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 pine trees?
Is THAT is 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. 

Session 10 recap

 When last we left our heroes, they stood ringed by the Vulture Cult in the torch-lit square of Kyron Karr, their smiling friend looking on, the unmasked priest Varjalikan promising to reach back through time and murder Sencan in his cradle. Inayin opened the fight before he could begin it — a perfect thrust of the Red Fang longsword into his side — but the wound closed itself even as it bled, and as Varjalikan turned, the kindly scholar's face fell away like a dropped mask to show the horror beneath. Inayin felt the cold grip of Carrion Fear settle over him. Then the bone-white cultists came on from every side, and the square became a grinding business of clash and counter and falling heads. The party bled for it — Inayin worst of all, struck down with blood running from his ears and eyes and nose into a dream — but they were the better blades, and one by one the cult was cut down. Varjalikan broke and ran for the river with a speed no old man should have; Ineia's arrow took him in the back, and Tenuyala ran him down at the dock's edge, kicked him flat, and took his head from his shoulders as he stared at the shaft jutting from his chest.

In the dream that took him while he bled, Inayin smelled woodsmoke and woke to find Panathfei standing over him, poking him with a stick — and the smiling friend beside her, the two of them "catching up." When she laughed, it was the wizard's voice that came out of her mouth. He told Inayin he was a failure at many things, that he had "failed his way into your story," that his road and Panathfei's had diverged in strange ways, and that before long they would meet "the original versions of the two of us." Asked whether he meant to wipe Amboria from existence, he answered only: not erase it — just reset. Then Inayin's eyes snapped open to Ineia's hands on his wounds, and the smiling friend, very much awake and unbothered, grumbling that he had tried his best to warn them and it was hardly his fault if none of them could read. The fight was won. The cult was dead. And the smiling friend told them to hurry — the sky was greying far too early, the play's hold on the dead city already slipping, the genius beginning to wake.

He led them to the boats, declined to row, and watched the water as they pulled for the eastern shore — and when they looked back, the island behind them was no ruin at all, but Kyron Karr whole and shining in the days of her glory. While they had fought, he had turned the city's opened gaze away from the priest's chosen moment to one of his own, and carried them along it. They came ashore at dawn before green and rolling plains where the withered wood should have stood, in an age before the Nalshbori were so much as dreamed of, with the Seven Hills of Jade — that would one day become the Black Hills — rising some miles east. He told them at last a little of why: that everyone he had ever loved was stolen from him long ago, their souls drowned in the Well of Silence at the end of the world, and that he believes a road to that Well can be found among the cities of Lanenomen as they stand here, now, in their splendour. His name, he allowed, they could call Thargash — though he admitted it was not truly his. And so, time-lost and a long walk from anywhere, the company set out beside their smiling friend into a world ages gone. 

Session 9 Recap

When last we left our heroes, they had crossed at dawn to the Isle of Pines and gone in painted and costumed behind Varjalikan to meet the genius of the dead city. The pines opened all at once, and Kyron Karr lay before them under the afternoon light — still beautiful, its pale walls and pillars and broken domes weathered to the colour of old cream, its streets paved not in stone but in bones. Cormorants roosted black on every ledge and lintel, watching with eyes like wet stones, and Varjalikan touched the amber bird at his throat and said only, "There she is."

He told them the river had never drowned Kyron Karr at all — the Cheyth had merely cut it off and starved it slowly to death over many months, and that nothing which had ever come to the city had been permitted to leave. A prison, then, that they had broken into; the question was whether the Cheyth would let them cross home again. Moving inward toward the public square, the party found a recent camp in a roofless house — bedrolls and crates for four or five people, dried nightshade and blind-man's-kiss and heather, charcoal sigils in no language they knew, and scattered everywhere pieces of carved red amber in the shape of vultures. When Varjalikan began pocketing the amber and denying it, and then amber began appearing in the party's own pockets though his hands came out empty, they understood witchcraft was afoot, hauled him bodily out of the house, and threw every cursed piece back through the window before pressing on.

