by winds colder than those inland. The pebbled-shore almost frosty under her toes, shifting and crunching as she walked and to mind was called an old poem Gadail read to her and other students in a passing speech, of what Time gives and takes away, of how those hands both cruel and kind are worthy of praise.


    ¡Þ


    She had not realised how constricted she felt among the leaning trees and at the shoreside easier breathed, as though Gadail The Windlord himself had sent a breeze to find her. She smiled not long enough hearing Iron-Chest growl again: for a young werewolf was watching them. A shaman waiting upon a lakeside boulder.


    ¡Þ


    Mossy bark her armour and robes of leaves shining against lake-and-moonlight. A great nose ring swung from her snout and Serib knew the jewellery was a totem. For that ring glowed-etched with runes of Earth and Fire - clear to Serib¡¯s eyes that this shaman had already received Imbues from two elemental ancestors, this apprentice-shaman on a journey long and her own. Though even in the dark her disdain of Serib was clear:


    ¡°I heard on the winds that Old Gada¡¯il had come to Hadaeon at last, to give his counsel on this Timeless matter. See how strained the trees still grow? Disturbed by Haven¡¯s heresy, twisted into sewn shapes by knowledge over wisdom. A tough road between the worlds, but we must make do. It is good to finally see The Windlord¡¯s wayward apprentice here, long as I have waited in heed. Know my name as I already know all those you go by¡­ I am Patinya, apprentice of The Earthlord.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib tried to ease her breathing, to find kinship:


    ¡°How can any of us know how short or long it is, in this Timelessness?¡±


    And somewhat the young werewolf smiled, her tone no less severe:


    ¡°That is true. Iron-Chest¡­¡± she addressed The Sentinel with a raised voice, whose stance was ready. ¡°I know your nature is first to defend - let me help remove her illusions from your sight. I will warn you well before I attack, for all the harm I mean is to your companion only, and the words I have yet to say will sway you from her side. Perhaps you will never again be welcome in Haven having twice closed your eyes to better judgement, but the woodlands of Ever know your name, you who long have served their frontiers. Do you not hear ever since you left - the howl of our Duke calling you home? Did he not spare you when you returned from your first ill journey with The Spring-Sworn?¡±


    Iron-Chest sighed into quiet contemplation:


    ¡®That our Duke calls himself Justice - home must now be strange.¡¯ though little moment he had to his own thoughts before Patinya¡¯s long-furred chin lifted in concern:


    ¡°Wait¡­¡±


    The were-shaman stood from her boulder, her paws crunching the shoreside pebbles as she walked to Iron-Chest. Her robe of leaves all-blooming with flowers the moonlight could not clearly shape. She ran her claws through his fur and realised. He spoke for her, through her disbelief:


    ¡°I must seem too grey for it? Regardless, since Timelessness crashed around us a wave I know the ancestral call of your shamanism. Rocks will not move to my stare nor oceans sleep at my word as I¡¯m sure to yours they do, but I see it heard - the grace-howl of our ancestors. An echo more: the present calls to me for a future best. My path lays entwined with young Serib, and it is her sunrise I follow.¡±Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°What hex have you pierced him with?¡± The moonlight found her fangs.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Hex?¡± Serib replied, having never heard such a word, though you may remember Fate speak of such a thing to Syrib.


    That same moonlight made clear the torture in Patinya¡¯s eyes, and Serib in kindness held out her hand to the were-shaman:


    ¡°What have you seen? How do you know who I am and that we would come by here? I will never mean you harm.¡±


    Patinya¡¯s jaws snapped: ¡°Has sorrow even yet occurred to you, Spring-Sworn? For those angels you have slain? Of course not - those few sentinels against those many you yet will boil, and the ripples will be felt through all our aeons until Since and Yet become utterly meaningless.¡±


    Serib could smell their skin again, those angels in the courtyard by her lightning charred:


    ¡°Why do you call me Spring-Sworn? Is your Far Sight unaffected, or strengthened by Timelessness? Iron-Chest since heeds the ancestors, and I since cannot See as once I did - into futures and what could be. To some giving and others taking away. How do you ¡®know¡¯ all of this and speak so certainly?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Patinya glanced between Iron-Chest and Serib before she replied, as her opportunity dawned:


    ¡°All know who can hear the winds: you are among those responsible for Time¡¯s disappearance. Separated by my master on my totem¡¯s-journey through Timelessness


    I have heard shrieked poems, Spring-Sworn. And your master¡¯s words as much upon his winds have said - pleading we of our kin search for you in our woodlands, lost by our streams. Masters have gone looking on the surfaces of frozen stars finding nothing. The winds of Old Gada¡¯il, greatest of shamans reduced to a plea - that we be merciful to you he asks. You ran away, his gales claim, corrupted by a Dark Spirit. That is not what I have seen, caught in runed-loops, runes hidden as traps to trip us all that are not loyal to Lillian¡¯s ways. How more lost could I have been not only without my master, but without Time¡¯s support as well? The most common and unquestionable of all forces¡­ the loops I tie myself into, falling back into assumptions forgetting Time is lost. And in remembering I despair; can this nonsense be reasoned with?¡±


    Serib felt that some of Patinya¡¯s words could be her own, as on she listened with quiet Iron-Chest under the Hadaeon moonlight celadon and serene:


    ¡°Well through it all I made passage despite all twist and turn to a nearby vale. A brief camp by the starlight of a colder eve I made and in the skies Haven drifted - I at last was not far off. Perhaps there I would find my master, or even Old Gada¡¯il through words on the wind.¡±


    You interrupted your totem¡¯s-journey?¡± Serib asked, and the Earthlord¡¯s apprentice confirmed:


    ¡°Then that great clash between Ithyriya and Lillian made bright the dark sky¡­ Werewolves howled proud with betrayal loyal to her and even some angels wept with happiness.¡±


    Serib stepped forward: ¡°And from that duel the totem fell here into the lake¡­ Ithuriya¡¯s halved spear?¡± she named it though it was no totem yet, while Iron-Chest watched the woodlands.


    ¡°I followed the fallen starspear¡¯s path here and yet, it has not arrived.¡± Patinya had long forsaken wondering or asking How, as Timelessness soaked all things she found. ¡°I knew it would draw one such as you, mad for incomprehensible, reprehensible power. Is it an echo here we are hearing, of what has been or shall? Others have come and found their folly with my aid¡­ others even waited with me swearing they would help me stop you, alas by Chance or Madness all were driven away and only I remain. I have halted my totem¡¯s-journey partway, for only one of us may take the starspear-halved, Spring-Sworn. You were not corrupted as the gales of your master claim; you are the corruption. You are the darkest of all spirits. You have been taught Justice, Courage, Moderation and Wisdom, and these you twist for you alone. Tyrant.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Patinya¡¯s own totem though only half in its strength, hung pierced from her nose. Serib did not know why her fellow apprentice would desire the half-spear. She had listened respectfully until now. She raised her chin and glare to meet Patinya¡¯s growling scowl:


    ¡°Shamans never compete for their totems, this is not right¡­¡±


    ¡°Much is no longer right! And we vie for more than that. Your desires dark and unnatural, dreams foul - if the metal fallen or falling here is destined to be your totem, then I must keep it from you. For all of hope against your despair this matter is beyond our rites. We hold an age in each hand! We who are between Need¡¯s passing and Greed¡¯s rise. You have measured our duty and reeled from its weight afraid. You choose to forget all that came before us and risk all the happiness that could be. The future our masters have given their lives to! The future where there are no more shamans, for all are taught as we are. What mangled Unity have you to offer, over all that Chance''s truth has ever made?¡±


    Patinya¡¯s eyes glowed as torches, one bright with starry flame the other in lightning¡¯s flash, and inwards moved her summoned clouds shutting out most stars as claws and fangs she bared, plunging dark the lake that moments ago was bright in choppy blurs of wet light. There were bones then among those lakeside shores, of those who had waited with Patinya or refused to.


    ¡Þ


    In scarcer moonlight Iron-Chest¡¯s sword shone, almost unsheathed when Serib yelled:


    ¡°No.¡± she held out her hand and The Sentinel ceased though still the clouds stiffened with thunder their brew, her lightning-robes an ensign in the now stronger winds.


    ¡°Lost as I may be, I will not kill a fellow shaman. A fellow apprentice the more.¡± Serib knelt and placed her palm to the earth, to the shoreside pebbles glistening. ¡°I shall defend myself. I am not The Spring-Sworn.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Knowing she must be faster than the lightning soon to strike her away, Serib launched backhand a lone pebble directly into the sky above her. Further than sight could tell. Iron-Chest fled into the trees for no steel of his could settle the coming fight, as four great boulders from the shore too followed that pebble tossed, floating or held by force invisible, together forming a quick shield against the sinister clouds. Patinya¡¯s furious lightning struck directly down tearing larger-made by the lake reflected, crashing into the stones Serib made fly and held strong. More and more strikes and bolts under which Iron-Chest shrank tiny as a pup watching the two storms from afar; then Patinya summoned to her own hand such a bolt, and from that deadlier angle sent her mightiest lightning.


    ¡Þ


    A horizon between the two apprentices.


    ¡Þ


    Serib¡¯s strength fell and so too her boulders fell around her in last defence. The largest mass of stone - made weak already from Patinya¡¯s rage - shattered into smaller shards against the final blast of lightning. The smack unreal with its reality. Serib hid behind her arms.


    ¡Þ


    The exhausted chaos had settled quietly. Stones had fallen onto Serib though none her strong arms could not throw off, and Iron-Chest helped her up from the rubble shoreside. Glowing rocks lay here-there almost molten with heat, near and far. Some spewing up bubbling hisses from the lake they had returned to in tumble. The sharpest shards had flown away from Serib and the woodland as was her last command to keep Iron-Chest from harm, felling some of the nearest trees despite and alas, there Patinya lay.


    ¡Þ


    Her summoned clouds began returning to their storms as the strength that had bid them come was fading. Serib ran to the were-shaman and saw her blood across stone and fallen oak was dark in the returning starlight, the moon horribly visible in such spurted streams pooling. Streams from her veins for shards of stone had torn through her armoured-bark, her leafy robes and fur. Sorrow had not followed Serib killing the angels though it sat with her now as she tried tending to Patinya, wishing she knew her master¡¯s healing ways.


    ¡Þ


    Patinya however bit at Serib¡¯s hands as she tried to help and her claws swiped the young girl away, making all the worse her heart pumping angrily. The Sentinel¡¯s battlefield custom would have seen his mercy delivered to Patinya of his kin, alas she growled bloody at him raising his greatsword-curved. Serib could not find the words though Iron-Chest proposed:


    ¡°You have given her a good death; her own heart and vultures will do the rest. Now that your duel has passed the calm water will be her company under stars. Better than many deaths I have seen.¡± Hearing this, Serib wondered how it could be true. ¡°With choice her own if she will not have your mercy nor mine and wishes no company - then let us follow the shore. No need for you to see this.¡±


    ¡Þ


    A while Serib¡¯s heart remained there with Patinya, having had no intention of hurting her. Chance or madness had driven the were-shaman¡¯s companions from the lake leaving her there to believe and fight alone, while her own elemental rage had burst Serib¡¯s earthen-shield. A paw on a shoulder tender, and Iron-Chest¡¯s voice was permission:


    ¡°Respect her choice of ending, and so all those of her life.¡±


    A while Serib¡¯s heart remained I have said - until it could no more - until ahead the journey demanded her attention parted as it was, and there Patinya lay at night in moonlight dying. Every step Serib took over the pebbled shore was more a toil than the last, and without Iron-Chest she may never have walked away.


    ¡Þ


    And who can know how many mornings-past Patinya rusted further away, for eventually despite Timelessness she did see the sun rising over the lakebed strange. Its wavelengths stark then clear. The green-blue moon a ghost and away. The sun was as all stars pulled along by others that by day we cannot see, she did behold as her remaining strength too was taken into those heavens by piece and part, her nose dry with awful thirst.


    ¡Þ


    Apprentice of The Earthlord - despite all she had been taught what lessons could prepare any of us for Timelessness? And so from wisdom to hate forspent. All the grief and goodness of her life bare for her if she wished to see it, how in her fight against total power had her own power struck without restraint.


    Shaded owls slept through the daylight, and vultures of Andea owned the skies of their encircle, as Ahlzvyr with halberd-tall too late arrived to find a different Hadaeon of sorts; where the untethered isle of Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon dominated peaceful clouds. The sand in his beard almost fiery as it met sunlight.


    ¡Þ


    Standing over Patinya he poured his eye into his spyglass to see on the far side of the lake, peering into the scene of our first chapter if you recall: a steel pier jutting out into the soft water - a pier from which Serib fearfully watched the angelic city floating. Even from such distance he could reckon her breathing - sweaty from the journey her scent upon the wind was musk - it helped him remember his prey from which he had been strayed by the designs of Lady Fate.


    With constants the same and variables rearranged all this from our first chapter has already been said, here repeated, as to that mote and moment we have returned. The Stalker readied his halberd-tall, adjusting his grip while staring into his spyglass. His weapon stiff against the lapping shore was a declaration without the flag of Aner Ba¡¯hyt it once flew in procession and ceremony, that same flag a cloth for cleaning off blood on a hunt.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I will not accept your mercy.¡± There was blood in Patinya¡¯s cough, her words slow enough that The Stalker interrupted:


    ¡°Then you rather I take your scalp alive?¡± he did not take his eye from the scope. ¡°You will not have my mercy though Mercy itself has seen fit to spare you from the path you had chosen.¡±


    ¡°Why take any scalp at all? Learned as I tried to be I am unsure what place that tradition of your age has in our age. Were-pelt and angel alike you wear¡­¡±


    Sevenfold the Spring-Sworn gore she as well beheld sewn there into his mail.


    ¡Þ


    At last he lowered his fang-arched gaze and folded the scope into its segmented clicks, tucking it gone amongst the scalps as he said in his sequences of seldom pause, and did he give three answers or all-one Timelessly?


    ¡°In custom then as proof of kill and now to become as fear-walking to those that would swear loyalty to Lillian and her Spring-Sworn.¡±


    ¡°Will they think clearly when afraid?¡± the dying apprentice mocked.


    ¡°Are they thinking clearly now?¡± The Hunter Lord spat out the Time-blood taste in his mouth.


    ¡°A ghost returned. A reminder.¡± It seemed Patinya¡¯s blood no more could soak the stones beneath the stones already soaked and pooled outwards from where she lay, reddening the shallow waters foaming ever closer.


    ¡°And they fear not me, not my halberd nor the still-hatching maw of Dromiya, their own conscience I intensify as conscience gnawing knows no boundary. My presence asks a question and the rest is their own. It is good you will not live to see Conscience itself rise from its nightmare-grave as I have, his gravestone becoming his claymore. Rest, illiterate, knowing seeds are being planted and beacons lit. Truthdom lives in us all. Even the worst of us can yet come home.¡±


    Listening to The Stalker, Patinya felt dark inspiration, that her blood would find her veins again and she would rise from her mortal state. Alas. As she leaned forwards to perhaps stand her paws underneath her she began shaking and fell into a far dizzier depth. Colder and colder. Bleeding warmth in the high daylight, she relented at last:


    ¡°I say again. I will not accept your mercy, unless... will you hear me first¡­ do you know what the Spring-Sworn is seeking? The fallen half-spear of Ithuriya¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Hunter Lord listened well to these deathbed omens as he knelt by dying Patinya, while his companion known as Enanti in one version and Dromiya the next could not anywhere be heard nor seen:


    ¡°You are loyal to Truth, Stalker undead¡­ brought here by twisted means I am sure. Hear me: this lake was not always deep¡­ before, it was taller than you know. A mountain alone, taller than your sand-snow deserts were vast. Focus here your perches and wait in Timelessness as I have. Patience will show to you no rhythm nor reason aside from change. Endless change.¡±


    ¡°And what act would you have me commit? If I should wait here for change so endless as pages read and surpassed what then when Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin again is Horizon¡¯s envy?¡±


    ¡°Nain¡¯mahuin? No.¡± Patinya closed her eyes a moment, dreamt that she was still alive: ¡°¡­that is a mountain peak of Ehl¡¯yiteth, not Hadaeon.¡±


    ¡°The pages I know refer to it in a tower-lost language, plainer its name means ¡®Here-There mountain¡¯. It is a place with a will its own. The first mountain any shaman ever climbed and returned totemic and so its ancestry belongs to not one land but all lands. Before Timelessness crashed down upon us all there yet were timeless things. To be without time was and still is to be without space, outside of all we know.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Patinya growled in pain believing every word The Hunter Lord spoke, as the sand of his beard glistened on in sunlight


    ¡°Do not feel disheart at my knowledge beyond yours, for I have served many a shaman and hunted more than was fair. The true shame is that we both serve Truth alas in our own way, young shaman. Courtdom that once steadied us has gone Time¡¯s way entropic and so I see that none of us can any longer agree what The Truth is. I likely will wait here, these woodlands my perch as you suggested, though it is not my aim to prevent The Spring-Sworn from attaining her totem. Your pain must be enough by now? What will you do with all these words of mine in death? Do you still abstain from mercy?¡±


    After shifting aside his long beard allowing his chunky arm to emerge from the scrape he showed Patinya his formidable wrist, where a shaven crossbow bolt barbed for greatest blood-loss was primed in a metallic contraption of dire bands and strings. He took aim at her neck - from such distance the powerful bolt would sever her completely.


    ¡°I am not finished yet, Stalker. I hear Old Gada¡¯il on the winds as you surely cannot. I have waited enough and seen Spring into Summer¡¯s End - Autumn found its chilly place again. Frost hardened across my bark and leaves. Time lives on and this duel awry will not stop me.¡±


    In her dizziness Patinya knew Ahlzvyr¡¯s cheeks rose towards his blank eyes, smiling or grimacing she could not know such was the density of his beard thick almost to his gaze. He replied:


    ¡°For all your sight you do not see that we are on a course unstoppable from an event irreparable: the attempt on Time¡¯s life. I measure that in your shamanism you still feel traces of Time¡­ the humming ticks of grandclocks to me, the pass of seasons to us both. The way of the wilds untameable, be those wilds the stars or the birds. Nature preceded ours and will certainly proceed ours; these keep you hopeful to a corpse already lost. It is not a matter of stopping Serib before she becomes The Spring-Sworn; all at once these internecine things are happening. Two stories much entwined. It is a matter of dealing with the consequence of her rising-fall you and I both have seen. Let her fall that she can rise, for she has not fallen far enough. Or were you in a hurry to become a murderer yourself? If we both have seen who she becomes and believe it to be true then how can we seek to change that course? What sort of despair-stricken hope is that? You here have added to it¡­ its worsening. And so you have done a great thing. For only when completely exhausted can The Spring-Sworn awaken from her fearful dream. We push her into darkness for she is the light, let her fall that she can rise, that Time will see and find its way home.¡±


    The Stalker grunted and spat, foul a taste upon the winds. With a scalp¡¯s dangling he wiped the sweat from his brow. Patinya tried to paw her lacerations shut. Even in the climbing sunlight she could not escape the cold: ¡°You do not believe Time can be protected? Returned to us¡­ or we return to it¡­¡±


    ¡°Do you taste that rust in the air? Not feel its stench clinging to your fur? The reek is worse in Haven-o¡¯er though even here an aura permanent. My beard is rank with it¡­ it is not only spilt blood I smell as from a wound but a carcass. Imagine a whale washed ashore and that bloat would be yet one fathom of the many left for waves to bring-in rolling. Time is dead - but hope is not - and that is your mistake. The same of many others. Should I not be dead here in an age not my own? Internecine these things. If I am here in an age not my own, then could Time return as well? Have you forgotten all of History¡¯s fractals, illiterate?"


    Patinya breathed shallower and vultures feathered their effortless circles, gliding always where lesser birds could only flap to stay aflight. She listened to The Stalker¡¯s hope when all else was despair:


    ¡°Lillian¡¯s rogue humanity may well have made harpoon of her hammer-spear¡­ The Spring-Sworn may well have played foul part. I am not Justice but I have seen no Rabid eye in either Lillian¡¯s nor Serib¡¯s stare. Lillian and Serib yet can come home and atone with their lives long lived redeeming. It was unthinkable to me that my age would fall¡­ that The Sand-snow would Sift their last¡­ and yet I have awakened here to see those ages that came after mine. Unthinkable as Time¡¯s depart may be, it is humanity¡¯s way to find another path. To chaos chart and partition clear realms from what was unknown. And it is Nature¡¯s way to proliferate despite Humanity¡¯s absolutist trespasses. Look at us here in sunlight, see you any new things?¡±


    The Stalker aimed his wrist-bolt between Patinya¡¯s fading eyes:


    ¡°If I stop The Spring-Sworn outright and add her to my scalps, our damnation will be gone though too our salvation lost. Our lesson. All humanity played their part in this beginning and we shall see it to the end, and the divine will learn from us as we have learned from them.¡±


    Next his voice shifted as to quote from creeds long adhered:


    ¡°Truth-willing with Justice your aim, speak Courageously to the ¡®rebels¡¯ when they rise and you will learn from their Wisdom where you have failed. And if both sides can be Moderate enough...¡±


    It is said the last words of Patinya were ever colder mumblings, and that Ahlzvyr¡¯s mercy she eventually accepted in the sunny woodlands of her kin having given more than most of us ever will. Yet before he could help her, she was already gone.


    ¡Þ


    As our first chapter also claimed, here we see it from a different angle or another view: soon The Stalker disappeared into the fabled woodland, leaving behind him a young werewolf dead, scalped and alone.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Thirteen

    Uncertain paths. Let us leave Patinya to the vultures as she would have wanted. For Serib and Iron-Chest, it was still by moonlight that they skirted the lake¡¯s bluish shoreline.


    ¡Þ


    The young shaman hoped Patinya would survive her wounds, occasionally looking back as she made quick pace with Iron-Chest over the pebbled shore with difficult footing. A strange hope to have with our selfishness, though many of us have at least once been guilty of it.


    ¡Þ


    The Sentinel¡¯s experienced ears heard first and Serib not long afterwards knew: someone was yelling. A different battle was beginning nearby, though neither could tell clearly any particular weapon or voice, nor which direction it came from.


    ¡°Was that The Stalker?¡± Serib asked, and Iron-Chest gave a soft bark in agreement from the language of his kin tower-lost.


    Following Conflict¡¯s grating tunes far from Patinya¡¯s resting place of daylight and vultures, on the other side of the great lake, apprentice and sentinel in moonlight reached the steel pier where this tome began.


    Yet the sounds of battle were no more, gone quick as they had come; our two apprentices found only evidence of a forgotten fight spotted around the pebbles. Discarded weapons thick with rust; a curved greatsword similar to his own Iron-Chest leaned to touch, though it was a mere prop of an unknown stage he found, thatched cleverly together with silk and strings. Blotchy with old blood and so the rusting smell. A while speechless he stared without resolve at it.


    ¡Þ


    Serib and Iron-Chest had little moment spare to wonder where that unseen fight had wandered, as both their attentions were taken by the sight of the serene pier, of angelic and therefore human pride piercing into the soft lake Nature-made, replacing Haven¡¯s loss.


    ¡Þ


    The pier in starry moonlight was more the tip of a giant¡¯s spear, half-submerged in the cold waters. The hammered mass of silver had slanted as though from an impact, and all the ancient woodlands were its oaken shaft, a line and a loop again. Iron-Chest spoke to it:


    ¡°How many have shared with you their boredom and trepidation? Not much good for waiting anymore.¡±


    Infinity runes pulsed weakly across its broad and crooked length, for something had scratched through the runes leaving them incomplete. New or existing runes had been formed in this haste with effects at once multitudinous and mute. Brighter their lights as Serib neared. There at the pier¡¯s toppled end - by Night obscured until now - she could see still spinning a disc large enough for many souls to climb aboard and be carried to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon. The city yonder seemed other-moonlike in how bright it shined among its cloaks of dark clouds industrial and natural both. A poet of little skill would later go though it is all we have:


    ¡®Steel radiant, adrift -


    through starry ink.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest watched Serib go about her shamanic questions and rested his greyness, sitting slanted on the slanted pier where infinity runes once shone, where the moon always will. The chill night-breeze ran its calm through him or he in his practice eased himself focused where others would shiver and wane.


    ¡Þ


    Serib placed her palm to the icy platform, to the halved-runes, distracted by the stars. With a numb hand she recited to Iron-Chest what Ahlzvyr had claimed beside the willow tree on one of No Longer¡¯s many cliffs. After, she added:


    ¡°I thought there would be a mountain¡­ Ithuriya¡¯s spear fell here, though not yet.¡±


    Timelessness had her saying strange things. Iron-Chest knew her meaning:


    ¡°Had I less sense, I would say we were stood right atop her weapon. By day it is a pier, though by moonlight this wharf¡­ its edges are sharp a spearhead fit for hafts greater than we can wield. A fine totem I¡¯d say, if only your journeys would come to you, instead of you to them. Unless you¡¯re even stronger than you look¡­¡±


    Serib smiled imagining that - a totem so large as a sort of lighthouse for pilgrims to visit. She told her fellow apprentice:


    ¡°The Stalker asked where all this began for me, and when I answered he said to come back to this place. Near the lakebed once a mountain¡¯s eyrie, he said, to begin an extinction.¡±


    ¡°Sounds as something he would say.¡± Iron-Chest grumbled at a hunter¡¯s words, himself a defender sworn.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Reduced to landmarks¡­¡± Serib muttered to herself recalling, walking over the straight-slant pier and scattered pebbles the waves had brought or taken, the metal and stone of Hadaeon-earth. ¡°¡­consistent across the inconsistencies and impossibilities.¡±


    Constants the same and variables rearranged, it could be said. Through it all Serib rummaged, for The Stalker had listed scars and hair, the lengths and lacking of, as things she can keep track of without Time and numbers, to clearer tell Where and When she was while traversing Timelessness.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°He spoke of allegiances, how they strengthen and fade into rivalries. Far simpler than all of his tracking, I expected a mountain to be here in place of the lake.¡±


    ¡°That long has passed?¡± Iron-Chest scratched his chin. ¡°Is nothing the same? Or different? Missing?¡± he thought of old tactics and battles won to see what aid could lend, and with ambushes on his mind he watched the trees, the skies, his ears more feline in their rotations.


