Ineia's Journal

 It seems like months since I had time to write, like time has just stopped progressing in the normal way. I haven't slept since... sometime before we came to the city. 

Last night I thought we would go to bed after dinner, but decided to explore the city instead. While we were out a man stumbled into us, bleeding. He said "Treachery! Tell the king! Yalethkarr has fallen." and collapsed on the ground. The fall of the cities had begun. I thought he had died, but with Inayin's help I was able to stabilize him. 

Back at the estate I tried to save Yalifer's life. The poison had worked deep into his blood, and he was wounded by both sword and arrow. I could feel my own face was pale as I tried everything I knew--with the use of the extensive herbal medicines available and Inayin s assistance. When I needed clean blood Fjalanor simply rolled his sleeve up. He didn't say anything, just sat in the chair I gave him and held his arm out over the bowl and let me drain his blood with metal tubes. I thought his blood would be enough. It... I think it would have been if I'd been able to start sooner. It should have been enough. 

At sunrise, after hours of effort, after draining Fjalenar of all color, Yalifer took one last shuddering breath and died. Even with the Lotus Paste and  Fjalenar's blood I couldn't save him. 

At this point it was dawn. Fjalenar fell asleep, but the rest of us went down for breakfast. I put the messengers sealed letter in my pocket. We told Lady Vianrei and Rinsos who the messenger was and what his message was. We told them where we were from. I wept as I told them the city would fall and all the horrors that were coming. They believed us, as much as was possible. Maybe our horror at hearing that Parbeas had arrived in town convinced them. He is at the palace now.

 Thargash came in from his night out--apparently he'd been watching for Lady Anaris, who had arrived with her anvil that night. He explained the anvil was how he intended to move to his own time and get us back to ours. He wanted us to steal it. I said we should talk to her first, maybe explain a little bit of the situation so she understands. How can I steal from someone who was kind to us?

I also pleaded with Thargash to come back with us. He is a good teacher. He's worked with nobles and seen many fights and always managed to find a way through. I need his help. If he came back I could make a place for him, and anyone who had a problem with it could take it up with me--my parents included. I'd build a place for him, I'd make him fit. 

But it isn't only that I need him. I also don't want to fight him. I've grown fond of him. I can't let him go through with his plan and when he tries I'll have to stop him. But I don't WANT to stop him.  Thargash is the only part of the battle at the Jade bridge I dread. 

I don't even dread dying. 

But, of course, he wouldn't agree. 

I am captivated by his passion for his wife. It makes me think of Neras and Kanle, who were willing to burn the world down for each other. I can't imagine loving anyone like that. I don't want to love like that, whatever the hymns might say about them "teaching us to love." I've always known I'd make a different choice than Kanle. There are too many people precious to me to let them burn for one man. It would be better to cut my heart out than let it betray me that way.

And yet, here I am thoughts returning repeatedly to Kanle and Neras, Thargash and his wife...

Fjalenar came out at this point and suggested we go to Lady Anaris in person. We agreed to go after breakfast. I put a kettle on to boil, and before I let Fjalenar leave I set a steaming mug of Purple Sorrel tea in front of him. He was so pale. He hadn't complained, but there was no reason for him to be miserable when I know my way around an herb cabinet.

 Fjalanor freely gave his blood. He never mentioned how we'd be changing Time if I succeeded--or any of the arguments he used with Thorankarr. He simply gave his blood to save a man he'd never met-- and then seemed surprised when I thanked him. Fjalenar is... Giving oneself like that is... To use the word "generous" doesn't seem quite right. Giving clothes or money is generous. Giving blood is so much more personal that it should have a word of its own. At least he was looking less drained by the time he'd finished the tea. 

When we arrived at the palace (Tenuyala and Telari were with us) we found Lady Anaris with some difficulty. The palace is quite large, and apparently there were SIX Lady Anarises.' She was very happy to see us at first, and before we'd had time to say much at all a  handsome man came up to be introduced. My stomach dropped. It was Lord Parbeas. 

He immediately saw that we had Treian blood, and I invented a story about a Treian ancestor in our blood line way back. He said the city would be empty soon, and asked if we'd like that. I told him I would miss the Treians. 

The double meanings made me nauseous. He was like a cat with a mouse, just playing with it--outright saying what was going to happen, and no one understanding except us. He said he'd just come from Lanenkarr. Is the crown of the last Treian Lord of Lannenkarr here--the one that appears on his head in the Seige of the Red Isle? I feel sick.

He left, and Fjalenar made some choice comments once he was gone. Quite mild, really (he was remarkably restrained!), but Lady Anaris was deeply offended. She did allow us to talk to her in her rooms, but after those comments she was cold and distant. I promised our friendship in her time of need, and warned against trusting Lord Parbeas, and even told her about the messenger (Tenuyala showed her Fjalenar's arm as proof). It was no use. We cannot save the Anvil through her. 

Heartsick and subdued, we returned House Neras, only to see Lord Akdhēras' carriage departing. We had been unaware that Inayin had set an appointment with Lord Akdhēras, hoping to have us present while Lord Akdhēras healed his eyes. When we weren't there, Inayin refused the rite. We just missed it. We have now deeply offended him, and Lady Vianrei is worried. We have caused her so much trouble, and still two days left here. 

We had our second dinner, and I attempted to sing. I did... so poorly that it will be a blight on my memory till the day I die. I was just part of the chorus, so it shouldn't have been so bad, but I tried to adjust mid-song and somehow was even more off tune. So much for being named for a songbird. My face flames to think about it. Fjalenar and Herek did quite well, though. (of course a poet would have a nice voice. I don't know why it surprised me. Of course he can sing...)

And now I must sleep. I mean to sleep well tonight because starting tomorrow we must begin our own watches. It must be soon now. 

--

A few postscripts out of order:

I have a Treian sword now. Lady Vianrei gave one to Fjalenar and one to me. It is lovely, one handed, and has a bronze blade. Not magical, but very well made. 

Father Rinsos tells us that Inayin's eyes are windows that someone is looking through. I believe it is the Eldress Falaru. He thinks he can heal Inayin when the gate to the Jade Bridge opens.

Eldress Falaru worships the Vulture as do the other two elders, she hired Thargash. They have been working their schemes for many years now.  This explains a good deal. 

I do think we will make our last stand at the Jade bridge. I feel lighter every moment we get closer. Imagine. I thought I'd pick up this fight from my fathers who have guarded the border from the nalshbori for a thousand years. Instead, I am the one who will fight them in the very beginning, and it will be the blood and great deeds of his own daughter (stars give me strength!) that calls my ancestor Neryaleth to take up his sword. I am eager to have and end of talking. It's time for action. 

I do hope to at least get Inayin away from here. I am concerned that his sickness will cause him to also be turned into a son of darkness --against his will. That would be unimaginably horrible.

Should I live, I mean to begin the cleansing of Cheykor immediately. Perhaps politics are not so complicated. Suffer not a vulture cultist to live. That is simple enough.

Session 18

 When last we left our heroes... the second morning of the festival found them still beneath the roof of House Neras, seeking what strength and counsel might be gathered before the stars opened the Bridge of Jade. Ineia searched the household's stores for remedies and brewed purple sorrel for Fjalenar, whose gift of blood had left him pale and weary. The draught brought the colour back into his face, and she thanked him for the courage with which he had tried to save a stranger whom neither of them had known.

Restored, Fjalenar asked Vianrei what swords her house might lend. Her husband's blade was no light thing to surrender, she answered; if the hour came and no worthy suitor stood beside her, she herself would wield it. When Fjalenar questioned her skill, she drew his own sword, turned it in her hand with a grace and strength beyond his people's, and brought its point to rest a finger's breadth from his breast. Then she laughed, returned it, and gave him leave to take a spare blade of her retainers. He was armed at last with Treian workmanship, though the weapon of her dead husband remained hers.

Meanwhile Herek and Inayin climbed toward Rinsos's shrine, speaking of Panathfei, the forge-oath, and the strange years through which its burden must pass. At the summit they met Akdhēras's carriage already descending; he called a reminder of their noon appointment and went on. A nervous acolyte kept the shrine's gate shut, saying that his master must rest. Yet as Inayin watched him, the young man's face became for an instant a death-mask, maggots crawling from beneath his scalp and eyes. The vision passed, and Rinsos himself called them in.

Inayin warned him about the acolyte, Anertsu. Rinsos would not condemn a faithful servant upon a vision granted by an evil power, and urged caution. Of the Bridge he would say little: his order guarded its opening, but he had never crossed it. Of the blood-weeping eyes he was plainer. A remedy for the body might leave the soul's hurt untouched; the thirteenth convergence offered their best chance to shut the window, though he could not promise that its scars would vanish. Akdhēras had already come asking after his activities during the night. The warning his friends had climbed the hill to bring was late.

