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[h3]and[/h3][h1]The Polis-Witch of Excelsium[/h1][/center]

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The process began as a crude line etched itself upon the ground. An unseen brush or hand dragged through the dirt, then turned back upon its own mark, curving as it went until it arrived back at the line’s origin. The resulting line tightened, closing into a circle. This circle strained. Curvature yielded to straightened edges and vertices as order and work were imposed, and the shape soon became a hexagon.

The Patron of Civilization was reassembling itself far from Sarhush and his sycophants. To be in that god’s presence was to have one’s course always dictated, like water poured into a winding, artificial channel. To defy his demands was to force the water uphill against the channel’s grade. Arguing with Sarhush was worse still: that was akin to reshaping the water’s entire course, speaking until the channel itself eroded and relented. Such a task demanded patience beyond even Civilization’s endurance. The only escape was distance.

So the hexagon was perfected by the Patron’s will, every angle adjusted in minuscule ways until they were all exactly equal and every line was left truer than anything mortal hands could achieve. With the pattern fixed, depth was added. The shape rose into a flat-faced column, then began to shift. Civilization’s new form expanded in places, contracted in others, and shed shards cut away with precision as it refined itself. Glyphs and symbols emerged across its every edifice and surface.

Where moments before there had been only an empty clearing of lifeless dirt, a humanoid figure of etched clay and stone now stood.

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Anana had been playing with her friends. One boy had been foolish enough to throw a handful of pebbles at her; he hadn’t known what kind of fight that was starting. The other boys and girls all laughed as she pelted him with rocks. Even as he fled beyond the edge of Excelsium, Anana gave chase.

That brought her into the open field where a strange creature of stone rose up from the ground before her very eyes, taking form without sound. The boy that she’d been chasing saw it too, now fleeing back into the settlement; he passed right by Anana, a hundred times more afraid of this new being than of her!

But Anana was frozen. She dropped the stone in her hand and stared at the self-assembled stone man. Civilization met her gaze.

Anana swallowed. The silence was crushing, so the girl broke it with the only true thing that she could think to say, “You’re not from Excelsium.”

Civilization inclined its head and looked toward her, but beyond her. It beheld the sprawl of wooden buildings, the bustle between and within them. This was one of the greatest settlements of the world.

“I am of Excelsium,” it answered the girl, “and every other place cultivated by people. I am the Patron of Civilization.”

As it spoke those words, Anana flinched at the unnaturally ordered cadence and the flat and inhumanly level tone. Civilization was perturbed too, because it looked at the ground beneath her feet and sensed the buried dead beneath it. There had been battles here, and victory, yet only living memory could record it. If there had been defeat, then all that was Excelsium could have been destroyed and forgotten. Nothing would remain, for wood could rot or burn and leave no ruins behind.

“Are you here to join us?” Anana asked. Because that is what was asked of strangers who came to Excelsium. From far and wide families came, took the bread, and became part of the village. Her own family had joined the village through the same ritual. She didn’t understand it back then. She didn’t understand it now, but Pira had told her it was important. So she asked the big pile of stones.

“Yes,” the Patron answered, after a pause that felt more measured than hesitant. Anana blinked, somewhat surprised; she hadn’t been sure what to expect, but she didn’t think it could be that simple or easy.

It wasn’t. Civilization was pondering how to explain the rest. Joining implied arrival. Arrival implied origin elsewhere. But Excelsium already existed within its domain; it could not enter what it already sustained. The Patron looked past Anana, toward the clustered roofs of Excelsium.

“This is a civilization that is built upon forgetting,” it ruminated aloud. “But all civilization is a process. I have come to guide the process.”


“I… don’t think I understand.” Said Anana.

“You are not expected to, child.” A voice that was not quite human said from behind her. There stood the tall, strong shape of Meris. “Mortal matters demand mortal attentions. Divine matters require divine ones. Return to the town, child.” Anana turned around and ran back. Meris made a small bow towards the Patron of Civilization that was reciprocated only by Civilization’s gaze shifting away from the girl.

“I did not expect your presence here, oh Patron. I do not think the magi have quite figured out a way to call upon you yet. Still, you can be a welcome guest here. Answer me this first: why have you come here and now?”

“I sensed structure here, but it is erected without reinforcement,” Civilization answered in its monotone. “Here mortal hands build, but when the weight of things shifts, what is not braced may collapse. Excelsium teetered under the weight not long ago.”

The Patron’s head moved to level its gaze upon the ground again. There were places where the grass had yet to grow over the graves of dead warriors, defender and invader alike.

