"There is only one true way a man may walk. Any other roads which may appear are mere diversions, and are to be discounted."
(Alador, Man of SARAN, Leader of Combat Team Phoenix)
"Chaos is the uncertainty at the heart of everything... It operates in every conceivable way."
(from the Creed of MIRIMI)
"All these Changes have been for the worse. RAVAR is no more than the engineer of your destruction!"
(The Walker on the Water; from a speech in Rockholme)
"Your Natural world has become a hollow shell."
(Dusteater, Weapon of Famine)
"If you care about the future of this world, if you want a healthy society to look after you in your old age, if you do not want to see the black swords of the Gods of Waste and Destruction lay bare this land we live in, help us."
(Ulrik-Kazan; from a speech in Bjarmigen)
"We thrive on human company. Isolated, we die."
(Buboe, Weapon of Pestilence)
"Together we can build our New Heaven here on Earth."
(Harrek Dragonhelm, Lord Protector of the North)
"Redouble your efforts for the ultimate Destruction of all."
(WAGREN to His Clerics in Rockholme at the beginning of the Dark Time)
"Spring forward, young hearts! Stand up and play your parts."
(chorus to an air of PAREL)
"Do you have a light?"
(Inferno, Weapon of Fire)
HIEMS yawns, and flexes His frosty fingers through the frozen fields. Across Anarea the morning hoar crackles, and a flurry of snow showers breeze out of the North. The land is still locked within His icy grip, and it feels good.
It has been a hard Winter. It still is a hard Winter: the worst in living memory for these poor mortals. Snow fell early, and as far South as the Grasslands, beyond Taur Galen. In the North it fell heavily, and roads were soon blocked.
HIEMS loves the snow as does a small child. He never ceases to marvel as it falls, or to cry as it melts. This Winter has given Him much pleasure, and very few tears. As He rode the grey clouds, He showered it down in abundance, and as He lay in the cold earth He wrapped Himself deep in its smooth blanket. Sitting now on Mt. Anar He surveys a world of white, and sighs deeply with the inexpressible pleasure of the vista. The North lies buried deep beneath the drifts, there is a decent covering right across the West, and it is scatttered across the South. It even lies here on the slopes of the Mountain; usually snow-free even in Winter, despite its great height. The sight is soon obliterated, as further heavy snowfalls are triggered by His sigh.
Such snows will be slow to melt, and still there is no sign of Spring. HIEMS does not simply return to aestivate in His crypt at the end of the calendar Winter. He waits for VER to oust Him, and sometimes contends with Her for control of the Weather for a month or two. It is a battle He can never win, as His blood inevitably warms and makes Him sluggish. But so far, VER has not even stirred. Maybe She really is dead, or powerless without ORIL, or maybe this time He has finally frozen Her blood solid. HIEMS cackles. Either way, or even neither, it still feels good.
He has taken many lives this Winter, and their frozen vitality keeps His heart satisfyingly cold. The Ayekal have been good to Him this Winter.
First SITH fed Him many souls from the Plague, but the Harbinger of Pestilence is a hot-blooded Power, and as HIEMS chilled His blood, the epidemic lost its potency. Then the Valdreans imposed their so-called "rolling quarantine", shutting whole towns and villages in their homes for two Caeriads at a time, until the Plague had run its course and each family was either dead, or alive and freed from infection. The Army had enforced the quarantine with its customary ruthless efficiency, and even the Good Clerics had largely co-operated, albeit under protest; many volunteering to be locked in with a household: to save them if they could; otherwise to die. HIEMS smiles His grim smile at the thought, and the temperature drops another notch.
Such measures ended the Plague in the West, where it raged the strongest. Elsewhere the Clerics and the cold conquered it. But that just left more mouths to feed, and that was where KRAK came in. The Harbinger of Famine had already devastated the food stocks which the mortals need to get them through the Winter, and KRAK is a cold-blooded Power, Whose potency increases as the temperature decreases. The civil authorities did what they could to ration and distribute stocks, and the Temples and other well-intentioned magic-users fed everyone they could, but KRAK still reaped a rich harvest for HIEMS. The snows played their part too, preventing food from getting through to isolated communities where stocks were inadequate, and preventing the people from leaving.
