Aeon (updated 10/9/14)
carborundum
Adventurer
Blimey! A development, a veritable development 
carborundum
Adventurer
Yea, for aeons to come ;-)
Last edited:
Sepulchrave II
Legend
Effluxion – Part 2: Small Hours
The night air was motionless, and stifling. The stench of death filled it.
Wyrish troops manned the towers and parapets of Galda town and the nearby camp; elite companies of Templars mustered within the inner perimeter. Nehael – Red Nehael – rode alone along the outer rampart, her gaze turned south. Before her, a sea of undead seethed and roiled. Her mind’s eye, which could glimpse ten times further, encountered the same horror magnified a hundredfold.
Still, she shot; each dart which she loosed now caused the earth to convulse, or grasses and vines to grow in explosive violence. Her enemy perished by the battalion; legions replaced them.
[Hlioth]: Now. Shoot [here]
Nehael shot.
The arrow struck the Earth, which shuddered. Hlioth, Teppu and Mesikammi set forth their power: a jade light began to kindle. First, as a pillar, it then erupted as a curtain of shimmering, emerald fire which tore a course six miles in circumference, describing a circle centered on the Elm scion to the north. Nehael watched impassively as it encompassed Galda and penetrated deep into the undead host, stretching upwards into a dome; her deific perception felt it sink beneath her feet. The Green Witch had encapsulated them, sealing off a great multitude of the enemy within. There was a slow surge; a building vibrancy: Viridity coursed. Every atom was energized.
A million undead within the sphere desiccated: a charnel vapor which swiftly dispersed on a purifying wind. An uncanny green light and a profound silence prevailed – none other amongst the enemy might penetrate the barrier and enter within.
[Hlioth]: We’ll see how long that holds. But I am already weary. And Teppu is empty; Shomei has much to answer for.
[Nehael]: I see the emanation beyond the curtain. And she, I: she is less than a league distant. She is angry.
[Hlioth]: I imagine I would be wasting my time if I advised that you wait till sunrise?
Nehael spurred her horse, Sura over the parapet, and rode toward the Embassy.
Cautious, and as yet unprepared for confrontation, Kaalaanala’s Fourth Effluxion withdrew.
**
The spirit of the Eleos soared above the World. Dimensions – which were no more than perspectives – cycled below her: Wyre, Faerie, Mulhuk, Throile; the Viridescent Heaven of the Ahma. The infarction which was Kaalaanala; and beyond, a great clamor at the Veils, as their Mistresses hurled magicks of awful power. The Tree: enduring; oblivious.
On a mountain, the goddess manifested an avatar – a slender maiden, dressed in white – and sat beneath the Yew-ludja in perfect saizhan. Turning her thought to a prior infinity, she grasped an idea, and Magnitude welled suddenly around her. A tempest of Radiance ensued, the Ansin Leoma or Lambent Presence of Oronthon: it illuminated the heaven with such ferocity that Light alone might be perceived. Its currents surrounded her, suffused her, became her.
Her focus narrowed, and a passageway opened. Enitharmon, Marshal of the Host, stepped through. He abased himself before her.
“Faheth,” he breathed. The light receded.
“Yes,” she said unsurely, shook her head, and gestured – she had always been Faheth. The seraph rose smoothly; his frame – of perfect, titanic proportion – dwarfed her. But his countenance remained lowered in obeisance: he would not, or could not, meet her gaze.
She smiled and stood. “You might kneel,” she suggested.
He did so.
“That we might regard one another, not in deference,” she raised an eyebrow. The Eleos reached up and cradled his massive visage within her hands, inviting him to look at her. “Your sword, if you please.”
Mindfully, he drew his weapon – more than twice as tall as she – from its scabbard across his back, and proffered it upon open palms before her .
“Good,” the Eleos touched it gently. “This is no longer required.”
The blade, Shard of Thought, shivered instantly and was broken, its fragments wheeling slowly and eerily through space before dissolving into a fine mist. She stretched up on her toes and kissed his forehead, and the Seal of Truth and Agency which he bore vanished, flaring briefly in her hand before being absorbed.
“The Thought has changed.”
Enitharmon sighed, as a great burden and responsibility left him forever.
“Your tenure is ended; all of your duties, discharged. I am now Sovereign; you may rejoin your peers.”
The greatest of celestials wept as joy overcame him. His spirit soared, engulfed by Magnitude.
The consciousness of the Eleos shifted; the scene changed abruptly: the Ash-ludja towered above her, deep within Nizkur. She was Green again.
*
She reached out with her thought and touched the Enforcer. Presently, a shape appeared before her: a goddess of dark aspect with flaming red hair.
The Eleos scrutinized her. “I have a favor to ask. You succored Nehael once before with regard to this one; will you aid me again?”
Gihaahia scowled. “You are the Eleos; you may mandate whatever you please. Why are you asking?”
“I am appealing to the Claviger: for a broader interpretation of the Wyrish Injunction, so to speak. Is your Law not dynamic?”
“Yes. But I am its executrix, not its architect.”
“The Self begins its reascendance; you may find that you cannot not shirk responsibility for the choice.”
