by Damien Black
He frowned and poked at the fire with a stick. ‘Consider yourself very fortunate indeed, young man,’ he continued. ‘Many other organisations, and many more ruthless men of power than the Abbot, would have taken far more drastic steps to ensure your silence.’
Horskram broke off and looked outside the cave into the evening gloom, leaving a shiver to run down Adelko’s spine as he grasped the full meaning of his words.
Presently the adept turned back to stare into the fire and spoke again: ‘And speaking of last night’s revelations, I think it is time I explained to you a little more about their significance – doubtless you will already have begun to glean their important nature, and if you’re to accompany me in this thing you’ll need to understand just how important, and why secrecy is therefore essential.’
Adelko nodded. ‘Of course, Master Horskram.’
He tried to moderate the enthusiasm in his voice, but once again his thirst for knowledge, so rarely quenched, was welling up inside him. His mentor was about to tell him more secrets, this time without his even having to ask any annoying questions. Disobedient as he had been of late, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that his audacious behaviour was paying off.
Horskram took a deep breath and let out a weary sigh as he poked the fire again. The flames flared momentarily and threw the adept’s shadow up on to the cave wall behind him – Adelko fancied for an instant he beheld a wraith-like mimic of his mentor, come to haunt them like the banshee at Urebro. He shrugged off the unpleasant thought as Horskram began his instruction.
‘Doubtless you will have read of the elder days, when the world was newly fashioned at the Almighty’s command from the celestial clay by the Unseen – that we today call the archangels and our pagan forefathers called gods,’ said the monk. ‘The wisest loremasters tell of the Varyans, an ancient race ruled by wizards, who were taught the music of the spheres by the Unseen – for in those halcyon days the angels walked openly among mankind, and spoke freely with those who had ears for their wisdom.
‘Now in time the Varyans waxed great and powerful, for the Unseen taught them many things. They built a mighty city on the shores of the island where they lived, called Varya, from where they take their name. The Thalamians called it Seneca, which as you will know means “city of light” in their tongue. But today most simply call it the Forbidden Isle, and its ruins lie in the midst of the Great Inland Sea.’
Adelko nodded perfunctorily. The sea his master referred to was a vast land-locked ocean hundreds of leagues away, surrounded by strange kingdoms inhabited by stranger peoples. He knew something of the legend of the Elder Wizards of Seneca – everyone did, and even remote peasant communities such as his had some inkling of an ancient and terrible power that had ruled most of the Known World thousands of years ago. Occasionally the odd wayfarer would mention having seen some vast haunted ruin of strange design, a fragment of the age-old empire made by Them, and anyone listening would shudder and make the sign.
His master continued: ‘Now the Vedict Texts tell us that the Priest-Kings of Varya began to look beyond their shores, for though they lived on an island paradise they were curious about the rest of the world, and it is said that the Unseen encouraged them to explore beyond the Sceptred Isle, as it was then also called. And so the Varyans built a mighty navy, and sent high-prowed ships sailing in all directions. Before long they reached land, for the Inland Sea was less vast before the Breaking of the World. The Vedict Texts tell us that during the following centuries they conquered all the lands about its shores – from the baking deserts of Sendhé in the Far South to the very shores of this land. As well as teaching them surpassing skill in all earthly crafts, the Unseen taught the Priest-Kings great and powerful sorceries, allowing them to bend nature to their will so that none might withstand them.’
Adelko’s ears pricked up. This he hadn’t known. ‘The archangels teaching magic to mortals? But... that’s blasphemy!’ he exclaimed. He had promised himself he would listen quietly, but he could not help butting in.
Horskram did not seem irritated or surprised by his interruption, but merely nodded and continued: ‘Indeed, it is rightly held so now, for we have the benefit of hindsight to aid us in our reckoning. But the world was a far younger place then, and the folly of giving mortals such power had not yet been made apparent. The Unseen taught the Elder Wizards the secret language of magic, words of power that would allow them to summon spirits from the Other Side to do their bidding. Using this power, and that of their mighty armies and fleets of ships, the Varyans raised an empire that lasted a thousand years.