The refugee situation was an interesting one. The Empire prevented the problem arising, by making people only eligible for rations at their home communities, so that they either survived or died at home. But in the North the hungry flocked to Bjarmigen for sustenance by the famous Temple of Peace on Earth. Refugee camps were set up, and KRAK and HIEMS were torn between letting so many through that the City and Temples would be unable to cope, and keeping them away, to die in the cold and hungry countryside. In the end, HIEMS' delight in a good snowfall decided the question, as all travel across the Kingdom became virtually impossible; especially for the weak and hungry, many of whom died trying.
Even if VER should come, it will be a while before She can produce a first harvest, if indeed She still has that power. KRAK's harvest of souls will continue, even if HIEMS does not gather its benefit, and hungry refugees may yet besiege Bjarmigen.
FORTH too has played his part. The most hot-blooded of the Ayekal is no friend of HIEMS, but His is not the hearth-fire that warms against Winter's chill, but rather the fearful blaze that burns down homes, destroying shelter, and exposing the survivors to the merciless elements that serve HIEMS. The Harbinger of Fire has seized opportunities wherever they have arisen, from the goblin raids of the North, to the burning of the houses of plague victims in the West, to the struggle against the Undead in Rockholme, and has made a smaller, but nonetheless welcome, contribution to HIEMS' diet of souls; either roasted or frozen.
Wuthering with the exhilaration of it all, HIEMS leaps from the steep snowfield onto a stormy gust that will carry Him South, to hurl hails on the heads of the good burghers of Vavistor.
"Come Lady Spring!" He roars in challenge, "This time I am well ready for Thee!" and the thunder of His presumption echoes off the Mountain, setting off several avalanches.
Alador stands upon the ruin of the Dark Tower, and contemplates the past in order to extrapolate the future. The Leader of Combat Team Phoenix has been blessed since birth with the gift of Lawful Precognition, and it has set him apart from his fellows. An ascetic and a purist, he disdained to demean himself with the politics and spectacle of the House of Heaven, devoting the services of Team Phoenix wholly to SARAN in the front line of Her wars, rather than seeking personal advancement in the circus that is Valdran.
Now the Phoenix has arisen from the fire that was Rockholme, where SARAN is making common cause with WAGREN. There is no official Alliance, of course; rather a mutuality of interest following on from the recent crisis, and one which is at the least not opposed by SARAN's sometime Good Allies.
The Dark Tower was formerly the Citadel of the ArchBogeyMan (a title never spoken out loud), the notorious leading spirit of the Undead of Rockholme.
Shortly after nightfall of 13 Weven 2501 the stars went out here, and the City of Rockholme was found to be isolated in the midst of a grey nothingness, which cut off Teleport contact with the outside world, and isolated all but the Evil Clerics from their Gods. The next morning the Sun failed to come up, and the riots began. That was the beginning of the Dark Time (as it is now being called), which endured for almost a month, until the night of 11 Yarom 2501, when Team Phoenix and their allies restored the Balance, and returned Rockholme to the World.
In the Dark Time the Undead came out onto the streets in force. The souls of so many who had died untimely in the troubles of the past two years returned to wreak dreadful revenge upon those who had survived the horrors which they had not. There was no Sun to drive them back to their coffins or crypts, and the Clerics of KOROS, DALA and MIRIMI were now powerless to Dispel or Turn them. The dark legions of SOROK hungered after the last traces of human life which persisted in Rockholme, before their effacement by hunger, disease or unrest.
But the spirit of the Bastolli persisted, especially in the way Pretenders to the Kingship sprang up out of the anarchy that followed the onset of the Dark Time. Alador gazes now at the many towers and little citadels that punctuate the skyline of the City of the Fortress People, as the spires of Temples did in his lost home of Heaven. He wonders at the audacity of the men who, when the body politic must clearly have been upon its deathbed, sought to challenge for the Kingship in accordance with the time-honoured custom of their race: rebellion.