“The Self will be the cause of my demise – one way or another. Even now, the Claviger prepares to cleave to the Aeon. This is precisely to contain the ascendant I. The Morphic must be preserved!”
“Let me mediate that exchange,” the Eleos smiled. “I will lend you a Tree in the meantime. Now, will you help me?”
“Yes,” the Enforcer sighed.
**
It was an hour past midnight; the eerie green light evoked by Hlioth prevailed at Galda. Yeqon, the Fifth Prosecutor, together with the once-seraphs Armen and Tumael and nineteen former episemes, knelt in the posture of saizhan before the Sela: he seemed to be bestowing some kind of benediction.
“This is becoming increasingly surreal,” Ortwine whispered. “What is going on?”
“Shomei has released them,” Nwm explained quietly. “It would appear that these devils are predisposed to adopt the meditational practices of Saizhan with relative ease; Nehael indicated that their mental discipline gives them a certain advantage.”
Mostin snorted. “Shomei has released herself. She has also dismissed Ugales and her other responsibilities. Whatever these guilt-ridden devils subsequently choose to believe is entirely their own determination; at least the burden of their development is no longer hers. She has isolated herself; the library – and the prior infinity – is currently closed. She is entirely focused on her own Perfection.”
“And how long is this gnostic reverie likely to last?” Ortwine inquired.
“Seconds? Millennia? I have no idea.” The Alienist shrugged.
Nwm scowled. “I hope the latter, for all our sakes.”
Unexpectedly, Mostin nodded in agreement.
“Oh?”
Mostin touched his nose with a finger. “Whilst the pursuit of the Urn might preclude Perfection, it does not hold that one who is Perfected cannot successfully pursue the Urn.”
“You believe she will resume her quest for the Urn?” Nwm was aghast.
“Yes. And she will surely succeed,” Mostin replied.
“And then?”
Mostin considered. “She will subsume Hummaz, banish the Claviger and rewrite the Arcane Morphic so that it is more to her liking.”
Nwm raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “Then she will Green-ify?”
“Certainly not…” Mostin hadn’t before considered the possibility. If she absorbed Hummaz what would actually happen?; where the Web of Motes had promised an answer, the Aeon would not permit him to look. “I believe any expression of Hummaz as part of a ‘composite’ entity in defiance of her Will would be deemed a failure by her.”
A vibration.
“She will assert quickly,” Ortwine hissed. “The Hazel stirs.”
Nwm swallowed nervously. “And Nercamay?” He nodded toward the infernal muse; she sat in tranquil reflection some distance from the others.
“Nercamay is eccentric, to say the least,” Mostin observed. “Eadric may have confused her beyond saving.”
Nwm smiled. “Our soteriological notions diverge.”
[Nercamay]: I concur. Actually, I am saved beyond confusion.
[Mostin]: ! Are you eavesdropping, Nercamay?
[Nercamay]: I am merely paying attention.
[Nwm]: Pay no heed to my cynical associates, Nercamay.
“I believe you are rather fond of this fiend, Nwm,” Ortwine raised an eyebrow. There was a time when her nature would have branded her anathema.”
“I have learned to make allowances,” Nwm looked pointedly at Mostin. “Besides, the World is more secure these days.”
Mostin tilted his head and stared. “You stand upon a mote of dirt which bobs in an ocean of pseudoinfinities and I am branded insane because I don’t cling to it?”
[Daunton]: You might want to return to the tower.
[Mostin]: What now?
[Daunton]: The Enforcer…
[Message interrupted]
[Gihaahia]: Make some tea, Mostin. I don’t have all night. And bring the Preceptor.
Mostin swallowed.
**
The Tiger dreamed his way west. Sharing his mind, thirty rebel Anantam and a clique of succubi – former initiates of Soneillon. The Throile Cabal itself had grown to a more than a dozen bickering covens, and included many once subordinate to the exiled queen, as well as evil wyrds, lamias, hags and eccentric once-devils. Loyalty was nonexistent and alliances shifted rapidly, as the Cherry’s transient urges to satiation were manifested through the Cabal. The faction which supported Temenun represented only one of many diverse and conflicting interests; he had no illusion of maintaining its cohesion for long.
Visions sped past: horrors and phantoms which lurked on the edge of nightmares; residual energies from Dhatri’s massive necromancies which still lingered in the dreamscape. Temenun drove through them and skirted a deeper layer: the net of magic woven by the Claviger about Kaalaanala’s Second Effluxion. Its surface seemed absorptive and malleable.
The Cherry – which fed his desire – moved through him. As always, his basest instincts were tempered: his was to contrive a rational program to achieve his object of lust. The goal: to rule unthreatened in idle and despotic languor within a balmy paradise, where his every whim was instantly met. A modest enough ambition in the prior infinity, but one now which might prove less easy to realize. The Embassy, the largest threat to his designs – even Kaalaanala herself – must be diverted: Temenun, in essence, preferred a period of easement to a moment of destruction.
