by J. Gibson
The Blackened Yonder is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is coincidental.
Content Note
The following work depicts violence which may be disturbing to some readers.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020914917
© 2021 J. Gibson
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-7363677-0-4 (eBook | Standard Edition)
ISBN 978-1-7363677-1-1 (Print | Standard Edition)
ISBN 978-1-7363677-2-8 (Print | Special Edition)
Published by The Lost Press
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@PlanarLost
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Edited by Mark Antiporda
Interior book designs by Bodie Dykstra
Standard Edition cover, interior art, and chapter sigils by Diletta De Santis
Special Edition cover by Daniele Serra
Standard Edition cover layout by GermanCreative
Special Edition cover layout by OliviaProDesign
Map illustration by Veronika Wunderer
Map and flag concepts by J. Gibson
Appendix portraits by J. Gibson via Artbreeder
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Credits and Media
Dedication
Map
Illustration
Chapter I: Dealings
Chapter II: Undeath
Chapter III: Red
Chapter IV: Keeper
Chapter V: Maneuvers
Chapter VI: Anguish
Chapter VII: Ghora
Chapter VIII: Falling
Chapter IX: Matron
Chapter X: Enigma
Chapter XI: Priest
Chapter XII: Evocation
Chapter XIII: Order
Chapter XIV: Decline
Chapter XV: Machinations
Chapter XVI: Parting
Chapter XVII: Loss
Chapter XVIII: Beyond
Chapter XIX: Slither
Chapter XX: Accord
Chapter XXI: Imbredon
Chapter XXII: Overcast
Appendix
Acknowledgements
About the Author
For my maternal grandmother, the kindest person I ever knew.
CHAPTER I: DEALINGS
Athenne
She prayed. Her eyes rolled skyward in search of heeding, and she opened herself, as she had learned in her youth, to the All-Mother, Queen of the Celestia. She sought direction in line with the burden of their hour. As one of many sacred daughters under the stars, she made a single, solemn promise, and asked for their safety and success. When she finished, she breathed deep and bottled it, the task at hand returning to her mind.
After this day, I’ll be a terrorist. The Church will hunt me down.
Athenne knelt before the incense altar of a Matrian sanctuary, at the head of a fire-gutted church. “Why do you think they left this place?” she said over her shoulder to Uldyr. Beyond the odor of smoldering incense crept a scent of stale earth and aged animal filth, the outside encroaching on crumbling human edifice. At times, she longed for the whole world to smell this way; for nature to overtake women and men in their dreadful stone houses and opulent temples, to dash away the artifice and return the plane to its inborn glory.
Exhalations frosting the air, Athenne’s hands fell to her sides. The censer at her front and the candle next to her, whose slight tongue of flame fluttered against unrelenting shadow, lent the church its meager warmth, too little to keep her fingers from going numb. Light from the four moons, bisected by the three rings of the sky, peeked through sparse, rolling clouds past windows and fissures in the structure’s walls and ceiling.
Her gaze traveled up the glass mosaic at the peak of the steps behind the altar and choral platform. The All-Mother, Gohheia, depicted with such detail. None have witnessed Her as flesh, so whose visage is this?
“Perhaps, too far out,” Uldyr answered after some delay. “Why do you still pray?”
She rose to her feet. The candle in her hand lifted to illuminate her face. “I believe in the All-Mother. The priests, bishops, and magisters of Her Church cannot change that.”
Uldyr stood a head or more above her, broad of shoulder and back, with wrists the size of her neck. She had never asked his years, but reckoned him to be in his early thirties. Despite his youthfulness otherwise, he had a rough face, battered from ages of journeying, fighting, and hard living. His long hair had the color of a forest wolf’s coat, and the hue of dull slate tinted his irises. He had a sense of humor, but rarely smiled.
Athenne never asked about that, either.
As she walked along the pews, her black robes stirred grime in whirling bursts. Shattered stone, layers of dirt, and spider’s web coated the surfaces around them. “Are the others to arrive soon?” She sat at the end of a row behind Uldyr, balancing her candle atop the bench ahead of her and brushing her palms together. Floating motes of flickering dust winked at her in the gloomy haze of her fire.
“Soon, by the light of the sky.” Uldyr turned toward her, resting his hand on the pommel of his shortsword. He had always favored a sharp blade and the protection of a leather-faced gambeson or mail to magic. Shifts in Matrian policy and Imperial culture had strangled the Aether, the arts of every aspect, and rendered most combative spells inoperable. His preference had proved prudent.
“Are you afraid?”
“Nervous,” she said. “Not afraid.”
“Don’t underrate this.” Uldyr’s face darkened. “I’ve been with the Saints for ages, participated in attacks on the Church, taken innocent lives in the name of our cause.” His voice softened. “It wears on you.”
Why is he telling me this now?
She squirmed in her seat, a block of ice against her clothes, as the drop of ache in his voice sank through her. Doubt lingered in her mind, uncertainty about the mission of the Saints and those involved. Even so, she could not betray it this night. “I care about the freedom of magic and its study. I’m here for that purpose.”
