AC:DM CD Lore/Late Dereth Texts/Communion

Communion

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From 11-20-2001

The door swelled inwards, bubbling, dust running out of the wood's old veins in slow rivers. Arms locked around from behind. The wall of mist swirled about. The door drifted away….

Salt mist. Alabaster towers rose to touch the fading sky. Bleached bones turned to dust under the dead fish belly of the sky. Fields of bones. Seas of dead and stinking muck. Hands that had been lifted to ward away….

A thousand voices. The Panic. It lapped over the thin silver line, a single, shrieking titan. Saltwater wavered out to meet the sinking disk of the sun. The foam of the breakers was stained crimson. Waterlogged black shapes drifted, legs beating faintly at the blue. Too many legs.

Great gold-gilt sails ruffled, scattering light across the waves. The chosen clambered up the nets that hung from the hulls. Some simply flashed their eyes and rose from the shore, carried serenely over the froth and foam.

The ships were leaving the Imperial City. The last, sailing far, far away, to safety. But the silver line held back the mass. Not enough ships. Never enough, in all the years of slow retreat.

Inchoate roar. A woman in silver and forest green ducked under the clumsy swing of a man scrambling through the crackling magical barrier. His flesh smoked, his clothes were afire. But he was through. The woman swung her sword and cleaved his head away. It tumbled across the stones of One League's Dock, long hair smoldering and hissing. Another soldier cursed, and kicked the head into the sea.

Here they come! The skies, the skies!

Stub-shapes swerved around the great towers of the city. Here and there. Flocks. Swarms. A cloud. A line of thunderheads, a wave rising over the roofs and spires.

The crest fell upon the rocks. The towers became coated with them.

The forests around the city began to leach a living purple carpet into the fields.

The bells of Tentael released a final, shrieking crescendo of hysteric bronze, and fell silent. The clatter of alien wings rose to fill the void….

The door loomed over the stones of the pier, blotting the bleeding sun. It swelled, a breathing animal. Metal bolts – smoking, spitting – unwound themselves from the hinge plates. No. The arms pulled insistently. The door drifted away….

Small fighting vessels lifted their skirts clear of the water, which sucked and slapped at the retreating keels. Their port and starboard masts dropped to the horizontal, gold cloth unfurled and swelled with seabreeze. They rose, trailing sparks of magic, like blossoms drifting on the wind.

No no no don't make yourself a target if you stand up they cut you down if you prick one they will all turn and bite I know them please listen to me!

Magic fried the air. Bolts of white and blue threw themselves from the rising ships, thudding into the shifting clouds of purple-grey that hung over the city. Flames and sparks scattered back from the front of the cloud. A hideous rain began to fall. Thunder. The susurration of one million wings, gentle as spring rain.

The lead ship tacked into the wind, turning its broadside to the onrushing cloud. Gales of magic sprang from the decks to chip away at the edge of the mass.

Fly away! Why do you never listen?

Clattering insects alighted on the ship, wings beating themselves to transparency as their legs scuttled for purchase on the side of the hull. Cries of alarm went up. Perhaps they went up. The ship was too high to hear, its sea-blue pennants jerking in stiff winds that never reached the ground.

Figures on her decks vomited white-hot mana into the eyes and mandibles of the insects. One fell from the hull, tumbling end over end, ragged wings trailing fire and green ichor as they uselessly fanned their own flames. It landed in the crowds somewhere, and was lost.

More black stubs swarmed the ship. Ten converged. Twenty. Too many to count. From all over the sky they came, rising from the alabaster bell towers. The hull became black with them.

The starboard mast ripped away, taking a section of the hull and another insect with it. The monster clung to the debris, faithfully ripping chunks from the wood all the way to the ground. It bounced among the milling Panic, crushing someone too distant to see.

The ship sagged under the weight, the insects piled three deep on the decks. The afterdecks slipped, and it began to slide backwards toward the ground, sails and rigging in tatters, insects trapped and buzzing angrily among the ropes.

Another figure toppled from the deck. Its shape was different – small, four limbs flailing. It severed at the waist. One half continued to shriek as it fell.

