Iveriu, the Land

Tales of the Six Kingdoms

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Oct26

Tête-à-tête

15th day of the 6th month, 30 N.C.E.

They’ve caught me this time, Marco thought.

Marco had nearly managed to escape yet again. He’d been eluding capture by the servants of the Ophidur for the last two months. The city’s rulers were busy striving against one another, and he had been escaping by striking at one and fleeing into parts of the city controlled by one of the others. At first, the guards had tried to pursue him from ward to ward, but the Ophidur were territorial and after a few such attempts developed into street-to-street battles, the soldiers stopped pursuing him.

Since then, he’d been able to strike at the Ophidur with impunity, robbing their tax collectors, breaking men out of their jails, and generally disrupting the flow of trade that was so important to the Ophidur overlords, each time with a carefully-planned escape route that allowed him to elude pursuit long enough to escape into one of the wards controlled by a rival Ophidur.

Today he’d waylaid a salt merchant just outside one of the enormous riverside warehouses in Limwë’s ward. Once he’d subdued the man, he tossed the enormous sacks of rock salt into the river, one by one. The shipment had probably been worth more than 100 golden dracas. The attack went off without a hitch.

Despite that, Marco still used his escape route, moving towards Mauglor’s ward. He reasoned that once Limwë’s guards found out about the missing salt, they’d probably go building to building searching for the culprit. Even if they didn’t know that he was responsible, he could not afford to take the risk of being recognized - he doubted he’d be able to escape the silver mines a second time. More likely, they’d just execute him on the spot.

He cut through a warehouse, a cathouse, and a smithy. The warehouse was empty and the proprietress of the cathouse and the smith were both supporters of the underground that could be counted on to look the other way. He moved casually from street to street, from alley to alley, always attentive for signs of pursuit. There were none.

Marco had reached the end of his escape route, dark little alley too narrow for him to stretch out both his arms to the sides. The building on his right had a low roof, only about 9 feet up from the street level, while the building on the left had a gently sloping roof that led right up to the wall between Limwë and Mauglor’s wards. He hoisted himself up on the smaller building and jumped across to the sloped roof, and that’s when he saw them: three soldiers bearing kite shields painted with the black claw on a red field that marked them as soldiers of the Ophidur Limwë. Worse still, they were led by a man in expensive saffron robes and with neatly trimmed long red hair: an Ophidur Aspirant.

“Take him alive,” said the Aspirant.

The three soldiers advanced. Each was solidly built and gave the impression of competence. The one on Marco’s left moved with something of a limp, perhaps from an old wound, while the one on the right looked to be the youngest of the three. The soldiers moved to circle around Marco, each waiting for one of the others to attack first, each with his shield raised and his short spatha in his other hand.

Knowing there was no safe way to fight three men at once, Marco struck before they could fully encircle him. He drew his sword and surged towards the young soldier, hewing splinters from his shield and turning him so that he was between Marco and the other soldiers. With each stroke, Marco drove him backwards, pausing only to parry a timid counterattack. Finding their confidence, the other soldiers turned and tried to come at Marco from around their comrade, but Marco’s attack was so fast that the backpedaling soldier’s foot caught on the heel of one of his comrades, sending them both tumbling to the rooftop. The soldier with a limp erred, watching his young comrade roll half a dozen feet down the sloped roof, and was far to slow to parry the lightning-fast fleche that Marco launched. Marco’s blade pierced his neck where it joined the shoulder and the man went down with a gurgle and a spray of blood.

Meanwhile, the young soldier had managed to catch himself before he slid all the way off the roof and into the alley but had been forced to let go of his sword, which hit the trash on the alley floor with a muffled thump. The last soldier had not yet reached his knees when Marco reached him; Marco kicked out with all his strength and the man was thrown violently off the roof, hitting the wall on the other side of the alley with a crunch before clattering to the ground below. Marco turned to charge at the Aspirant.

“That’s close enough,” the Aspirant said as the air seemed to thicken around Marco in response to the Aspirant’s will. It felt like a dream where he couldn’t quite reach the place he wanted to be, always moving but not getting closer.

“You’re every bit as good as they said you were,” he said, “Fast. Strong.” The Aspirant appeared unperturbed by the dismantling of his soldiers, his crimson silk slippers resting lightly on the tiles. And why should he be perturbed? His mere thought was enough to stop me cold.