Before he could reply, the doors of the church opened. Chilled wind rippled through the room, swam around its four corners and back out. In the entryway stood a woman, an elf by her pointed ears and coquelicot eyes, a shade resembling the pedals of wild corn poppies. She wore a sleeveless dress of pink and white and silver chains, rings, and bangles. Her steps carried her forth as though she floated atop a calm pond, graceful and even.
Aitrix Kravae.
Athenne got up, steady as a newborn calf, her chest tight. She glanced at Uldyr, who seemed unmoved, a boulder embedded in a dim setting of forgotten architecture.
No surprise.
These were his comrades in a long struggle.
Behind the elf were two others, a woman and a man in fur-trimmed black and brown leathers, riding breeches, and muddy boots. She had expected a greater showing for such an important event.
The elf’s eyes danced over Athenne. “You’ve brought a friend.” Her flat tone masked her disposition.
“She’ll be a powerful asset in this venture. She is a strong and learned materialist who believes the Aether should
flow uninhibited.” Uldyr gestured toward Athenne, as if beckoning her to introduce herself.
Aitrix’s expression remained unchanged. “Your name?”
“Athenne Zedd. I’m from Reneris, where Uldyr and I met.” Her heart galloped. “Orilon, actually.”
“A tough city, or so I’ve heard.”
She attempted to compose herself. “Yes, Mys—Kravae?” Athenne didn’t want to shame Uldyr on her first meeting with the Saints, especially not with Kravae herself possibly in attendance.
“That’s the rumor,” Aitrix quipped. She smiled, to Athenne’s relief. “If Uldyr trusts you, then so do I. Give me no reason to doubt you, and I’ll show you boundless faith. I’ll never ask more of you than I believe you capable.”
“Uldyr has told me as much.”
“That said, I must warn you.” Aitrix’s smile faded. “If you ever betray this order, consider your life forfeit. Once you pledge your allegiance to us, you are one of us. Hereafter, should you elect to conclude your membership, you consent to having your memory of the Saints erased—in totality.”
Erased? Uldyr had told her nothing of this stipulation. He stared at her from the side and she returned his gaze. Surely, he meant to tell me. It must have slipped his mind.
Losing her recollection of the Saints would mean that if she left, they would take the majority of her memories of Uldyr. Most of their discussions had focused on the Saints, from this meeting to a vague future of the organization. She and Uldyr would become almost as strangers.
“Uldyr informed me. I am committed to the mission of the Saints.” She lied, at least about Uldyr. This knowledge compelled her to remain. How often can there be deserters?
“Then we shall proceed,” Aitrix said. “For the benefit of our uninitiated, the gentleman to my left is Eclih Phredran. The lady to my right is Bhathric Ezeis. Eclih is a mentalist, Bhathric is a materialist, Matrian wards notwithstanding. They are two of our best, and have assisted me in a number of endeavors.”
“A pleasure.” Eclih bowed. He looked more elven than human by the lean, sharp length of his features, but his green eyes and rounded ears laid bare his humanity.
Bhathric flashed a grin, her arms folded behind her. “Well met.” She had a steady poise and confidence. An assertive brightness layered her timbre like flowers over a field.
“Eclih and Bhathric came to the Saints after they were shunned in the overlands,” Uldyr told Athenne. “They deemed Eclih a wizard for his psychic gifts, and Bhathric, a witch, for her interest in necromancy. Fortunately, the Saints welcome practitioners of every talent and inclination.”
“Small words from small, frightened minds attempting to contain what they can’t comprehend,” Aitrix said.
Eclih glanced over his allies and grinned. “This is the spirit of our calling. It’s no secret that ordination isn’t necessary for magecraft, so why must we involve the gods? Why does the Church condemn and shun those with unique abilities if their own god bestowed them?”
“Any deviation of conviction, they view as an existential threat,” Bhathric added, in a natural flow of sentiment. “It’s why they suppress schismatic factions and prohibit the reading of so-called subversive texts. It’s why they hired Forgebrand daggerhands to murder me.”
Disbelief rattled Athenne. Never had she heard anyone utter such contempt for the Church or accuse members of the Clergy of such heinous misdeeds. She found it difficult to accept. “The Church hired mercenaries, who themselves break their laws, to kill a mage for practicing necromancy?”
“I never practiced necromancy.” Redness blazed in Bhathric’s cheeks. “My crime was taking an interest in the study of necromancy. A curator in the Imperial City reported me for requesting a copy of The Obsidian Manual.”
“Breiman Umbra decreed the text heretical a week prior, as every work by Abbessa Alamanor,” Eclih said. “Many were ignorant of it. They made no declaration to the public.”
“Not long after, they uncovered my identity and whereabouts. If not for a terror that woke me hours earlier, the daggerhand they sent would’ve killed me—in my sleep, no less.” Bhathric stepped forward. “The Clergy covet power above all else. Consider the danger their restrictions pose. If they can make curiosity itself a crime, what else can they outlaw?” Her speech became a rasp. “What gives them the right?”
“I’d no idea they’d gone so far.” Athenne looked at Uldyr and then toward the ground, her face and ears hot. She suspected there must be more to the story, but she would not press the issue.
