The Lost Story
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2017 9:44 pm
[A tale of the Appointment to the Guardianship of the One Tree.]
Ages before he thought to build Ridjeck Thome, modeling it after the lore of beings whose origins and mutilation he had implicated himself in with entire premeditation, Lord Foul the Despiser had not believed himself to be what he was.
Oh, he had known, assuredly so, as the contemptible Insequent might have said. Though he cloaked himself in the name or title of a-Jeroth, the Despiser recognized deep within himself his nature, his deceit. His true name did not exist, or was no mystery to him. Such a thing he could not possess. And thus he sought to possess the truth of all else.
Yet it was further back than the desolation of Vidik Amar---than the time of his ravening amidst the swirling Soulbiter---than the croyel wars on the Last Islands in the Ocean of the Moon---than the murder of the Father of Horses or the forging of the skurj---that a-Jeroth had come to accept the truth for himself. Encased in a meager, ochre-robed body, he slept near the shoals of a lost sea, listening to the dire lapping of the forsaken waves, and wondering when he awoke, troubled by perfect dreams.
In each of them, his vision divided its attention between two realms---or worlds---or times. To his mystical right, he saw what he should see, wheresoever he would be. To the left, a Worm roiled aimlessly, satisfied and entranced.
Nothing a-Jeroth did dispelled the vision of the Worm. So he too had become entranced by its glamourous light.
But he knew not where to find it.
From the shadow of those restless shoals to another land the Despiser wandered or fled. The moon became a thousand smiles before he reached creatures with whom he could palaver, and they were weak, useless to his cause or plight.
The unbelieving Lord did not smile.
After he had killed the weakness he had encountered in that era, he left to one of the lands of the arguleh. There he practiced icons of his desired castle, describing them upon the glacial mountains from the spent blood of the frozen monsters he managed to massacre.
Locked unto himself in his dark retreat, watching snow and morning become an alloy of light raying through his crystal demesne, the Despiser knew himself, but he did not believe in himself. He believed instead that he needed a map.
* * * * *
Appointed to ward against the Despiser, Galahace shadowed a-Jeroth wherever he went. Changing shape allowed the Elohim lord to evade detection---until the Despiser had come to the ur-North, a host of plateaus and summits crowned with the winter of the quickened sun. For here only the arguleh dwelt, and no Elohim was of a mind to assume such a form. Whatever their impending desperation might mean to them, they would not.
So Galahace waited on the edge of the Despiser's occulted realm. In a twinkling of bells like the song of the falling snow, Infelice appeared unto him, already fixated on the same horizon as he was, with even more gravid intent.
"Remember," she said at last, granting Galahace permission to listen to her, "that it is not this being who names himself as a-Jeroth with whom we must finally contest. It is not against him that our power might be spent."
The lesser Elohim sighed his incomplete concordance. "Yet it is with him that the shadow of the world will make its alliances and false treaties, is it not? He is trapped in this world, that we know. And his power is older than our very Wyrd. How should we heed not his omens?"
"Kastenessen would say such things," Infelice remarked absently, humming for no apparent reason. Addressing herself as much as Galahace or the horizon, she said, "His might is both greater and lesser than we can conceive. If bound to the channel of wild magic, it would suffice to end all creation. But without such an implement, a-Jeroth cannot exercise his energies unto the ruin of the Earth and Time. And he cannot obtain such force save by the intervention of outsiders, their acquiescence and subversion to his designs."
"He does not know this. He lies always, everywhere. He admits not the falsity of his name, even in his own mind."
"Then he is even less perilous a being than if otherwise, Galahace. What will he even attempt to do if he thinks not that he is equal to the task?"
* * * * *
[to be continued?]
Ages before he thought to build Ridjeck Thome, modeling it after the lore of beings whose origins and mutilation he had implicated himself in with entire premeditation, Lord Foul the Despiser had not believed himself to be what he was.
Oh, he had known, assuredly so, as the contemptible Insequent might have said. Though he cloaked himself in the name or title of a-Jeroth, the Despiser recognized deep within himself his nature, his deceit. His true name did not exist, or was no mystery to him. Such a thing he could not possess. And thus he sought to possess the truth of all else.
Yet it was further back than the desolation of Vidik Amar---than the time of his ravening amidst the swirling Soulbiter---than the croyel wars on the Last Islands in the Ocean of the Moon---than the murder of the Father of Horses or the forging of the skurj---that a-Jeroth had come to accept the truth for himself. Encased in a meager, ochre-robed body, he slept near the shoals of a lost sea, listening to the dire lapping of the forsaken waves, and wondering when he awoke, troubled by perfect dreams.
In each of them, his vision divided its attention between two realms---or worlds---or times. To his mystical right, he saw what he should see, wheresoever he would be. To the left, a Worm roiled aimlessly, satisfied and entranced.
Nothing a-Jeroth did dispelled the vision of the Worm. So he too had become entranced by its glamourous light.
But he knew not where to find it.
From the shadow of those restless shoals to another land the Despiser wandered or fled. The moon became a thousand smiles before he reached creatures with whom he could palaver, and they were weak, useless to his cause or plight.
The unbelieving Lord did not smile.
After he had killed the weakness he had encountered in that era, he left to one of the lands of the arguleh. There he practiced icons of his desired castle, describing them upon the glacial mountains from the spent blood of the frozen monsters he managed to massacre.
Locked unto himself in his dark retreat, watching snow and morning become an alloy of light raying through his crystal demesne, the Despiser knew himself, but he did not believe in himself. He believed instead that he needed a map.
* * * * *
Appointed to ward against the Despiser, Galahace shadowed a-Jeroth wherever he went. Changing shape allowed the Elohim lord to evade detection---until the Despiser had come to the ur-North, a host of plateaus and summits crowned with the winter of the quickened sun. For here only the arguleh dwelt, and no Elohim was of a mind to assume such a form. Whatever their impending desperation might mean to them, they would not.
So Galahace waited on the edge of the Despiser's occulted realm. In a twinkling of bells like the song of the falling snow, Infelice appeared unto him, already fixated on the same horizon as he was, with even more gravid intent.
"Remember," she said at last, granting Galahace permission to listen to her, "that it is not this being who names himself as a-Jeroth with whom we must finally contest. It is not against him that our power might be spent."
The lesser Elohim sighed his incomplete concordance. "Yet it is with him that the shadow of the world will make its alliances and false treaties, is it not? He is trapped in this world, that we know. And his power is older than our very Wyrd. How should we heed not his omens?"
"Kastenessen would say such things," Infelice remarked absently, humming for no apparent reason. Addressing herself as much as Galahace or the horizon, she said, "His might is both greater and lesser than we can conceive. If bound to the channel of wild magic, it would suffice to end all creation. But without such an implement, a-Jeroth cannot exercise his energies unto the ruin of the Earth and Time. And he cannot obtain such force save by the intervention of outsiders, their acquiescence and subversion to his designs."
"He does not know this. He lies always, everywhere. He admits not the falsity of his name, even in his own mind."
"Then he is even less perilous a being than if otherwise, Galahace. What will he even attempt to do if he thinks not that he is equal to the task?"
* * * * *
[to be continued?]