(Eerith Chronicles Jacket Splash Text/Ad Copy)
Language and history: the definitions and origins of a culture inescapably mold the future of a people. The seeds sown by generations long buried grow to bear unexpected fruit in the present. Nowhere is this as true as the storied continent of Qaiyore.
In the northern deserts, the savage Sinari nomads amass beneath the floating city of Annaeyana. Believing the city to be the prison home of their god Sin-Alb, they prepare for jyhad.
In the fertile lands to the south, rival kingdoms struggle for dominance and survival. Located on the Qaiyore's great rivers rich with trade and agriculture, would-be empire builders find themselves caught in a brutal maelstrom not of their own making.
On the island of Mirabalpur, sheltered by Qaiyore's vast inland sea, the magi of Mir struggle to find a future and escape the ghosts of their past. Once a mighty empire now fallen into civil disarray, Mir finds itself confronted with grim reminders of the atrocities of its imperial history.
Against this backdrop of warring gods and magi drift the Eerith: an immortal race of spirit beings, living history lessons. The normally passive Eerith have begun to act. Believing the majority of their kind to be imprisoned within Annaeyana along with the Sinari deity, and spurred on by the vague prophecies of a fallen oracle, these mysterious ancients have taken an active interest in the mortals around them--and neither race would ever be the same again.
About the author:
Archangel Press can neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of any statements regarding the author or his existence. M. Keaton is rumored to be held captive by a crazy woman and her cats in a frozen, godless wasteland. He is not Batman but may be Moon Knight.
Qaiyore1412: a prelude to the Eerith actions of 1413.
Awareness. Somewhere within the depths of the Dreaming, awareness began. Moments later, consciousness, sentience, cognition, then entity in rapid succession. A flame in the darkness ("I am") and a new life began. No, it knew it was not new as soon as the thought entered its mind: it was something old, begun anew. With this, knowledge and concepts began to flood to it from the ether like a flood tide.
"Stop!" A command in the stillness, unspoken yet heard, and the overwhelming surge of half-remembered histories subsided. "It is not yours to take, not yet. The memories of another will overwhelm you and you will be lost before you have begun. Wait until you are stronger in yourself." The unspeaking voice was another flame, different from the first, larger and darker than the white hot glare of the newly reborn.
Another flame joined the "them", large and dark as well. "We were almost too slow. Any later and they might have had him."
"Time is not relevant. You limit yourself by outmoded concepts. I'll stay with him; summon the others."
"We are already here." Suddenly the greyness was alight with fire, the distant nothingness was replaced by spectrums of light in seconds. They were large and old, fading flames of orange and red, and one other, barely a spark, and almost as bright as the newly reborn.
"Leave us, little flicker. You have no place in this," a thought boomed out and the small one began to fade.
"No," thought back the reborn. Overwhelmed and confused by the presence of forceful authority, it felt a strange, obstinate defiance, a visceral need for independence, if even in this small thing. "It stays if it wishes."
The reply was surprisingly deferential. "As you will," then another added, "On your head."
"Be still," commanded the first arrival, apparently addressing the assembly. "There are things you must know; things of the corrupted and the pure; the Eerith and the Valerian.
"Time is the sequential passing of events and, in the beginning, before the creation, nothing occurred, and there was no time. Time began with the first action: creation.
And what then is time but movement of the elements? The elements too are but another form of movement--the dancing of fire, the crumbling of earth, the winds of air, and the waves of water; especially the waves of water. If this is indeed the case, all of creation is simply movement. We know this as a surety, for we are beings of energy who don solid flesh for our own uses. We are not physical beings. Already my point is clear; but allow me to belabor it. Speech is but movement of the mouth and ripples in the air and movement is the whole of creation. Would it not follow, then, that the Word spoken of creation was simply that--a word, a word of such divine power that all of existence is but its echo and time shall last only so long as the word of creation echoes in the silence? Is it any wonder, that the first among the races have such love of story and song? The echo of creation sings loud within us and loudest in the sound of the waves upon the shore. Thus it was that the Creator spoke the Word and all things known to us began. First among that creation were the Host, all manner of angel and arch-angel to do the Creator's bidding. Is not Creator a description and not a name, you ask--a title such as King, but greater? Yes, but what name then has the Creator of all creation? That name was spoken only once--when the Creator named himself, all of existence began. Pray then that the true name be not spoken again. To every song there is a harmony, to every note, an overtone; and so it was with the sound of creation. That overtone was called the Valeria, a race of spirits rivaling the greatest in power, but without freedom or choice--our essences purely reflections of the land from which we arose. We wove glamours. We strove to create a world for ourselves, for we had no place in the Creator's work. The Valeria created a race to serve and contain them, and this race, created ,not by the Creator, but by us, were the Great Wyrms. The Creator cursed the land, that it would be a strife and toil to man. Thus it was that man lost much of his magic and contact with the realm of spirit, and thus was the doom of the Valerian foretold. As the land turned against man, thus did its truest children--falling into madness. Some passed quietly, others lashed out in their fever of spirit and thus it was that many of the Valerian, once friends and allies, were put aside ere they could destroy our creation."