One soldier stood distinct, carved before the blurred backdrop of the Panic, clad in the silver and green armor of the Iälarchess. No…he watched the figure topple from the ship to wet the stones of Imperial Square, his mouth agape.

Tiersa, hold the line! Behind you!

We will go now. A voice of great calm, cold as stone in winter. The face swam at him from the deck of the sailing frigate. Cold grey eyes looked out upon the Panic.

We command you to come. You will be useful to Us. Arms locked around from behind, wrenching, hurling. Gruff northern words. The world spun, the heaving surface of the waters shattered like a glass box, rippling like the air around a portal. It will let us travel far in the space of a breath. The silver tunnel formed, the Panic drifted away….

The door reared up from the sea. It shivered into straw, holes exploding through the thick wood. Limpid coils of ebon fog flowed through the gaps, blackening and shriveling wood and stone. Urgent hands grasped and yanked.

I will not see you!

Turn, agonizingly slow. Pulling against the tree sap tide. Swimming, gasping like a fish. The door drifted away, reluctantly, hovering….

A hallway, a world circumscribed by stiff ranks of unsmiling silver and green armor. There was a door-

…door bleeding acid tar….

- before them. Within that cell, a mother raged.

Intriguing….

Violet light split apart. The world tilted sideways, and all the breath was knocked out of him. He rose. The air broiled, thick in the lungs, tainted with streams of yellow and grey vapor. Spore clouds waltzed slowly downwards through shafts of dim orange light.

Look up. That was always the first thing. The quality of the light was different every place they went. There had been a world of gentle oceans and simple people that had a warm, bronze quality, a nostalgic luster. Here, the sun was tired, old, sick. It hovered, bloated like a tick, above a sea of mushroom caps. Tendrils of fire writhed away from its limb.

The tendrils reached down, seared the blighted earth, reached for the blood of his companions. The world breathed quietly, inimitably hostile. Brooding, waiting to suck the marrow from their dead, bleached bones.

The fields of bones. Fossilized hands reaching up to ward off….

This place is dangerous, my lord. THEY are dangerous. We should….

Silence. I wish to observe what your pupils have brought me. Cold grey eyes stared in at the grieving mother. One pale finger stroked his chin. The face was made of ice.

The mushroom twilight. The air was alive with the buzz and ratchet of life innumerable. The adepts spread out, moving the undernourished ferns aside with small pops of light from their eyes, diligently seeking samples for study. One of them bent to get a better look at a hissing, four-foot centipede that scuttled over the rocks. He coughed discretely into his hand, then wiped it on his robe. A grey patch clung to the fabric.

The cells. The mother hissed at the cool grey eyes. She threw herself at them, shrieking for the loss of her children, and was repulsed by blue-white fire.

A golden-eyed boy lay cold and still in the next cell, a bloom of fish-pale mushrooms rising from his mouth, from the warm, moist cave of his lungs.

A squeal carried across the clearing. The adepts sprang up as one. On a small rise, a large cricket-like creature squatted on its hind legs. Antennae, twice as long as its body, waved in the humid yellow wind. Its squeal reverberated through the forest of pulpy grey stalks.

One of the adepts moved towards it. It sprang well away, sat up once more, and resumed its cry.

You will allow it to breed. They should be of use to Our empire. Many glories await the Cerulean Throne of Yalain.

But they are feral.

The ground trembled. The cricket fell silent, and hopped away into the murk.

The adepts gathered close.

The ground exploded. Massive arms, barbed, purple, gleaming dully, boiled up. An enormous shape reared back. Glowering red eyes, faceted like a jewel.

Stay away from it!

It looked at them, and cocked its head. A familiar motion. A comforting motion. The adepts gasped, smiling. Delacim stepped forward, reaching up to touch the glittering shell of the thing. Magnificent! Can it be intelligent, Master?

The memory of hands rubbed a ghostly chin, thoughtfully. I do not-

The massive arms came down. The bubbling screech rooted them to the earth.

The cold grey eyes of the crown glowed covetously at the young mother.

We will control them with our art.

