A Tarnished Age; 1

Histandes’ foot caught on a loose stone, and he had just enough time to curse before he pitched forward. Long grass reached up to whip at him as he rolled downhill. His totem flew from his grasp and tumbled onward ahead of him. Through the chaos of his fall he heard the thumping footsteps of the pursuing fiend.

He came to a rest on his back at the base of the hill. With his vision reversed, the fiend’s long, curled horns twisted downwards like tree roots in clouded soil. From where he lay the stone atop the beast’s club seemed large as his head.

The weapon rose, and Histandes rolled away before it slammed into the ground in his place. He scrambled to his feet and ran to where his totem rested in the grass nearby. When he gripped the leather-wrapped handle his mind felt the three spirits kept within the stone. Phanael and Lassakim lay dormant within their seals, and Histandes knew awakening them would only invite their ire.

Balassu, however, was eager.

As the fiend approached, Histandes invited the spirit into his body and a new strength flowed up his limbs from the seal slotted into the totem. A grin split his face as Balassu flared to life in the space between his eyes, a fiery sigil which seemed to shiver with laughter.

The fiend swung its club in a low arc, but Histandes was already on his feet. The stone-topped weapon tugged at his clothing as it passed him by, and the shaman charged into the opening. He caught a glimpse of the fiend’s shocked face, nearly humanlike in its expression, before his totem cracked into the thing’s neck.

Histandes could feel Balassu’s satisfaction at landing such a blow, and the spirit’s eagerness to continue. The fiend reached around to crush the life from Histandes’ chest, but the shaman slid under the thing’s grip and struck again. His totem hit the fiend in the side, and the skin there split and cracked.

Balassu was elated at the bloodshed and the sound of the fiend’s pain and rage, and the spirit’s emotions crashed against Histandes’ mind like high tide. The shaman grit his teeth, ready to surrender himself to those urges should the fiend charge again, but the horned beast seemed unwilling to tempt more violence.

It was with a moment’s will that Histandes quelled Balassu, and the spirit’s fury at the interruption echoed as its presence left the shaman aching and tired. Though the spirit’s seal was faultless Balassu was of such a strength that its absence echoed through his limbs.

The fiend knelt nearby, club grasped defensively against another attack, and Histandes could see its inhuman eyes follow his totem. Then it spoke, “The thing gripped in your hand, a slur against nature’s order and the way of things.” Its voice was melodic and deep, like the far-off sound of thunder in the mountains, but an undercurrent of something altogether different laced the words.

Histandes inhaled and leaned on his totem. Its leather-wrapped grip was warm from recent use, and he could see wisps of steam curl from the fiend’s neck and between its fingers. The shaman knew the wound would take some time to heal, far longer than any injury his other weapons could cause.

“Naught but vermin ‘twixt the feet of giants,” the fiend said as it rose to its feet and began its way back up the hill. Histandes stayed still as it retreated, and the fiend kept his gaze all the way over the crest until its horns vanished from sight.

It wasn’t until the beast had left that Histandes let his breath rush from his chest. He was far more tired than he’d first suspected, and pulling Balassu from its seal had nearly proven a mistake. Even then the shaman could feel the spirit contend with the boundaries of its prison, though he knew they were secure.

With that thought in mind he turned again and moved down the hill towards the climbing smoke on the distant shoreline marking Port of Sharks. The harbor was the only city worth mentioning on Antuk, and the seat of the local High Speaker. The foothills soon gave way to a scrub forest, and Histandes gladly entered the trees. Fiends avoided the woods, where the low canopies and tangled branches snagged their horns and impeded their bulk.

He’d spent much of the past three moonturns in forests like these up in the Peaks on his mission to recall those living in those remote villages. Fiendish incursions into Man’s Reach had grown more and more violent over the past years, and the High Speaker had finally dispatched Histandes, the only shaman present on Antuk, to withdraw the most distant men under his watch.

Maybe a third of the villages he’d visited still showed signs of habitation, and even less recent. Of those few, even less were willing to take the risky trip down the mountainside to Port of Sharks, where they claimed the High Speaker would put them to work in the fields. Histandes hadn’t bothered to dispel that notion, partially because it was true, and partially because it wasn’t his place. A shaman carried the High Speaker’s word, without judgement and without change.

During his walk he came across a cluster of stonepit bushes and picked a handful to supplement his waning supplies. As he continued downhill he chewed at the fruit until the pits separated from the meat, and left the cores in a trail along his path. His totem rested on his shoulder, the spirits within quiet as twilight lowered above him.