“Do you understand?” The tension in the sanctuary ebbed at Aitrix’s voice. “Magic across the Empire is at the mercy of individuals who veil their greed in false virtue. We cannot allow it to continue. The Aether must flow, unfettered by the fear and avarice of fools who long to subdue it rather than understand it.” Her words snapped like a whip toward the end. “If you have any reservations, leave now.”
The pressure in the room swelled once more. A hostile silence descended on Athenne and bound her at the chest. “I—” She fought to sound assured. “I dedicate myself to the cause, to all of you. I long for the liberty of magic as you do.” I have not cast freely since Reneris, but can I trust these people?
Uldyr placed his hand on her shoulder. “Though I’ve known Athenne a mere few months and have much to learn of her, I believe that she is faithful to the cause of the Saints, that she is worthy of becoming one of us.” He looked over to her as if to encourage her, his grey eyes displaying a genuine fidelity.
Aitrix’s haunting off-red gaze, like blood diluted in water, meandered between Uldyr and Athenne. “Let us get to the aim of this assembly.” She signaled to Eclih with her hand and he came around her.
“This venture is our most ambitious to date.” He moved to the prayer altar at the head of the sanctuary and turned to face them. “We are going to destroy the Iron Court.”
Athenne’s eyes widened. Such an attack would deal a significant blow to the Matrian Church and its morale. Impressions of the Church are in decline, Uldyr had said during their journey. In part due to the propaganda of the Knights of Faith, fallen paladins in service of the mental god Vekshia. If the Saints aimed to disrupt the Church’s control over magic, this would be one method by which to do it.
Yet to endanger so many innocent lives, and to destroy such a consecrated space, seemed unconscionable, even for their ends. Not all members of the Clergy were a part of the Church’s constraints on magic, and as best she knew as a foreigner, the Emperor had served the Sacred Empire well.
Aitrix walked to Eclih’s side. “We must send a message that they cannot conceal.”
“Do we assume that all members of the Church are complicit in the restriction of magic?” Athenne protested, meek but mustering a sliver of nerve. “What of the innocents? Wouldn’t indiscriminate slaughter lay the reputation of our cause at the mercy of Matrian propaganda?”
“How do you propose we differentiate the guilty from the innocent?” Aitrix’s observation bore into Athenne. It made her feel small. “Suppose we submit to your magnanimous discretion. How do we decide who agrees with the edicts of Breiman Umbra and who does not? Shall we walk into the Imperial Palace or the Grand Priory and interview every bishop, priest, and deacon, their children and machines? Shall we keep a detailed tally of the ayes and nays and sketches of the lot? Enlighten us of your grand design.”
Athenne looked at everyone around her. Eclih and Bhathric, analyzing. Uldyr, stone-faced, grey gaze set upon the floor, forsaken by its former heartening glint. Aitrix, whose shadow seemed more like a smothering of light than its absence. She had no rebuttal, for their leader spoke the truth. There must be no compromises if we are to realize our goal. The deaths of innocents, including children, would forever stain her spirit. All of their spirits.
“Our aim is not the murder of innocents, as you alluded,” Aitrix continued, as if reading her thoughts. “We are at war with the most powerful body on the face of the Earth. In times of war, casu
alties are inevitable. Many more will die if the use of magic remains confined to the hands of the few at the expense of the many. Umbra has deemed us terrorists because a world at liberty fills his coward’s heart with fear. You must be willing to die for this cause, or as I stated, trouble us no longer.”
“You claimed moments ago that you align yourself to us without reservation,” Bhathric followed.
You cannot renege without cost. “I am with you.” Athenne’s hands prickled, as the feeling returning from a limb she’d slept on. Numbness, the tingling of growing sensation. Except a sense of emotion stirred, not of touch.
With all their sights on her, and with this affirmation, she had become another fletching on the arrow, guiding its way. These people, including Uldyr, had done terrible things. Their steadfast solidarity in the face of a certain mountain of corpses, bloated with death, charred, gushing red, broken, exposed their disaffection. In their view, in the eyes of Aitrix Kravae, their objectives hoisted to the absolute, beyond any concept of the value of every mortal life, or of fairness to the individual and justice.
If this was Gohheia’s answer to her prayers, Athenne wished instead that there had been no reply.
CHAPTER II: UNDEATH
Garron
A chill swept over the village of Erlan that night, peculiar and alive.
At a small round table in a small stone hovel, Father Garron Latimer sat, sipping tea from a small tin cup. His blue eyes, lit in the pale light of the Earth’s moons, affixed on the sky through a cracked window, caked in dust. Outside, winds whipped past, blowing the trees and grass, battering the house’s thatched rooftop and rough grey exterior. Scattered clouds drifted overhead.
This hovel resembled most in the village, its thick stone walls outfitted with a window at the front and a wooden entrance door, too heavy for fewer than three people to mount. Inside, candles and an open hearth illuminated plank flooring, a single room with a bed atop a handcrafted oak frame, crude stools, tables, chairs, a chest. During severe winters, those who kept modest animals often brought them inside, to the detriment of their sanitation.