They cannot be controlled. They shrug aside our art like water. Cousin, plea-

The royal person yanked itself away from supplicating hands.

Cast the portal cast the portal ai sweet Light preserve us Delacim the festering stink of blood and raw meat clouds of black flies descend from the mushroom caps the huge creature scything through the adepts cold efficient brutal swimming through the mage fire…

The cold eyes flashed like steel.

Mind your tongue, mongrel. Your life is long, still.

The eyes narrowed, darted up and down, measuring. Hating. The old fear reaches in, grasps the heart within its icy, corpse-like claws.

It would not do if your life became known to Our court, blood of my wife. You are dismissed. Do as We bid you, or Valind shall hear your name.

Tapered, impatient fingers snapped. The clank and crunch of armor echoed in the passage. Don't move. More can be done here. Quietly. Remember what happened to the Sisters. Remember the marble green eyes. Patience. Whispers.

But there wasn't enough time for whispers to carry.

The dead boy stood before him, the mushrooms in his mouth growing thicker, attaching themselves to the walls like creeper vines. His face became Delacim's, his eyes burned with bitter accusation. You let me die. His face became a thousand others, became Thorsten Cragstone's, warped and fell as if made of wax.

Plated arms locked around from behind, yanking, pulling. The world spun. The cell drifted away….

The door.

Again.

Ropes of back mist pulsated through the holes in the wood. The door turned grey, veined, flowed like hot wax, squealed like a gutted animal….

Please don't make me watch.

Red eyes in the hallway. The torches sputter. They fade with a gasp. Mighty wings. He stumbled back.

The arms yanked him. The black wings whirled away.

Violet light. Energies that cracked and shattered the air.

She wavered as she stood, tossing her cane away, too strong to need it further. The light rippled off copper-silver hair. Her hands gripped either side of his head.

Her eyes were golden, warm honey, filled with love, filled with tears.

Wh…what? We have-

Iä hlatun aune atep. I give this life for love.

No!

The hands on his arms held fast. Steel. Her rings drove the flesh in. Feathers tickled his ear. Be quick, sister.

Hot breath exploded into the room. It howled, inarticulately, in triumph. Dust ran from the stones as it pounded inwards.

Iä hlatun aune atep. I give this life for love.

Her eyes began to glow with power.

No! Not again! Please I don't want to watch this again oh Lights of the world please…

A voice spoke calmly in his ear.

Listen to her words. She only need say them in the Old Tongue, yet she says them for you, child.

The old men took a last free breath and cast their eyes in stone. The last woman, platinum hair swaying, closed her eyes, shook her head, and turned to the light. Fate was accepted. Gold and silver luminescence erupted from their eyes. The violet cloud spun faster. The room began to roar. Dust and pebbles spiraled inward.

Iä hlatun aune atep. I give this life for love.

Not for me!

She does this for her love of you. I do this for my love of the world. You have a destiny.

Seawater ran down his cheeks. The humid metal stench of rent life. The arms of the woman flooded red. The hands clamped on his ears became moist. He jerked, tried to shake his head NO. His hands clawed at hers.

Remember this. It will pain you, but it will keep your soul shriven. Remember what one can do for another out of love.

Two pieces of crystal met, clacking like marble.

I'll bet you can't get a marble sphere like this! I stole it from the belltower at Imperial Square. You did not! Did too!

A white-bearded man turned to a comrade in iridescent silver plate. They nodded to each other with respect. Soon it would be over. The bearded man gripped his staff and spun about, his blue robe swirling.

Iä hlatun aune atep. I give this life for love.

Cyan light washed over his shoulder. Indescribable power rolled past, like a gromnatross wheeling overhead. He ducked, instinctively. At the center of the room, the old men learned into the wind that whipped towards the gossamer swirl behind them. A third crystal slid into the breach.

Remember this. You will stumble and fail. You will carry the hatred of many worlds, and you will come to hate yourself. Never despair! With every rising of the sun, the world begins anew. One morning they shall awake and understand.

The platinum haired woman's eyes burned. The fourth crystal crawled inwards, its facets becoming lost in the glare. She let her proud chin fall, and shook her head again, sadly. There was still work to be done, but now….