    ¡°The sharpness¡­¡± Serib answered quickly. ¡°¡­when I was here with Gadail the lakebed though far from me, felt sharp. Wounded. Before I did not know why, now I wonder if Ithuriya¡¯s spear was embedded there. And now I can do little with that wonder, for I do not feel that same sharpness. Now, the lake is calm, its bed untouched.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest cleared his throat with a growl, glancing up to Haven: ¡°As though in this lineage, the great duel of Lillian and Ithuriya has not yet taken place. The spear is still intact¡­ a symbol-yet in Haven¡¯s halls.¡±


    ¡°What are you thinking?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Spring as my steps into shamanism may be, Autumn¡¯s age I know well.¡± He winked and so the moon¡¯s reflection in his eye. ¡°The owls may have left these nearest trees to the swoop of vultures, but we still can wonder what the sharpness means¡­ I feel it even if you do not, despite the duel of its breaking being as yet unsheathed.¡±


    He was certain Lillian and Ithuriya had not yet fought, remembering well the events leading to that encounter he explained:The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°I feel it cutting into the flesh of my thoughts and spirit, that my bones were those of the earth, of the lakebed dark and cold. Is this a shamanic omen I am far from used to? Or something of Timeless-way?¡± he mused. ¡°This is your first step away from apprenticeship? Hmm. And my first step towards. A silvery mountain once towered here, how can I remember its depart in an age never once my own?" he thought of the sword across his back. ¡°I would think it is wonderful for metal to return to its home, a blessing hung not on our walls. There is an aura here in moonlight¡­ a curse where blessings should glow.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Jumbled as Iron-Chest may sound to you and I, Serib had caught his notion and praised him:


    ¡°My first steps were the same¡­ difficult to make sense of your new senses. The earth¡¯s lessons. The wind¡¯s warnings, as through quarry and ruin alike they pass.¡±


    ¡°All of it history. Rather I would hear that from a master, though you will do.¡± Iron-Chest barked happily. ¡°I know little what to make of my feelings here. In shamanism that is Earth¡¯s domain if I am not mistaken? To know oneself firm in a cloudy place.¡±


    Another breeze made its mighty nod through the ancient trees.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You are not mistaken.¡± Serib encouraged the veteran of battles older than her ages. ¡°Sit as you are and touch the pier - know its earthen metal. And here.¡± She threw something to him in the moonlight-dark. The slap of it caught in his palm. ¡°Hold the loose stones and pebbles. I do not know enough of Gadail¡¯s ways as I wish to¡­ but letting your feet go bare on grass after a long journey, or carrying pebbles of home in your pocket as you go¡­ it helps to keep you from drifting away.¡±


    Rough even for his furred hand-paws, as Iron-Chest held stones and placed his own palm to all that was earthen, he felt as a pup gathering Spring¡¯s buds long ago, and gathered so his ungrounded thoughts. Serib¡¯s own thoughts were centred having guided The Sentinel, teaching herself in teaching him, and she gasped having realised:


    ¡°Your arm¡­ are your burns still there, or scars?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Before they had shined in the moonlight under his loose bracer, now only fur there flowed


    ¡°Where¡­¡± Iron-Chest searched, patting his arm and feeling under his armour, through his thick hairy coat down to the skin. ¡°I am healed, or I have not yet fought that duel¡­¡±


    The Spring-Sworn dwelled in his memory-to-be, acid in her flames. Iron-Chest gave all his frown and ponder to it, though no answer satisfied him as to how any of this was possible or plausible. The definitions of here and there were lessening, frontiers where foundations should have been.


    ¡°I think you¡¯re right.¡± Serib said, giving it less thought. ¡°Lillian and Ithuriya have not yet clashed; nor have you fought The Spring-Sworn.¡±


    ¡°What sort of sense are we making? Yet here we find ourselves¡­¡±


    Iron-Chest laughed into his yowl and Serib quietly agreed. The Sentinel went on: ¡°Little I suppose has changed, exchanging Truth¡¯s strange ways for those stranger ways of Timelessness; us mortals caught under and between forces only our faithful trust can ease, letting go of our need for absolute control.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Always a multitude to accept for what it was, those forces not beyond our imagination, but far from our reach and grasp. With intuitions aligned, Serib and Iron-Chest looked to the end of the pier where still the dual-disc spun on, awaiting their feet and paws. Its underside spinning always, while the top half remained fit for transport despite its debris.


    ¡Þ


    While wondering how many journeys it must have made or will yet, Serib saw on its last remaining pillar an infinity rune still flickered. Either left unfinished or it once had been whole from afar she thought, though as she drew close the truth was clearer: a chunk in the oakenstone had been chipped away - leaving the rune broken. Unable to complete itself and as a portal or window through Timelessness glow. She leapt aboard the disc and began looking for something.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°We must go back to Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon.¡± Serib had grounded her thoughts: Ithuriya¡¯s half-spear, a totem perhaps, was her utmost aim - with that in hand the rest could follow.


    ¡°Or wait as Patinya did.¡± Iron-Chest called from where he sat on the wharf-edge.


    Soon he stood and leaned against its incline, steady his stride towards its end where Serib continued her search.


    ¡°You could be right - though if this disc shows signs of battle, I would not like to wait for that battle to come to us.¡±


    ¡°A trap, I wonder.¡± Iron-Chest pointed back to the shore. ¡°The weapons were made of silk, I saw¡­ props as for a stage, I¡¯d say. Distracted - and then an arrow from the dark or blade in our back.¡±


    ¡°I suppose we have only our theories¡­ we need to meet with Lillian to understand her side of this divide; it is not shamanic to view a conflict only from one side. Approaching Haven from another road could work, moreso if I had a totem in hand and a blessing from an ancestor of Earth, though that road seems to have met its end here.¡± She paused to smile: ¡°Unless you are the ancestor I was to meet?¡±


    ¡°Who can know without Time? Perhaps I will be eventually.¡± He laughed and barked at the moon. ¡°Alas I know Autumn well and my Winter must not be far off. Not long enough to be an ancestor, I¡¯d say, or a shaman proper at all.¡±


    ¡Þ


    No soul survives their Winter, though master shamans can in their death become ancient if there is dire need enough, an ancestral spirit and guide having rowed with Pale Death along his river-known, ever since The First Lad that said no to Death.


    Such myths of fireside, as even those ancestors eventually, from Death receive their second visit and final summons.


    ¡Þ


    Serib¡¯s mind was more and more her heart, with dreams going ahead of themselves as you may already have seen, and Minim The Spring-Sworn most of all was much the same.


    Timeless and strange as that would be - if Iron-Chest indeed was to be an ancestor in his future - Serib took comfort in imagining it, that her part though small could help him on such a grand and unlikely journey.


    ¡Þ


    She poked about in the rubble strewn across the ferry-disc.


    ¡Þ


    The infinity rune had been placed by someone taller than her, though one by one from the rubble she tried holding each handful-sized rock she could find up to the pillar - to eventually, she hoped - find a final puzzle piece to mend the rune¡¯s shape.


    Such a rune had saved her and Iron-Chest from the courtyard, could it again progress their quest?


    ¡Þ


    Finally she found something; holding a marbled piece in her hand and eyeing up the rune she could tell from a distance it was perfect. She refrained from fixing the rune immediately with second thoughts prevailing, ¡®fixing¡¯ being of course her best guess at what would happen.


    As in Timelessness internecine, who knows.


    ¡Þ


    On and on the rune pulsed frail. More so as she brought the chunk of oakenstone closer, testing and retesting to the same result. After, she kept it folded in her robes, her palm stinking of rust having handled the stone.


    ¡°Why not mend it now?¡± Iron-Chest asked; having stepped aboard the disc himself he had begun to watch closely. His hind paws scratched on the dusty marble as he paced about: ¡°Perhaps we will find the silver mountain of old... find ourselves taken there to its highest age and can begin our climb. I imagine in any age of Haven¡¯s-whenever, Lillian will be under heavy guard, or be too young to know anything of use, or abroad living out that life of hers worthy of being shaped into The Gravestone Column.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib thought it over unsure which path was best, to find Lillian or search for Ithuriya¡¯s fallen half-spear. In the mountain or the city where would the spear be in either? In what state, of ore or mould unfinished? She knew Gadail and Ahlzvyr would want her to seek the totem that Ithuriya¡¯s spear could be, that all their words and actions had pushed her towards that aim, though many were her questions about Lillian, a prisoner locked away in her home, atop The Gravestone Column of her accomplishments. The hero of her own age. The villain of ours.


    ¡Þ


    Serib was again unsure what choice she had - to board the disc seemed the only option - and surely Haven was its only destination by destiny or design. Did these runes transport the objects they were carved into, or us passing by, and is that the question at all? What control had she over where rune and disc would land them? As her journey so far made sure to remind her, she would fare far stronger with a totem in hand. Patinya would not have overpowered her with such ease, nor would her own summoned lightning be so wanton and uncontrolled. She could begin to better withstand Fire next with Earth understood, as Water and Wind the last seemed too far to ever be close:


    ¡°I will mend the rune when we need it. I am sure we would both prefer the disc take us higher, and if the mountain appears¡­ if the disc stops¡­¡±


    ¡°Ah. To its peak past all defence to save our legs the hike, we could already be halfway.¡±


    Serib affirmed: ¡°I imagine Gadail and our ancestors would prefer a more traditional climb! The lessons our spirits learn when our bodies struggle and all that - though what Timelessness had they to contend with?¡±


    ¡°A circle is an exhausting road.¡± Iron-Chest agreed to which his young friend smiled:


    ¡°When I and Gadail rode this disc or its ancestor, it had a route and mind its own.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Sentinel barked, eyeing the scratches across the disc¡¯s column.


    ¡°You might be able to steer its course?¡± Serib inferred.


    ¡°Fortunately for us, such angelic constructs have but one purpose: to ferry the wingless. We can keep that worry from our thoughts. I am sure it will take us to Haven.¡± He grumbled then, for nothing was certain: ¡°Though what temper shall it be in¡­ city or mountain¡­ ruin or jewel¡­¡±


    His gaze was fixed on the angelic city in outermost dark, that anti-crater drifting through conquered skies.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Fourteen

    Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin. Only when Serib and Iron-Chest were ready, to his lupine touch or thought, as though his will or fine heart was known to the oakenstone disc, such materials the bones of his land and world, the spinning disc¡¯s mechanisms hissed.


    ¡Þ


    It dived deeper over the lake then upwards leaving the moon¡¯s great reflection and dark ring of trees far below.


    ¡Þ


    Serib kept her balance strong against the humming force as on it surged along its destined journey, returning always. The Sentinel called loud over the rushing air and speed with his claw on the last remaining pillar, his furred hand splayed almost spidery in the moving darkness:


    ¡°I long served in Haven and know their winged ways. I was curious if this oakenstone still knows my touch¡­ secret walkways of Haven are known to me and my passing, the routes of all reinforce and retreat. All the journeys this disc has made it keeps within its curve. Just as us, if our memories holdfast. As rock and wood will weather showing. Can your palm divine this as mine can?¡±


    Serib thought that Iron-Chest, masterless and long a warrior instead, sounded more shamanic than she did.


    ¡Þ


    She heard less the rustling trees as higher winds spoke their renew, as towards cloudy stars the disc made flight. She touched its last pillar where the incomplete infinity rune blinked half asleep - keeping its puzzle piece safe in her robes - and oakenstone seemed to her fingers more a temperature than a texture:


    ¡°My master little answered when I asked him what oakenstone was¡­¡± her eight thick locks of hair flailed in rising altitude, as might eels ashore in search of stream or pool.


    ¡°Hmm.¡± Iron-Chest thought before he chuckled, the high winds harsher ruffling all his fur as well: ¡°Even ¡®before¡¯ Timelessness - if such I can still say with good sense - there was a timeless quality to The Woodlands Old of Gap¡¯elyhond my kin howl as home. We are the ancestral neighbours of the angels. There even once were statues on Haven¡¯s higher walls that I was proud to clean between battles when peace was vast¡­ statues I hope Chance shall see fit for you to see, statues of the myths that once Were¡¯s and Angels were one. One woodland all our home.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Drifting with Serib where Fancy best dwells, The Sentinel took momentary refuge in that fantastic yore his own to which Timelessness had woven and written him closer. Serib remembered such statues from her travels, worn as they were of detail and dignity; statues of Were¡¯s-though-winged and Angels-furred. Alas that The Stalker¡¯s pace had little allowed her to admire them in fallen state as they had been. Little could she have known that Iron-Chest¡¯s name was etched into the buried pedestal of one such statue. Little did he yet know himself as he continued:


    ¡°Well, that same Timeless quality is in the mountain-stone the angels took from Hadaeon to mix as bricks and marble for Haven¡¯s heights. Its steel-winged walls, its armouries, in the chains and gemstones of their jewellery. In some regions of Gap¡¯elyhond¡¯s forests the trees seem more as cliffs would be. And Haven¡¯s steps, its gardens and oldest towers though stone, groan as trees leaning in wind. Its walls where minerals and crystals common as leaves. It all the same: of oakenstone.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Feeling both closer to and further from her answer Serib pressed no further. As the disc progressed upwards through jotted layers of cloud its under-spinning half wobbled against turbulent pockets and ditches waking from sleepless slumber in the air, advancing over invisible hill-waves uncharted and unmappable.


    ¡°It is taking us higher than it should.¡± Iron-Chest barked, urging Serib to stay close, the will and pride of angels their ferry.


    ¡Þ


    The clouds soon thrashed with thunder somehow first and lightning after; summoned clouds borrowed imbalanced from other storms. As Serib remembered those exact voices of thunder, as though Nature itself was caught in a loop, Iron-Chest barked again, keeping low his prowl and balance having himself realised the same as Serib:


    ¡°Your duel with Patinya¡­ is happening again below us.¡±


    The disc was throttled by wind¡¯s contortions, tilting perilously from side to side determined by design to keep its course. In their ascent upwards Time had swum backwards its ever-progressing steps to repeat a duel most dire.


    ¡Þ


    Serib¡¯s eyes shot to the infinity rune and grasped for the rock in her robes that could complete its shape so they could escape the storm. Perhaps.


    Rummaging she was glad to find it - a gladness fleeting - that she could hear Patinya¡¯s focused rage echoing; her voice though an apprentice shook the firmament¡¯s broad encircle.


    ¡Þ


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    As The Sentinel dug his claws into the pillar, Serib¡¯s gaze too was fraught with her lightning-bronze and hands outstretched to beckon the lightning: to keep its force away from her and Iron-Chest¡¯s ascent. Bolts struck her ready hands instead of the rising platform, her hands and gaze alike a shield holding not at all. And alas. Just as in the shoreside duel below when Serib¡¯s boulders splintered under lightning''s heat and those splinters tore Patinya¡¯s flesh, those shards of rock had elsewhere flown as well.


    ¡Þ


    She saw it hurtling from below and could do nothing to stop its course: red with almost molten fire and huge it crashed into the disc¡¯s underside, disrupting its momentum away from wherever Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon roamed. Both Serib and Iron-Chest held strong as the disc¡¯s revolve swerved higher and higher beyond the clouds to where even airy thought has scarce domain. Even there its climb showed no sign of slowing, leaving the world far below - the flat horizons began-all to curve - until only Hadaeon¡¯s moons and stars were bright over its oceans of rippling storm-clouds. Icy gems sparkled across their quilted crowns as fields of nether-world there gleaming.


    ¡Þ


    The air was no longer air such as Serib knew, thick with piercing cold a mass abrasive to shrink from, not to breathe. Iron-Chest all furred better fared though barely, and ice began to clump across his hairy broad and arms. Serib scratched and clawed her way to the disc¡¯s pillar where Iron-Chest clung on. Her eyes ever brighter with Bronze light, she took the rock from the folds of her robes and The Sentinel taller than she could manage slotted it into the marble column.


    ¡Þ


    The cracked rune of all-completing shape shone with Bronze light. Iron-Chest held her warmer as the cold grew yet more intense.


    ¡Þ


    The tilting and swerving disc fell again level, and with weightless change closer stars were launched away-replaced by new constellations.


    Greener plains grew across the surface of the pale, crater-pocked moons of Hadaeon, its craters by unnamed oceans filled, and Serib wished Gadail was there to see an other-Night that was not so blue.


    From grey to colours-these, faded to dusty amber scorched, as dying stars were reborn - undemolished by the traps Ahlzvyr could lay - or had to their natural ends orbited around masses greater than themselves.


    All this a vision-seemed, by Iron-Chest and Serib shared, a journey made possible by Time¡¯s flailing, the rune¡¯s repurposed infinity pulling close the things most distant to it; what wonder is left that Nonsense is around us and Sense so far away?


    As in Timelessness, infinity has come to govern with Space as well as Time.


    ¡Þ


    As the disc wobbled to a stable level and there remained drifting, Serib and Iron-Chest crept to the edge and saw all below Hadaeon¡¯s pages flipped slow, to its first ages where all was molten forming the world¡¯s future terrains that would be named by the first words; Change with its wanton rods and crowns deciding where cliffs would become old and the beds of seas ancient from their start.


    ¡Þ


    As though Hadaeon as a planet had shrunk over its millennia unmeasured, the disc continued its broken advance upwards to the parched or overgrown moons, yet the world¡¯s icy clouds were getting closer. The stars further away. As into one such cloud the disc plunged head-on, Serib was scratched by the cold collapsing around her - Iron-Chest shielded her as he could with his furred frame and they emerged finally into an open, breathable air.


    ¡Þ


    They could not see Haven o¡¯er nor upon, their disc continued fulfilling its propel, heading no longer upwards but jarringly with a jolt-reversed as from tracks invisible beginning its descent. Having finally climbed high enough? Who could know - neither Serib nor Iron-Chest could see Hadaeon-world below - there were only clouds of xanthous smoke and ash making finite towers.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Chance¡¯s cast or Fate¡¯s unwind has elsewhere thrown us.¡± Iron-Chest said close to Serib.


    ¡°Heading down we must be going to the mountain¡­¡± she replied. ¡°¡­or Haven is still upon the earth rather than over it.¡±


    The ashy smoke cleared in places, and Iron-Chest¡¯s eyes with tears were full at the sight of Hadaeon below, and Serib¡¯s gaze was far from brave as ever. She wished her master was there to guide their fear.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest mourned his world - not to see it in some earlier age before the woodlands were primordial - that page has already passed.


    He mourned for the devastation he and Serib now could see as clouds parted, for he had seen devastation on this scale only once before, when he duelled The Spring-Sworn across Ehl¡¯yiteth, many worlds and stars away where only the winds were still free. He mirrored the poem of his woodland kin:


    ¡°There is no vulture large enough¡­ how are we to rite a world if we fail? Long have I guarded Haven¡¯s walls and I know well the lands from such heights as these¡­ this is Hadaeon. Torn¡­ with regions¡­¡± he paused struggling to find the word: ¡°¡­recomposed.¡±


    ¡°What is this?¡± Serib coughed, for now unable to comprehend what she saw or understand what had been said, as their disc sailed not through clouds but ashen smoke billowing worse.


    The Sentinel repeated:


    ¡°This is Hadaeon, Serib-strong. The Spring-Sworn has come. Behold her presence and her power inseparable.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Uncertain continents were churning, masses that should at no such speeds be moving, woodlands rife with roots writhing upturned where branches should with leaves be cloaked, under acidic rains eroding, the landscape of clouds against clouds:


    ¡°Only the winds are free¡­¡±


    It seemed to her these elements of Hadaeon had been assailed, corrupted and enchained thereafter to a will emblem of its age. No master shamans were there to order bridges between Nature and Human Nature, no apprentices to learn what would otherwise be lost. And Serib feared - what part had she played in that - defending herself against Patinya? She heard on those winds as quiet Memory goes, a passing lesson or lecture of Old Gadail:


    ¡®And so an all too Human Nature could hold tight the throat of Nature enslaved, or already does, unknowingly destroying its own origin and future all at once. We must not only break as bearers of hammers, Serib. We too must help remake. So it is to bear hammer! We are no swords of this empire but its forgers and dismantlers.¡¯


    Serib and Iron-Chest were fortunate that their disc had spiralled so high, to be spared for now the The Spring-Sworn¡¯s insanity below.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Where is all this smoke coming from¡­¡± Serib¡¯s cough was worse, and Iron-Chest barked for his nose better knew:


    ¡°The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin.¡±


    In reply a strong gust parted the ashen smoke and there at the centre of this blasphemy to Nature was a mountain halved, The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin split aside as through-struck by some greater force unimaginable. The molten landslide crumbling into boiling oceans under storm-swept skies.


    And to that cleaved peak the disc-a-ferry was drifting, closer through the desolation.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Fifteen

    Heir lair. We return to where last we left Syrib The Spring-Sworn, renamed Minim by Her Lady. To that woven place of Lady Fate¡¯s unwind where the corners speak. Where too-many-legs thud meatily across knitted ceilings and layered skies.


    ¡Þ


    Minim was caught in a strange web unsure if the smell of lavender in that realm was reeking and she was as a moth repelled, or as a moth to amethystine flame unable to turn away. Looking for the moon confused.


    ¡Þ


    Such ambitious flames burned there only in imitation, flames made of wool or cloth climbing high and flowing low, here bright and there dark, still-yet-with-motion all cold and all lifeless. With flame¡¯s semblance though none of its substance, just as there were walls in Frac¡¯tralien, ceilings and floorings all rippling and soft these torn flags in forlorn winds. These - Fate¡¯s beginnings obvious with schematic and scaffold - unable yet to fool us fully


    Will there not eventually be woodlands woven-whole under nebulae of gauze for undead Stalkers and lonely shamans to lose themselves in?


    ¡Þ


    Minim knelt before the tapestry that foretold of her power. There across its weaves she was shown in Human Fable as a warrior having wondered and wandered, full of worry from the start and all the while since. Her tusks were sharpened into fangs. At last she attained a crown on the tapestry''s final square, The Lightning Crown, with which her wilful glare could command mountains moved, and slowly she would learn demystifying sequences all the more profligate; that Nature¡¯s great entwine of Life and Death would be hers to set. The unborn will remain so, the living shall not die.


    ¡Þ


    All of Need and Want cured by her march and mantra. All stars scattered would return home and there would be only one star, one world and its moon in a blackness navigated.


    Lady Fate¡¯s depiction of that crown all powerful was more a cage wrapped around Minim¡¯s older face, not only her brow, bolted under her jaw and that older countenance was not serene in power but severe with pain.


    For are crowned heads not bowed by their weight and if not, is it a crown at all they bear?


    ¡Þ


    ¡®The unborn will remain so, the living shall not die¡¯ - a phrase repeated in Minim¡¯s hopes, her own shared by those that had come before her and changed their names as well.


    Gadail sat with her and her memory of him set his Reason to her quest. What of those already dead? Could she Timeless reach into such realms-gone and pull the dead from their sleep? Should she? Not all the dead would be worthy of raising from their graves - those Rabid souls of Falsehood¡¯s ages dark and cruel - would they be raised and educated, these ghouls strapped down in lecture halls until they were as us? And should the worthy not be given choice, what if paradise is already theirs? What does she know of Death¡¯s beyond?


    These, the extrapolations he would have asked, and having been his pupil she too was asking, giving his face to those questions in her loneliness, talking to no one there in a rippling-everywhere.


    ¡Þ


    She had only half the answers she needed, for there was another crown, one she would not wear. Beyond compare the crown Lady Fate had chosen for herself. The Synarchy of those Two there in silk divine.


    ¡Þ


    Tears from Minim¡¯s eyes as she watched the scenes, kneeling before its presence an altar. A dark joy that she was closer to her Far Sight¡¯s dream, where only Joy was bright, and Suffering made to starve as it has to so many others left its voids, and Suffering would be no more.


    ¡Þ


    She could not hear Iron-Chest panting nearby as he had been - stitched out of this present and into another moment - or future or past. We of course know where and to who he has set his old allegiance. Though Minim dwelled not, thankful as she was, and when the crown was hers she thought, she could find him again and give to him all he wished for.


    All she imagined he wished for.


    ¡Þ


    She asked Lady Fate in the unfolding darkness: ¡°What is this ¡®hex¡¯ you speak of¡­ why did my master hide it?¡±


    ¡°There first is more for you to see and souls yet to meet. Something bothers you about my work¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Half of this tapestry is missing.¡± Minim stood from her woven altar and stated to the dark place, its fabric floors moving as submerged hair.