Ineia, Tenuyala, Fjalenar, and Talari went to the palace, leaving a note for Herek. Through courtyards crowded with servants, festival guests, fountains, and stone trees, they were led to Anaris, who greeted them gladly. But their mention of the treasure she carried made her reserve return, and before they could speak privately another guest joined them: Parbeas, open-handed, whom their people's songs named as the Giver before they named him Orkon. He welcomed the visitors, noticed Treian blood among those taken for Sothbori, and spoke pleasantly of the city's coming emptiness, when the children of Feihoth would begin their journey home.

He left them with a toast to things lost and things yet to be gained. Anaris spoke of his kindness and his learning, of the lost arts of Fateweaving he had already begun to restore. She doubted some of the Homeward's claims, yet could not permit strangers to speak contemptuously of a lord sheltered by the king's bread and salt. Alone with her, the companions tried to warn of danger to her and to the Anvil. Ineia spoke of friendship, and Tenuyala showed the wound in Fjalenar's arm as witness to the night's labour over the dying courier. But their words did not win the trust they needed. Anaris asked them to leave. She would consider another meeting, she said, and they gave her the name of House Neras; neither her company nor the Anvil was promised.

At House Neras, Akdhēras had laid out fragrant remedies and pressed Inayin to accept an ancient healing rite. Inayin asked what it would heal, whence its songs came, and whether his companions might be present. His hesitation drew anger instead of reassurance. Akdhēras demanded to know who had poisoned the guests against their hosts, and spoke pointedly of those who came too frequently to the house. Vianrei defended Inayin's right to refuse. The lord departed, and no healing was done. When the others returned, their hostess heard the failures of both errands and wondered whether the surviving histories of their age had told them the whole truth. Their alarm had not yet saved anyone; it had made Rinsos's danger more immediate.

Then came the Feast of the Descent. White and green lamps shone above dishes recalling the world the Western Stars had longed to tend: herbs and fresh cheese, fish in fragrant leaves, goat and pears upon barley, bitter greens, and at last the sweets of a little garden. Herek sang Feihoth's part beside Vianrei's Reinfal; Inayin spoke the Maker's unseen voice; and companions joined the Seventy's chorus. They told how love had brought the Stars down to mortal stewardship, accepting gift and chastisement together. Not every voice answered surely, but Herek carried his part well, and Fjalenar found enough of the poet's art to join the chorus honourably.

When the song was ended, Akdhēras rose to praise their fathers' love of the green isle and deny that the scattered children of Feihoth must remain scattered forever. Cups were raised in answer. The song had named the cost of mortality; the toast offered the hope of return, and that hope won the room. So the second night ended beneath the same full moon, with House Neras still welcoming the companions, the Anvil still beyond their reach, and two nights of the festival yet to come

Session 17

 When last we left our heroes... dawn had come to House Neras, and the companions gathered for a melancholy breakfast in Vianrei's kitchens. Yalafir was dead, his warning still undelivered; the Giver was beneath the king's own roof; and Thargash, returned from his unexplained night abroad, had much to say about eggs and bread and breakfast wine, and very little about the business that had brought them there. Ineia reminded him of the promise with which he had first drawn them into his affairs: he owed them the truth about the elders of Cheykor.

Before that truth could be spoken, the companions remembered the watcher behind Inayin's blood-weeping eyes, and Herek took him outside. Then Thargash accused all three elders of complicity in the Vulture Cult, naming Eldress Falaru as the most inventive of them. She had paid him to investigate the Bell of Time, he said; the cult sought a road into the past by which the forging of the Sword of Kings might be prevented and all the history of Amboria changed. In the river of time from which he came, their conspiracy had failed. Reiana of the Red Isle might tell them more, though the companions could only answer that their own mistress had vanished months before.

Ineia asked him to come home with them. Their age stood upon the brink of civil war, and she would have his help rather than see him hazard another world in pursuit of the one he had lost. Thargash could promise neither that their home would survive his working nor that the river into which they returned would be the river they had left. He spoke of theories, of worlds so nearly alike that no one might know the difference, and of the wife and companions whom he still hoped to recover. Ineia answered that his losses were not a reason to make her lose the people she loved.

At last he named the instrument he intended to use: the Anvil of Lanenomen, carried by Anaris in the caravan they had met upon the Jade Road. The caravan had reached Sothalkarr during the night, and his drunkenness had been a disguise. He had slipped out to watch its arrival. Anaris was now lodged at the palace, where the Giver also dwelt, and Thargash wished the companions to take the Anvil from her keeping before the final night of the feast. In the history he remembered, she had already carried it west across the Cheyth to the tower the companions knew as the Sorcerer's Tower. Its presence here meant that events had already diverged from the course he knew.

His first scheme was to gain entry beneath the cover of an audience for Yalafir's warning, take the Anvil while the king listened, and carry it to the Bridge of Jade when the stars converged. Ineia proposed another way: invite Anaris to House Neras, tell her what they feared, and seek her willing help. Thargash's reluctance to meet her proved to have a more personal cause. He died and returned, he confessed, remembering his earlier lives only by degrees; Anaris returned likewise, and in some of those lives they had loved one another. She wanted him to be her own Tengelbur. But for his part, his heart was given to another.

Outside, Lord Akdhēras drew up in his carriage and offered to take Inayin to the promised healing. Herek and Inayin declined the ride, but arranged for him to bring his remedies to House Neras after the noon meal. Then he asked after Rinsos, remarking upon the night's comings and goings, and departed. The two companions continued toward the shrine on foot, hoping to ask the priest more about the Bridge and to warn him of the lord's interest.

Fjalenar joined the breakfast council, still weary from the night's labour, and heard the proposal. The companions settled upon approaching Anaris before attempting any theft, though whether to ask her to bring the Anvil immediately or speak with her first remained unsettled. Thargash went at last to bed. Herek and Inayin were upon the road to Rinsos; Ineia, Tenuyala, and Fjalenar meant to seek Anaris at the palace, after gathering herbs and asking what blades might be had. Neither errand was yet accomplished. Above the waking city the same moon held its vigil, and two days remained before the jade door would open.

Session 16

When last we left our heroes... the first blood of the Seven Cities had reached Sothalkarr. Beneath a stone tree in the Jade-Cutters' Night Market lay Yalafir, courier of fallen Yalethkarr, pierced by arrows and hacked by poisoned blades. Ineia knelt beside him, and Inayin—drawing upon the hard lessons of wounds stitched in the monster-haunted North—showed her where to press her hands. Between them they arrested the bleeding and brought the messenger back to speech.

Yalafir had been sent to warn King Lasuyaran. Other couriers had ridden for the other cities, though he did not know how many had survived. The bat-nosed monsters were already abroad in the Hills, hunting those who had fled Yalethkarr and cutting down the refugees upon the road—women and children among them. He drew a bloodstained letter from beneath his belt, sealed for the king, placed it in Ineia's keeping, and fell unconscious.

The festival crowd had already divided around them. One voice cried that the guard-city had fallen and the gates must be shut; another answered that Yaleth's people had not fallen, but gone home before them. The watch ordered silence until the king had heard—but when Ineia repeated the courier's report, the officer dismissed it as a drunken Sothbori superstition and walked away. So the companions carried Yalafir through the singing streets to House Neras.

Vianrei received the dying man beneath the same guest-right she had given the companions and surrendered her own chamber to the work of saving him. She would not break the royal seal, yet warned that the message could not reach the king merely as a bloodied scrap in a stranger's hand. To vouch for it herself would set House Neras publicly against the Homeward and against Akdhēras—her dead husband's nearest kinsman, who had twice pressed his customary right to wed her. And if her love for Rinsos became known, the young priest would be ruined and she herself accused of betraying her house. Yet she promised that, if Yalafir lived to speak, she could arrange a private audience with the king at dawn.

Then began the long labour of the night. Lotus paste closed what wounds it could, but the poison fought every stitch and made the torn flesh yearn to open again. Fjalenar rolled back his sleeve and gave of his own blood until he went pale, and Ineia drove it into the dying man with the little bellows of the ancient physicians. Inayin remained at her side. At last the gashes were closed, Yalafir's pulse was faint but steady, and the pain passed from his face into peaceful sleep. They had done all that skill, courage, and mercy could do; only the dawn would give the answer.

While they laboured, Herek and Tenuyala climbed to Thargash's rooms. They found the door unlocked, the bed untouched, and the chamber empty. An open window showed the way their smiling guide had gone. Guessing that his secret purpose lay near the Bridge of Jade, they climbed the hundreds of steps to the shrine and found Rinsos standing among twelve pillars, reading the stars.

Rinsos had already perceived that the strangers were not wholly of his age, and that Thargash stood farther outside time than any of them—as though he had stepped out of one river of time and into a stream that ran beside it. Behind the shrine he showed them a door of solid jade, fashioned by the Stone Kings. It opened once each year at the thirteenth convergence, when the walls between the corridors of time grew thin. That hour would come upon the final night of the feast, three nights hence. Rinsos had read that someone would then attempt to redirect one of time's rivers, and had been preparing himself to stand against the deed.

 He told them also of a vision that had seized him at dinner: himself and Thargash in a chamber beneath a mountain of red stone, standing before a man who bore a strange sword and wore a black panther's hide. In that instant Thargash had worn the face of Tengelbur, Lord of the Road. Nor was theirs the only companion Rinsos had seen strangely. When he looked upon Inayin, he had glimpsed the face of a corpse and the mark of the Vulture.