Small wonder then that King Zergal, faced with these multiple challenges, with a riotous population whom he was unable to feed blaming him for their fate, and with the Thievish Brotherhoods openly flouting any last semblance of law and order, chose to seclude himself in his Citadel, where he had survived even the final onslaught of the Valdrean Imperial Army. Some said he had even cut a deal with the Eldest Brother and the ArchBogeyMan 'Imself (to give the latter his formal title). If he had, then Alador would not blame him. Sound government requires a leader to face up to realities.
But somehow the Undead were defeated, and Rockholme was saved. Alador is fascinated by such eventualities, because they depend on the workings of Chaos, and so he can only see them in hindsight. Even then, he is unable to fathom their myriad complexities, and determine exactly which seemingly-random event was the crux, where the future diverted from its otherwise- predictable course.
The Undead were opposed by the Temple of KOROS, of course. That much was predictable. If one cannot fight one's enemy with magic, one opposes him hand-to-hand, with fire and silver sword. But there was also Alocar, a former member of Zergal's bodyguard and apparently at first a proponent of RAVAR, who rallied the mobs in the Artisans' Quarter. By rights he should have been just another Pretender, and he appears to have defeated several of his rivals, but he concentrated his efforts against the Undead and ultimately disclaimed any ambition for the Kingship, being rewarded by Zergal with a Lieutenancy over the Lower City after the lifting of the Dark Time.
Confronted by Alocar's mobs in the West and by the Temple of KOROS in the South, the Undead were nonetheless extending their influence across the dying City. But then came the next Chaotic event. A fire bombing of the Dark Tower during the first week of Yarom ignited the tinder-dry ruins of the Poor Quarter, and a rogue breeze threatened to sweep the fire across the whole city. The Undead which had overrun the area were consumed in the flames, and Alocar and the KOROS Temple now found themselves fighting the fires of FORTH instead of the legions of SOROK.
Being Chaotic, the wind changed and the firebreaks held. When the smoke cleared fully one third of the City North of the Lakes was destroyed, and most of the Undead with it. But many had still survived deep in the catacombs of the Necropolis and sewer system, and 'Imself is commonly believed to have escaped. He would be, thinks Alador, as he contemplates the devastation from the point where it started.
Then there was his own Mission. KOROS and SARAN were rightly concerned about the loss of Rockholme, KOROS warning His/Her Clerics that the Balance between Good and Evil appeared to have been broken there. Accordingly, Kyarlin Champion of Heaven led a Mission to Rockholme which included Mildor and Janice of KOROS, Jafat of SHELDA, and Men of FIDAR, ESCUS, MIRIMI, and SARAN. Included in the latter were Relvon, the Men of Heaven's leading Planist, and, of course, Team Phoenix. They found that Rockholme Mount had disappeared into an impenetrable and irregular grey nothingness, which was slowly expanding.
The solution, in Alador's eyes, was simple. All they had to do was to reconnect the Evil into which Rockholme had fallen with the Good which it had lost. Team Phoenix penetrated the void in a protective cloak of Lawfulness, and then Relvon established a Teleportal link betwen them and a source of Good. Rockholme was restored to the World with an earth tremor and a sound like the Amen of a heavenly choir, and the Men of Heaven entered it on the night of 11 Yarom.
After the upheavals of the Dark Time, they found the authorities unsurprisingly (to Alador at least) co-operative. They assisted the Temple of KOROS (now re-connected to their God) in clearing the catacombs of surviving Undead (though that maze can never be wholly cleared, being more intricate even than the Dungeons of Mt. Anar). By stressing to Zergal that the Dark Time had resulted from Rockholme's isolation, they obtained his repeal of the old laws outlawing the worship by the Bastolli of the former Gods of Heaven, and his permission to establish a Temple of SARAN in the City. That is why Alador is standing here now. He has decided that the former Dark Tower should be the site of that Temple. The King has expressly refused to guarantee the safety of Clerics of his former enemies' Gods in his City. A fortified site is therefore necessary, and this one is currently unoccupied.