    As she spoke, unsure where or how she stood on Nothing¡¯s curls, the stiff tapestry fell against her stand having lost support and mingled indistinguishably with the rest of the threaded room articulate. Unknitting and knitting itself back together changed through variations improving over and again and to Minim ¡®down¡¯ seemed not beneath her nor above nor any other direction she could understand. The room without dimensions known to the Nature she knew, a new nature being unpicked and rewritten.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Missing as is Time¡­¡± Fate¡¯s voice taunted, The Lady speaking her cornering or cornered words. ¡°¡­tell me more.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Minim¡¯s eyes bright with bronze shone across the lacey walls as torches not pushing back the dark but summoning of it more, her tusks sharp against the silky air as she spoke her darkest thoughts to Fate. Dark to shamanism. Dark to reality. Thoughts when spoken aloud in the past, Gadail had never once banished, he had encouraged, for he had once thought the same dread things in his youth. Such thoughts a road of questions we must all must walk; always when encouraging Syrib¡¯s darkness, he hoped it would evolve into her light. That same girl told Fate:


    ¡°Nature needs to be controlled¡­ Life and Death therefore¡­ the end of all Tragedy. That has been my aim since I knew it was possible, with your words on the wind. My aims that once were only dreams. Who are you, Lady Fate? Who would be any soul that seeks to control all of Human Nature? What Hubris must gorge on you? Why would I assist you in that task? What right have you to subjugate all that can be? If Nature is remade perfect and Tragedy erased, Human Nature will be perfect too.¡±


    Minim could hear wet limbs slipping against each other as some sea beast infernal struggling to stand, and though her eyes searched she found no clear shape against all that was draped and hung. Floating and looming. Her eyes as searchlights damned in that gloom.


    ¡°You certainly are the apprentice of Old Gada¡¯il. Answer me, if I am Fate and there is one throne, should I or Freedom sit that throne?¡± Fate¡¯s voice asked beneath Minim; quick as her gaze darted it was not fast enough, only the floor¡¯s linens there moved in echo of the voice that had been.


    ¡°Always.¡± The Spring-Sworn girl replied.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°And which Freedom would that be? Or the freedom of one over all others¡­¡± The voice skittered through folding-again walls. ¡°Has your master taught you such lessons of¡­¡±


    ¡°Freedom To and From.¡± Minim heard a wet mouth crackle open somewhere as she replied.


    Fear crept between her eight thick locks - she was sure something moved them. She grasped the dark air above her head as to snatch at puppet strings or webs there being placed.


    ¡°Yes. Which of these do you believe, if I am Fate? As there is only one throne¡­ one that late Falsehood and early Courtdom tried to share between The Two Freedoms.¡±


    ¡°Freedom To.¡± Minim knew not if she should look up or down. ¡°That is what I will achieve with my crown¡­ the totem a human tower over all of Nature¡¯s mountains once taller. A hammer remaking better what has always been broken, ever since one star became many, and suffering spread with light¡¯s depart from itself.¡±


    ¡Þ


    As she cursed Duality aloud, Minim remembered one of Gadail¡¯s lessons, how hammers are sacred weapons more so than swords, capable of destruction and creation both. As a crown she sought, in Far Sight she saw a greater hammer she swung - and hurriedly the ¡®tapestric¡¯ visions around her imitated that ire. A lightning-cage across her skull, and mauling-hammer enormous with plunge into shores and mountain-sheer alike. Her fearful pride all in swell, that she and she alone understood. Fate spoke from wherever''s-above:


    ¡°A hammer? Very well - I leave such details in your shamanic care. I do not seek to play tricks with my questions - know this, Spring-Sworn. I am Freedom only by another name. I am Freedom From. I will show you that Freedom To once was given to Courtdom, given or found itself there born, though too few wanted it. Such a rare gift pried from Falsehood¡¯s defeated hand. You and I shall be The Synarchy of The Two Crowns, and so you must understand, or you will go to the very end and at the last for nought turn back. Falsehood¡¯s last king was executed as a Rabid, yes¡­ and the rest followed. And Courtdom raised from that, hmm? As the stories go. I wish that my art could simplify what in my Truth sprawls vast¡­ if only my skill was greater, and one symbol could explain everything as a poem short¡­ can History¡¯s ever-growing magnitude be summarised? Alas that I will need to show you in many more folds than these how Freedom To was unwanted; why you shall be Nature¡¯s lord, and I over Human Nature.¡±


    Syrib ¡®saw¡¯ Fate at last - the Lady¡¯s horrific shape in blurry silhouette against the stars. The stars bright only for the thread of their making was white against the darker woollen blue surrounding them. Even the rays were thrice-woven lengths of cloth, and each ashen fleck adrift was lint. The silhouette of legs Minim could barely count, caught only in passing spinneret from placelessness to placelessness.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Carve one of your runes and betaken with me.¡± Fate enthralled.


    ¡°How?¡± Minim stepped eagerly forwards, no closer to any wall had she advanced yet away from the altar borne into an air not there.


    ¡°You do not remember for you were stolen away from my threaded tale¡­ drowned with the ink of a severed tail. You are here with me again, Spring-Sworn. All the thread is dry. Feel it if you must¡­ coarse and itching. As scars healing.¡±


    ¡°Stolen away?¡± The Spring-Sworn asked and was offered no reply.


    Minim found she was covering where she stood - a harder ripple-almost-a-knot of silken fabric - its individual threads were trying to bind themselves sticky as web around her ankle. She stepped back and saw what the unfold had meticulous in its craft: an image of her arm Fate had made with threads red and darker - bloody from the infinity rune carved into her flesh.


    And so explained her Spring-Sworn-motions possible, translocating wilful and precise through astral Timelessness, if the art was true. If only Ahlzvyr The Stalker knew - would he too mutilate himself in the name of the hunt?


    ¡Þ


    When all the room¡¯s cloth was stretching further away from sheets and into single threads unwound, only in the corners of Minim¡¯s eyes did her tusks seem sharp. She pulled up the sleeve of her lightning robes; her left arm exposed.


    Her heart with her master, her sister.


    ¡Þ


    With determination beyond what she could imagine, she used her tusk in blood-rite foul, ¡®making a fang of her tusk¡¯ being the phrase later versions may use, just as Lillian it is said to have ¡®made of her spear a harpoon¡¯ striking at Time.


    As depicted in Fate¡¯s threaded scene, Minim gored her forearm, harking back to vampyric-wizard feasts of old, those fireside tales we all know well, emerging with her chin bloody and arm lacerated in purpose forthright. Blood dripped over the woven realm as not all drops fell downwards, disobeying gravity or obeying its strange new forms as yet undefined. The drops as spheres orbited her, as Nature would her crown.


    ¡Þ


    Bloody and glowing Bronze was her open rune as she rolled down her sleeve, bleeding quietly through weightless change.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Sixteen

    Breath bereft. A chill gust of wind woke Minim from the trance. Rock was rough under her bare feet. She squinted shying from the high sun. Dimensions had their meaning again, finding herself far from wherever that dimensionless room was woven. She breathed easier and could smell something that made her wince. She checked a stinging on her arm and the malodour struck her harder to see infinity¡¯s scar had poorly healed.


    ¡Þ


    The wind blew strong again and she was forced to comprehend her surroundings rather than dream them - stunned high among light and clouds - in Haven-o¡¯er-Hadaeon she thought. She was on steps of oakenstone, and there scraped into their groaning surface was an infinity rune no larger than the palm of her young hand. Worn-over-grooved by the pass of countless feet that symbol - that a past or future self had here before or yet - and so created a path for what would pass or already had.


    ¡Þ


    The dormant volcanoes as spires repurposed were misty with distance and their fashioned peaks mere in height compared to what she was climbing. As she turned to face the structure she stood upon, she saw no tapestry wrought with depictions, but oakenstone-carved. A legendary life and myth in tiles-relief, its statues larger than her.


    She was on The Gravestone Column, craning her neck into stiffness and pain to imagine that its peak must surely cut into the darkness around the stars.


    ¡Þ


    She had passed through the maze Iron-Chest tried carrying her across; the maze keeping Haven and The Gravestone Column apart.


    ¡°My strings are better hidden here.¡± Lady Fate spoke to Minim from the corner of all things.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to meet Lillian?¡± the shamanic runaway brushed thin webs from her robes.


    Other wingless pilgrims could be heard walking up the long stairs in choir hummed and others were already far ahead. Werewolves made the swiftest pace of all, robed in leaves and armoured with tree bark. Angels seeking Lillian easier flew though even their wings were tiring at such thin heights and they perched gargoylian on the column¡¯s carven edges, resting their tested determination.


    ¡°She is more than that.¡± Fate wove, finally answering Minim.


    As in solemn choir the pilgrims all were humming and as though belonging Minim stepped into the climbing crowds joining their journey long and they bid her no protest nor greeting in their exhaustion.


    ¡Þ


    Spring remained bright as Minim and other pilgrim souls climbed The Gravestone Column. Her hands soon were numb, closer to the sun yet colder. Tucking them under her strong arms she pressed on, as some of the wingless-others could go no more without rest. Fires were hatched from flint and branches brought from the lands-Hadaeon below, torches elden as even the oval sun could watch no more and machines once capable struggled without Time¡¯s pace.


    ¡°Oval?¡± Minim watched the sunset strange, the star wider and shorter than it should be, pulled by two forces both and neither.


    ¡°Without Time¡­¡± Fate crawled with her, somewhere unknown. ¡°¡­the fourth dimension on which all others rested. Rested as these pilgrims on Nature¡¯s granted certainty. The dimensions do not know rest, now. They fray from the conflict. Were it not for shamans as you continuing to observe, I believe it would be even worse¡­ that is why you are here. Your kin are as bridges between The Two Natures, but I envision¡­ you just as Lillian, could be far more. More than afraid, than a bridge to be trampled across.¡±


    As the oval sun could watch no more and set its close behind Hadaeon-world below, the cold stare of moonlight and precious dance of torches artificial or fiery lit Minim¡¯s way. Though her feet were tough from journeys beyond her ages - perhaps those Fate had already alluded to - her hands and face struggled with the sunlight gone. Into colder and colder heights her numb shuffling and lonely grimace with company less and less.


    ¡Þ


    Almost feverish her thoughts climbed up the gravestone-cold. Wishes, dreams and reality together, just as tapestry walls had fallen into ceilings and risen onto floors. One could not be told from the other.


    ¡Þ


    Some while Minim advanced and thought this is how Old Gadail¡¯s passing would feel; as more than a climb without sunlight, yet what more would others see:


    ¡°More than afraid?¡± She mocked what Lady Fate had accused her of, who knows how long ago or far below. ¡°I am not afraid.¡±


    The runaway hid her tears from the column she climbed, gazing awhile at Haven¡¯s smoke, rising not from its dead volcanoes but its towers of civil war and furnaces unceasing. Some of its gardens were aflame, its parks untended as misrule made unsafe outposts of historic fountains and walks. Werewolves howled against the trumpets of angels, and in that mess were bands of angels led by one wolf, and packs of wolves by one angel led, and visitors to Haven caught between it all made stealth or best allegiance their aim.


    ¡Þ


    As some fanatics wanted to start anew a rot was being smeared widespread; bloody words written everywhere. A rust of the silver city that could not be removed. There were efforts to clean away the words before they could be read yet there they remained in scar-like effigy for squints and guesses to surmise until they blotched and spread reeking into yet larger canvases for the same words holy to some and unspeakable to the rest.


    Smoggy green, almost Viridian clouds passed in from distant lands, from other worlds, some said.


    Other fanatics wanted to go on as they always had, afraid of Change, and Fate offered no reply to The Spring-Sworn.


    ¡Þ


    And so went the strange sun¡¯s stranger motions against Hadaeon¡¯s moons bald and in bloom, and Minim¡¯s infinite scar on her arm itched as that sunset repeated itself, as grief reimagined over and over, the sun never rising again despite her ascent alone. More and more alone as faster souls had already gone ahead of her and the slower sorts she left behind.


    ¡Þ


    A sigil repeated itself as she neared the gravestone column¡¯s shoulders: a fiery sphere or vessel otherwise enflamed in the hard relief she made note of over and over. If the art was to be believed, these spheres were in some unknown battle thrown against imitations of a nightmare or of despair, as though with their explode to break what otherwise could not be, and make equal a fight outmatched. ¡®Grave Knights¡¯ a named faction among those grenadiers, unknown to Minim from her lessons with Gadail when she was still Syrib.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡Þ


    Yet in those inscriptions the gravestone-tall had fallen, its trunk all scattered across that nightmare-world. And it was not Lillian¡¯s name there clear, but the name William, and from that was spun a myth of ¡®The Gravestone Claymore¡¯ his sword.


    Minim wondered if that battle had already taken place in darker ages lost to history or was yet to. Or could her actions in Timelessness even prevent it?


    Away from such histories or legends she tread, upwards and shivering.


    ¡Þ


    The winding stairs ahead had been broken apart or left unfinished. Breathing hard against the cold wishing the sun would stay, Minim found a different path up the gravestone-tall. The statues with their blunt weapons poised or hands outstretched, the fabric recreated or trapped in stone, all gave her palms and fingers a place to plant her pulling grip, and her feet somewhere else to push from.


    ¡Þ


    If she fell she would fall forever, she thought, or was Gadail still with her even here, he its lord wherever wind blows? Always in her heart for all guidance given and to her eyes miracle he had performed, though here climbing and runaway, she had never felt so far from his sight.


    And how could she know, having been pulled from one tayl of Payn into a tale of Fate, that if her thunder willed it two Shadows would step out of her own shadow to defend her: her sister and The Prince of Once-Ago? Alas.


    ¡Þ


    Having climbed the mass engrave of story-told statues, far above she found sloping stairs again, though of much older design. Aching and cold with only her mighty wishes she made a careful leap from the ladder of sculpture and effigy. Upon landing she grabbed the old steps hard, afraid of falling any further.


    Here she made no mistake - for to climb was to fall.


    ¡Þ


    The current sunset ceased as she kneeled there grasping stone, her infinite scar itched to the bone, and bluer skies crowned over Minim The Spring-Sworn, walker of climbed-aeons.


    The Gravestone Column there higher was smoother, older or younger, less defined by its reliefs. Only sketches, a chunk of rock erect. Worn by age or yet to be sculpted. Even here there was wind at this cloudy point, thin and sharp waves that Minim could not breathe well, wincing against the sudden daylight.


    ¡Þ


    In that chilling aurora the final oakenstone steps led to what was for some a garret, others a cabin, and if one lived therein long enough locked away I am sure they would think it a cell. Though who else was there to see it but her? Where had the rest of those pilgrims gone?


    A cerebriform amalgam of things, a maze of bars steel, oak or stone, and the bones of those faithful or murderous that had tried to get in and could not get out. Grim poses warding off other efforts, all twisting and wrapping around each other. Cold Minim saw a sword-hilt thrust into the top of the massing - what may once have been a roof - and whatever sword that giant hilt belonged to, would have been too large for any soul she knew, that all the gravestone could be swung.


    ¡Þ


    On the penultimate step Minim fell heavy with her breath, relieved to have made the climb and not one more footfall could she have made. She peered as best she could through little-pried bars trying to see what room was hidden inside the twisted form of almost organic architecture; almost she called out Lillian¡¯s name, having not heard any voice on the wind since Lady Fate spun her lair around. She thought to herself to proudly speak the mantra, as though a key it would open the massing-closing-on-itself to her alone:


    ¡®Time is dead¡­ and we have killed them. Come, seek The Lightning Crown.¡¯


    ¡°I am here.¡± She added, alas her wispy, exhausted voice compelled no such unlocking force.


    ¡Þ


    She could see barely through the barring maze, only if she craned and contorted herself into painful angles. Only if she was as the structure could she understand. She cared not for the bones nor the clumps still clinging putrid to them. What stench of theirs could rival that of her arm? Minute runes such as had been scratched by nails into the steel roots. She reached inside the tangled bars far as she could, eventually down on her belly trying to find the angle that would allow her entry, and all the runes were only so far as her arm wherever she tried.


    Until - there.


    ¡Þ


    Minim gasped or smiled to set her eyes on Lillian, though her smile was soon a sad one, then none at all.


    ¡Þ


    An infirm angel, Lillian we assume, was sitting there facing away from Minim, a young girl though grey was the hair draping long across the floor. Batlike her wings as Minim¡¯Syrib had never seen, angels having only wings mothy, feathered, insect-like or fins rarest of all. Infirm, for one of Lillian¡¯s leathery wings was far larger than the other; the smallest seemingly of no use at all.


    Armour Hadaeon-steel, spear and moon-shield far too large for her a child were propped against the bedroom wall, the cell wall. Teacups everywhere Minim saw, hanging from stringy webs, and dangling swords made of thread. Shelves of books all wet and sandy, as though found along a beach and collected here all dog-eared with things to revisit and remember.


    ¡Þ


    There were paintings, portraits each with their own tint or tone arranged into a rainbow of sorts across the massy walls. Finally The Spring-Sworn read chalked above young Lillian¡¯s door:


    ¡®The Great Freedom, Once-Heir of Courtdom¡¯


    The room inside out, Minim thought, thinking the words should make clear to pilgrims who or what inside was interred and why chalked? Was Lillian not one, but of changing state subject to whoever was there to behold her?


    ¡Þ


    Minim blinked and saw something step into Lillian¡¯s scattered shadow - an assassin was kneeling there offering the girl another cup hot with steam. Masked, cloaked with darkness, an arm of prosthetic bone where flesh should flex and reach, and an indigo-toned portrait of the same soul hung nearby. The assassin looked up at Minim and was gone.


    ¡°Who was that? They were there before¡­ in that woven place beyond places. They hurt Iron-Chest.¡±


    ¡°A construct that makes this possible. My Amneshay hurts only one soul as contracted¡­ to help them forget certain things and be unaware of so much: she is a blessing to all others.¡±


    ¡°Amneshay?¡± Minim joined together words picked apart. ¡°What does she make souls forget?¡± she pulled herself out from the mazing-cell crawling backwards and out of breath she slumped.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°She helps them remember, as well¡­ anything I need souls to misplace in Memory¡¯s tomb or recall from it, anything at all. Decided, designed and dictated. These small victories I must one by one articulate and fabricate for now, for human will is fickle, though not far from here is our Fract¡¯ralien realised, Spring-Sworn, where all from the start shall be predestiny, the spores of Amneshay coating all lengths and waves.¡±


    As Minim imagined all souls and individual strings all bound by Lady Fate, the same voice further tantalised:


    ¡°You will see now what became of Truthdom and Courtdom¡¯s greatest champion, when Falsehood at last was vanquished at the end of the endless war. When the blood of Falsehood¡¯s last king was still wet on Lillian¡¯s hammer-spear utopia should have been reflected, for Evil had been hung, cured from its own house-eradicate. And why was all not well even after that?¡±


    Though Fate did not expect her to answer, the girl that once was named Syrib did so:


    ¡°Because new champions were needed in the weird new age. Ravin in his violent age gathered without realising what Gold-Hammer of Hemloch said would be needed. Champions both, but not of the age they had fought for. That torch has passed to us.¡±


    Lady Fate could again be heard smirking wetly, somewhere in the anywhere:


    ¡°And here you are under the oval sun¡­ with Tragedy on your mind¡­ seeking to cure that as well.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Minim would have asked what Courtdom¡¯s origins had in common with her questions, though it all began to pattern-over in her thoughts, and Lady Fate knew this:


    ¡°It all pertains to control and Chaos Ordered, as you are beginning to see. Humanity dissatisfied, insulted almost, that their dreams can grasp what exceeds their reach. From adversary to adversary, from Evil to Tragedy. Oh, that Evil cowered in the end and even Tragedy shall. Nothing can withstand our understanding.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail had taught Serib that if she could ground her thoughts in Haven-o¡¯er, then earth and justice - those two words for the same virtue - would be clear no matter the storm she faced.


    And here Minim was instead breathing hard, her tired hands resting on the column¡¯s stone, sitting on the last of its steps. For all the doubts she kept regarding Lady Fate¡¯s true intentions, she was certain not of reality as Gadail had trained her to be, she was certain of her dreams.


    ¡Þ


    With her palms and feet on the oakenstone she Far Saw or Foresaw: Days. Ages when Days still could complete and end themselves - before Time¡¯s bleak depart. Lady Fate told her Minim:


    ¡°Ah, you now are seeing as I intended¡­ this is why I brought you here. Watch them¡­ these Days that have ended. See the rare gift of Freedom To squandered, witness why the throne is empty! Why you and I together shall see it filled, and all Humanity shall need to do is Behold, Begone and Rejoice! You their last champion and Heir.¡±

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Seventeen

    Fate¡¯s Time. The blood of Timelessness far had spilt. Despite the Days returned, Minim in a haze exhausted from her climb watched for eight solar revolutions and on each Day-revolved a different soul young or old would arrive at Lillian¡¯s cell. A ceremonial tea set lay prepared on the top step, and all that came would make their turn.


    ¡Þ


    She saw dark ingredients added to that heavily-scented tea of rose or poppy petals and lavender; the further powdered spores of an indigo-toned mushroom. In one light the spores were violet and crimson in another. She recognised the scent though not its purpose - from the smell she could see two souls dressed darkly, trying to keep her from all hurt and harm. She saw candles blown out and their smoke. Awake from Memory¡¯s tomb.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°The assassin¡­¡± she spoke to Lady Fate, wherever she was listening. ¡°I see her in a memory.¡± Minim inhaled needily, sent by scent elsewhere.


    Along the cell floor through its winding bars was space enough for a snake to slip through, perhaps.


    And through that smallest of tunnels Lillian¡¯s tea was heard; a rattling of porcelain clay dragged by spiders and their webs, these offerings of the young and old alike.


    In some versions the masked assassin instead took the tea to the prisoner, stepping from the shadows outside the cell into those inside.


    ¡Þ


    From no angle around the barred room waiting tired could Minim see Lillian¡¯s face. Only her long grey hair draping and larger wing, a grey blanket of childhood her companion. A sipping sound - or did she imagine that?


    ¡Þ


    Sun, star and moonlight moved, and there young Lillian sat moveless when her tea was finished. Another string to another cup into illusions of levitation. Above her the twisted canopy of her cell made Light¡¯s cast flutter, and patterns weird across her bony floor, and Minim there with her always watching and waiting.


    ¡Þ


    The Spring-Sworn came to observe the bars were ribs cut from their cages, and only these, in lengths and condition all disparate that this place had long been such a mound. She did not want to know what monsters were made of those bones alone and had in this mangle died at once, or did she believe this is all age had left and vultures discarded, all else for food and fading fit, and what gravity had these lost ribs to one another? As the tails of white rats in sewered canals knotting?


    ¡°This gravestone-peak, a mass grave of the same soul.¡± Her hands she placed upon those ribs and heard a startled Fate speak:


    ¡°You will see Amneshay again, Spring-Sworn. A wall separates you. A thing once of stone¡­ of stars¡­ that I intend to erode until there it is, a thread always inside. The strings of all things I see. A thread to pull and with it all the rest. The terms of contracts fulfilled. When I am done there will be only one dimension, one thread, one tapestry of all. One world, with a moon and a star in a system closed.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Minim thought of the woven realm of Fate¡¯s reside: had such deconstruction already taken place there? A thread to pull and with it all the rest.


    As well - had another solar revolution passed or reversed? As Minim realised she was standing in the way and stepped back from the ceremonial tea set. Away from her needy inhalations helping her remember. The masked assassin came to help the next pilgrim-soul prepare the tea, though whenever Minim stared too long or tried to reach out and touch The Shadow, as it is with memories, her grasp fell apart and the pilgrims completed the ritual alone.


    She focused on what she was seeing: souls involved in the act of keeping Lillian, The Great Freedom, in her state subdued with amnesic tea.


    ¡Þ


    And Lady Fate made graceful tether along her silken strings, her unseen legs thumping the dimensions she was scuffing out:


    ¡°Spring-Sworn, my rise in power was no one soul¡¯s malevolence, certainly not my own, but an act in which all had their part to play. When will was theirs, in an age of prosperity never before known, which is to say, with clearest mind furthest from distress they gave Lillian, The Great Freedom, her tea. For under Falsehood, Humanity-all was by so many things imprisoned. Even its last king. The stories vary though in all a fanatic led the resistance, and following that victory there she is in the cell we all in thanks have made for her, to stop her from going further. An heir uncrowned, for what peace can a fanatic find in peace, even if it is of their making? For Humanity is born of Nature Insatiable; Life Proliferate another name. Why would stars spread so far until colder and colder? Why not remain together in warm sleep and leave the darkness to itself? Why Light and stars at all in the beginning? Was the primordial darkness of Nothing¡¯s nil so wrong? Why did Time first tick? Were all things not once Timeless and here we are returning to that point with Time¡¯s murder? All these the questions and observations under which souls as you and Lillian cannot sleep. Lillian is that force in Nature which first made light from dark. Lillian is that spirit different-though-the-same in all humanity. The pride and with it the belief that one¡¯s hands are the movers of all things. The discontent with self and surroundings. The imagining, always testing its reach. Oldest under the sun. Courtdom would not be here without her. Though in victory Lillian saw there still was much constraining the souls she had helped liberate from Falsehood¡¯s ways, Tragedy all its names. She did not understand that Humanity lives in no boundless meadow, nor should it as it once did: live incarcerate. Humanity best writhes alive in walled gardens, inching through ecstasy, and that is the new world we shall give them if we are brave enough, you and I, with Greed¡¯s machines. As they, Humanity, have asked of us not with words but their actions, for are their actions not their desires? Would their body step one way as their spirit goes another? One of Falsehood¡¯s leftovers that we struggle to shrug off - saying one course is best and walking another entirely - in corruption worst or confusion best.¡±


    Minim frowned, unsure of what Fate was saying of ages past, the Lady seemingly drifting away from all the certainty she previously spoke with. The runaway asked the seamstress:


    ¡°Human Nature has relinquished its Freedom To, imprisoned her in its tallest towers, a concept walks as in myths. Where were you when this happened? What are you, Lady Fate?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Just as an apprentice of Old Gada¡¯il would ask. There are many of us all with our different names, though we are one, or once were and will be again. Limbs of the same embodied force named Entropy.¡±


    Hearing this, Minim shuffled, uncomfortable on the oakenstone listening to madness she could not see:


    ¡°Some limbs seeking order when disorder loosely reigns, others seeking disorder when order has too firm a grasp, such is our penchant to unravel whatever most is taut. The same force our Lillian is, that first encouraged Light from The Dark. Your master will have told you our name if ever he spoke of beginnings¡­ and Timelessness has scattered us conscious against each other. Allowing all of us to be, all at once scattered Me against Me. Another reason if not the core reason to turn it all back¡­ to make One-again what has been scattered. For all the good that comes from winning my duel with Lillian, much is the needless suffering in between, your own suffering in among that lot. Where was I? I was waiting. Among us-many there are those who Chance¡¯s-rolling nor Luck¡¯s surprise have seen fit to grant with opportunity, and I among those was waiting. Humanity long spoke my name but they did not know me, not at all what I could be. I heard them calling and here I wait no more; with every chance possible, that you and I may freeze over this eternal cycle with our crowns. Perfect order has come! Disorder wearing our mask has reigned too long. Untangled as Human Nature shall be under my woven reign, all souls a thread in the perfect patterns of my tapestries becoming tapestry. Nature meanwhile is untamed, as you know too well, that even stars will die. Indifferent Death visiting always, sent unbeknownst by Time unbeknownst. Coming to end Spring with Summer¡¯s start. Time¡¯s murder is not an act I would ever have resorted to¡­ Time had its place in my world, though we are left with this aftermath.¡±


    Believing all that Fate had not only told her, but had trusted her with, Minim asked:


    ¡°And in all this, what does the tea do to Lillian? Numb her? What have all souls played their part in? Making her forget and remember as is your will¡­ have you ever taken the same tea?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I always feared the same, that I was being tricked into drinking such medicinal poisons - I have discovered it is a misdirection.¡± Lady Fate spoke with ire, having been fooled before by forces Minim did not know. ¡°Let us make with our weft straight what is warping away from us; isolation has been unkind to me and I have spoken too long. Tell me. Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°The tapestry.¡± Minim said bluntly to the voice untied to any dimension. ¡°To seek The Lightning Crown.¡±


    ¡°And so to become lord of all Nature¡­ yes. Look closer at Lillian.¡± Fate commanded.


