The Assassin King

38

In the Before-Time, a great battle was waged against the F’dor by the four remaining primordial races born of the elements,” Rath began. “Our race, the Brethren known to man as the Kith, banded together with the Serenel, the Mythlinus, and the Wyrmril, that which men call dragons. It was determined that unless these four races, separate and distrustful of one another, worked together and sacrificed some of what was most precious to them, the unbridled destructiveness of the F’dor would shatter the world. “Before this battle began, the F’dor managed to steal one of the first six eggs produced by the Progenitor Wyrm, the being that was mother and father to the race, and secreted the egg away in the bowels of the Earth beyond the fiery core, where it could never be found. The wyrmling from this egg was known to the dragon race as the First Child. The F’dor removed the heat from this wyrmling, allowing it to grow, unborn, perverting it, feeding it on the earth itself, until its mass began to become part of the heft of the world.”

“We have seen it,” Achmed said. “It still sleeps—Rhapsody wove a song of endless change around it, a pattern of confusion that she hoped would prevent any speaking of its name to be heard.”

Rath’s eyes of liquid black gleamed. “Let us hope you are right. From this Sleeping Child the F’dor harvested seven precious scales, and took the two more that served to protect its blind eyes. Because dragons have lore from each of the other elements, there was power in these scales that encompassed the entire color spectrum, the vibrations of light and musical tones that make up the magic of the universe. Each of the colors in the seven scales has a specific power attuned to its wave length, as well as a note in the scale, which are the visible and audible manifestations of those vibrations. As your Namer can tell you, there are many more manifestations that are neither visual nor audible. You know this yourself as well, Bolg king—you can feel them in your skin-web as each moment of the day passes. “The F’dor, therefore, were able to make use of these dragon scales to affect the material world which they otherwise could not be part of, because they were without form and noncorporeal. Thus, they had control of a complete color spectrum of seven, plus the two most powerful opposites, one black, representing Void, and one white, representing Life, from its eyes. They used these powers destructively, to scry, ignite volcanoes, shed blood, steal heat, and otherwise wreak havoc on the material world.

“It was for this reason the other primordial races joined together in the battle against the F’dor. For all that history relates this as if it were an obvious conflict, I can assure you that was not the case. While it may seem to you that the elements of starlight, earth, water, and wind are in opposition to that of fire, in fact they were all like siblings, more similar than they were disparate. This decision was undertaken in agony, not in triumph, nor in conquest; the pact to remove that which brought warmth and light to the world, and condemn those races to be less than they could have been in the mind of the Creator. For all that it was the only thing that can be done, we were all poorer as a result of it. This is lost lore, something that history, and even some who lived it, have forgotten.

“When the decision was finally made, it was determined that terrible sacrifice would be required from each of the four remaining races in order for it to come to pass. You know what it is that our race sacrificed, Bolg king—the sons of the wind had a unique ability to track and trace the movements of that which was noncorporeal, and so it was decided the tribe of Kith known as the Dhracians would serve as jailers, would give up their tie to the wind and their ability to walk the up-world, for the purpose of guarding the Vault. The Dhracians abandoned the wind that was their father, and moved forever to the black and airless quadrant of the Earth, a soulless, lifeless sector of the world to guard against that which would see the world in flames. “The dragons contributed most of the remaining Living Stone of the earth, their most prized possession, for the construction of the Vault to contain the F’dor. In the course of the battle, and the confinement of the F’dor, the scales were taken back from the demons. The Progenitor Wyrm, horrified at the desecration of his child, ripped seven similar scales from his own hide, for the purpose of being melded to the first set, to balance out their destructive power with the positive aspects of the same vibrations, the sharps to the flats of each note. The Progenitor sacrificed his life in the course of the battle, surrounding the fragile prison and Ending, becoming effectively a lead casing for the Vault, inert and totally devoid of any lore the demons could use. The seven colored scales were melded to the ones given by the Progenitor in the fiery core by the Seren who led the campaign. This group of scales, plus the white and black, became known as the Stolen Deck. “The remaining eggs hatched, producing the Five Daughters, known to the Wyrmril as the Guardians, the matriarchal wyrms who each protected one of the World Trees that grew at the sites where each of the five elements first appeared in the world. In order for the power of the Stolen Deck to be broken, each of these dragons was given one of the scales that had once been part of both their sibling and their father. The other four scales were given into the care of other beings in different parts of the world, to keep them as far apart as possible. This is referred to in the Prophecy of the Decks: That which was Stolen will be given freely’.” The Three exchanged a glance.

“Do you think that Elynsynos was still in possession of such a scale when she—up until now?” Rhapsody asked nervously.

“I would hope so,” Rath said. “Elsewise it is in other hands, and one of the Stolen Deck in the control of an evil entity could bring about the end of the world all by itself.”

“Ducky,” Grunthor muttered. “Just ducky.”

