Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Antarctic Termite
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The bronze chisel made a sharp but not offensive noise at the surface of the basalt. Old Walker's fragile hands tapped the growing mark into a curve with calm, ancient perfection. The letter turned upwards, terminated, and the Sculptor lifted its tool from the stone. It wiped dust from the chisel, then wrapped both tool and mallet in a canvas wallet, which it tucked away neatly in one of the saddlebags at its side.

The sentence wasn't finished yet. It terminated just before the end, like so:

Trust not your kings, for they will overwhelm you with the splendor to which they were crowned; And trust not your elders, for they may deceive you with the wisdom in which they have grown; And trust not your elected leaders, for they can blind you with the charisma with which they were born; Only trust God, who is splendid, wise, and

The rest would one day run 'great, yet has earned none of these things.' Following that, 'For you, the Chosen People, have given unto God Her temples, enriched Her knowledge with your prayers, and spoken Her word with holy fervor.' It was one of the many entries in the Tome of Sayings, which was the first book in the Voice of the Painter. It meant, of course, that the Meteran people should bow before no-one that they themselves had not shaped with their own wishes for the future.

Yes, it was one of many hundreds of entries in the Tome of Sayings, with all its poetic contradictions. There was still plenty of room to be carved on the slab, but Old Walker was done. When work would continue, they did not know. Why work had ceased, they did not know either. That was just how things would play out.

The Sculptor stepped into the winter snow and caught a snowflake on its fingertip. Bringing it to their eye, Old Walker could see ice in all its minute geometric perfection.

They did not ask for the memory, nor did they try to block it. It was one of their own, as most were.

* * * * *


It was their first winter in the Valley. The caravans and herdsmen had weathered countless snows before, but this one would be cruel, not in the wrath of its wind or its cold, but simply because it struck when they were all far from home.

In the spring, Old Walker knew- Whether in the present or in the memory they did not know, for time is fluid- this place
would be home. In the mountains, any earth whose winter has been conquered will yield before the mortal heart. It was happening before their eyes. Tents were shared, children wrapped in the furs of their mothers, beasts fed with the shared hay of which some families had brought too much and others too little.

When spring broke, this place would be home. And those who shared a home would be family.

The people looked up when the great rufous shadow passed among them, three pairs of footsteps padding just loud enough to be heard from inside a tent. No one who looked upon it could doubt whether it felt the cold; Old Walker's bulk had accumulated that strange aura only borne by those who have walked many miles through many blizzards unflinching. The wind flicked its feathers but could not touch its skin.

At its side was the Kernel, tucked under one foreleg while the other three walked on their palms. Its curvilinear blue not-flame flickered and clung to Old Walker's plumage. Everything it touched seemed to become a transparent outline of blue and black, illuminating the shape of the world without its content.

A hain family was huddled in one of the caves together with their goats. They bore the cold better than humans or goblins, though still not as well as the goats, and had given up their tent for the more vulnerable, knowing that they had enough furs for the night.

Old Walker lifted the veil from their cave and looked in, long neck swaying. One of the hain looked up, cradling a small kid. Old Walker quietly nodded and stepped in. The goats did not stir at the touch of the Prophet.

Taking the Kernel of God from under their arm, Old Walker set it down gently at the hain's side. Her eyes widened in wonder and a little fear. Old Walker stroked her head and left.

The warmth of the Kernel was already starting to fill the shelter. The Sculptor would return for it before dawn.


The snowflake had melted in Old Walker's hand, and others had taken its place. They walked on.

* * * * *
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Now it was summer, some years later. The exact number didn't matter. Old Walker preferred to count by how much the children had grown. Little Seikil was almost knee-height on them now, which must have meant he was five or six years old. He'd been born in the valley, when Nualles had been about as tall as Old Walker's shoulder. She'd been born in the valley too.

Speaking of, here came Nualles now.

Troll hair had a tendency to mat, and Nualles kept her dreadlocks in place with a simple strip of canvas. They bobbed up and down as she carried the basket of yams to the granaries. When she ran into Old Walker, she said nothing, only stood still for a moment as if adapting to the issue, and then ducked between their legs without a word.

Old Walker liked her.

Others saw the Prophet on the way and nodded respectfully, some throwing handfuls of grain in a gesture of respect. Nobody asked where they were going, having become accustomed to the mystery. Which was good, since Old Walker didn't know, and wouldn't have answered if they did.

The Sculptor stepped over an irrigation channel, small fish squabbling silently in its flow. The fields of the valley were perfectly ordered, grids and supergrids, water and roads, beans and barley. Each year the crops were rotated to a different field, such that each might refresh the soil for the next. The mountain slopes beyond them were terraced for vegetables.