“Who are you?” Marco asked. “Despite the soldiers, you’re not Limwë. By all accounts, he’s quite fat. Mauglor is an Aspirant to the Vizier and wouldn’t dare appropriate Limwë’s soldiers. I know you’re not Ferunwë.”

“You would,” the Aspirant agreed. “My name is Shun Galdei, and I can guarantee that you’ll never have to serve your sentence in the silver mines.”

The Great Horde

Messr. Leurin wrote his journal under extraordinary circumstances. He was separated from a hunting party in the Foxwood and stumbled into the Wilds. Trying to find his way back to his hunting party, he instead rode into a village of the Loech clan. The Loech are a peaceful tundra people who revere the Elk - peaceful, but not pacifist, as Leurin’s journal would reveal. The Loech beast speaker immediately wanted to trade for Leurin’s steel knives and arrowheads, but was delighted when Leurin told them he was something of an amateur historian. The beast speaker was quite taken with the idea of a written history of the Loech, and induced Leurin to stay…

-Foreword by Artose Leraunt, Aspirant to the Regency

From a historical account by Farados Leurin, a Soleilan expatriate in Oksandr. Events take place in 1229 J.R.

The horde had gathered over the course of a week, with many varied small tribes uniting into their larger clans and setting up camps all over the basin. Normally, the Wild Men build only small fires, carefully concealed so as to avoid visibility at a distance, but as the tribes and clans unified, the need for such caution was lost and the whole basin was a patchwork of thousands of campfires, all answering the call of the great war-leader called Voislav the Wolf.

On the fourth day of Sukwe, the third month, the beast speakers and shamans and elders gathered to hear Voislav and to decide whether the tribes would unite for war or whether they would return to their homes. Voislav exhorted his audience to glorious battle.

“The time of breaking is upon us,” cried Voislav. “No longer will the bonds of ancient sorcery chain us from going where we will. The bound men are freed!

But children of the Aravoi, the bound men will still walk as men fettered until they see that their chains are struck, until their cities are laid low and their roads are reclaimed by the wild grasses, not conquered but consumed.”

And so the great horde descended on the Empire, lynx and horse and wolf and elk and bear, 100,000 strong and filled with all the craft and the cunning of those living in the wild places, the in between places. The horde fell first on the city of Kostoi, casting down its walls and burning its buildings, carrying off its things of steel and its food, but slaying only those who resisted them. Some 5,000 citizens were turned out of the city and into that harsh land without food or shelter. Those with useful skills, such as smiths and coopers and colliers, could choose instead to travel with the horde, where those skills earned them an honorable place.

After Kostoi was Chursk and the Bolozhda. Each was cast down despite determined resistance, the peasant levies lacking the discipline to withstand the furious aggression of the horde. Many of the warriors of those wild tribes undergo a sort of transformation in battle that might translate into our language as “the warp-spasm.” Filled with berserk rage, they undergo a terrifying physical change, growing in size and strength and taking on the bestial aspect of their tribe. I have seen such warriors continue to fight on after taking fatal wounds, hurling themselves onto enemy weapons to get in reach for a final strike or to open the way for their companions. Confronted with such puissance, the peasantry broke, casting down their weapons and taking flight. Few escaped.

After Bolozhda, the horde advanced on Moskva, a larger city than all the others combined. Some 20 leagues from the city, the wild men finally met some organized resistance from the Emperor. Tsar Petr’s soliders were outnumbered better than 10 to 1, but chose their ground well and sold their lives dearly. Led by the Knyaz Aleks Aleksevich, the soldiers were boyars and freemen all, a portion of the Emperor’s new professional military that was stiffened by 500 his elite Iron Bears. Missing from the Imperial forces were the peasant levies that had proved unequal to the task of resisting the horde. Most terrible of all, though, were the members of the Imperial Vanguard, or the Blood Knives as they are more popularly known.

The Imperial army had situated itself with a forest on its left flank, but its right flank appeared vulnerable, as it was open ground, slightly lower than that on which the army itself was positioned. Warriors of the horse and lynx clans swept around to the Imperial right, hoping to envelop the Imperial forces with their superior numbers and break apart their formation by forcing them into the woods, where Wild men warriors could engage in the sort of mass single combat for which they were so well-suited.