    ¡Þ


    Tired Minim twisted herself to see inside the mangled labyrinth and saw Lillian¡¯s long hair was pressed strangely above her ears, as though there sat upon her bowed head a crown invisible. Sad for a child no older than her.


    ¡°A crown?¡± Minim asked, pressing her face deeper against the bars and still she could not see as she wished to.


    ¡°She is a force of Nature and Human Nature, reading her sandy books she sought the crown you seek. A very old thing. To you it is a crown¡­ though to Lillian it is a shackle. How could she have known?¡±


    ¡°The crown keeps her shackled here, or the tea?¡±


    ¡°Both.¡± Fate answered. ¡°Separate mechanisms from different tales here overlapping, converging. Constants the same and variables rearranged in a Timeless flood.¡±


    ¡°And upon my head it will be The Lightning Crown? Where is it, why can we not see its flash and might¡­¡± The Spring-Sworn asked, ceasing her struggle irritated against the ribs that would not bend: ¡°A shackle, you said? If I remove it from her, if somehow I can find my way inside this maze, will removing it from Lillian not free your foe? Freedom To against Freedom From.¡±


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°It will, though I shall have gained you in return.¡± Minim listened too closely and heard the wet smile crackling again; heard the trembling stretch of meaty limbs. ¡°Let me worry over her¡­ as I long have, though never long enough; too late and old we learn these things. Now that you understand, you will need a guide through the maze to meet young Lillian Grey.¡±


    Minim thought it would be the masked assassin, and asked in soft joy:


    ¡°Is Amneshay my sister? That is what I can see with these tea-scents¡­ a memory of our parents. My mother a deadly Shadow, though full of fear, of grief for a future not far. My father more hopeful, too hopeful, that he did nothing but follow, trusting the wrong would right itself.¡±


    ¡°She is your older sister. Entire journeys you have shared without knowing. Another thing I will sew shut, the two of you.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Even under her arms Minim¡¯s hands were stiff in that bitter cold above the world, her robes dim of their patterned lightning despite the sunset ¡®unsetting¡¯. It seemed no victory or reunion distant in remembering her sister, as now what had she found but more and more to lose? Her master Old Gadail was all the love she could remember, the dread of losing him to his Winter had urged her on this far.


    Her parents and her sister - three more souls to mourn for - to keep this painful hope alive for. What if she failed to create The Spring to which she had sworn herself?


    And before this tale her own is over she will find a fourth; one all-eclipsing.


    ¡Þ


    Fate spun:


    ¡°Grief was Amneshay¡¯s hidden define, a mantle passed down by your mother. Our cause your sister still fights for, across eternal leaps. Your define will be your Bravery. Your enemies, such as Ahlzvyr The Hunter Lord, shall name your virtue-Brave as Fear. He will call you illiterate for you do not believe the books or cave-art he believes. For you are leal to my tapestries dreamed, devoted to the shores Before Good and Evil, to The Gardened Shore. For you have gazed Beyond with Far Sight and saw as Lillian did. The crown you have yet to earn shall allow you to take Time¡¯s place¡­ you shall be Nature¡¯s Lord. The seasons, stars and darkness yours to rearrange. Where Time swam onwards, you shall turn back.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°My sister.¡± the air atop Gravestone-tall was thinner and thinner, the great monument further and further from the ground


    Gadail was with Minim if she knew it or not, and just when she struggled most, his breath he gave to her, across distances only the spirit can surmount.


    ¡°You are no orphan, but your tusks made you a target from your birth. A target not only of Truthdom¡¯s shamanic ways.¡± Lady Fate explained. ¡°Born under eclipses and their storms, no less. As a beacon of hope and despair to all that would take notice, such as I. You became a target of mine, a dye my patterns require. Alas a target of my foe as well, your blood added to her ink. Alas for your parents, of course. They knew to leave you in Gadail¡¯s care would cradle you in a way their shadows never could have¡­ perhaps their shadows could have even better hid you, though what powers would you have learned from them? Safe with them but soft in shadows. Your mother knew what you could become in that future if she let you go, and so forsook her fear just long enough.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re using all of us.¡± Minim sat out of breath.


    ¡°With all the power I possess, I have a duty to Order. As do you. What would you alone do with your power without my guidance? What are my human strings if Nature flails wanton as it always has?¡±


    ¡°If you exist, Lady Fate, then what duty is there other than that which you decide and dictate for us?¡± she stole Fate¡¯s words. ¡°Other than, whatever purpose you have needled into us?¡±


    ¡°Did you see the tea-dark ritual over and watch it not once? Is it my design, or do I to the desires of Humanity kneel? Am I not taking mantles others have thrown off? There are those still with will their own, for I was not there from the start of the stars. I am weaving myself among all things though slowly, as Everything is the vastest dominion. I will not force you¡­ there will always be another variation, another constant.¡±


    ¡°How long have you waited for me to come here lead, because you cannot force me?¡± Minim¡¯s tusks were sharp against the woven clouds afar.


    ¡°I will not coerce by threading in such ways that it seems there is only one good pattern and all others are of Evil¡¯s fray, for such revelations are always dragged into sunlight, and betrayal destroys all that could have been perfect. In Timelessness we must forget our linear thinking, our seeing duality in everything. The shores we seek are before all these words.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°May I see my sister? Know her voice¡­ her hands. Where is my mother in Timelessness?¡±


    Minim did not know if she meant this; if meeting her mother again she would not wish to leave her side, or be even more distant from her. ¡®Sister¡¯ and ¡®Mother¡¯ somehow lesser words for too young she had been. To have been separated for so long, a bond that could have been and can no longer.


    Was her family not idyllic in the unknown? That same unknown filled with her wishes of closeness. Of Spring eternal. When there would be sunlight and moonlight, tea without poison to remember or forget, soft cakes and chewy farbark. All inside the walls of her making, a garden of once and ever.


    ¡Þ


    She breathed with all that Gadail had given her, a teacup meant for Lillian in her hands atop the gravestone-tall¡¯s last step. Inhaling the tea-scent she better remembered that one of her sister¡¯s hands was kind though gloved with hard leather - the other was a bony prosthetic having been severed at the elbow in a duel far away. Sheathing a poisoned dagger once a longer sword, knowing somehow she was smiling behind her mask. Her sister¡¯s loyal companion was there also, leaning on shadows away from light.


    ¡Þ


    Lillian in her cell appeared numb to all around her, and spidery Fate sewed shut the moth-holes forming across her blanket-grey without being seen:


    ¡°You have met Amneshay before¡­ travelled and fought beside. Seen to endings together. That long has been our aim, my Minim. This is far from our first meeting, as well¡­ throughout the stitches of my cosmos many have been our attempts to seize full control of Nature, that we might turn Timeless Time back to the blissful points of its compass. To those points when you and your family are together. To when all this grief is gone for it never was¡­ for into all possible futures you have stepped and brave, cured what could become sick or was sick from the start. Wrapped in swaddling cloth lightning-patterned that would become your robes, a material of my making.¡±


    Minim scratched at her sleeve-unreal which has with her grown perfectly; since a babe this force named Fate had known her. Called out to her. Responsible for the very clothes she had always worn. The Lady of Frac¡¯tralien-to-be reiterated:


    ¡°Now that you understand, you must navigate through the maze with a guide who has gone such a path before. With he who first placed that crown atop Lillian¡¯s head and made it invisible - and look at her - forgetting it was ever there. He helped her to find it, from clues in the books she read. And you will meet yourself... your weaker self ¡®Serib¡¯¡­ and you will hex her. You will hex your conscience and become unstoppable as I am; it is all that will ever hold us back. Here¡­ down these gravestone steps, traverse with Ikosinok, my servant leal. His world or land among those that ¡®first¡¯ have fallen under Timeless floods, his lineage of a tribe forgotten and so he shares our wish he tells me - to return and remain.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Just as mysteriously as Lady Fate had claimed, there he was to The Spring-Sworn¡¯s eyes as well. Dead angels at his feet - those who had come all this way not as pilgrims - eyes melted from their sockets that they had beheld the divine and blast shadows scorched into stone''s eternity where the rest had stood and tried to scream.


    ¡Þ


    He sat some way down the steps and with reluctance Minim left young Lillian, The Great Freedom alone at the top of the world, where only dreams and ideals such as may. Believing injustice crowned the scene, The Spring-Sworn shuffled down the steps, and with each she could easier breathe with strength regained. A child leaving a child, with all that magnitude most old have spent or left unspent; the presence of potential, of all she could become.


    ¡Þ


    She met with Lady Fate¡¯s servant leal.


    Ikosinok¡¯s skin was in imitation painted as a night sky: darkness flecked with white spots starlike, as comets streaked. Clusters. Nebulae bruising. Wearing not a thread of clothing, unfettered by the cold air of Winter¡¯s parting and Spring¡¯s beginning over Haven high. Hair black that would be long across the ground longer than he, where it not floating about him as hair submerged will do, from scalp to ends covered-sparkling in blacker sand. A sword aflame with white starry fire in his hand was hissing at the wind, burning all the more alight, himself a shaman to Minim¡¯s eyes and that longsword was his totem. Lady Fate spoke:


    ¡°He was the apprentice of The Firelord, Anaxagyr¡¯il.¡±


    Old Gadail did not know of this shaman nor his tribe, or he had not told Minim when she was named Syrib. She descended the steps to meet him as told and he looked up to her lightning-eyes, to the bronze sunset of her gaze. She stopped as one of his eyes was an orb black, the other white with light, his stare and skin aligned. A lone tusk once twisted in helix and spiral out from his mouth, worn or filed small Minim saw now; a thing to hide. And from this alone he seemed - despite his power - persecuted.


    ¡Þ


    Of all his strange appearance and presence, his hair behaving no gravity and frame unaffected by cold, with all trappings of a culture unheard of, that tusk alone was familiar to The Spring-Sworn.


    ¡Þ


    The same tusks-helixea were shared by a species of whale in one of Old Gadail¡¯s stories fireside, whales whose seas were threatened and to the skies these whales learned flight, swimming Wind¡¯s currents away from oceans no longer safe. Gadail came to know them well, being The Windlord. As their tusks were used to unsettle the seabed and so carve out their craters and sifting-feast on the uproar, the whales with their spiralled tusks dug at mountains the same for that is where the dragons lived, those with leathery wings that had come to kill the progenitor of all whales, covering the ocean¡¯s surface with their flames. And the depths of oceans cold were frigid as the darkness of the stars, and those flying whales, having imprisoned the dragons under their own mountains crumbled or left them flying without aerie into exhaustion, fled to the darkness of the stars. Fled though knowing, for why else would they flee, knowing those with leathery wings would return.


    Such fireside things Old Gadail told young Minim as she drifted off to sleep, that in dream she could glean meaning from its vagueness, a meaning that still did not come to her.


    ¡Þ


    Iksosinok spoke plainly, still learning words that Minim knew, being from a tribe Courtdom had never reached, a tribe with its own language untouched by The Emancipation and Eradication of The Languages as it is known, which left only one tongue for all. The tower of that myth became a temple and a star above it shined, but to Ikosinok that star was dark. He pointed at his tusk:


    ¡°Stone-shaper.¡±


    He pointed to her:


    ¡°Earth.¡±


    ¡Þ


    In his strange tones he recited a passage perfectly rehearsed, his black orb swallowing all light, his white eye expelling all that had been swallowed:


    ¡¯Once-Heir Angels struck by lightning into the deep,


    and that lightning too struck the waves,


    and the earthen seabed raged of magma,


    and so the deep was boiling, and the angels drowning, half their number willingly so -


    and foul was known The Mauling Crown of Dark Minim: HERALD!


    as arose Boiled Angels from the deep.


    All grey lighter or gray darker,


    and one their Chief was Black stone,


    having longest burned of All, having most wings, and extinguished sword a¡¯billow.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    Minim twisted hearing these words, writhed under the sight of Ikosinok¡¯s twisted tusk, under hollow Love for parents she had little known, for her master always there, her heart loyal to one season alone and order absolute.


    ¡Þ


    There was in her mouth a foul, bloody or rusty taste as she stared at Ikosinok¡¯s sword blazing with white fire, the fire of the distant stars somehow the same when close or afar. He spoke again in his plainer fashion, while Minim The Spring-Sworn could not take her sight from the longsword¡¯s fires, nor tear her thoughts from Iksosinok¡¯s recite of her future echoing and echoing. Her future as shaman dark for light has too long shined:


    ¡°I shape you. You shape me.¡±


    She knelt with him wincing and peeling high her sleeve exposed to him her infinite scar ghastly in its healing, slobbering alive with pus and odour. More than his thin words could say, his expression was one forlorn as he saw the wound, as one might gaze powerless upon a ruin found too late.


    ¡°Hope?¡± Minim asked him, terrified that this mystery squatting with her held all clue and key to The Crown atop Lillian¡¯s head, and that her failing scar which had brought her here shattered his belief or ability.


    ¡°Hope.¡± He reassured her, his star-painted hand held her arm under her scar, and he pointed to her tusk still bloody. ¡°Hex. Maze. Map.¡±


    ¡Þ


    With unsettlingly little hesitation, Minim tore again her tusk into her arm almost cutting at Ikosinok, from pus releasing the Bronze glow inside, a tarnished and rusted light.


    Dripping -


    slapping onto ancient oakenstone.


    Minim¡¯s dark sunset against Serib¡¯s dawn.


    ¡Þ


    Whimpering in bitter pain and still, the cold winds high above the world did not leave her side.


    ¡Þ


    Through weightless change Minim travelled with Ikosinok huddled close, to an aeon when the gravestone-prison had fallen or had not yet been built at all, when the sands of such stones were still spread across deserts far from Hadaeon, before accretion had made such a world.

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Eighteen

    Hush and heed. The spinning disc carried Serib and Iron-chest down to the sundered Hadaeon-world ahead of their awe. The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin was halved, split aside-struck by some greater force. Coughing through smoke they arrived as the landslides crumbled foaming into oceans under storm-swept skies many leagues and regions away, now bereft of what had been their names.


    ¡Þ


    Just when they thought the disc had stopped, it would move across the desolated Greatmount then higher or lower, its craft in no way designed for Timelessness. Destined to return to Haven, alas if the mountain was here, the city of its ore could not possibly be as well.


    Who knows what other fragments of frayed dimensions too were calling to it, and so in this aimlessness it patrolled the routes of once and never.


    ¡Þ


    Waiting until the disc was low enough, Iron-Chest yelled over the chaos: ¡°To my shoulder, strong. My legs shall make swift of this¡­ you need only bark out where is best. You sense it?¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± Serib replied, her shamanic senses attacked by elemental plight and History¡¯s ending. ¡°The fallen starspear.¡±


    She thought or already knew: had The Spring-Sworn come here searching for what remained of Ithuriya¡¯s weapon as well? This and more she tried to consider with what mind she had left; here momentum was her only recourse, that every step was twofold. Determination had settled in her and she leapt atop Iron-Chest¡¯s back holding the hilt of his greatsword for balance, and he with ease left the disc to rove in its chartless patterns, leaping from it to an evergreen patch of treetops still braving the fumes.


    ¡Þ


    He had travelled such butchered terrain once before, and in the Autumn of his life made quick work of the divided chasms, the crags full of boiling rain that could have been gentle ponds alas, as Serib called out the path. It led to no surprise upwards, the mountain fragile the higher they advanced. Geysers of flame hissed from beneath the rubble-surface, blood the stench on their breath of underneath leaving calderas in aftermath a scatter of pockmarks.


    Will there not be more and more of such marks to come?


    Will they not spread into others and of the world make a hollow?


    And even later, an ocean we will never see.


    ¡Þ


    In a calmer clearing perhaps above the clouds at last they saw a halberd-tall sticking out of the uneven ground, flagless, and a soul sitting beside on a steaming pile of rocks once a mossy boulder whole - it was Ahlzvyr, The Stalker and Hunter Lord. Beside him Dromiya, hatchling of The Grand Scarab bulged huge with mandible wide enough to swallow them all, posed as a statue tall with symbolism, its shell bright with glyphs. A scarab clawed as a crab, scythed in some texts, posed in all, and in such stances harnessed energies from the decimation that could become creation.


    Where we see ages coming to their endings, Dromiya¡¯enanti the grub still-growing, saw pages to be read. A beginning in need of a monarch, an Heir to find or become.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest slowed his pace and Serib leapt down to walk by his side. The Stalker made no acknowledgement of their arrival. Serib went a step too far before realising Iron-Chest was kneeling beside her. As one stunned he knelt, having remembered again the dread words of Lady Fate, as the scene before his eyes was the same he had seen on her tapestries:


    ¡®Yes, you will defend her, Sentinel.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    ¡°What is wrong?¡± Serib tugged on his forepaw. ¡°Has The Stalker laid some trap for us¡­¡± she scanned the loose stones and it was difficult to tell them apart, their burnt colour all wrapped with steam rising from beneath their crumble.


    ¡°Worse than that¡­ see beyond him. See his halberd sharpened on these stones.¡±


    And Serib¡¯s eyes having been so drawn by The Stalker did see; Ahlzvyr had prepared himself for battle and laid unseen traps indeed but not for her nor Iron-Chest.


    ¡Þ


    Traps he had laid for a terrible darkness, visible in ¡®human¡¯ silhouette on the other side of an unnatural ravine that beast - an ocean-wide bay - where all between was still being pulled apart, filled with quakes and ash. Serib placed her palm to the vaporous earth and knew wounds there and afar. Her bones ached with the world and a dark figure she felt or saw many leagues far off. Standing on her own flesh she felt it; its feet not upon the earth but pushing the world down; a way to be made for its coming.


    ¡Þ


    Taller than her it turned to face her, no child but a woman strong, its scalp embedded with living eels all shrieking at Serib-small, eight constricting snakes where two legs should be, and she wrenched her hand from the ground too late. She beheld as The Sentinel and The Stalker had both explained to her in their own ways:


    Alas I found no lords in Ehl¡¯yiteth, for its lands, rivers and fires had come under dark ruin. Only the winds were still free; in all my travels I¡¯ve seen no such despair as Nature in chains. Few were the known routes through that maze of loss and anger as all roads seemed to move or disappear into the changing world.¡¯


    ¡®¡­she leaves blood in Water¡¯s place, illiterate - screams echo against Wind¡¯s breeze. Flames burn longer than their fuel and into acid coil. Broken cliffs and unnatural divides are common of her presence, landslides muddying any tracker¡¯s route though all leading somewhat the way to her Throne of Craters.¡¯


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    And now, The Spring-Sworn knew where Serib was. Her mind reeled from the similarities, a girl staring at a woman though a great distance lay between them. Lightning robes both, tusks the same shape, and both their hearts the heart of Fear from Future¡¯s grief-to-come.


    ¡Þ


    Serib saw the woman in shadows and silhouettes against the chaos of her own making - The Dark Shaman, The Dark Spirit, The Spring-Sworn all her names across these variables rearranged and constants ever the same. Her totem a mauling hammer in her hands, cruel with bronze-steel spikes, a weapon meant only for shattering things that they could be remade, and perhaps not even that. Eight eel-like limbs her hair where thick-grown locks once flowed Serib had seen and could not stop watching how tethered their gait, how wretched, and a cage-crown fierce with unholy lightning across her face.


    ¡Þ


    Having seen The Spring-Sworn, haste was Serib¡¯s heart. She set her gaze to climbing the woodland of scorched trees leading up the fallen mountainside. ¡°We must hurry, the spear is close and can aid us in this fight.¡±


    The fallen weapon was a hymn on the wind, a metal ringing out from its clash. What so had frightened her in The Spring-Sworn that words were no option? Why had revulsion first belched up from within her all-shuddering as over a tomb unearthed? Had we tried to bury that which is not dead?


    The Sentinel broke into no such hurry and The Stalker surely within earshot stared quizzically into the sand of his hands, waiting in an awareness much his own and apart.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Serib in frustration tried pulling Iron-Chest along with her, and he spoke from his genuflection:


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Serib-strong. Distant things have come into focus¡­ a pattern I could not see when close, as a wanderer might turn back to see how far they¡¯ve come and need a moment their own against Life¡¯s overwhelm and, well. In Fate¡¯s woven house I saw in thread how I would die; I suppose a curse most would say? To see one¡¯s ending. My blade with lightning wreathed¡­¡±


    Serib quickly tried to reinterpret what those sewn images may have meant:


    ¡°Your own lightning, having become a shaman yourself in a future far from here.¡± She believed, pulling him again though Iron-Chest would not go with her:


    ¡°Alas another¡¯s lightning, having been struck. By a foe or granted momentary might by a friend, I do not know.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib knew his certainty was misplaced or mistaken, her words sharp as she tried to convince him:


    ¡°Could it not be a lie Fate wove for you? You knew you would die and chose to follow me anyway? Ancestral grace showed you death? I see no lightning here, not yet, ready as the darkening clouds may be for it. How can you know?¡±


    Fearful of death she asked, of Old Gadail¡¯s most of all, of a shadowy family she was made to leave behind, of the friend she had found in The Sentinel, whom had trusted her despite many reasons not to. Iron-Chest smiled in his sadness a fortress, a forest-older, having seen so many of his comrades fallen over their deployments in Duty¡¯s lands-morale, being not afraid of Reality and the way we all are going, and from the font of those fields he took his justice and his courage. As those before him too had given back.


    ¡Þ


    Courtdom and Humanity¡¯s Decline he feared, not Nature¡¯s Decay:


    ¡°Us Werewolves dropping by the many, eh? Yes¡­ since a pup I have dreamt of my end. Further I saw it in Fate¡¯s tapestry, and before I saw it clearly in my dreams or on tapestries I knew it would come in some form or way. A soldier must know. Battles have come and passed where I was certain my last had arrived, and yet it was I wounded though alive or saved by chance, left to guard fallen Sentinels and Falsehood¡¯s foreign dead alike until the vultures came.¡±


    And there he stayed awhile on those fields no longer of battle but of Death¡¯s serenity and its stench, before returning to Serib on The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin:


    ¡°We believers in Truth must leave much to the bludgeonings of Chaos, Chance and Change, and see only Coincidence where Falsehood saw a crueller plan at work. I cannot help but be grateful for my survival. Thankful, where Falsehood may once have turned to the sky in praise and awe, a pit of silence their only reply. How else if not for these linking of chances would I have been led by Bronze light and grace to you? That I have seen my end was no curse but a blessing, so that I could with certainty devote and re-devote myself to it. What greater gift could I earn or receive than paradise regained? So it is for all souls that accept Time¡¯s permanent impermanence.¡±


    So he spoke on an adherent, having served for no glory other than the honour of having played his part:


    ¡°I see you restless and hope you too will come to learn this peace I have found. What place is it of mine to turn from Truth, the greatest of all forces? The only force. This is only my end, Serib-strong, this is not all I have ever done.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You will leave me¡­ to have a second duel with The Spring-Sworn?¡±


    Serib heard words that would later echo, though for now in the face of Youth¡¯s severity, they went quietly to the winds without their weight. Gadail had left her to the whim of a Timeless grandclock, to have a conversation she would never hear. Iron-Chest would leave her to whatever mercy remained in the collapsing world. Her parents had given her away. Or so it all felt as she listened on:


    ¡°You will leave me to distract her, to defend as is my way.¡± Iron-Chest corrected. ¡°You are no Werewolf soon to drop I¡¯m sure, but hold onto your tusks, Serib-strong. Courtdom¡¯s ways and Truth therefore, now the old ways, are under greatest siege. Give me only a spark¡­ master, that I might draw all attention from you with all my bark and bluster loud.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Serib looked him over confused, held his arm to implore him and she felt his skin patchy with burns again.


