The Canto of Fire, Opus One The events following the Eerith prologue of 1413 It took them two days to reach Myr Kun. For two days they walked, without pause, towards the city burning in the shadow of Annaeyana's permanent eclipse, wearing the false skins of man like cloth draped across an ill-conceived frame, blurred at the edges and imprecise in the relationship of form to function. In two days, they crossed a distance that would take a healthy man less than a day but they had much to learn and, by journey's end, they wore the bodies with stoic grace. In the interim, neither spoke. They listened to the undercurrent of harmonies buzzing from the world around them, learning and remembering, hearing a lifetime of memories in hours and hearing the memories of a world in scattered fragments, accepted and stored to be assembled later. So it was that the two men-not-men entered the city of Myr Kun as if they had walked the dunes a full two score years and those who saw them pass noted naught amiss in them. "It is as if, disdaining the gifts of the Creator, they descended from caves of stone to build their own of mud for no reason other than spite," mused one, speaking softly in a voice modulated to a low tenor. The other did not reply, merely studied the city with a flat, disinterested gaze. "You are less than scintillating company," teased the tributary. "I . . . I don't like this mode of communication. It's too limited, too mundane." "There are other options," came the rely soundlessly, the voice speaking just within his ears. "No. It's not time yet. I would rather not be overheard," was the spoken reply; a deep voice, rough and forced, almost grating. "You babble like a brook." "That was humor?" asked the first, sincerely. "Irony. Most mundanes do not understand either. Tell me this, if you are so desperate for talk: why are you here?" "It is my nature. I'm a tributary, it is in my nature to serve and support. When you awoke, I was drawn to your flame. It was like flowing downhill." "And what of the river that you normally flow into? If you are the overtone of a tributary stream, why are you free to wander?" "I'm not sure. Something happened, something unnatural. I still flow but the river is gone." "So where does your existence begin and end? Where for all of us? Eerith, Valerian, Elemental, we are all variations of the same race. Where do we each begin and end?" The tributary smiled at that. "Your people do not know. If they did, you could pull it from the undercurrent of their thoughts. For Elementals it is easier. We are the Worldsea." "Explain." "I flow into a river. Even though I exist, so does the river and I am part of the river. Even if I were gone, the river would be, but if enough of us were gone, the river could not exist at all so the river is all of us but we are separate from it and it is separate from us. The river is a harmony of tributaries. The river feeds the land and runs across it. The land floats upon the sea and rivers flow to it until everything is one thing. We call it the Worldsea. It is all of us but we are separate and it is separate. It is an overtone of overtones." "An archetype and a sliding scale. Tell me then, is your Worldsea a concept or an entity?" "It is. It lives as you or I. The Worldsea is no ideal construct of theory, it is a being. It is a . . ." the tributary's voice trailed off as he searched the world's undercurrent for the concept he sought. "It is a Valerian," pronounced his companion with finality. "The archetype of archetypes. That's what they are. The Valerian are the abstract truths which wear the masks of archetype to be seen and understood." "So where do the Eerith fit?" "I must think on this further. The Eerith are corrupted from the pure. I do know, just as you have the Worldsea, we have a law. It is a concept, not an entitity, but I see similarity." When his companion fell silent, the tributary let his mind touch the world's undercurrent. "I see it. One shall speak for all and all shall speak for one. That is your law." "Our only law . . ." the two fell silent, staring upward. Floating suspended above them, almost half of a mile distant, hung the ragged base of Annaeyana, broken stubs of rock and exposed tree roots still hanging loose from when the city had been uprooted centuries earlier. And there, far above, dissolving into mist long before it reached the ground, a stream of water ran from the edge of the city, falling over the jagged lip like a magical waterfall. "I think I know what happened to your river." Alfos Ben-Senra was neither mage not Eerith. He was a man, a traveler, and, sometimes, he was a thief. Today, as for the past two weeks, he was a messenger. He did not know why he had been hired for this task and it had not occurred to him to ask. The gold which paid his fee was real; to Alfos, little else mattered. He had traveled on foot and mostly at night across the Shadowlands, and had