'Turning and turning in the widening gyre'...
"And out of good still to find means of evil."
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 165. - John Milton
The next two days passed in a blur of paradise as the group sailed down the river Oceanus on a slim boat while the sun shown down warmly and the breeze was always filling the ship’s sails to their fullest. They had all waited only a scant few minutes on the banks of the river when the ship had approached, slowed down and they had been hailed by the lone occupant, a cervidal who only asked them their names and where they might be going. As it happened, he was heading to the layer of Thalasia himself and had no qualms about having guests on his journey. It was, after all, a kind gesture and one that the guardinal gave without pause.
The days were filled with pleasant talk and laughter, and the nights were brief and filled with somnolent slumber devoid of nightmares. Upon waking to the soft rocking of the boat, who could say if they were still dreaming or not when they gazed out at the perfection extending from horizon to horizon.
“It’s a shame that Nisha and Clueless couldn’t be here you know.” Tristol said as he dipped his hand down into the cool waters of Oceanus to let the current wriggle around his fingers.
“I’m sure they’re getting into mischief elsewhere, wherever they ended up going. Mischief more so than not when you consider Nisha.” Fyrehowl remarked.
“I asked Clueless where all they were going and he wouldn’t really fess up to it. I swear he can’t talk openly about half the stuff that goes on with him.” Florian said.
Tristol shrugged, “I don’t know if he knows everything about himself to really be able to talk openly about it all to tell the truth.”
“Still, all I know is that he was going to go to the Gray Waste and he was bringing Nisha along to make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble.” Toras said.
Underneath all of their banter about their two absent companions there was an undercurrent of unstated worry about the fate of their friends and if they would see them again. They trusted in the skill of them both, but the plane they had traveled to… it hungered eternally and when it touched mortals it left men dead inside, within if not without as well.
At the mention of Elysium’s polar opposite their cervidal guide raised an eyebrow and looked over from where he was tending to the ship’s sails. At the same time, though perhaps it was only coincidence, there was a cool breeze that rolled off the waters and lingered slowly on the ship. It seemed almost as if the plane itself sensed some of their largely unstated worry about their companions in that pit of darkness and sought to comfort them.
As they continued traveling Fyrehowl seemed the most taken with their surroundings, even though she had been born there upon that very same layer of Elysium, her homecoming to her native plane was a reaffirming presence in her heart and her mind, considering all that they had been through in their time together. The warmth and incarnate sense of peace that swathed the landscape was reflected in her eyes, and for once in a very long while she was neither worried nor tensed for immediate action as her training with the ciphers had taught her. There was no need for either since the very essence of the plane itself precluded their necessity. If the multiverse truly was a living thing and one could listen to the heartbeat of the planes; if one could listen to the Cadence of it all, then Elysium was where the multiverse lay still and gazed up at the clouds above it and dreamt in utter peace and security, swathed in unconditional compassion.
On the third day they woke to a gleaming light in the east and the sound of tumbling, churning water like the currents preceding a great waterfall. They looked but they saw nothing ahead that might be causing the sound, nor was the current increasing upon the ship. While Skalliska looked paranoid and Tristol’s ears perked, Toras looked over the side of the ship and Florian whispered a prayer to his deity, the two guardinals could only chuckle politely.
A moment later it was gone and done with as their surroundings simply melted away into the sunlight and they found themselves drifting slowly on the current in a great expanse of the widened Oceanus. Far off on the horizon they could see a distant and deep green shoreline while in the very center of the expanse of crystalline waters sat a single island and a massive glistening keep at its very center, the cathedral-fortress of Rubicon, the last outpost of the guardinals upon the layer of Belarian.
“Wow…” Florian remarked as he looked at the radically altered surroundings while the boat drifted unerringly towards the island without any action by the cervidal captain.
Tristol was grinning and his tail twitched in excitement as they drifted closer and closer to the island and the scale of the fortress became more and more apparent; it was massive.
