The Remnants

Not long ago, as I write this, I had the occasion to see a tapestry depicting my time as Tyrant of Zuunkhorun. Woven after my time upon that jeweled throne, but now millennia in the past. The colors had faded, the edges frayed, but the memories it sparked shone brightly.

In it, I stood out behind the Deadwall, lightning about my head, my crown a halo. A serpent, her feathers vibrant, wrapped about me in an embrace both possessive and predatory. Look closely at my left hand and see the glint of silver about my finger. But it was what I clutched in my right that I speak of now. A spear, styled here as a bolt of lightning thrown from the heavens as my left hand reached to the enemy. It was the pose I had come to be known for, "Come to me," it said, "come to me and perish."

A few of my brides had found their way upon the weave as well. Tanyth of course was by my side in a place of honor, for the people of Zuunkhorun were enthralled by her. Some called her goddess and others whore, her beauty entranced them, as did her habit of keeping with the Kharsoomian custom of nudity. Here, she wore a diaphanous half-gown, her breasts bared, the Constellation of Iarveiros hanging from her neck. They would have called her Crimson Tanyth or Tanyth the Fair.

Sarakiel stood behind, shrouded in her robes, sinister in mien. She often receives this treatment, as a darkling she was ascribed motives that she would never consider. She was known as Sarakiel the Wise, or just as often, Sarakiel the Secret.

Lysethe, now styled the Hound of Heaven, swept ahead in her red enameled armor, commanding a legion of wights while spearing the enemy with bolts of heavenfire. They would have known her well, for those who raised my particular ire would be hunted by the Pale Hound. Her long silver-white hair was a halo, her red eyes filled with the savagery of battle. Her collar was hidden beneath her gorget, but I knew it to be there.

Before her, the shape of Ten Ghosts, astride her monstrous mount, swinging her great studded war club. If they feared the Hound, they feared my Huntress even more. She is terrible in her wrath, and sadly more known for it than her poetry.

But I am distracted, as is so often the case, by the incomparable women who share my bed. I speak of the tapestry for the spear. I am so strongly associated with this weapon that it is strange sometimes to think of my life before I wielded it. Sometimes I imagine battles from the Fall of Axichis with it in my hand. It joins the many poisoned musings, all bearing the same question. Could the war for Axichis been won? Of course, the answer is no, but I carried it through my next war, and I won that one. If nothing else, I could have struck down more Heacharids with that weapon in hand.

Most historians know only that I emerged from the wastes of Kharsoom bearing this spear. In the

Zuunkhorunia

, the historian Orbei claims I took it from the tomb of the tomb of Barkab the Butcher, where I found it clutched in the old monster's withered claw. In

The Dance of Shadows

, Palireen says it was a gift from the Clan Abibaal, when I became their prince. And in

The Dirge of the Ageless

, Tylcaiah Holaxina believes I forged it from a great lightning strike manifesting from my rage at the elves' betrayal.

They are all wrong. This is the true tale of the origin of my weapon. This is the tale of Fate, Ur-Anu the Blackspear.

Of all these versions of the truth, Orbei has it closest, and I believe this is because her great-grandfather Tagadhur served ably as my Master of Birds. I appreciate Orbei's history, as though it can be less than generous in places, on the whole I think her fair. Merely, in this case, wrong.

As the story begins, I walked the path Ksenaëe had marked for me for days and nights. I felt neither hunger, nor thirst, nor fatigue. I believe the nectar I drank from her lips sustained me in this time, and I would soon put it to good use in another manner. She had given me what I needed as a traveler, for this I believe was her sacred purpose.

The terrain changed, the jungle growing dense and joined by slithering brambles. A viscous slime hunted through the canopy, its movement betraying sinister intelligence. Herds of the plant-eaters trekked through the undergrowth, eating the dustbushes and shoots that now sprouted at the base of each tree. They scarcely reacted to my presence. I did not look like a predator, hence I was nothing to fear.

At night, the tentacled flying things roosted in the treetops in clusters so thick the trees themselves sagged. I passed strange, seed-shaped objects twice the size of me, a cleft in front that looked uncomfortably inviting.