He squeezed around the bubble which isolated the dream larva, perceiving a continual pulse of ultramarine and sapphire which sustained its cage, emanated by the Claviger from the deepest arcane substrate. The Tiger strove to regard the source of the spell, but the Claviger seemed as but a lens for the Dream of Magic itself, and indistinguishable from it. And to a Dream, from beyond the Infinitudes, even the Aeon must bend.
Temenun corporeated. The scene around him was one of madness: a sea of slavering mouths and claws and undead flesh. A hundred yards away, ghouls were turning to dust in swaths before they could approach their target: a goddess in red who bore a slender blade. She had dismissed her steed, and now fought on foot amidst a dense press. Those few who could withstand her presence were quickly dispatched by her steel as she danced serenely amongst them.
Instantly, she apprehended him. She leaped the distance between them, and landed before him, the point of her sword poised at his throat. She read his purpose in a heartbeat.
“Greetings, old cat.” Nehael spoke calmly, and lowered her weapon.
“Goddess,” the Ak’Chazar inclined his head politely, backward palms clasped before him. “If agreeable, you will be my liaison with the Uediian Preceptor and the Wyrish Academy. I should like to meet with them. I will offer nine hundred now, for a return of two thousand split into four parts – the largest no more than seven hundred – within one month. I will also require certain guarantees.”
“Is this an admission of my authority, Temenun?” Nehael asked.
“By no means,” the Tiger smiled, baring many fangs. “Merely a recognition of your power, which is considerable. I have issues with any authority which is not my own.”
Nehael sighed. “You’d better behave yourself. And don’t provoke Mostin; he is anxious to obliterate you. As to my prerogative – when I choose to wear black, be assured that you will be the first to know it.”
“It would suit you very well. Will you guarantee the oaths to which we testify?”
“For my enemy, you assume many favors.”
“Yeshe invoked the Goddess; now she is cocooned within Nizkur. I am cautious.”
“That was a different Nehael, to be sure,” Nehael smiled. “Have no doubt that if you betray me then I will spare you the indignity of incarceration.”
“Your compassion is noted.” Temenun spoke wrily.
**
“Had you even noticed that Oronthon’s Ahma is missing?” The Enforcer inquired. She had manifested as a lean, muscular goddess of early middle age. Nwm looked at her curiously; there was something Green protecting her.
“I had not,” Nwm admitted. “Is he safe?”
“He is dead,” Gihaahia smiled wickedly.
“Again?” Ortwine asked. “I did not realize that he and I were in competition.”
“And I did not realize that I had invited you to this audience.” The Enforcer tilted her head.
“I forgive the oversight,” Ortwine smiled benignly.
“You, of course, realize that you will have more than one effluxion to contend with before morning?”
Ortwine glanced sideways at Mostin.
“That would be unfortunate,” Mostin swallowed.
Gihaahia looked at Mostin as though her were simple. “If Kaalaanala is bending all her thought and will here now, necessarily all of her avatars will converge. This is obvious, yes?”
“Yes,” Mostin looked sceptical. “No, not really. What is your involvement here?”
She sighed. “Consider function, Mostin. The First Effluxion – the phaethon which ravagaed Fumaril – is Kaalaanala’s obdurate ire directed toward – at that time, actually mostly the Ahma and Mulissu. Although I suppose also you, for your Tower and your Ú.
“The Second manifested in resonance with the Claviger’s tuning of the Morphic; this dream larva liberated many chthonics in the process. The Claviger has been forced to suppress its action; the avatar is effectively contained within a nightmare prison of the Claviger’s devising.
“The Third Effluxion is a reflex which embodies Kaalaanala’s frustration with the Law of the Injunction and its agent – namely me. You will notice that two of these emanations already chart courses running directly counter to my interests.”
“And the Fourth?” Mostin inquired. “The Embassy?”
“A much more rational manifestation of hatred,” Gihaahia smiled disturbingly. “The Great Dark Fire has assumed the shape of a human – at least a semblance of one; she deigns to enter the World of Men.”
“If this is leading somewhere specific…”
“A great Bhīti may efflux fivefold,” Gihaahia spoke impassively.
“There will be a Fifth?” Nwm groaned. “Why has it not already shown itself?”
“Its form will be contingent upon the stimuli which provoke Kaalaanala,” the Enforcer stared hard at him.
“She is holding an avatar in reserve,” Mostin sighed. “I can’t say I blame her – although I suspect her choice is visceral, not considered.”
“Do you know the form it will take?” Nwm asked.
“Yes,” Gihaahia nodded. “It will be nuanced.”
“You knew there would be a Fifth?” Nwm looked to the Alienist.
“I had my fingers crossed that there might not,” Mostin waved his hand. He turned to the Enforcer. “You have still to reveal your purpose here.”
“I will be going into a brief stasis,” Gihaahia spoke steadily. “I should warn you that any misdemeanors committed against the Injunction will be prosecuted enthusiastically when I reanimate.”
“But…” Daunton opened his mouth for the first time.
Gihaahia silenced him with a glance. “I have yet to devise a suitable penance for your sedition; involving yourself with Shomei’s mischief. Consider yourself on probation. Perhaps I should appoint a new president on my return?”
Tyrant, Daunton thought.
