Year 999 A.S. — The Pantheon Convenes
A Task Bestowed
A Record of Divine Convergence
I — The Clifftop
The Divine figure of a God stands upon the edge of the world, gazing upon a broken expanse of water and stone from atop a jagged promontory high above the waves.
The golden light of a new day breaking upon an old world brushes first His shins, unveiling the radiance of His bearing little by little as the sun's bashful gaze rises to meet eyes as grey and immovable as steel.
Scarlatti does not move as the world steps out of the dark and into the light, its myriad of colours and textures unveiled by the warmth of Aurora's gift.
The arrival of Haskor shatters that quietude with a gryphon's shriek and the clatter of His chariot as it lands upon the clifftop.
It is a long moment before the Patron of Heroes intrudes upon His Brother's contemplation, perhaps out of respect for His privacy.
"Skar."
The word is a steely grip that wrests the world back from the unbound infinity of Scarlatti's imagination. The here and the now once more tyrannise the present, and the Great Bard turns away from the waters below.
"You can feel it, can you not? The heartbeat, growing slower. Softer."
"It will continue to slow, Haskor. It will not die: there is too much momentum for that. But it will drift, forevermore, becoming lesser and lesser. An ice floe carried into warmer waters."
"One day, We will look up, and Our domains will be as the head of a pin, Our world contracted."
Scarlatti's voice is not a threat, but an edict of inevitability. A timbre of certainty given shape by Divine voice.
"Things need to change, Skar. To deny that is to court disaster. It opens a wound for regret to fester."
The Patron of Heroes folds His massive arms across His chest, raising His challenge to His Brother with a slight nod of His head.
"Even You came to accept that You would one day let Selene go. Thoth. Matsuhama. Their domains could not remain mausoleums in solemn remembrance of Your sadness forevermore."
"Shuttering things away in the past is not a solution."
A hand rises from a chiselled forearm, fingers opening to gesture forward, as if unto the future.
"Let things change."
For a long moment, neither God moves. Scarlatti's grey eyes look beyond the Divine form of the Patron of Heroes, and Haskor awaits the Bard's next move without impatience or anxiety.
Suddenly, Scarlatti turns to the churning sea and the open sky once more.
"No."
His next step carries Him over the edge of the cliff, where He disappears into the warmth of a sunbeam breaking through the clouds in the distance.
"We have to make Our choice."
"Wait!"
Haskor starts, reaching for His Brother's divine form. At the last He stops, hand lowering as He instead follows in His mighty chariot.
"Skar! They will not listen!"
"They will, this time."
II — The Summons
A ray of golden light pierces the heavens, followed by a great white flash that illuminates the skies. One by One, the other Gods answer the summons, filling the world with the inextricable weight of Their combined presence.
The tension is palpable in every corner of Creation. A proposal comes forth, and in that moment, the Gods erupt in argumentative clamour.
"There is merit to Scarlatti's argument. I am in agreement."
"Merit, perhaps. But You ask us to gouge out one eye to better see a single detail up close."
"What happens when You need it once more?"
"Loath as I am to admit it, Babel speaks true. We may regret destroying such a thing. It is irreplaceable."
"Some of Us still have plans for it, You know!"
"Keeping a crutch nearby is to hope You become a cripple, girl."
"Eliminating even the memory of the nest is a sure way to keep the wings beating. It befits Us to fly without looking back."
"It is not only an instrument for looking into the past. It is also a guarantee that We may affect the future."
"Pandora may be young, but She is not mistaken. There are designs still to be fulfilled with its use."
"Temptation serves no purpose but to court disaster. We should have destroyed it long ago."
"This is no mere trinket! It is an irreplaceable, inimitable relic. What hope have We of ever coming across something so precious ever again?"
"Hope rises where uncertainty fades. We will find a way, if it comes to it."
"Leave what was to the past. The future is all that should concern Us now. There is a glorious future to be carved from this soft and crumbling stone."
