Year 349 after the War of the Gods, Summer

Near Ardport, Border region of the Empire

“Their language - the first, primordial language - spoken when the river of time was a mere trickle; spoken defiance against their creators, an echo in their grave; a thunder-roar, as the final word of the titans, swallowed in stone, a whisper. Every syllable filled with meaning, a kingdom in a word, a world in a sentence. If we want to even hope to understand them, we have to understand their language first. We cannot understand which we do not have the words to describe. But when we possess those words, it allows new possibilities, new paths of thought. Language is a key to new ideas. To worlds, we cannot yet fathom. With the right words we will build towers of glass, cast liquid stone and build cities from it, look up to the stars and reach for them, look down inside ourselves in understanding. Gain power over the smallest part of this world and bend it to our will. In their language we find their power. And in their power we find what was forgotten.”

He strode up and down in front of the table. He had given her this exact lecture many times already, but it was important that she truly understood what he was saying - what he wanted to teach her; had to teach her. Even if that meant she had to learn every word by heart.

“And when we grasp their language and can understand it, then we can face them. And in wonder and terror avert our eyes. For even what we may understand will still hold unspeakable power over us. Can lure, can drive, can beg. In their form lies the promise of power.”

Would this be the day he finally opened that gate for her and showed her the way into that world? His student turned the page in the book in front of her. If she was listening ot him, it was with only one ear at best. A gigantic map stretched across both pages. The northern Grave of Titans. The provinces of Tamset and Sahadye. The new capital of Qarahad on their border. Arigarðr, Avnborg and Al-Mahr to the north. The fortress Daraj to the south. Many posts that had long turned to ruins. Borders that had been drawn and redrawn time and time again over these last three hundred years. And the all-encompassing scarred landscape; all-furrowing valleys, stone ridges, gorges, plateaus; witness to a conflict the likes of which the world should never be forced to see again. All-despising, all-consuming.

Reconstruction by Sunna Manaheres described the first hundred years following the War of the Gods as a golden age, healing the wounds torn by long years of enmity. In the two hundred years that passed since then… Well, the mage wasn’t so sure.

The student’s eyes travelled the page; from city to city, river to river, fortress to fortress. She was intelligent, inquisitive and curious. For those reasons he had decided to take her on; had taken her in off the streets of Ardport. He needed a successor. But she wasn’t listening, was living inside her own little world, was jumping chaotically from topic to topic, subject to subject. History to geography to mathematics to astronomy to medicine. She had no patience. It was difficult teaching her.

“The Grave of Titans is a prime example”, he tried. She looked up at him as if it were the first sentence even reaching through to her. “Are you listening or am I doing all this for my own amusement?”

He saw it in the twitching of her eyelids: She suppressed rolling her eyes. “Please, master, this is the same lecture you’ve given me at least a hundred times.”

“Then why do I still feel like I’m not getting through to you?”

“So, please? What is the Grave of Titans a prime example for? A force which can reshape entire stretches of land”, she imitated his voice. “Which allows for the impossible.”

That child… Was she even taking her tutelage seriously? He still saw that she had it in her, but these last years the doubts had grown if it might ever find the way to the surface. Whether he could lure it to the surface. Potential was all well and good but if it remained untapped, it was worth nothing.

“The Grave of Titans is a prime example for the power we could wield if we had the language to understand it. That you could wield if you would listen to me. It wasn’t gods who formed this region. It was souls and bodies of flesh and blood like you and I. But they had the language to understand this world and the forces acting within it. The currents flowing through it, the nets keeping it together. The words to describe what is happening behind the screen. The light, the puppet, the puppeteer. And that is what I’m trying to teach you. If you would just listen.”

She wasn’t the first student he had taken on in all this time, but she would be his last, of that he was certain. He had to hurry. Sometimes he wondered what became of the others he had never heard of again, but most of the time he told himself it was better not knowing.

“It’s always about power or force… But I’ll play along: How do I get such power?”

He inhaled deeply. Exhaled. If he had wanted to hear a question from her, that was not it. But at least she was listening. It seemed the best he could hope for at the moment. “Through understanding.” Would he open the gate for her today? Maybe she would understand then? He wasn’t even sure if she was ready. The others weren’t. But he had already been waiting too long. He couldn’t put it off any longer. Even if he did, there was still a long way ahead of her and he wanted to keep her company for as long as he could.

He sat down opposite her at the table. He had made his decision, even if it stood on shaky legs. In the end it was a question of trust and he trusted her, he decided.

“It’s been eight years since I found you. During all that time, have you ever thought about magic? About weaving it yourself? About shaping the world around you with just a single thought? To learn that is why you’re here. I taught you all I can about the theoretics of this world. Or what you are willing to take in. Perhaps it’s time to move on to practice.”

The eyes of his student lit up. “Are you serious?”

“I would never joke about this. But I want you to understand that there is a price. We are a mere spark in this world, they are the vastness surrounding it. You will face them and if they accept you, the practical part of your education will begin.”

“What price? And what is that supposed to mean: if they accept me?”

Over folded hands he looked at her with a serious expression. “My power to weave magic is only borrowed from them. And you too will be granted it by them. Imagine it like such: Completely on your own, you would have to understand the movement of the stars and describe the laws of their orbits.It would take years and even then you would only achieve a fraction of it. Now imagine someone explaining it to you. But they have to be willing. And that depends on the price you are willing to pay. But that is between you and them.

He saw the thoughts working inside her mind. Thinking about what the price might be and whether it was worth it. Back then he had probably hesitated, too, when they had asked him in Osena to leave his friends behind and pay the undetermined price. Everything that had happened after that was history now. May her story take a better course than his. He wouldn’t rush her. 