Looking now into the future, Alador foresees the end of Rockholme's Dark Times. But he cannot predict Chaos, and he is painfully aware that this is a City rent by the Forces of Chaos.
"A penny for a mug of soup, good sir?" Jak adopts his most querulous voice to cadge change from the Clerics. The pitches on the approach streets to the Temple of Peace on Earth yield the richest beggings in Bjarmigen, and so command the highest rentals from the Guild. The silver altarpiece he filched last week has bought him this week's lease (payable in advance, of course) of this prime site outside the King's Head, and business is good. "Praise be to WACON!"
The competition is stiff though. The City has been overrun with amateurs: yokels from out in the sticks, who think that just because they were unable to grow enough turnips to feed themselves, that gives them the right to barge right in and demand another man's rightful earnings. It had been a real problem for the Guild at first. The refugees just couldn't understand the need to regulate things, so that everybody got a fair crack at the punters. They wouldn't join the Guild, or keep off established pitches, raising such ludicrous excuses as that such-and-such member of their family was starving. Simple threats had no effect on them. Jak shakes his head in bewilderment. How do they think everyone else is going to survive if they push in front like that?
But that young King Bjorn has his head screwed on right. He could see the country folk were causing everyone problems, and had his soldiers round them up and put them in those camps: the big one outside the North West Gate, and that other one down in Memorial Park. That suited everyone fine. The Clerics could go and earn their credit with their Gods there, the farmers got themselves fed, and the professional beggars profitted from the increased public concern. Jak is an old hand, and he can't remember a time when pickings have been so good, or rents have gone up so steeply.
"Thank 'ee kindly, master. Six mouths to feed!" He affects a provincial accent for the traveller.
"Cut it out, old man, and let's have the latest news," replies the fellow in an affable tone. "There's a silver piece for you if you've anything worth the telling." Jak's eyes grow cunning. "A silver piece!" he exclaims in disbelief. "By the time I've told you all I know, I could have earned several Gold!"
"Haggle any longer, and you'll have lost another Gold," smiles the stranger, a Valdrean by his accent. "Five Silver now, and another five if it's worth it."
"Five now, and make it a full Gold for the true story of New Heaven."
"I'll be the judge of what it's worth."
"Okay, okay. It was like this, right,..."
Beggars are natural storytellers, and Jak fancies himself as one of the best. In Hapral or one of them Southern Cities, he might have been a Rumourmonger, but in Bjarmigen you can't afford to specialise. So he tells the Valdrean about New Heaven, avoiding all but strictly necessary embellishment, and keeping an eye on the Clerics passing by unsolicited.
"Them Gods, and 'igher Powers (Bless 'em!) were having a hard time of it here on Earth." he says. "They came from Heaven, and here They were stuck in the middle of this stinking city. They tried to get a little peace for Themselves in the private bits of Their Temples, where They had some real nice gardens, and suchlike. But people just kept barging in on Them, to ask for favours, and so on. And being Good Gods, right, They couldn't just tell them to piss off, now could They?
"You see, all the Gods of Peace on Earth wanted was a little peace. So They could contemplate 'igher things, as Gods is wont to do. But there was nowhere here in Bjarmigen They could find it.
"So ESCUS, Who's a practical, Northern sort of God, approaches THE CONTROLLER OF THE PLANES in His Magic Palace that hangs between Everywhere and Nowhere, and ESCUS says to Him, 'CONTROLLER, old friend, You've got to help Us. The other Gods of Good and I, and all Our Angelic 'osts, We're going spare! Now Bjarmigen is a nice city, right, full of sensible people who worship Me, but sometimes We just need somewhere to relax and get away from it all. Can You help, CONTROLLER old mate?'
"'No problem, ESCUS, My Good friend,' says THE CONTROLLER, 'I've just the place for You Gods of Good. I got this new Plane out in My back yard that I was working on for a customer.'