Iä hlatun aune atep. I give this life for love.

The hands holding his head weakened. She shuddered. Please don't! But she smiled, lower lip trembling, fresh tears swelling in her radiant eyes. Her thumb gently traced across his cheek, and she touched her forehead to his.

Remember this. Not all our souls were paired in the beginning. Those few who walk alone are the agents of Light. They have the strength to move the world, for good or ill. I see three such men when I touch the threads about you. You must be there to tilt the balance against the men who would move us into madness. Remember this!

Who are these men, Adja?

Do you not see, sister-son? Here is one of them now!

The beast, its ebony back bowing the rafters high above, snorted what might have been a chuckle. Its claws stretched towards the white-bearded man. He gripped his staff tighter. His eyes poured silver light into the abeyance.

"I love you, my child," Maila whispered, diamonds spilling from her eyes in impossible numbers. Turning to the middle of the room, her eyes flashed a final time.

The talons sank into the soft flesh of the bearded man's skull. The fifth crystal, the one that hovered above the rest, sank downwards.

No! NO!

Her hands slid away. He pawed numbly at them, trying to keep them from going, as he'd tried to pull them away heartbeats before.

Red and grey dripped from the beast's claw. Its free hand reached toward the rippling heat-haze of violet.

You must do your part, now, Asheron.

He looked up. When had he knelt before her corpse, placed her head in his lap?

The knots in Adja's sable hair were coming undone. Marble-green eyes watched him calmly. The same turquoise as the waters of home. Like sinking in the waters of home. Warm even in winter. Ringing the rocky shores of the island in argent froth. The sea mists left the crags dripping. The rich green of the fields. Come to dinner, son. Eat of the bounty I have placed before you. My precious, precious child.

We believe in you.

He swam in the Lady of Ithaenc's eyes, as his own flared with golden light.

Moved by his will, the last piece snapped into place with a fateful click.

She smiled. He had never seen her smile before.

Violet light.

The lightning that twitched from the crystals snapped, acquired fluidity. The black wings were wrapped in them, doused in light unquenchable.

The gates of heaven after all…

White.

Bleach.

Blister.

Ash.

Nothing but ash.

"Mother! Mother!"

The door closed.

His eyes snapped open.

He jerked up, the breath caught and tangled in his throat, clawing to be free.

Ships. Cells. Ash.

His heart hammered frantically at the gates of his chest.

Only then did the dream fall apart, and release him.

"You all right?"

He looked to the door. The sky was the purple of a bruise, a few stars sputtering valiantly before the onset of dawn. Elysa stood in silhouette, arms crossed, one hip leaning against the frame.

"Ai." He passed his hands over his face, using magic to remove to sweat of the dream from his cheeks, the roots of his own snowy beard. His eyes glowed with it, faintly illuminating the blankets, the shelves, and the stairs leading up to the study.

"The dream again?" she asked, moving into the room. Her hair was woven into a long, honey-colored braid, and she wore a simple sleep-shift.

"Yes. Did I wake you? I'm sorry." He looked to the candle beside the bed, and at his silent command a ball of roiling, watery blue flame swirled out of nothingness and settled on the wick.

She shrugged, settling herself at the foot of the bed. "I was already awake. I heard you, though."

"Did I wake Borelean?"

A smile quirked one corner of her mouth. "No, he's still asleep. Dreaming of Celdiseth's apprentice, no doubt."

"He's only eleven," he said vaguely.

"Old enough to dream. You should have seen his eyes when he first saw her that night." Her smile became wistful, and old.

He looked around. Everything seemed to be in order. There had been a time, just after the Sundering, when the dream had caused him to cast in his sleep. Getting up had been a tedious process of straightening the books and furniture that had been thrown about. Once he had nearly burned the keep down.

"I don't think," he said, "that I'll be able to sleep again soon."

"Me neither." By the waterlight of the candle, he noticed her eyes were red-rimmed and haunted. She must have been dreaming of the final days of her war. It seemed that the longer they spent together, the more they dreamed in resonance. It was not uncommon among Yalaini couples. Of course, she was not Yalaini, and they were not a couple. Just a pair of wounded souls the world seemed to have passed by. Except for the times it demanded their presence.