Her eyes flickered at him. He quailed.
“Why the hibernation?” Mostin asked.
“The Claviger needs that which has been lent to me returned to it – for a short while.”
“And who is supposed to uphold the Injunction in the meantime?”
Gihaahia shrugged. “The Academy must police itself. The Articles are clear enough.”
“We will need lawyers,” Daunton groaned. “How awful. Tyranny might be preferable.”
“I am dispensing some advice before I absent myself,” the Enforcer sighed, staring pointedly at the Alienist. “The Embassy will need transvalents to penetrate your spellwarp, Mostin; you can endure her conventional magic – the same is not true of the rest of you; you will all die if she targets you with spells. On the other hand, Mostin, if you attract her attention …”
“Such as by not dying,” Ortwine interjected drily.
“She will single you out…”
“And kill you, Mostin.” Ortwine finished.
“How do you abide this deity’s presence?” Gihaahia inquired of Mostin, glowering at Ortwine.
“I close my ears,” Mostin nodded sagely.
“My advice, regardless, is give all thought to offense.”
“Oh, I already had,” Mostin nodded.
“There is a spell.”
“There is?”
“It is for Nwm; hence I required his presence here.” [Spell]
Mostin scowled. “This is an Enochia. It is also of the two thousand two hundredth order. We don’t have that kind of juice; every reservoir is empty. We might get a twelve hundred with every caster – of every persuasion – participating.”
“And I will not invoke the celestial host,” Nwm said through gritted teeth.
“You could not if you tried,” Gihaahia smiled. “This is to conjure a sunwyrm. Here is the mitigation.” [Formula]
Mostin looked sceptical. “This equation is illegal. You cannot simply cancel those infinities to balance it. And the backlash is preposterous. And where does this nine hundred come from?”
Gihaahia raised an eyebrow. “I make the rules, Mostin. Temenun will approach you with a deal. Accept it.”
“Are you insane? The Cherry’s agenda… ”
Nwm shook his head and nodded in understanding at the same time, his chin describing a figure-of-eight. “Not exactly an agenda. It will amplify his desire, and the Rakshasa is fundamentally lazy and vain; the Tiger wants to be left alone. Personally, I’ll settle for a cat-who-naps.”
“Until a higher paradigm asserts,” Mostin sighed.
“What is this sunwyrm of which you speak? Its provenance?” Nwm asked.
“Mixed. Oronthon. Or Uedii. Or the Aeon emanates many forms. It is new.”
“A new despot?” Ortwine inquired.
“No. It is a herald; sometimes a rearguard. You must provide it with context.”
“A herald for whom?” Ortwine asked.
“The Ahma,” Gihaahia gave a ghastly grin. “You must invite him back, Nwm. The Sun.”
“Exactly how much backlash are we talking, here?”
[This much]
Nwm’s eyes widened. “Even I cannot burn that hot; I am a mortal: I would not withstand it.”
“Your mortality is not relevant,” Gihaahia said dismissively.
“I am but a man.”
“Narh is but a horse,” the Enforcer retorted. “Yet superior to most. Am I a goddess? If so, then heed my advice.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Choose a Tree,” the Infernal’s eyes narrowed. “Take refuge in it. You’ve been hedging your bets. It’s time you assumed a position.”
“I cannot align myself with some limited perspective; my purview must be broad.”
“I am talking of practical measures, Nwm, not philosophical commitments. There must be some quality which would be of benefit.”
“There are many.”
“Then choose. Now is your time. What now?”
Nwm sighed. “If one, then durity; the temper of the Ash.”
“Well, of course,” Gihaahia sighed. Her hand suddenly held a slender staff: it appeared as though hewn from a bough of living ash, with silver-grey bark still upon it. It drew Nwm’s mind in; its knots and whorls were harder than adamant.
The Preceptor held up his hands, and shook his head. “I do not own; I cannot accept such a thing.”
She pressed it into his hand. “This is no thing, Nwm. It is the limb of a ludja. And who said anything about ownership?”
His fingers curled around it, and his awareness exploded.
“You must hold something in reserve,” Gihaahia cautioned him. “These rest, not so much; although keeping enough of them alive might prove a challenge in itself.”
Nwm nodded, and gave a the Enforcer a puzzled glance; he knew that the same ludja – at the behest of Uedii’s reflection – had extended its protection to her.
“The ascetic has a magic staff?” Ortwine inquired archly.
Without warning, Nwm struck her rump soundly with it, causing her to exhale sharply and her eyes to widen in indignation.
“No.” The Preceptor replied. “It’s just a stick.”
And so it was. The power was in him now.
“And when you return?” Mostin asked the Enforcer.
“I will resume my former duties. But the Claviger is binding itself to the Aeon; to Pharamne. The Morphic will be Transcendental and will not be overturned. Shomei cannot challenge it.”
“Shomei will find a way.”
“No, Mostin,” Gihaahia sighed. “She will not need to. She remains exempt.”
“And how long is this absence of yours likely to last?”
“As long as it lasts, Mostin.” Abruptly, Gihaahia vanished.