"But that's another story. Anyway, what THE CONTROLLER said was that this other guy hadn't paid Him the souls like he promised, so He'd put the Plane in storage. But ESCUS would be doing Him a favour in taking it off His hands. It wasn't that He needed the space: there's always plenty of room in the Palace of the Planes, but He hated to see His handiwork go to waste. Because THE CONTROLLER, He's a craftsman.
"So He gave ESCUS the new Plane, and a Magic Gate so that He and the others could get in and out of it at will. And 'Thank You CONTROLLER' said ESCUS 'that's one I owe You.' Then He returned here to Bjarmigen.
"And you guessed it; ESCUS and the others They decided to call this new Plane 'New Heaven', because that was what They made it. It was one of THE CONTROLLER's specials, and it was as big (or as small) as you built it. So the 'eavenly 'ost They set about building a New Heaven in there that would be even more glorious than the Heaven They had lost. A wondrous place it was. CAERULAS was with Them, so, by THE CONTROLLER's Magic, the Sun always shone there, even though He was also shining on the World. They made the grass green, the flowers bright, and the birds sing. There it was always Spring: not like this freezing town. Angels may be resistant to cold, but They feel it too, and it's bloody chilly having to wander round in those skimpy white robes.
"All the Gods of Good: the ones of Peace on Earth, ESCUS and SHELDA were in there. Plus CAERULAS was helping, but not MIRIMI 'cause She and the Sun never see eye to eye on anything: a right contrary lass is Lady Moon. All the Demigods was involved too, except for one, and She was a real important one for what They had in mind. Have you ever heard of MIORA? She's Demigoddess of Reconstruction, you see, so They really needed Her help. 'Cause like nothing gets rebuilt without Her.
"But MIORA She's Good Lawful, and is all for rebuilding things, but She likes them to be exactly as they was before. And this was a 'New' Heaven, you see. So She goes and has a word with KOROS, up there in the House of Karma, and She tells Him/Her how She's worried.
"'You did right to come to Me, MIORA My child', says KOROS (Who talks down to absolutely everyone, even other Gods, and MIORA's only a Demigod). 'I'm downright concerned about this New Heaven business. It's Tipping The Balance, that's what it is!'
"'How do You mean, O Great KOROS?' says MIORA, tryin' to keep Him/Her sweet.
"'What I mean is this!' booms KOROS. 'All those Powers of Good all crowded in that Plane, and gone out of the World. No Good will come of it for the rest of Us, You mark My words girl!'
"'I see...' thinks MIORA. So She thanks KOROS, tells Him/Her She's with Him/Her on this one, and hurries back to Bjarmigen. There She tells the others what KOROS has said, and tries to talk Them out of it. But Gods is stubborn, 'specially the Lawful ones, and anyway They reckon KOROS is overreacting. 'Look, My dear,' says FIDAR (Who's MIORA's boss), 'We'll still be around doing Good like We always do. We just want somewhere to put Our feet up between answering Communes and filling up Corn-you-cope-ee-aye.'
"But MIORA wasn't convinced. She reckons KOROS knows a thing or two about The Balance and all that meta-fizzical stuff, so She tells FIDAR, real polite like, that She'll just sit this one out, if it's all the same to Them.
"Of course, it wasn't. They had a bit of difficulty with the re-building-like-Heaven side without Her, and it's really awkward for Them, having disagreements between Good / Lawful Gods and Goddesses. The last bust-up, over Rockholme, was bad enough.
"Then what happened next but the Men of Heaven turned up at the TPE. Kyarlin was leading them. He's the one who won the duels in Valdran and got the Sword, Cumarel. A Man of SARAN, and the smart money says he's the next Emperor (Remember where you heard it first!). With him was Jafat, SHELDA's Champion, who wears the legend'ry Armour of Murio, which no-one knows what it does (There's another story...). Also there was Janice, a KOROS hotshot Magic-User, who'd been along and seen MIORA once already, and had gone back and told Kyarlin what was up, plus her friend Mildor, another big KOROS Champion. He's that elf who's now Lord High Executioner in Valdran: likes chopping humans' heads off, they say. Plus they had their usual bunch of Planists and support team.