Once, I glimpsed the behemoth I had heard so many times. A sinuous creature, it stalked through the trees on relatively short legs, its body like a vast river. It bore some resemblance to the tentacled flying things, its skin rugose, with a collection of tentacles writhing about its face. It was hideous and beautiful in its way and I was compelled to name the beast

oorn

, due to its mournful cry that echoed over the alien jungle.

Some days into my travel, with the sun shining high overhead, I heard something I did not expect.

Voices.

I did not recognize the language, though to my untrained ear, it sounded perhaps Orcish. Please understand that at the time, I believed there to be a language called Orcish, spoken by every extant orc upon Thür. In fact, I was not hearing any language ever spoken by an orc, as I shortly found.

I scurried off the path, hid myself behind one of the great seed pods, and peered out to see the source of the voices.

I was additionally surprised when I saw what was strolling up the path. Goblins, two of them. The diminutive race, about half the size of a man, were a common hazard in the deep places of the world. They are almost unknown above ground, sometimes troubling towns near their lairs and then only at night. Sunlight renders their large eyes blind and even torchlight can dazzle them.

The goblins that came up the path looked far more like orcs in miniature, with eyes more in proportion to their skulls. Their skin was greener than I was used to, a bright olive close to the shade of the trunks of the local trees.

Forgive me, for such studies are Allegeth's domain, but it is my understanding that orcs descend from goblins, come to the surface in the distant past and grown hale and strong. After what Ksenaëe showed me, I believe this was during a previous Strata of the world, perhaps even the First. Hobgoblins, so Allegeth claims, descend from goblins that came to the surface in the far more recent past. What is known for certain is that the three races are cousins and can be quite dangerous.

These goblins wore leather kilts, helmets, and breastplates, with coin-sized iron plates sewn over regular intervals. Both carried short spears with iron tips, and shields of stretched hides over wooded frames. These arms and armor were far more uniform and finely-crafted than the usual cast-offs they made use of.

They spoke casually in their language as they made their way along the path. Though goblins were half my size, I held no illusions what the two of them could do to me. Had I a weapon or my magic, they would not have presented even the slightest obstacle. In my present humbled state, they were enough to keep me cowering behind the pod, watching them as they disappeared up the path.

The way they strolled so casually, I estimated they could not be far from their home. I waited until they were out of sight, and I began to move cautiously, making my way through the undergrowth, paralleling the path along which they had come. Ahead, through the trees, the terrain rose in a pair of low, rocky hills.

Soon, more voices rose on the air, speaking the language of the goblins. I had previously thought of their language as harsh, but not then. That day in the strange jungle, it sounded to me almost welcoming, the bright village chatter that could be heard in every corner of the world. Yet I remained cautious. Perhaps it was prejudice against goblins or perhaps it was that I had recently spent over two years being wary of armored individuals with spears. Still, I approached, and found that the jungle ended ahead, an open area beyond. When I broke cover, what I saw took my breath away.

What I thought were two separate peaks had once been a single one, blasted in half by an impossible force. What had been the apex was now a furrow carved into the jungle floor. A pathway surrounded it on all sides, a tiny buffer between jungle and canyon. Stone staircases went from the valley's floor to the rim, where the pathway first circled, then struck out to penetrate the jungle. But this wasn't what awed me.

The skeleton of a great beast wallowed in the furrow. The skeleton of this beast was so impossibly huge that it was not initially recognizable as a skeleton. No, it would have to be a sculpture created for giants. It was not until I could temper the all-consuming awe that had taken my mind that I could see this thing for what it was, and then was further stunned at the prospect of a creature of such impossible vastness once living and breathing.

The bones were a metallic gray-black whether thanks to native composition or age I could not tell. As for the creature, it took me a moment to identify, as my gaze wandered over its endless shape. Eventually, I recognized it. This was Mu-Baoth,

a

Mu-Baoth, if you will. Yet one that dwarfed the leviathan that had sunk

The Burning Knave

and stranded me in this place.

Because of what Ksenaëe the Wanderer had shown me, I knew the beasts had once been rampant upon the seas of Thür. Not merely the Lapis, where Mu-Baoth hunted, but everywhere. I knew also that Strata had ended somehow when the beasts had frenzied, their bulk hurling the tiny islands that dotted the great world-sea into the magma below and irrevocably reshaping the world into the arid waste of the Second Strata.