The cormorants followed at a hundred yards, drawing closer with every step, until the party reached the great square — sixty feet across, the ruined inn at its centre where merchants once ate bread and salt, hundreds of birds gathering silent on the broken walls. While Varjalikan and Herek cleared bone and set the ring of torches for the stage, the others searched the marketplace and the old tavern. They turned up little of worth — ancient coins stamped with a long-dead king, common across the kingdom and proof of nothing — but the tavern held stranger things: a message scrawled large across the most intact wall, *"It's about time,"* and a row of broken pottery shards that, gathered one by one, spelled out a sentence — *pay better attention to the amber* — and behind a sealed clay jar in a wall-cabinet, the single charcoal word *two*. Someone was watching them, and trying to tell them something. They carried the great jar back to the square as a souvenir, and at sundown Varjalikan staged them all and the play began. He danced into the torchlight reciting the prologue; Herek as the merchant broke bread and begged peace; Ineia rose as the city in all her pride; the dark citizens mimed the murder and cast the bodies into the river; Inayin gave voice to the Cheyth's cold judgement; and Ineia, as the city, wept for her starved children and her ruin and yet stood at the last unbroken — proud, yet unbound. The cormorants froze. The stones groaned and shed dust. The sound of running water rose and then fell to absolute silence, and for the first time in two thousand years Kyron Karr was simply a ruin and nothing more. "I think we did it," they said. "I think we did it."

And then their smiling friend was standing in the north-eastern corner of the square, weather-stained and implausibly clean-shaven. "Hello again, Fjalenar of the House Karjalkarr. I see you received my letter." But it was not the smiling sorcerer he turned to name — it was Varjalikan. "Is it still four boats at the steading upriver," he asked, "or have you brought in more since last week?" 

— and Varjalikan answered, unflinching, "Five, actually. I was expecting complications."

Inayin alone had marked it: through the whole play the scholar had clutched the amber bird at his throat and muttered under his breath, and that bird, he saw now, was a vulture. The party lunged for the amulet and Varjalikan struck their hands away with shocking speed, and at last he set down the mask entirely. He was, he said, a scholar and a high priest both; every word he had told them of the city and the rite was true; and the charming little play they had just performed was the final act of a far greater working. They had rung the bell of time to save a thousand souls — he meant to save far more. With the genius's sight now opened and willing, he would turn her gaze not on the city's sin but on the deep past, on the founding wound of the Black Hills, and reach back to kill the heir of Sencan in his cradle before ever he forged the sword — to undo the ancient wrong at its root. The party named it for what it was, dark magic to mend dark magic, and refused him; and as they refused, figures stepped out of the grey ruins all around them — armed, armoured, powdered bone-white to vanish against the ash of the city, each one marked on chest or cheek with the red sign of the vulture. "Pay better attention to the amber," their smiling friend said. 

Session 8

 When last we left our heroes, they had been summoned back to the Crescent Moon Inn in Cheykor by Sergeant Abar, who had brought with him a slab of paving stone bearing a letter for Fjalenar from the Smiling Sorcerer, and a tall grey-haired specialist named Varjalikan who had spent the better part of twenty years studying the cursed Isle of Pines from a distance. Varjalikan now produced from his stack of manuscripts the source of his confidence: an old account from the royal library at Sencankarr of a poet — the only living man known to have set foot in Kyron Karr and walked out again — who survived a night in the cursed city by telling its genius stories until the sun rose. From this, Varjalikan had composed a play, a ritual reenactment of the city's founding sin, by which he proposed to entrance the city's spirit long enough to find Fjalenar's friend and quit the place alive. He distributed scripts and costumes around the table and assigned roles: Herek as the merchant of Sencankarr, Ineia as the voice of Kyron Karr herself, Inayin as the voice of the Cheyth, Fjalenar and Talari as the dark citizens who enact the betrayal, and Varjalikan himself as witness and chorus. He suggested arriving on the island at dawn, spending the day in preparation, and performing the play at nightfall.