Back at House Neras, Fjalenar put aside all caution and told Vianrei the truth. The companions were travellers from thousands of years yet to come. Yalafir's warning was true; the Giver was Orkon, greatest enemy of their people's oldest songs; and the beauty around them stood upon the brink of ruin. If they found a road home they would take it, but they would not abandon their hosts without warning. Vianrei could scarcely believe them, yet at last she did—and answered that even if every word were true, she would not leave Rinsos.

The young priest soon returned to the bloodstained chamber while Herek and Tenuyala continued their fruitless search for Thargash. He vouched for King Lasuyaran as a good man, though too hospitable to the Giver, and then delivered the night's worst news: the Giver himself had arrived at the palace. Afālnela's letters were placed at last in Rinsos's hands. He read them, took Inayin's face between his palms, and looked unflinchingly into the blood-weeping eyes.

The hurt was not a wound, he said, but a door—a window made thin, with something looking outward from the farther side. He could close it only from the Bridge of Jade when the thirteenth convergence came. Until then, the companions must assume that the power behind the mark had seen and heard all they had done, and had allowed them to come so far because some part remained for them in its malice.

Then Ineia told the whole bitter inheritance: how some Star-folk would become the monsters their descendants still fought, how others would be carried into slavery through the unnumbered Years of Darkness, and how a remnant would endure among the Sothbori until a Hero lead the captives from the dark hills and the two peoples became one. Vianrei wept and asked Rinsos what they must do if it were all true. He answered that they must destroy the Bridge of Jade. She promised whatever aid lay in her power.

At that moment the dawn kindled red upon the Hills of Jade, and Yalafir gave his death-rattle. For all the companions had done, the poison claimed him before he could stand before the king. Vianrei promised him the honours of her house and turned again to the unopened letter.

Then Thargash put his head around the door, still drunk and adorned for the feast, offering nothing of where he had passed the night. When the companions told him that Vianrei and Rinsos now knew the truth—and that Orkon waited at the palace—he demanded to know why they had burdened good people with the knowledge of their deaths. There were still three nights of the festival left, he said. Since they had ruined them in the cause of saving the city, he would at least insist upon eggs before beginning the day. 

Inayin's journal

            How does one get themselves into this mess? Time travel is the answer. I must say I am not a fan of it. This is the second time this as happened, and both times we have landed in the worst of situations. This time we are in the same city as Orkon! Not exactly the place I would want to be any point soon. I mean, I want to cleave his head from his shoulders but quite frankly, I am quite unprepared to do so right now, not to mention what would happen to history if we did so.

           Dont get me wrong, seeing one of the Seven Cities of Jade feels like stepping into another world, the wealth of Sothlakarr seems like a dream, every person is dressed like a noble, every outfit has enough jewels on it to buy a small estate, and by the Stars, the food is amazing. Still, even the thought of losing any of my companions due to time travel nonsense makes none of this worth  it. I am beginning to think Thargash does not know how to get any of us home. I suspect our best way home is the Bridge of Jade. And Rinsos also hopes  to heal my bleeding eyes at the Bridge of Jade as well, but all this happens in three days.

         In the meantime, we have to pray that Orkon's army does not show up at our doorstep till then, while also trying to convine our host to jump time with us, who is loath to leave her lover. I pray these time travel shenanigans are over once this is all done. I am already worried that we will be leaving Herek due to his decision to protect the  Waterforge of Panathfei/Kanle.

    Speaking of my eyes, Rinsos has stated that someone or something is looking through them and that they need to be closed. I am not for sure whether it is the Death god, Panathfei or some other. It doesnt seem anybody else does either. Though I suspect, it could very well be tied to the family curse  I have involuntarily inherited, and fighting the vulture priest only helped to expand it after having a near death experience with it. Now I have had a strange dream of Thargash and Panathfei, and am seeing the true nature of people who serve the Death cult. Neither is a pleasant experience, and not being able to rid of this by means I know how is even more irritating. I do take comfort that I have companions that I can trust, both Iniea and Flajanor has helped keep me grounded when I would have otherwise gone crazy trying to deal with it myself. And even though I dont know the others as well, their loyalty and companionship has been vital in our adventures, especially when we are running into vulture cultists trying to change the course of history. 

     Among all this, I am dealing with a curse and a possible enchantress Treain woman that is far older than anyone should be, at this rate I am guessing Panathfei is over 4000 years old. When I first told my companions of what had happened and how it ties into my family, I dont think I had ever seen Iniea looked so worried. The last time I could remember a look like that was when both our fathers were called out to Leil Yalir. Even back then I dont think I was spooked as much as I am now about it. I was aware the situation was not good, but the longer I have known about it the more it feels less like an annoying matter that can simply be set right and more like a gnawing dread that the longer it lasts the worse it gets. I think, if the forge is restored and cleansed would lead to fulfilling what needs to be done for the oath that my Grandfather broke, but I am not for sure. Part of me thinks I am going to have the slay the primordial serpent, or some other great feat. Knowing more of what has happened, when I make it back, I will be having a conversation with my father and grandfather when I get back. The sword I got from him, is of no consequence either, and the one time I have drawn it after realizing what it is, felt like it had an endless hunger blood, though that may be most magical swords, its favored enemy among my own kin, I am hoping Flajanor can actually find more on it in his studies, cause as it stands now it is just a cursed sword.

    I write all this while staring up a strange sky that awaits the impending doom of the seven cities of Jade, while its residents celebrate a feast, unaware of that their death and slavery approaches quickly, May the Stars guide us through the streams of time and safely take us back home. 

Sister Dara's Journal (1)

 Entry 1:
Ever since I joined the Scarlet Sisters, strange occurrences are happening more often here in the North. Not the least of which the population of Cheykor seemed to have doubled overnight. Apparently it has something to do with time travel. I did not know this was possible or even such magic existed. There also seems to be consequences to taking people from their time and placing them to ours. Bell sickness is what they are calling it, anything from bad dreams, being physically sick, to even struggles on a spiritual level. 

Which brings us to the current issue at hand. As many of us who try to help, there is equal number of opportunists who are looking to scam folks, or worse. Which has led to my summoning to Sergeant Abar, along side a rather quiet Njeitbori and Scholar from the Red Isle by the name Aneramer. You see these peddlers have started selling these bird charms that were given out to ward off bell sickness. However it also seems to be causing people to sleepwalk to the River Cheyth. A girl was found in her night dress by the river, unaware of anything that had happened. Not only that a boy has now gone missing. The pendants in question, were multicolored Amber pendants with some red amber hidden in them. Sergeant Abar had stated they have already destroyed two of these things, with now this one being the third shortly after our meeting concluded.

Abar gave us directions to meet the mother of the boy that had went missing. Amanaru was her name, who scraped by for her and her son (whose name is Pukmari) by baking. To which I must say, made their house smell heavenly. Upon successful rescuing of the Pukmari, I will certainly be buying some baked goods for myself. As for Pukmari, his mother recounted that he had been having nightmares up till he was given a bird charm by a peddler named Anbayru. She described him as being nice enough, but when he came back to ask if Pukmari had been hearing bells, he was sent off. And while the nightmares had stopped and he was resting peacefully, now it was too peacefully, for he had begun sleepwalking, coming back with mud on him, and then not returning last night. Likely kidnapping scenario here, and I prayed that he would still be alive when we found him.

Off we went to the markets asking about this Anbayru, but the only thing we were able to come up with, was that some woman was sold a pot, that when she tried to use it, reveal a crack and leaked all over the floor. Now I cant say for sure, but someone who is evil enough to sell a cracked cooking pot, is probably also using pendants to kidnap people. Which means Anbayru is in fact hiding his true nature and is kidnapping people with pendants, and selling cracked cooking pots, and who knows what else.

Our next stop was where the girl in the night dress was found at the river. While our Njeitbori used his connections with other Njeitbori to ask why the guards are asking so many questions, Aneramer doing his own investigating, I went to the river bay to see if I could find anything. Now I personally love the Cheyth River, how angry it sounds when flowing down to the sea, how chilly it is when it hits your skin, however, what I am not a fan of is mud. It gets everywhere, and the Cheyth has a lot of it on its shores. By the time I found the tracks of a man that was obviously carrying something or someone headed north, I had mud on my dress, I had mud on my boots, I even had mud in my boots. Do you know how uncomfortable that is, or how much time I am going to have to spend cleaning to get all this mud off? Mother Valiyru will give me a scolding if I ruin yet another pair of boots.

