The Camp of Aul’Domn
“It is Remembered that Yshkerdos joined the Kerawegh of Uosiega and walks among their camp freely; his… creation is with him.”
TREASON!
The word was spat by many mouths; not by all though, Sorcerer Akhe noticed. Not by her either.
“The Steelshaper invited us to engage in talks with her,” she said, once the shouting had ceased. “Is anyone really surprised that the Steelmancer followed through on his own? We ignored the Aghm he brought because we disliked the manner in which he gained it. Who betrayed whom?”
“Enough!” the elder sorcerer, Aghanas, growled.
“No, Instructor,” she retorted, her eyes already fired up. Then, her anger purred in hesitation for a moment, and she almost backed down. Part of her mind cautioned her; it had been a long meeting, with many conflicts and much Aghm had been distributed in duels of steel and the elements alike. She knew she was too riled up from the day and wisdom advised caution and Temper.
Wisdom be burned. She’d had enough.
“No!” she went on, her eyes fired up once more. “I will not be silenced. We have spent the day debating about anything but what matters. Many have left and many more have been silenced for a Duty or more. Why bring this up now? The report came with Lightrise. The Steelshaper returned. He claimed he was put to rest outside the Hall so that the Hold would not see his Memories. He claimed the Hold turned against him. For what? For teaching Temper!”
Silence had fallen at the gathering, broken only by the torches puffing and hissing.
“And now he has another lesson. He says we must listen. He says that much like his Memories were conveniently set aside, there could be others. He said the Castes should be freed from their bonds of Aghm and seek the Ancestors, for they live. And he asked for us to join and seek them out. And what did we do? We kicked him out. Again. Now we call him traitor.”
“Steelmancer Yshkerdos is crazy, Learner,” Aghanas responded. His voice was calm and dangerous; like the steady heat of white coal. “A genius, yes. But a crazy one. Do you think our ancestors woke up one Duty and decided to attack their own mentor? Do you think they simply sought his Aghm, ignoring his genius? We have asked for the Mnemancers to retrieve his Memory from his resting place. He laughed and said his Stoneforged is his Memory. We asked to examine it. He threatened to end us. He expected to be heard because he is Yshkerdos yet, but for his Stoneforged, he offered no proof; only threats. That is not leadership. That is arrogance. His hybris almost ended him before; by his own account.”
“Are we to try and kill him again?” then, she said.
“No.” The elder Sorcerer paused, his voice heavy but calm. “You say he taught Temper but he did not; he claimed to be its Master and ordered us to follow blindly as Ardent. This is Temper, Learner. Thoughtful steps. Mastery over the urges. Under the guise of urgency, he invited us to abandon all we are. It is no surprise the Kerawegh listened.” He paused once more, scanning the crowd for the effect of his words. Calm had finally settled over them, Akhe noticed, and even she was thoughtful.
“What say the others?” the Elder said.
Vote in the Living World!
Prelude
She was almost there. She could feel it.
Onynkha smiled widely, wiping the sweat from her brow. If that wasn’t an indication of how far deep, how close she was, then the blood in her veins, pulsing, reacting, calling, was. She was reaching the end of her journey, she would achieve what no one else in her group had. She would reach her destination. She would finish her journey.
She would complete the Dheukhorro.
Untelos, Migkhas and Anadhali had given up so early, she thought, almost with scorn. They had hardly reached the first Delves, before they returned. Nekklash, Pendegha and Orobhos had gone on with her, before Nekklash turned heel after the cave with the fire leeches. It was just three since, for a long time, fighting anything the Delves threw at them, before they decided to split and wished each other well. From then on, she had been alone. As alone as any person had ever been. She had heard the roaring fires of the Delves around her, ever remaining blind to their light in her dark solitude. She had felt the weight of the world above her, even as she could not even see the ceiling of the impossible caverns she traversed. She had crawled into holes that should not have air for her to breathe or space for her to be. Deeper and deeper into the Delves she had ventured, fighting things, fighting thoughts, fighting madness; but still she had gone deeper still. Until, at last, she could feel the end being here.
For a moment, she doubted, and her doubt – she felt – made the walls around her close in, eager to swallow her. She fought the panic that threatened to kill her. No. She would not fall, not now, not so close to the end. She walked on.
Then she heard the steps.