"Shall we go to the gallery, then?" She nodded briskly and rose, perhaps grateful for the early company.

The first year she had been here, she would barely speak to him. More than once, she had screamed and flailed at him in helpless fury, as she had the first time that they had met. Why haven't you rescued my people? How could you let this happen? All he could do was to stammer that he hadn't known. How could he have? He hadn't stepped beyond this island in a century.

As time passed, they spent more mornings after troubled sleep together in the gallery.

He tossed back the covers and levered himself out of the bed, his head passing close by the stylized portal etched on the wall. The magically wrought violet clouds shifted and compressed, in constant motion – like portalspace itself. Long ago, it had been a popular wall decoration among the planar mages of the Empire.

He followed her out on to the battlement, into a storm of morning birdsong. The moons had already set. To the east, the sky was grey and formless. Perhaps it would rain today. He looked to the trees in the courtyard, and smiled to see a slender, mist-grey Dericostian neuzali perched next to the earth-toned bulk of an Isparian sorrel warbler. Both birds fluffed into aggrieved balls to exchange full-throated insults over possession of the branch. The smile froze on his face when he considered the tableau as a metaphor, and he hurried on.

The wind picked up, setting the trees to murmuring and rousing the heavy scent of the lavender Elysa had planted. The predawn twilight was a bit chilly – without thinking, he cast a small warming spell around them. She blinked and smiled. "Thank you." He nodded, and looked to the door ahead of her. His eyes flashed a Beckon, and it glided open.

"Lazy," she said affectionately. "No wonder people think the Empyrean were decadent. You can't even open a door without using magic."

"You wouldn't have let me open it for you otherwise." She smiled again, and reached up to tap her index finger on the tip of his nose.

Before the wide window of the tower were three chairs. He settled in the tallest, its stonework painted in the traditional floral pattern. It was an uncomfortable seat, but he deserved no more. Elysa scraped her own chair up next to him. It was rough-hewn wood in the Aluvian style. She unfolded the homespun quilt hung over its back and wrapped it around her shoulders. The stool – Borelean's, and made by his own hand – remained against the wall.

They sat there for some time, silently, as the bruise of the sky softened to the color of a rose about to bloom.

"I had a dream about Thorsten," Elysa said, as if it were the weather. He knew her well enough to tell when her nonchalance was feigned, and looked to her. Tears swelled in her eyes, spilled, gently washed her cheeks. She made no sound. She did not look at him, did not look away, did not let her gaze falter from the window. "I still dream about him. I didn't even know him for a year. Why do the Mothers still let him walk among my dreams every night?"

He paused, not sure whether she wanted an answer. He had found that humans often asked questions they did not truly want answered, or did not want answered truly. But she blinked, upsetting the balance of the waters, and glanced at him. The harrowed blue of her eyes told him all he needed.

"My people," he told her, "believe that when the body dies, the…the Wind of Greater Thoughts…ah…soul? The fire we see in the depths of an eye. It does not burn out, and it doesn't travel to cold fields or cloisters of Light to wait out eternity. Instead it hovers close, watching over the one that mattered most to it in this life, until that one is also released. Then both are born again, in the places and times required that they should meet once more. Although they do not recall the other times they walked together under the stars, paired souls never let each other go.

"They say that this is the way Light bade us be made. None of us whole without another, that we should never lose our sympathy for others." He shifted in his chair, the marble-green eyes in his mind smiling quietly.

"What are you saying, Ash?" she whispered, thin white fingers plucking the quilt closer around herself.

He swallowed. It could unbind her tears once more.

"I say…that you and Thorsten have known each other for a long time. You may only recall a year, but your souls have touched hands since before the stars were carved out of fire, and before the stones were set upon their courses. And you will meet him again. You will know each other until the stars themselves pass on into darkness."

She closed her eyes, her mouth puckering, and cried hard and silent for a long time.

Their hands reached for each other, and they held on tightly, Empyrean and Isparian, both their worlds lost.

For now.

The sun came up; the world began.