At the northern end of the valley lay the lens grove, where the Meterans brought their restless dead. Not far from there was the hall of writings, where urtelem busily counted every basket of produce and pail of water to be produced by the valley, and all the visitors that arrived, and all their wares, and all their prices, and everything that had been bought, and everything that had been sold by the returning travellers who had been to Rulanah and to the Mist City, that is, Alefpria.

Old Walker went there. The memory came some time on the way.
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* * * * *


The wind howled as if in pain. In a colourless world of ice, the town was nothing more than a warped piece of horizon.

Go. What are we waiting for?

The Sculptor stood upright, raised their head to the sky. Their owl's face split at the chin, rose, revealed itself as nothing more than an upper jaw over a huge maw.

Walker shrieked into the polar night.

The guard was well-prepared. Walker's pack was not. That didn't matter. They were nothing but spear fodder anyway.

Fae spikes had been worked into a line alone a wooden spine, slanting upwards, which had then been lashed to another facing the other way. Repeat four times and Walker had a sword for each hand.

Eight ashlings followed the Sculptor's lead as it ran, weapons flicking. Shards of ice flashed forwards from the wall and glanced off glass armour and one dense coat of quills. Walker felt something pierce their shoulder and didn't even slow.

The world bounced at their sprint, and then-

Pronobis.

Walker swung and the warrior's blood became an arc of steam on the wind. The two at its side closed rank immediately as they fell in towards Walker's groin with their frozen spears, but their wounds were shallow and Walker's were not. The enormous creature's maw opened and a barbed tongue picked up a fourth by the neck. His head popped with a frozen shatter.

Strange, isn't it?

They did not turn to ice if they were killed before their time. They still had a taste.

The ashlings fought and were rebuffed, but Walker worked too fast for the Pronobii to realise that they were wasting their time with the scum. Each blow was excessive, nothing but a glint and a sound of wood splintering, breaking bodies as much as it tore them open. The jagged lines of faery metal were bent by flesh.

Four swords, each rising as another fell.

The sound became rhythmic.

Walker ran out of warriors and turned on the ashlings. They were harder than the icy armour, yet more brittle. Hacking became crushing. Without skin, the ashlings' organs simply steamed naked on the ice when they were broken. Those hands did not seem nearly so fragile now.

There was a
thud within the town walls after the noise died down. A thin layer of snow had tumbled from the inside of the wall from the impact. The Pronobii looked at each other in terror as an alien sound pierced the uncanny quiet.

Slowly, steadily, Walker began to laugh. The sound carried on the wind and was heard for miles.

...What is it?

Walker slumped against the ice wall, quaking with laughter, bleeding from everywhere, blood that froze in their wounds.

"All this way," wheezed Walker, "to be stopped by a gate!"

...

Jvan was silent. Then, softly at first, as if breaking through a wall of her own, she, too, started laughing.

You
idiot, said Jvan, between chuckles. Light! How did we do this?

Walker just sat against the wall and laughed. They laughed together. They fell quiet together. After a while.

"I could make a ramp out of snow," said Walker. "They'd fight me the whole way, but..."

No need. We did what we came to do, and you did it well. Be proud, Walker.

Walker nodded, limply, then began to stand.

Let me.

The Sculptor's eyes closed and the thoughts behind them fell into a trance. Jvan took over. Walker's performance responded well to her cues; It was almost as if she could share his body.

Jvan ran her hands over the layered feathers, felt the warmth of Walker's lungs, the taste between their teeth. She felt the bruises under the plumage. Frostbite and fatigue. You're cold, she commented coolly. Walker began to stir, and she pressed them down with a psychic fingertip, a signal gentle yet obeyed. Her hands wrapped around their body, weathering the wind for them, one soul holding another.

Relax yourself. I will take it from here.


* * * * *
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Old Walker found themself at the door of the hall of writings. Pebbles-In-A-Dry-Stream's-Bed, matriarch of the Cliffside Mesa herd, was watching them. She signed amicably.

'Daydreams again?'

Mnooon, said Old Walker.

A very low grinding rumble that was a laugh. 'Come, Prophet. Walk with me.'

Old Walker made an acknowledging grmf and fell into step beside the sizeable urt. She was old, her back adorned with a heavy patterned blanket that was not purely decoration, ground quartz lenses at her eyes. Colourful minerals glittered in her shoulders, beauty that few other than her own kind would realise were a sign of senescence. Not even rock is immortal; radioactive decay and electron entrapment were taking their toll.