Like the proverbial city on a hill, the fortress of Rubicon was an exercise in architecture comprising both strength and aesthetic appearance that was best described as beatific. As their ship drifted closer to one of the docks on the island they noticed that the feeling that they had felt from the plane itself all the while upon the plane was subtly different. Fyrehowl felt the shift the most, but it wasn’t negative in any way, simply different from the feeling that Amoria or Eronia had radiated. The air, the wind, the sunlight and even the ground and walls of the cathedral-like fortress exuded a sense of stoic resolve and quiet grace.
As the boat touched the shallows near the dock an equinal tossed a rope down to them and they fastened the ship in short order and clambered up onto the dock. Several guardinals were assembled to meet them, an eclectic mixture of lupinals, equinals, cervidals and avorals. All of them were dressed in the white and blue uniforms of the fortress, and while they all wore weapons, none of them had them drawn. All the guardians of the fortress had brandished were polite smiles, curious glances and, from the watchcaptain, an extended hand to help each of their guests up from the boat.
“Greetings and warm welcomes to you all. Welcome to Rubicon.” The watch captain, an equinal taller than even Toras was, said with a bow. “I am captain Delrenth. How can we help you?”
Fyrehowl bowed and spoke first, “We’ve come from Sigil hoping to gain an audience with the Lord of Rubicon, his regency Duke Jalinon. We happened to encounter evidence of extraplanar activities upon the mainland of Belarian, and we have strong reason to think that…” She paused and snarled softy, “…we have reason to believe that a group of Yugoloths are active upon the mainland.”
Several of the watch exchanged glances at one another, others looked at Fyrehowl and her companions with expressions of concern, curiosity, and wariness. Seeing several looks of incredulity, Skalliska stepped forward.
“We have actual evidence of it all if you don’t believe us at our word.”
“I’m certain you do, but it’s not my decision in these matters. Please, follow me and I will arrange for you to have an audience with the Duke.” Delrenth said and gestured for them all to follow him while some of his soldiers saw to the boat.
“This isn’t Sigil Skalliska, far from it. They’re not going to automatically distrust us unless we walk in with an imp on our shoulder or something similar. We need to break you of that habit while we’re here.” Florian said as he looked down at the kobold, though making a comment about how in a certain light the fire lizard on her shoulder might look like an imp wasn’t too terribly far from his mind.
“And why haven’t they found this out on their own? I mean, really, it’s there home plane and they don’t know what alls going on out there?” Skalliska replied.
Fyrehowl tensed slightly but didn’t say a word, remaining as accepting as the rest of her race as they were escorted up the hill towards the glittering fortress.
In short time they passed through the massive silver and steel gates that glistened mirror bright and were escorted to a waiting chamber to await their audience with the duke. As they waited they were visited briefly by a minor cervidal functionary who inquired if they were hungry, wished for something to drink, or had any other needs that she might see to. They thanked her, but in truth they hadn’t felt hungry or thirsty during most of their journey through the plane. Perhaps the plane itself had fed them in some insubstantial way, perhaps time had passed in such a way that they hadn’t needed to eat yet, or perhaps they had eaten but didn’t remember it since the plane might have seen fit to remove the sensations of hunger or thirst from their minds to make their journey more peaceful. Whichever it was they could only speculate. But as they waited to see the duke, speculate they did, but not on their hunger or lack thereof.
“I’m sure there’s a reason why they don’t know about what we’ve come to tell them.” Toras said to Skalliska.
“It doesn’t make sense! Hells, from what I know of the layer it has –evil- creatures on it. So much for being the plane of perfect good if you end up with fiendish animals and sometimes minor fiends themselves wriggling out of that swamp that they call a layer of a plane.” Skalliska snapped back.
Fyrehowl’s hackles raised slightly but she didn’t say a word.
“A fine job they’re doing if they’re bottled up here and not going out to actually take care of the problem they very obviously have out there. The place is supposed to be crawling with evil, it just doesn’t make sense!” Skalliska continued.