[Nehael]: Daunton. Mostin. Nwm. Temenun wishes to parley. He offers nine hundred – with certain stipulations, naturally.
The night air was motionless, and stifling. The stench of death filled it.
Wyrish troops manned the towers and parapets of Galda town and the nearby camp; elite companies of Templars mustered within the inner perimeter. Nehael – Red Nehael – rode alone along the outer rampart, her gaze turned south. Before her, a sea of undead seethed and roiled. Her mind’s eye, which could glimpse ten times further, encountered the same horror magnified a hundredfold.
Still, she shot; each dart which she loosed now caused the earth to convulse, or grasses and vines to grow in explosive violence. Her enemy perished by the battalion; legions replaced them.
[Hlioth]: Now. Shoot [here]
Nehael shot.
The arrow struck the Earth, which shuddered. Hlioth, Teppu and Mesikammi set forth their power: a jade light began to kindle. First, as a pillar, it then erupted as a curtain of shimmering, emerald fire which tore a course six miles in circumference, describing a circle centered on the Elm scion to the north. Nehael watched impassively as it encompassed Galda and penetrated deep into the undead host, stretching upwards into a dome; her deific perception felt it sink beneath her feet. The Green Witch had encapsulated them, sealing off a great multitude of the enemy within. There was a slow surge; a building vibrancy: Viridity coursed. Every atom was energized.
A million undead within the sphere desiccated: a charnel vapor which swiftly dispersed on a purifying wind. An uncanny green light and a profound silence prevailed – none other amongst the enemy might penetrate the barrier and enter within.
[Hlioth]: We’ll see how long that holds. But I am already weary. And Teppu is empty; Shomei has much to answer for.
[Nehael]: I see the emanation beyond the curtain. And she, I: she is less than a league distant. She is angry.
[Hlioth]: I imagine I would be wasting my time if I advised that you wait till sunrise?
Nehael spurred her horse, Sura over the parapet, and rode toward the Embassy.
Cautious, and as yet unprepared for confrontation, Kaalaanala’s Fourth Effluxion withdrew.
**
The spirit of the Eleos soared above the World. Dimensions – which were no more than perspectives – cycled below her: Wyre, Faerie, Mulhuk, Throile; the Viridescent Heaven of the Ahma. The infarction which was Kaalaanala; and beyond, a great clamor at the Veils, as their Mistresses hurled magicks of awful power. The Tree: enduring; oblivious.
On a mountain, the goddess manifested an avatar – a slender maiden, dressed in white – and sat beneath the Yew-ludja in perfect saizhan. Turning her thought to a prior infinity, she grasped an idea, and Magnitude welled suddenly around her. A tempest of Radiance ensued, the Ansin Leoma or Lambent Presence of Oronthon: it illuminated the heaven with such ferocity that Light alone might be perceived. Its currents surrounded her, suffused her, became her.
Her focus narrowed, and a passageway opened. Enitharmon, Marshal of the Host, stepped through. He abased himself before her.
“Faheth,” he breathed. The light receded.
“Yes,” she said unsurely, shook her head, and gestured – she had always been Faheth. The seraph rose smoothly; his frame – of perfect, titanic proportion – dwarfed her. But his countenance remained lowered in obeisance: he would not, or could not, meet her gaze.
She smiled and stood. “You might kneel,” she suggested.
He did so.
“That we might regard one another, not in deference,” she raised an eyebrow. The Eleos reached up and cradled his massive visage within her hands, inviting him to look at her. “Your sword, if you please.”
Mindfully, he drew his weapon – more than twice as tall as she – from its scabbard across his back, and proffered it upon open palms before her .
“Good,” the Eleos touched it gently. “This is no longer required.”
The blade, Shard of Thought, shivered instantly and was broken, its fragments wheeling slowly and eerily through space before dissolving into a fine mist. She stretched up on her toes and kissed his forehead, and the Seal of Truth and Agency which he bore vanished, flaring briefly in her hand before being absorbed.
“The Thought has changed.”
Enitharmon sighed, as a great burden and responsibility left him forever.
“Your tenure is ended; all of your duties, discharged. I am now Sovereign; you may rejoin your peers.”
The greatest of celestials wept as joy overcame him. His spirit soared, engulfed by Magnitude.
The consciousness of the Eleos shifted; the scene changed abruptly: the Ash-ludja towered above her, deep within Nizkur. She was Green again.
*
She reached out with her thought and touched the Enforcer. Presently, a shape appeared before her: a goddess of dark aspect with flaming red hair.
The Eleos scrutinized her. “I have a favor to ask. You succored Nehael once before with regard to this one; will you aid me again?”
Gihaahia scowled. “You are the Eleos; you may mandate whatever you please. Why are you asking?”
“I am appealing to the Claviger: for a broader interpretation of the Wyrish Injunction, so to speak. Is your Law not dynamic?”
“Yes. But I am its executrix, not its architect.”
“The Self begins its reascendance; you may find that you cannot not shirk responsibility for the choice.”
“The Self will be the cause of my demise – one way or another. Even now, the Claviger prepares to cleave to the Aeon. This is precisely to contain the ascendant I. The Morphic must be preserved!”