"Hear, hear! Skar offers Us a true challenge! Are We Gods or frightened mice, to hide at the mere shadow of danger, yet unrealised?"
"You will come to regret this. That is not a reason not to do it, but I have seen regret in Your future, Scarlatti. And not for the first time."
"We have long disapproved of the Forbidden in hands that are not Our hands. We assent to immediate deconstruction. Time will answer the Meld regardless of internal Pantheon recommendations."
"Regret too is a crutch. We cannot be fettered forever, any more than You can forestall winter's arrival. I vowed I would never be held back by grief."
"I do not intend to go back on My word."
Two voices remain unheard. Scarlatti's voice breaks through the din of the Gods' arguments, inviting the last of the Great Sibyls to join the fray.
"Sisters?"
The gentler speaks first.
"You know what You must do, Scarlatti. It will come with its good and with its ill, as all things do."
"Do not doubt Yourself in this eleventh hour."
A quiet, mocking cough breaks the silence that follows Valnurana's words.
"This age is stripped of subtlety. It may be that such a crude shove is required to move them in the proper direction once more."
"But know that the Empire is gone. You wish to destroy the past? Be My guest. You will find no objection from Me on the subject of dispensing with the unneeded and the burdensome."
The Gods bristle at these words, causing the very air to seethe with hostility and wary irritation as all Creation awaits the final proclamation from the Jade Empress.
"What comes next, they will need to build themselves. There will be no Sarapis to raise one to authority, this time. No shortcuts."
"Are You ready to bear the weight of that failure, should it come?"
"You will have to live with it, if this dream of Yours does not come to fruition."
"Though, I suppose You are no stranger to disappointment."
The weight of Her words bows the Bard's head for a moment, a mantle of lead wrought of the uncompromising, first-hand knowledge of disappointment.
He lifts His head to meet Her eyes a moment later, all the same.
"I will have to live with it if We do not move on. Creation's story… Our story… it must be freed from this constraint."
"Mortality will rise to the challenge. In one way, or another. We too must be rid of the temptation of bringing back the past."
"Are We agreed?"
One by One, the voices of the Gods rise in assent. Some remain reluctant, Others are eager, but none are indifferent to the matter at hand. Soon, a collective decision is unequivocally made and the world releases a held breath of anticipation.
"We are agreed."
"It is best if I retrieve it. The request will be ill-received from Anyone else."
The Jade Empress nods once.
"Return swiftly, Prospero."
III — The Negotiation at Cor Kanth
All the Underworld prepares for war. For the Lord of Wealth makes His presence known above the gates of the royal fortress: Cor Kanth.
In a sparkling shower of gold, the God of Wealth causes reality to narrow, an aureate gateway opening betwixt the castle of Azdun and the fortress of Cor Kanth.
All Creation eases back into normality as the Pantheon falls quiet, permitting the world to breathe freely once more as They linger merely in observation of the Merchant Lord's imminent sojourn.
"I cannot say I disapprove of going straight to business, but I am neither a thief nor a charlatan. You fought hard to earn the respect owed your crown, and We have honoured that. You should do the same, even to erstwhile foes."
King Slith, Death's Demise's crimson eyes narrow.
"I have a Father already. If I wanted lessons in manners and decorum, I would go to him. And I do not go to him. Is this nonsense why you intrude upon my lands?"
"To teach me how to greet interlopers to the domain Your own treaty granted me inviolate?"
"Over a quarter century you have enjoyed, to make use of the relics you claimed. With it, you have bolstered your armies and redressed the wounds inflicted upon your subjects."
"That time has now run out."
Prospero runs a thumb over the many jewelled rings upon His fingers, their glint alluring even in the gloom of the fortress.
"I am here, of course, to collect. You and I struck an accord, and it is time to live up to it."
King Slith, Death's Demise rises from his throne, a hand resting lightly upon the hilt of his sword.