“What is built here could endure, but only if memory is given form. Continuity must be taught and maintained,” Civilization concluded.

Meris was still cautious. He was the progeny, in a way, of the only entity that had torn a Patron to shreds. Despite being an Avatar, he still had the very human fear that a reckoning might come someday. “I suspect your foresight is blinding you somewhat, Patron of Civilization.” He said. “You’re not wrong that Excelsium’s existence is still shaky, but it is so in a very physical sense as well.” Meris motioned with one hand towards the wooden houses. “Fire and decay can and will claim it easily. You wish to teach them continuity. Please, teach them how to build their lives on something stronger than wood and earth.” Meris was pleading near the end.

“That is my intention,” Civilization answered. The exchange required no further iteration and the matter was settled.

The Patron advanced into motion. It strode into the settlement proper, each pace from its stony form measured, each length identical to the last. Word had already begun to spread; some were already gathered to stare, others emerged from doorways to look out upon hearing the commotion and the sound of heavy stone feet upon packed earth.

Civilization paid no heed to the crowds as it made its way to the center of Excelsium. Individually, their calls and pleas were just noise; addressing them collectively would be sufficient and efficient. More onlookers came, the throngs filling the paths. Civilization did not slow; the crowd parted before the Patron that had come to establish permanence.

Eventually, the Patron arrived at the center of this crude system; here was a spot already used for gatherings, marked by a great boulder where the ground itself permitted elevation. The Patron came to a stop before the boulder, but did not climb atop it. Its stature alone was sufficient.

“I am the Patron of Civilization,” it announced to the denizens, not loudly but with a cadence that cut through the noise. “What would remain here if this place were abandoned? If you were to vanish, or leave Excelsium for even a short time?”

The chatter ceased at once, and silence reigned. The Patron awaited an answer.

People murmured, but no one immediately spoke up. Hector, Scion of War, stood a little in the back. His shield and club at the ready. The magi were more intrigued with the Patron’s sudden appearance and were already debating amongst each other the ritualistic ways of summoning him later. None answered until Pira approached. Pira, the city’s First Citizen. She was not Spark-gifted and yet she was great in her own way…

“Not much.” She spoke up as she approached, supported by a younger girl. “If you mean a year, then I think a lot of wooden structures would remain. They’re built sturdy.” She said. As to prove a point, she pushed against a wall. Nothing happened. Then again, she was old. “Longer, and a fire would lay waste to be sure. If we left, then the only thing that would remain a while would be our memories. And then the tales we tell our children.” She said with a smile as she finally reached the Patron.

Meris had followed the Patron but now kept his distance. He felt uneasy. Like a father who has to let his kids learn of the world the hard way. It has to be done. So far he felt like they were doing well. Pira, for all her lack of a Spark, did well.

Civilization regarded her for a moment. “Your response is sufficient and correct. Your assessment is prophecy. Memories left to the mind and tongue fade and alter with each retelling. Left as it is, nothing here will endure. All your works will be undone and forgotten in time.”

Civilization was so close that Pira fell entirely within the shadow of its form. She could see the glyphs, spiraling scripts, and geometric patterns that covered every tiny space upon its body, even if she couldn’t yet read them or discern any meaning beyond decoration.

“I hold the solutions,” Civilization explained, “but I guarantee no safety, no endurance, no memory. Such things are not within my power to give; they are the emergent properties of sustained effort, and they persist only as long as stability is maintained.”

The Patron allowed that time to sink in, turning to look over the crowd. There was a certain anxiousness in the crowd but it was subsiding. If there was one thing Excelsium did best, it was sustained effort. “We were never guaranteed anything before.” Pira said with a smile. “If it takes effort and stability, Excelsium will prevail. Always.”

“I can transmit the methods of rectification. You will learn to place stone so that walls endure the passage of time. You will build in ways that fire does not easily unmake. When walls show cracks, you will repair them. Monuments will be raised to commemorate events of importance, so that memory is not left to chance or to the tongue.”

On and on the Patron spoke, with neither pause nor deviation in its cadence. It did not breathe throughout the speech, and neither did many of those assembled in the crowd. Finally, it concluded:

“If Excelsium accepts these obligations as a society, I will bind my covenant to one among you. Know that you are permitted to reject this. Enforcement and compulsion are beyond my Ideal. But should you refuse, then accept the outcome: your civilization will face collapse and erasure.”