Though the beast speakers and shamans of the Wild Men possess formidable powers, those powers were not well-suited for the battlefield. The Blood Knives, by contrast, are weapons given human form. The lynx and horse warriors found that the ground on the Imperial right was marshy and difficult to pass, despite the fact that it was Sukwe and the ground should still have been frozen. As they attempted to complete the encirclement despite being slowed, they were subjected to a brutal enfilade of crossbow bolts and blood sorceries that made the maneuver impossible to complete.

Meanwhile, the other clans were forced into a killing zone between the forest and the marsh. The ground maximized the effectiveness of Imperial discipline against the ferocious but independent tribesmen. As the wild men ground themselves against the tight Imperial ranks, enervating clouds of blood-red mist swept through them. Phantoms of the slain rose up to taunt the living. The most terrifying effects of Blood Knife sorcery would not come until after the battle, when the wild men found that many of their wounds continued to bleed freely and would not clot or close no matter what sorceries or artifices were applied to their tending.

The horde’s numbers eventually carried the day, with the Imperial forces retreating in good order towards Moskva, their rearguard harried by angry horse clan warriors. It would not be a decisive confrontation.

The battle was short, taking place entirely within a single afternoon, but the death toll was high for both sides. The horse and lynx clans lost hundreds before they were forced to abandon their maneuver, many of them swallowed up by the marshy ground which quickly hardened once the Blood Knives were put to flight. The fighting along the front line was particularly bloody, with over a thousand imperial dead and more than three times that many warriors of the horde.

It was only the first of several confrontations before the decisive battle beneath Moskva’s walls.

Oct12

Flight

Still the 5th day of the 9th month, 31 N.C.E.

As it turned out, Sibyl didn’t have time to find out.

A loud crack echoed through the woods that surrounded the house, followed by the echoes of a guttural curse. A shout answered from somewhere else.

Sibyl bolted out of her chair, shouting “Elseny!” Elseny sat straight up with a gasp. “Gather your things, Butterfly. We have to leave.”

Sibyl took her own advice, grabbing a rough burlap sack and hurriedly stuffing it with her possessions: flint and steel, candles, a wheel of cheese, some apples, the heel of a loaf of bread, and her herb pouch. She added several pairs of socks and a woolen cloak. Elseny had never unpacked her jute sack, so she was dressing by the time Sibyl finished.

“What is it, Auntie?”

“They’ve come, child, and we need to run.”

“Who’s come?” Elseny asked, while stuffing her feet into her shoes.

“The Fir Bolg, Elseny. Keep calm and we’ll get through.”

Sibyl threw open the door, her sack in her left hand, and seized Elseny’s hand in her right. Tears were welling up in her eyes and she was trembling. Sibyl only avoided trembling along with her by force of will.

As they stepped out the door, the sounds became clearer: deep voices and the sound of men breaking a path through the woods. Sibyl closed the door and led Elseny around the back of the house and away from the sounds.

“Quiet, now,” she whispered, hauling Elseny down a nearly invisible path worn through the underbrush, their passage making only a faintly perceptible hush of disturbed greenery. Sibyl knew that the Fir Bolg would be able to follow. They had able scouts and maybe hounds, besides. Fortunately, they were also overconfident and didn’t bother to fully encircle the house before approaching.

Or so she thought.

*****

Elseny stumbled along behind her aunt in the woods. Her aunt seemed to be following some sort of path that wasn’t obvious to the naked eye. They moved swiftly enough, though Elseny was constantly being whipped in the face by what Edmund and Matthew had called “opportunity branches” when they played in the woods as children, pulling them and letting them snap back into the face of whoever was following. Her poor brothers.

The path wove to and fro through the woods, descending steeply towards what sounded like running water, becoming increasingly rocky. Elseny felt rocks slide under her feet, and she slipped. Auntie Sibyl hauled on her arm and kept her from sliding off the path. Pain blossomed in her shoulder and she cried out.

“Quiet, Elseny. You’re okay. Stand up. We have to keep moving.” Elseny noticed the sweat beading her aunt’s forehead, the slightly widened pupils of her eyes. She noticed her fear, or perhaps she saw her own fear mirrored.