“The way I’ve heard it told is that the layer isn’t corrupted, but it’s been intentionally used by them to imprison evil creatures. What exactly is anyone’s best guess because the guardinals aren’t telling and the layer is all but entirely sealed off from the outside.” Tristol interjected.
For a brief moment of awkward silence all eyes focused on Fyrehowl. Finally the lupinal looked up at them and blinked. “What?” She asked.
“So what have you all got locked up out there in the swamp? An archfiend, a slaad lord, what?” Skalliska quipped.
“… I don’t know any more than you do. I only know that the layer is largely unpopulated by anything except the Quesar, and they’re anything –but- evil. I know that we don’t have any settlements on the layer except here at Rubicon. Otherwise I only know the rumors the same as the rest of you, probably less so even.” She said honestly and openly to dispel the aura of distrust that the kobold was aiming in her direction.
“Oh come on. Trust us here and let us in one the secret. Surely you know what’s out there.” Skalliska replied.
Fyrehowl sighed and was about to reply when the door opened and an avoral wrapped in cloth of green and gold motioned to them with one white-feathered arm. “Duke Jalinon will see you now, please follow me.”
****
Factotum Del’sar Muralt of the Bleak Cabal reached out one frail and yellowed hand to snuff a candle that fluttered and slowly was dying next to a freshly burning taper in his chamber. Formerly of the Bleak Cabal anyways. By any legal standard the faction no longer existed, but, not that it really mattered anyways. He’d found his calling helping the unfortunates of the Hive in the slums of Sigil’s worst districts; it gave him purpose and meaning in a world devoid of such.
The smoldering wick gave rise to a lazy column of sooty black smoke that spiraled like a drunken, winged dervish up towards the rafters of the ceiling. Brushing his ash blackened thumb and forefinger on his robe, the aging githzerai took out a thick journal and began to pen a daily log of those who had come to him. All of them came for some reason relating to the mind and their mental faculties. Some of them wished to recover from addictions, others to recall memories lost to clubs, falls or gauntleted fists, and some others came to him suffering from peculiarities and faults within their mind that left them unable to function or capable of harming themselves and others. All of them he helped if he could, and all of them he chronicled down as a personal log of his true calling, to restore meaning and substance back into the lives of his fellow men so that he himself might feel a fraction of that meaning reflected back within himself.
He had just taken the pen to paper when there came a knock at his door; he’d had no more appointments for the day and it was closing in upon evening when he generally requested to be left alone to write and meditate upon his day’s activities. Still, he thought as he put the quill back in the inkpot, it was his calling and if another had arrived to request his services, he would of course comply.
Del’sar opened the door and listened to his fellow Bleaker explain the reason for his late calling patient and his specific needs. He nodded and motioned for the fellow to follow him into his chambers. He did, and as the bariaur closed the door behind himelf, he smiled. The githzerai never noticed the glowing, glittering gemstone lodged within the bariaur’s right rear ankle, nor the sapphire glow it spread upon the floor like a cyclopic blue drake, nor did he hear the delicate hiss of steel upon oiled leather. And then it was over. Mercifully he was embraced by oblivion before he could hear and feel his limbs being severed like a sacrificial calf.
****
Fyrehowl had to feel a sense of pride and anticipation added to her already heady sense of homecoming as she and her companions were escorted by the avoral and a pair of armed lupinals towards the Duke’s audience hall. She looked forward to meeting the famed Leonal noble, rumored to be a distant relative of Prince Talisid himself, and gaining either the approval to investigate on the behalf of the guardinals of Rubicon, or being informed that all was well and the ‘loth and mercane information were all a scattering of lies.
The audience hall was long and airy, supported by white marble columns carved to resemble each of the subtypes of Elysium’s celestial natives. One column resembled a flute playing cervidal while another was carved into the form of a soaring avoral. Down the list of guardinal subtypes the columns were nearly lifelike and decorated with precious metals and gemstones that caught the sunlight from the massive windows lining the chamber to scatter them in rainbow patterns across the flagstones.