The party had eight days of preparation. Inayin [SR: Ineia] walked the western bank of the Cheyth for the better part of a week, watching for movement on the water and finding, near [her] own family's holdings, the tracks of someone who had moved a boat or two overland from the hills down to the river some days before — boats now apparently in the water, sailing upstream after dark. Herek searched the docks for a fisherwoman named Fyarifu who had reported strange sounds from the island the previous winter, but the woman was not in town and no one would say when to expect her. Late on the night before they sailed, the party walked to the well-shrine and stood through Fyala's midnight office of lamentation. Afterwards she heard them out and warned them plainly: the trial they were going to was not primarily a physical trial; weapons would not avail; what waited on the island was very old, very powerful, dead already, and entirely confined to that earth. She told them that what they would face was a test of the soul and of the mettle, that any unresolved anger or quarrel between them would be turned against them, and that they should hold Fjalenar's smiling friend at arm's reach. She blessed them. She said she would look forward to the story when they made it to the other side.

At midnight on the appointed evening they pushed off from the docks of Cheykor under a moon nearly full. Inayin took the steering oar; Ineia took the sail. The Cheyth was patient with them in the spring quiet, and they rowed and ran with the wind upriver through the dark. The grey light of dawn was just moving across the eastern sky when they put in at the western shore of the Isle of Pines — perhaps the first Ambori to do so in the better part of two thousand years. Varjalikan drew a long breath as his boot touched the sand. "Finally here. My whole life — finally here." They had the day. They dressed in their costumes; he painted their faces in the old fashion, white and bright, the way the ancient drama was once played. Then he turned toward the dark heart of the wood ahead, and he said: "Now we go to meet her."

Winter Storm

 (Ineia #1)

Written on her hunting trip Spring of '59, having an imaginary conversation with her mother, and maybe on other occasions a Suitor, trying to explain why she is adventuring instead of literally anything else. Except this would NOT clarify anything for anyone, particularly Lady Dara, and Ineia would never use it for the intended purpose, even though she likes the poem itself.

When all the little critters scurry
It is time to gather in
'Cause winter’s coming in its fury
Time is wearing thin
The wind will whistle, snow will flurry
Cold will freeze the skin,
But all the little critters furry
Will be cozy in their dens.
As long as critters hurry
There’s still time, but when
The world goes silent–worry, 
For now the storm begins.

Ineia's Diary, Kyrankarr (Session 7-10)

 The first time I saw Fjalanor after The Incident in my previous entry was when we were summoned yet again to Reianna's inn. I hadn't quite decided what to do about Fjalanor. Should I try to talk to him again? No. Better to see if he says anything. I'd watch him, see what sort of things he liked. Having a job to do definitely helped. Focus on that. Yes. 

The job, it turned out, was specifically about Fjalanor. There were more time hijinks. It was a message on a brick that said something was happening at (the island) and we needed to stop it. We needed to be there by midnight of the full moon. It was signed, "Your Smiling Friend" 

My stomach sank. They could not seriously be considering going to the Kyrankarr. No one who went to the island could come back alive, this had been forbidden for thousands of years! Everyone knows this.

We were puzzling over this when Sargent Abar said he'd brought in a specialist who had some ideas for how to get us through it. A very old man with an armful of scrolls entered the room. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up--I stood up too, and quickly. "Who are you? Why are you so interested in the island? I've lived here my entire life, how is it that you've been studying it this whole time and I've never seen you in the town once? What kind of a man studies this, anyway? What do you want?" I barely let him answer. I was so angry and upset, and I couldn't even tell why but I knew that man was bad news.

Everyone else in the room was staring at me. I could feel their eyes, but I didn't care. Something was wrong. I didn't know what, but it was wrong. But then--Fjalanor. He said something--I forget what exactly--but then I saw the way he was looking at the man. Awe. Admiration. Almost--reverence? As if that man was everything he wanted to be. He was saying he knew the man, that he was a scholar of some renown, from Senkancarr? I think? The man I'd just yelled at was Fjalanor's friend. 

Of course he was. 

I shut my mouth abruptly, the words gone. My face reddened and I sat down. What a great way to start things off on a better foot. I'd been incredibly rude to someone Fjalanor looked up to. My mother would be ashamed. For more than one reason. I'm terrible at this.