Climbing quickly back to her feet, they continued to weave through the woods and down the hill. The trail opened up, becoming a clear dirt track, and though the slope was still wooded, it was increasingly rocky, festooned with larger rocks. Ahead the trail leveled out and wove its way around a large rock as tall as Elseny’s father and twice as broad where the trail doubled around and continued down to what would in other circumstances be a pleasant little stream, some ten feet across and gurgling over wet rounded rocks.

They careened toward the rock. Elseny felt a rising dread, a premonition of doom, and three steps later, a giant of a man stood up from behind the rock with a wicked grin and an even more wicked barbed spear. He was at least seven feet tall with a shock of bright red hair that extended down over his face. The cruel spear point glittered bronze in the slanting indirect sunlight, while the black wooden haft seemed to draw light into it. He drew his arm back to hurl that wicked instrument and time seemed to slow down. He’s going to throw it at Auntie, Elseny thought and she heard a buzzing like a multitude of insects all beating their wings.

“Everiel,” Sibyl shouted, and the ground shook and the trees bent to listen, or so it seemed. The fir bolg’s mouth dropped open and the spear fell from his limp fingers. His eyes crossed and he sat down hard.

Everiel, thought Elseny. Everiel.

Oct5

Healing Sleep

Contrary to popular mythology, the Fir Bolg were not likely from among the ranks of the Fallen or their half-human offspring, the Nephilim. Archaeological evidence suggests they were men warped by some magical process into a ferocious warrior caste that Queen Gloriana set above humanity. Besides giving her a group of fanatical warriors, this probably satisfied her reputedly sadistic cruelty.

Earlier historians based their belief that the Fir Bolg were Nephilim on their prodigious size and skill and the cruelties they inflicted on the people in their charge, but one hardly needs to look back into antiquity for examples of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man…

– from Albion in the Second Era: Before the Coming of the Lamb by Father Jean Narcisse Thibodeau, circa the year 1240 J.R.

5th day of the 9th month, 31 N.C.E.

Aunt Sibyl’s steading barely deserved the name. The main feature was a one-room house with herbs growing in the window; even from outside, Elseny felt that it was cluttered within. A small vegetable garden was mostly harvested for the year, and a well-tended apple tree stood at the end of the garden farthest from the house. A few ripe apples lay in the wet grass.

The sight of Aunt Sibyl’s comfortable cottage roused no feelings in Elseny other than a vague feeling of unreality. She half believed that she would soon wake in her own bed to the sounds of her father adding wood to the stove before he went out into the fields. She pinched herself to be sure, but she did not wake.

For her part, Sibyl studied her cottage silently, not even stirring from the seat of the wagon. She seemed like a deer, nervously testing the air.

“Something’s not right, she said finally. “It feels like when you walk into a room that someone else has just left. Wait here a moment, Butterfly.”

Sibyl stepped down from the wagon and crept towards the house, muttering to herself in a low voice that Elseny could only make out as a faint humming sibilance. She paused at the door, examining both the wood and the black iron handle. Nodding, she open the door and it swung silently inward. She peered inside and, satisfied, nodded.

“Come in, Elseny.”

Elseny climbed down from the wagon and grabbed the jute sack filled with her few remaining worldly possessions. The bag was sodden from the rain and smelled of ash. Indifferent, Elseny threw it over her shoulder and shuffled into the house. Inside, the room was as cluttered as she had imagined, with a bed, a chair, a stove, a small wood pile, and a few feet of floor space in between. Elseny dropped her sack just inside the door. The room was a riot of green and the air was redolent with the smells of drying herbs hanging from the rafters, with fresh herbs growing in a planter in the cottage’s sole window. Elseny recognized few of them. She saw aloe vera and chives in the window. Among the dozen or so different plants hanging from the rafters, she saw the blue flower known as monk’s hood hanging upside down, as well as the green trefoil leaves of Borsweed, which her father sometimes chewed to soothe a colicky stomach. Beneath the window was a row of clay pots and jars filled with yet more herbs.

“Set your things down, Butterfly, and fetch me some more wood for the stove from out back.”

“There’s wood there, Auntie.”

“Yes, dear, I know, but we’ll need more before the night’s out. I’ll start the fire while you get it.”

