Speakers and Kings

By M. Keaton

The definitions and origins of a culture inescapably mold the future of a people. The seeds sown by generations long buried grow to bear unexpected fruit in the present. What if a people, with no language and no history, joined a world already in progress?
On the island of Mirabalpur, sheltered by Qaiyore's vast inland sea, the magi of Mir struggle to find a future and escape the ghosts of their past. Once a mighty empire now fallen into civil disarray, Mir finds itself confronted with grim reminders of the atrocities of its imperial history.
Beneath the floating city of Annaeyana, Sinari nomads amass in the northern deserts. Believing the city to be the prison home of their god Sin-Alb, they prepare for jyhad.
In the fertile lands to the south, rival kingdoms struggle for dominance and survival. Located on the Qaiyore's great rivers rich with trade and agriculture, would-be empire builders are caught in a brutal maelstrom not of their own making.
Throughout Qaiyore drift the Eerith, spirit beings and living history lessons. Once a race of slaves, these normally passive ancients have begun to actand neither race will ever be the same again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462089307

M. Keaton

About the author: Authorities can neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of any statements regarding the author or his existence. M. Keaton is rumored to be held captive by a crazy woman and her cats in a frozen, godless wasteland.

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All Rights Reserved © 2002 by M. Keaton

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Speakers and Kings was originally released 1999–2002 by M. Keaton as a serialized novel by e-mail. With minor changes, this compilation contains the contents of the original series in their serialized format. The version presented here should be considered the author’s preferred version.

Celandra (and its general content) is a shared world project, jointly owned by its contributors. Celandra is used with permission. A listing of acknowledgements follows the body of the work as an appendix.

ISBN: 0-595-25825-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 0-595-65361-8 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-8930-7 (eBook)

Printed in the United States of America

SPEAKERS AND KINGS

by M. Keaton

Prologue

Fire

Sand

Blood

Death

Hope

Dedicated to the men and women of the United States of America Armed Forces who put their lives on the line every day to protect our freedoms. You are our Speakers and Kings.

These bones are not my children.

—Hope, C.E. 1433

Contents

PROLOGUE: QAIYORE 1412

THE CANTO OF FIRE

OPUS ONE

OPUS TWO

OPUS THREE

OPUS FOUR

CANTO OF SAND

OPUS ONE

OPUS TWO

OPUS THREE

OPUS FOUR

THE CANTO OF BLOOD

OPUS ONE

OPUS TWO

OPUS THREE

OPUS FOUR

CANTO OF DUST

OPUS ONE

OPUS TWO

OPUS THREE

OPUS FOUR

CANTO OF HOPE:

AN EPILOGUE

APPENDIX

SALIENT DATES REGARDING THE SINARI WAR

Acknowledgements

Further Reading

Persona Dramatis:

Albous/Sin-Alb/Dex-Alb—Various incarnations of the singular Valerian believed by the Eerith to be the first created being to clearly behold the Vision.

Alfos Ben-Senra—A thief.

King and High Overlord Agrigax—Ruler of Talthera, the uncontested greatest military strategist of his generation (perhaps ever). Alatta—The deceased god of the Avaerandian Empire, a persona assumed by Sin-Alb during early dealings with Tarfn.

Duke Johan Caladyn—A provincial ruler of Cedonia and leader of the Cedonia troops committed to the Unified army. Dioya—The oldest member of the Mirrish ruling council (The

Council of Twelve). Dog—The ugliest mutt in Celandra. Archmage Eubratosa—Ruling Archmage of Mir, ascending to the posi tion after Tarfn betrayed the previous Archmage and fled. F’Cresa—Illegitimate child of Niotrosa, raised as a seeress. Granthtan—Chief Archivist of the Mirrish libraries. Hope—A small child. Kernin—An Eerith. K’la—A Sinari seeress, guardian of F’Cresa.

Master Scourge Labon—General of the Milkanuri armies. Miracradasa—The Mirrish goddess of magic. Lorgrenese—The Archmage of Mir at the time of the Began conflict. A linguist. Marak—A lay-priest in the Fist of Lucia. Night—An Eerith. Niotrosa—The son of Archmage Eubratosa. Rahi—A Sinari seeress. Riacrada/Ria—The youngest member of the Council of Twelve.