"Relic. Not relics. I read fine print as well as You."
"Why do You want it?"
"It must be destroyed."
"Will you destroy it?"
"We will."
"For the sake of what?"
Here, Prospero raises His hand a fraction higher, nodding with a slight smile.
"For them. And for Us."
King Slith, Death's Demise contemplates Prospero for another long moment.
"My people will receive equal treatment. What gift You bestow upon your hateful mortals, my Undead will receive in turn. And more. A favour, from You. In the future."
Pausing for a moment to weigh the consequences of King Slith, Death's Demise's words, Prospero eventually nods.
"Very well."
"Your word, God. My subjects will be afforded the same dignity and exaltation your bleating flocks receive. Their history and their future will be recognised as part and parcel of all this world's story, as valued as those tales belonging to your beloved sacks of meat. They will be written into its bones."
Prospero pauses for another moment, a frown lining His amiable face.
"You ask much, King Slith. What was here before—"
"Your word."
King Slith, Death's Demise pauses, eyes burning with a now-cold fire.
"…Divine."
Prospero pauses.
Prospero relents.
"Your Undead will receive the same treatment in the histories of this world that mortality receives. They will not be excluded from Memory and will be henceforth recognised as befits their role in the shaping of a shared future. You will have your favour, in the future at your choosing, if it does not equally harm Me to grant it."
King Slith, Death's Demise releases the pommel of his sword, acknowledging the terms with a slight nod of his head.
"Under these terms I relinquish the Golden Chain."
A golden glow alights in Slith's palm as he holds out the Relic for Prospero to take.
"Under these terms, I claim the Golden Chain."
Prospero's hand closes around the chain, and He disappears in a blinding flash of light.
King Slith, Death's Demise narrows his eyes at the disappearing God, and then turns his attention to those lingering in his throne room.
"You have a breath's time to get out. If you breathe in here again, you die."
IV — The Destruction
"Slith lived up to his word. The Chain is Ours once more."
Divinity rests its gaze upon the delicate strands of the Golden Chain of Aeon, its glittering surface unmarred by time or blemish.
"It is no small feat to destroy such a thing. Firmness of will is as vital as a sure strike."
"Stand aside. Greater trinkets than this became no more than dust under My boot."
"No."
The firmament and all Creation beneath it stills with the manifestation of the Jade Empress' will.
The combined might of the Pantheon veils the Empress of Jade in a vortex of variegated quintessence, a swirling pinnacle joining all the living realms of Creation's Divinity into harmony unheard since first the mind of the Creator dreamed His reality from what once was only boundless possibility.
An era when Pantheon stood at the summit of All that Is to call forth sound and silence in merger to song, the substance of worlds that are the tapestry's music.
An era lost, set against the hope of an era to come again, the will of an era to come new, and the search for an era to be made real.
Wielding the might of the Gods in temporary hand, the Jade Empress takes hold of Aeon's Golden Chain. Forged by Proteus, the indivisible made divided by Will of Ayar, now Sarapis, gone Beyond for an eternity. The ancient relic strains against Her grip, Time itself cracking and warping to the touch of a foreigner upon inviolate Realm. Slowly She closes Her fingers, and cracks begin to show in its resistance to Divine Will Incarnate.
And in an instant it is over.
All reality shudders with the destruction of the Protean Relic. Yet it is almost minor, soft in its breaking, as though Creation held its breath not for its destruction but in a knowing wait for what it knows will be next, for coming echoes that already begin their flicker beyond the edge of perception. A sweeping wave of power set loose across and back through the abyss of Time, hurling open doors once closed and loosing chains made now slack that mortality might live on.
But all the Chain does is simply break. Sunder, a collapse into golden clouds of evaporating mist.
V — The Mist of Memory
The Mist of Memory coalesces in seething unison that point betwixt sundered Chain. It streams from the great and small, forgotten and remembered, great monuments and humble shrines. Books lovingly read and secrets whispered in condemned secrecy release their recall, and the land heaves forth the great deeds of eons past.