Her first thought was to ignore them. She was imagining it, she was sure. The Delves were fighting her with all the one desperate tool they had left at their disposal: her own sanity. But she knew better. She had gone deeper than any she had ever spoken to. There was no one here. Only the Dheukorro, only the pilgrim and the path. For a moment, she wondered if it could be Pendegha or Orobhos, if they had made it too. But no. It was just her mind, she was sure.
Then, she saw the light and the hair at the back of her head rose. For the first time in her life she knew fear – true, unfiltered, uncontrollable fear. This was no trick. She could see the shape of a Dweghom figure, even as her eyes were blinded by the light – a torch which burned brighter than the sun. It was no one she knew. This she realized when the Dweghom simply passed her by. But even as her hair moved from the air of his walk, she thought that it was no one that could be, for the weight of each step was nothing like anything she had ever imagined could be. And yet, it was as true, she felt, as the fact that she knew, without a doubt, what the figure was. And, more frighteningly, where it was going.
It was going up.
The Shrine of The Memory of Three,
on the shores of the Jaw of Ghisghigamosh
The Watchtower of Hold of Uosiega
“I am telling you, its naught but water and air in her head.”
Fledgis slapped the back of his head hard enough for the helm to make a CLANG sound.
“You watch your words, Mantagh,” she said, half-angry, half-concerned. “Anyone hear you call the Kerawegh an airhead, and we’ll both be put under the water; you for speaking, me for listening.”
“Proving my point of just how crazy she is,” Mantagh went on, but his voice no louder than a whisper this time.
“Call her what you will,” Fledgis retorted, “but she has them by the throats now, our lady, she does. While the idiots of the other holds were fighting over the crumbs of Aghm the northern warriors offered, she fell upon them both like a mountain. On the field just the day before, she almost downed Aul’Domn’s Raegh, or so Azhignas Remembers.”
“Don’t get me started on Azhi-“
Another slap stopped him, as she went on, uninterrupted. “I heard him Remember before the Mnemancers. This isn’t boasting. Not even… wait, do you hear that?”
Fledgis frowned, then peaked from the embrasure of the watchtower’s battlement, scanning the darkness towards the Shrine and the known paths and routes from the other camps to theirs.
I don’t see anything, Mantagh motioned, peaking from the next embrasure himself, then moved on to check on the other side and signal the second post to be alert. Fledgis kept looking where she stood and, not seeing anything, she tilted her head, then even removed her helmet and listened. She could almost see something and almost hear something but…
“Yes, yes, yes..!” she heard from behind her and her blood cooled in her veins, before she snapped her helmet back and turned to salute. Without the huge symbol of the Prison on her back, she was almost hard to recognize, but her tight plaits and her grey, dancing eyes were unmistakable.
“Kerawegh…” Fledgis muttered, as she caught her breath, when the woman waved dismissively.
“You have good instinct, Fledgis,” Astagha said. There is something out there. It walks around the Shrine and examines the Memory there. It is something… old. Something heavy. I’d say it is so full of Aghm that the air bends around it and the world sighs with every step it takes. You have good instinct indeed.”
“But, if it had Aghm…?”
“HA! Hahahahaha!” the Kerawegh laughed, excited. “Good brains too, good brains! Yes, it would be Dweghom, no? I say Aghm but I sense no Dweghom. Not exactly. So… We are blind, we are deaf, but we know it is there. It can’t be big, we would see and hear it, and it can’t be small, for how could it have such weight? And it can’t be Dweghom for no Dweghom here could stir us so. So! What do we do?”
“You… ask me?” the warrior asked, her cheeks flushed.
“Why not you? You are Dweghom, are you not? You are as qualified as I am to think – if not to decide. So. What do we do? Do we try to secure it by force? Do we try to talk to it? Do we wait and see what our enemies will do?”
“Why would we-“
“Drip drip, little Fledgis. The waterglass trickles fast…”
Choice
- Attack the thing, whatever it is, and secure it before the enemies.
- Wait to see what the other Holds do first.
- Attempt to communicate with the thing, whatever it is.