Her hands, though stiff, were still quick enough to keep a conversation. Loosely translated, Streambed's words could, perhaps, have sounded like this.

'I have read your latest transcription of God's word. I find your script curious. An adaptation of what is used in Rulanah, is it not? I regret to say it is rather dull.' A sharp wave. 'Bah! No, I do not regret saying that. It is a decisively boring piece of work. Even the hain could figure it out if they tried hard enough. What is the point of a language that doesn't challenge the reader?'

Mrrr, said Old Walker.

'Oh, I jest.' It wasn't entirely clear that she had. 'It will be useful if we earthy folk don't have to stand around and translate all the time. I don't trust the meat folk with numbers, though. And I'm not sure how many of them will have the time to learn.' Streambed's fingers twiddled off to the horizon. 'Ah well. That is not what I'd talk to you about. It has more to do with the words themselves.'

She looked up, took in the scenery. The hall of writing was situated near the primary road into Metera, and now they stood at its gate, fertile valley on one side, a grit-strewn road sandwiched between vast mountains in the other.

'I take it you've noticed, yes?' The hand darted from Streambed to Old Walker's eyes before flicking off an affirmation without a pause. 'I've never seen nor heard of such a thing in all my life, not even from the Makers. It is subtle, for sure. But I know.' Streambed's eyes rolled and her palms went up before going together. 'God's sake, of course I know, I'm worse than most of them. But maybe that's senility, eh?'

Old Walker was respectfully silent.

'I'm talking about the Distant Dance, of course. Not just the triangulation.' The Urtelem sign for 'triangulation' was remarkably simple. 'Everything that comes with it. The migrations, the message stones, the-' A sign that meant 'made into sludge', as of rock reduced to organic mud, but would probably be better translated as a much gentler Urtelem version of the word 'motherfucking'. '-faery monks. God, they're probably the reason I feel so old. Not you, of course. You are fine. No, I'm talking about the culture. Specifically, the way we Urtelem are losing it.'

Streambed looked thoughtful. 'No, no, not losing. We're gaining a culture, too. But it's new. Very new. Used to be that we solved problems because they interested us, and sometimes because they made others happy. Well, some of them are still interesting and most of them make people happy. But we do them for others now, whether or not they're interesting, or make anyone happy. We don't crunch numbers for the taste anymore. We do it to be...' A series of signs that cannot be fully translated. 'Part of the whole. Integrated into the blood of the nation.'

'Same goes for travelling. We don't wander our old routes; We go trading. We did that before, of course, but now we travel for business, not do business as we travel. And... It's fulfilling. It's not easy to get an urt to do something they don't like, you know. But we actually enjoy this! It's not so much about beauty in nature anymore, so much as it is beauty in... Function. Efficiency. We've gone from stargazers to booklords.'

The sign for 'booklords' was a sarcastic play on the signs for a graven tablet and a mountain ruled by a Stonelord, bringing to mind a single Urtelem sitting atop a huge pile of stone writings. Little did Streambed know that she had just invented the Urtelem word for 'bureaucrat'.

'It's in the way we speak, too.' The sign was literally speak, as if with the mouth. 'I've felt emotions from every mortal race under the sun, from Shalanoir to the ice shelf. We Urtelem, we are unique. Imagine trying to explain in words what I'm signing now!' Another laugh. 'But I feel that... It's possible. The emotions are different, but we're copying relationships from the meaty folk. We compete more, we say more. Wait less, do more. We're worse at poetry and much, much better at speeches. And sarcasm. Where the devil did we even learn sarcasm? Eh, faery monk?'

Mnnn?

Streambed laughed and patted Old Walker's side. 'Oh, Prophet. I do enjoy our little chats. I feel that if only I had the faintest idea what you were saying I would know so much.'

Nurrrr, grumbled Old Walker, escorting the elderly urt back to the hall of writings.

The next memory came in the autumn.
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* * * * *


The hall of Tomes had been worked from a lava tunnel, with an excess of room. Tablets lined its walls end to end as far as the eye could see, each one twice the height of a grown human. Even the Prophet had to rise up to two legs to reach the highest letters.

Snow had blown in. The hall of Tomes was never closed. It had neither door nor veil. Fires had been lit on its floor, and shepherds who offered sacrifice were allowed to rest their flocks within, should the weather be stormy. The hall of Tomes was open to all the people of Metera and all its visitors, that they may learn the word of God.

It was winter. Maybe the same winter we saw Old Walker carving the Tome of Sayings. Maybe not.

The cave was empty. Maybe the same cave we saw Old Walker pass the Kernel to a herdshain named Iffalie on the first winter. Maybe not.