I believe now Mu-Baoth to be a single, surviving member of this fell species. I think it must lie dormant on the sea floor, where the water is black and crushing. The Lapis gets its name for its color, and its color comes from its great depth and frigid temperature, ample space for such a creature. I believe Mu-Baoth awakens on some unguessable calendar to feed. Or had, until I broke that cycle. But I am getting ahead of myself again.

In the great skeleton in the valley, the goblins had built a city out of the black basalt so easily quarried in this place. The settlement was beautiful in its way, growing denser as it crept to the middle of the valley between the two broken peaks. They favored long halls and stately pyramids, all decorated with images that echoed the creature in whose skeleton the city now lay. In the middle, at the city's highest point, the peaks were spanned in a spider's web of rope bridges.

I looked into the creature's skull, a beautiful plaza marked with a decorative fountain just inside the gray-black jaws. Buildings extended into the back, where the valley grew deep between the peaks. I could not tell how big the city was, but it appeared expansive, even as in comparison with the skeleton, it was tiny.

Goblins were everywhere. Many were armed and armored as the two I'd seen on the path, but many more looked to be simple peasants, dressed in tunics and loincloths, going about the business of city life. I saw great gardens in city squares, where they cultivated the bizarre plants of this place.

A call pulled at me. It was not a sound in my ear, but a tug on my very soul. In my mind, I saw the rainbow bridge that had once spanned my mouth with that of Ksenaëe, and that bridge became the path that wandered through the jungle, to the lip of the canyon and the open maw of the great leviathan's skeleton. This was where her pathway terminated. This was where my journey led.

The goblin city called to me and I could not resist the siren song. I was still quite in control of myself, however, and would not wander into the center of the settlement like an automaton. My attention went to the peaks, between which the creature's spine spanned, its ribcage extending below. Specifically, the rope bridges and ladders extending down to reach a bulwark of stone pathways captured. Fewer goblins patrolled this place. I wondered what enemies troubled them, but this was a mystery I would not solve.

I crept along the edge of the pathway, up into the gap between the peaks, moving cautiously, alert for both goblins and wild predators. I came to a mad conclusion. Were I in Rhandonia, looking to go into one of the lightless depths where the goblins waited, I might go in the day, assuming that they would be farther from the entrance, perhaps even asleep. These goblins demanded a different approach. I waited for night.

Still empowered by the nectar Ksenaëe fed me, I was quite alert when the cold cloak of night was flung over the valley. I slinked to the lip of the peaks, where the rope bridges descended in a series of cradled switchbacks down to the darkest part of the village. Torches blazed far below, and in the hands of the few sentries that walked these pathways. Unthinkable to the kinds of goblins I was used to, who would have shied or even hissed at the sight of open flame.

I took my time making my way down. The structures were more densely clustered here, all atop one another and connected by stone staircases. Carvings and sculptures depicted what I could now recognize as one of Mu-Baoth's race of leviathans. The city was built in its shadow, and to its glory.

The siren song inside me drew me to the center of this ancient city. I crept down their stone avenues, peering through windows. The goblins slept in great barracks-like arrangements, with apartments for families. I found dank enclosures where peaty mushrooms and bright toadstools grew on heaps of offal in a riot of color and scent. I passed through their open-air gardens and past their artificial canals and streams.

At the center of the city, its highest point, was a tower of sorts, crowned with an ornate building. The carvings here were increasingly stylized, the Mu-Baoths more fearsome, their sails more pronounced. I went inside, and was forced to walk hunched over, as this city was built for beings half my size.

This structure looked to me to be a temple. An altar stood against one end, and a tapestry, the first I'd seen in this place, covered the stone wall. By the diffuse light of the torches outside, I could barely make out the subject. It appeared to be one of the sea serpents, rampant over a field of magma.

I felt myself pulled downward, and after hunting about, I located a staircase leading into the tower. The walls were wet beneath my fingers, the once-fresh jungle air grown increasingly stale as I descended. This place was a maze, lit only periodically by torches. Goblins, most of them armed, wandered about, though none seemed on alert.