Warlord of Mir. Reese—An Eerith. Shadis—Aide de camp to the Warlord Riacrada. Tarfn—A renegade mage, once a member of the Council of Twelve now aligned with Sin-Alb. Instrumental in the assassination of the pre vious Archmage.

Tributary—An individual of note. Dun-Ri Teloras Fethoran—Ruler of the Therani. Hero of the Battle of Unnirand.

Useful—An Eerith.

Valor/The Reborn Speaker—An Eerith.

Etcetera:

Eerith—A race of spirit beings once enslaved by the Sorcerers of the Mirrish Empire. First discovered within the ruins of the city Annaeyana.

Valerians—A mythical race of beings existing only within the ether, or Dreaming, to whom the Eerith attribute a degree of divinity.

Onagir—A handful of primitive, semi-nomadic tribes sharing a common culture and surviving in the southern reaches of the continent.

Shinari—A generic term used to describe the diverse peoples of the northern desert wastelands.

Sinari—Those among the Shinari who have embraced the dominant religion of the region: the worship and veneration of Sin-Alb as embodied by the floating city of Annaeyana and administered by a matriarchal priesthood known collectively as the Seeresses. United as a people under the Warlord Hisinvol.

The Order and Fist of Lucia—The Order (or Sect) of Lucia is an underground religion devoted, spiritually, to the worship of the goddess Lucia and, politically, to independent self-rule for sections of Cedonia. The more militant wing of the Order is known as the Fist.

obeah—The shamanistic belief system of the Onagir people, focusing on the spiritual energies within all things and the interconnected web of life (the Great Song).

Worldsea—An Eerithian term used to describe their view of the common mind of the land, very similar to the Great Song of the obeah belief.

Fauna:

sil—A breed of overly-large and hardy wharf rats.

catayarsh—A breed of large, short-haired predatory cats indigenous to the northern deserts. Marginally domesticated by the Shinari peoples, they are used as military mounts.

tengu—A pack animal of the northern peoples, similar to overly muscled, thick-skinned, semi-reptilian oxen.

Locus Dramatis:

Celandra—The world

Qaiyore—A continent in the southern hemisphere of Celandra

Rian a’Avaerand—A once mighty empire defeated in war by the Mirrish empire at the height of its power. Thought to worship the evil god Alatta, the Avaerandian Empire was considered unrivalled in power and magnitude. The final defeat of the empire of Rian a’Avaerand and Alatta included the destruction of their homeland.

Annaeyana—Originally one of the great cities of Rian a’Avaerand, the city was torn free of the surrounding landscape and mysteriously survived the destruction of Avaerand. A self-contained floating city, Annaeyana was used by the Mirrish Empire as a base for military operations until the siege of Bega when the city was enclosed in an unidentified arcane shield. The city drifted slowly northward where it became the central focus of Sinari veneration.

Mirabalpur—The island capitol of Mir. The center of government for the now-faded Mirrish empire.

Myr Kun—A free costal city. Once a Mirrish colony.

The Wyr/Tal Basin—The geographical region surrounding the beds and flood plains of the Wyr and Tal rivers. Home to several small agrarian nations and free cities.

Cedonia—A large nation occupying much of the western coastline of the Inland Sea. Center of operations for the followers of the Sect of Lucia.

Unnirand—A pivotal city in the Wyr Basin.

Talishara—Capitol city of Cedonia and location of the supernatural wonder the Oracle.

Image268.JPGImage275.JPG

Four days in the temple. Four days of prayer and supplication, days of censured smoke and raw-throated psalms. Four days without a sign. The four days after the new moon, sacred to the goddess Lucia and at the end of the fourth day, as it had for untold years, the temple was still, their cries ignored.

The High Priest set aside his miter just as the flagstone at the Oracle’s base cracked, a single fault bisecting its length. It was a small, almost invisible mar, but the sound echoed in the temple like a death knell, and the assemblage froze, stunned. A roar like wind-driven rain boomed through the building, driving some to cover their ears in pain, so loud it was; and mixed within the roar were the haunting tones of aeolian harps.