Elseny huffed out the door and circled around the cottage where she found a surprisingly large pile of firewood. She grabbed a few pieces and hurried back in out of the grey drizzle. Despite her short absence, Aunt Sibyl was already blowing a small flame to life in the stove.

The rest of the night passed quietly.

*****

Sibyl stirred as the first rays of light hit the sill of her window. She yawned and stretched, joints popping audibly. Elseny still slept deeply. Sibyl had not slept half so well, stretched out in her chair with a thin blanket thrown over her lap. It was not sustainable, but was probably for the best until Elseny was more herself.

She considered the sleeping girl. She looked very much as Sibyl had looked as a young woman, taking after her father with reddish-blond hair and pale freckled skin. Where she diverged from that look was her eyes; a brilliant green that seemed to flash golden in bright light. She was quite fetching, and Sibyl knew that Alfric had hopes of making her a very good match, a match far better than would ordinarily be merited by a simple steadholder.

He had been so certain of her bright future. He had taught her to read and write, and when his meager skills were exhausted, he purchased precious books from traveling peddlers. Not many books, but Elseny had devoured them repeatedly and was more literate than most steadholders twice her age. Among girls of her generation, she was unsurpassed.

Sibyl had offered to continue her education to include her areas of knowledge: plant lore and midwifery, stargazing, and the sagas. Alfric would have none of it, though Elseny loved when she would recite one of the great epic poems; she particularly liked “The Lay of the Swan Princess” and any of the romances of the Three Queens. More importantly, Sibyl wished to discover whether Elseny possessed the Talent. She had much to do.

Sep29

Storm Clouds

Late Fall, 1221st year by Julian Reckoning (J.R.)

It had been a very good joke.

Aerdri'lya flitted through the trees. The leaves were beginning to turn a million colors of orange, red, yellow, and brown and the nights were chill - perfect for hunting and feasting. Aerdri'lya’s greyhounds coursed silently at her side during those long nights, seeking game or sport.

She’d found sport aplenty five nights past. A hunter had stumbled deeper in the woods than men were wont to go. It had been easy to lead him deeper into the woods - a glimpse of her in the moonlight had done the trick - but the man was surprisingly stubborn and a good tracker for a man. Two days and two nights he had chased her, without resting for more than a few minutes, but always deeper and deeper into the wood.

It had been great sport - better than she had expected. The man was hardy and kept coming, but his body was not suited for sporting without rest or refreshment. On the second night, he began to slow, and Aerdri'lya watched as the last drops of water trickled from his canteen into his mouth. Naturally, she began to take extra care to lead him away from any source of water.

She had wanted to find out how strong the man was - could he break the spell and find himself some water? A woodsman of his skill would have had little difficulty, thinking rationally. If not, how long could he last without it?

Two more days, as it turned out, each day his pursuit slowing from his growing weariness, but never completely stopping until on that fourth night, his foot caught in a protruding oak root, he fell face down beneath its eaves. He lay there, panting and not moving, for several minutes, before he looked up and saw her across the clearing, backlit by the moon. It was at that moment he broke the spell. His face hardened momentarily in anger, quickly replaced by a resigned look as he realized he was too weak to find himself the water he desperately needed.

She laughed, silver chimes, as she crossed the clearing to him. From about 10 feet away she had thrown him her own waterskin. He looked confused at her sudden benevolence, but he picked up the skin and drank thirstily.

“My thanks–” he had begun to say, and then, at the moment when he found hope that he would live through this terror, she loosed her hounds on him to feast.

It had been a very good joke.

Sep22

Little butterfly

4th day of the 9th month, 31st year N.C.E. (New Covenant Era)

In the modern era, Julian has come to be known as the Conqueror, but this simplification succumbs to all the weaknesses of the “great man” theory of history. There is no question that Julian was a talented adept, perhaps the most talented in his era, an able strategist, and a charismatic leader, but many of his victories in the Second War would have been impossible but for the assistance of his cabal…

Elseny huddled under her roughspun woolen cloak as cold drizzle continued to drift from a grey sky. She wondered if she’d ever see the sun again.