However, amidst my current war with the mud, I was able to find a solid lead, which led us to evidence of boats being dragged before they headed deeper into the marsh (To my great dismay, meant dealing with more mud). In our tracking, we spotted an old fisher woman, bleeding out under a cypress tree. I did my best and patched her up, and how does she thank me? By threatening to gut me, that is how. It took way too long to convince her we were not here to kill her, and then proceeded to call me a goodie two shoes witch. While I was not much appreciative of being called a witch and nearly getting stabbed, she did see the men that took the boy and attempted rescue, which led to her bleeding out by the Cypress tree. She also had us swear oath to not tell what she was going to tell us, as she wanted to help us find the boy, but it meant telling the greatest secret of the North. The greatest secret in the North was in fact [redacted]. I have to confess, that I laughed loud enough to alert every living being within 500 feet of us, thankfully she did not seem to take too much offenses to it. The information given to us, helped lead us to these kidnappers, and we were able to find their hiding spot.

As it turns out, vulture cultist. Of course it is vulture cultist, it is always these stupid cultist. I dont understand them, they worship a god of death. Why would you do that? You know what you get when you worship a god of death? You get death, I mean seriously are you not smart enough to put two and two together and figure out, "You know, maybe I should not worship a god of death," But no, apparently these guys cant use their brains. Which makes me far more worried now, cause they tend to take their captives and sacrifice them horribly. 

With the Njeitbori and Aneramer taking advantageous positions, I attempted to sneak to the cellar of their little outpost, as I suspect that is where they are keeping the boy. Now being a Scarlet Sister means, you get to wear a bright  pretty red and lots of jewelry, however, being a Scarlet Sister means you wear a bright pretty red and lots of jewelry. And with the background being the Marsh, sometimes you stick out like a Greater Northern beast at the town center. It did not help when I hopped, everything clanked to ring in my arrival, thus the guard turning around and spotting me. So I tried to trick this old woman in Ralakarr once told me, simply tell them that, "They cant see you,". Now it did not have its intended effect, but in his other bewilderment, he got shot with my arrow, stabbed by Aneramer, and then shot through the eye by Nerula (that is the Njeitbori's name, took me forever to remember his name as I wrote this down). 

Then two more of these worshippers and would you have guessed it, Anbayru who is a vulture priest, comes out of the cellar. Battle commenced and during this Anbayru threatened to kill the boy, which he means drowning. But Anbayru did not account for us having a Njeitbori, whose first home is the water, thus Neralu catching up to the boy and ripping that forsaken charm off his neck, ridding the spell. Meanwhile, Aneramer and I, went toe to toe with these sorry fools in song, sword, and bow. 

Another saying of the old woman in Ralakarr, "If you squishy and easily kidnappable, find yourself a handsome man that carries around a giant sword."

Well Aneramer fit that bill, and thankfully he does because that vulture priest had a vendetta against me. Despite Aneramer being the strong swordsman, he almost completely ignored him in his attempt to kill me. We battle in rites and weapons. This priestess was dirty and underhanded in his fighting like he is with his peddling. He kept throwing this red dust at me, his pocket sand I believe some would call it, except that it is red. But it made it significantly harder for me, and even after I was sneezing that stuff out for three straight days. But he was so distracted with me, that it allow Aneramer to separate his head from his shoulders, before in short order removing the other henchmans heads, all while Neralu gave us a volley of arrows for support.

Once they cultist was dispatched, I immediately went and found Pukmari, making sure he was okay, while Neralu and Aneramer made short order in destroying all the vulture pendants and ransacking the herbs and silver to put to better use. The fisher woman also appeared, turning the vulture priestess corpse into a pile of bloody meat. I made sure to shield Pukmari's eyes as he has already have had enough trauma. Frankly what that fisher woman did to that corpse gave me trauma as well. 

We then made sure to set their hideout on fire and destroy anything related to their profane worship. Pukmari was safely returned to his mother both I and Aneramer bought some baked goods from Amanaru, which in fact tasted like heaven. And all three of us got our payment from Sergeant Abar. The midnight vigil now approaches and I must leave my writing to serve at the Sacred Well. May Starlight greet you.

The calm

Ineia 12 

Deceptive silence 
Calm before the storm 
Waiting in quiet 
The end forwarned

Preparations finished 
All that remains--stillness
Somber pause then
Destruction's fullness 

Trusting children 
Unaware their moment 
Farewells to bid
Then plead for atonement.

Session 15 Recap

When last we left our heroes... they had come at last to Sothalkarr, highest of the Seven Cities, on the first night of the four-day Feast of Founding. House Neras had claimed them beneath the law of hospitality, and before dinner there was time enough for a little preparation—and a great deal of worry.

Ineia brewed the silver nettle gathered on the winter road into an unusually potent draught. Fjalenar found the modest library of House Neras and discovered in its few hundred volumes more learning than had survived into his entire age. There, among the ancient calendars, the companions confirmed something more troubling: the moon would remain full for four nights, precisely the length of the feast. Thorankarr had fallen beneath a full moon; the Vulture's play at Kyron Karr had been worked beneath a full moon; and the tracks through the withered wood had been made at the full moon. The company resolved to speak carefully, remain together, keep watch upon Thargash—and remember that the Bell-metal hinges might now open a road through time without the dust of the Moon.

Then they went down to dinner arrayed in the impossible finery of the Star-folk, clothed in fabrics light as air and hung with more jewels than most of them had worn in their lives. Vianrei welcomed them not as strangers but as members of her house. Rinsos answered that a house was made holy not by its stone, but by what it refused to let a stranger endure alone. Lord Akdhēras raised the final cup: the children of Feihoth had dwelt among strangers long enough, and the hour of Homecoming was near.

Course followed course: bread and salt, the Seven Hills set out in little dishes, sea-fish dressed in remembrance of drowned Feihoth, a whole lamb rich with spices, fruit, and its own juices, and at last a sweet garden of stone trees and silver streams. The abundance proved too much for Fjalenar, Herek, and Talari, who found the cold garden air preferable to the final courses. Talari nevertheless offered Vianrei a toast so heartfelt that their hostess wept and extended the hospitality of House Neras through all four nights of the feast.

Yet Inayin's open eyes saw something beneath the beauty. For a heartbeat, eight or nine guests appeared as rotting cadavers, crawling with maggots and devouring filth. Vianrei, Rinsos, and Akdhēras were not among them. Whether this was truth or corruption wearing the mask of truth, he could not know.

Thargash drank heavily and spoke more freely than wisdom permitted. He had attended great feasts like this when he was younger, he said, though not in the companions' age. The past was already slipping beyond their control; why trouble themselves over what they could not save? At last he stumbled away to bed, leaving his companions more suspicious of him than before.

In the moonlit garden, Talari, Herek, and Tenuyala discovered Vianrei beneath a pear tree with her hand in Rinsos's—and saw her draw the young priest down into a kiss. They promised discretion. Mortified, Rinsos remembered Afālnela's letters and invited the company to bring them to his shrine in the morning.

The companions then went out beneath the lamps of Sothalkarr. At the Water-Forge, Panathfei's lock stirred upon Herek's sword. An old Spirit-Keeper recognized the binding, read the oath in a drop of blood, and declared that the blessing would guard Herek against corruption while the sworn vigil was kept, warning of danger to those beneath its protection. If Herek forsook the charge, however, the oath would turn against its bearer.

The smith also saw the last of Herek's line who would bear the vigil: **the Silver River, Fjamaru Yaneigal**, a distant descendant of Herek and granddaughter of the old veteran whom the companions had met in their own age. Fjamaru would complete the oath and redeem the line—though how Herek's blood could reach her across the abyss of years remained hidden.

Elsewhere in the festival streets, a courier named Abarapesh placed a sealed letter from the king at Lanenkarr into Fjalenar's hands. It was addressed to **Lord Tengelbur**, whom someone in Sothalkarr had recognized among their company.

Then Akdhēras drew Inayin aside. He looked into the blood-weeping eyes and named the Vulture's work. The visions were not mere madness: the wound sometimes allowed Inayin to recognize the devotees of death. Akdhēras offered a cure at his house the following morning, promising mercy where the priests of Raos would offer only fasting, penance, and long years beneath the sky. He called Vianrei trustworthy and Rinsos honourable, but warned that the Vulture's servants were already everywhere in the city.

The companions reunited in the Jade-Cutters' Night Market. Talari spent her last silver on a little jade tree, and the company turned back toward the Water-Forge, bearing two strange swords and more questions than they had brought to the feast.

Before they could reach it, a man in official dress staggered from the crowd and collapsed beneath one of the stone trees. His coat was not wet with rain, but soaked through with blood. Tenuyala rushed toward him as he forced out a final warning:

 “Treachery. Tell the king... Yalethkarr has fallen.”

And beneath the four-night full moon, while Sothalkarr still sang of its founding, the fall of the Seven Cities had begun.

Healer's Hands

Ineia 11

Written in Ineia's richly appointed suite of rooms in House Neras, under the full moon, as she waited for dinner and betrayal. Intended to be sung, the tune something between a chant and a lullaby.

The racing heart to slow

The flowing blood to clot

The healing hands to work 

On burning brow most hot. 

The seeping wound to close 

The broken bone to mend

The healing hands to work 

The fainting gently tend 

The throbbing head to treat

The aching chest to ease

The healing hands to work

Each torment to appease

The festering sore to cleanse

The blistering burn to salve

The healing hands to work

in curing deadly plague. 