reached Myr Kun just before dawn. Had he been more dedicated to his current career, he might have been concerned about finding the recipient; but he was Alfos. His plans included a bed, a bath, and copious amounts of fermented goat milk. Unfortunately for Alfos, Myr Kun was not the same city as the one he had left years before. He stood outside the city and wiped gritty sweat from his forehead with a stained cloth, debating about a career change. After a moment, he pulled a piece of dark root from his pocket and began to chew it, spitting a brown froth to the sand beside him as he contemplated. The man who had hired him had strongly implied that, should Alfos shirk his newfound duties, he would suffer dire arcane tortures. Still, he was fairly certain that even his employer had not foreseen the chaos that lay before him. Alfos had thought the dull red lightening of the sky as he traveled though the night was due to the rising sun. A wiser man might have noted that this would mean the sun was rising in the west, but a wiser man would have realized that the smell of smoke from his cookfire should have faded, not become stronger. As he crested the dunes, Alfos found himself looking up at a second, black moon, a large blot of darkness against the night sky. Annaeyana hovered over the city like a lurking predator; below, Myr Kun was lit by the crimson flicker of its own flames. The city was burning, filling the sky with a grey smoke that billowed up towards the floating city of Annaeyana like an offering to a hostile god. Mobs, like priests of anarchy, surged through the street and spread the flames. Alfos was still debating when he heard the sound of movement behind him. The sound was the merest whisper of wind upon sand, but a man with Alfos' love for the property of others had taught him a certain savant caution. He collapsed to the sand as if struck, his heart pounding in terror, his eyes blinking out the sudden spray of sand from his fall, his mind racing, calculating if he could have been seen, silhouetted against the sky, cursing himself for a fool. Pressing his arms and legs deeper into the sand, he twisted to look in the direction of the sound, trying to force all of his motion down, letting the dunes mask his movement while his gaze scanned the horizon behind him. Several pregnant minutes passed and Alfos began to relax. It moved again; this time Alfos saw it clearly, ghosting across the dunes, a shadow among shadows. Alfos lay frozen until the catayarsh had long passed and the sun had risen high into the heavens. His decision was made: with the Sinari abroad, even a burning city was safer than the dunes. When the heat of the desert became too much for him to bear, Alfos leapt to his feet and sprinted toward the city in a spray of sand. "What now, oh munificent and reborn leader?" The taller of the two men visibly shook his gaze loose from the floating city and turned to his companion. "I'm not a leader," he said in a distracted tone, his eyes still seeking out the city above them. "When do we meet the others?" "Soon," he turned and began walking back through the city. "Something is still missing. I'll have to speak with them soon. Custom forbids them from seeking us out, but we are a dangerously curious people." The pair walked in silence, strangely unnoticed in the turmoil of the riots. "We did this. Commission or omission; this is our creation. The Eerith have become so self-consumed that we don't even notice our handiwork." His companion did not answer. They stepped into an alleyway and waited as a crowd of people ran past them. Whatever they were fleeing did not follow and the two men resumed their walk. "This has to change." Despite his curiosity, the tributary did not reply; his companion held obscurity as a virtue. "Let's not be hasty now," yelled Alfos at the crowd. "Let's not do something we'll regret later." "It's strangers like you brought this on us," a woman's voice yelled. "A spy for them nomads, I bet," came another yell. In a rare display of uncommon wisdom, Alfos ran. He had spent the past ninety seconds circling the crowd's edge to put an alley at his back and now he used it. With a silent prayer to any god which might be listening, he shoved the closest member of the crowd backward and sprang away. The mob was quick to follow, but Alfos knew from experience he had the head start he needed. In his life, he had run from many angry crowds, usually because he had decided he would appreciate some choice bauble more than its current owner (at least until he pawned it). On some primitive level, he enjoyed the chase. Then he tripped. He never tripped; his feet were as sure as a goat's. He could not trip. If he did . . . To his surprise, the mob rushed by him with barely a glance. A few kicks as they passed over him and they were gone, as if they had suddenly forgotten he existed. Alfos rose to his knees and stared, stunned, at the retreating