There are abandoned Holds scattered around the face of Eä; tombs of ages past, hosting the worthy among those that walked their Halls once.
They are quiet places, these Holds. Most cemeteries are, after all. Their silence is broken solely by the disrespect of the world outside and the imagination of visitors. Often do such daring callers conjure whispers and movement, or the solemn eyes of lingering ghosts of lives long expired, watching from a place just at the edge of their vision. For the silence of death is scarier to the living mind than the voices of the dead; the stillness of those present more threatening than a movement imagined.
The visitors of Ghabol’Domn, were no strangers to such silence and stillness. Fitting company they found inside the sealed houses of the worthy and eager confidants in their quiet voices. Yet there was no camaraderie between them, no love lost by the worthy for their profane brothers-in-death. For, in their deathly procession, the visitors defiled both quiet and stillness. No light accompanied them, but no light was needed, for their coming was proclaimed unabashedly in the dark.
First came a rumble; a single note, deep and monotonous, of stone dragged against stone. Its low growl bounced against the sealed domains of the worthy, heralding the coming of the defilers and taunting the faces sculpted above each door, which stared in quiet anger. Then came the bells, as a censer rang its misty prayers, blessing the disciple of death that followed. Then, finally, came the steps, neither quiet nor careful, making armors and vestments rattle; defiant, derisive, confident.
Deeper and deeper this blasphemous choir ventured into the Hold; and deeper still their coming was announced to ears trained in the silence of the empty halls. When the procession appeared around the corner of the narrow corridor, wide scattered steps leading them to the halls below, the Sorcerer was waiting. Standing alone in the middle of the path, he frowned but did not waver.
First came a banner, worn and tattered, its once gilded sun now darkened and overcast. Then came the soldiers, the advance his scout had spotted; six, as was Remembered, sword and shield at the ready, their arms forever untired. Behind them came the robed wretch, gliding on dancing smoke, as if the fumes of the thurible he wielded carried their wielder. Then, perfumed by the almost sickening sweetness of the censer, came their leader; clad in gold and ruby red, scepter in hand, his face covered by a marble mask. Behind him, came the tomb, an entire marble sepulcher carried by one, its rear sliding against the floor, thudding ominously whenever a step was met. And last came the rest; rows of soldiers sporting armor that the Sorcerer remembered from ages past and an empire thought gone. He was not plagued by fear; but numbers mattered and the brutes of tombs and discarded remains among the soldiers would challenge his plans.
“HALT!” he yelled in the end. Silence followed his voice’s echo, broken solely by the thurible’s rings that did not stop. “You are trespassing on the Hold of Ghabol’Domn. I would pass judgement in the name of the Clan but it would seem death has already been offered to you. Turn back lest your bodies be destroyed.”
“Stay your judgement, Sorcerer Ravadh,” the masked priest said, his accent foreign but not unfamiliar with his tongue. A quiet voice, Ravadh thought, but heard too clearly, though that did not trouble him. What troubled him was that he had never given his name. “And hold your threats. You have no more than twenty in the Hold and they shall not be needed. I come in peace.”
“Peacefully come only those invited to a Hold,” he answered but his mind raced. How? How did that… that thing know? “No such invitation offered. I say again, though I Remember saying it before: turn back.”
“But invited I was, Ravadh,” the priest said again. “An invitation and a favor owed I was offered.”
Shivers crawled up the Dweghom’s spine, as his eyes widened. He saw the mask move as the face behind it smiled.
“Remember this, old friend: a handful of survivors of your clan. A small monastery. A monk offering kindness to his enemies. In exchange, an invitation and a favored owed.”
“Impossible… The human-Kerawegh? Pietus?”
“I am glad you made it to the Hold before the Fall, Ravadh. For a time, I fared worse. No longer.”
“You cannot be-!”
“Alive? No. I am more. And I have come to collect. A Memory Aware, I need. A Memory Aware I ask of thee, and a debt repaid. Your Mnemancer – Onrukhenadha was it? Or a Relic of Memories would do, if you have it.”
The Sorcerer Ravadh stayed silent, his heart racing as his mind struggled to fathom the situation and request both. It was an easy thing, to swear friendship to a man that would die in but a few decades. One did not expect it to come haunt him centuries later. “What you are… what you ask is impossible,” he muttered in the end.
“I said I come in peace, Ravadh. I gave an oath to you, with my Lord as my witness, that I would not harm you or yours and that I would keep your presence hidden. But you also swore friendship and a favor owed. Deny me this, and my oath to an oathbreaker cannot stand. What say you?”
Purpose returned in Ravadh’s eyes. His fist tightened, veins bursting in fiery light; as did the corridor behind him. Flames ignited, revealing the automata that responded to his will; tame ones, meant to work the forge or mine the earth, but their tools deadly if employed in battle. Among them, bathed in fiery light, a handful of warriors; the few survivors of a once strong Hold.
“You mean well, proud Ravadh,” said the priest. “But you cannot hope to fight his Will.”
“His will destroyed my clan.”
“His Will preserved it through the oath of His priest,” Pietus replied, his voice smooth, inviting. “Of all my people could send, I was chosen, without our friendship known. Do you not see Providence?”
“I see a dead god’s mockery,” growled the Dweghom.
“I… I understand,” Pietus answered sadly and fell quiet for a moment, before he spoke again. “Know this: the time when yours and mine meet on the field is coming. But that is not here and that is not now. Thus, I will try once more. If you do not see his Will in this, then honor the Memory of your own words. Return the favor, friend. Show the Aghm of your choices.”
Silence fell, broken only by the flames of the automata cracking behind him and the ringing of the thurible.
“What say you?” Pietus asked again.