With the sea breeze fueling their strides like the hissing bellows of a blacksmith’s forge, the Kerawegh and her iron-clad entourage made their way swiftly toward the Shrine. Weapons tense in eager grips, the drumming of clanging plate cut the otherwise dense silence that had overtaken the central path outside the watchtower. The decision to engage had fueled the Kerawegh with a great boost of energy, and such conviction was contagious—now latching onto her warriors in the same way it had swayed her into action.
Here, beyond the lee of the thick-set battlements of their watchtower, the Dweghom cortege was especially vulnerable—or so the Kerawegh felt—but that did not matter, for their target’s blurry silhouette was now becoming visible, meekly illuminated by the anemic rays of sunlight that were just now beginning to emerge. An automaton, she thought. Draconic, perhaps. Definitely old. Maybe it can be of use. It falls upon me to claim it.
The Dweghom warriors followed the gesture-borne order that came from their Kerawegh, yet their uninhibited focus towards the target was shaken ever so slightly by the emergence of another same-raced group from the edges beyond the watchtower’s reach. Theirs was a cacophony of rattling armor and strained lungs, but that did not matter—the gigantic automaton was hers to claim, for the Kerawegh had decided as much when she first laid eyes on the construct. Her sight focusing on the new arrivals, the Kerawegh allowed herself a crooked smile.
“Aul’Domn’s fools have not learned their lesson yet! Let us remind them!”
As soon as they had arrived, the group from Aul’Domn veered towards that of the Kerawegh—leader of Uosiega’s chosen force—wedging themselves between her and the strange construct. Weapons raised and gaining momentum for a charge, the Kerawegh’s step slackened as she now caught a better glance of the construct—now closer. Atop the towering stone-hewn automaton was a figure, a Dweghom, and it was staring right at them.
Two Dweghom forces now clash. Which one will emerge victorious?
Choice
- Aul’Domn
- Uosiega
In the ears of Kerawegh Astagha, few things compared to the song of battle. It wasn’t the clamor, nor the violence, nor the cacophony of metal and screams. It was… beyond that, a voice of absolute honesty, of uncompromising judgment, a voice between the unbridled terror of one’s survival instinct and the drive for victory. But—her slow but steady victory aside—this battle sounded different.
Something… was watching it. And by that act alone, that something was twisting it. It felt like trying to be heard above the roar of the forges, screaming in one’s ear just to make the simplest point. Astagha shivered, excited. Whatever the thing on the beach was, whoever that Dweghom was, it was judging them with the Aghm of millenia behind it.
Gritting her teeth with the stubbornness of mountains, she cried for the enemies’ blood, driving her people ever onwards, as the warriors from Aul’Domn gave way before them. Neither she nor her warriors would be overshadowed this day. For all the Aghm the mysterious Dweghom wielded, they were not fighting. She was. Step by step, swing by swing, blow by blow, her enemies were giving way and she would not rest until the fell. Today’s Aghm would be her and her warriors’.
Stay your hand, Kerawegh.
She heard the voice, she could swear. It was impossible, of course. Such were not within the grasp of the Dweghom. Such were tricks of air and water. She spat, disgusted, both by the weak sorcery, and the fickle warrior before, whose feeble attempt to parry her sent his weapon flying to the side. She raised her ax above her head, ready to finish him, but as it reached its peak, her ax grew heavier in her hand. She faltered and her mark, eyes wide from the terror of her presence, just ran.
Enough killing.
No air, nor water. It was as if the ax was vibrating, whispering.
The day is yours. Come, speak to me.
Kerawegh Astagha’s eyes flared with anger but she swallowed uncertainly.
Choice
- No. Finish the battle first.
- This merits respect. Let them go.
Harder than getting her men to stop was giving the order in the first place.
Astagha knew people called her airthought and waterbrain behind her back. She knew that they saw madness instead of fervor. She let them. It was easier that way. Passion, fervor even, made people more uncomfortable than…quirkiness. Besides, they could never understand. Not even the Ardent. Only other Kerawegh could, perhaps. While she would never discuss something so intimate with them, she suspected their experience was at least somewhat similar. That… attunement, that connection to the flow of the field, to the passions and anger and fear around her. It was the purest and strongest, most intoxicating feeling there was. Riding the tides, she called it, that feeling of feeling War, connecting to it. Perhaps waterbrain was not such a wrong term for her, after all.