“I will face them. I want, what they have to offer.” He had had his reasons to respond like this. She had hers.

He nodded. “I will prepare everything. And you should ensure, you’re ready, too. Remember what I told you: This will be your first glance into an unknown, unfathomable world.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. I will not disappoint you.”

“Good. Then go.”

As her master had ordered, she scurried out the library. Her eyes had glowed. Despite everything he had prepared her well. She would receive the Daevas with open arms. And them her. He saw himself one step close to securing his succession.

He had never taught her that much about the customs of the great elven families. Not because he hadn’t known any more but because he hadn’t deemed it necessary. Her life was dedicated to a fixed goal, had a fixed path now and he had only given her, what was in harmony with it. She would make an incense offering to the spirits and ask for strength and clarity. One of four prayers he had taught her.

He stood up and walked along the countless bookshelves in search of one particular work. As he walked, the voices of the innumerable books washed over him. They tugged at his mind. They talked at him, shouted at him, questioned him. He answered only a few. He missed the silence and seclusion in his mind, but those were the price of knowing the true nature of things. He hoped he had prepared his student well enough for what awaited her. Ones more powerful had been broken by it. Iora, the Windweaver who had wiped out her own cult. She had been a good friend and he hoped he would honour her through his student. Or lonesome Torren who commanded the mountain to collapse upon him. No one knew why he had done it. He hadn’t even told the mage what was going on inside him. He missed the old days in Osena.

He stroked the spines of the books he passed with his fingers. His companions. His kingdom. The part of his legacy he wasn’t ashamed of. And then he found what he was looking for. A book sat silently on the shelf; not demanding his attention, as if it was aware that he would come on his own if only it was patient. But perhaps it was foolish to attribute a personality to a book.

He placed the book on the small table at the center of the library. Blindly and on their own his hands found the right pages. Those same pages as countless times before. Paper yellowed by the years; smudged ink, the words barely legible but forever edged into his mind; and the numerous fingerprints of dried blood. Haphazardly spread across the two pages, overlapping earthy-brown stains a testimony to his life’s journey.

He had received this book from his master when he had left Osena. In the long years since then, he had annotated and added to it. So had his master before him. And so, perhaps, had his before him. The collective knowledge of a long lineage. One day, when she was ready, he would hand it on to his student; when he finally retired. Until that day, it was his path to the Daevas. His privilege.

In a small bowl he lit a handful of herbs. Breathed in the smoke. Initially just thin threads, they grew thicker and thicker until they filled his lungs. His eyelids fluttered and he began to move away from his body. Every breath a step away from this world.

“My masters, your servant requests your attention.”

They accepted. He bit the tip of his thumb bloody and pressed it to the paper. His key to this ancient but familiar place. The streets of a long-forgotten city. Without name. Without memory of the people who had once lived there. And when he stepped through the door, it was as if returning home after a long journey. And silence returned to his mind.

From up high they watched him; The Outer Ones, Daevas, Exiled Ones, Daimons, Gallûs. His gods. They followed his trek through these ancient streets of weathered stone, past long-decayed ruins of once magnificent buildings. He had seen them, back then, in all their beauty, their splendour. But as their disciples dwindled, all that melted away. The  blood mage missed the times when the walls gleamed golden, the sky was sapphire blue and the city pulsated with life. But even then he knew it for the illusion it was. Woven to comfort or encourage those taking their first steps in this world.

He silently greeted the equally silent figures that followed him on his journey. Those shadows his companion since he had entered the city. And as the old palaces, temples and castles, they too were but the undignified remains of a titan wasting away, without food, starving.

He stopped and shouted at the sky hanging above him like a faded painting; the white tatters of the clouds where the colour had already peeled off.

“Is that all my worth to you anymore? Have I not fulfilled your every wish? And you send these wretched creatures to speak to me? These three worthless souls who have died in your service - I was your gatekeeper!”

He turned and fixed his gaze on each of the figures who had followed him in turn. Letting them rest would have been more merciful. In each of them he saw the way they had died. The man on his left was burning. The skin stretched from the heat, cracked, charred, flesh melting from bone. Embers in his eyes, smoke in his throat. The one to his right,  a mass of splintered bone and distorted flesh, burst skin, punctured by ribs; smeared with blood. Red foam dripping from his face with every breath. The third, the middle one - it was more difficult with her. She stood before him, but not so her body. Without her mortal shell, everything was revealed and she stood proudly before him. Stood as if she felt superior.

The mage tilted his head. “And who were you to be given such honour?” A body torn from this world, from its existence. Not a single part of it left. Not even a memory remained in the world. No echo, no reverberation. What had she done that the masters had brought her back? “Did you fight for them? Back in the War of the Gods?”

He turned away from them. Despite everything, he had still served them for many years. Despite everything, this was still beneath him. “Only you are above me”, he shouted at the Daevas. “You are the only ones I will speak to.”

From the sand and in between the stones there began to emerge hundreds, thousands, countless beetles. All scraping chitin and jittering mandibles and twitching legs, they crawled over each other. Skittering here and there, congealing into a shape, growing up from the ground. A body of millions. Of carapace and six-legs and parts flitting around and the noise of a harvest being devoured and a village starving. Of a cloud of darkening sky without rain grew the figure and stood wordless before him.

“Have you decided to hear my request, masters?”

The answer was a whirring, a movement of thousand parts, an undulation. “As you know, I’ve had a student for eight years now. I would now like to ask you accept her into the circle of your disciples. She will be taught the art of blood magic in your name.”

Then he was back in his library and the noise in his mind also returned. He already missed the nameless city and its silence, but his task demanded him here. And he would fulfill it.