“All went well throughout the end of the Before-Time and into the First Age,” Rath continued, “until the day when a falling star crashed to Earth and shattered open the Vault. Some of the F’dor escaped and went upworld, chased by their Dhracian jailers, while others of the four primordial races sought to contain the F’dor and mend the Vault. Many of the race of dragons each contributed a scale to serve as a patch of sorts while the Vault was being resealed. These scales had powers in the color spectrum as well, and while they were not as powerful as the embryonic scales of the First Child, they were strong enough to hold the remaining F’dor at bay while their prison was restored. While I do not know exactly how many dragons contributed, there were at least forty-three identified scales that survived the rebuilding intact. These scales were gathered, and the dragons left them in the care of the Seren leader who led the undertaking, in case the Vault ever needed to be patched again. “The F’dor that escaped to the upworld sought the Stolen Deck, hoping to retrieve all of it, because the series of tones it produced was the True Name of the First Child, and would call the beast to life if it could be ‘spoken’ aloud. In addition, they desperately sought the black scale also, as it was a key that could open the Vault and free their imprisoned comrades. In the ensuing pursuit of the Dhracians, however, only one scale was ever recovered by a F’dor who had taken on a human host.

“I caught a whisper of your old name, Ysk, in the course of my searching for one of the Younger Pantheon. I was on the hunt for a demon named Krisaar, a brash and arrogant F’dor who had an even greater need for control than the members of his race were known for having. He survived the destruction of the Island of Serendair by making a pact with a soldier of similar ilk, exchanging eternal life of a sort for an agreed-upon parasitic arrangement. To my knowledge, this is the only time in the entire history of the Known World where a human being has voluntarily taken on a F’dor as its host.”

“The Waste o’ Breath,” Grunthor said.

“Michael,” Rhapsody whispered, as if the name itself caused a bad taste in her mouth. “The other scales, the ones donated by the dragons to seal the Vault, became known as the Given Deck. It was kept in the safekeeping of the Seren lineage for many generations, and the powers of the scales were recorded by the Seren Seers and Namers who could read them. Unfortunately, sometime in the Second Age they came into the possession of a Seren Namer who was cataloging them. This woman, Ave, fell victim to the solitary silver scale, the Fallen Moon, which was a mirror of endless reflection that distorted her view of the world. She then took it upon herself to mark the cards in a way that made them into a deck of prediction and power granting, and secreted them away among her tribe, where they remained in the hands of one Reader at a time. The same prophecy notes this action thus: That which was freely Given will be stolen.”

“I remember this vaguely from the old world,” Achmed said. “In the Gated City of Kingston, a market of thieves the likes of which I’ve never seen again, there was such a Seren woman. She was almost impossible to find if you were looking for her, but if you were not, you might perchance come upon her in a booth or behind a tent. She would offer you a reading from her deck in exchange for gold.”

“Did you ever take her up on it?” Rhapsody asked. Achmed gestured impatiently at Rath. “Go on,” he said, ignoring her. “After many centuries a Nain explorer and historian met up with the last of the great Readers, Sharra, who taught him about the deck. It became an obsession of his to reclaim the deck and return each of the scales to the dragon who donated it, in return for which he received a story for a book he was writing. Other scales remained scattered across the world, where they were hidden, used, destroyed, or fell into the hands of people who would eventually come to bring them together—to terrible ends. One such person was the demon’s host I told you of, the one you called Michael. The Faorina child he had fathered of a Seren woman was believed to have inherited the power of her tribe to read the scales; if that child survived, those parts of the Decks are still out in the world, where they might be put to unimaginable purposes.”

“More likely they are at the bottom of the sea,” Achmed said. “It’s always pretty to think so,” said Rath darkly. “In my experience, those scales never quietly go away. They seem to have remarkable power to stay where they will do the most damage, will cause the most destruction, as if the taint of the F’dor is on them still.”

“What do they look like?” Grunthor asked. “So’s we know ’em if we see ’em.”

“The scales are of irregular size,” said Rath. “All of them are oval and most are tattered finely at the edges. They appear gray or colorless until tilted or exposed to light, where then-color can be discerned, and often appear prismatic, signifying all the lore that is within each of them. “I have never actually seen any of the scales of the Stolen Deck. It was considered far too sacred and terrible to be viewed by any other than the entities who were asked to guard it. I was told of the symbology of each of the scales, however, as were the other Gaol, so we would know how to identify them should we come across them in our travels. The white scale, one of the two most powerful and awful of the Stolen Deck, was said to have no image inscribed upon it at all. It symbolized Life or Creation, and was thought by many to be a picture of the very face of God. Its counterpart, the black scale, had inscribed upon it a picture of a key, a terrible harbinger of its power to open the Vault itself. It symbolized Void or destruction; as you can surmise, it had the power to bring about both of those things to an unimaginable magnitude. “The rest of the scales followed the pattern of the color palette, attuned to the lore you already know. The red scale was inscribed with a drop of blood, the orange scale flames, the yellow had an image of the sun rising or setting, depending upon whether it was the concave aspect, the original scale torn from the First Child, or the convex aspect, donated to the world from the hide of its parent. Likewise, the green scale showed an image of the earth, either clear or obscured, as did the blue scale, inscribed with the image of an eye surrounded by clouds or covered with them. The indigo scale, about which the least is known, was said to have been inscribed with a picture of a comet, in the old lore signifying change of great magnitude; hence the appellation Night Stayer or Night Bringer, indicating its power to bring about tremendous change, or to prevent it.”