“Let me mediate that exchange,” the Eleos smiled. “I will lend you a Tree in the meantime. Now, will you help me?”
“Yes,” the Enforcer sighed.
**
It was an hour past midnight; the eerie green light evoked by Hlioth prevailed at Galda. Yeqon, the Fifth Prosecutor, together with the once-seraphs Armen and Tumael and nineteen former episemes, knelt in the posture of saizhan before the Sela: he seemed to be bestowing some kind of benediction.
“This is becoming increasingly surreal,” Ortwine whispered. “What is going on?”
“Shomei has released them,” Nwm explained quietly. “It would appear that these devils are predisposed to adopt the meditational practices of Saizhan with relative ease; Nehael indicated that their mental discipline gives them a certain advantage.”
Mostin snorted. “Shomei has released herself. She has also dismissed Ugales and her other responsibilities. Whatever these guilt-ridden devils subsequently choose to believe is entirely their own determination; at least the burden of their development is no longer hers. She has isolated herself; the library – and the prior infinity – is currently closed. She is entirely focused on her own Perfection.”
“And how long is this gnostic reverie likely to last?” Ortwine inquired.
“Seconds? Millennia? I have no idea.” The Alienist shrugged.
Nwm scowled. “I hope the latter, for all our sakes.”
Unexpectedly, Mostin nodded in agreement.
“Oh?”
Mostin touched his nose with a finger. “Whilst the pursuit of the Urn might preclude Perfection, it does not hold that one who is Perfected cannot successfully pursue the Urn.”
“You believe she will resume her quest for the Urn?” Nwm was aghast.
“Yes. And she will surely succeed,” Mostin replied.
“And then?”
Mostin considered. “She will subsume Hummaz, banish the Claviger and rewrite the Arcane Morphic so that it is more to her liking.”
Nwm raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “Then she will Green-ify?”
“Certainly not…” Mostin hadn’t before considered the possibility. If she absorbed Hummaz what would actually happen?; where the Web of Motes had promised an answer, the Aeon would not permit him to look. “I believe any expression of Hummaz as part of a ‘composite’ entity in defiance of her Will would be deemed a failure by her.”
A vibration.
“She will assert quickly,” Ortwine hissed. “The Hazel stirs.”
Nwm swallowed nervously. “And Nercamay?” He nodded toward the infernal muse; she sat in tranquil reflection some distance from the others.
“Nercamay is eccentric, to say the least,” Mostin observed. “Eadric may have confused her beyond saving.”
Nwm smiled. “Our soteriological notions diverge.”
[Nercamay]: I concur. Actually, I am saved beyond confusion.
[Mostin]: ! Are you eavesdropping, Nercamay?
[Nercamay]: I am merely paying attention.
[Nwm]: Pay no heed to my cynical associates, Nercamay.
“I believe you are rather fond of this fiend, Nwm,” Ortwine raised an eyebrow. There was a time when her nature would have branded her anathema.”
“I have learned to make allowances,” Nwm looked pointedly at Mostin. “Besides, the World is more secure these days.”
Mostin tilted his head and stared. “You stand upon a mote of dirt which bobs in an ocean of pseudoinfinities and I am branded insane because I don’t cling to it?”
[Daunton]: You might want to return to the tower.
[Mostin]: What now?
[Daunton]: The Enforcer…
[Message interrupted]
[Gihaahia]: Make some tea, Mostin. I don’t have all night. And bring the Preceptor.
Mostin swallowed.
**
The Tiger dreamed his way west. Sharing his mind, thirty rebel Anantam and a clique of succubi – former initiates of Soneillon. The Throile Cabal itself had grown to a more than a dozen bickering covens, and included many once subordinate to the exiled queen, as well as evil wyrds, lamias, hags and eccentric once-devils. Loyalty was nonexistent and alliances shifted rapidly, as the Cherry’s transient urges to satiation were manifested through the Cabal. The faction which supported Temenun represented only one of many diverse and conflicting interests; he had no illusion of maintaining its cohesion for long.
Visions sped past: horrors and phantoms which lurked on the edge of nightmares; residual energies from Dhatri’s massive necromancies which still lingered in the dreamscape. Temenun drove through them and skirted a deeper layer: the net of magic woven by the Claviger about Kaalaanala’s Second Effluxion. Its surface seemed absorptive and malleable.
The Cherry – which fed his desire – moved through him. As always, his basest instincts were tempered: his was to contrive a rational program to achieve his object of lust. The goal: to rule unthreatened in idle and despotic languor within a balmy paradise, where his every whim was instantly met. A modest enough ambition in the prior infinity, but one now which might prove less easy to realize. The Embassy, the largest threat to his designs – even Kaalaanala herself – must be diverted: Temenun, in essence, preferred a period of easement to a moment of destruction.
He squeezed around the bubble which isolated the dream larva, perceiving a continual pulse of ultramarine and sapphire which sustained its cage, emanated by the Claviger from the deepest arcane substrate. The Tiger strove to regard the source of the spell, but the Claviger seemed as but a lens for the Dream of Magic itself, and indistinguishable from it. And to a Dream, from beyond the Infinitudes, even the Aeon must bend.