    ¡Þ


    Though short their journey together, she was the only master he had found, venture as he did from Hadaeon to Ehl¡¯yiteth and back again in his search.


    Little did either of them know in Timelessness, how their new companionship was old.


    You and they shall know, by tome¡¯s end.


    ¡Þ


    Kneeling he drew his greatsword-curved from his baldric bespoke and held it before her, as in other stories he had heard of such shamanic things with knighthood blurred, that his weapon may be granted elemental boon or imbue, alas Serib knew not such arts as ancestors or high blacksmiths do. What he asked she could not give.


    ¡Þ


    Her young eyes were tearful to see his old moon-blade drawn and mind determined, and from her fallen a Bronze starlight glowed across his blade, for she drew from his font overflowing. Even The Stalker glanced up to their moment, and to him it seemed it was a sunrise-curved that Iron-Chest wielded, a light cast far giving all the nearest earth reason to hide its seeds for the future yet. The Sentinel was surprised to see light aglow in lightning¡¯s place, despite what Fate¡¯s tapestries had foretold.


    He barked his thanks and asked himself, what else could have been discrepancy, if light with lightning was lie or confused?


    Serib did not know what her sadness had created, and to the ever-expanding ravine of earthquakes and bitter ash she stared, unsure quite what The Spring-Sworn¡¯s sadness had created.


    These, the things of Love and Reason.


    ¡Þ


    She could not speak. She turned her reddened gaze up to the decimated woodland, sniffing her tears away both disunited and with enrage, her high knees making near the far summit. Iron-Chest did not follow but stepped ¡®away of her towards¡¯ where The Stalker sat, and said to her depart:


    ¡°Go on, master. Up and on to wherever the starspear calls to you.¡± He turned to eye Ahlzvyr: ¡°My biddings to you, Lord Stalker.¡±

 Act I - Earth, Chapter Nineteen

    The Stalker and The Sentinel. Iron-chest watched The Hunter Lord hold a palm of sand-snow up to whatever light still remained under The Spring-Sworn¡¯s oppress, divining from the falling sparks wasted or fulfilled. A small empty pouch of human leather by his side flapped in the wind. The spot of his chosen seat was a place of strange gravity he since surveyed in his waiting as the sand in all directions flowed and to Dromiya he muttered inaudible:


    ¡°Accretion has of our sand-snow a loopy mountain made.¡±


    The grand grub clicked its maw and clacked its claws in approval. The Stalker too watched Serib go, watched her lightning-robes catching the dwindling light as his sands, the eight thick locks of her hair that will become vicious eels in silhouette unspeakable never far from here.


    ¡Þ


    Since we last saw The Stalker, the flies had done as they will to the scalps sewn to his mail. Dried, shrivelled and sagging domes remained. Reminders grimmest of why he must go on, why he must not fail the last as he had the rest. He replied to The Sentinel:


    ¡°And you, soldier. I thought it a shame you both had chosen treason in sight of me back at the courtyard ¡®before.¡¯ Though - long it has been for me and perhaps - short for you? You look unchanged while I have seen much since. Lost in forests beyond all of Reason¡¯s reckoning until a young shaman happened by. We are more aligned than I thought, and I realise our dealignment is Fate¡¯s intention.¡±


    Iron-Chest scowled at the sewn-Were-scalps:


    ¡°Is dealignment the word you choose? Why would we ever replace Truth?¡± He growled wary of the small crossbow mounted on Ahlzvyr¡¯s wrist and his giant beetle-crab far from coastline or desert sands: ¡°If you are to fight with me or against me, for the sake of vultures, I hope there is meat under all that beard, Stalker.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Both to die, are we?¡± The Hunter Lord let out a grievous laugh in Serib¡¯s direction, who had already put angry distance between them. ¡°What authority have we in each other¡¯s worlds and lineages overlapping? Time was the authority we all knelt to in the end and not even that height is tall any longer. Alas that in Lillian-faced Entropy - infinity has met its match. I have tracked The Spring-Sworn here through the runed maze that first from a mistaken guide appeared ruined. Mountains do not harm themselves and Ithuriya¡¯s halfspear returned with no impact such as this. The Spring-Sworn is searching for it as I would, tracing and calculating, for it does not call her name. Excavating the life she could have led.¡±


    ¡°It calls her name.¡± Iron-chest looked for his new friend and surrogate master but he could no longer see Serib, and he gazed up higher to the Greatmount¡¯s fragile peaks. Vultures circled its last remaining spire that the desolation was of their making or an ending they had seen before and we all are but intruders infant to their world we have named. ¡°Shall we stand together, then, Stalker and Sentinel as foundation and frontier, and a better chance afford ourselves against this¡­ dark shaman. I know I will not live to see my Winter, regardless or otherwise¡­¡±


    The Stalker laughed heartily again and Iron-Chest growled.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I laugh not at you, Sentinel, but at Fate¡¯s ungoverned nerve. Your ages though warlike defending bloody walls far from the frontiers have not equipped you for lies, padded in Courtdom¡¯s soft reserve. How else did The Spring-Sworn first slip past you, with you no less?¡±


    Iron-Chest felt more and more a pup himself:


    "You believe Fate¡¯s tapestry is false¡­ sewn deliberately as to convince me? And from there - my own undoing I complete for her.¡±


    ¡°Serib said as much and you would not hear her. I doubt you or I are considered as threats to Fate¡¯s silk. Not your undoing I measure, but to leave Serib alone by sending you off more likely. Using your faith in Truth against you. Be it chasing your tail as I¡¯ve chased my own plenty through mazes-woodland or into a duel as this headlong from which one does not return lightly or at all. For you and I both realise overlooking this human-spread ravine we have no choice - what horror would visit young Serib if we turned back now? Is everything already predetermined? Or is the coming maelstrom one of many wills at once?¡±


    ¡°How do you know what I have seen on Fate¡¯s tapestry, or words shared?¡± Iron-Chest¡¯s sunrise blade glowed on.


    ¡°If it concerns my task then I have found it out by skill or chance or even through swarth allegiances. Heh.¡± He laughed madly at this, at pages tucked among his beard. ¡°In your future and yet my past your master gave this to me, Sentinel. Said you¡¯d understand.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°My master?¡± Iron-Chest set his glowing blade to rest on his Hadaeon-steel pauldron - its curves with leaves engraved - and the light seemed a halo about his head.


    From the rummage of his beard Ahlzvyr found and tossed to Iron-Chest a pebble. Upon catching it The Sentinel saw it was clay-formed, a potter¡¯s creation etched with infinity¡¯s rune though upon that rune a fang was scratched at either end, as though to give infinity a beginning and an ending unbelike. The clay pebble was warm as spent coal holding on. He sent his gaze ahead of him up the mountainside, to its ashen horizons clouding over with cloggy mist.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Serib was right. This is not my end¡­ I have been misled.¡± He set the pebble to rest in his fur under one of his steel vambraces.


    ¡°You foresaw dying alone, did you? On threads and in dreams.¡± The Stalker asked The Sentinel and did not allow him to answer. ¡°I have found some of the runes to my advantage and destroyed those which saw me closer to my end narrowing all ways here. Our goal is aligned in his moment, Sentinel. I have set my traps for The Spring-Sworn¡­ in a new-formed glade not far from our position through which she must pass. Will geographies again define everything as they always have? Will the tales make much of that? Giving herself only one route in remaking the earth as she wishes has made her path simpler, more dangerous. What need for adventure in the world as she sees it? What purpose in a landscape sprawling? And so we can draw her attentions there and we together may manage what neither of us could alone in our stories separate and obscured: you, strung by amnesia, while I chased nothing in a woodland unreal.¡±


    Iron-Chest barked and adjusted the great-blade resting on his shoulder. ¡°You do not seek to kill her?¡±


    ¡°History¡¯s fade has eroded noble Stalkers into simple Shadows.¡± Ahlzvyr stared through Iron-Chest, sighing. ¡°Oh the lessons I would teach if my pride outweighed my loyalty to truth - perhaps set in place a lodge where our forgotten sand-snow-ways can be remembered by this forsaken age. Let this suffice - many are the tasks of a Stalker always behind enemy frontiers. A dead target is almost a failure, a prey converted or wayward returned home is my mark. And though not all can be returned and number among The Rabid, I see no such despair for The Spring-Sworn. I seek to nearly kill her, for this tale of ours is one of brinks and extremes, opposites and reversals. Are those not the sorts of truths that cannot be taught, those found at the edges of ourselves?¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Stalker eyed the giant scarab Enanti and threw a seed to the ground, patting it buried in the troubled earth with his boot for what would come after he had gone. Further than Serib, Lillian was the true ¡®wayward¡¯ Ahlzvyr sought, though he could not bring her home - her home already her gravestone and her cell. And what permanence can a mortal hope to mend Entropy with? Even Serib dear to this tome was but another step closer to understanding Lady Lillian Grey, The Great Freedom, Heir to Courtdom¡¯s Heirarchy:


    ¡°Despite Timelessness I see Enanti growing linearly; the age of The Grand Scarab ended premature when Lillian invaded our sands. Breaking seals that would reveal to her Time¡¯s ¡®location¡¯, and make flesh what had always been ethereal in paracosmic desire and inability to see what is over one¡¯s wish.¡±


    Iron-Chest sniffed the air, unsure what ¡®paracosmic desire¡¯ was, his ears low and listening to The Stalker that had been alone too long:


    ¡°We of Aner Ba¡¯hyt thought Truth had deemed us insufficient, yet Love over Reason won that battlefield. Enanti when fully grown will need a shaman to advise and lead them as Courtdom comes under new reign. A shaman that can navigate this Timelessness as Old Gadail¡¯s apprentice is beginning to? Now there¡¯s a dynasty that Humanity needs out of this mess. You and I shall if we can, leave Minim¡¯Syrib nearly dead and enough, so that when The Spring-Sworn passes our corpses at worst it will be in a state weakened enough for Serib to stand against. And the rest will be up to her, not a matter of defeat nor victory but of assimilation.¡±


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The Stalker and The Sentinel heard on the wind a voice or tune as a cloud approached from on high the burning skies, and atop that cloud Master Shaman Old Gada¡¯il, The Windlord, sat as we all might in grass


    ¡°More than standing strong¡­ to stand brave shall be her ending.¡±


    ¡Þ


    When seen closer, the cloud was as steel and gemstone hard no cloud at all, but a boulder made light by gales, wrapped in soft clouds hiding its harder shape. The boulder kept its burg merely a hands-length away from the earth, and Gadail raised a clay cup hot with tea to both The Sentinel and The Stalker:


    ¡°I would apologise for almost being late¡­ though in Timelessness I doubt it matters! Tea for either of you, before The Spring-Sworn arrives? Or farbark?¡±


    He was busily giving a strip of bark a fair chew between his words, a secret stash never far.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Master Gada¡¯il.¡± The Hunter Lord stood to bow, holding his halberd-tall.


    Across its haft a vine was long all growing from the leaf Gadail had returned to Ahlzvyr, atop The Winged Wall not far from here in space though to the turning of pages, long ago. ¡°All tea and no bark for me.¡± He grimaced at the mention and afterthought of farbark.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest similarly bowed at last before a master of shamanism, one of the four lords of Ehl¡¯yiteth no less, where The First Shaman ¡®tripped on their trance enhanced¡¯ as an old story says. He thought such a lord would be neater, The Windlord himself whose myths and tales he knew well, though there he was in clay armour scratched with cave-art, and hair where weeds took happy root, fresh as sea wind or weed his scent. Soon, Iron-Chest could imagine a true shaman no other way. Traveller of the shores, grace his weight and mote alike. The cave-art across Gadail¡¯s clay breastplate at first had a scarred look, figures were there etched. Iron-Chest realised: a stick-or-blocky likeness of Gadail himself was in that art wrestling a Dark Spirit. His burned scars itched and staring at the art he spoke a tower-lost name:


    ¡°Akin to Jaq''ob.¡±


    ¡°Ah, the winds know your name well, Iron-Chest, sword-bulwark of The Winged Wall and The Woodlands Old of Gap¡¯elyhond both. Let me see you¡­¡±


    Iron-Chest took a step back from the floating boulder so the old master could better give his say:


    ¡°Yes indeed, a Werewolf wearing Hadaeon steel from Haven¡¯s forges, the blacksmith hammered leaves across their craft for you. To honour you, Iron-Chest of two worlds-Hadaeon¡­ this is you in Autumn¡¯s youth? Then the ancestral-rest is no wonder, that the grace of our kin calls to you, the future yours to guide. Looking back you will see it ahead of you, and rest you shall have earned.¡±


    Iron-Chest little understood the shaman¡¯s strange words or were they prophecies, though humbled he remained that no ill had been spoken.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I was not expecting you, Windlord.¡± The Stalker raised his beard to Gadail.


    The Sentinel had taken up the master shaman¡¯s offer of farbark and handed a piping clay cup of tea to Ahlzvyr, passed to him by Gadail who would not leave his boulder. The master began to explain:


    ¡°Quite! Best if The Spring-Sworn does not sense me just yet. The winds are unknown to her, avoiding her command of Spacious Air and heeding mine, so my breath and words she cannot hear across the ravine. The other lords of Earth, Fire and Water lost or fallen, so all other elements are hers to reign¡­¡±


    ¡°Your foot upon the ground shall alert her.¡± Iron-Chest gnawed gracelessly through his own farbark, while Ahlzvyr sipped his tea by the massive crab Enanti.


    The coleopteran-crustacean partook of no bark nor tea despite the shaman¡¯s offerings, understanding his words yet fusing deeper into its glyphic meditations. The old master smiled:


    ¡°Good to know you are well, elden friend.¡±


    A claw opened and closed twice in reply.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail agreed with The Sentinel:


    ¡°My younger though still-old self searched for her, and now she searches for me.¡± A while he contemplated that, smiling sadly. ¡°Our young Serib by contrast, is about to journey back to Ehl¡¯yiteth in a sense, for this mountain is a place of nonsense, and so I¡¯ll make quick my own journey off the momentum of her runes all in place that she has not yet carved.¡±


    The Sentinel and The Stalker looked at one another in shared confusion.


    ¡°Crush and discard the teacup¡¯s clay when you¡¯re done - and be ready for your duel. Before I go, Ahlzvyr, I must ask which Lay¡¯d do you stand with? I have my suspicions, you see¡­ not regarding you.¡±


    The Hunter Lord turned his back to Gadail and Iron-Chest, giving his last survey to the world¡¯s destroy. Following another sip he said:


    ¡°Both planting seeds are we? Neither, for Lady Fate and Lay¡¯d Payn believe Time has been murdered but not I¡­ Stalker they long have said but I am a tracker and pathfinder foremost. Time is out there dreaming or scheming as it never has had to before¡­ its murder has mutated it, and it always was a higher being beyond our beliefs. A Dimension embodied by harpoon wounded and made by force to hide among us that it could be found, and I know not which of these events was first.¡±


    ¡°In paracosmic desire.¡± Gadail echoed, his eyes on Enanti, whose claw again clacked twice.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-chest raised his brows, and Ahlzvyr still facing away consulted the bright sand of his beard as Gadail offered:


    ¡°Then you have seen as I have¡­ paying attention to all that is Black or White, to starlight afar and the fires we make; the element Serib is next to explore on her totemic quest, and may even see your own and old homeland. My dear friend from and of The Sifting Sand-snow, if you believe Time is not dead but dreaming or dreaming in death and ways to our senses strange, then be on the lookout for Konisoki, whose name reversed is Ikosinok. Spare him and so the world.¡±


    Enanti¡¯Dromiya stirred, pulled its scythes back towards its shell. From his surveying of the unmade land The Hunter Lord turned back to face Gadail, alarm wide across his buried eyes under his pelt-scalp hood, while Iron-Chest knew the tower-lost language, having read a history or two in those ages guarding seldom-quiet walls with little else to do but read and wait between sieges:


    ¡°I know of the tribe and its people, I know that word. Ikosinok reversed is Konisoki, it means eight? Eight being the highest I can count since Time was lost and very much the same rune, regardless of its angle, that reacts to Serib¡¯s presence.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Interesting to know Serib and I are not the only ones¡­¡± Gadail admitted, and to Iron-Chest showed his respect, sharing, throwing to The Sentinel¡¯s paw another strip of farbark. ¡°Never too many. Ahlzvyr, it seems this ¡®embodied dimension¡¯ of yours has developed strange humours, or in its tailless wake has left a clue - wishing to be found by allies. Or, a trap has been set for the rest.¡±


    Ahlzvyr¡¯s eyes widened further with delight, as before only through hunches and conclusions from conjectures drawn had he believed Time survived the attempt on their life, and here Gadail spoke with proof of a sort. A witness perhaps:


    ¡°You agree with me, Master Gada¡¯il? Time is alive?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Enanti to these words receded through its stances posing at The Spring-Sworn¡¯s desolation over continents deconstructing themselves. Receded its beetle-plating to uncover its spread wings, an oily rainbow their span fragile, and scythe-pincers tighter tucked to its burly sides. It advanced some steps closer to the ravine¡¯s edge as Gadail did not answer from his floating boulder, but the great work of cloudy rock and his command he sat upon made quick its ascent towards the mountain¡¯s last spire, leaving The Sentinel and The Stalker as they were and had been.


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest sighed in the quiet and The Stalker spoke again to winds that would not answer, to Gadail drifting further away at speed:


    ¡°Then you fear Chance may yet deem your apprentice irredeemable. Rabid. Damnation only.¡± He shared again his gruesome laugh with what remained of the colliding worlds falling further from each other. ¡°Leave her to it and forget not your place, you fossil hanging on.¡±


    So he spoke undead, seeing Love hold Reason where it was.


    ¡Þ


    The Sentinel finished his chewy farbark and waited with The Stalker. He heard as he had been waiting for, for Ahlzvyr to slurp his last sip of tea. His beard tangled enough that he could tuck his cup there to rest in a nook, and so he did to ready his self and weaponry. He sighed into his words from his last sip relieved:


    ¡°Ah! I¡¯ll cover your charge.¡± he grabbed his halberd-tall, wrapped as it was with vines, and the hard metal softened almost bent to his touches, then eventually curved indeed until as a bow taller than himself it stood, having strong fibrous stems as bowstring he tied from end to ending.


    ¡°From sand to snow.¡± He pondered, as the duel-tripartite was soon to begin.


    As he spoke, Dromiya¡¯enanti crawled forth into the ravine with sticky legs climbing down the steep. Its second armour-plated husk sprung open-flared and soon after the buzzing of its wings grinded on the still-free air, and the giant crab flew as a beetle into lightning¡¯s dark skies, its legs or arms hanging from its great body as axes or scythes.


    ¡Þ


    From his vantage, The Stalker - though arrowless to Iron-Chest¡¯s eyes - had full range over the narrowing ravine and the boiling ocean bay beyond.


    Beyond, where bloody rivers as veins from the earth ran deeper, yet more as halved-snakes those estuaries writhed hot, unable to settle in their rocky beds. The halberd-bow though changed in shape was far heavier than it had been and could not from its mount be moved, making all the more potent its throw to come. The Sentinel¡¯s sword aglow with bronze light shone against Enanti¡¯s shells flying further away, himself a new star as the old were fading.


    With bow at the ready wedged in hopeful earth, Ahlzvyr held the empty clay cup to his companion:


    ¡°Sentinel?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Iron-Chest sprinted off down the ravine¡¯s sheer drops and rough angles with speed few could counter. Over foundational rivers that as solid limbs began lashing out at him. As eels though rooted and disturbed. Dromiya¡¯enanti skirted the burning skies.


    ¡Þ


    Ahlzvyr crushed the clay teacup in his hand, the dust and pieces falling to the earth he watched, just as he would divining from falling sand or snow. Only Wonder would ever know what he saw in those last shards. From below the earth a tremor shot through the moment, as the teacup¡¯s pieces - clay touched by Gadail - mingled with The Spring-Sworn¡¯s rubble. Pulling back the giant bowstring of vines an arrow of sand and air there formed between The Hunter Lord¡¯s fingers pinched. Quiet his divination as he took aim at the silhouette afar acting out its blood-rites foul to which Iron-Chest was headlong and Enanti¡¯dromiya o¡¯er:


    ¡®For Sain¡¯ T¡¯yeorgya by Summer¡¯s-Moon,


    Two-Hunters; Both-Prey.¡¯


    And it is beyond dispute that Iron-Chest howled for all the free winds to hear as he sped, greatsword in hand, as from Serib¡¯s tears still glowing a Bronze lightning flashed across his sword as he ran, and The Dark Shaman¡¯s lightning from above was drawn to his weapon and not to him, summoned by his weapon for him to wield.


    ¡®¡­when I my last -


    lay me riverside


    under vulture skies,


    in Moon-woodlands-old of Gap¡¯elyhond.¡¯

 Act II - Fire, Chapter One

    Sparkling ember. A volcanic mountain range overlooks ¡®The Sand-snow¡¯ of Aner Ba¡¯hyt.


    The region¡¯s poets native or in pilgrimage mourn the loss of seasons as mid-way through praising Summer in odes we will not hear, the clear sky flips as would pages skimmed through, and Winter falls with such immediacy the poets are convinced of their own madness and ask: had Summer ever come to that land at all?


    We see the unprepared and underdressed scramble for cover.


    ¡Þ


    What is The Sand-snow?


    A cosmic shower of comets recurrent, scratching and scuffing across the atmosphere; the planet Ehl¡¯yiteth a blip on the galactic convoy¡¯s eternal journey.


    Who knows what mass they truly circle - this asteroid belt uncoiled - ¡®where kirkwood trees and dust¡¯.


    ¡Þ


    The frozen comets clash against the desert¡¯s heat, and so The ¡®Sand-snow¡¯ of Aner Ba¡¯hyt drifts down and the cultures of that sandscape long have set their ways around such harvest. A pattern or science was found in ¡®divination¡¯. Just as some may tell the future from how tea leaves settle in a cup, these peoples discovered a language-almost in how long or short the sand-snow falls, with telescope or microscope making simple notes, gathering with - what then were years - their observations, until they could prove their Truth again and again reliably. This land, where heat¡¯s dynamic laws were discovered.


    ¡Þ


    From the first to the last this practice has been known as Sifting, the art in which Ahlzvyr is adept, for this frosty-sandscape burning is or once was his homeland.


    Some may Sift by holding sand to sunlight and watch how cosmic light catches the falling grains. How moonlight and sunshine tell different tales. Those with great spectacles look at the tiny snowflake shapes, as certain shapes mean certain things. Categorising: how many different shades of blue could there be?


    Others may toil through the fallen sand-snow, stirring shards of glass the divine sound, listening and by that alone coming to conclusions on the nature of Nature.


    Pottery, glass making and blowing craft, are thus the core contributions of these greatest of peoples.


    ¡Þ


    Alas in Timelessness, Summer¡¯s scorch and burning has too long baked the landscape; Night is in exile. Day is forced to stay awake. The skies alight with the passing of comets that cannot end. A happening once annual has too long stayed, the volcanoes of overlook have grown cold and ¡®nameless snow¡¯ rather than ash spews from their abyssal belch. Frail flakes in which no expert can discern a pattern, mounding higher than wind or broom can sweep away.


    ¡Þ


    It is among these peaks overlooking the Dune-Kilns of Aner Ba¡¯hyt that Anaxagyr¡¯il, The Firelord, long made her abode in Falsehood¡¯s ages. From there she divined, communed and advised. Known by glance in the peacetime proceeding Falsehood¡¯s fall and Evil¡¯s cure for her short fiery hair and the totem-dagger at her hip, its sheathe a long, hollowed ruby. It is all that remained of a meteorite she helped avert from its deadly course, when all of Life¡¯s passion was hers.


    Some have laughed at this and remember it was her master pulling off such grace, and write there was no meteorite from above but an earthquake more terrible.


    ¡Þ


    In the Autumn of her life and ¡®between apprentices¡¯, when she heard on the winds that Falsehood¡¯s Last King was dead at last, she returned to Nature¡¯s volcanoes, leaving Human towers behind, having helped set them right and sadly seen enough of them she yearned. Yearned for those mountains where her parents took her digging and climbing, themselves shamans of more local matters than the grand scales she would in age help to guide.


    ¡Þ


    Across the volcan-side were plenty of caves for her to sleep in, full of forgotten art to study and catalogue in the archives of her thoughts. Seldom she would return to Aner Ba¡¯hyt, city of The Grand Scarab, and visiting monks from The Libraries of Ba¡¯hyt Al-almaerif would in varied mediums commit to eternity all she had found. Long were her twilit chats with young Gargarensyr, his restless sister Arensis and their short, tipsy master Passag¡¯wyr Ironbane.


    ¡Þ


    Peacetime passed with only scholarly incidents I will not here recite, until in one such cave she was reading hoary glyphs that should not be so cold embed in the volcan-side; glyphs depicting whales against dragons. One of the whales escaped the dragons, its likeness scratched into the utmost corner of the cave, with nowhere else to go.


    ¡Þ


    The sun later set as it should and in her shamanic dreams her trance was deep, having chewed on the stalks of a certain mushroom and inhaled its roasted spores that she may better search the halls and shelves of her memory. The glyphs had unsettled what she knew, and no flame of hers would warm them. She tranced for guidance, to speak with her old master now an ancestor, the previous Firelord Cal¡¯il, whom she believed had ascended to become a great star, a solar system her own to bridge and govern.