For a moment, there was a loud ruckus. Some amongst the ambitious men and women stepped forth and demanded that the covenant would be given to him. The students of Aristel, those that remained at least, kept themselves out of the conversation. Then Hector’s voice boomed through the crowd. “Silence, all of you!” He yelled. His eyes looked over the crowd. “Are you blind? Who has been leading us so far? Who has the most right to the Covenant of Civilization!?”

His words were true. The people quieted down and then all looked at Pira. She didn’t show it, but she felt tired. She had been shouldering the burden of leadership for a while now and had hoped a Spark-gifted would rise up to take it from her so that she could sit out her old days in peace. Her eyes found Meris. She wanted to curse him. Why was she not given a Spark? It would’ve made her life so much easier.

“I will take the Covenant.” She said. “Not because we wish to etch ourselves into eternity. We do this… because it is our duty.”

As Pira’s words settled over the crowd, Civilization visibly scrutinized her. “Your stated motivation is compatible with this role. Duty produces a stable continuity more reliably than ambition.”

The symbols upon the Patron’s body of stone began to change; they sharpened, straightened, and expanded. Glyphs and letters seemed to swell until the character touched one another, then they grew to overlap, and then they grew so much that some began to slough off Civilization itself. Symbology that had been cut into stone now hovered in the air, incorporeal but visible, unreadable and yet clear. Pira instinctively stepped back, falling just out of Civilization’s shadow.

The ghostly signs pivoted along an unseen axis, swirling and rearranging in spiral lines that encircled Pira but did not touch her. “This Covenant does not confer authority over your fellows, for that dominion is not mine to grant,” Civilization began to explain. “It only imposes duty. You will create records that the continuum of history may be preserved. You will perceive a weakened structure or a failing system before its impending collapse, and you will intuit what pieces may be repaired and what must be replaced. More, your memory and thoughts become labor and your labors take form.”

Civilization raised an arm high above its head and clenched it, the fist blocking, nay, [i]crushing[/i] the sun that fell upon Pira’s face. She stood in the Patron’s shadow once more, but she was illuminated rather than darkened: as the Patron’s hand closed, the swirling rings of symbols had suddenly collapsed inward to fall upon Pira’s skin and rest there. The glowing glyphs brought no burning or pain as they were inscribed upon her, only weight. “The echo of my power that you now possess will not make these tasks lighter; it makes them endless. Yet these are tasks of the mind and will, not the body…”

Civilization turned to face the great boulder beside him, the crowning center of Excelsium’s square. “Lay one hand upon this stone,” it bade Pira, “and sense its structure. Feel the scattered grains of stone, and order them. Reinforce them.”

Pira, now the Witch of Civilization, stepped forth to do as her Patron told. For a long moment, the crowd was confused, for nothing seemed to happen. Yet then, after perhaps ten heartbeats, the boulder shuddered and violently cracked. A small cloud of stone dust emerged to conceal the rock, but when it settled, where once there had been a single boulder was now a thousand pieces of masonry, each one of a perfectly uniform height, if an irregular length or rough outward face. It made no matter; they were uniform enough to be easily stacked into walls.

Civilization nodded in approval. “A small demonstration of your power,” he commented, perhaps to the crowd moreso than to Pira herself. “The true test will be the duty of recording that I have placed upon you. People, events, images of all sorts: these things can be committed to stone. But so too can sounds. You need only define a system of symbols such that it can render speech frozen upon stone, and then your people’s memory will be eternal.”

And as Pira looked upon her hands, her arms, every fold of her skin, she saw the glowing glyphs that marked the Covenant. Had Civilization not already given her symbols? The glyphs upon her skin only needed to be copied and given meaning.

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Following its quarrel with Sarhush, the Patron of Civilization goes to Excelsium. A young girl, bullied by her peers, bounced off of the Patron that formed in the fields of the village. She had a short conversation with the entity about things she really didn’t understand, until Meris appeared and bid her to return to Excelsium. Meris and Civilization had a short conversation on the nature of the Patron’s visit.

Deemed non-dangerous, the Patron entered the village to first test the civilization. He poses a question on what would remain. Pira, First Citizen, and an elderly woman, said nothing would remain if they left for more than a year but the stories they could tell their children. That acknowledgement satisfied the Patron.

Civilization offers to grant its covenant to one person. Pira, obviously, is considered the only viable option after some debate. Civilization blessed her, making her the Witch of Civilization. With the power comes the knowledge to magically utilize stone, and the challenge to develop writing.

[b]CONVICTION EXPENDITURES:[/b]
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