After sound came light, blazing from the slit in the altar like the blue-white rays of a newborn sun, blinding, burning, all-consuming, and they fell into it.

Below them in the grey void, a city hung, torn from the earth, denied the heavens. Above it rose the anguished ghost of a man torn in twain, lifted as though by an invisible claw about his chest his life’s blood flowing like a river through the city’s streets, pouring over its edge. The blood smelled of lilac as the grey mists turned it under and set the witnesses adrift again.

They felt rather than saw a great hand grasping, hungry as a mouth, straining just beyond the walls of being, filled with longing, and fear caught their breaths within them. A form approached with the fog, shrouded in the black robes of the desert witches. The robes curled back from a fiery figure who stretched out her hand, and the robes became a spear thrusting forward, through them and then gone and they, untouched.

And in the void, there came a singing, the voice of a girl-child, a simple tune, the lullaby of their youths, the words now twisted strange, sung by granite stones.

Hordes race forward from the north, screaming in fury, crying for blood, numerous as the sands of the desert, black shrouded women within their midst, screaming for vengeance with soundless tongues, a world flamed in their wake.

And at their head came a man with their own face, wounded unto death yet moving without falter, black flamed daemons at his shoulders, riding in a chariot of beaten brass, sweeping down as the scythe of death.

A creature rose from the seas to the east, a centaur with the bodies of two men, not one, and the two did battle above their single body and when one struck the other, both fell as dead.

Two women stood with hands clasped together and one shone as a new dawn and the other wore seraph wings as a guardian cloak. Behind them old robed men sat within a boat upon the sand, bailing water from within to without, sinking slow into a flood not there.

A king in the west wrung water from his hands into a washbowl and turned to face the dawn. The water in the bowl became blood and cried with the voice of a newborn child as the king walked into the sea.

A blind man wept at the base of a tree, speaking truths in a tongue unknown, but none listened as the tree replied with the ringing of cymbals and calling horns.

In the center stood a man before the horde. At his side, a child in rags, a great jeweled scepter cradled to her chest. The man held out in either hand a golden mirror and spoke first to one, Dexter, and then the other, Talus, and the chalk white cliffs beneath him shattered like glass, falling away into the void like raindrops of melted snow, and darkness rose up on leathered wings to engulf them all.

And the temple was as it had always been, save a hairline fissure in the stone, as the supplicants stood, as if awakened from a long sleep, and were afraid.

One friend turns on another. A great city at the edge of a desert is besieged from above as well as below. A dark and ancient power awakens and the fate of the world teeters on the edge of a sword. That which was great shall be cast down or rise again.

—Common paraphrase

of the prophecy of the Oracle in Talishara, 1408—

PROLOGUE: QAIYORE 1412

Somewhere within the depths of the Dreaming, awareness reawakens. Moments later, consciousness, sentience, cognition, then entity in rapid succession. A flame in the darkness and a new life begins.

No, it knew it was not new as soon as the thought entered its mind: it was something old, come again. With this, knowledge and concepts began to flood to it from the ether like a flood tide.

Stop! A command in the stillness, unspoken yet heard, and the overwhelming surge of half-remembered histories subsided. It is not yours to take, not yet. The memories of another will overwhelm you and you will be lost before you have begun. Wait until you are stronger in yourself. The unspeaking voice was another flame, different from the first, larger and darker than the white hot glare of the newly reborn.

Another flame joined them, large and dark as well. We were almost too slow. Any later and they might have had him.

Time is not relevant. You limit yourself by outmoded concepts. I’ll stay with him; summon the others.

We are already here. Suddenly the greyness was alight with fire, the distant nothingness replaced by spectrums of light in seconds. They were large and old, fading flames of orange and red, and one other, barely a spark, and almost as bright as the newly reborn.

Leave us, little flicker. You have no place in this, a thought boomed out, and the small one began to fade.

No, thought back the reborn. Overwhelmed and confused by the presence of forceful authority, it felt a strange, obstinate defiance, a visceral need for independence, if even in this small thing. It stays if it wishes.

The reply was surprisingly deferential. As you will, then another added, On your head.

