wolff96 said:
Did Dar change alignments? Or did Valor? I'm confused about that part and would like a little illumination -- if it doesn't spoil anything.
All will become clear... in time.
But I'll throw some major revelations about another character in today's post to tide you over.
* * * * *
Chapter 76
VARO’S CHOICE
Licinius Varo sat in a padded armchair, clad in a simple robe that clung to his lean form. He’d been a comfortable-looking man at once time, approaching portly, but his experience in Rappan Athuk seemed to have scoured him, leaving only bones and skin and a hard edge like that of a sword’s blade. He’d replaced the patch covering the eye he’d lost in the Dungeon of Graves, instead using a glass imitation that more or less matched his good eye. The former tended to focus on different things than the latter, however, which added a certain eeriness to his appearance.
The cleric was writing in a large, leather-bound tome, his pen darting across the parchment, pausing only to draw more ink from the reservoir balanced precariously on one of the chair’s arms. There was another, rougher sheet spread over the adjacent page, covered in a shorthand scrawl that was also his. He was in a small study, with wood-paneled walls and shelves that were bare save for a few thick books and some more writing materials. In addition to the armchair, there was a compact desk that was cluttered with papers. There was one exit, a narrow arch leading to a carpeted hallway. A diffuse light filled the place, originating from nowhere in particular.
Finally, he stopped writing, and leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment. Without looking, he moved the inkwell to the adjacent end table, recovering the lid and settling it in place. He put the quill atop the container, and let out a deep breath.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the writing. He would have to go through it again, to verify that his memory and notes had recorded everything correctly. Every single word. Review of the meaning could come later.
He got up and put the book down on the table, after inserting a piece of blotting material between the pages he’d been working on. Then he stood and walked across the room, rubbing his eyes with ink-stained fingers.
The book was named the
Codex Thanara, and in some ways, it had been his life’s work. He’d first uncovered it twenty years ago, a time when he’d been a very different man than he was today.
For one thing, he’d still been a servant of the Shining Father, in those days.
The book as he’d first encountered it had been a fragmentary collection of loose passages and fragments from a larger work, which its original compiler, a monk named Gravius Thelad, had presumed lost. Thelad had died before Varo’s grandfather had been born, and much of the book was his commentaries upon the material therein, and musings on what might have comprised the missing portions.
The book was in many ways excruciating to read. Some of the references were but a few words long, with pages and pages of missing text. In other cases, the book contained several pages of intact material dealing with esoteric subjects, only to abruptly and suddenly end right when something important had been raised.
The book also had a very strong personal significance for Varo, as it had led to his Fall.
The cleric sighed and stoped his pacing. Not coincidentally, he’d ended up right where he’d started, with the book.
He had to make a decision, he knew. He couldn’t stay here any longer; in fact he’d likely taken too much of a risk staying as long as he had.
He stepped over to the desk and looked at the note again. There was no signature, but the hand of Patrides was as familiar to him as his own.
The message was dated fifteen days ago. The same day he’d entered Rappan Athuk.
My friend Licinius:
If you find this message, then you must already know that you are the last. I take no solace in knowing that I was right, and that the danger posed by the Duke overshadowed any threat that might lurk within Rappan Athuk. As I write this, the Duke’s enforcers have already taken Bravik and Jathen, and others are no doubt being swept up in his nets. I do not blame you for drawing additional attention to our activities; I suspect that these actions would have taken place regardless of your arrest. Quite simply, we refused to accommodate ourselves to the new order, unlike our brothers of the Father, and thus we could not be tolerated.
I have already stayed here longer than is safe. Upon finishing this missive, I will summon the Guardian and return to Camar, to do my best to undo what has been done. I wish you the best of fortune, and hope that the Eyes of the Watcher will be upon you as you follow your own destiny.
Varo put down the letter, and looked again at the other scroll that Patrides had left behind. He hadn’t decided what to do with
that, but it was clear that his former mentor had intended for him to finish his mission. The significance of what was written on that second piece of parchment had complicated things greatly. The fact that it was here had suggested that Patrides had known that he would most likely fail. And the fact that he had failed meant that Varo was confronted with a very difficult choice.