The man had a plan to lure the spirit of the city to sleep, to allow us to find this Smiling Friend without being killed. He'd written a play that recounted the time of the city's cursing. He assigned parts to everyone. I volunteered to take the lead. I hated this whole idea still, but if it was Fjalanor's friend, then... Well, I'd give it a proper chance. I played the city herself. By the time we'd finished assigning parts I was convinced the man was in love with the Spirit of the City. He stood very near me, and talked about how important my part was, and how maybe some private rehersals would be good to make sure I could fully embody the spirit--I tried not to cringe. He made my skin crawl. 

We agreed that we should keep watch on the river, because we'd learned that boats had been seen crossing too and from the island. I had a lot of time to think while I was on watch. Maybe if I went down to the Cheyth the night before and asked for mercy, and explained why we were going, his wrath wouldn't be aroused again. We are breaking the taboo ONLY to prevent a much greater harm. Fjalanor was far too excited about the whole thing. He doesn't understand. Does he want to throw his life away doing idiot things? At least he could pretend to be mildly reluctant. Maybe... What if I were to offer a trade? Not a trade exactly--but when we go home, if the Cheyth isn't merciful, offer myself instead of whoever is in the boat? I'll be gathering herbs, so I'd be the only one out of the boat.... I'm terrified of going. I can say that here. Why am I doing this?

I was thinking things like these when I saw the small boat pulled up on the riverside and footprints leading toward the Manor. My Manor, just 6 hours away. I felt sick. For whatever reason, we were patrolling solo, so if I were to follow the footprints and actually find something no one would know where I'd disappeared to. I stared at them for long moments. We were only a few days out from leaving. If I dealt with the problem on the island, it would probably also deal with this issue. I wasn't satisfied with my decision, but that was the one I made. I told the others, and on their patrols they took backup and watched particularly around the boat landing. 

We did visit Mother Fieala. She said the plan may actually work, so there is at least that, I suppose. She was surprised about the activity on the island.

Finally it was time to go. As it turned out, I'm the only one with any sort of sailing experience, so my dreamed of bargain with the Cheyth wouldn't have worked anyway. I was in charge of the boat, not in the water gathering herbs. 

We arrived at the river in the afternoon, well before the midnight target. On the beach we set up for final preparations. I was wearing the dress that Fjalanor's friend had gotten, one the he said suited the beauty of the city. It had a lot of gauze, and showed more than mother would have approved of. I made up for this by stubbornly insisting on wearing my chainmail coat over it. Frankly, I looked ridiculous. But it was about to get worse. Varjalikan insisted that the play would be improved by using traditional makeup. I swallowed, and allowed him to do mine. He was close and his breath smelled bad. Like old man and death. He talked about my part, and how beautiful the city was, and how important it was that I play my part as authentically as possible and many other tips. I kept my eyes closed so at least I didn't have to look into HIS bloodshot eyes while he fixed my face to look like his version of a City's Spirit. 

Finally it was time. We headed toward the city, planning to set up in the middle of the square. On the way we passed what must have been the sorcerer's camp. It was an obviously inhabited shack, scrolls on the table, herbs laying out (Nightshade, blindmans kiss, one bundle of heather--for vision brew, maybe? I thought about taking them, but ended up not. As I said, I am terrified. Everything here is cursed. We trip over the unburied bones of the dead. Any herb here would be corrupted). We tried to leave, but kept finding red amber in our pockets. We'd see Fjalanor's friend pick it up, he'd deny it, and then one of us would discover it in our pocket. This happened a dozen times. We were panicking by the time it was over and finally ran from the cottage, managing to leave behind all red amber. 

While we walked Inayin told us about what had happened to him while we'd been apart the last few weeks. I'd noticed a silver lock of hair tied to his belt and wondered. Apparently he is engaged to a woman he just met. By his description she is an enchantress of some sort. I don't think it is a proper engagement--but I didn't say much because I couldn't quite tell if it was something he wanted or not. The woman is very old--she taught his grandfather--though I gather she doesn't LOOK ancient. I'm concerned. Inayin is a good man, and would make some girl a good and faithful husband. He shouldn't get mixed up with a woman like that. He should find a proper woman who can help him get his forge set up. I don't think he'll have much of a happy life with this woman. 