At the end of the hall was a simple but elegant throne atop which sat the leonal, Duke Jalinon, who led the guardinals of Rubicon as a father figure if not an actual leader in a true sense of a hierarchy. The leonal’s tawny mane shone like spun gold in the light and he projected a sense of majesty and strength, but his dress was simple. He wore only a blue and white cloak and a surcoat over his chest along with a simple circlet of silver around his brow and nothing more. No glittering trappings of royalty were present.
Flanking the leonal was a robed Ursinal who announced the group, each by name as they arrived before the Duke. She adjusted a pair of glasses upon her blunt muzzle before taking out a quill pen and scribing down the following conversations between those assembled. On the duke’s opposite side was a slim vulpinal dressed in pale blue wizard’s robes who peered curiously at their guests. Tristol smiled and waved back as he twitched his own nearly identical tail in time with the vulpinal advisor’s.
“Welcome my child. Welcome back to Elysium Fyrehowl, and I extend my welcome to the rest of you as well. Greetings and please, speak what occupies your minds. You have traveled long and far and the least I can offer you is a welcome ear.” Jalinon’s voice rumbled like distant rolling thunder, warm and baritone.
Toras motioned towards Fyrehowl, both as a way of acknowledging her to speak for them at first, and to head off Skalliska who looked ready to launch into a speech.
“Duke Jalinon, of late we have had encounters with a group of mercane who were themselves dealing with Yugoloths. Without getting into some of the specifics of what happened, we found records written by the leader of these mercanes that made specific reference to Belarian, routes of transit through the layer towards the deeper mainland, and vague references to ‘shipments to alleviate hunger’.” Fyrehowl said humbly.
The Duke pondered the news and several of the others added their own thoughts on the matter as well as expanding upon the story of how they had gotten involved with the Imshenviir mercane and their Yugoloth allies in the first place.
“Anything these mercane did upon the mainland was not with our leave or our knowledge I am afraid to say. The layer of Belarian is almost impossible to enter and almost impossible to leave except by way of the river Oceanus. River travel to Belarian is watched over by we here at Rubicon. No mercane passed this way.” The duke answered.
“And yugoloths?” Skalliska asked.
“It would be unlikely. However your suspicions do not ring hollow or without evidence that something is occurring.” The leonal replied.
“And there is another matter I feel is linked to this. We had spoken to Rhys, former factol of the Transcendent Order in Sigil. She mentioned that one of her former factors, a lupinal by the name of Tarnsilver, had returned to Elysium and spoken of things that may very well be related to this current issue.” Fyrehowl said.
“Tarnsilver…” The duke paused, “Tarnsilver is fallen from us. He has not fallen into evil, but the spark of good in him has dimmed to a flicker. He is misguided, and if he is involved in this current matter than it takes on a level of urgency that it otherwise might not have.”
Jalinon inhaled deeply and thought for a moment before continuing, “I give you leave to travel to the mainland to investigate the truth of the matter you rightfully suspect. I empower you with my authority and the authority of Rubicon to put a stop to any fiendish activity that you find therein if you are capable of doing so. If what you find is too large for you to resolve then return here or send word and I will mobilize Rubicon itself to your aid.”
The companions nodded to him and bowed respectfully before the duke added, “And should you find Tarnsilver, tell him that whatever he has done we would welcome him back amongst us without question.”
“Thank you your highness.” Tristol said with another bow and the rest soon followed suit before turning and going back to their chambers to rest for the evening before heading for the mainland the following day. However as they made way from the chamber, Fyrehowl felt a tug on her robe.
The lupinal stopped and looked down at Jalinon’s vulpinal advisor where he was tugging gently on her robe. “Yes?” She asked.
The vulpinal smiled and bowed before quietly informing her that, “The duke wishes to speak with you privately regarding these current matters. He would request that you hear him out presently, please.”
Fyrehowl nodded and followed the fox-like guardinal back into a private audience chamber. The leonal was already seated at a circular table and he quickly bade her to sit. The vulpinal left and closed the door after himself, leaving Fyrehowl and the Jalinon alone in counsel.