forms. "You're welcome," came an amused voice at his elbow, and Alfos was amazed to find a pair of men lifting him to his feet. Both were wrapped in surprisingly dark and heavy robes. Only their eyes and the tattooed circles around them were visible. The only discernable difference to Alfos' eyes was the speaker was similar in height to himself while his companion was nearly seven feet in height. Alfos directed his words to the shorter man, "My thanks." He took a pair of deep breaths to steady himself before he continued. "You are a mage?" Alfos tried to ignore the tightening of the larger man's grip on his elbow. The smaller man released him and moved away slightly, giving Alfos a small nod. "Close enough." "Then I owe you my life." Alfos tried to pull his arm free and began to plan his next escape. "You are not going anywhere, sil," growled the large man, tightening his grip to a painful level before releasing. "Think nothing of it," the smaller man continued, as if his companion had not spoken at all. "I believe you have a message for us." Alfos massaged his elbow as he answered. "You are Eerith?" "If you choose." "What's a sil?" Alfos asked as he withdrew a folded parchment from within his robes. The document had once been nicely rolled and sealed but several weeks of desert heat and the sweat of Alfos' body had detracted significantly from the aesthetic value of the message. The larger man took the crushed scroll from his hand. "It is a small rodent." The man looked at his companion and asked, "Throw him in the prison?" "No need. They're getting smarter. The old man didn't even send an apprentice this time; no help at all. Let him go." "What do you mean 'a small rodent'?" Alfos asked indignantly. Instead of replying, the two men turned and began to walk away. "What, no reward?" he shouted after them and took an involuntary step back as the larger of the two turned. "What do you want?" the man asked in an ominous tone. "Same as everyone. I want to be rich," shot back Alfos petulently. "Very well." The large man's voice was almost a malevolent purr. "You are rich." Before Alfos could react, the smaller man interrupted, as if responding to some unheard conversation. "Impossible! We must go. The reborn speaker has . . . We must go!" With the last pronouncement, he faded from view like a mirage at sundown. The larger man arched one eyebrow in surprise and vanished in a burst of flame, leaving a shaken Alfos alone in the street. With the hindsight of history, the Eerith were able to reconstruct every moment of the event in the undercurrent and understand it fully. At the time, there was nothing but confusion. Even the tributary, who witnessed the occurrence with mundane eyes as well as spiritual perception, barely knew the actions and had no inkling of the consequence. The two had been walking unnoticed when, across the lane, a brick wall began to collapse. The tributary was only nominally aware of the wall, much less the child which stood beside it, soon to be below it. The reborn one had been in motion toward the child a splinter of a second before the wall had visibly moved, discarding his physical body and moving with the speed of spirit, the speed of thought. Even then, even with inhuman reflexes and supernatural speed, the tributary had known he moved too late. The reborn one could not reach the child in time. At the time, the tributary did not realize what occurred; none of the Eerith did. Driven by desperate reflex for motives unknown even to himself, the reborn one moved outside of time to save the child. At once, he was everywhere and nowhere, beyond everything and all things, beyond the creation and the dreaming, brushing the face of the Void; beyond. Then his physical body was over the child and the wall fell. The wash of power flashed through the ether like the flare of a newborn sun, or the nova of a dying one. The undercurrent of the Eerith buckled like a puddle struck with a stone and a race was stunned. Even in their sleeping prison, the Eerith cried out in pain and joy at once and the city of Annaeyana physically shivered in the smoke-black sky. Then they came to him, all pretense of convention forgotten, like moths to the flame, and the street was filled with a thousand voices in confusion. So great was the chaos that only the tributary, who was closest, clearly witnessed the next few minutes of linear time. A Videssian philosopher smiles and dies in her sleep. In a cloud of dust, the reborn one stands, rising from the remains of the wall, a child cradled safe in his arms. In the libraries of Mir, the Archmage is struck down by sudden pain. The archivist catches him as he falls and for a time they lean against each other--two men, old, tired. Without a word, both return to their work and each avoids the other's gaze. The child looks up at her rescuer and asks a simple question. "Who are you?" In the streets of Myr Kun, a thief hears a