We began to set up in the town square. Fjalanor said he wanted to go look for something--a sword, I'm sure, but he said it was something to prove we'd been here. (As if I'd ever tell anyone I'd come here! But as I said, Fjalanor feels very differently about being here than I do). Varjalikan was circling and ready to pounce on me for "extra rehersal time" which was not about to happen! I quickly stood by Fjalanor and mentioned how important it was to not go alone. He'd need a companion to--well, honestly, to make sure he didn't bring a curse down on himself because the man just does not think of these things. Inayin was quick to volunteer also, which was fine with me--two level heads are better than one! Herek and Tenuala stayed behind to keep an eye on Varjalikan. 

That was when the strange things started happening. There was another note--it started scrawled across a building (Obviously we entered), but then it was single words of the message written on the things we picked up and looked at, as if someone knew exactly what we were going to do before we did it. Obviously it was Fjalanor's friend (The other friend, the evil wizard we were there to see. Fjalanor seems to have quite a few friends...) We didn't find anything valuable, but the sun was setting and it was time to go back. 

We set ourselves for the play--the odd friend leading off. He danced onto the stage and off it, so when my part came I did the same. I think I did rather well, actually. I HAD practiced (just not with the creepy old man). The city responded to the play--we could hear rumblings, and the black birds flocked to the broken down walls to sit and watch the play. They responded as we went--upset at some parts and quiet in others. We could tell that somehow this mad old man's plan was actually working. And then the play was over, and all was quiet. I held my breath for a long moment. We'd done it. Somehow we'd done it. The city was quiet. We'd done it!

That was when things shifted strangely. Inayin drew his sword and charged the old man. Somehow he missed. He was shouting something about the vulture cult. He sounded crazy. We grabbed him in confusion and he shouted louder. Then we noticed the old man--his vulture pendant visible now. The wizard appeared also, walking across the square toward us--"I warned you. You should have listened." I was confused. Were there two evil wizards? An evil wizard and a vulture cultist? Inayin was struggling to get at the priest, and more vulture cultists appeared from their hiding places encircling us. The priest (apparently he was a priest) was talking the whole time--describing his evil plan which apparently was to travel back in time, using the city, and kill Sencan as a baby. We were dumbstruck. 

And then I remembered the boat. And the footprints I hadn't followed. I asked about them. He said something about needing insurance in case we hadn't agreed. I felt bile rising inside. My family. My mother. He'd taken her. Or maybe one of the little ones at the manor. That was why the footprints lead directly toward my home. He was going to use them if I tried to refuse to do the play. But I was too much of an idiot to refuse, so it never came up. My mother! I lost it then, but Inayin wouldn't shut up (what possible other thing even mattered? Why wouldn't everyone shut up? I've never been so furious with him as I was then!). I couldn't find out where she was or if she'd actually been taken. And then the fight started.

It was horrible. Inayin, of course, went strait for the Priest. He fought with powerful blows that should have quickly wiped such an old man out. But the Priest had many dark and evil tricks. He did something to Inyan, squeezing him on the inside until his eyes bled. Any time the priest was dangerously wounded he would somehow kill one of his own men, and use their life to heal himself. Inayin's fierce fighting should have killed him many times over, but he used his men to survive. Once they were all dead, he turned and ran toward the boats. I shot him with an arrow, but it was Tenuala who got the killing stroke. The man was dead. 

I ran back to Inayin and quickly administered my Bitter Rockweed poultice. He wasn't dead, but he was in very bad shape. Thargash--Fjalanor's smiling friend--was there. He said we needed to get out of the city before she woke up again, that the quietness would last maybe an hour. I still felt sick. What if my mother was in the city? What if there were hostages somewhere? How would I find them? I'm not sure if the others realized how panicked I was. But there wasn't time to search the houses and get out safely. I didn't know for sure where they were, or if they were even there. To stay and search would be risking the lives of my companions on a suspicion. Even if the priest had taken hostages, they might not even be on the island. He may have hidden them somewhere else. So I followed the others. I don't remember if there were conversations or what was said. 

