Chapter 2
“If you are ready to recognise the apostasy of Thanus, and take two gifts and two geasa of Alethos, he is willing for you to become one of his glyph-lords,” said Harkon. “You’d be subordinate to me.”
“I’ll take it for a truth more palatable than the supposed truth of riddles,” said Ralthur. “But if I leave with you, they will be alerted.”
“You won’t,” said Harkon. “You will go about your business during the day, and go to bed, perhaps having emptied a number of bottles whilst alone in your study, and seeming to be drunk. When the house is quiet, go into the cellar, and wait.”
“I can do that,” said Ralthur.
“Now, let us pray,” said Harkon. “Alethos come to us we beseech you, and receive into your care one who wishes to leave the lie he has been taught for the truth of your wisdom. Let it be done.”
Harkon and Protasion were used to standing on the god-plane in services to be closer to Alethos, but Ralthur had only ever seen his god in a blurred sort of way, as Thanus was not as powerful as Alethos. Ralthur, therefore, was surprised, shocked, even, to be approached by the powerfully-built god, with curly brown hair, laughter in his eyes, and a friendly expression.
“Harkon has asked for me to take you,” said Alethos. “Will you serve me faithfully, using your skill to protect the weak, uphold honour and truth, and act with valour, accepting death as a part of life?”
“I will,” said Ralthur.
“I gift you with the ability to sense those of ill-intent, and, too, to sense the undead,” said Alethos. “As your geasa, your curved moon-sword shall be straightened, and you will be unable to use another, as a reminder that you give up your allegiance to the moon, and take the straight path. You will use no weapons which are not bladed, as a symbol of cutting your ties.”
“Let it be done,” said Ralthur.
He felt the searing on his chest as the glyphs of Thanus burned away, to be replaced by those set by Alethos; the same glyphs, yet somehow feeling more powerful.
There was a light chime.
“Oh!” said Protasion. “That’ll be that prophesy in those ancient writings, that the honourable one shall walk the path of truth. There’s a lot of prophecy going round.”
Harkon groaned.
“We were stopped on the way by a Sun Seer,” he said.
Ralthur nodded comprehension; some worshippers of Solos, god of the sun, worshipped by following the sun with their gaze, day after day until they lost their sight. Of these, the most devout learned to see with an inward eye.
Those who did not, were quietly cared for, but secretly despised.
“He pointed at Harkon, and said ‘The fairest judge will be revealed, and he shall be tested by those who have taken the bait; and on his reply shall stand the future.’ So, no pressure at all,” sniggered Protasion.
“It’s tease Harkon day,” said Harkon, ruefully.
“It ties in with one of the ones we read,” said Protasion, “‘Those of the gods who are able will gain power when the judge of the three fools brings wisdom, and she who embraces his wisdom will gain in many ways.’”
“I’m not even thinking about it,” said Harkon. “I’m more concerned with helping Kaz with her prophecy.”
“Who is Kaz and what is this prophecy?” asked Ralthur.
“The Daywalker brings in a new dawn, with joy for the cursed, and the ending of curses, the healing of the land and the moon. The Daywalker brings death, and truth, and life, andlove; and she shall be cursed to live forever and desire Death; but the curse shall become a blessing, indeed,” quoted Protasion.
“That sounds most uncomfortable,” said Ralthur.
“That’s why we’re stealing you back for Alethos,” said Protasion. “We need all the support we can get.”
Selen jerked.
“One of my puppets lost one of his senior worshippers!” she cried. “How could this happen?”
Daze, her brother and consort shrugged.
“Mortals die,” he said.
“If he had died, do you think I would care?” growled Selen. “His power goes to someone else and I cannot see whom!”
“Well, send spirits of retribution,” said Daze.
“I… yes,” said Selen. “Something is going on. There is an organised campaign against us.”
“We will crush them,” said Daze.
Ralthur cried out as the spirits of retribution swarmed over him to try to wrest from him the powers gained in the service of Thanus. Protasion and Harkon joined him in the unseen battle of the spirit plane, and it was the spirits of retribution who found themselves torn apart, and their magic and powers absorbed by those who fought them, heroes in the making.
oOoOo
“I told Ralthur you would be there in the early hours,” Harkon told Kaz.
She nodded.