    ¡Þ


    She met no ancestor as she wished and in that uncommonly deep state where she was accustomed to the sounds of flame, only water was loud. A boiling ocean as none should ever have to hear.


    ¡Þ


    And through that ocean of screams swam a young lad, his skin blistering apart, his hair longer than himself. Anaxagyr¡¯il cast forth her palm and dagger, with incantation cutting through the scald with living flame.


    ¡Þ


    When she woke in her lonely cave she was not alone. A campfire¡¯s light was glowing across her from the cavemouth, and by its side sat the young lad. His hair was ungoverned by any gravity she knew, now dry and flowing through the nightly air as though still submerged, sparkling for all the black sand ran through it, caught by moonlight. White paint made spots and dashes across his skin; he was from a tribe to her knowledge unheard of, leading some to believe that whatever book Iron-Chest had read was a work of bizarre fantasy come true.


    ¡Þ


    Anaxagyr¡¯il had brought the boy back from her trancing dreams; ethereal becoming flesh though wounded he was with bruises and lacerations, burned patches.


    ¡°Thank you for rescuing me.¡± He called down the cave with a sore throat.


    ¡Þ


    He helped her return to health, for her act of kindness or instinct had not been without consequence, as a great weakness soaked her bones having brought him from wherever he had been. A curious shaman she thought - the healing ways of Water he already knew well yet his totem a longsword was clearly of Fire¡¯s brand, aflame with white as are the distant stars, and she wondered how something near could seem so far away.


    ¡Þ


    He did not heal his own wounds. As she recovered the sky would flicker from night to day and he told her not to worry, his wounds to scars forming proper.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± she asked him when her strength was enough.


    ¡°Time. In your worlds among you, Humanity, I choose the name Konisoki, having been Ikosinok. A current I leave behind.¡±


    Anaxagyr¡¯il took that name no further than the cave, as The Lords of Earth and Spacious did not believe this lad was from her dream. With echoes they convinced each other there must be a different explanation, that she was being tricked or turned weird by isolation. As ever in The Windlord Gada¡¯il, Anaxagyr¡¯il would find an ally.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡Þ


    Through fireside smoke The Firelord asked:


    ¡°Why are you here in our plane of plainer things, Time? And how¡­¡±


    ¡°An attempt was made on my life, when I was not yet conscious.¡± His long, twisting-spiral tusk got in the way of certain words. ¡°Or so it feels, or so I was told.¡±


    Anaxagyr¡¯il was quick to question, almost in jest she said: ¡°A Divine Twin in my cave. What else could harm you but your sibling Entropy? Surely I hope, they are not conscious as well¡­ and why¡­¡±


    ¡°She is.¡± Konisoki paused remembering, as one remembers the lost. ¡°It is not right when siblings fight, do you agree? We had watched Humanity and Human Nature long from our home, Star Lake its name in your tower-found tongue, and so I know from heeding in the dark that my divine presence is to your Courtdom a blasphemy. We did not choose this. Human travellers found our lake and we were roused into being. I wish I could return home, to the sleep that is unconsciousness. Life can be beautiful, but this is not where I belong.¡±


    ¡°You are what Reason killed and Love preserved, renamed.¡± Anaxagyr¡¯il scowled before her second thoughts caught up with her. ¡°There must always be an ideal Humanity holds above itself, lest Falsehood rise from its grave. You are not that. You hide behind the name of Time, hide a name that Falsehood only spoke in hypocrisy, not truly believing, or they would have acted very differently. I will not speak your other name older, what here you have become.¡±


    "There is much I leave behind on this long road home. You have helped me into your world, as I was caught again between variations, my one ¡®life¡¯ has become many. Since being murdered or almost, I am in many places at once. I will show you.¡±


    Anaxagyr¡¯il listened closely now, trying not to dismiss his pleas or comments in panic or disgust, having encountered a force beyond human knowing. Past his wounds she sensed grace within him, a great imbalance swerving to realign itself. Too long she had been isolated with thoughts and study alone, having thought she had no more to give. Still with much to learn from Humanity having far longer been Nature wholly, so Time asked of The Firelord:


    ¡°Will you help me, train me in your ways?¡±


    He asked far from the power she assumed of him, searching for his sister Entropy estranged. The Firelord spoke across the crackling, whipping flames she had not made:


    ¡°The more I teach you, the less you will be Time and the more you will be something else, something new and uncontainable. Uncontrollable without name, or a name we have not the ears to hear.¡±


    A name she could not bring herself to speak. His scars shone in fire and starlight, his eyes bloodshot and innocent. Eyes that should never have known hardship, of Time that should have remained separate and divine. Unfit for the gallows we will hang him from.


    ¡Þ


    Anaxagyr¡¯il later wondered as the lad slept exhausted. She paced about her caves. She sent her starlight-smoke to the winds in signal that Old Gada¡¯il would hear her conflict.


    ¡°Long with peace were the ages before our own.¡± He whispered from a great distance made slight by Wind and Spacious-everywhere. ¡°Unfair that all of chaos erupts in ours, though Truth it is; all around us. We have been called to do our utmost. My apprentice a runaway, and you find a stray unwanted.¡±


    The Windlord¡¯s chuckle helped her see another side to things.


    ¡Þ


    Unwanted indeed, scarred and beaten the lad Konisoki, and Anaxagyr¡¯il did not know why. Until a while she meditated on his wounds and walked her eyes across them imagining all the curses of imagination we all have had. Whenever something we loved was lost, Time we hated for taking it away, with wishes of going back. Truthdom taught these imaginings away, to accept what cannot be changed, that Reality must not be put on trial. And The Firelord asked of her flames:


    ¡°Gada¡¯il, Konisoki told me that travellers came, their presence awoke him and his sister. Who could have travelled to this ¡®Star Lake¡¯ where the Divine Twins long slept abstract?¡±


    ¡°Too long I believed: no compass of Reason could, only Love would dare so far. Then I think even Reason could have found a route with What If its rule. I have learned it was an expedition, of not one but a group of souls.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Anaxagyr¡¯il came to train the lad Konisoki, for the wilderness once his home was no longer safe for him, laden as it was with a humanity she no longer understood in the better world she had helped to make; a world not meant for her.


    ¡Þ


    The Firelord taught him of the stars he was from and had forgotten, showed him the pattern of orbits and purpose in forest fires. His power was unimaginable to her, and a long while she spent helping him with his own conclusions on responsibility, that he must not become the thing she dared not name.


    ¡°I could if I wished to?¡± he asked her. ¡°And they would call me the lord of lords.¡±


    His eyes later were orb and marble black and white. She knew he had in illusion hid his true, bloodshot eyes to protect himself, his eyes that had become bloody in Humanity¡¯s treatment of him. Did all his kin have such black-white eyes? Else what disguise could bloodshot afford him?


    ¡°You are Time or were¡­ you have seen how long and far Falsehood reigned without unity on such things. So many its faces that did not know they all were the same face. You have seen the waste and discord¡­ only now have we come out of those ages dark.¡±


    ¡°And yet you are here in your dusty solitude? You cannot face what you helped to create.¡±


    ¡°I will spend the last of my seasons here, where there still is beauty.¡± She held her hand in the fire of her making and her skin was unharmed, and at that she seemed disappointed. ¡°We of Courtdom have done our duty, and shamans are no longer needed. The moderation will maintain itself. If you travel you will see it: Need has been cured by Greed¡¯s bounty, Evil hung from our gallows.¡± She stopped, eyes alert with horror and then sorrow having realised: ¡°Time is all that is left to pass with cakes and games.¡±


    She looked at him then, Wounded Time, and it was a struggle to turn from despair as she asked her apprentice, asked her flames and all she had ever known:


    ¡°Of course they persecuted you next. What have we done with our freedom?¡±


    ¡Þ


    In their cave-mouth trances together, master and apprentice beheld the scattered names of Serib and Minim¡¯Syrib, of Konisoki and Ikosinok. The names were new yet those journeys were nothing at all new under the sun. In response to those visions, Anaxagyr¡¯il spoke the tales she knew of souls against themselves. Showed her new apprentice the caves where such things were first recorded - when the skies were safe enough - as many a page passed and Boiled Angels patrolled the skies.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Shall we summon up an illusion with our clouds, master?¡±


    Using Fire¡¯s knowledge was long a method used by shamans to hide themselves, removing what was there and replacing it with what was elsewhere. These the ways that heat and light can play. The Firelord did summon, keeping those stone gargoyles patrolling their skies without event, passing right over their prey unaware.


    As they passed over, Anaxagyr¡¯il studied their stone forms, formations of faceless militancy far from The Triumphs of Arthur and his Knights-a-Legion or the Hadaeans that once had flown with them against Falsehood. What virtues guided these?


    ¡Þ


    In Time she knew well how to exert her will over the elements without harming their balance, the simplest way being to not exert one¡¯s will at all. Alas a power all the more difficult to temper in Timelessness:


    ¡°We must be prepared to move.¡± The Firelord warned her apprentice.


    Deeper than this, Anaxagyr¡¯il knew among the angels would be one whom illusions could not fool, and of that one Konioski said to his master:


    ¡°You see it? Silence, The Black Angel.¡±


    ¡°You were fleeing from them, when I found you¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    She felt its absence - as astrologers would note stars circling a point most black unexplainable - so The Firelord knew that creature ¡®of void and darkness-speed¡¯ - of shadow many-winged leading its greyer kin of lesser stone.


    As might a comet fall it flew, a lead that none could follow. Caught in myths unravelling until they were true, Anaxagyr¡¯il tried to understand what Silence was. An aura by sound impenetrable, or are we no longer bound by such physical realms and explanations? Was Silence to each and all malleable, a personal silence changing from this story to the next? Shaped by whichever fear was foremost.


    ¡°There is fire in them.¡± She closed her eyes, speaking with her apprentice. ¡°Is their body stone as the other boiled angels, or blood darkest, old scabbed and hardened over. Are they Timelessness in flood and flight, embodied, as you are Wounded Time alive before me? Is that and more¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    The Firelord sat in daylight at the cave-mouth, the extinguished campfire by her side. The fruity smoke awoke her to the morning¡¯s stillness. Afar the dusty mountains of her childhood walks were moving as they should not move, in a patchy horizon whose misty blur was clearer or thicker in patches and partings, not all one distance blended.


    The defined ¡®squares¡¯ insane, far in that distance yet the goats climbing their sides, tufts of parched wildflowers, the blinking of a lone reptile and other motions were eerily magnified, and the undefined ¡®squares¡¯ of closer magnitudes were being slotted further away, blocks of colour only.


    Sand-snow fell as miscoloured ash across the nearer things.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Go.¡± She stood, unsheathing her totem-dagger from its hollowed ruby at her hip, more flame than any steel its shapeless length.


    Her hand she cast forth in mastery and from the dry lands came titanic worms of magma making bridge and column across-between the mountains distant to one another, and whether these constructs were of fortification or illusion further Konisoki did not know, as his master called over his awe:


    ¡°As I have shown you. Follow all kind winds from here to The Windlord Gada¡¯il. Hurry away from here!¡±


    ¡Þ


    Time, such as he is now Konisoki, ran. Out of the cave and up its cliff as a lizard able, and soon from there the planes were flat into cacti fields and steppeland crag. His long dark hair behind him trailed longer than he, sandy with sparkles in Summer¡¯s sunlight.


    ¡Þ


    Unable in his rush to ever thank her, he left Anaxagyr¡¯il to her chants, to the fires of her eyes straight at the dimension-darkening skies of Silence, The Black Angel.


    In that meditation she thought back to the Summer of her life, when the sand-snow¡¯s annually returning convoy veered too close to the world, or the world¡¯s gravity had too great a pull.


    Four of those meteors had collided together as one great storm, and it was that storm she and her master averted not without aid. When they crashed to the earth a wizard stepped from the cataclysm, from whom she learned much. It was those stellar metals that now were molten and worming to her defence at her emblazoned call:


    ¡°Fallen of Leonid, forth Horologium, Octans, Pyxis and Quadrant! To the seabed swallow Silence, to the neverborn pit of its whence!¡±

 Act II - Fire, Chapter Two

    Dark Spirit. Young Serib staggered and dragged herself having finally reached the mountains¡¯ howling and competing summits, colder than any budding Spring should be. Known as Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin that mountaintop - where spirits gather and go since The First Shaman. Her stiff knees ached most of all, climbing a mountain that belonged not to the angel-wrought spines of Hadaeon but ancestral Ehl¡¯yiteth.


    Her journey of Somehow¡¯s happenstance.


    ¡Þ


    Thunder¡¯s hammers rattled her steps though no lightning was bright enough to pierce the deep clouds, and Serib felt she waded through a Timeless storm, misplacing and replacing as it whirled.


    ¡Þ


    She held her robes around her shivering, trying to be strong as were the plants she saw growing despite the cold, blown this and that way by voiced winds full of Nature¡¯s words she had yet to learn. The mountain-halved, its last peak she walked now across - where earthen colours umber, ochre and bronze most still grew and gathered.


    Leaving scorched woodlands in the acres below she climbed; woodlands that would not grow again fertile from their fires as The Spring-Sworn¡¯s burning was part of no cycle nor system known to Truth.


    ¡Þ


    So loudly had thunder been hammering along her climb, such that when she could hear a voice for a while she did not believe and wandered the peak listening, looking out for where Ithuriya¡¯s starspear-halved had fallen.


    ¡Þ


    She heard feet perhaps, bare slapping on the fragile stones. Turning and turning she saw no soul there running but knew she was not alone, a sudden lump in her heart imagining Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr defeated, broken in the ravine beside the cracked carapace of Enanti¡¯dromiya. The Spring-Sworn was with her.


    ¡Þ


    Listening and looking for the starspear showed no path, though with her hurried palm on the greatmount¡¯s side she could sense its wounds, its craters natural and not. Layered craters as the petals of a rose though in stone. She shuddered grasping at her hand in pain, remembering something The Stalker had said about a throne of craters:


    ¡®To the hollow tower where she squats in rest never long enough. Alas the throne of her dark making was empty when I found it, as her imagination yet exceeds the grasp of her power.¡¯


    ¡Þ


    ¡°It is yours, Serib.¡± The dark spirit spoke to her, its eight limbs she heard slapping and biting across the rocks dislodged, and she saw its form only in stolen glimpses, leaving inky runes behind in blasphemy¡¯s crawl. ¡°Yours, if have you heart enough for the task it begins... the duty I am mastering¡­¡±


    Seeing those limbs Serib¡¯s scalp began to itch, and an answer came to her without beckon from a question she dared not ask, one that all others had accepted though she still turned and turned away from, she asked at last in Timeless seams, stuttering and going unanswered:


    ¡°Am I The Spring-Sworn? Will I be¡­ have I already been? And left all that behind¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    Unsure if her revelation was hopeful or hopeless, she followed the pain of the mountainous world to find a landscape of craters. A rose of rows of impacts stretching further than a mountain¡¯s summit possibly could, yet there it lay horizonless. There no Wind was breeze, only seething breaths. She peered over the edge of one crater¡¯s rim and then another-many until at last - there ahead and downwards stood her aim and goal. Mist was parting from it a curtain deliberate, arms opening wider and wider into a grin.


    ¡Þ


    To her shamanic eyes it was a stone or steel rod or staff embed in the centre of the crater, and all the lightning of Nonillion storms was drawn to its askew. She could see only in glimpses through the cover of her arms and sleeves - such was lightning¡¯s violence bright - the half-spear stood runed its hilt and the pit alike. Nail-marks lined the craters, excavated, clawed-at in desperation, this staff a thing long buried and recently unearthed. Untouchable and fled from in haste or its discovery was by those who had eyes only for despair.


    ¡Þ


    It leaned there in rite unheard of - for was Serib to walk over and seize it for herself? As would some common wizard of old vampiric for knowledge and power, purging relics from tombs?


    There should have been an ancestor bequeathing it to her, congratulating her journey, having asked her questions the answers of which only the journey could have taught her - ¡®as some truths can be taught and others we must learn ourselves¡¯ - as too often she had heard.


    With palm, bare foot and an ear to the cold earth, she could hear no ancestor calling out. No Spring-Sworn lurking. Only lightning less often, and thunder¡¯s distance more and more. Receding from her approach.


    ¡Þ


    Serib summoned her courage to tread down the steep of the crater towards its centre, daring closer to the throne of scour where Ithuriya¡¯s starspear-halved awaited. She slipped down the rocky decline. Down the layers and layers of impacts past, the once molten stone cracking against the cold snap as no temperature in Timelessness could decide its dominance. And the dark Spring-Sworn spirit slithered somehow from the somewhere of its making:


    ¡°It is the hilt of a once-great weapon to warriors, a shard of a far older totem to shamans. Herald its name! A line to be made loop: a crown of the greatest future no longer behind us.¡±


    When it spoke of Ithuriya¡¯s weapon, Serib sensed the spirit¡¯s desperation, a fellow-shaman imploring far from grace for numb sense had failed. She felt unafraid of them as Pity took its momentary hold, as the spirit spoke mortally out of breath; Wind being the only element they The Spring-Sworn had not enslaved. For there is Spacious Air to keep a bloody machine alive, but what of the courage and inspiration to go on that best in second wind resides? What else is balm but wisdom when justice is unclear and only extremes are coward enough to clash and writhe?


    ¡Þ


    Their Spring-Sworn limbs slapped about as if far from home and element, as might a sea creature unsuited for the land, for what was this Spring-Sworn land forged by Love alone? Their words tempting but of little power. A dreamer unsuited for reality, a Love unable to Reason or Reason beyond what Love could return. It was there in the crater with Serib, though not in ways her eyes could yet understand into an image.


    ¡Þ


    Knowing Ahlzvyr¡¯s task was not murder but to return home a wanted and wayward soul, Serib sought to find kinship with the dark spirit, and retraced how she had come here. If he was seeking goodness-common even in his foe, could she find it as well? Retracing she recalled drinking salves in Ehl¡¯yiteth, drinking the same with Gadail on the steel pier, making possible their journey through the stars. Their spirits leaving their bodies behind. And so she asked:


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡°If you are a shaman on a journey, are you weak, like me? Tired from the journey¡­ of your spirit tripping far from mind and body¡­ where is your body if your spirit is here?¡± she asked again, and again there was only a storms¡¯ voice; as Ithuriya¡¯s spear beckoned to its splinter the lightning sporadic and final.


    ¡°My body is in a meadow on Ehl¡¯yiteth, with my master.¡± Serib further offered herself to whatever mercy or intrigue the dark spirit had. ¡°¡­while my mind here roams with you.¡±


    The Dark Shaman at last replied boiling with anger then gasping for air:


    ¡°Is this how you must imagine me, Serib? A spirit apart from you and not a part of you - inhuman limbed ghost - do you not know your own face, eyes filled with lightning? Will you not look at me?¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib turned at last to face the crater¡¯s rim she had just climbed down, and there barely standing in wheeze, The Spring-Sworn Minim¡¯Syrib leaned grasping her mauling hammer taller. A dread silhouette though clear enough in that darkness of her heart made visible, fell to one knee exhausted clutching the grim totem, as old or infirm may to their aid cling desperate. Stranded, the hammer was a thing of chains to which the screaming elements were bound. Each limb of her hair independent, toothed and gnashing at the rest


    Serib hid her tears shed for Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr as The Spring-Sworn Minim spoke from her darkness:


    ¡°Will you not look at me, and all we have achieved¡­¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°You are Syrib, The Spring-Sworn¡­¡± Serib shivered, far from home and self.


    ¡°You are. And I am Serib.¡± The silhouette managed to say.


    And so her dread as ever was truth. She backed away from the crater¡¯s rim towards Ithuriya¡¯s halved-spear at its centre. As water through the air, being now fraudulent Lord by force of Spacious, Air and Water thus, Minim¡¯s tall shadow melded and bled unclear, speaking as Serib could find no sure footing in the scoured pit:


    ¡°Here you begin the road I once began, and soon will be ending. It is a different space¡­¡± Minim paused, thunder filled where she had been, until she emerged from her deter: ¡°¡­let the constants remain the same and let the variables be rearranged. Take up the spear and to your will it shall become this Maul I now wield. Go from here to Fire¡¯s sand-snow plains as I did, and with your acid extinguish flame! Silence at your side not a force to fear. And with your new flame boil the Waters obedient as I have! I will be with you, not alone. This version of so many will become the one Truth.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib knew not if she should defend her back or focus on the weapon at the crater¡¯s centre. Being metal, the half-spear¡¯s element was Earth, an anchor for the other elements to be bound and follow. Just as Minim¡¯s mauling hammer was, though power warped towards loving ends on an ill road. Unable to find the dark spirit again, Serib hid behind her arm from the lightning and tread ahead with ringing ears.


    ¡Þ


    Thoughts of Spring¡¯s warmth were with her as she waded through and over all that Winter wished to keep. Graves Spring-Sworn-dug where snow and decay would forever sleep. Other mounds unnamed she has filled with decline and erosion that all she builds will never fall. Serib in her struggle questioned all Gadail had ever taught, and she had never felt closer to her mother she did not know.


    ¡Þ


    Where the thunder was loudest and lightning brightest, towards the humming metal in which she heard words somehow, the voice of a new friend-older she thought was clear. It was Iron-Chest - speaking from within the crater with words only for her, ghostly and separate with the ancestral resonance she had been seeking:


    ¡°Remember your name, Serib-strong! I cannot show myself here, or The Spring-Sworn shall claim me, too.¡±


    ¡Þ


    With strength newfound in the cold, that her companion - her apprentice-fellow - her friend had not met his end, Serib stood to take up the starspear-halved as her own. At first too thick to hold even with two hands, it shrunk denser to her size - its splintered edge smoothed over - its preordained runes disappeared, for her tale is still being written by her actions. No hurt nor harm did her heart intend and so in her hands it was a staff reformed. She held it close as all her senses were overwhelmed and she fell clutching what was hers into collapse and cavern.


    No ancestor had she met proper at the end of her climb; she had only met herself.


    ¡Þ


    The craters around her closed into each other as petals at night, the mountain a craggy bloom of the earth where all the undesired of Summer, Autumn and Winter, of The Spring-Sworn¡¯s fearful new world remade. Buried under that world with the rest, having been in its floating city, Serib had to remind herself, pinned by her totem¡¯s earthen weight:


    ¡°Grounded. Hush. Grounding. Heed.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The tripping-salve and paste her master had prepared for her, making possible this astral journey of spirit leaving body, was fading thin, and she did not know where any of herself was. She lay inside the mountainside-craters waiting in meditation perhaps, as passed long ages and the drawn storms drifted away.


    Holding her totem, all the earth was her skin. And she felt The Spring-Sworn toothing acid over it, looking for her. Emptying swamps of their humid life, sifting trenches-marine. Melting its hills and flowers. More craters across the heap-throne of scour.


    ¡Þ


    Spring drove its gentler skies into view and Night¡¯s blanket was upon the world. All riverbed and cliffside were her eyes, and she felt as one blind, her feet wet in the sea and fingertips burning on the stars, face cooled by bright moonlight.


    ¡Þ


    From there the moons of Ehl¡¯yiteth her world were close enough, and the cloud-waves rolling out just so, that one could pass from world to moon over the shallows and astyr¡¯fields. How strange that even the moon¡¯s surface was her skin. As though at cosmic low tide and all the cold dust in the universe she knew.


    ¡°What is Earth?¡± she asked herself in the deep nowhere of thought, as an ancestor should have asked her or revealed itself amidst her task and trial.


    Yet, only Iron-Chest¡¯s voice had she heard in a passing already gone.


    ¡Þ


    Feeling alone and uncertain, drifting as one through fevers she was crushed by a cratering world; she did not wait helplessly. Serib spoke from within the mountaintop, as below the lands full of Spring¡¯s stretch and yawn were colourful, turning from Winter¡¯s quietly beautiful gloom. Within the earth she feared not her master aging nor saw her parents tall with shadow, returning to their arms. Her older sister she could feel instead there with her in the dark, and all the braver felt. And she chanted as one calm:


    ¡°Earth is shaped and weathered. Home. Earth is sense. Binding. Certainty. Gravity. Footfalls and palms.¡±


    An earthquake grinded and slammed, and an even deeper grave was dug for her. Hard she smacked into the lightless pit and all her totemic might it took to not be crushed completely. She tried again, fearing she had not asked or answered properly:


    ¡°Earth is Bravery. Accepting the weathering. Change only what can be changed.¡±


    ¡Þ


    She could hear the dark spirit replying, Minim¡¯s voice uncomfortably similar to hers though older and in gasps:


    ¡°We can change anything. And why would Bravery come to mind?¡±


    Serib answered quickly, in tears long a secret no more:


    ¡°Because I am afraid. Master Gadail is old and speaks of preparing me for when he is gone. I fear being alone, taking up his mantle, no longer hearing him¡­ seeing him¡­ our walks¡­¡±


    ¡°We fear.¡± The Spring-Sworn sighed, her own voice breaking.


    ¡Þ


    Laying there being crushed, her submerged subterranean surroundings coiling dry into the coal of future forests, Serib saw far. Into the feared futures of what would happen if her master passed away, and what could happen if he never did, for Time had been murdered and she knew not if it was once an arrow or a wheel.


    ¡Þ


    Within her ensued a duel of Truth and Falsehood, of heart against mind where love and reason writhe. ¡®Writhing, as halved snakes¡¯ an old poem goes. It does not need to be this way, alas:


    ¡°I can keep him from dying?¡± she pleaded with the dark spirit her own. ¡°How?¡± she tried grabbing Minim in the stony shadows, and her hands returned covered in ink-soaked webs or threads.