When we reached the Cheyth we all realized--something was very different. 

Thargash had sent us back in time, much farther than the priest had intended. Long before Sencan was born. 

The Cheyth was clear as glass. 

Session 7

 When last we left our heroes, they had just performed the most consequential deed of their young adventuring careers: they had brought a city back from the dead. The winter moors of northern Amboria were crowded with bewildered souls who had been sleeping in their own beds in the year 91 of the Second Aeon and found themselves lying in cold snow some seventeen centuries later, staring up at an unfamiliar sky. The party guided those fifteen hundred displaced men, women, and children northward through the frost, distributing families among the villages of the Cheyth Valley as they went, and delivering the remainder to the empty seasonal quarters at Cheykor, where the miners' houses stood vacant and ready in the long winter dark. It was not a comfortable arrangement, and it strained the region's resources considerably, but with the cooperation of local landholders and the leadership of the survivors themselves, the immediate crisis was brought under control. By the end of winter, everyone had a roof over their head — if not, perhaps, any very clear idea of what century it was.

The spring that followed was a season of many smaller endeavors. Fjalenar set himself to the tremendous scholarly task of cataloguing the survivors' family lines, speaking to every household in turn and working to connect what remained of their ancient records to the existing archives of the Norinlakor — a work of heraldry and genealogy that already promised to become one of the more remarkable volumes in the north's scholarly tradition, even half-finished. Ineia rode out into the Cheyth uplands with her bow and her considerable luck and returned with the horns of a lesser hornbeast and a new scar to show for it. Tenuyala worked to preserve her standing with her order — and found, when all was reckoned, that ringing the Bell of Time and restoring fifteen hundred souls to the world counted for rather more reputation than a standard seasonal adventure. Inayin scoured the wilderness for hornbeasts and found nothing, which perhaps was not the worst outcome. Herek's amber-mining venture yielded a nugget the size of a man's head and a return on investment sufficient to replenish her silver considerably. And Talari tracked a notorious bandit lord named Abuksa to his lair in the hills above the Cheyth river valley, crept into his cave while he slept, made rather a lot of noise, and fled for her life through the hills with a furious, half-dressed bandit lord in hot pursuit — escaping by the narrowest of margins, and leaving behind her a man who now has a very specific grudge and an excellent description.

By the time the Feast of Summer came and went, the party found themselves summoned once more to the Crescent Moon Inn in Cheykor by Sergeant Abar, who arrived at table with a plain slab of paving stone and a look of mild concern. The stone bore a carefully inscribed message in a scholar's hand — very correct, very polished, and not quite that of a native speaker — addressed to Fjalenar of House Karjalkar by name, signed only as your smiling friend. The letter indicated that its author had been residing for some months in a location that local legends would, he said, readily identify; that his neighbors there were industrious people with considerable ambition and very little wisdom, whose work would reach its culmination at the turning of the moon; and that he had gathered information about certain of Cheykor's town elders and the party they serve. He invited the company to come before the full moon — eleven days hence — and to expect a difficult night. Two or three such stones had been appearing around town over the preceding weeks, one of them on the steps of the shrine. The great city named by Fjalenar's lore, and confirmed in every detail by Ineia's memory of the old bedtime stories, was Kyron Karr — the ancient, cursed, and wholly abandoned city on the Isle of Pines in the middle of the Cheyth, which no one in living memory has entered and survived. Into this pleasant destination the party was accordingly invited, by the sorcerer who stole their bell-metal hinge and stepped sideways out of time, to attend a difficult night. There was at least one piece of good news: a certain scholar named Varjalikan, called in by Abar as a specialist in the very matter of lost cities and cursed islands, arrived at the inn with a very large stack of manuscripts and the claim that he had found the only living man ever to have seen Kyron Karr and survived — and that, based on this man's account, he had drafted a plan for doing likewise. He asked, as a preliminary, whether any of the company had experience with drama.