Be still, commanded the first arrival, apparently addressing the assembly. "There are things you must know; things of the corrupted and the pure; the Eerith and the Valerian.

"Time is the sequential passing of events and, in the beginning, before the creation, nothing occurred, and there was no time. Time began with the first action: creation. And what, then, is time but movement of the elements? The elements too are but another form of move-ment—the dancing of fire, the crumbling of earth, the winds of air, and the waves of water; especially the waves of water. If this is indeed the case, all of creation is simply movement. We know this as a surety, for we are beings of energy who don solid flesh for our own uses. We are not physical beings. Speech is but movement of the mouth and ripples in the air and movement is the whole of creation. Would it not follow, then, that the Word spoken of creation was simply that—a word, a word of such divine power that all of existence is but its echo, and time shall last only so long as the word of creation echoes in the silence? Is it any wonder that the first among the races have such love of story and song? The echo of creation sings loud within us and loudest in the sound of the waves upon the shore. Thus it was that the Creator spoke the Word and all things known to us began. First among that creation were the Host, all manner of angel and archangel to do the Creator’s bidding.

"Is not Creator a description and not a name, you ask—a title such as King, but greater? Yes, but what name then has the Creator of all creation? That name was spoken only once—when the Creator named himself, all of existence began. Pray then that the true name be not spoken again.

To every song there is a harmony, to every note, an overtone; and so it was with the sound of creation. That overtone was called the Valeria, a race of spirits rivaling the greatest in power, but without freedom or choice—our essence purely reflections of the land from which we arose. We wove glamours. We strove to create a world for ourselves, for we had no place in the Creator’s work. The Valeria then created a race to serve; and this race, created, not by the Creator, but by us, was the Great Wyrms. The Creator cursed the land, that it would be a strife and toil to man. Thus it was that man lost much of his magic and contact with the realm of spirit, and thus was the doom of the Valerian foretold. As the land turned against man, thus did its truest children—falling into madness. Some passed quietly; others lashed out in their fever of spirit, and thus it was that many of the Valerian were put aside ere they could destroy creation.

The fire radiated an ill-humor then, amusement tinged with the gentle frustration only age and grief can bring. Aside. A pretty term for exile, for being thrust blind, deaf, and dumb into a mundane hell. Where could we exile these corrupted spirits? Their only crime was being too strong to die when the world which they echoed changed too much. Did they change it? Were they to blame for man’s hubris? We who remained unchanged debated ourselves and each other. What exile for the innocent? At last, we did the only thing we could. We sent the corrupted into the world which corrupted them. We sent them to find harmony there and bring about their own salvation. We even sent the Wyrms to aid them…

A new harmony spoke in the reborn’s thoughts then. The new tone was different, fiercer, filled with suppressed anger and latent rage. They failed. We do not know how or why nor do we care. They failed. Captured and enslaved first by one race then another, they even lost control of the Wyrms.

The first continued, then. That they failed is not a concern. Their fate was their own as much as any of us have control of this. The concern is this. The disharmony of the Creator’s world becomes ever stronger and the enslaved aid of the corrupted hastens this dissonance rather than impedes it. Deny it as we may, the pure are reflections of this world as well. It is simply a matter of time before we, too, become mad.

Finally, the Reborn replied. What am I to this?

Spirit does not die. It may change. It may fade to ash or even smoke, but the fire can always be lit again. Substance follows spirit, not the reverse. A body may die among the corrupt but the spirit is, in time, reborn.

The Reborn searched half-formed memories and asked, I am of the Eerith?

Yes. The err-tith, the spirits which walk the earth. Even now we shield you from your inextricable attraction back the Creator’s world. Soon it will flood over you and all the memories will return. If we are fortunate, you will remember what we have told you. If we are fortunate, your return foretells change for the better.

Who am I, was I?

You are the reflection of something not seen in a very long time. You are their hope; a voice they have not had for eons.

The angry voice interrupted. You are also fear; an overdue and well-deserved fear, the fear of the Sorcerers of Mir.

Remember, whispered the first voice, and the Reborn was gone.