Old Walker took a broom from a niche at the entrance of the hall and began to sweep out the ash. There was soot on the basalt. Old Walker swept that away too.

-this prayer you are to summon God, not simply in voice but in Her holy Composition, and without fail. In winter and in rain She shall come to you, in fire and in flood, when you are thirsty or when you are wealthy, whether you are rich or poor. Your prayer will be obeyed, even if you and all your folk are of the infidels. For God is all-hearing, all-loving, and all-serving.

Sculptors were generally used to cold, faeries being the energy-hungry creatures that they were. Old Walker felt nothing as they shoveled snow from the road leading to the hall, then grew distracted and shoveled the rest of the road as well. By the time they returned to put back the shovel, the icicles at the entrance had grown noticeably longer.

Such is the reasoning for the Holy Exchange under God, which is to expand as far as the shoulders of mortals can bear it. Fear not if you falter, and despair not if you produce no surplus. For the plans of God are as old of the future as Galbar is old of the past. Only time and Her guidance are required for the Mortal Hand to envelope the entire world and all its harvest, and reap greatly thereof, that all the peoples may exist in equal wealth...

There was a troll sleeping in the far end of the hall. Old Walker was pleased to find that it was Nualles again. She often wandered alone without telling anyone, seeking out places that weren't crowded or cramped. The Prophet checked her temperature and went on with their business.

-and indeed all beings that claim divine blood. For they are tainted by power, afflicted by immortality for which they were not created, as are the Spirits of the air and rivers. Only the Mortal Hand can be allowed to orchestrate Paradise, and even the Voice of the Painter must not be allowed to rule, merely converse and guide.

But fear not the infidel prayer, nor be of wrath towards the false gods. Approach them as one would in trade, and greet them as though preparing for long barter, for evil does not reside within their hearts, only their hands...


A little mould had grown where somebody had dropped a piece of fruit. Old Walker cleaned it up with a rag.

Truly it is written: God works in the interest of harmony, but promises only chaos. So also God toils for happiness upon the face of Galbar, but the Chosen People will meet only suffering. Such is the reason why the Mortal Hand must persevere and never stray from the Voice of the Painter, for it is not our lives that are at stake, but the lives of the future peoples, into whom our souls shall migrate when we pass into dust. Surely a multitude shall suffer and die in the name of Paradise, that is, the Future Hope; but we must not fear death...

It was time for Old Walker, too, to sleep. The ordained temple cleaners would return in the morning when it was less cold, but the Prophet didn't mind doing their work for them. Their eyes slid shut and the memory ended there.
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* * * * *


Old Walker woke up exactly where they had fallen asleep in the memory. Time didn't seem to have passed in the space between then and now, although the inscriptions were now complete and autumn leaves had blown into the hall. Bright sunlight glanced from plates of quartz, illuminating the whole tunnel. Nualles was still where they'd left her, though. Time was fluid.

When it was done sleeping in, the Sculptor looked up to see Nualles stroking the dense quills of its back, savouring the sensation and the faint sound it made. She was fast approaching adulthood, but nobody was ever too old to feel small beside Old Walker.

Myuuuuu, said the Prophet.

"Okay," answered the acolyte.

With Nualles on their back, Old Walker wandered out into the day. Lacy fae-wings glimmered as they swooped around the two of them.

In the Council House, the elders of Metera were engaged in lively debate with God. Elsewhere, simpler folk were tending fields whose produce would be administered under the laws of the Holy Exchange. Others said their morning prayers, whispering their dreams as an offering to God, clearing their thoughts that they may work joyfully and thus be reborn in a better world.

It was a peaceful place. It was a peaceful time. Old Walker felt handfuls of grain glance off their side and saw someone give a flower crown to Nualles, who smiled and fiddled with it in her hands.

Old Walker didn't think of where they were going. They didn't think of where they had come. No memories plagued them, and that was okay.

They did not think of the verse in the Tome of Morality, which they had last year inscribed, and ran thus:

Trust least of all, then, your fellow mortals, be they among the infidels or simply infidels of heart, who reject the Future Hope; Who ignore the Holy Exchange; Who listen not to the Voice of the Painter; For such are the people who reject the humble God of Empathy, and so reject Empathy itself.

For Paradise is built upon a throne of Empathy, and God sits at its footstool. And to make war against Her is to make war against the throne that She attends, yet is powerless to guard.

So it falls upon the Chosen People to stand side by side and defend the Future Hope, and in the Mortal Hand is held the sword with which all the cruel people of the world shall be purged...
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