“I don’t see how Selen obtained the copy-cat gods,” she said.
“I don’t really understand the process myself,” said Harkon. “Why not ask Alethos? He likes an excuse to spend time with you.”
Kaz flushed, her blue skin going a delicate purple colour. Her thoughts, heard by Alethos, had the god materialising in his familiar form as a warrior with no distinguishing features to mark him out as anyone in particular, save the iron sword buckled to his belt, which never left him. Kaz ran to his arms.
“I always jump when you just appear, my lord,” said Harkon, humorously.
“What, would you prefer that I ascended from a hole in the floor with the fumes most people associate with hell?” said Alethos. “Or descend on clouds with a harpist?”
Harkon laughed.
“No, and it is good to know how close you are,” he said. “And it is good to remind me that in troubled times I should be jumpy.”
“Aware is better than ‘jumpy,’ you know,” said Alethos. “I take it you wanted me in particular?”
“I want to bombard you with questions,” said Kaz, seating herself on Alethos’s knee as he took his ease on a canvas chair.
“Nothing new there,” said Alethos. “Ask, beloved, and I will do my best.”
“I was wondering about the Selenite gods, those that copy the real ones, and wondering how they came about, and how they can be real gods.”
“Basically, to be a real god, you have to be worshipped and to have the understanding of manipulating glyphs and runes to set up a place to store the power of the worship,” said Alethos. “And yes, technically that makes you a godling with those trógling who see fit to worship you for rescuing them, as I had to show you in a hurry how to handle the extra power so it did not burn you from the inside out. And this is what happens to many incipient godlings; they are worshipped, and die from the power their bodies cannot cope with assimilating. You have a store of magic on which to draw, but are not personally as powerful as you need to be to take your place as goddess of trógling. Your questing and increased dealing with the spirit world will allow you to increase your magical heart, the kormajeia, which is a metaphysical organ all sentient beings have, which permits the casting of cantrips at the lowest level, through to the use of glyph magic at the highest.”
“But is not glyph magic reinforced by the power of the god who gives such spells to their initiates and above?” asked Kaz.
“It is, but the time will come when you will learn to cast it for yourself,” said Alethos. “And will doubtless make your own glyph-based spells for your followers. Your path to herodom is to understand glyphs for yourself, and to take their use unto yourself. Your magical heart, like your heart, increases in stamina, if you will, through exercising it. Matching your magic with that of others, or of nature, enables you to increase it, even as wrestling, running, and matching yourself against the world increases your bodily heart, so that you may run further, fight longer, and so on.”
“Oh! Now I see it,” said Kaz. “That makes perfect sense. And so the Selenite pantheon had all increased their magic thus?”
“Yes,” said Alethos. “And along the way, in the intimacy of matching your pure magic to those of others, you will also gain the knowledge of those you overcome, and work with those glyphs you assimilate personally to form your own glyph-spells, or learn to grant those you have been gifted by me, by learning intimately how they work. Though not necessarily as well,” he added. “Harkon knows the mystic sword spell, which, if successful, cuts the lifeline of the one he uses it on. He can use it whilst he has magic to cast it. Other gods of death… well, all right, Tor, berserk god of the Toróg, stole its use from me when we battled and he wounded me; the wound you healed, dear one. But he can only grant its use cast by rote, and with his power, such that his followers have to pray and sacrifice permanent magic for the use of it each time.”
“I plan to use it on bloodsuckers,” said Harkon.
“And I am more than happy to back your magic with mine for that,” said Alethos. “They are unnatural and an abomination.”
“So, what about Thanus?” asked Kaz.
“He knew the spell, but the use he can give is, like Tor, only granted once, and it is not as effective,” said Alethos. “If Harkon matches power to cast it on another, even if they overcome him, unless they are very strong or very lucky, then their magic can ‘bleed’ like a wound to the magic heart. Followers of Thanus have to overwhelm an opponent’s magic for it to work at all, and it either kills or does nothing. A loss of a lot to the caster if used injudiciously.”
“Well, serve them right for stealing it so dishonourably,” said Kaz. “I don’t think he had your blessing to be a god? Or have I misunderstood?”