* * *

The memories of a thousand lifetimes besieging his mind paled in comparison to the crushing pressure of the physical world. He was a being of spirit trapped in a world of substance and—insult to injury—the heat was suffocating. Eventually he was able to stand and was surprised to find a slight, dark man covered in swirling tattoos holding out a tangle of cloth.

Wrap them about you, the man said in an all too cheerful voice, strangely refreshing, like the sound of flowing water. They will help to keep you cool while we find your people.

You are?

The man laughed and shrugged. A tributary. I quote, ‘No. It stays if it wishes.’ I wish.

He stood slowly and did as the other man indicated. I am Eerith. What are you, then?

I am the echo of a small stream which flows into a river which flows—well, somewhere I’m sure. I support. I assist. That’s my nature.

You’re Valerian. Pure.

I don’t know. I think we elemental types are more like semi-corrupt. The natural order keeps us in harmony, but we are still flawed by connection to mankind.

The Reborn held up a hand, signaling the other man to stop. Enough philosophy for now. You are not an enemy. It is enough.

Indeed, my friend. Let us find your people and leave this desert. Where are we bound?

The Reborn looked at the dark city which floated in the sky to the north of them. There.

THE CANTO OF FIRE

1413

OPUS ONE

To discuss a war, you first have to discuss the situations which led to it. Wars begin well before armies take to the field; most begin shortly after the last battle of the previous war. In a grander setting, war is an anti-climax to the greater pressures of geography and culture. A simple discourse of military cause and effect can become a scholar’s forum for social reform and a complete waste of time. A historian, especially a military historian, has to set a point from which to begin, clarify any prior historical information he feels is salient to his point, and begin. My evaluation of the Sinari war is no different. I have tried to focus primarily on the physical aspects of the war beginning with the siege and invasion of Myr Kun but some historical preface must be provided.

The Sinari entry into the conflict is easy to explain. The Sinari religion believed their god, Sin-Alb, to be imprisoned physically in the floating city of Annaeyana. When the city moved, they took it as a call to move themselves. These desert nomads had been following the city for years in the northern deserts and so, when it veered from its normal path to hover over the port city of Myr Kun, they took it as a sign from Sin-Alb to conquer the city. As the war progressed, they continued to follow. Why Annaeyana followed the path that it did, and whether the Sinari god Sin-Alb really did reside within and direct them, is beyond the purview of this work.

The reasons for the Mirrish resistance to this jyhad are less clear. Officially, a large number of altruistic reasons have been presented. Militarily, it is most likely that the island nation feared that, should the Sinari gain control of the northern coast of the inland sea, Mir itself would be in danger or face economic hardship. It may also be that Mir felt, and desired to atone for, a kind of cultural guilt from its imperialistic past. Considering the prominence of Annaeyana in the Sinari war, this is not unreasonable.

While still a young empire, Mir put to war with the more powerful empire of Rian a’Avaerand. Mir eventually triumphed in this conflict, partially due to their aggressive use of dragons. It was during one of the pivotal battles, that Mir was party to the accidental creation of Annaeyana. The land mass upon which the city sat was destroyed and, due to sorcerous circumstances still not fully understood, the city (but not its residents) survived, floating independently some distance above its previous location. Imperial Mir seized the city and used it as a mobile command center for their expansion of the empire.

Within the ruins of Annaeyana, Mir also found the race we now refer to as the Eerith. Spirit beings of astounding sorcerous power, the Eerith proved to be a surprisingly complicit people. They were easily enslaved and put to work fueling the Mirrish engines of expansion. If not for the events at Bega, it is likely that, with the enslaved Eerith, Mir would have united the entire continent of Qaiyore under its rule.

Bega was the second battle involving the city of Annaeyana which yielded unexpected and unwelcome side-effects. Factually we know that, at the battle of Bega, the military might of the Mirrish empire was broken, control of Annaeyana was lost, and the vast majority of Eerithian population imprisoned within the city via some form of dweomer.