    ¡°You have a part to play.¡± The spirit dripped. ¡°Find The Lightning Crown. Become-me-stop-me-return-to-me.¡±


    Serib looked closer into the crumbling dark at the spirit torn in two from battling with itself.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I have seen enough.¡±


    She turned away from the dark spirit only half believing, ready to return to her sleeping body. She crawled through what scarce space existed in the constricting earth. Then - burrowing from beneath and around her through the rock, the spirit¡¯s limbs pinned her wrists reeking of old seaweed and spluttering everywhere ink or acidic blood as it yelped for breath. Gasped for The Wind it could not find.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Will you not look at me?¡± its distorted shrieks were her own. ¡°Do you not want to hear how he can be saved¡­¡±


    Serib roared against the beast she could barely see, wrapping its limbs around her, pulling her close into squeeze and crush. Soon they collapsed together wrestling, surrounded by new and far fouler storms. Falling through nowhere. This could not be a world.


    ¡Þ


    Her wrists most of all were crushed by The Spring-Sworn: clasped and burning bitten or chewed under the constricting brand or spell being cast: a hex. For so Fate had said and Serib heard aloud a memory not her own:


    ¡®¡­and you will meet yourself... your weaker self Serib¡­ and you will hex her. You will hex your conscience and become unstoppable as I am.¡¯


    And so it was done.


    The Spring-Sworn Minim had by force thrown Earth, Fire and Spacious to her feet - and began by that same hubris to force herself.

 Act II - Fire, Chapter Three

    Meadows Adsowe¡¯aron. Far we go now, far from The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin where only shamans go when in a trance, aided by salves allowing their spirits to trip out of body and mind. The mountain between worlds-all.


    ¡Þ


    In Adsowe¡¯aron¡¯s fields of Spring upon the world of Ehl¡¯yiteth, Master Shaman Gadail lay with the sun watching him, hushed over by the sway of tall reeds and weeds left to flower. His tusks dry in the sun. To most, it would appear he was sleeping. He pondered his tattooed clay armour, chiefly the dark spirit long upon his chest-coiled art, himself depicted ¡®against¡¯ that darkness, most would say. By his side a boulder lay bare without the claim of lichen or even grass, having only recently been laid there, far enough from his apprentice as to not wake her with its shade.


    ¡°Not yet. When Tusker is a woman tall and strong, have at me then.¡± He whispered to The Wind and heard the huge wings of a lone vulture fly away.


    ¡Þ


    His bliss was disrupted. He opened his weary eyes and called out to the field: ¡°What thumps your feet make into the earth, apprentice!¡± he stretched into his words: ¡°Then my salve served its purpose?¡±


    Serib was panting her way towards him, her lightning-patterned robes glistening in the sun. Though most striking about her was the totem-staff she strode with, its steel at once alien to the world around her and a part of it, as Human Nature must to Nature seem.


    ¡Þ


    The salve her master had given her faded in potency when her task was fulfilled - and her body awakened nearby. By happenstance or design? Such answers are lost to us, those that look back, those that are in the midst of things, those that wish we knew the future.


    ¡Þ


    When finally she reached him he was standing, and they shared a long embrace. Serib breathed deep his scent glad that he was smiling and well. She praised Truth that Ehl¡¯yiteth was under no siege yet that she could see, that Iron-Chest in this lineage of the tale had not yet or ever duelled The Spring-Sworn in lands where only the winds were free.


    She saw here all was as it should be; in Spring beside Old Gadail, removed from all her sores and sorrows.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Where did you go with Ithuriya?¡± she asked him, totem-staff in hand.


    ¡°I see you have found the other half of her spear!¡± He said, and Serib¡¯s heart with pride was still. ¡°The civil war waged on and I found no resolution - the present angels were all too hopeless for my blessing, or I had no blessing worth giving. I was driven from Haven¡¯s towers by force; angels loyal to a new leader I did not expect. No new Wing Marshal anointed with my guidance but an angel by the name of Silence took charge, I was told. Perched himself atop the gravestone-tall I saw, when quick I made my escape. Or did they let me go? Perhaps, perhaps. A duel in that mess and Silence gave Ithuriya¡¯s spear half¡­ to my old apprentice. In so doing, their intention was that Ithuriya¡¯s age would end, The Last Ithuriya, no more to pass on the broken spear and damaged helm, instead those emblems things to be taken by those with will enough, as though the will alone measures worth. It breaks our custom that I would meet you now during your totem-trials away from apprenticeship, but in this Timelessness it seemed best to break tradition as we may be amongst new ones forming! Always exciting. If ever you see a shaman bored, then the age is well indeed.¡± Giggly he carried on: ¡°Come. Down the mountain¡¯s slopes and to its roots, where your sandy path of Fire shall begin, your climb of Earth having ended.¡±


    ¡®Old apprentice¡¯ - Serib hung on those words. Were she and The Spring-Sworn two possible lives interlinking, lineages overlapping, and so Gadail could recall one girl and then the next if asked? Or to him was there no clear line between the two? Where there two of himself out there as well?


    What has Timelessness made of all that once was Sense?


    ¡Þ


    She turned and there The Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin towered where it should not be, over the meadows of Adsowe¡¯aron in dimensions chewed. Climbing it upon Hadaeon, returning down she had found Ehl¡¯yiteth; two worlds that share no stars.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°How was the Ancestor of Earth, my young Tusker? What name did they share?¡± Gadail asked, leading Serib through flowered meadows away from the Greatmount.


    She smiled when he called her Tusker, and explained she had met no ancestor:


    ¡°There was one who could have been, I think, though he was a warrior. Not a shaman yet or ever but a novice-old: a Sentinel named Iron-Chest.¡±


    ¡°I know the name well¡­ perhaps an ancestor yet to be in these Timeless streams? Greater sense awaits in the lands below, away from this lofty place where we have tranced too long.¡±


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Serib was quick to chase the matter: ¡°I met a dark spirit, master. Who shared my voice, face and almost my name. Tusks more like fangs. Eels writhing where my hair in locks is thick. They looked like that!¡± she pointed tearful at the darkness tattooed across his armour.


    He invited her over for another hug and she went gladly, for too much had been far too strange.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°What will I become?¡± She asked her master and twice he answered along their descent through Spring''s fields:


    ¡°In Time - what you could become, not will. In Timelessness - what you have become already, and are returning from.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Minim¡¯Syrib was your last apprentice.¡± Serib stated. ¡°The one you spoke of back at The Winged Wall? She corrupted the werewolves against the angels¡­ and has scarred infinity runes throughout reality¡­¡±


    Gadail knew she had not done it alone, that Silence, The Black Angel was at her lonely side:


    ¡°She was¡­ she is still my apprentice, as you are. Her totemic journey incomplete; with your first step you have gone further than she could. She still needs Wind¡¯s imbue for her gruesome totems, having corrupted Earth, Fire and Spacious to her will, and so she is no master shaman yet! Murderer of Lords as she may be. Opportunist scavenging what shamans afraid left in their haste. Timelessness and our shamanic salves are an ill mixture, though who could have known. When the salve¡¯s strength subsided your spirit should have returned to your body at our journey¡¯s end, as mine did to mine. Alas your spirit has remained apart from you, the salve without Time lasting longer and shorter than it should have. Becoming Minim¡¯Syrib she went on her own tale somewhat a parallel to yours and I have memories of more lives than I should. I cannot tell which life is real, only my wish is clear. I tried to teach her as I have tried to reach you.¡±


    ¡°And so I am her greatest threat¡­¡±


    ¡°Her greatest hope.¡± Gadail corrected. ¡°Moreso than any false teaching can untrain, our minds are our own.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°So it begins.¡± He spoke on, as the sloped meadows stretched flatter towards the mountain¡¯s roots. ¡°I would say you have been trained for it, though Timelessness has singed or drenched much, and all once familiar terrain is new to me. You have however taken your first shamanic step away from apprenticeship, and deserve all due praise!¡±


    He smiled at Serib and her totem-staff, guiding a spider away from one of the totem-hammers swinging from his belt and towards the ground, having perhaps taken residence upon him as he waited in the long grassy weeds. Serib¡¯s wrists were bothering her, stiff as she listened:


    ¡°Let us find old trees, good full of farbark for us to chew along the way.¡± He leaned slowly into his limping walk.


    ¡°Timelessness has its favours.¡± Serib said, as farbark can be peeled from certain trees only in early Spring.


    Her young knees were high over the tall reeds, totem-staff proud in hand and with it parting the more stubborn growths. Lightning-robes a force in the sunlight.


    ¡Þ


    As they went, Gadail¡¯s old head bore all the weight of a crown. He heeded Nature as he walked, with mindful steps and deliberate posture, while Serib heard naught beyond footfalls and wind and felt earth was still to her a mystery. Her master spoke further:


    ¡°If the dark spirit Syrib has already begun tempting you to Falsehood, young prophetess, then the things you have Farseen are soon to happen. Your duel with her is the same all of us have with ourselves. You deserve Truth above all. You deserve yourself. We are all we have.¡±


    A scarab and a butterfly made their entwined flight away from the mountain, and Gadail followed their bizarre helix leading a slightly different track:


    ¡°I will help arm you with Truth, foremost the Truth of Nature, by visiting ancestral Fire next, then Spacious Water and Wind at last. Alas that I cannot join you.¡±


    ¡°What does the Truth of Nature mean with Time gone? May we rest a moment?¡± Serib asked wisely, kneeling to place her palm between the feather-grasses that her fingers could know the cool mud underneath. ¡°Reaching out to the earth for certainty, I feel only more confused even with my totem at last. I feel my totem¡¯s weight though not its power; I fear I know why but not how. Master¡­¡± she began to explain. ¡°I fought with The Spring-Sworn and escaped not in strength but chance, as the salve had done its work and would do no more.¡±


    "You are unkind to yourself. Our strength can be what we do with our Chance. Go on.¡±


    His praise made no lighter her next words: ¡°Before I escaped, I was marked with this¡­ what is a hex? Like a curse? Minim grabbed my wrists.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Kneeling there she raised to Gadail her strong hand for comfort, holding her wrist there exposed, and the old master¡¯s sad eyes saw two circles there painted or scarred in Serib¡¯s skin. Bitten or suckle-bruised. One white and the other black those wounds, together an ancient symbol far moreso than Courtdom, asunder and anew. He briefly held her hand with his own, his clay gauntlets rough against her skin:


    ¡°And your other wrist?¡±


    Serib held her steel staff with her other hand and showed Gadail as he had asked. He sighed, explaining that she was right:


    ¡°A curse or belike, though of shamanic origin rather than wizardry as curses are.¡±


    ¡°You have seen it before?¡±


    ¡°The very same. Just as we all base our journey on that of The First Shaman, there too was a first Dark Shaman, and this hex was their strength! A rune symbolic of reversal, bitterness, deflection, hypocrisy, rejection. Alas that myth and rumour plague such beginnings - I know with a touch you have been made not powerless, but the handle of your power has been removed and a blade without a hilt you have received in return, ¡®a burden only¡¯ was your enemy¡¯s aim. They underestimate you, a shaman in training! Burdens are ours to bear.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail helped Serib up from the ground through his examples. Jaded as she was, she knew:


    ¡°Then if I use my power, it will harm me and my foe alike? That¡¯s what this hex has done to me¡­¡± she stared vacantly at the black-white symbols.


    ¡°That it will. Lightning cast once will strike both you and your mark, but you climbed Haven and Greatmount Nain¡¯Mahuin not in vain! High your chin and forward your eyes with mine, Tusker. Earth knows yet your voice and will respond; the hex is maze-like to navigate. Moments are to be chosen wisely. Now, cruel as this hex may seem in youth, the wisdom of knowing when to use your power and when not to, will always be with you. And power is not power but wisdom or brute luck, if ever it impacts without consequences unforeseen. Keep up with me now!¡±


    ¡Þ


    Gadail did not slow his pace for he could not, as the downhill steeper fell. With a few more steps he and Serib reached the flat expanse of steppe-land vast. For all the strength and certainty she thought the climb would earn her, she was weaker. Surrounded-deeper in Fear¡¯s love-torn ravines, the craters she had seen went with her.

 Act II - Fire, Chapter Four

    First steppe. Serib told Gadail of her journey as they walked, of the souls Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr she had met, of grandclocks and willows strange.


    ¡°Have you seen them?¡± she asked him, wishing he had good news. ¡°Or the scarab, Enanti¡¯Dromiya?¡±


    ¡°To defend you was their choice, as The Spring-Sworn threatens not only herself through you.¡±


    ¡°You know already all I¡¯ve said?¡±


    ¡°Much of it. Few words escape The Windlord¡¯s ears.¡± Gadail smiled. ¡°The Spring-Sworn reached you and so must have fought past The Stalker and The Sentinel. There is little we can do here in Ehl¡¯yiteth for Hadaeon but press on, and see if the ending can mend the start. Has the Age of Greed not helped to ease our actions in the Age of Violence and Need? In this, are Time and Timelessness not so far apart?¡±


    When she did not answer, Gadail laughed to himself and Serib knew she had done well.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°How do you feel carrying the haft?¡± he asked, limping through Spring¡¯s colours, the flatter steppe-land easier on his knees than the downhills had been.


    Serib could not help but grin slightly, leaning on her staff as though she was old: ¡°Like a proper shaman, in image if not in might.¡±


    ¡°That you are! Getting there.¡± He chuckled under his twiggy hair, where branches were sprouting from the roots and birds mistook him for a resting place. ¡°Do not be in too much of a hurry to grow old, you have the rest of your life to be ancient.¡± He complained jokingly at his limp. ¡°And worry not over The Hunter Lord nor The Sentinel, if death was dealt to them then it was their wish for their loyalties. A fine way.¡±


    As he spoke, perhaps to stray from thinking about Iron-Chest falling ¡®for his loyalties¡¯, Serib wondered what Gadail was like when he was young. He had not contended with a dire state such as Timelessness, but had he ever been foolish or afraid? Or wrong with all convictions otherwise?


    ¡Þ


    She tried to remember all Haven and Hadaeon had taught her, roaming ¡®home¡¯ again in Ehl¡¯yiteth. Hushing as to heed. No palm she needed on the ground to understand the plains underfoot, her eyes enough for the world¡¯s mountain-peak scalp, memory and imagination for horizons she could not see. The herds and flocks nomads were transient for. Further she knew the deep places filled with water, the veining rivers and greatest pits where oceans lay or lands buried under sand and snow.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Have you ever been afraid, master?¡±


    ¡°I do not trust lightly.¡± He stated as his eyes searched the lands, the skies.


    ¡Þ


    With totem in hand she thought the elements would be more open to her, though her troubled mind most was in the way.


    ¡°If Earth still is strange to me, Fire already is next?¡±


    Old Gada¡¯il nodded:


    ¡°I cannot guide you in these arts further, as these are truths only you and Journey can teach. Though we must speak ahead, not even of your hex and its handling, but how such a thing came to be.¡±


    ¡°A divide between Love and Reason.¡± Serib already knew from her suppose. ¡°From Duality.¡±


    ¡°And there you are yet, feeling you have returned with less! Very good. Moving rocks with our minds and sounding Thunder¡¯s hammer-horns with a glare¡­ Humanity¡¯s weaponry is deadlier than our spells and summoning. Their machines and other methods. A shaman¡¯s duty is more than such things. The part of your heart still doubtful is the same within Syrib, though in her it has grown beyond doubt into determination.¡±


    He paused.


    ¡°Have I ever been afraid? In a girl so young as Syrib I saw terror; I saw Potential leading into darkness backwards and nowhere. And so The Spring-Sworn is the outcome of that! Of my misteaching her as I did not believe in her. No matter how gently one pulls, pulling a flower¡¯s stem will not help it grow. In fear I forsook all I knew.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib was haunted by The Dark Spirit¡¯s eight gripping and grappling limbs, hexers each and all:


    ¡°You cannot have done wrong, master. It must have been her misunderstanding, it must have been me.¡±


    Gadail knew another factor: what had Serib and Syrib been taught by their family before any shamanic training began? Though he dwelled not on that, again against all he knew, convinced he could have done better:


    ¡°You are a lonely soul and cling to me, for I am all you have ever known. What friends have you allowed yourself to have? Could I have pushed you further away¡­¡± he kept the rest of his doubts to himself. ¡°On our way to The Winged Wall or after I believe you spoke of origins. Well, I am not your roots, Serib. I am a mere leaf you met along the way and I owe more to you than you will ever owe me. Enjoy the quiet of Nature¡¯s steppes for now. Soon after, ahead we will tea, chew our bark and rest; there are two souls for you to meet again.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Thinking it was unlikely that Ahlzvyr and Iron-Chest were ahead given what Gadail had recently said, Serib could only guess or figure who those two souls might be. A fleeting smell of rust from a nearby vein rich with ore reminded her of Haven¡¯s bloody heights, of the woodland ruins she had stalked with Ahlzvyr, the signs engraved of placename Orphan¡¯age.


    ¡°Origins?¡± She asked Gadail, though he only offered a smile, listening to the soft crisp of drier grasses underfoot, and winds strong without obstacle across the flat steppe of wildest flowers in sway, a land easier on the knees, they agreed.


    ¡Þ


    Hooved herds there ran beyond counting thunderous, kicking dusty clouds into Horizon¡¯s eyes. Birds migrated with those herds as the dust summoned up unsettled insects for them to eat, and their droppings made fertile the fields where spear-grass was dull, making diverse the heaps those herds had left, and on the dry winds of Summer¡¯s-coming that brief waft was already gone.


    ¡Þ


    Serib spotted and Gadail agreed - she had found a fine old tree bare of its leaves alone in the land. He knew the best spot to peel off its bark cured by Winter and best enjoyed in Spring, handing some to Serib and stuffing more between his own eager teeth. Their lips smacked hungrily, they gnawed on the tough bark squeezing out the smoky scent of home-again.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail¡¯s words were the hooded blanket of her journey. A typical apprentice after a while she cared little what he was saying, only that by his side she roamed, with each step proving it was no memory fleeting or Timeless trick, her return to Ehl¡¯yiteth:


    ¡°You do not recall when you were even younger, when your connection to this world was far less and your Farsight far more was spread. In legend and myth your interest. A power wild and true. When you first were in my care, I had to train you down from the clouds you were always in.¡±


    ¡°You promised I¡¯d return to them, ¡®when I was ready¡¯.¡±


    ¡°And you will. And you will leave them again and return to them again, for The Human Fable is not one cycle of four stages, it is a road we walk until we no longer can. Most of us shamans, our Farsight is from our knowledge of Nature and Human Nature; of History. Your power was an older source, as those of the first shamans who had no history to know, when even the universe was fledgling and hatchling.¡±


    ¡°Guessing.¡± Serib spoke with distance or sorrow.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°We predict and educate for we know the Seasons of all things, having fine memories. You were a true prophetess¡­ seeing the could, would and should of different futures. Though to see so much was to see nothing; hearing everything you could not listen to anything. All taste all at once, overwhelmed with feeling. Potential without bound¡­ and so you were coveted by many and by others.¡±


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Lady Fate.¡±


    ¡°You remember, or you realise. Born under eclipses and the storms they summon with their gravity. An eclipse impossible for it was the same to all stars, from Timelessness now we know how. That is why you were brought to me by your parents - that we might temper what in you was raw. So it is with all children, shamanic children all the more! Before ascending the Greatmount Nain¡¯mahuin with me to Haven-even-higher you knew all these things, and you have returned knowing half, leaving Syrib behind for now. She herself likely has forgotten half her things, swaddled by Grief and old fear.¡±


    ¡°My parents.¡± Serib stared at the dusty green horizon and raced a few paces faster to keep up with Gadail.


    ¡Þ


    He replied quickly, though with an answer well and long considered, Serib thought:


    ¡°A dark pair! Shadows, barely loyal to Courtdom at all¡­ loyal to you. We all have our darkness and I will not poison you against the dark spirit in your heart - you must be wiser than that, as must I. You will need to decide yourself when The Spring-Sworn tempts you again, if you will side with Truth or Falsehood or go altogether on your own path, as your sister intended for you. Seeing you caught between extremes.¡±


    ¡°My sister¡­ you¡¯re right, master. My mind was cloudy in Haven, back on the ground I am remembering things. My sister¡¯s partner, I¡¯m remembering him.¡±


    ¡°Ha, that leal sort. The Prince of Once-ago. Well - I think if your sister told him to come out of his shadows and stare himself blind at the sun, he would do it. I believe Courtdom¡¯s ways fail few souls, The Rabid as they are named. He may well have been one of them, but your sister is all goodness he has ever known. A candle to follow in the dark not leading to any greater light; content until it goes out in whatever ending.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Serib frowned, her innermost thoughts a tangle. She strode with Gadail¡¯s stride and chewed on. He spoke closer to her, walking through his limp ignored:


    ¡°Knowing more, are you still fearful to take my place, when I as all leaves and flowers wilt my last?¡± he said, yet a small sapling was growing from his twiggy hair. ¡°Or do you see flames burning beyond your own?¡±


    ¡°Well, who would want to lose you, master?¡± Serib chewed. ¡°And who could fulfil all you do for Ehl¡¯yiteth?¡±


    Because their journeys together as master and apprentice had taken them to so many corners of ancient Ehl¡¯yiteth, Serib had a sense that Old Gadail, Lord of Wind, did more for the world than his fellow Lords of Earth, Fire and Spacious.


    ¡°What are you almost getting at, hmm? Whatever it is, I agree with you.¡± Gadail chuckled. ¡°My master was far more a power of might and wisdom than I am, and I too was fearful. And my master¡¯s master before. And so. As we distance ourselves from Falsehood and Greed¡¯s age dawns¡­ we turn back to see.¡± He replied through his own smacking and chewing. ¡°This is what it is to ¡®bear hammer¡¯; our weapons that both make and break; we mirror Truth and Nature. Never so simple as a sword. Daggers and axes can be good as tools; to be a hammer-hand is best, the hands that heal. It is our sort that destroyed the old customs with our hammers and remade what was worthy of salvaging; the young do not believe when I tell them there was much our hammers could not break. To see you have chosen a staff¡­¡± He stretched out his clay-armoured arms in the sun, taking a moment to inspect a mucky pond of the steppe, where weary nomads had gathered their tents after a sky burial, offering the passing shamans their tea which was kindly refused.


    ¡°If only!¡± Gadail called to them. ¡°We must press on!¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I would wish my duty on no soul, certainly not on you, but there is no path more worthy than Truth, wherever it takes us.¡±


    ¡°Do we have a choice at all over what Truth does with us?¡± Serib quickly asked.


    ¡°We can influence, guide our pulls and pushes. We can shift the weight and emphasis. If I throw you a pebble underhand do you choose to catch it or is Instinct¡¯s reflex to recoil from the snake behind the glass no matter its thickness? As Arwin over and over, and not once could he stand his ground. If you can no longer help a friend with only themselves to blame, and your life is agony here to there weighing whether to leave or stay, and when at last you turn your back was that more a choice than fumbling after the pebble or flinching at the sight of fangs? When it comes to it - all we can do is choose to face Truth bravely or turn our back to it, and find it is all around us without our regard. And have mercy! Should perdition be yours if the pebble slips through your fingers? If you turn away from the dead? Have mercy and grace therefore¡­¡±


    Though Old Gadail had said he did not wish to ¡®poison her¡¯ against the dark spirit Minim¡¯Syrib, it was clear to Serib where her master¡¯s loyalty was; with Truthdom and Courtdom much the same as Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°On whichever path you choose your fear will fade dark against the brightness of your courage. Even if it takes a Spring or few! My own journey was certainly not a straight from one point to another, even now I am learning. The weight of a lesson can lessen as we wander, or overstay ourselves, and we must retrace to relearn. You will see. Imagine not this preferred future in your mind, project it out here. Have conversations with yourself if you are lonely - what does that future look like? What can you do now to make Fancy real, if not in the span of our life then can those to come take up our torches to keep going in this long dark? And how many have left torches for us? Truth is all around us and within us, our actions become our truths, and all this with human thought begins. It is in this beautiful simplicity that all potential lies. Do not wait nor wish for what could be - when all around you and Now could be better than it is, if only you would try. And what if we all tried together rather than against? What need have we of Fancy then? Is there any greater legacy to leave than our immortality eschewed? Eternal - not in remembrance.¡± He pointed to another murky pond nearby, also crowded with nomads, and soon master with apprentice stood beside the still waters. ¡°You have been on a spirits¡¯ journey and better know now of such things, halved as you are. Imagine me, a hanging flower drooped forever, until I am a stale pool unchanged and unchanging. Never able to pass on when all is done. Imagine a gust with nowhere to come from and nowhere to go.¡±


    Sunlight shimmered in the pool and Serib saw clearly what oily muck had formed there, good for washing off a journey¡¯s dirt though unfit to drink or clean one¡¯s wounds. Toads and others seemed happy enough milling about in it, so she pointed at them smirking, as though to answer.