“I have something to speak with you about Fyrehowl. You likely do not have any awareness of it, for it is rarely spoken of in our society and even more rarely outside of Elysium to any. What I must tell you concerns Belarian, its history and our history as a people.”
Fyrehowl nodded slowly as the Duke Jalinon began, “There is no act of good greater than self sacrifice at no benefit to oneself, done on the behalf of others and done in secret. An act of benevolence done behind closed doors and away from sight where none will ever know what good you did and none will ever thank you or praise your name; an unthanked, unasked for, and unparalleled act of altruism. That is what I must speak to you about and the mark it has forever left upon Belarian.
****
The lupinal gazed out of the adamantine window across the marshlands and cypress forests of the layer of Belarian. He felt the presence of the Arcanaloth behind him before he smelled it or heard it speak to him. The ‘loth’s presence sullied the very essence of the plane like a gobbet of mud upon a white smock. Even after all this time it still made him uneasy and he felt in turn sullied by association. As the yugoloth’s padded footsteps echoed at the top of the stairs and its stench of brimstone wafted into the room he sighed. Regardless of his current feelings about the fiends, what he was here doing, what they would ultimately accomplish was for the greater good. What they were doing true, it would benefit the fiends in the short term, but it would remove a cross that he and his people had unduly borne for far too long and which had defiled the very essence of their plane.
Tarnsilver still didn’t understand the original intention of his people, but he would make amends for their race’s failure here and now. It was still centuries off, but it would be gone one day, and then the ‘loths would be gone as well. Their presence there was intolerable as well, but the ultimate ends were all that mattered. He knew he was right in that, he felt it echoed in the Cadence, the very patterns of the world reflected the truth of what he was doing there in Belarian. They would welcome him back even now, but they wouldn’t understand what he was doing, and they would stop his actions out of ignorance. He wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“You seem tense my friend, is something amiss? We have had continued success with our joint endeavor. You should be pleased.” The yugoloth commandant of the tower, an arcanaloth by the name of Parphinnias, only recently ascended to his position, spoke gently to the lupinal like a fine mixture of cream and venom.
Tarnsilver brushed off the ‘loth’s hand as it placed it on his shoulder. Their joint work was good, that was self evident, but he still felt sick at the fiends’ close proximity. “I am pleased, but old habits die hard. A century ago I would have torn out your throat before you lifted that finger to my collarbone. Our work goes forward but I look forward to when it is complete and I can have you gone from my home plane.”
The ‘loth smiled a jackal’s carrion-eating grin like a corrupted reflection of lupinal’s own stoic expression. The lupinal wasn’t in the mood to talk, he never really was, though Parphinias did have better luck doing so than the Ultroloth that had been his predecessor, filthy Mydianchlarus supporting wretch that he was.
“Suit yourself, I was dining and was wondering if you wished to have something brought up to your chambers. I would have had one of the Mezzoloths bring you something from the swamp so you could prepare it yourself without us touching it beforehand overly much. I know you’re sensitive about such thing.” The black-robed arcanaloth said with a shrug.
“No, I’m fine. Please leave me to my thoughts, I wish to spend time alone to meditate.” The lupinal replied firmly.
“As you wish my friend.” The ‘loth replied as he exited the chamber. Only a few steps out of the door did he reach up and wipe away the smear of blood that had leaked from his mouth and onto his cheek from his meal. He glanced back and then hurried away, lucky that the lupinal had been so absorbed in his thoughts that the idealistic fool hadn’t smelled or noticed the splash of fresh cervidal blood on his cheek or lingering on his breath. But, what the lupinal didn’t know wouldn’t kill him, only others of his kind.
****
The pair of cornugon’s glanced questioningly at one another as they escorted their charge down the dimly lit passageway. They carried no lights, their own nature as baatezu pierced the gloom readily enough, but their ward lit the way before itself from the bright glow of its own pair of oblong eyes. The Ultroloth’s glowing orbs set within its otherwise featureless face shifted colors every few seconds and flickered like an angry, buzzing insect as it strode along with them towards the throne room of their mistress, Lilith the Hag Countess, sometimes called Malagard, Lord of the 6th of Baator.