Session 6 recap--Souls of Stone and the Smiling Sorcerer

he Bell of Time Concludes*

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When last we left our heroes, they had just survived a brutal skirmish with Vulture Clan warriors at the walls of Thorankarr and stood reunited for the first time in weeks—battered, poisoned, and drenched from a rainstorm—with the full moon rising and a dying city at their backs. Eimalua wasted no time: she intended to ring the Bell of Time that very night and send Thorankarr's surviving population forward to safety, and she expected the party's help.

What followed was a lengthy and occasionally heated debate about temporal paradoxes, the feeding of refugees, and whether interfering in a historical massacre constituted a violation of the fundamental order of causality. Fjalenar argued—with some scholarly passion—that moving three thousand people across thirteen centuries was precisely the kind of small error at the bowstring that produced enormous errors at the target. The rest of the party argued—with somewhat less scholarly precision but more apparent common sense—that the alternative was watching those three thousand people be killed in front of them. The party also realized during discussion that they had no need to spend the moon dust for the return trip: the full moon provided sufficient power to ring the Bell, and the dust had been needed only to direct their arrival in 91 SE. Their supply could be held in reserve. In the end, Fjalenar's resistance gave way to something that might charitably be described as resigned investment, and the party accepted Eimalua's plan.

Eimalua led them through a postern gate she knew—she had spent months among Thorankarr's defenders, and had contacts on the walls—and for the first time the full party set foot in a city that, in their own time, exists only as a name in history books and a handful of tumbled stones. The carved stone streets, the fountain still running, the vaulted lintels: everything the stories had promised. And the catapult damage, the dead horse in the alley, the civilians scurrying furtively between doorways with the hollow eyes of people who know they are losing: everything the stories had not prepared them for. Above it all, the Bell Tower rose intact over the North Gate, its bell beginning to take on a silver sheen as the moon climbed.

The gate itself was the problem. Approximately fifty armed defenders were clustered around it, with more arriving as a renewed assault from the Nalshbori army seemed imminent. The party's attempts to talk their way in were not distinguished: a 97 on persuasion, a 96 on deception, and a guard whose wife had been killed three weeks ago who was entirely unmoved by warnings that everyone in the city would die tonight. The party apologized for mentioning his wife. This did not help. Their solution was less elegant but more effective: they dressed in the armor of fallen city defenders and walked in anyway, carried along on the general chaos of the reorganizing garrison.

At the base of the Bell Tower they found Priestess Satsanur—the oldest woman any of them had ever seen, slumped motionless in a chair before a small basin of water. Herek [SR: Ineia] went to check on her. She fell sideways out of her chair: not dead, but petrified, turned to stone. One of the guards at the stairwell had cracked clean in half where he had fallen. Someone had been here before them.

At the top of the tower, they found out who.

He was tall, dark-haired, handsome in a composed and slightly theatrical way, in long flowing robes. He knew Fjalenar's name. He called himself Thargash—the name Gathankol's men had given him. He had been, or perhaps still considered himself, the Nalshbori warlord's sorcerer. He had dealt with Satsanur because she had been, in his estimation, "far too short-sighted for her own good." He demonstrated this general attitude toward obstacles by raising a hand and freezing Tenuyala, Eimalua, and Ineia in place on the staircase with a holding spell—just long enough to make his point—before releasing them without harm.

He was not, he explained, interested in stopping them. The city was lost. Gathankol would burn everything. He was a pragmatic man who wished to see what came next. He invited them to ring the Bell and save the city; he would add a small invocation of his own. He was entirely pleasant about it. Fjalenar told him that someday he would wish he had killed him here on the tower. Thargash smiled.

Pressed by the sound of a battering ram beginning its work on the gate far below, the party rang the Bell.

Fjalenar spoke the poetic kenning—the invocation that named their destination in images rather than dates—and directed it home, toward 459 SE. Inayin seized the bell rope. With the help of another party member and a fate point well spent, the pull was a critical success. The clapper swung.

Just as it was about to strike, Thargash tapped his staff twice against the platform stones and spoke his own quiet words over theirs. A flash of light. He said "until next time, my friend." to Fjalenar, and stepped sideways into a small adjacent stream of time, and was gone.