Temenun corporeated. The scene around him was one of madness: a sea of slavering mouths and claws and undead flesh. A hundred yards away, ghouls were turning to dust in swaths before they could approach their target: a goddess in red who bore a slender blade. She had dismissed her steed, and now fought on foot amidst a dense press. Those few who could withstand her presence were quickly dispatched by her steel as she danced serenely amongst them.
Instantly, she apprehended him. She leaped the distance between them, and landed before him, the point of her sword poised at his throat. She read his purpose in a heartbeat.
“Greetings, old cat.” Nehael spoke calmly, and lowered her weapon.
“Goddess,” the Ak’Chazar inclined his head politely, backward palms clasped before him. “If agreeable, you will be my liaison with the Uediian Preceptor and the Wyrish Academy. I should like to meet with them. I will offer nine hundred now, for a return of two thousand split into four parts – the largest no more than seven hundred – within one month. I will also require certain guarantees.”
“Is this an admission of my authority, Temenun?” Nehael asked.
“By no means,” the Tiger smiled, baring many fangs. “Merely a recognition of your power, which is considerable. I have issues with any authority which is not my own.”
Nehael sighed. “You’d better behave yourself. And don’t provoke Mostin; he is anxious to obliterate you. As to my prerogative – when I choose to wear black, be assured that you will be the first to know it.”
“It would suit you very well. Will you guarantee the oaths to which we testify?”
“For my enemy, you assume many favors.”
“Yeshe invoked the Goddess; now she is cocooned within Nizkur. I am cautious.”
“That was a different Nehael, to be sure,” Nehael smiled. “Have no doubt that if you betray me then I will spare you the indignity of incarceration.”
“Your compassion is noted.” Temenun spoke wrily.
**
“Had you even noticed that Oronthon’s Ahma is missing?” The Enforcer inquired. She had manifested as a lean, muscular goddess of early middle age. Nwm looked at her curiously; there was something Green protecting her.
“I had not,” Nwm admitted. “Is he safe?”
“He is dead,” Gihaahia smiled wickedly.
“Again?” Ortwine asked. “I did not realize that he and I were in competition.”
“And I did not realize that I had invited you to this audience.” The Enforcer tilted her head.
“I forgive the oversight,” Ortwine smiled benignly.
“You, of course, realize that you will have more than one effluxion to contend with before morning?”
Ortwine glanced sideways at Mostin.
“That would be unfortunate,” Mostin swallowed.
Gihaahia looked at Mostin as though her were simple. “If Kaalaanala is bending all her thought and will here now, necessarily all of her avatars will converge. This is obvious, yes?”
“Yes,” Mostin looked sceptical. “No, not really. What is your involvement here?”
She sighed. “Consider function, Mostin. The First Effluxion – the phaethon which ravagaed Fumaril – is Kaalaanala’s obdurate ire directed toward – at that time, actually mostly the Ahma and Mulissu. Although I suppose also you, for your Tower and your Ú.
“The Second manifested in resonance with the Claviger’s tuning of the Morphic; this dream larva liberated many chthonics in the process. The Claviger has been forced to suppress its action; the avatar is effectively contained within a nightmare prison of the Claviger’s devising.
“The Third Effluxion is a reflex which embodies Kaalaanala’s frustration with the Law of the Injunction and its agent – namely me. You will notice that two of these emanations already chart courses running directly counter to my interests.”
“And the Fourth?” Mostin inquired. “The Embassy?”
“A much more rational manifestation of hatred,” Gihaahia smiled disturbingly. “The Great Dark Fire has assumed the shape of a human – at least a semblance of one; she deigns to enter the World of Men.”
“If this is leading somewhere specific…”
“A great Bhīti may efflux fivefold,” Gihaahia spoke impassively.
“There will be a Fifth?” Nwm groaned. “Why has it not already shown itself?”
“Its form will be contingent upon the stimuli which provoke Kaalaanala,” the Enforcer stared hard at him.
“She is holding an avatar in reserve,” Mostin sighed. “I can’t say I blame her – although I suspect her choice is visceral, not considered.”
“Do you know the form it will take?” Nwm asked.
“Yes,” Gihaahia nodded. “It will be nuanced.”
“You knew there would be a Fifth?” Nwm looked to the Alienist.
“I had my fingers crossed that there might not,” Mostin waved his hand. He turned to the Enforcer. “You have still to reveal your purpose here.”
“I will be going into a brief stasis,” Gihaahia spoke steadily. “I should warn you that any misdemeanors committed against the Injunction will be prosecuted enthusiastically when I reanimate.”
“But…” Daunton opened his mouth for the first time.
Gihaahia silenced him with a glance. “I have yet to devise a suitable penance for your sedition; involving yourself with Shomei’s mischief. Consider yourself on probation. Perhaps I should appoint a new president on my return?”
Tyrant, Daunton thought.
Her eyes flickered at him. He quailed.
“Why the hibernation?” Mostin asked.
“The Claviger needs that which has been lent to me returned to it – for a short while.”