‘For much of that time all was well, or so the Vedict Texts would have us believe – for though terrible when crossed the Priest-Kings were munificent in victory, and soon all the lands under their thrall shared in their glory. Indeed, some loremasters even believe that people in those days enjoyed blessed lives, living far beyond the years of mortal men nowadays, free of disease, famine, war and strife. Such scholars refer to this period as the Platinum Age, and we have not seen its like since, nor probably ever shall.’
Horskram paused to warm his hands at the fire, first casting a couple more branches on to it. Adelko barely noticed the cold or the wind outside, by now howling fit to raise the dead.
‘So what happened?’ Adelko knew that some of most powerful Elder Wizards had angered the archangels, and that the Almighty had ordered them to destroy their mighty city as a punishment for their transgression, but he was a bit light on the details.
‘I was coming to that,’ replied Horskram. ‘In time, the Vedict Texts tell us, there arose among the Grand Synod of Priest-Kings one who surpassed all the others in knowledge and understanding.’
‘Wait, I do know this!’ interjected Adelko again excitedly. ‘His name was Mammon! He was the most powerful of the Elder Wizards, but his vanity and pride got the better of him... he was seduced by the Fallen One and became corrupted... then he corrupted the others...’ Adelko’s voice trailed off – he was fast reaching the limits of his knowledge.
‘Yes, that is correct,’ said Horskram. ‘Although the name you give him is but an Urovian corruption of “Ma’amun”, which means “Bringer Of Night” in the Pavana tongue of Sendhé, whose latter-day priest-caste are said to be direct descendants of the Varyans. It is the name given to him in the Vedict Texts that I have referred to, which are an account of the days of the Priest-Kings written by their descendants more than a thousand years after the Breaking of the World.’
Adelko had read a little about that mysterious realm. The Hierocracy of Sendhé was a vast land on the southern fringes of the Great Inland Sea, beyond the Pilgrim Kingdoms and Sassanian Sultanates, home to a strange and esoteric people who practised human sacrifice and worshipped devils openly. He could well believe they were descended from the blasphemous Elder Wizards.
‘During his communion with the Unseen, Ma’amun did indeed become corrupted by Abaddon,’ continued the adept. ‘He ventured too far on his astral wanderings, and strayed where he should not have strayed. For in those days, the rent between worlds was greatly widened, and it was easier to travel to and from the Other Side. In fact it’s commonly believed among loremasters and sorcerers alike that most visitations we experience to this day are a direct result of that era, when the Elder Wizards practised sorcery at will. Our world has been changed forever and made less natural as a result of their diabolical meddling.’
Horskram paused to make the sign. Adelko almost forgot to do the same, he was so enthralled by his mentor’s story.
The adept continued: ‘And so in time Ma’amun found himself at the gates of Gehenna, where the Fallen One had been imprisoned for aeons with his servants. These were the anti-angels and lesser spirits who had joined him in the Battle for Heaven and Earth at the Dawn of Time, when at the Almighty’s behest the First Clarion signalled its emergence from the Void.’
Adelko knew this part, any good disciple of scripture did. Abaddon had been the greatest of the archangel
s, until he became corrupted by his own pride and vanity. He had helped Reus to make the world but soon desired to rule over it exclusively. So he had gathered a formidable host of archangels, angels and lesser spirits and gone to war against the Almighty and those of the Unseen that remained loyal to him. Through the long ages of celestial war that followed Abaddon and his followers became horribly corrupted, still able to take beautiful forms for a time but always reverting to hideous shapes in the end. After an unimaginable length of time, Reus and the loyal angels had succeeded in overpowering Abaddon and his followers, banishing them to Gehenna in the remotest corner of the Other Side.
Horskram continued: ‘Standing at the gates of smouldering brass that had kept Abaddon and his infernal brood at bay for so long, Ma’amun entered into discourse with him, and there the Fallen One taught him things that he should never have learned. He showed him how to twist the words of power he had learned of the other archangels, to use magic for great harm to increase his own stature.
‘And all the while, as the Vedict Texts and the Scriptures both tell us, the Fallen Archangel poured words of honeyed poison into Ma’amun’s willing ears, so that he gained greater power only to become a pawn of the Author of All Evil. Ensnared by his greed for knowledge and spurred on by his waxing hubris, Ma’amun returned night after night to converse with his new master.