The groaning man to soothe 

The shivering child to warm 

The healing hands to work 

Keep suffering souls from harm. 

Pillars Bright

Ineia 10 

Written in Ineia's richly appointed suite of rooms in House Neras, under the full moon, as she waited for dinner and betrayal. 

I laugh with joy of battle bright 
Northman built to foeman fight.
I see around me bright lights gleaming  
All the world with joy is teaming. 

From the dark and deepest past  
To future days yet come to pass, 
The love of Nankeinela true
Echoes fire through and through,

And from beginning pillars bright  
With fiery love and truest sight 
Answer song the maker sings
Light to light reflecting springs.

Dark can not abide the burning  
As year on year the lotus turning,
Orkon claims victory false
And rails against heaven’s vaults.

 But in blackest night a tiny spark  
 Will drive away Midnight’s dark,
 Though it but a moment last  
 It mocks the evil that must pass.

 Thus starlight's children ever fight,
 Singing bow and arrows’ flight  
 Shining blade by mighty hand  
 Wielded against Orkon’s brand.

 And so I laugh with battle sight  
 Though spark I am not pillar-bright  
 For I am with my kinsmen singing  
 Battle-song till dawn comes bringing  

 Fiery end to Orkon’s scheming  
 And the day of which I’m dreaming--  
 When at last all the land  
 Will be cleansed by Maker’s hand.

Session 14 Recap

Read aloud at the start of Session 15

When last we left our heroes... they came down at last from the green and deathless wood into the valley of the Wanlecheyth, and there found the river-town of Wanlunthara: quays and ferries, bird-beaked boats, and Star-folk going up and down the water as freely as birds. Yet even here the road eastward had begun to divide the hearts of men. The ferryman spoke of the Giver and the Great Return — of a people made worthy again to cross the Outer Ocean and come home to the Isle of the Stars. But when the company warned him against it, he only looked at the wealth of the Hills of Jade and trusted in the promise.

They had little in that country but silver, and silver was worth far less there than jade and uncut gems. Yet at last, after a costly exchange and much ill-advised bargaining, the ferryman carried them over for seventy-five pieces. On the far bank Thargash looked out across the plains and said that the road before them lay farther east than he had ever been. In their own age, those lands would be deep in Nalshbori country; now they were open and green, and the Hills of Jade stood somewhere ahead beneath the sky.

For eleven days they followed the Jade Road. In its early days they overtook a slow caravan of pilgrims, a hundred strong, all bound for Sothalkarr and its coming feast. Among them was Anaris, a young musician and Fateweaver of the old arts, who explained the quarrel of the age. The Old Faith watched the stars, heard their music, and remembered the exile of the Star-folk. The Homeward — the Slāgiri — believed that the time of testing was ended: that the lost greatness of Feihoth might be restored, and the road to the Outer Ocean opened again. Anaris did not speak as an enemy of either party; she only hoped that the forgotten arts might be found wherever they had gone.

She gave Ineia a map of the Seven Cities, and a small shining copper bell of her own making. Its clear ringing, she said, could raise the spirits of the weary and keep darkness from fastening upon the soul. Thargash, who had made himself scarce while the company were making friends, admitted afterwards that Anaris carried an anvil of great power: an anvil that might alter time itself. He had considered stealing it, and had decided that an anvil was not easily smuggled beneath a cloak. The company, to his disappointment or relief, chose not to go back for it.

Then the road turned hard. Thunderstorms came one after another; the ground became mud, their clothes and boots were soaked through, and their strength bled away by degrees. Ineia’s living flowers withered the moment the company left the Star-Wood, though she kept them carefully all the same; and in the winter plains the company found only a few cuttings of silver nettle. At every turn they pressed on, because Inayin’s eyes still wept blood, and because the city ahead held the name Afālnela had given them: Rinsos, priest of Raos in Sothalkarr.

So, wet, cold, and near worn through, they came at last to Sothalkarr. The city rose upon the highest of the Hills of Jade: terraces upon terraces, stone trees of granite and green jade, silver fountains among their boughs, and crystal domes taking the light of the setting sun and breaking it into colours. It was a time of feast, and the city was full beyond counting with pilgrims and music and flowers — though here and there a red vulture still shone at a throat.

At the gate a stately woman named Vianrei, of House Neras, saw the strangers in their travel-stained clothes and offered them welcome. She brought them to a house which proved to be a mansion, gave them food, fires, warm rooms, and clothes fit for a feast; and when they named Rinsos, she promised that he might dine at her table that very night. She asked only one thing in return: that they should not mention their errand to the priest if Lord Akdhēras came to dinner.

And so the company rested at last beneath the stone trees of Sothalkarr, with the full moon above the hill, a city in festival around them, and Rinsos’s name waiting at the end of the evening.

Be still

Ineia 9

Written while bone weary, after a day slogging through the high altitude, midwinter mud. The party was just two days from Sothalkarr. The moon was nearly full as the rest of the party fell into exhausted sleep and Ineia wrote. 

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of hunter fierce and strong  

Who will come down to cleanse the earth  

of the dark and evil throng.

Be still and know my quaking soul

Of Ebram recalled from wandering 

His shining chariot bringing light

To those in darkness suffering 

Be still and know my quaking soul 

Of those keeping oaths of heaven

For your life is hid in theirs 

Orusen and Lanenomen

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of Raos polestar ruling

Bright champion under starlight  

With love, bright mercy burning  

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of makers beauty bright

Whose burning love brings hope  

To those who languish in the night.

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of end of time and death  

Your makers wrath will overflow  

By light destroy darkness

Springs of Amukarr

(Ineia #8)

Written about the hot springs in Amukarr, after Iniea had spent the evening with one of the village families. 

In the darkness waters called to me

Steaming waters, drawn up from the earth

From under earth, where they were heated

Heated hot, then pushed bubbling upward

Quiet murmers at the surface of the waters.

On the surface of the rippling waters

Rippling waters full of starlight

Starlit waters, hot and steaming

Steaming waters, drawn from under earth

From under earth the waters rise to starlight

Draw me underneath the starlit waters

Starlit waters knowing earth and sky

Knowing sky, what has come and what will be

What will be on earth and in darkened waters.

Hide me under, keep your peace, waters still full of starlight.

Amukarr--Diary entry (session 13)

After we left the forge we found the road easily enough. We were only a mile or so away from it, so even in the middle of the night we didn't get lost. Every time someone looks at Inayin the way Panethfei did it bothers me. He's been hurt, and it's an ugly wound, but he's not disgusting. And he wouldn't hurt anyone, bloody eyes or no (at least, no one that wasn't evil. He's very good at killing evil things). 

We headed toward the village where the priest was who might be able to help Inayin. Thargash had promised to teach me Treian. I was half a mind to ask Fjalanor instead, but he's been so distracted and hard to talk to lately. Thargash was NOT distracted, and turned out to be a very good teacher. A bit impatient sometimes, but impatience I don't mind. I was determined both to learn the words and also to not let anything Thargash said get under my skin. (The phrases, of course, I put on the back pages of this diary because I need to find them easily for review and it's easier to find them there.)

On the way we noticed a path going off the main road where the trees had started to wither. I looked around, and the footprints (Treian) were about a week old, but the path did seem heavily traveled. My chest sank to see the dying already happening. Normally I would want to follow something like that. I regret last time I didn't. But... What can we do? And Inayn is still hurt.

We made it to the village and were quickly able to find the priest. Fjalanor talked quite a bit back and forth with him. The priest could tell we "weren't from around here" and seemed to particularly notice Thargash. I'm not sure what else was said, Thargash only told me that Fjalanor was trying to wreck history by telling too much, and everyone knows not to do that. I think he must have told about the coming invasion and sacking of the seven hills. I don't know if that was a good idea or not, but if he did I'm a bit relieved. Someone should be told, even though I don't think they'd believe us. The priest seemed more confused than upset, and finally started talking to Fjalanor in very small, slow words (I didn't understand the words, of course, but I could tell!). He started gesturing toward the sky and the earth over and over, so I might be wrong about what Fjalanor was talking about. I reminded Fjalanor to tell him about the withered trees, and also mention that we'd noticed three Treian youths wearing red amber vulture pendants. The priest seemed disapproving of the pendants, but again, neither upset nor surprised. I get this from physical cues because I HAVE TO ASK FOR EVERY SINGLE TRANSLATION. (When I started tugging on Fjalanor's sleeve, Thargash started talking to Tenuala instead and while I could not overhear, the conversation stopped with Tenuala red faced and Thargash looking smug. I doubt he was translating.)

We stayed three days in the village to give time for everyone to recover. I was still exhausted from searching for herbs, and Inayin, of course, needed more time. The first thing I did was find clothes. I was relieved to not seem to need a translator for that, I've been dreading asking either Fjalanor or Thargash for help in that department (very different reasons). Everyone here was so friendly and I now have both a hunting outfit and a nice dress to wear. After the rags I've been in, being clean and looking like a woman is a relief. I burned the Vulture Priests "gift" dress. I'm glad mother never saw me in it. She would have been horrified (well, father too. But he'd have had a good deal less to say than mother, which--believe it or not--is actually worse). There were hot springs and cool springs in the town, so I went swimming often. I love the water. 