"Anyway, those Men of Heaven used to live up there with the Gods, and they don't give a shit. They come right out, and say what they think, even if they're talking to a God or a Demigod. Now all those Men of KOROS were on a Mission for KOROS here, and SARAN had now got in on the act too. She reckoned here was a golden opportunity to take those Gods of Peace on Earth down a peg or two. Though They're old allies, She's really a warlike one, is SARAN, and it's bad for Her cause to have too much Peace spread around Her Empire.
"So the Men of Heaven had a long word with MIORA, and then went round all the Temples saying how they was real concerned about The Balance, and couldn't the Gods perhaps think again? Now this was all very embarrassing for the Gods. At least MIORA kept pretty quiet, but this lot were blabbing all over the TPE.
"ESCUS even got Harrek to have a word with Kyarlin, but the Men of Heaven still wouldn't drop it. Now the Gods of Good really couldn't have them going on about how They was disturbin' KOROS' Balance all over Bjarmigen, so They decided They would have to speak to Kyarlin and his pals personally. So They invited the Men of Heaven to come and see Them in New Heaven, so as They could show them there was nothing to worry 'bout.
"But this was what Kyarlin had been waiting for. Because the Men of SARAN and KOROS weren't really concerned about New Heaven at all. The place where The Balance had actually tipped over was in Rockholme, which nobody had been able to contact for some time (though why anyone'd want to beats me). You see things had got so bad in Rockholme that it had gone totally Evil. This didn't suit KOROS at all, and what He/She was after, you see, was some Good to even things up. SARAN was in on it, 'cause She had Her own plans for Rockholme, and didn't like ALTIS an' His lot having it all to Themselves. Plus, like I said, She reckoned She could stir up some trouble for ESCUS and His friends.
"So no sooner has Kyarlin set foot in New Heaven, and told ESCUS how nice the birds and trees and stuff is, than he tips the wink to his hotshot Planist. Now this guy, name of Revlon, all of a sudden just opens up this new Magic Gate of his own, straight to Rockholme.
"All Hell then breaks loose. Whoosh! All that Goodness and Niceness what the Gods had been building up for Themselves in New Heaven rushes out, and all this Evil and Nastiness from outta Rockholme rushes in (and it's real Evil and Nasty there by now, I can tell you). ESCUS is real mad with Kyarlin, but what can He do? He's the God of Good after all, and Kyarlin's SARAN's new golden boy. He can hardly bump him off, now can He? 'Specially not in New Heaven.
"Mind you, it's not New Heaven any more, is it? THE CONTROLLER hadn't built it to take all this strain, and it busts right open. All those new Temples and Palaces and stuff that the Gods had been building fall right out of it, straight back where they came from: into Their own Temples in the TPE and down there in Mem. Park. It made the most goddawful bang, and the whole city shook like, as they hit. And you should have heard those Gods and Angels scream Their annoyance! Mind you, you probably did, all the way back in Valdran.
"But this is the really weird thing. There wasn't any damage done to any of those Temples. Maybe the odd crack in a wall, here and there, and a few of them cut-glass goblets smashed, but everything just slotted right in like it had been built to fit all along. Strange, eh? Now ESCUS says this is what They planned all along, and They'd just been doing all the building work out of the way. 'New Heaven on Earth' They're callin' it now. But you an' I know better eh?
"Now is that worth two Gold or what?"
"Hmm..." muses the stranger. "Mostly stuff one can pick up on any street corner, and some lively bits of imagination, but you've got a couple of tidbits I hadn't come across before. Here's your one Gold as we agreed. A good site you've got here: Clerics never can keep their mouths shut. I'll leave you to it, thanks."
He tosses the Gold piece to the beggar, who catches it faster than a Rockholmer after a rat. Thorold then weaves his way back through the crowds, snow and slush to Castle Bjarmigen, there to report his intelligence to King Bjorn.
Your plots are requested for Spring 2502.
© P.R. Wild, 26 November 1991
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