‘His power and influence grew steadily, so that before a hundred years had passed he had subjected most of the Grand Synod to his will. From that time the happy days of the Varyan Empire began to wane, and its diverse peoples felt the yoke of oppression, as the Elder Wizards sacrificed the weak and ailing, burning them alive on vast pyres or rending them in two on marble altars stained red with blood from morning till night. Watching this the true archangels of the Unseen were horrified, and bewailed what had become of their grand creation through mortal folly.’
Adelko could not resist interrupting again. ‘But why didn’t they do something? Surely they could have stopped it from happening?’
Horskram shook his head sadly. ‘The Almighty had gifted mortalkind with free will from the outset – the angels could counsel them but they could not compel them. But in his contumely, the Fallen One reckoned not well, and he overplayed his hand. For in teaching Ma’amun the secrets of black magic, he had made him powerful beyond all measure, what the pagan ancients of the Golden Age that came thereafter would have called a demi-god. Gathering his followers about him, he bade them prepare for the appointed hour when he would unleash the forces of the Other Side. Co-rulership of the Known World, extended long life, and wisdom and power beyond mortal ken were not enough for him, for he desired like his diabolical tutor to become sole possessor of all that he saw. And in dark vaults deep below the City of Light, Ma’amun wrought his masterpiece, an artefact of dread power that would help him summon the hosts of Gehenna to do his bidding and sweep aside all that remained to oppose him. The Vedict Texts describe it as a great tablet, on which he set down the most potent words ever written in the sorcerer’s script. And legends refer to it as the Headstone of Ma’amun, for its power is said to be enough to put the world in its grave should it ever be unleashed.’
Adelko frowned. The Headstone... yes, it was familiar, vaguely. He was sure he’d read about it somewhere, but he seemed to recall it being regarded as little more than a myth. Once more he felt an inexplicable sense of unease. He wasn’t sure he liked where this story was going.
Horskram continued: ‘Now when the conjunction of the planets hailed by Ma’amun came to pass, he took himself to a place he had long prepared at the summit of his white-walled tower at the heart of the City of Light. Upon it he set the Headstone, and he chanted mighty incantations through the night. Whether Ma’amun’s intention was to try and wrest power from Abaddon and assume control of his hellish host using the Headstone, the Vedict Texts do not say, nor any other source that I have come across. But what we do know is that neither Abaddon nor Ma’amun had reckoned on the wrath of the Almighty.’
‘The Breaking of the World...’ said Adelko softly. Most scholars agreed that devastating cataclysm had taken place around five thousand years ago.
Horskram nodded grimly, his eyes burning as he became swept up in his own story. ‘His fury waxed terribly, and He resolved that if His creations could not be compelled, yet they must be reckoned with. And so He chose to visit ruin upon the world they had so marred. But He was right to do so, as He is in all things, Adelko! Even such a cataclysm was preferable to a world ruled entirely by evil in its purest form!’
Adelko had to look away from his master’s zealous stare. When the old monk was at his most intense holding his gaze was like trying to hold a hot iron.
Horskram continued regardless: ‘And so at His behest the Unseen pulverised the Sceptred Isle, and they caused the seas about it to be greatly expanded, drowning the surrounding lands for many leagues so that none would come near it again. Some accounts even say He caused the Great World Serpent, his first sentient creation, to stir momentarily from her perpetual slumber at the centre of the earth. And such was the ruin wreaked on the world that the civilisations of mankind were blown asunder, the towers and palaces that the Priest-Kings built shelved, their cities levelled and their highways smashed into tiny fragments. Some loremasters even say the world’s very shape was altered.’
That rang a bell. In the library Adelko had looked at a fragment of an ancient tablet said to pre-date the Breaking. It was supposed to cover the southern portion of the Free Kingdoms, but it looked very different to every other map of that region he’d looked at.