The Bell rang.

It did not ring loudly, exactly—or if it was loud, the loudness had nothing to do with volume. It was the sound of time noticing you; of every moment you had ever lived occurring simultaneously. The inscriptions on the Bell's surface moved like water. Below on the platform, then in the square beyond, then throughout the city, people simply ceased to be present—a family in a doorway, a soldier against a wall, priestesses at a shrine, all becoming faint golden outlines that slowly dimmed. Ten heartbeats. Then darkness, and a long fall past stars that none of them had ever seen.

They came down wet and cold on the winter moors of northern Amboria, looking up at a winter sky, surrounded by approximately fifteen hundred bewildered souls waking up in the snow around them. The Bell had not come with them. One of the two bell-metal hinges was missing—Thargash had taken it in the confusion. The ruins of Thorankarr's bell tower were visible on the horizon, just as Eimalua remembered them. No Nalshbori in evidence. The nearest settlement was called Gielin, ten miles distant.

Those who had been frozen by the holding spell could not quite recall a man on the tower platform. Those who had not been frozen remembered him clearly.

"No one has ever done what you did here today," Eimalua told them. "You should be proud of yourselves."

The exact year remains to be confirmed.

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*The Bell of Time concludes. The Time of Kings continues.*

*Each present character receives three active advancements: one for the session, one for completing the adventure, and one for saving the people of Thorankarr.*

*Session 7 begins with seasonal undertakings. Winter has passed, or is passing. Fifteen hundred people from the year 91 SE are on the northern moors. What do you do?*

Session 5 Recap

 S E S S I O N 5

Session 5 Recap — Read Aloud

When last we left our heroes, the party was split across thirteen centuries. In the present day,
Fjalenar, Ineia, and Inayin made their way to the Norinlakor in Cheykor, where they found
Palfeinan, the eccentric scholar-archivist, in the midst of reorganizing his entire library according to the movements of an elaborate clockwork astrolabe mounted on the ceiling. After a characteristically bewildering conversation—and after helping him sort scrolls for the better part of half an hour—a scrap of parchment blew loose and landed directly in Ineia's hands, containing exactly what they needed: the formula for the word of command to activate the dust from the Gardens of Onmanda.

Palfeinan also confirmed that Eldress Falaru had asked him the same questions some six or seven months earlier, and had been interested in a date during the siege of Thorankarr. Armed with both a precise calendrical formula and a poetic kenning, the party returned to Elder Kaneral's house, laid out the dust before the temporal door, joined hands, and—with Fjalenar reciting the poetic invocation—stepped through into the past.

Meanwhile in the year 91 of the Second Eon, Herek and Tenuyala departed the Sacred Well through a hidden passage beneath the altar, led by Eimalua on a six-day journey to the besieged city of Thorankarr. The journey was grueling: Nalshbori raiding bands forced them off the main roads, exhaustion and the weight of their ordeal took their toll, and on the final day a massive thunderless rainstorm left them slogging through ankle-deep mud across the open moors. But at last they crested a hill and saw below them a city none of them had ever seen in their own time—Thorankarr, wreathed in smoke and flame, with a great Nalshbori army encamped around its walls. Eimalua led them around to the seaward approach, where the enemy forces were thinnest.

The two timelines collided at the walls of Thorankarr. Fjalenar, Ineia, and Inayin stepped through the doorway and materialized before the city walls—directly in the path of six charging Vulture Clan warriors. A vicious battle ensued: Inayin beheaded the first warrior in a single stroke but was riddled with poisoned arrows for his trouble; Fjalenar waded into melee and cut down another; and Ineia put an arrow through the eye of the one who dared strike her eagle, Inrark. The surviving Nalshbori broke and fled in terror. And as the dust settled, three familiar figures rounded the corner of the wall: Herek, Tenuyala, and the red-haired Eimalua. The party is reunited at last—battered, poisoned, drenched, and standing before a doomed city on the night of the full moon. Eimalua wasted no time:

"There's not a lot of time to rest on your laurels, little warrior. We have to send an entire city forward in time."