“And who is supposed to uphold the Injunction in the meantime?”
Gihaahia shrugged. “The Academy must police itself. The Articles are clear enough.”
“We will need lawyers,” Daunton groaned. “How awful. Tyranny might be preferable.”
“I am dispensing some advice before I absent myself,” the Enforcer sighed, staring pointedly at the Alienist. “The Embassy will need transvalents to penetrate your spellwarp, Mostin; you can endure her conventional magic – the same is not true of the rest of you; you will all die if she targets you with spells. On the other hand, Mostin, if you attract her attention …”
“Such as by not dying,” Ortwine interjected drily.
“She will single you out…”
“And kill you, Mostin.” Ortwine finished.
“How do you abide this deity’s presence?” Gihaahia inquired of Mostin, glowering at Ortwine.
“I close my ears,” Mostin nodded sagely.
“My advice, regardless, is give all thought to offense.”
“Oh, I already had,” Mostin nodded.
“There is a spell.”
“There is?”
“It is for Nwm; hence I required his presence here.” [Spell]
Mostin scowled. “This is an Enochia. It is also of the two thousand two hundredth order. We don’t have that kind of juice; every reservoir is empty. We might get a twelve hundred with every caster – of every persuasion – participating.”
“And I will not invoke the celestial host,” Nwm said through gritted teeth.
“You could not if you tried,” Gihaahia smiled. “This is to conjure a sunwyrm. Here is the mitigation.” [Formula]
Mostin looked sceptical. “This equation is illegal. You cannot simply cancel those infinities to balance it. And the backlash is preposterous. And where does this nine hundred come from?”
Gihaahia raised an eyebrow. “I make the rules, Mostin. Temenun will approach you with a deal. Accept it.”
“Are you insane? The Cherry’s agenda… ”
Nwm shook his head and nodded in understanding at the same time, his chin describing a figure-of-eight. “Not exactly an agenda. It will amplify his desire, and the Rakshasa is fundamentally lazy and vain; the Tiger wants to be left alone. Personally, I’ll settle for a cat-who-naps.”
“Until a higher paradigm asserts,” Mostin sighed.
“What is this sunwyrm of which you speak? Its provenance?” Nwm asked.
“Mixed. Oronthon. Or Uedii. Or the Aeon emanates many forms. It is new.”
“A new despot?” Ortwine inquired.
“No. It is a herald; sometimes a rearguard. You must provide it with context.”
“A herald for whom?” Ortwine asked.
“The Ahma,” Gihaahia gave a ghastly grin. “You must invite him back, Nwm. The Sun.”
“Exactly how much backlash are we talking, here?”
[This much]
Nwm’s eyes widened. “Even I cannot burn that hot; I am a mortal: I would not withstand it.”
“Your mortality is not relevant,” Gihaahia said dismissively.
“I am but a man.”
“Narh is but a horse,” the Enforcer retorted. “Yet superior to most. Am I a goddess? If so, then heed my advice.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Choose a Tree,” the Infernal’s eyes narrowed. “Take refuge in it. You’ve been hedging your bets. It’s time you assumed a position.”
“I cannot align myself with some limited perspective; my purview must be broad.”
“I am talking of practical measures, Nwm, not philosophical commitments. There must be some quality which would be of benefit.”
“There are many.”
“Then choose. Now is your time. What now?”
Nwm sighed. “If one, then durity; the temper of the Ash.”
“Well, of course,” Gihaahia sighed. Her hand suddenly held a slender staff: it appeared as though hewn from a bough of living ash, with silver-grey bark still upon it. It drew Nwm’s mind in; its knots and whorls were harder than adamant.
The Preceptor held up his hands, and shook his head. “I do not own; I cannot accept such a thing.”
She pressed it into his hand. “This is no thing, Nwm. It is the limb of a ludja. And who said anything about ownership?”
His fingers curled around it, and his awareness exploded.
“You must hold something in reserve,” Gihaahia cautioned him. “These rest, not so much; although keeping enough of them alive might prove a challenge in itself.”
Nwm nodded, and gave a the Enforcer a puzzled glance; he knew that the same ludja – at the behest of Uedii’s reflection – had extended its protection to her.
“The ascetic has a magic staff?” Ortwine inquired archly.
Without warning, Nwm struck her rump soundly with it, causing her to exhale sharply and her eyes to widen in indignation.
“No.” The Preceptor replied. “It’s just a stick.”
And so it was. The power was in him now.
“And when you return?” Mostin asked the Enforcer.
“I will resume my former duties. But the Claviger is binding itself to the Aeon; to Pharamne. The Morphic will be Transcendental and will not be overturned. Shomei cannot challenge it.”
“Shomei will find a way.”
“No, Mostin,” Gihaahia sighed. “She will not need to. She remains exempt.”
“And how long is this absence of yours likely to last?”
“As long as it lasts, Mostin.” Abruptly, Gihaahia vanished.
[Nehael]: Daunton. Mostin. Nwm. Temenun wishes to parley. He offers nine hundred – with certain stipulations, naturally.
carborundum
Adventurer
Wow.