‘Ma’amun and his followers were banished to the outer limits of the Void, to join his infernal seducer in the burning halls of Gehenna. But the ruin they had brought about could never be fully undone. And so began the First Age of Darkness, which lasted another thousand years before new civilisations flourished, first in Sendhé and afterwards in Ancient Thalamy and other places – which as you know heralded the Golden Age that preceded our own.’
Their own era was commonly referred to as the Silver Age. Adelko knew enough about precious metals to grasp the metaphor – the world wasn’t getting any better for old age.
His master had paused to put a few more branches on the fire. Clearly he wasn’t done with telling stories for the night, not by some way. Adelko pulled his cloak more tightly about him as the wind outside the cave intensified, keening hungrily like an evil spirit.
When the fire was renewed Horskram went on with his tale. He told how the Headstone had lain forgotten among the ruins of Varya, for it had been erected with the help of the Unseen and not even in their utmost wrath could they destroy utterly what they had helped to make. Accounts of those few adventurers foolhardy enough to seek its fabled treasures who had somehow returned with their minds and bodies intact told of an island shrouded in thick mists that coalesced into ghostly phantasms: incarnations of devils once bound to the Elder Wizards, or the cursed shades of Varya’s former citizens. But no freebooters had ever managed to penetrate its ancient heart, from where Ma’amun had brought the wrath of the archangels down upon him.
No one that is, until the Northlandic hero Søren braved its shores seven hundred years ago.
Adelko’s ears pricked up another notch when he heard his master mention the legendary warrior’s name. He recalled the raven that afternoon, and his uneasy feeling at being reminded of the doomed mariner.
‘You will doubtless be familiar with many of Søren’s adventures,’ said Horskram, ‘how he led the First Fleet that brought our ancestors from the Frozen Wastes of the North, and helped their kings carve out new realms for themselves on these shores. But the Northern Chronicle tells that Søren grew weary of war and conquest, for he did not desire to settle the lands he had helped to subdue, but yearned for new adventures.
‘And so in time the Chronicle tells us he took to the waters once again on his mighty longship, Jürmengaard, which legend has it was gifted to him by the Archangel Sjórkunan,
Lord of Oceans, whom the Northlanders still worship as a god. Legend also has it that Sjórkunan was Søren’s father – even today they hold him a demi-god. And Søren sailed west across the Tyrnian Straits, until he came to the shores of the Island Realms.’
More strange lands. The Island Realms were home to a reclusive and ancient group of tight-knit clans, ruled over by the Marcher Lords and their druidic priests, who venerated the Archangel Kaia as a nature goddess.
‘And neither are the Tyrnian Straits for the faint-hearted,’ said the adept, ‘for many a traveller’s tale tells of water spirits and ghosts of drowned mariners glimpsed upon the loam that moan and whisper as one draws near the Islands.’
As if on cue, a sound came suddenly to them out of the wilderness. Barely audible through the driving rain, it sounded like the howling of some distant beast, although it was too faint to identify.
‘Probably wolves,’ said Horskram, noting Adelko’s discomfort. ‘The Wold is full of them.’
The novice shivered in the folds of his cloak as his master poked the fire some more and resumed his story.
‘The Northern Chronicle tells how, standing on the prow of his self-guiding longship, Søren looked across the haunted waves and espied a great tower looming over the shoreline of Skulla, the largest island of the Realms. Drawing closer he realised it was much further inland than he had at first thought, for it was vast indeed, the height of many castles. This was the Watchtower of the Valley of the Barrow Kings, which the Priest-Kings of old erected to guard over that part of their world empire. Like the City of Light, these could not be completely unmade by the wrath of the Unseen, and many like it still exist – you will no doubt have heard of the Watchtowers of Mount Brazen, where Søren slew Ashokainan, and Tintagael, which lies directly south of here.
‘When Søren stumbled on it, the Watchtower was the residence of the enchantress Morwena. She was originally a member of the druidic synod that ruled the Island Realms with the Marcher Lords, and it is told in both the Northern Chronicle and histories kept by the Islanders how she became passing knowledgeable in the workings of magic. This was not uncommon in the Realms, nor is it today, for legend tells how Kaia visited the Island folk towards the end of the First Age of Darkness and broke with the covenant set by the Unseen, teaching them Right-Handed magic.’