The thought made her chuckle, and it helped. Sighing in a mix of wistful regret and relief, she gave the order to let the enemy retreat. Without giving it a second thought—she knew her order would be obeyed—she swiped the sweat from her brow while turning, and immediately began walking towards the monument, where the Memory of Three was kept and the point of contention in this latest bout between the Holds. There, she could see clearer now, it waited; the massive form with the impossible aghm. Eyes set on the awkward, unmoving bulk, she held her breath as more details were revealed with each step. Metal and stone clad, like a drake standing in size and…
“Ah, a Kerawegh,” a voice said from high, much less deep or loud than a form as big as that would imply. Then again…
“Impossible…” she muttered, to herself more than anyone else. “An… Automaton. That big. Is it an Enem-”
“No.” The voice left her speechless for a moment. She could still feel it, the aghm emanating from the figure and the word bore its weight. “Mine.”
She looked up, eyes narrowing before they went wide.
“You…” She paused. “You claim to be Yshkerdos,” she said, in the end, a mirth forming on her lips. “The automaton is impressive, yes but…” The man on top of the automaton laughed.
“I am he,” he said simply.
She shook her head. “It is remembered that…”
“Do not speak of me of memories, Kerawegh. Memories won’t prepare you for what is to come.”
“Are more dead Dweghom coming to-“
“Yes,” he interrupted her again, and the weight in his voice left no room to challenge him. Eventually, the man sighed. “I am here to tell you that the world of the Dweghom will change. Forever. My own Ardent, my own Hold even, did not welcome my return. They were happy enough to copy my design, but not to listen to my words. Will you, Kerawegh?”
“We are enemies,” she said bluntly.
“Only if I want us to be,” he said, calmly, with no boast coloring his voice. For all her bravery, she gulped, but her blood boiled at the veiled threat, the absent challenge of him ignoring her reaction. “I ask again. Will you listen?”
Choice
- No.
- Yes.
“Speak” she said.
“Listen…” he answered and then spoke of things that made her skin crawl and he soul burn.
* * *
“Near the end of the Flaming Delve, about two Duties worth of walking after the river I think was Azhkan, I found a grove-cave with darkwater and the fungi ghata. I decided to rest, wash and keep going. After sleep, I made a Roster’s worth of powder; there was not much, and I figured I should leave for my return. Less than two-watches worth of walk later I was truly in the Dark Depths. No glow like in the Flaming Delve, no glow puffs, nothing. I… It was not easy there. But I rationed and kept going for as long as I could. A full Roster. Maybe two, maybe. It is hard to tell. The powder ended but I killed a ruined. Some type of lizard. I kept going. Another Roster, I think. Eventually, I decided to return. Then I did. They way back felt faster. That is my Memory.”
The acolyte Mnemancer’s expression did not waver or seem to doubt as he looked at the returned pilgrim. Onykkha stared back.
“Did you hear anything in the Dark Depths?” the acolyte asked.
“There was nothing to hear.”
“Sometimes those Tuned to Stone claim they hear…”
“I heard nothing,” she said, “and saw nothing,” perhaps a little more sharply that she wanted. Alarmed, she went on. “Look… The Dark Depth was not easy. Physically, it demanded more with each step. I had to crouch, even crawl, many times, for the tunnels were small. But often I crawled because it felt like… I had to. Mentally… the silence was too much. You start speaking with yourself just to hear something. Then, at some point, my own noises would startle me. I was exhausted in all ways. And I returned.”
The acolyte nodded, focusing on each detail. “That is it?” he asked when she would not say more.
“That is it,” she said.
Onynkha found the lying easy.
She went through some details again, then again but nothing close to what she did not want to talk about. Directions mostly, estimations of distances, things to help the mapping of the Delves below the Hold. She answered truthfully and hid nothing. Then she left hurriedly.
This would be the first damn watch since her return two Duties ago that she would be allowed some peace—normally, that is. But as it were, she had to start working. Fast. She run to her bag and double-checked the graft was there, sighing with relief feeling the weight as she lifted the bag, but checking the contents regardless. Then, avoiding the tunnels she feared would risk her crossing the path of her comrades, she hurried down empty corridors and through half-abandoned halls, before she abandoned the Hold completely, rushing down the same path she had taken in her Dheukhorro. She kept running for half a watch, all the time doubting if she had done the right thing, keeping the creature away, before she helped stabilize it. The thoughts kept twirling in her head, dancing between doubt and conviction, as she reached her destination and entered the small crevice were the creature was waiting.