I tried talking to everyone, to practice my new words. They were delighted that I was trying to talk to them, and very tolerant of my rough speech. I particularly enjoyed the children. They ran all about the whole time and I tried playing some of their games. My heart wasn't in it, though. I just wanted to take them all up in my arms and flee to the Sothbori and my own dear piney woods. 

 I don't know how to describe how I feel now. The beauty here overwhelms me, fills me. I've never seen anything as unguarded as this. They all just trust us. Freely. Even though we are strangers. I feel like I need to gather it all up and store it away inside me, beauty enough to hold me for the rest of my life. But the more precious a thing is that I gather up, the more it hurts. I can see what's coming. The burning, the death--things they can't imagine now. Things I've seen since I was 5 when Cheykor was razed by the Nalshbori. War is my earliest memory, but not even their old men have seen it. This is so much different than hearing about the Jade hills in songs at the Sacred Well. Yesterday I played hide and go seek with a little girl--knowing that in a few weeks or months she will be hiding for real, and it won't be a strange red headed Sothbori girl catching her up with a hug and tears, but something very different hunting her. Why... 

I have tried to finish that sentence 30 times. I can't finish it. I've been staring at the page too long.

I was able to talk to Thargash--I mean a real conversation. I don't even remember how it started. I've thought a lot about him--for someone who acts like he only loves himself, he's going through an awful lot of trouble for someone. You don't defy time itself for just anyone. (this is daft, but--I thought maybe the woman he loved was being held hostage and we might be used in some way to betray one of the cities. I'm glad I didn't have a chance to mention this to anyone). We were talking and--I don't even remember what I said, exactly, but it was a bit like he took his mask off for a moment. And he isn't a traitor, and he isn't as horrid as he acts, and I won't write down what he said exactly because it's not something I'd tell anyone, but I was half right. Thoranri. 

I.... I think we might be friends now. Imagine that!!

[Added later]
Oh, it was the little girls mother who gave me the dress I'm wearing. Her name is Onmanda. They invited me--a stranger--into their home for dinner yesterday evening. We got along fine without a translator. Onmanda is on the small side for a Treian woman, and I think the dress was hers when she was younger. Somehow it fits me perfectly. Her older daughter showed me how to do my hair in the way Treian maidens wear it. They were lovely and generous hosts. I tried to be an equally cheery and pleasant guest, and kept my mind focused on that. Some happy moments for everyone. It was the gift I could give.
 I went to the springs afterwards. Sometimes--more lately--it's better to be alone. 

Especially at night. 

Sothalkarr

 (Ineia #7)

Similar idea as previous poem, but fewer words and narrower scope. Ineia accepts that Sothalkarr is the one city they will go to. There won't be time to go somewhere else. She hasn’t quite decided what she will do when she gets there, but she’s only got three phrases left to get translated, and so it won’t be this poem.

Sothalkarr The fair, 
carven trees of stone
Adorn her graceful courts where 
cold North wind had blown 

Built above her sisters there 
Sothalkarr can alone 
See the Doom her sisters share 
By Shadow overthrown 

Within your own walls a snare 
Traitors with hearts of stone 
Root them out, Sothalkarr fair,
Else be captive in orkon's lair.

Warning

 Following the Wayateth’s example, and after hearing Panethai's song, Ineia considered learning a poem of some sort in Old Traien, with some jumbled thoughts that maybe if it was BOTH a creation song AND a warning it would do double duty and help Find The Traitors And Warn Everyone Else. Idea was discarded for various reasons, but the poem remains 
(Ineia #6)

Nankenala Maker True
Made seven verdant hills
Where every good thing grew
And every joy fulfills

By his mighty hand
He fashioned them with care
The beauty of the land
Was innocent and fair

But then they were betrayed
Yalethkarr first of all
Of the seven hills of jade
She was the first to fall

Oh Lanenkarr–your gate!!
By treachery is open!
Before it is too late, 
Beware–your friend is foeman!

And other cities fair
Look deep into your heart
Hidden darkness is found there
Root out every part

Kiethlekarr alone is true
No traitors in her midst
She takes the longest to subdue
By Orkon’s deadly fist.

Session 12 recap

 When last we left our heroes... At the maiden Panathfei's forge, in the roofless halls of the old Stone-King forge, the company took stock of themselves. Five days' walking through the living wood had knitted only a little of what the last fight had torn from Inayin; his eyes wept red still, a slow blood-weeping that no rest would mend, and the dark blade at his side was eager. Through Thargash, Inayin asked the maiden whether the thing that fouled her waters was the primordial Serpent itself or one of its brood. She answered that a serpent-thing lay bound in the deep beneath the forge, unable to leave the waters and yet tainting them with its malice, so that whenever she began the rite to wake the spring she could not finish it, and the lost craft of the water-forging stayed shut to her. The ancient wards created to keep it from tainting the forge's upper waters had been damaged, and would have to be repaired in order to cleanse them.

Inayin swore the creature would not see another dawn, for this was not the first such evil the company had come across, nor, he owned, was it like to be his last. Ineia, meanwhile, begged of Thargash a little teaching in the tongue of the Star-folk — Old Treian, which he told her was, after all, her own mother-tongue, for the speech of all the Ambori is but its far-descended child — and he began to teach her a few basic phrases as she tended the living blooms she had lifted from the wood, keeping their cloth damp and setting a pinch of moon-dust to them against their withering.

At last, the party decided to help Panathfei try to re-seal the wards against the lower waters. There was a warding stone of the Stone Kings, broken, that had once sealed the cold waters below; and the company decided they would attempt to repair it. Ineia, Inayin, and Talari went down into the Underspring and found an ancient blue waterstone covered in runes, writings of the Stone Kings themselves, and the very attempt of reading and studying them induced visions in the three companions. Inayin saw a flash of a woman, one-eyed and heavily armed, making her way through a long chamber full of treasures, at the far end of which a dead giant sat enthroned, his long beard overflowing his chest and filling the whole chamber; and after her a man chained and racked with torment in a lightless cell; and last of all ancient misty ruins standing up out of a grey and withered wood. Ineia saw a young man, tall and lordly, in a similar chamber, weeping before bodies he had just interred there. Both Ineia and Inayin managed to snap out of their reverie, but Talari became lost to it, waking in the same chamber now convinced that it was her true life, and that her whole career as an adventurer before it had been but a dream.

After a botched attempt to reassemble the warding-stone completely broke it in half, Ineia and Inayin brought it--and the unconscious Talari--back to the surface. Panathfei was alarmed, and through Thargash she told the party that she could now hear the serpent's voice. It was only a matter of time before something really bad happened. They would have to try to reassemble the ward. That work wanted silver, which takes such a charge better than iron — and so the whole company emptied their purses into the crucible, nearly every coin they carried between them, and Inayin melted their fortune down to mend the ward.

Then Panathfei, via Thargash, told them one more thing would be required: the stone would hold only to a true vow. One of them must bind himself, and all his line after him, to the keeping of the ward — to hold back the folk of the Serpent from the forge-waters forever — and should that vigil ever fail, some dire thing would follow. It was Herek who took the oath upon himself. 

As Herek swore, Panathfei began to sing. Not one of them could construe the words — save their "smiling friend" — and yet the song was so made that in the hearing each of them beheld the making of the world: the first waters of all leaping up upon the holy hill of Orusena, running down to fill every river and stream and sea, and the earth behind them greening, and beasts and men coming forth into the new light. So the vision passed through them in a breath. And while it held them, Thargash and Inayin poured the molten silver into the broken places of the warding stone and joined it whole again; and at the maiden's sudden, urgent word Ineia and Inayin bore the stone back down into the underspring and set it once more in its place, sealing off the cold waters of the deep. 

Talari, in the meantime, lost to another time and another place, had wandered to a sepulchre within the larger tomb, where three figures lay — two whose incorrupt bodies still wept blood from unhealed wounds, and a third long withered to dust — about a long sword set upright in the stone. After speaking with the other person in the chamber -- a tall, heavily scarred woman with one eye and a great Red Fang Longsword slung over her back -- she laid her hand to the hilt and it slid free as though it had waited for her; the blood of the dead shone out with a golden light; and she woke again beside the forge with the wavy-bladed weapon in her hands and a vision fading behind her eyes — a young man, half-starved and half-mad and clad in rags, staggering through the river of shining blood grasping a much more glorious blade in his hand: the Hurorupeim itself. Talari had known none of the faces there, but the sword in her hands was Hurpalb — that ice-pale, half-clear metal of legend, out of which the Blade of Kings itself was forged.

When at last they climbed up again into the night air, the dark voices under the water had fallen silent, and the forge was clean. Panathfei, glad beyond her few words, asked what boon she might grant them for the service done her. And Herek, who had bound his blood to her stone, asked only for some help to keep the charge he had taken up. So the maiden took his sword, and cut from her own dark hair a single lock, and bound it about the hilt, and said that as long as he bore it her blessing would go with him. 