sound at the base of his skull like the buzzing of bees and begins to run. When he stops, exhausted, he knows not why he ran. A tributary races towards its river, concern etched across its borrowed face. "Are you." Within a dark place, a non-descript form hears the tolling of bells. Unsure of its Master's reaction to this new thing, it draws its cloak tighter and pretends not to notice. The reborn one smiles and answers. "I am." Somehow, to the ears of the Eerith, it was a conversation. "Do you have your answers now?" asked the tributary, leaning close to his companion and speaking over the clamor around them. The streets were awash with light as the Eerith flickered from form to form in their agitation. "No, and that is as it should be," the reborn one replied cryptically, then shouted, "Silence!" "Enough mundanity. Release the form and let us converse as Eerith should," another voice called back. The reborn one shook his head. "No. We must live among them. We must learn to converse as they." A different voice called again from the mass. "Send the child away. These matters are not for her ears." Again he shook his head. "She is Eerith now." "She is mundane." "Perhaps," the reborn one replied, "but she is also Eerith. Her family is dead or gone away. Her home lies here: gone, rubble. Like us, she has no home, no people. What else can she be but Eerith?" "This does not make her Eerith!" "Indeed." The reborn one's calm smile turned menacing. "What is Eerith?" The street was, at last, silent. In the stillness the tributary looked upon his people and wondered. The Eerith had no leaders, no structures or obligations of society, and yet he would follow; they all would follow. The reborn one had their hearts and, somehow, it was right. The reborn one drew a long breath before continuing. "What does it mean to be Eerith? Are we merely a race, a passing anomaly in the song of creation? Are we things?" He gestured toward the crowd, pointing to certain of its members. "You five, come to me. You few still feel the call. You gall even at this small delay. You, my remnant, already know what I would say. Go now, with my blessings." Five in the crowd erupted into shafts of light and were gone. "They go to the Onigar. While we have labored to free our brethren, mired in our own past and self-obsessed, a race dies! A knowledge gone forever, lost. And where were we? Of all that are, the Eerith were best equipped to aid them. We failed! We have let our past define us until there is nothing left but what was! It ends now. We shall free our sleeping brethren, but not at the cost of our selves. We have passed from one master to another until, when we seemed free, we placed shackles upon ourselves. No longer do we serve. We are Eerith! We serve none and all! That is our heritage. Eerith is our vision, our goal, our legacy! It is not our race. The child is Eerith as are any who would join us and any who have nowhere else to go. Our masters have given us tools and taught us skills beyond even their comprehension. From here, we go our own way. From here, our fight begins in truth. Child, would you stay with us?" The tributary looked at the child and saw her, not as a thing, but, for the first time, as another entity. This gift-this sight-- the reborn one had given them, reminding them of what they once were. Outside the child was small, frightened and confused. Within, she was a world all her own; hopes, dreams, ideas unique to her, things that others might never see, that she might never choose to let them see. She was not simply the center of her universe. She was, in truth, the center of the universe. They all were. If only one being existed, it would be enough. "I will stay." "Have you been given a name?" "My nanna called me Hope." The reborn one's face broke into a surprised grin. "I am undone," he laughed. "I suppose we shall all be forced to take names soon' but not this day." A form walked forward from the crowd, pausing to smile at the child, and passed a stained paper into the reborn one's hands. "We have a message." The reborn one dropped the paper to the ground, unopened. The Eerith had known the contents of the message from the day it was written. "We will attend." The tributary and two of the militant Eerith would attend the sorcerer's meeting, a balance, it had been reasoned, between the old and the new. The reborn one, Hope in tow, met them before they left and pulled them close, strangely tactile for an Eerith. "Farewell, my friends," he said, releasing them, and stood there long after they had vanished, streaks of light into the distance. "Wha's wrong?" asked Hope at last, anxious to be away, impatient in her youth. "I shall not see them again. I'm not yet sure why, but I know it is true." "The Mir'll hurt 'em?" "If they do, they will pray to the mountains to fall upon them before I am through." Selah M. Keaton ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