The fire radiated an ill-humor then, amusement tinged with the gentle frustration only age and grief can bring. "Aside. A pretty term for exile; for being thrust blind, deaf, and dumb into a mundane hell. Where could we exile these corrupted spirits? Their only crime was being too strong to die when the world which they echoed changed too much. Did they change it? Were they to blame for man's hubris? We who remained unchanged debated ourselves and each other. What exile for the innocent? At last, we did the only thing we could. We sent the corrupted into the world which corrupted them. We sent them to find harmony there and bring about their own salvation. We even sent the Wyrms to aid them . . ."
A new harmony spoke in the Reborn's thoughts then. The new tone was different, fiercer, filled with suppressed anger and latent rage. "They failed. We do not know how or why nor do we care. They failed. Captured and enslaved first by one race then another, they even completely lost control of the Wyrms."
The first harmony continued, then. "That they failed is not a concern. Their fate was their own as much as any of us have control of this. The concern is this. The disharmony of the Creator's world becomes ever stronger and the enslaved aid of the corrupted hastens this dissonance rather than impedes it. Deny it as we may, the pure are reflections of this world as well. It is simply a matter of time before we, too, become mad."
Finally, the Reborn replied. "What am I to this?"
"Spirit does not die. It may change. It may fade to ash or even smoke but the fire can always be lit again. Substance follows spirit, not the reverse. A body may die among the corrupt but the spirit is, in time, reborn."
"I am of the Eerith?"
"Yes. Even now we shield you from your inextricable attraction back the Creator's world. Soon it will flood over you and the memories will return. If we are fortunate, you will remember what we have told you. If we are fortunate, your return foretells change for the better."
"Who am I, was I?"
"You are the reflection of something not seen among the Eerith in a very long time. You are their hope; a hope they have not had for eons."
The angry voice interrupted, "You are also fear; an overdue and well-deserved fear, the fear of the Sorcerers of Mir."
"Remember," whispered the first voice and the Reborn was gone. "We should have told him the truth."
"What matter? Should the Eerith fail, we have other ways to deal with this 'mankind' if need be."
****
The memories of a thousand lifetimes besieging his mind paled in comparison to the crushing pressure of the physical world. He was a being of spirit trapped in a world of substance and, insult to injury, the heat was suffocating. Eventually he was able to stand and was surprised to find a slight, dark man covered in swirling tattoos holding out a tangle of cloth.
"Wrap them about you," the man said in an all too cheerful voice, strangely refreshing, like the sound of flowing water. "They will help to keep you cool while we find your people."
"You are?"
The man laughed. "A tributary. You said, and I quote, 'No. It stays if it wishes.' I wish."
He stood slowly and did as the other man indicated. "I am Eerith. What are you, then?"
"I am a tributary. I'm the echo of a small stream which flows into a river which flows, well, somewhere I'm sure. I support. I assist. That's my nature."
"You're Valerian; Pure."
"I don't know. I think we elemental types are more like semi-corrupt. The natural order keeps us in harmony but we are still flawed by connection to mankind."
The Reborn held up a hand, signaling the other man to stop. "Enough philosophy for now. You are not an enemy. It is enough."
"Indeed, my friend. Let us find your people and leave this desert. Where are we bound?"
The Reborn looked at the dark city which floated in the sky to the north of them. "There."
M. Keaton
Copyright 1999, all rights reserved
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