“I am here,” she said. “I brought the graft.”
Pale lips smiled between whizzing breaths, an aged but beardless face protruding from a set of armor that made it hard to determine if it was worn or a graft unlike any other. The skin was white but, while many Dweghom were granite-skinned, this was closer to white-hot coal, framing eyes that leaked of flaming red.
“I do not…think it can help” the Ancestor said, with a chuckle amidst whizzing pants.
“It will pass, like the other times,” she said.
“You did not tell them your Memory of me, then?”
She shook her head. “They must see you as I did, they…”
“You doubt they will accept?”
She paused, avoiding his gaze, for it burned. She had knelt and added herself to his following with less than a second’s thought when they had met in the darkness. That power, that presence, was still there. The whizzing, the tiredness, did not affect it. The pure power of Fire that was crowning his every step when she had met him had seemingly turned inwards, his grafted armor unable to work as it should far from the place he had crafted it.
“No,” she said in the end. “But if you don’t know how long your grafts will hold…. If they perceive any weakness… The Aghm you would give would be-”
“Let them tr-“ The Ancestor paused, wincing. When it passed, he looked at her. “I think it is best you run.”
She blinked, uncertain.
Choice
- Run.
- Try the graft.
- Take him to the Hold as fast as you can.
Onynkha did the unthinkable. She disagreed.
With clumsy hands, she tried to attach the graft to the back of his neck. Only, when she reached for the neck, the heat was unbearable. Shielding her eyes from the heat with one hand—an unthinkable motion—she reached, graft first, with the other. She felt blisters rise, as her skin sizzled and scorched, the man’s skin emanating heat like a forge; no, no forge she had seen had ever been so hot. At last, she screamed and fell back, the graft clanging, as it fell, glowing yellow from the heat itself, as part of it had melted. She tried to swallow her scream, as she looked at her hand—never to hold a weapon again—then looked, terrified, realizing what had happened.
There was no neck to attach the graft to anymore.
Blazing and growling from inside its impossible armor, a pillar of flames roared upwards, thick dark smoke born at the edges of its tongues. And somewhere there, amidst the inferno, was him, or rather a Memory of him, forever held by the flame and smoke, looming over the armor that hosted his body, like a flame needing its torch.
You should have run, the flaming ghost of the ancestor said, its voice changed but its composure not.
Onynkha, skin and muscle melted on one hand, felt afraid—true, unfiltered, uncontrollable fear—for the second time in her life and by the same entity.
Ignoring her, the creature turned towards the corridor. Temper your pain, young one, it said. We have work to do.
* * *
“You cannot expect me to believe this,” Astagha asked. “The Ancestors. Returning.”
“Disbelief is understandable,” the legendary Steel Shaper replied. “Doubting me is unacceptable.”
“Surely you appreciate why,” she said bitterly. “We would have heard- No. I would have felt…”
“Perhaps you overestimate your powers,” Yshkerdos said. “Or underestimate theirs.”
“You think they are hiding? Why would they…”
“Help me find out. Help me find them.”
“Why do you need me?”
“Because this could CHANGE things.” He growled the word and it echoed like stone slabs sliding on stone. Then, a moment after, as if the outburst had never happened, he went on. “Some Duties ago, moments after I woke up, I spoke to a… creature. A creature of war. It had been his smithing that had woken me, I realized. It was like a song out of tune, each hammerfall a missed note played over and over again. And yet, in it, I felt more than even I understood about metal. I taught him what War’s song sounds like and how it resonates in metal. He reminded me the song of metal itself, beyond war. For too long we have treated things beyond us as our salvation. I think I know why; and I think they can confirm it. Most Tempered did not listen. Will the Ardent?”
She looked at him, her mind racing. Her first thought was a joke. And people call me a waterhead, she thought and suppressed a smile. But then she thought more and looked at the legend standing before her; by all accounts an enemy.
“I don’t understand more than half of what you say,” she said.
“What I say is simple: I will look for the Ancestors. And depending on what they say to me, I will fight them or join them. Will you join me?”
“Yes.” She just spat the answer out.
“Will your Hold?”
Choice
- We will need them.
- I will shield them from this until I know more.