A Tarnished Age; 0

The Dayim’s fingers gripped the rocky ledge as he hauled his bulk onto the shelf. The mid-morning sun already beat upon his back like a lash, and he had succumbed to the temptation of Comfort and donned a head-wrap to protect the back of his neck from the heat. He would rather fast in penance for a day and a night than develop sunsickness. On his previous pilgrimage up to the High Peaks he’d gone uncovered, as was tradition, and his skin had cracked and oozed for days after.

The mountainside was much unchanged since the Dayim’s last ascension, but he kept a close eye for scree or weathering. Gwal’s last Dayim had never returned from his final pilgrimage, and his body was later discovered broken and picked at by scavengers at the mountain’s base. The man’s lack of faith and subsequent death meant his position remained unfilled for nearly a full moonturn, until the current Dayim forfeited his old name to lead the tribe.

He continued his climb, thankful to Gwal for his past life as a shepherd. The time had prepared his body for this hardship, and the muscles along his arms stood out underneath the coarse hair as he again pulled himself onto another rocky outcropping. The Turach stretched out behind him like a tan canvas, though he did not turn to look at it. Each moonturn he made the climb and each moonturn the Turach remained the same.

The Dayim allowed himself a small note of relief as he ascended the final stretch. For the most part the High Peaks were nearly sheer, with only the most subtle outcroppings serving as handholds. This last part of the mountain was a slope, however, and one shallow enough that he could march his way up, if he leaned his weight forward during. The wind grasped at his clothing, and carried with it the cold, bare scent of the mountains. Somewhere further north thunder echoed, though there was no way to know how near the storm was. The Dayim prayed Gwal would hold the clouds back long enough for him to conclude his business and find shelter in the crags for the night.

The gentle slope led to an outcropping which broke from the mountainside like the prow of a ship. Underneath his bare feet the Dayim could feel the smooth stone surface, worn of any imperfections by the weather. This time the Dayim did turn to look behind him. The steppe ran to the eastern horizon, and at the base of the foothills he could just make out the rest of the Gwalim’s encampment in small, dark brown patches against the tan.

After three days of climbing, he’d finally reached the point where his successor had fallen. With a prayer to Gwal he turned again and approached the altar. It rested atop the far end of the outcropping, a pile of loose stones cemented by weather and age into a roughly circular platform which reached his knees. A stunted tree, bereft of leaves, grew from the cracks between the stones, and the Dayim had to admire the plant’s tenacity.

As he approached he cocked his head in curiosity. The tree was a gnarled thing, bark craggy and wrinkled in a way that reminded the Dayim of the Sothna bed during the dry seasons. But it was the depression in the trunk that caught his eye, a disturbance in the otherwise consistent mottled browns. When he drew closer he saw it was a hollow, just large enough for his fist to plug. In the failing light he saw a round shape nestled inside.

He paused, his pilgrimage interrupted by the vision. There was no other one permitted to approach the altar, or even ascend the peak, other than Gwal’s Dayim, and he very much doubted the previous priest had left anything behind. The altar was Gwal’s to affect, and Gwal’s alone.

The Dayim knelt in front of the altar and reached a hand into the hollow to remove the object. Its surface was round, and slightly rough. Once taken from the hollow the Dayim saw it was a small earthenware pot, of the sort his tribe used to store foodstuffs. It was just large enough to rest comfortably in the palm of his hand, and he turned it over to inspect it.

The mouth was slightly raised with a lip, and around that lip was fastened a waxen seal. The Dayim thought he recognized it as beeswax, but couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen anyone in the Gwalim trade for the substance. The only peoples who kept the animals were the Nasirama, and they were far to the south in their stone towers.

He shook the jar, and something within rattled against the clay sides. He looked to the sky, eternally clouded and bruised this high into the Peaks, and when no sign came from Gwal, he used a fingernail to gently pry the wax from the mouth.

A sudden wind rose up around him, whipping at his robes and head-wrap, and the Dayim nearly lost his balance atop the outcropping. He upended the jar into his other hand, but nothing fell from the opening. The Dayim huddled lower by the altar as the wind increased in intensity, and he wondered briefly whether he’d been caught in a mountainstorm. Would the other Gwalim discover his body broken on the rocks below, another priest tested and found unworthy?

Gwal demands my faith, the Dayim thought as he straightened against the gale. He peeled the rest of the wax from the jar and looked inside to its empty exterior. Had the sudden wind snatched the pot’s contents from his notice? It was a possibility, though if that were the case his curiosity would remain unsated.

At that moment the Dayim’s back seized straight, and a vision clouded his mind:

A brilliance on the horizon

a bitterness in the waters

a Fiend among the Peoples

The Dayim heard a thunderous cracking sound and then silence. When he reached up to his ears his fingers came away coated red. The jar fell, forgotten, as he collapsed to his knees. The stone beneath him slumped and crumbled and eventually buried his broken body along the mountainside.