“If he had sought his own path within my cult, and become an associated or subordinate god, providing me with a pantheon other than my sister, and now, my beloved, I would have endorsed his efforts and aided him,” said Alethos, sadly. “One of my brightest and best warriors, like Harkon; but inclined to brood. And one of his quests led him to meet Selen, and he fell in love.” He sighed. “I did not then understand how much this can mean, but I warned him that she would use him and discard him. We fought; I held back, but he called it a victory and used it to sever ties, and go his way under her tutelage. I doubt he received much from her in his fawning sycophancy, and I regret his loss from my side. But love blinds all, and I understand better now, and have some sympathy.”
“But if he loved her truly, he would acknowledge her faults as well as her virtues,” said Kaz.
“What are my faults, dear one?” asked Alethos.
“When wearing human form you are grumpy before breakfast,” said Kaz. “And I fancy you are still a little used to being unchanging and unchangeable, though you have learned flexibility.”
“And that is down to you, my love.”
Harkon quietly made himself scarce as Alethos gently kissed Kaz; hands wandered.
There was a loud, discordant clang! And the lovers were thrown apart.
“Have you no sense, Alethos?” the woman glaring at him cycled through- or was, simultaneously – a girl about Kaz’s age, a mature and lovely woman, and an old crone whose face looked made for serenity but was currently as annoyed as her other aspects.
“M… mother…” said Alethos.
“Don’t you ‘mother’ me!” said Fate. “You know you are supposed to remain apart until the cursing, or the world will be wrecked by your undue influence on her! And Daykaz is vulnerable to your charisma!”
“I… I’m sorry, mother,” said the principle deity of death and truth, looking sheepish.
“It was my fault as much as his,” said Kaz. “It’s hard to have so little contact.”
“I know, my dear, but it was getting out of hand,” said Fate. “And I am not supposed to intervene like this.”
“We’ll do better,” said Alethos.
“Make sure you do!” She vanished again.
“This is why there are mother-in-law jokes?” said Kaz.
“I was at fault,” sighed Alethos. “I need to step back and let you grow.” He smiled. “And I had not finished telling you about how mortals can achieve immortality. You will be cursed. It can be bestowed by the most powerful, like Solos, but Solos can be whimsical. One of his daughters once begged for immortality for her mortal lover, and Solos did not like her lover, so he made him immortal but not ageless. In the end, he killed himself. In a fit of remorse, Solos set him amongst the stars as the constellation ‘Old man.’ There, too, when you look into the band of stars which is the fountain of forever, you see the nebular with the griffin’s head; Tor killed the griffin whom Solos was accustomed to ride, and in grief, he set him amongst the stars forever. This sort of immortality has an awareness but very little ability to interact, though the stars and constellations play their part in showing paths to the seers, as they dice amongst themselves over the fate of mankind. Heroes quest for possession of glyphs of power; once in control of both ‘death’ and ‘life’ one has control over one’s own ageing and lifespan. They are not so contradictory, for life is more meaningful with the risk of death, and death is sweet when you have lived a full life. You will need to control the glyph of ‘fertility’ as much as ‘life’ to aid your people. But do not worry; you will have all the aid you need, because my mother found a way to cheat the weave for you, and make that curse a blessing for both of us.”
“Does she do that often?”
“Oh, yes; my mother is a romantic. She goes out of her way to add patterns to the weave which will benefit the lives of those destined to be part of the greater web. I sometimes understand the cryptic utterances which pertain to those I hold dear, but I don’t always explain. It is better that they find out for themselves. I did pass on that the curse for you would not be as onerous as it sounded, for I am sure you were quite terrified to hear it.”
“I was. Living forever and desiring death made me think of the fate of a trógling who annoyed his master, who would have his legs and arms cut off nightly to eat them, and have them magically regrown overnight. Sometimes he would remove all the skin and all the flesh first.”
“The sons of Tor are gross,” said Alethos, in disgust.
“I killed the trógling,” said Kaz. “It was all I could think of to do, at the time. We were visitors, my mistress being a merchant. I watched as he was butchered and the meat prepared for my mistress to share, and I found an excuse to visit the healing caverns, and got his story. I put a poniard through his ear into his brain – he was more than happy to agree to it – so the cause of death was not immediately apparent, and was thought to have been weakness and blood loss.”
“You were death’s agent even then,” said Alethos.
“It helped me understand that death can be a friend,” said Kaz.
No comments:
Post a Comment