She had been three days on the road with her aunt Sibyl, each bounce on the uneven road carrying her farther from a home that she’d probably never see again and a family that she’d probably never stop seeing whenever she closed her eyes. Da, lying in the yard with his head crushed in and ravens pecking at his face. Her brother Edmund with a hole in his chest and his pitchfork lying in the dirt. Her brother Matthew, cut down from behind as he fled. Her sister Ellen lying near her bucket, her clothes cut off her, stabbed over and over in the chest and with her head smashed against the stones of the well. Ellen had been covered with flies feasting on the spoiling flesh.

That was where Sibyl had found her - sitting next to Ellen and trying to shoo the flies away. Sibyl came over and gently pulled Elseny’s hands away and helped her stand up. Sibyl was crying and suddenly so was Elseny and she wondered why she hadn’t been crying before. They had rummaged through the ruin of the house for awhile - a hard rain had kept it from burning up completely, as the barn had, and they managed to find some clothes that would always smell of smoke and some blankets. They couldn’t find any food. The kitchen was where the fire had started. Of Elseny’s Ma there was no sign.

Within the hour they were on the road, with Elseny riding alongside Sibyl on the bench at the front of her wagon. They still had not spoken. Sibyl seemed to be waiting, and Elseny hadn’t been ready to talk yet.

That came later that night, when they were huddled together for warmth underneath the wagon. She had only asked, “why?” but her aunt didn’t know either.

The next two days had been every bit as cold and wet as the first. Sibyl had respected her silence and had not attempted to engage her in any conversation, other than those necessary to make the journey. Elseny did not know Sibyl well, having met her only twice in her life that she could remember, but she remembered enough to know that this was not typical of Sibyl. Sibyl had last come to visit when Elseny was ten years old, and she remembered the way that she and Elseny’s mother sat up and talked through the night. Elseny’s father had been tired after another day in the fields, and had gone to bed early. He had beckoned Elseny to come along, but Sibyl had said, “leave the little Butterfly, Alfric,” and so he had. The women talked into the night and Elseny had fallen asleep under the kitchen table, listening and enjoying the warmth of the iron stove.

Now, as the cart pulled to a stop in front of Sibyl’s home, Elseny finally spoke.

“We should have buried them.”

Sibyl turned her sad eyes on Elseny and said only, “yes, little Butterfly.”

“Well, why didn’t we?”

“How much did you see when your family was killed?”

“Nothing.” Ma had heard the yelling outside and had stuffed her into the root cellar and told her not to come out under any circumstances. The screaming of the livestock and the roaring of the flames lasted well into the night, and she had not come out until the following morning.

“And a good thing,” Sibyl said, “There are only a few things that will bring the Fir Bolg down on a steading like that, but once they come, they leave nothing alive.”

Elseny shivered. The Fir Bolg.

Sep15

In Him, Six shall become One

Summer Solstice, 28th year N.C.E. (New Covenant Era)

Jeremiah shivered in anticipation as he completed the seventh and final circle - wax, salt, bone, lead, iron, silver, and the innermost ring of his own blood. It remained only to pronounce a simple incantation and he would accomplish the impossible.

He checked his work again. The slightest error in calculation would cause the wards to fail to contain the awesome power he intended to invoke. Satisfied, he stepped to the podium that supported the massive tome with the ritual text. The most critical piece of knowledge was not in the book, however; the Name seethed in his mind like an ember waiting to be ignited by his breath and set his mind aflame. Jeremiah smiled tightly and began to speak. His voice creaked like an old door, but deepened and strengthened as he gained momentum. Energy surged through his body and he shuddered at the ecstatic frisson, starting in his feet and rushing up his spine. His face flushed and sweat beaded on his lip and his brow.

His whole-body exhilaration built and built until he thought he would be swept away in the ecstatic riptide, but some corner of his mind remained sufficiently alert to recognize the imminence of the critical moment. In the depths of his delirium, he heard his voice yell as if it issued from another man’s throat.

“Armaros,” he called, “Te invoco. I invoke you, Armaros. Answer my Call.” Energy rushed from his body into the protective circles, illuminating them one by one from the outside in: wax, salt, bone, lead, iron, silver, and blood. Each cast up a faint translucent curtain of light. A final rush of energy passed through Jeremiah as he spoke the critical third invocation, “Armaros.”

All the candles were extinguished, the room cast in the flickering shadows cast by the garish lights of the seven circles.