    ¡°You are not a toad.¡± Gadail replied blankly, poorly hiding a laugh: ¡°I might as well be.¡±


    ¡Þ


    After their tea, the nomads were sipping clear waters gathered from further streams, waving off to master and apprentice. Serib was thirsty and wished they had stayed, her lips dry and sore. In nearby woodlands a great mass of vultures could be heard, remnants perhaps of another or the same sky burial. Gada¡¯il moved on with Serib across the steppes, passing by berried bushes and fallen trees once-bloomed. Those that had and had not survived Winter¡¯s ways. His words precise:


    ¡°Now, Before, After, wherever Water is - it fills and flows cleansing. Winds blow the moveless seasons moved. Flame destroys, and dogged seeds rise from ashes Earth cannot keep. This is Nature, and we are Human Nature. You must repeat these things to yourself, for when you are Master you will repeat them to others, yourself among them. Humans lose their way from Nature easily, especially us most attuned. We become sure of ourselves. There is always hope and courage - we can guide them home as we guide ourselves. Courtdom will come to seek your guidance as it comes to seek mine or call with horn and bell that I may answer. A dire age that Haven did not heed mine, though there is yet more to see and perhaps I am no longer worth listening to; out of touch in Timelessness. Very possible.¡±


    ¡°I will try. I will be ready.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you will?¡± Gadail huffed. ¡°Better your first answer! It is alright.¡± He hastened to keep her from being disheartened. ¡°All this I will leave to you, and you will not be ready, for who could ever be ready but a controlling fool thinking themselves ready, all the while not at all? And-oh you¡¯ll stumble through it at first, and even old as I you¡¯ll make wise mistakes, and you¡¯ll repeat yourself as I do! Forgetting what you¡¯ve said. But you will make a fine guardian spirit, a bridger of divides between, and in the end an ancestor. Yes, that might is yours.¡±


    ¡°I want to¡­ but I am afraid.¡± Serib leaned more on her tall totem as she walked, grass hushing underfoot as she meditated on her divided heart. ¡°Is there any might or wisdom that can cure me of my fear?¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Of course you are afraid! Just as I was, to lose my master and become one of The Four Lords of Ehl¡¯yiteth, though here I am, myself a withered leaf in prime, a crinkling pleasure to step over on Autumn¡¯s walks, the sort of thing a child of awe refuses to throw away.¡± He giggled at her. ¡°A surprising sight in Spring.¡± He laughed again, narrowing his gaze at her and she too could not help but smirk, though even sadder than before. ¡°Those Heirs and others in High Courtdom will come to you and the other Lords for aid, asking how best to serve Truthdom. And in ideal you will only ask them questions, to help them understand - never once will you need to swing your staff. Alas!¡±


    Serib looked at him limping, and did not want for him to be in such pain endured. She shared:


    ¡°Fear visits us, and we must ask what we fear most, and go with that.¡±


    ¡°Right you are! And go with that.¡±


    She stepped closer seeing his struggle, and short as she was in compare, supported him with her strength.


    ¡Þ


    Serib was all the more afraid as memory broadened beyond her vision, the smoky farbark helped her remember: an adventure. Farbark crumbled over soup she saw: a strange thing to do. Meditating on this as they walked she realised:


    ¡°I have travelled with my sister before¡­ since I first met you. When?¡±


    ¡°You strayed far a runaway, apprentice - too close to Lady Fate. A spider¡¯s trap Corridoor was sprung and you were snatched into a tale not your own, away from History. Here on the steppe is a better place to feel deeply, and answer your own questions.¡±


    He showed Serib certain runes on a nearby tree, infinity their names, carved long ago and filled over with moss. Glowing as Serib neared it.


    ¡°Let us rest here in the somewhat shade.¡± He sucked a chip of farbark from between his teeth, his brow bright with sweat. ¡°Spring is showing us its Summery side.¡±


    ¡Þ


    A while they sat relieved of the journey¡¯s weight. Old Gadail turned mud into a soft pot and mugs with water from his totem-hammer flowing, fired them to become harder clay in the heat of his shamanic will. The nettles and berries needed for a late-Spring tea too were refuging in the shade.


    ¡Þ


    They waited for it to cool, alas in Timelessness their tea stayed hot, so Serib made jokes about it being chilly for a lighter mood. As though being listened to alone out on the steppes, ¡®fortune¡¯ tweaked its threads or tunes and the two shamans sat happily, drinking chilled tea in the shade. They napped under the slowly swelling heat. Master and apprentice together chewed farbark sharing little words, for there is no finer thing to do while thinking deeply.


    When Serib woke the sun had not moved, her wrists sore with bruises from where The Spring-Sworn had grabbed her. Gadail was still asleep.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Have we rested enough?¡± She asked, moving towards the rune.


    ¡°We have.¡± He did not move.


    To her curious touch the tree¡¯s rune shone and quick as a bird felled by an arrow the sun fell likewise until Sunset¡¯s clear twilight streaked the remaining clouds with pink-then-indigo fire.


    ¡°Time is hurt.¡± Serib eyed their surroundings changed.


    ¡°Murdered or in hiding.¡± Gadail mumbled with caution, rousing from where he lay.

 Act II - Fire, Chapter Five

    The Jailers. Hot as the daylight only moments ago had been, Serib and Gadail met shivering the cold twilight that had settled around them.


    ¡°Did you gather those?¡± Serib motioned to a bundle of dry sticks and branches near her feet, arranged fit for a campfire.


    ¡°Two dear friends did.¡± Gadail answered and with purpose placed one of his totem-hammers among the twigs. ¡°Where are they hiding¡­¡± he quizzed himself.


    ¡Þ


    Slow and small was the heat of his making as The Windlord spoke a word and another and from his hammer higher flames had breath and space, as from the nest of twigs a fire was sparked and shadows cast from its ancient gravity. Defensively Serib held her totem-staff, as the fire revealed two souls standing nearby:


    ¡°Who is there?¡± she stood into a battle stance of Gadail¡¯s teachings, her master calm against the same dark:


    ¡°Will you two come out of your theatrics? You¡¯re frightening her!¡±


    ¡°Had to make sure.¡± A Shadow stepped out from Nature¡¯s shadows towards the flame: ¡°Serib-Minim-Syrib one letter, all the small-difference.¡±


    She was masked and cloaked, quick to kneel by Serib¡¯s side and show she meant no harm. One sword at her hip and the other - a shorter blade - across her back. A second Shadow was sitting by Gadail¡¯s side in a shirt too thin for twilight. The empty sleeve of his shirt reached out as though an arm was there and yet no arm could the old master see as his hand met another''s in that steppe-land night:


    ¡°¡¯Ello. Woid. Cheers for keeping her upright.¡± He introduced himself through chattering teeth.


    ¡°The Prince of Once-ago here with old me?¡± Gadail marvelled. ¡°If only we had longer for all the questions I have!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going anywhere for a while. Ask away and tea while you¡¯re at it.¡±


    ¡Þ


    The woman kneeling by Serib¡¯s side removed her mask with her bony prosthetic arm. Hidden by mask and cloak had been her eyes, an Indigo dark against the fiery sunset skies, her eyes a halo strange a loop in Time, in Timelessness weirder-than to explain. Under her hood, her own hair rolled and twisted into locks much like Serib¡¯s, being no longer bunched under wigs and other disguises.


    ¡°Shay.¡± Serib dropped her staff and grabbed her older sister into a hug.


    Though Ehl¡¯yiteth was home, Shay¡¯s cold arms leathered or prosthetic were a deeper kindness. Separated by old, archaic custom since both sisters were far younger, an adventure between, and other forces long keeping them apart.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t lost your strength¡­¡± Shay¡¯s voice strained, crushed by Serib¡¯s excitement.


    ¡Þ


    Meanwhile Woid and Gadail discussed things of Before-passed-by that ¡®never will again¡¯, The Once-Prince being far from his own age, there when Falsehood fell if half the tales are true.


    ¡°I like your stick.¡± Woid interrupted the sisters¡¯ embrace. ¡°I bet you can¡¯t hit me with it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s almost night!¡± Serib huffed and Shay stepped back to set her mask and hood. ¡°You can hide anywhere.¡±


    Serib blinked and there he was closer to her, laughing, reaching out to shake her hand with his invisible arm.


    ¡°How¡¯ve you been keeping? Anyone giving you trouble? Just say the word.¡± With another blink of her eyes Woid held his dagger in his back-hand style, sheathing it gone faster than it had appeared.


    She swatted his unseen hand away and held him too. The scent of a bakery on him.


    ¡°The other one has been giving us trouble¡­¡± Serib stated blankly, direly, muffled by his shirt. ¡°¡­Lady Fate.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Shay stepped in, her mask a frightening visage in the fireside shadows: ¡°I¡¯ve got Lay¡¯d Payn where I need her, and it¡¯s Lady Fate we can¡¯t get to. I know I¡¯m out there somewhen, keeping her away. Just needed to see for myself if you were alright.¡±


    ¡°This device you slipped to me, it has stopped working.¡± Gadail leaned over to hand something small to Shay. ¡°The Timelessness, I suppose.¡±


    Shay nodded and disassembled the device into smaller parts. Its insides were dripping with ink and completely rusted. Woid stretched his neck:


    ¡°We¡¯ve some business in Haven-upon-Arruikikn and you were on our way. Is that near here? Or Kiknsyde? All this Nature looks the same to me.¡±


    ¡°Haven-upon-Arruikikn, how long since I have heard it named so? You are a pleasure, Once-prince! Blasphemous as I would have expected. ¡®All looks the same¡¯ he says!¡± Gadail got some hot water going over the fire in a pot of his quick making. ¡°Do you three care for any tea? Let us sit while we can. What will rushing through Timelessness do?¡±


    From her harness Shay added an ingredient to the tea leaves Gadail prepared so nerves could easier surrender into calm. An aromatic spice, helping already hot water warm the night air.


    ¡Þ


    Tea was had by all and in that quaint campfire-light Serib better remembered her adventure with Shay and Woid. Through that looping maze of factories and observatories, shops, a museum and a manor out in space all removed from any sense or clear place, ending with the three of them small on Lay¡¯d Payn¡¯s desk or table, and Serib walked here into her own story, still devout to Payn. From Shay she learned by the fire that her older sister had turned traitorous to Lay¡¯d Payn, and had become her new jailor:


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Gargarensyr thinks he keeps Lay¡¯d Payn outsmarted by-why fussing over his scrolls and checking in on her cell. He can keep the title of jailor. We might just need him.¡±


    ¡Þ


    Twilight deepened no closer to Night nor retreated back into Day¡¯s arms. Now Serib understood or remembered further - that all the journey through ¡®Shadows of Amneshay¡¯ was a trance of her spirit apart from her body:


    ¡°We remember your hair much shorter on one half of your head¡­ maybe even shaved.¡± Shay explained, and Gadail added:


    ¡°Syrib prefers her hair that way.¡± He blew and sipped.


    ¡°So are these Syrib¡¯s memories or mine?¡±


    ¡°You must try to not see The Spring-Sworn and yourself as separate; that¡¯s the old fear in us all.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°We could use your help, I suppose. Maybe we¡¯ll be fine.¡± Woid yawned over his steaming cup.


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to be fine - the less you know for now the better.¡± Shay told Serib. ¡°So you can focus on yourself. On who you are in all this. And you-new can come to us if that is your choice.¡±


    Shay kept her own hopes to herself as to not steer nor pull her younger sister. Too much of that had been done already by her parents, by Chance cursing her with the gift of shamanism, by Lady Fate¡¯s designs and Payn¡¯s narrate.


    ¡Þ


    The firelight reminded Serib of Argus sitting by a fireplace. Dripping with sweat and rain. His helm broken and body swollen from Gargarensyr¡¯s blows. She sipped her tea quietly until her sharp, sudden tears subsided before they could swell.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± she asked, in that moment not wanting to know less, not wanting to turn away.


    ¡°Gargarensyr¡¯s a bit cross.¡± Woid slurped his tea finished, the formed clay apparently floating by itself until he set his cup aside. ¡°Lovely. A lot cross after Ersecutor protected you and Shay stole his job. Panzjrah¡¯s working with him now. I¡¯m sure a thunderstorm would finish them off¡­ split the ground between their legs so they can share a grave together. That sort of thing.¡± He winked at Serib, referring to her newfound staff.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°I see - though wouldn¡¯t that mean you¡¯re all on the same side? If you turned on Lady Payn.¡±


    ¡°Not sure. Can¡¯t have two jailors keeping her locked up, can you?¡±


    Shay reiterated: ¡°He doesn¡¯t know I stole his job - and it suits our purposes for now if he thinks he¡¯s in control. We¡¯ll need him on side before all this is over.¡±


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Don¡¯t you mean we, by the way?¡± Woid raised an eyebrow. ¡°We¡¯re all on the same side?¡±


    ¡°Dear Tusker here is still torn, Once-Prince.¡± Master Gadail gently inhaled the vapour of his tea and smiled.


    ¡°Well, I want whatever these two want.¡± Woid shrugged. ¡°I¡¯ll be there.¡±


    Shay all the while was quiet, pensive behind her mask. Her tea untouched. In any other scene with any other three souls this surely would mean the tea had been poisoned and she was waiting quietly for its effects to take hold, but a different grief sat in her heart. Her mother¡¯s grief, passed on to the daughters; the grief that life is suffering, the grief had made both daughters susceptible to Lay¡¯d Payn¡¯s fictions, to Lady Fate¡¯s fabrications, to the dreams of both and either.


    ¡Þ


    All Shay had done was to free her sister from Lay¡¯d Payn, that Serib would not need to serve as she had, as both still were serving, out there in Frac¡¯tralien, Amneshay or Syrib their names.


    And all she saw by the campfire flickering was that Serib did not know what to do with her freedom, the sort of fear and grief their mother had; what does one do with the future and all it could be?


    It is in these moments when the older watching the younger have only faith left to comfort them; faith that they have done all they can and youth will find its way.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Old Limper was telling us you¡¯ve got yourself hexed. Not a clue what it means - but it sounds rubbish.¡±


    ¡°It feels bruised.¡± Serib held her wrists, branded by shapes black or white.


    She wanted to test her power in some way and see how the hex was hindrance, then she had not the heart nor will to try in so quiet a moment fireside, hoping she never had to. That all would resolve itself, this fireside forever.


    ¡°So, you¡¯re from here?¡± Woid asked Serib, his eyes gawping unsure at the greater stars, those that have light enough to shine through Twilight¡¯s veil. ¡°It¡¯s nice; not my kind of thing.¡±


    As she answered, the young shaman moved closer to her older sister and shoulder to shoulder they sat:


    ¡°I¡¯m not from here, but it¡¯s where I¡¯ve grown up.¡±


    Gadail was about to drink but listened closely as Woid answered:


    ¡°Where you¡¯re from means nothing.¡± The Once-Prince smirked. ¡°I¡¯m from Falsehood, and I carry none of that unmerry nonsense with me.¡±


    ¡°You carry other nonsense instead.¡± Serib grinned.


    ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s sat next to you.¡±


    Woid¡¯s joke got them all smiling.


    ¡Þ


    There was more pouring and sipping to fill the solitude between thoughts under those stars which are themselves the progenitors of the same. Woid coughed having tried some farbark having never before. After, he and Gadail returned to their sating of the old master¡¯s curiosity, to learn from The Once-Prince details from Falsehood that few in those moments Once-Ago thought worthy of committing to the eternity of paper or methods more digitised now very much lost in Timelessness. How many libraries, records and diaries gone to fires and sieges or Time''s bloody unravelling, details that help avoid such mistakes from occurring again, when measured and patterned by Court-and-Truthdom proper. Or so hope has always been. Though not all their words had such weight; other questions were for Gadail¡¯s comfort alone. What was eaten upon waking or music loudest or phrases untranslatable; what of these things that make a world? When Time still was how was that Time best passed? So it is, when Historians with ghosts may speak.


    ¡Þ


    Even Woid¡¯s hard manner noticed something special about Gada¡¯il; the greater stars of Twilight knew him well and so the darkness knew him, the darkness through which Woid could step at will.


    ¡Þ


    Sitting in quiet safety with her sister, Serib noticed flowers started going to sleep with the sun¡¯s depart, closing their petals having seen only starlight for a while, as Nature always knows without knowing. Seeing flowers sleep, she remembered the throne of craters, of petals each.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Serib whispered to Shay, not in an attempt to keep it from other¡¯s ears; the words did not come easily.


    Shay turned her hooded head, her masked face.


    ¡°I feel that some of this is my fault.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re young - talented - with work you can be anything. That¡¯s what Lay¡¯d Payn is interested in. You can¡¯t be blamed-shamed for any of that.¡±


    Shay reached out to hold Serib¡¯s hand, placing her now cold tea aside, her stammer seldom:


    ¡°If you must destroy everything to rebuild it all-tall, or if you find something worth salvaging in what Reality already has, you are my sister. We are the survivors of our mother. I did not protest you going with Gadail when we were younger¡­ I saw in his eyes... and knew beyond reason he would love you and guide you-through. Mother always suffocated you with her love. This could be my fault, if anything - when she was poisoned and in need of a cure I went with father in search. I was your age or thereabout. Better if she had died, then, if we had returned without.¡±


    The depth of what Shay was claiming swallowed Serib. Her staff was by her side and for all her shamanic senses none had any merit or place as Shay spoke of far darker matters:


    ¡°You must be too young to realise, but I see what she has done to us both. I cannot blame her, what could she have known between the ages? Though I cannot love her for her ignorance. I think you get this from me¡­ this strong weakness of ours-powers. Holding on to the right-wrong things. As I get it from her.¡±


    ¡°You speak of her as though¡­ what happened? Why is she so present to you? Have they not surely passed away since I was gone? When I met you in Payn¡¯s Imirka¡­¡±


    ¡°I was mourning. The variations overlapping. In Timelessness some of the dead are not dead. Mother is out there, and her name is Grief, haunting what should be left alone. Death was kindness to her in Time; restless with Worry in Timelessness. Leave that to us, for now. Get through your own journey, your own book of Payn¡­ and if that takes you away then so be it. Let it be your choice.¡±

 Act II - Fire, Chapter Six

    The chase. Serib held her totem-staff across her lap, drifting almost dreaming, quiet with Youth¡¯s thoughts misunderstood. In the presence of her ¡®amnesiac¡¯ sister she had regained memories for all the sense that may make to you. Her head resting on Shay¡¯s shoulder she pictured constants the same and variables rearranged - she imagined Payn there writing away at her desk, Fate sewing on and on.


    Each of us a thread to her, drops of ink smeared by fingers into letters and some of us not even that.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail and Woid were having a good laugh. Time was there for a moment long enough that Twilight passed its darkening torch to Night¡¯s envelop and the ¡®lesser stars¡¯ further away were bright with the rest. From Gadail¡¯s fiery hammer charring branches all the deeper seemed that focal and the wooded moon of Ehl¡¯yiteth shone its mystery greenish blue across the vast steppe. Poet-nomads committed to their myths that skyward sight they would not see for long: the moon through its lifecycle back and forth in shimmer from halves to wholes and crescents reversed or upturned, that we or the moon itself were bound to an axis disangled by the flood.


    Tribal fires sporadic through the nightscape, ¡®human stars¡¯ Serib thought, and dared one of her tingly-cold feet closer and closer to the fire.


    ¡Þ


    She did not want Time to come back - her head was where she it wished to be. The sound of crackling wood and laughter under stars all she ever needed to hear. Her mortal duel with Patinya seemed so far from here - as from a life not her own a thing Syrib must have committed - the sight of moonlit blood pooling shoreside. A fellow apprentice following her truth.


    ¡°I should use you as a cane more often.¡± Gadail¡¯s words jolted Serib and her eyes though open opened properly by the fire; halting her wander of dark places. ¡°My leg feels much better.¡±


    Woid napped on Shay¡¯s other shoulder as none could recall him having shuffled over there, and Serib was startled to see the stars¡¯ structures injured by Timelessness; obeying strange orbits unknown to Gravity¡¯s home, dropping or falling out of their destinies always theirs and no longer.


    ¡Þ


    Stars disappeared and reappeared or never did as Serib saw a human shape among them. There in silhouette were four or more bleak wings flapping soundlessly from the same human shape - an angel descending closer.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°Who are they?¡± she asked, and as Gada¡¯il turned Serib felt the earth pounding: footsteps hurtling nearer.


    Her staff was cold as she took it from the ground.


    ¡Þ


    A lad was running towards them across the starlit steppe away from the falling darkness in the sky. Shay did not intervene, seeing only panic in the lad¡¯s charge and set her focus on whatever was chasing him.


    Whoever he was he jumped over the fire in his way and the flames leapt with him - as though commanded to - wrapped the sword in his hand a torch of strange white flame his hair dark and long in the night made clearer. His skin painted with starry spots as though from the skies he had come.


    He turned to thrust his flaming sword to the sky and a bolt of flame from it flew quick as lightning knows at the wings pursuing him. The firebolt struck his foe illuminating that horror''s coming. The boy in darkness-again sprinted off with Serib quick behind him.


    ¡°Oi.¡± Woid umbra-stepped to grab the lad¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Where are you going?¡±


    The lad however kept running, and Woid held his invisible hand in discomfort: the runner was boiling to his touch, known to him, and Woid called out:


    ¡°Lord?¡±


    ¡Þ


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Shay was facing the dark wings approaching, a vial from her harness ready in her hand, and Gadail hailed to Woid over the uncertainty:


    ¡°Leave him, Once-Prince!¡± and then to Serib turned his quieter words carried by the breeze: ¡°Go with the apprentice, get back on the road of your journey. Earth you wield with Fire next to find.¡± He turned his gaze next to Shay, after grabbing his totem-hammer still hot with embers from the smouldering branches and all the more was dark under the stars. ¡°Will your tricks obscure its vision?¡±


    ¡°For now.¡± Shay nodded and cast the vial up into the sky.


    A gust of Gadail¡¯s command shattered the glass and from the broken sound a harmless mist was blown both thick and far.


    ¡Þ


    ¡°This is not your fight - nor mine!¡± Gadail walked ahead of the rogues with both his hammers brandished. ¡°Your shadows will not help you here. If you have business in Haven then touch again the rune that brought you. Anywhere else is closer than this.¡±


    Woid sheathed his dagger back into shadow and Shay took her hands from the hilts of her swords:


    ¡°What control would I have of this?¡± she asked, staring at the all-completing rune scarred into the tree trunk.


    Gadail spoke facing his many-winged foe - it was still many clouds away, growing in size and menace as it neared having corrected its course, its astral trail a tail finite:


    ¡°Those are carved of Syrib¡¯s own blood from her own tusk, and you are of that blood. Control is a strong word indeed! Wherever it takes you will be fairer than this.¡± He tried again his previous point.


    ¡°Black Angel?¡± Woid looked up to the uncertain skies, then back at the lad. ¡°You again¡­¡±


    Shay placed her hand near the glowing rune and took what moments there were left. Serib was looking back for a moment as she ran. Through mask and under moonlight, across Night¡¯s distance and Timeless waves their eyes met.


    ¡Þ


    Gadail meanwhile was chanting to his hammers facing the winged mass plummeting towards him its greatest threat, conjuring up a furious gust of wind powerfully throwing the black gargoyle off its wretched path. The earth and air trembled - that a meteor dethroned from its sojourn would have lesser shaken - as The Black Angel crashed into nearby fields. From its impact, layered and rolling waves of black smoke poured. Gadail¡¯s thunder rumbled in the darkening skies, as black smoke below with the storm clouds clashed.


    ¡Þ


    Serib did not wish to leave - it was happening again. Watching Gadail go. Leaving Shay and Woid behind. She was running back to say goodbye or help the impending fight when she saw the infinity rune flash with Bronze, and someone grabbed her arm. The rogues were gone.


    ¡°Come on!¡± The runner had grabbed her, though his voice was eerily quiet.


    She could see him yelling, all his desperation quieter and quieter. Serib threw him off easily and turned to see the winged fiend was close enough to fight her master now. Amongst smoke clearing by the breeze, under greener moonlight strange-Silence its name, The Black Angel a statue to her eyes - its long weapon a sword perhaps and wreathed with darkness billowing against the starlight. The extinguished blade crashed unheard into the upheld hammer-totems of Old Gada¡¯il, The Windlord.


    ¡Þ


    In a tunnel or corridoor long ago with Woid - this angel the same force she there or then had met - that she had in kindness dared touch. There it had shielded her and Woid from view with its illusions, and here it fought her master, chased the runner-lad next to her.


    ¡°Best if we do not get in their way! Come on!¡± She barely heard the lad pleading as Serib tore herself away to safety, seeing the duel was no place for an apprentice.


    There was for a while no sound at all as they ran. She could only hear her blood rushing and hums or hymns of the ambient void. With staff in hand she could feel his steps beating into the earth and her own thumping as she followed him, into an inky thicket of sheltering trees. Strobing moonlight shone through gaps in leaves and branches, and finally what seemed to them the long-lost song of wind through trees was loud.


    Her momentum was carrying her. She tried to stop as the woodlands around grew weirder still - the more trees she put between herself and Gadail, the cool night faded and ever warmer daylight began to blind her unprepared. She leaned on a nearby tree squinting, holding her staff against whatever threats she could not see. Birdsong was varied on the wind. Trees creaked under crinkling leaves. The calm unaccustomed, judgemental to her panting. Night had again become Day with weightless chance or change. She breathed shakily and powerlessly until all bright and blurry blended into clarity.


    ¡Þ


    A harsh Summer in which the woodland was hush; the season had gone without its storms and warm rainfall. All the green that Spring and Summer grew together was turning yellow. At the edge of such trees Serib stood and out on the simmering steppe her master and his enemy were nowhere to be seen. Her sister and Woid were gone. In other ages, travellers to that lone tree in search of shade would never know.


    ¡Þ


    As she looked for answers, having been thrown proper from one season to another, parched branches snapped underfoot, shaking her nerves. She was looking for the infinity rune she must have passed unbeknownst, hidden among these trees perhaps. Though what range did such runes possess? The one Shay had touched - could that have rippled this far as well? How far is far in Timelessness and therefore dismantles rules of Space and Tense? Was that the answer at all?


    She turned the lightning of her eyes to the lad she had chased-in-follow into the fading trees, leaving Spring behind.