The Mist rises. It coalesces far above, higher even than the topmost branches of the World Tree trod by mortal boot.
Soon all that is governed by Time and Memory condenses to an impenetrable nimbus, coalescing above the heights of Mannamot.
Above even the Elements themselves.
The Jade Empress opens Her hand.
The Mist falls from Her fingers in a shimmering cascade. It roils and sinks like smoke, obscuring the heavens with inscrutable formlessness.
But little by little the shroud thins. As Memory moves it begins to settle, revealing fresh contour beneath its flowing mass. A shadow here, a protrusion there.
The branches of a great crown wrought in ancient regality beyond mortal memory sharpens at last into view. Its majesty and vastness proffer indescribable wonder upon branch and bough, stars and worlds and planes undiscovered circling endlessly about a realm of revelation once again in the higher layers of Yggdrasil. A shining herald to all the Lightened worlds beneath.
And yet even with mysteries drawing bare the Mist continues to flow, surging onto the very tips of those endless branches, finding their limitless limit beyond all the boundaries of corporeal.
From these eternal eaves the Mist falls. Not as rain, nor as avalanche, but slowly, and ponderously. Memory itself flows from the Crown, finds purchase in Sapience, in Meropis, in Illythrin, in Vostroya, Vertan. More.
Long does the starfall downpour last, a free-flowing river set loose from the chain's binding remit.
Memory resides, its lurking shadows nestled among the interminable branches of Uphimmin, memories held above the spiritual core of Yggdrasil's trunk in lands of great deeds and storied suffering. At last it settles, beckoning all to recall the old and tread again the new.
VI — The Blessing of the Empress
- True to His word, the Great Commander puts in Lorielan's palm the iron will of disciplined formation and steadfast courage of the charge.
- The Lightbringer lends Her hand the Hope that comes with the blooming dawn.
- The Righteous Fire endows Her hand with the uncompromising execution of Justice.
- Malevolence itself rises to imbue Her hand with the supreme will of a Conqueror.
- Pandora's sense of self-determination and independence becomes manifest in Her hand.
- The unforgiving cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth that is Gaia becomes unquestionably certain in Her hand.
- The Skylord unchained descends to shear away all restraint before Necessity, and infuses the Empress of Jade with His assent.
- The crushing tides of the wine-dark Seas lend strength of the deep fathoms to Her hand.
- The cold certainty of Oblivion issues from its Herald, His long suffering and great enlightenment made physical in Her hand.
- Phaestus' generosity and skill find form in Her hand, creation and destruction balanced perfectly amid Her fingers.
- The Moon's silver light fills Her hand with the mysteries of what is, was, and might yet be.
- Haskor's endless sense of self and will to challenge all find purchase in Her hand.
- The endless allure of wealth and the unbreakable bond of an accord struck lend Prospero's weight to Her hand.
- The charnel-grey mist of Death and the indomitability of its peculiar host find cold purchase in Her hand.
- The Dream, a world its own of endless depth and terrifying ungovernability, lends Her hand a balm and a death sentence both.
- Darkness floods Her hand, arcane knowledge and the will to change all reality imbuing Her palm for the briefest moment.
- A flash of something else echoes but once and is then gone from all sight and sense.
- Last of all, the Great Bard gives freely of His vision for Creation, all mortals elevated and every story made memorable by great deed and fell consequence.
VII — The End of an Age
One by One, the Gods withdraw to Their domains, none willing to break the solemn quiet set loose by transcendental revelation.
Only the Jade Empress remains in silent observation of the ancient Crown.
"History is in your hands, now. Live it. There is no more Logos to guide it. Dwell not upon failed Seleucar."
Lorielan turns Her gaze away with a slight thinning of Her lips and fades into a shimmering cascade of emerald light.