“Makes me wish we had that one right now,” said Rhapsody.

“Hardly,” said Rath dryly. “The power that exists in those scales could cause even those who seek to save the Earth to bring about harm, intentionally or otherwise. History is littered with accounts of those of good intent and purpose who were dragged to stray by the power of those scales. “Finally, there was the violet scale. It was said to have been inscribed with the image of the throne, and it was the only scale that had but one side. Although the Progenitor Wyrm donated seven scales, for whatever reason that final note in the spectrum only had one tone, not a flat nor sharp. It was known as The New Beginning. I do not know for certain, but I suspect that any being who comes into power unexpectedly or inexplicably might have control of this scale, or at least had its power utilized on his behalf.”

The three exhaled simultaneously.

“Talquist, perhaps,” Achmed said.

“Let’s hope not,” Rath said.

“And the Given Deck?” Rhapsody asked. “Did you ever come upon any of those?”

The Dhracian shook his head. “I have seen some of them,” he said, “but that was before the Seren Reader defiled them. The sole silver one was the Fallen Moon, the one whose misdirection allowed Ave to desecrate them in the first place. I believe there was one scale for each of the five trees that grow at the birthplaces of Time: Sagia, the tree of the stars which now is gone from the world; Ashra, the tree of pure elemental fire; Eucos, known as the Cloud Catcher, the tree of living air; Frothta, the tree of water which grows beneath the sea; and, of course, the Great White Tree. There may even be one for Bloodthorn, the evil vinelike tree of thorns that has its roots in the Vault itself. There are others—I only know of a few: the Forgotten City, the Endless Mountains, the Golden Measure, the Molten River, the Broken Plate, the Thief Queen, the Infant, Breath, Missive, the Time Scissors. I only know of any of these because I once read pieces of The Book of All Human Knowledge, the tome written by that Nain historian. I believe it was lost at sea centuries ago, brought to the shores of this world by the Third Cymrian Fleet, where it drowned in their shipwreck. “This new entity, the one you call Michael,” Rath went on, “both man and demon, rose in worldly political power as the centuries progressed, finally becoming the Baron of Argault, one of the most powerful magnates in the shipping world on the other side of the Wide Central Sea. It was he whom I was following when I came to this place. He’d always managed to elude me by hiding near water, which any Dhracian will tell you is the bane of our existence when we are on the Hunt. His strategy was successful; while he operated in broad daylight, in the plain sight of the eyes of the world, his constant presence proximate to the sea kept him from my kirai.

“What is significant about this particular member of the Younger Pantheon was that his weakness was his need for control, coupled with his inability to maintain it over himself. Whether this was his human aspect or the demonic one is hard to say, because the man he chose as his host had a similar weakness.” Rhapsody shuddered, having been the recipient of that weakness.

“His shortcomings occasionally took the form of desires of the flesh, culminating in the worst of all of his conquests: a Seren woman, born of ancient blood, who had refugeed from the island to the shores of Argaut to avoid the Cataclysm. While most F’dor will never procreate, because it saps their power, breaks open their souls, or whatever passes for a soul, when they do, the host of this demon could not resist the opportunity to defile the woman, to impregnate her, which he did, gaining, I suppose, an ill-considered thrill at the tarnishing of the one lore, ether, that was older and more powerful than his own lore of black fire. The result was an unbelievable freak of nature, an entity known as a Faorina, a denatured F’dor. There are very few examples of them in the world, not only because the demons themselves are jealous of their own power, but because those that are actually born usually do not survive. Most worrisome, the woman who bore this child and died because of it was a Reader, one of the tribe of Seren priestesses that is charged with the protection of and the ability to read the scales. If she brought any of them with her from the old world, from the Lost Island before it sank into the waves, those scales fell into the hands of the man who ravaged her. And her child was thought to have inherited her ability to read them.

“I believe that man made use of a blue scale, perhaps even the blue scale of the Stolen Deck, to hide from the hunters of the wind. For a moment I tasted his signal, his vibration, coming from this place, as if he had lost the scale for a moment, but now it is gone again. One thing you should know, Bolg king, is that when I was making my way to this place in search of him, I had to slip between an armada of ships of all types, pirate vessels, merchant carriers, even warships, all massing in a great blockade far out of sight of the coastline off the western shore of your continent. I crossed the damnable sea in little more than a rowboat to escape their notice. But they gather; the Baron of Argaut had an impressive fleet of shipping vessels, which he maintained by being in league with a far-flung band of pirate ships.” He stopped, brought to silence by the look of horror on Rhapsody’s face. “So if in fact the one you called Michael, the Wind of Death, brought any of those scales with him to the shores of this land, and if they survived the wave that took him from the upworld and into the depths of the sea, and if by some freakish twist of fate they are in the hands of your enemies now, you are fighting not only the greed and lust for power that has been in existence since the dawn of Time in all men, but a far deeper, far more malicious, avaricious, and deadly hatred, a destructive primal power born at the beginning of Time for which there is no antidote, nothing to allay it.

“And if this is so, I would say you have your work cut out for you.”