This was, predictably, the end of Imperial Mir and the beginning of the slide back to the island nation of Mir which exists today. Without their Eerith slaves and the highly mobile Annaeyana, Mir could not effectively govern their interests on the outer continent, much less defend them from invasion and prevent revolt. The few Eerith which did escape imprisonment also avoided recapture and turned their attention toward remaining free and, in turn, freeing their brethren trapped within the floating city. Annaeyana itself drifted north, eventually to become a religious site for the Sinari. This brings us full circle. When Annaeyana drifted over Myr Kun, a one-time colony of Imperial Mir, it is not surprising that the descendants of that empire felt themselves either threatened or even somehow responsible.

For whatever reason, Mir thrust itself forward to stop the Sinari invasion, although not in time to be of assistance to Myr Kun. They also actively sought peace with the free Eerith. This is not surprising. Within the preceding decade, Mir had seen the priesthood of the Cedonian Oracle brutally slain and been betrayed internally by the mage Tarfn. Tarfn fled after slaying the Archmage Netra but there were strong indications that he was acting in coordination with the Sinari and the Eerith. In this case, Mir desperately needed one fewer enemy.

Scholars may debate the various motives involved but these are the basic facts. We may now turn our attention to the military situation at the time. Ill-prepared, Myr Kun found itself besieged by a horde of Sinari sweeping in from the east while none of its neighbors to the south and west were prepared to offer aid. Above it all waited Annaeyana, which may or may not have held several hundred imprisoned Eerith and the Sinari god, Sin-Alb.

—Introduction: A Frank Discussion of the Underlying Strategies of the Sinari War by Agrigax—

* * *

For two days they walked without pause, toward the city burning in the shadow of Annaeyana’s eclipse; the ruins of the once great city hung above Myr Kun like the skeleton of a hanged man.

The two travelers wore the false skins of man like cloth draped across an ill-conceived frame, blurred at the edges and imprecise in the relationship of form to function. In two days, they crossed a distance that would take a healthy man less than a day but they had much to learn. They listened to the undercurrent of harmonies buzzing from the world around them, learning and remembering, hearing a lifetime of memories in hours and hearing the memories of a world in scattered fragments, accepted and stored to be assembled later. In the interim, neither spoke. By journey’s end, they wore the bodies with stoic grace and so it was that the two men-not-men entered the city of Myr Kun as if they had walked the dunes a full two score years and those who saw them pass noted naught amiss.

It is as if, disdaining the gifts of the Creator, they descended from caves of stone to build their own of mud for no reason other than spite, mused the tributary, speaking softly in a voice modulated to a low tenor. The other did not reply, merely studied the city with a flat, disinterested gaze. You are less than scintillating company, teased the tributary.

I…I don’t like this mode of communication. It’s too limited, too mundane.

There are other options, came the reply soundlessly, the voice speaking just within his ears.

No. It’s not time yet. I would rather not be overheard, was the spoken reply; a deep voice, rough and forced, almost grating. You babble like a brook.

That was humor? asked the tributary sincerely.

Irony. Most mundanes do not understand either. Tell me this, if you are so desperate for talk: why are you here?

I’m a tributary; it is in my nature to serve and support. When you awoke, I was drawn to your flame. It was like flowing downhill.

And what of the river that you normally flow into? If you are the overtone of a tributary stream, why are you free to wander?

I’m not sure. Something happened, something unnatural. I still flow but the river is gone.

So where does your existence begin and end? Where for all of us? Eerith, Valerian, Elemental, we are all variations of the same race. Where do we each begin and end?

The tributary smiled at that. Your people do not know. If they did, you could pull it from the undercurrent of their thoughts. For Elementals it is easier. We are the Worldsea.

Explain.

I flow into a river. Even though I exist, so does the river and I am part of the river. Even if I were gone, the river would be, but if enough of us were gone, the river could not exist at all; so the river is all of us but we are separate from it, and it is separate from us. The river is a harmony of tributaries. The river feeds the land and runs across it. The land floats upon the sea and rivers flow to it until everything is one thing. We call it the Worldsea. It is all of us, but we are separate and it is separate. It is an overtone of overtones.

An archetype and a sliding scale. Tell me then, is your Worldsea a concept or an entity?

It is. It lives as you or I. The Worldsea is no ideal construct of theory, it is a being. It is a… the tributary’s voice trailed off as he searched the world’s undercurrent for the concept he sought.