Varo took up the book, and went to another chamber. He passed a bedroom, his armor and weapons scattered on one of the beds. Continuing down the hallway, the wood-paneled walls of the study gave way to bare stone, and he ended up in a small workroom. As he entered the place, his gaze lingered on the doorway in the far wall. Beyond lay the fourth and final room of this sanctuary, and the source of his current indecision. Without conscious intent he found himself going there, and facing his...
What? Prisoner? Guest? Salvation? Curse? The first term might have been chosen by a casual observer. The elf was bound to a wooden rack anchored to the stone wall by black iron fixtures. He hung limply in his bindings, unconscious or insensate, deep within whatever madness still gripped him.
Varo sat down in the small chair in the corner, and watched him.
He could not stay here. If he did, he would eventually end up as mad as the poor creature that fate—or something else—had put within his power. The walls of this shelter were warded, which allowed it to persist in a stable state at all. The sanctuary was located on the plane of Pandemonium, and even in a shielded locale such as this, the eddies of raw power that filled this place had unleashed chaos in his dreams. Eventually, he knew, dream and reality would become intertwined, and he would be driven insane.
This place, so far beyond the reach of their enemies on the Prime, was no sanctuary, he thought. Patrides had known that. In a way, it was a prison.
When he’d first arrived here—how many days had it been?—he hadn’t been sure of what he would find. He’d broken Banth’s
baleful polymorph enchantment, restoring the elf to his natural form. For his own safety—and, he suspected, that of his captive—he had secured the elf to the rack. He’d given the elf food and water, had cleaned up after its biological functions, but the creature did not respond to his questions. For all intents and purposes, it was lost in the same deep coma that it had been in when they’d found it in the dark temple under Rappan Athuk. For two days, he’d tried a variety of spells and prompts, but had gotten no answers from it. He’d even briefly resorted, reluctantly, to physical coercion, but pain stirred the elf no more than anything else.
Then, he’d gotten an unexpected response. He’d brought the
Codex into the room, skimming the passages to see if there was a clue to his current dilemma somewhere in its pages. He must have read something aloud at some point. He almost didn’t realize that the elf had spoken, but when he looked up, and saw the elf staring at him, he felt something cold clench in his chest.
He’d stood and walked over to his captive. The elf was still staring at him, but his eyes were empty, and did not follow his movements. He repeated the fragment he’d read from the book. The passage he’d read was only a few words here and there, bits from a larger document referenced as the “Epitath of the Final Sacrament.”
“
Where for the glory... not in the skin, that tattered rag... let the worms feast upon it.”
The elf responded,
Where for the glory of the horned one does the true essence lie?
Not in the skin, that tattered rag that clothes us; strip it away.
Not in the flesh, mere meat to rot to nothing; let the worms feast upon it.
There had been more. At almost every prompting, the elf had responded, filling in sections of the
Codex, filling Varo’s head with knowledge that had exploded years of assumptions. He had recorded everything furiously, spending days with the elf, forgetting to take food and water, eschewing rest, until his body nearly collapsed under him.
Now, he stood facing his enigma. There were no more passages to recite; he had wrung everything from the elf that it had to give.
He spoke. The elf did not stir; this passage was not from the
Codex. No, this had been told to him by another, by a floating skull within the dungeons of Rappan Athuk.
His question had been, “What is the key to defeating the aspirations of Orcus upon this Prime Material?” The answer he’d gotten was what he said now.
“The Lord of Darkness will ascend to rule
Lest the general, the apostate, and the elflord
Are made whole in heart, soul, and mind
The three anchors of power are sundered
Each of the triad must sacrifice that most dear
And confront together the Master in his den.”
Varo had not gotten a good night’s sleep since the Oracle had spoken to him. It was possible, likely even, that the creature was just another lie, a test like everything else in Rappan Athuk. But he could not shake its words.
He had not shared the words with anyone else, until this moment.
He thought he understood part of it. He was the apostate, and while the ‘elflord’ may have been any of the thousands of elves that lived within or near the borders of Camar, it stretched the bounds of coincidence too far for him to be any other than the poor wretch before him. The general... Tiros? If so, then it was possible that he’d already failed, and the fate outlined in the
Codex in graphically vivid language was doomed to occur.
No. He could not accept that. Even if he was doomed, even if they were all doomed, he could only continue to fight against that fate, the knowledge of which had transformed his life when he had first opened the dusty old tome twenty years ago.
“I am sorry,” he said to the elf.
And then he turned and walked with purpose back to the workroom.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