Inside the circle was…what? Jeremiah imagined a small patch of deeper darkness nestled there amidst the colored circles, but before he could peer into that void it was gone, replaced in that instant by a being of such perfect sublime beauty that it was nearly painful to look upon, a man of perfect proportion and beatific visage. A soft white light emanated from the angel, for an angel it was, stretching massive white feathered wings as much as possible in the confines of the protective circle.

“Why have you bound me, Jeremiah?” the angel asked with a look of sadness that made Jeremiah ache.

Jeremiah shook his head, annoyed at the angel’s ability to exert its influence even through seven discrete layers of protection. His head somewhat clearer, he could feel colossal magickal energies hammering against the wards. Such power, Jeremiah thought. Perhaps I underestimated the danger here.

“Armaros,” Jeremiah began, feigning confidence, “bound in the Void beyond during the Great Revolt. You were cast into the outer darkness by the Heosphoros itself. Do you know why I have called you back across all the far reaches of the universe?”

Armaros’s regretful visage deepened. “For the only reason that mortals like you ever attempt to control something so far beyond your ken. Power.”

“It’s not for myself, Armaros,” Jeremiah said. “I seek power to free humanity from…”

“Liar,” Armaros said, changing from sadness to anger in an instant. “That is the last time you ever lie to me.” Jeremiah could feel the angel flex its will, and the innermost circle of blood buckled and then failed, its light winking out. Jeremiah reeled as he was struck by a wave of magickal backlash from the failure of the ward.

“Stop!” Jeremiah yelled. “Your kind have brought their eternal war to Iveriu, and the Light of Eru has nearly gone out. Together we could bring it back!”

Armaros went from angry to mirthful in a flash. “And do you truly know why I was hurled into the Void, Jeremiah?” he cackled. “No, don’t answer. You couldn’t know. It’s true, as you know, that the Light of Morning cast me Outside… but not because I was trying to thwart his rebellion. I was trying to take his place, Jeremiah, and I nearly succeeded.

“Still, I could grant your request. In a way, I am in your debt for pulling me from that mad realm, and now I’m free.” Armaros laughed, and the silver circle broke, forcing Jeremiah back a step.

“Impossible,” Jeremiah said.

“Not even improbable,” Armaros said. “Observe. Here is your design.” A series of mathemagickal equations flashed through the air as if writ in fire; Jeremiah’s calculations. “And here is what actually happened.” More equations flashed through the air, but writ in a darkening fire and writ of symbols that were madness for Jeremiah to even look upon. He squeezed his eyes shut. “You were off by three orders of magnitude,” Armaros said. The iron ring broke, and Jeremiah staggered as he was struck by the backlash.

Despite his best efforts, those vile equations continued to writhe in his mind. He had done the impossible - found a way to call a seraph to his laboratory and to compel its service. Though it was a close thing, the defenses could contain a seraph of even the highest order, but Jeremiah saw his mistake as the equations balanced themselves at the direction of a malign intelligence: Armaros was a seraph, but also much more. He was Fallen, and his time Outside had changed him. The lead circle broke and Jeremiah was driven to his knees. What a fool I’ve been, he thought. In moments, Armaros would be free. Jeremiah hurled his will into his remaining circles, but it was far too little to make a difference. Armaros spread his wings, and Jeremiah saw them darken before his eyes to an ashy grey, tipped in black. The angel advanced, brushing aside the bone circle as if he had walked into a cobweb.

“Yes,” he mused, “I think I will grant your desires, Jeremiah. I will give you power.” He didn’t even notice as he stepped through the salt circle. Jeremiah, on his knees, fought to retain consciousness. “Power, but at a price.”

“Price?” Jeremiah groaned.

“Yes, Jeremiah.” The wax circle parted, and Armaros’s power hit him like a fist. “You will pay three times. Once for trying to deceive me, twice for your hubris in trying to control me, and thrice for failure to do so,” he smiled.

“For lying, you will never again speak a word not true. For your hubris you will be wracked with nightmares when you sleep, and those nightmares will come to life when you wake by the strength of your own Will. For failing…” Armaros pondered. “For failing you will die.”

Armaros laid a finger on Jeremiah’s forehead.

“There,” he said. “Jeremiah is dead.”

“Who is dead?” the man asked.

“Never mind, Ahaz,” said the angel.