It is a Valerian, pronounced his companion with finality. The archetype of archetypes. That’s what they are. The Valerian are the abstract truths which wear the masks of archetype to be seen and understood.

So where do the Eerith fit?

I must think on this further. The Eerith are corrupted from the pure. I do know, just as you have the Worldsea, we have a law. It is a concept, not an entity, but I see similarity.

When his companion fell silent, the tributary let his mind touch the world’s undercurrent. I see it. One shall speak for all and all shall speak for one. That is your law.

Our only law. The two fell silent, staring upward.

Floating suspended above them, almost half of a mile distant, hung the ragged base of Annaeyana, broken stubs of rock and exposed tree roots still hanging loose from when the city had been uprooted centuries earlier. And there, far above, dissolving into mist long before it reached the ground, a stream of water ran from the edge of the city, falling over the jagged lip like a magical waterfall.

I think I know what happened to your river.

* * *

Alfos Ben-Senra was neither mage not Eerith. He was a man, a traveler, and, sometimes, he was a thief. Today, as for the past two weeks, he was a messenger. He did not know why he had been hired for this task and it had not occurred to him to ask. The gold which paid his fee was real; to Alfos, little else mattered. He had traveled on foot and mostly at night across the Shadowlands, and had reached Myr Kun just before dawn. Had he been more dedicated to his current career, he might have been concerned about finding the recipient; but he was Alfos. His plans included a bed, a bath, and copious amounts of fermented goat milk. Unfortunately for Alfos, Myr Kun was not the same city as the one he had left years before.

He stood outside the city and wiped gritty sweat from his forehead with a stained cloth, debating a career change. After a moment, he pulled a piece of dark root from his pocket and began to chew it, spitting brown froth to the sand beside him as he contemplated. The man who had hired him had strongly implied that, should Alfos shirk his newfound duties, he would suffer dire arcane tortures. Still, he was fairly certain that even his employer had not foreseen the chaos that lay before him. Alfos had thought the dull reddening of the sky as he traveled though the night was due to the rising sun. A wiser man might have noted that this would mean the sun was rising in the west, but a wiser man would have realized that the smell of smoke from his cook-fire should have faded, not become stronger. As he crested the dunes, Alfos found himself looking up at a second, black moon, a large blot of darkness against the night sky. Annaeyana hovered over the city like a lurking predator; below, Myr Kun was lit by the crimson flicker of its own flames. The city was burning, filling the sky with a grey smoke that billowed up towards Annaeyana like an offering to a hostile god.

Mobs, like priests of anarchy, surged through the streets and spread the flames.

Alfos was still surveying the chaos when he heard the sound of movement behind him. The sound was the merest whisper of wind upon sand, but a man with Alfos’ love for the property of others had taught him a certain savant caution. He collapsed to the sand as if struck, his heart pounding in terror, his eyes blinking out the sudden spray of sand from his fall, his mind racing, calculating if he could have been seen, silhouetted against the sky, cursing himself for a fool. Pressing his arms and legs deeper into the sand, he twisted to look in the direction of the sound, trying to force all of his motion downward, letting the dunes mask his movement while his gaze scanned the horizon behind him. Several pregnant minutes passed and Alfos began to relax. It moved again; this time Alfos saw it clearly, ghosting across the dunes, a shadow among shadows.

Alfos lay frozen until the catayarsh had long passed and the sun had risen high into the heavens. His decision was made: with the Sinari on the move, even a burning city was safer than the dunes. When the heat of the desert became too much for him to bear, Alfos leapt to his feet and sprinted toward the city in a spray of sand.

* * *

What now, oh munificent and reborn leader?

I’m not a leader, he said in a distracted tone, his eyes still seeking out the city above them.

When do we meet the others?

Soon, he turned and began walking back through the city. Something is still missing. I’ll have to speak with the other Eerith soon. Custom forbids them from seeking us out, but we are a dangerously curious people.

The pair walked in silence, strangely unnoticed in the turmoil of the riots.

We did this. Commission or omission; this is our creation. The Eerith have become so self-consumed that we don’t even notice our handiwork. His