But that the baatezu escorted an Ultroloth, the pinnacle of Yugoloth caste, was not the cause of their concern reflected back at one another in their eyes, their expressions and their telepathic chatter between one another. No, they had seen their fair share of important individuals escorted down their current path, from Baatezu nobles to pit fiend generals to Yugoloth mercenary lords and even occasionally one of the hated Tanar’ri. No, their concern was not with the race and rank of their escorted guest, but rather in its mannerisms, as it silently walked a few paces in front of them.
Muscles rippled beneath scaled hide and the Cornugons glanced almost awkwardly at the Ultroloth as it stumbled for but a moment as it walked before them. The ‘loth was also doing other things as well. It was whimpering… every few seconds the fiend would whimper like a wounded animal or a petitioner being slowly fed, inch by inch, to the burning cold of the waters of Stygia. And the Yugoloth was twitching at random as well, like it was experiencing massive fits of pain or an electrical surge coursing through its brain to cause it the disturbances in stride and manner as it walked.
But yet every time the ‘loth stumbled or paused it would unerringly right itself and continue on its path towards the end of the hallway where Lilith held court. The Cornugons speculated on what was wrong with their charge, or perhaps if it was being led to their mistress as some sort of plant, or spy upon the Gray Waste to funnel her information on her former rivals amongst the gray sisters. There was also the matter of the gem embedded in the Ultroloth’s forehead.
Smooth as glass, shaped and sized like a hen’s egg, the gemstone pulsed with an inner light of its own as the Ultroloth neared the entrance to Lilith’s throne room. Judging by the looks at its face the Cornugons had gathered when they first met the Lord of the 6th’s guest, the gemstone, whatever it was, was embedded deep enough in the ‘loth’s head to penetrate into its brain.
The chamber shuddered ever so slightly as the Ultroloth entered Lilith’s court, the tremor only felt in the slightest there at the core of the Hag Countess’s titanic citadel of ever tumbling stone. Outside the boulder shaped fortress would have been leaving rock falls and landslides to destroy a prime city in its wake as it eternally rolled and careened down the slopes of Malbolge’s mountains and gorges. The Ultroloth didn’t pause from the rumbling of the walls, but rather from a near seizure of pain that made it pause and grip the frame of the doorway to the court.
The Cornugons stopped at the door and turned away, holding their tridents outwards to guard the chamber, though in truth no intruder had ever passed much beyond the outermost layers of the keep. They never noticed that their mistress had dismissed her normal retinue of toadies, scribes, courtiers and advisors from the chamber, and sat alone atop her throne, brooding in the darkness as the light from the Ultroloth’s eyes washed over her and her expectant smile.
A wave of her hand and a pulse of her will sent the doors to her court slamming shut with a tremor borne of tons of steel and marble, but in the seconds that passed before she rose to greet her guest and closed the doors to ensure her privacy, her guards heard the Ultroloth speak its greeting. The ‘loth’s voice was neither timid nor wracked with pain in the slightest. Without pause the ‘loth’s telepathic voice washed over them like a warm wind over a sailor alone and swimming upon a black ocean with a sudden and sharp undercurrent of cold, dark waters welling up from whatever hidden depths they sprung from. The ‘loths voice left them cold as it spoke in a tone of an equal, or a superior feigning equality, to their mistress, one of the most powerful Lords of Baator itself.
The crashing slam of the doors and their attendant sequestering aura blocked the ‘loths voice and their mistress’s reply so they could not hear their conversation. Neither could the pair of Cornugons see the sable coated Arcanaloth in Carceri within his tower of millions of screaming souls concentrate and project his will across the space of planes to speak through and manipulate his servant like a puppet with invisible strings, smiling darkly as he did so.
“Greetings Lilith, I extend my regards to your recent ascent in power. But there are other things you’ve desired…”