For Inayin's part, he sought to have her loose the silver lock already knotted to his belt, but something was evidently lost in translation and Panathfei, who had not yet tied it and would not for long ages remember tying it, only frowned in bafflement and did not understand. He then asked Thargash to tell the whole story of his father and grandfather, the dark sword, the other water-forge, and his first meeting with Panathfei. Thargash translated perhaps a little too honestly, and Panathfei, realizing that Inayin and his family had consorted with the ancient serpents, politely asked him to leave.

By this point, it was nearly midnight. The forge was saved and the spring run sweet again, and eastward on the road a star-priest waited at Amirukarr who might yet heal Inayin's eyes. Thence the party resolved to go.

Forge Fight (OR Certain Women Are The Worst) 12

We were in a pretty sorry state when we stumbled into the clearing and the ruins of an ancient water forge. The woman we saw there was beautiful. As beautiful as you can imagine. I could tell from Inayin's face that she was the same woman whose lock of hair was tied to his belt. Of course, this version of her was much younger, and her hair was glossy black instead of silver. 

Inayin asked her about the snake she' mentioned, and she told us that it was down in the deeper part of the water forge, but trapped--unable to come up but unable to leave, and it fouled up the waters. That was why she couldn't finish her song. Of course we (Inayin) offered to kill it. I was watching her when he did. A beautiful woman in the woods singing to draw in strange travelers? With a snake infested pool? Who has a (albiet, future) habit of tying locks of hair around unsuspecting men's belts to "engage" herself to them? Fine. We can kill the snake. All the better if its her pet we're killing. I don't care much for her. It doesn't help that I'm filthy, smelly, and my clothing is shredded. 

With the thought about my clothing first on my mind (I'd like to say I had nobler reasons) I turned to Thargash and asked if he'd teach me Treian. I NEED new clothes. What do I do when we get to town? Ask Fjalanor to get it? Would he have any idea how to get a woman's dress? Unlikely. Thargash is the only other one who can speak Old Treian, and I think he might know his way around a woman's dress a little too well. His comments make my ears burn. I would be mortified to ask either one of them for help. Anyway, once I started thinking through the chance to learn Treian I started to have other ideas about what I wanted to learn. I will need to think about this.

The flowers are still alive. I'm so relieved that they aren't dead. I'm using little pinches of my moon dirt. I'd been saving that against... Well, things come up. (Someday Fjalanor is going to do some idiot something, and the moon dirt is my insurance to make sure I can pull him out of it). And it isn't like any of us are home now, so we might all need it. But if only I can keep these two alive! Ever since I left the river I've kept my little white river stone in my pocket. I like to hold it in my hand while I'm walking or thinking and turn it over a bit. I'm going to try my best to keep these flowers alive, but the stone I know I will be able to take home with me.

As the day drew to a close it was time to face the monster. It would seem one of the warding stones set by the Stone Kings when this forge was built had cracked. As Inayin, Talari and I could breathe under water, we were the ones to go inspect. We got to the bottom and found the broken one. When I looked at the stone I saw a vision of a young man--tall and lordly--weeping over the bodies he'd just interred there. I am certain it was a vision of Sanur burying his brothers, Setela and Teythbor. I was able to awake from my vision, as was Inayin, but Talari fell unconscious. We knew that the only way to shift the stone together was knowledge of the lore. I'm not the best, but mother has been quite strict with my lessons and I've been paying close attention to Fjalanor's various commentary lately, so I tried. It went terribly. I didn't just sort of wreck it, I broke the entire stone in half. Water began rushing in and Inayan and I hastily grabbed the stones and Talari and drug everything up top. 

Panathfei was horrified and began cursing (I assume. I don't understand, but I got the gist. Maybe I should add those to my word wishlist. Might come in handy). We knew we needed to forge the stone together. At first we considered our weapons, but no one wanted to be weaponless right now. We know too much about what was about to happen. Then someone suggested our silver. Everyone was excited about that and quickly threw their coins in to be melted. I cried a little inside. My strong garrison. My beautiful apothecary. My new dress. Adventuring doesn't pay nearly as well as I'd hoped--at least not in silver. What little I'd earned over the last few months I added, less a few coins. 100 silver total, with 15 coins remaining in my purse. Maybe I can buy a dress for what is left. Inayin did a brilliant job getting the two sides of the stones together (and kindly has never yet specified who it was that actually broke the stone to begin with). 

We were almost done when Panathfei said the only thing lacking was a vow of constancy. One of us had to vow to protect the forge for our entire lives and the lives of our children. The fixed warding stone would hold as long as the vow held. There was a long silence. We all felt the weight of it. Herek was the one who accepted it. From now until eternity this forge is bound to his constancy and his line. Quickly Inayan and I took the stone down and placed it, healing the breech. 

Panathfei began singing a song of creation about then, and I realized that I'd mistook her. Whatever she becomes in the future, she isn't that yet. This Panathfei is lovely. I guess I need to cross out that poem I wrote about her earlier today.... 

She offered us a boon in thanks for helping her. We agreed that Herek should have the benefit, since he was the one with the courage to make the vow. He asked for a weapon to better protect the forge. She took a strand of her hair (WHAT IS IT WITH THIS WOMAN) and tied it around his blade, and said it would make it blessed or magical or some such. 

Good grief. What if I were to go about just chopping off my hair and tying it to people and things? WHAT EVEN. I dunno. She is fine. A bit daft. The hair thing probably works. But why. I think I might not like her. She's annoying even when she isn't evil. And now three of the five men in our party are taken in by her. She collects them. Like toy soldiers or something. Thargash and Tenuala remain "unenthralled" and I think Thargash might be immune. Tenuala is just lucky.

Inayin asked for her to cut her older version's hair off his belt, but as Thargash translated she began to look horrified and then really noticed Inayin's eyes for the first time. Uncomfortable, she asked us to leave. It was midnight. The least hospitable thing I've seen so far here in this lovely land, but truly, I didn't mind. Her future self misuses Inayin (he doesn't deserve to be bound up like that, he should have a proper, normal-aged wife, not one that spent "quality time" with his grandfather) and her present self is annoying. Maybe the first person I've truly disliked, outside of actually wicked people. She wants us to leave at midnight? After saving her precious forge? 

All the better. 

[Added later] 

Oh, I should have added that when Talari woke up she had a sword made of Hurpalb. It has a wavy edge. I wonder what it's story is? I haven't gotten a good look at it yet, but apparently it was in a stone in her vision and when she touched it it loosed itself. 

Poor Fjalanor. I will find him a sword. I've told him I would twice, but I don't think he knows I mean it. 

I do mean it. 

The Call

(Iniea #4)

What Iniea was thinking about as she looked across the Cheyth at her home ages before she was born, and grabbed a rock out of the clear running waters. She wrote the poem the following days of travel. 

The place that I call home
Has always called to me
I’ve seen it in many times
Both new and anciently
I was born in the future
But am in antiquity,
Where the world is green and young
Clothed in maiden beauty
My chest is achin’ now
For soon the Nalshbori
Will raid this precious place
Burn every leaf and tree.
My fathers will be killed
Or chained in slavery
The Cheyth, as clear as glass,
Will run polluted to the sea. 
The place that I call home
Has always called to me
Should I stay–I wonder?
Not from curiosity
But because when someat’s broken
No healing can there be
You can at least be present
With the broken quietly.
And at the lands first wounding
What honor would it be
To defend against the ruin,
Set my face defiantly? 
The place that I call home
Has always called to me
As I gaze I wonder
This is a mystery–
Could my life be out of order
So, long before my nativity,
My heart was buried yonder
‘Neath the ancient pines?
Is that why this place
Has always called to me? 

There's Your Answer

 (Inea’s #3)

(There is a big X over this one)

Written after meeting Panefai, and then Thargash informing her that Fjalanor was “wooing the maid as Neras wooed Kanle.” 

She later crossed it out, after Panefai sung her creation song, because Ineia realized it wasn't QUITE fair to call Panefai a snake.... Or a tomb.... 

Hair as dark as a ravens wing

Arms as white as snow

Beauty that would make rocks sing

    (If you wondered,

There’s your answer)

A voice that lures men to their doom

Conquers friend and foe

Gladly they embrace a tomb

    (If you wondered,

There’s your answer)

Her companion wears an honest face

Green serpent skin to show

But her true form is masked by grace

    (If you wondered,

There’s your answer)

Session 11 Recap

 Time-lost on the eastern bank of the Cheyth, the company knelt first at the cold clean water to wash the night's work from their skins — the blood, the ash, the paint from their strange costumes they had worn for the strange play under the full moon. Inayin found that no washing would mend his eyes: they wept red still, a slow blood-weeping from each duct that would not stop. Before they left the bank, Ineia took up a small stone from the river and pocketed it (without explaining why she had done so). Their smiling friend was eager to be gone — not for the road's sake, but because he had no wish to spend a night so near the cursed isle, where she would not be glad of what they had done. Upon being asked, Thargash admitted that there was one across the river they could go to for help, one "Tengelbur, Lord of the Road" but he lay a week to the west, the wrong way entirely, and Thargash refused to go and meet him in any case. Where was he from? 