After an extended time descending, I judged I must now not only be deep inside this structure, but below ground level as well. Though these goblins were surface-dwellers, they had nonetheless constructed an extensive subterranean metropolis. Perhaps this was merely the only way they could expand into their valley.

I had never seen such a city of goblins. Even in their most concentrated numbers in other areas of the world, they would be confined to settlements I would refer to as villages, or perhaps towns. In my fancy, I wondered if perhaps these day-goblins might outnumber the night-goblins I was far more accustomed to.

And I had placed the most expansive population of goblins I had ever seen between me and escape.

Was I foolish? Oh, most certainly. Yet I hope that my failings can be excused by my curiosity. My time with the Mythseekers had fed it, nurtured it. That damnable war had eaten a heavy piece from my soul. Not only for the things I had done, the things I had witnessed, but the simple fact that I was no longer allowed to explore.

This was what Ksenaëe had reawakened in me. I do not know if she intended this or not, but I suspected she sensed the edges. She was a traveler, and she sensed in me the same. She had given me a destination, and not to take it would be an unforgivable insult after what we had shared. And as I crept through this confining, throatlike darkness, surrounded by enemies I knew would seek my death, nude and armed only with a silver cup, I was

alive

.

My body sang with need. I knew in that moment, that this was what my life should be. And yes, I would forget this often, but I would return to it, especially in my old age.

The call grew louder, and I knew that I was nearing its source. Sentries grew thicker on the ground as well, though many of them slept. I gave them as much space as I was able, though in some cases I had no other option but to creep past them. Far too often I could reach out and touch the slumbering goblins. I knew this was madness, but I could not stop myself, even if I wanted to.

I do not know how deep I was in the goblin city when I reached my destination. I know only that there could be no other explanation for what I saw and the pull in my soul. A doorway ahead of me glowed with a strange, pelagic light. The source of the call was beyond. I went to it in a state of wonder, my heart thrumming.

When I stepped through the portal I found an expansive vaulted room, the ceiling far out of reach. The glow touched every corner, but lacked any apparent source. In the center of the room was a square pyramid, stairs leading up to a wide, flat area. The stones here were smoothed by countless years. Floating in space above and around the pyramid, were great, oddly-shaped masse of stone without any visible means of support. I stared at the shapes, and saw that they would fit together perfectly and the shape took form in my mind's eye.

It was a colossal stone heart. My mind rebelled at the idea of such a vast organ, turned to stone, disassembled, and now floating in the air, but it was real. The sound of blood slithering through water and the taste of a leviathan's silent roar hummed over my body. The creature in whose body the city now rested was dead, but gods do not truly die. Pieces linger, and the magical energy crackling through the deity's thews could still fire the senses of even a diminished half-wizard.

I made my way up the staircase, gazing about me in wonder. This chamber looked to have been natural in the beginning but now had been modified, sculpted, decorated. I knew that I stood in the middle of a holy site, witnessing things I was never meant to see.

I reached the top of the pyramid, and though I was high over the floor of the chamber, I was still far beneath the ceiling. The pieces of heart floated about me, perfectly still in their places, only the distant throb of the power marking them as existing in their half-life. The top of the pyramid I was at the center of these pieces, at the place the organ was torn asunder.

Yet this was not the only wonder.

At the exact center, where the heart would have burst, a blue-white light shone. I smelled victory in my nose, and felt the cry of triumph on my lips. Yet I could not look past the glow. It was not precisely too bright, but it wormed into my mind, as though flaying it open. Instead looked aloft.

For a moment, my magical senses had returned to me. It was as though Oddrin sat upon my shoulder and reopened a world I thought lost. The smell of lightning lingered in my nose as I traced veins of power from the glow up to three distinct points. Three creatures, imprisoned by the leviathan's broken heart and tethered by the glow, floated above, watching me with curious alien eyes.

Each one of them was a head or more taller than I, but waspishly thin. Their long limbs were bordered in fins, their heads bald save for a single fin down the center. Their eyes were wide and slanted, their pupils five-pointed stars. Their flesh varied in shades. One was teal, another blue-green like the frog-lions, and the last a fetching yellow-gold. I realized then what I was looking at. Their faces were smooth and angular, every corner sharp. They appeared female, or close enough to it, and though they lacked breasts and even nipples, their sexes were five-lobed orifices.