"An era which no longer exists; it is hardly to the point." So they struck a bargain: they would travel together East, but would go slowly enough that Inayin might heal as they walked. And as they walked, Inayin told them the whole story about what had happened to him in the Spring: the silver-haired woman at the forge, the lock of her hair knotted to his belt that no blade nor hand could free; his grandfather's pact in the under-waters with the primordial serpent; the dark blade that hungers for serpents and for men alike; the hunt for the gold-horned king of beasts and the test he had passed, or failed; and the doom laid upon him: to break his blood's curse, or to doom all the North.

From there, our companions traveled east, following the road where it led into a wood. But where the Serth Hatama should have stood grey and petrified, there rose Feiparojar, the Star-Wood, green from the roots to the sky, its great trees half of living stone, birdsong threaded with a far high harping, the very air tasting of rain and starlight; and each of them knew the place, though none had seen it in waking memory. Ineia foraged for herbs as they went, gathering a small luminous lotus, ancient mother of the sacred lotus, lifted still living from the wet earth. And in a glade they came upon the Star-folk themselves — six tall hunters in bronze, dark and fair beyond any people the company had known, who hailed them as kin and took them for wood-folk out of Orusena. Their leader named himself Ralarkh; though Fjalenar and Thargash were the only members of the party able to speak with them in the ancient tongue of Starland. A young huntress crushed a sprig of living amber — Amber-Heart, drawn from  trees that stand by  ancient springs — into Inayin's wounds, and they closed in a breath. But when she bent to his weeping eyes she drew back grey-faced: this was no hurt of the body but of the soul, a corruption past her power, and for it they must seek the star-priest Afālnela at Amirukarr. The hunters spoke warmly, too, of the Giver — a star of great power come to restore the Star-folk's lost craft, his marvels already spreading across the Hills of Jade — and the company kept their faces still, for they knew that fair name for what it was: Orkon, in the first hour of his seduction. This at last was some clue as to when they had arrived.

Off the road, herb-gathering, they lost the road. Days folded over them in that wood, and its beauty turned slowly to a snare — for it was enchanted still, and more than one of them felt the pull to simply stay, to let the world they knew go and dwell there always. A woman's voice came singing through the trees, sweet and half-familiar; and because they were not altogether fools in a magic wood, they did not follow it. At last Talari, hoping to get a sense of their location, climbed one of the great trees, but even from that vantage she could not see the road, only trees stretching every horizon, and in the east a far river snaking east beneath high hills — and nearer, in a broken bowl of the land, a ruin old grey stones jutting through the moss, a scant two hours to the north-east.

The stones were a forge — a Water-Steel forge, ancient and open to the sky and somehow living yet, and Inayin knew its hearth, for he had stood at these same stones in his own age, when only the central hearth remained. By the lip of its pool sat a young woman, tall, dark-haired, her every motion a kind of grace, trying and failing to finish a song. She turned, startled — and Inayin knew her face past all doubt. She greeted them in the old tongue; Fjalenar answered in the high courtly register (which is the only way he knew to speak a language he had only ever encountered in ancient courtly poetry) and accidentally spoke to her as a man who intends to woo. That is how she took it, before he could explain that they were merely lost. Her name, she said, was Kanle — though her friends call her Panathfei — a smith come a long way alone to keep this forge and to coax from the shades of the Stone Kings their lost secrets of craft; only a few centuries old, and still, she said, learning patience. She bade them warm themselves at her fire and rest. But one thing, she told them: they must by no means enter the waters when night falls. Why? 

The serpent.

Ineia's Diary, hills of jade (session 11)

 We landed on the East side of the Cheyth river. The air here smells of rain and starlight. The water was clear, and I couldn't stop staring at it--right through to the bottom! I couldn't have imagined it a few hours ago, and here it was. The trees on either side were so many colors of green. I was amazed. I wanted to dive into the water, though good sense held me back. It was, after all, still the Cheyth. I had agreed to cross that way, but every stroke of the oars pulled me farther from the side I wanted to go to. My home--my own home--just six hours in the opposite direction! To travel thousands and thousands of years and not spare 6 hours!!! I think I could recognize my home even then. I'd know the rocks, I'm sure of it. 

That is why, when we landed on the wrong side of the river, I needled Thargash about the man in the tower. Apparently his name is Tenglebur, and Thargash deeply dislikes him "He is an ass" were a few of the exact words. Thargash told us that Tenglebur (with some others, I think) had somehow broken time, which had somehow made Thargash's friends disappear, and maybe a wife? But I was very confused at this point, and not quite sure. At any rate, Thargash's dislike for the man was a solid character reference as far as I was concerned. I WAS curious about Tenglebur, of course, but mainly because the Manor would have been situated in his land. Obviously, my fathers portion is much (much) smaller, but I was still very curious what kind of man Tenglebur was. I do think the land remembers men. Some of them, anyway. Maybe if I met him here I'd be able to recognize him in some way in my own time. 

I kept needling at Thargash till finally he said, "Look, it was me who brought you here and aren't you glad I did?" Which I was. And I stopped arguing. Of course I was glad. But my heart was already starting to ache. I took a moment to clean up in the river (and wash off that terrible white paint!), and gazed at the opposite shoreline. I wondered if one or two places were a bit familiar, but I know it was my wishful eyes playing tricks on me. Shorelines do change, even in one person's lifetime, and it would be many lifetimes before I was born. I picked out a stone from the shore, a smooth white one that would fit in my palm. It had never seen corrupted waters. That was something to think about. 

Thargash had agreed to take the pace slowly, for Inayin's sake. We set off, and I searched as I walked for herbs. What if I could find some plants that had become extinct in the many years between our times? What if I could keep them alive and plant them in my piney woods? We have lost so much from the dark times and the Nalshbori and the many wicked things--what if I could bring one or two of them back? A hard knot settled in my stomach that hasn't left. It was like I could see the burnings, and the future withered woods around me, imposed on the cool and pleasant path that was in front of me. I did find herbs, though. They were nestled in the shade of two different trees, near the base. I dug them up carefully, dampened my skirt hem (which i'd cut) and wrapped them gently in the moist fabric. They like cool, shady places. The flowers were small and white, they almost glow. Like a lotus, but more beautiful than any sacred lotus I'd seen.

We traveled for awhile and then met a Treian hunting party. They, of course, spoke Old Treian, which most of us do not speak. Fjalanar does, though, and Thargash. Fjalanor introduced us, and when I realized Thargash could understand I went over and asked him to translate. He seemed happy enough to whisper in my ear.

All the Treian's were taller than us. The men were bare chested, the women graceful. They were all beautiful--both the men and the women. They assumed we were of the Ancient Sothbori, who dwelled in the woods across the Cheyth. One of the women was a healer, and when we asked help with Inayin's wounds she quickly pulled something golden out of a leather bag and crushed it into the wound. It had immediate effect. I longed to ask her so many questions, but I was at least able to ask--through Fjalanor--what the herb was? It was living amber, the heart of a tree. I was in awe. But also felt sick. This is what we'd lost. 

Everywhere I look--beauty. 

Everywhere I look--loss. 

A few general questions and we discovered that Orkon had already come as the giver, and we were likely drawing close to the coming doom. When we asked for help with Inayin's eyes they drew back in dismay. They didn't have anything to help with that kind of injury, but recommended us to a small village, Amurkarr, down the path where a certain Priest of Raos named Anfanella lived. He might be able to help us. 

We continued on, and somehow managed to loose the path. We wandered in the woods for days on end--5 days, I think--and were reminded that even though this wood is cool and beautiful, it is still magical and still not safe. One afternoon Inayin and I both heard a voice singing. He told me it was the enchantress he'd become engaged to. I told him to cover his ears and don't follow the voice. We tried to go the opposite way. The next day Telini climbed a tree, and spotted some ruins just a short distance away. We headed toward them to seek shelter, but then we all heard the singing. I was dismayed. The last thing Inayin needs right now is an enchantress in the woods. But we all agreed it was following us and must be faced. 

We stumbled into the clearing and found an ancient water forge, and beside it a beautiful young woman. Inayin recognized her, of course. Fjalanor began to speak, and something about the look on her face--I tugged on Thargash's sleeve and asked what they were saying. "Oh," he drawled out in amusement, "he's wooing her with the words of Neras to Kanle." I elbowed him. I assumed he was making fun of me. Maybe he was. But Fjalanor? He'd come to the Manor because of my mothers letter--and then hardly spoken to me. Well, he had spoken to me. But not like... I was confused, and angry, and annoyed and in rather a poor temper and found out later that the rest of the conversation had something to do with a snake in her precious water forge. Inayin wanted to kill it. Of course he did. He assumed it would be a service to her. 

I assumed it was her pet. 

Well, if it was her pet, so much the better. She already had one man enthralled with her, now Fjalanor too. I KNEW we shouldn't have followed the voice. I KNEW it.