by GJ Kelly
It was Gawain who spoke next, softly, seeing the wizard’s shoulder’s slumping, once more on the precipice of mind-numbing grief.
“What was the crystal chamber Eljon spoke of?”
“I know not,” Allazar sighed. “It was sealed by his hand and I had not the heart to open it. A room of rock-crystal, I daresay, constructed to deny mystic intrusion. Perhaps a place for meditation, I do not know.”
“He said the shadow-creature could not penetrate its walls?”
“He said the light there was too bright. It burned him, I think. Like the rock-Aknid’s crystals reflected and refracted my Candle’s energies, the crystal chamber must have refracted and reflected Sardor Eljon’s. The emanations he must have been exposed to, waiting in there for so long…” Allazar shook his head, with great sorrow.
“He said elves done it, melord. How could elves do such a thing? How could wizards let ‘em?”
“I don’t know, Ognorm,” Gawain replied. “I don’t know.”
Allazar shifted, and something flashed in his hands. The gold-encased book he had been given, glinting in the moonlight.
“What is it?” Gawain whispered, almost fearing the answer.
“’Tis a book, inscribed in goldpaper. It is very old, by the feel of it, edges and corners worn smooth. It is heavy. To use so much goldpaper and to bind it thus, it must be very important.”
“What does it say?”
“I am afraid to open it, Gawain. The inscription on its cover declares it is The Book of Sardor, and I am afraid to open it. You are my king, and I am the First Wizard of Raheen. Eljon called me the Last Sardor. If I open this… I do not know what I shall become.”
“If you open the book you shall become wiser, I think,” Gawain declared. “That is the power of books, after all. Did Eljon not say all would become clearer, when you read the book?”
Allazar sighed, and nodded, and shifted the book in his hands as if to open it.
“But,” Gawain added hastily, “If you prefer to wait for daylight to save the strain on your eyes…?”
The wizard rubbed the Dymendin, and it began to glow faintly with the Light of Aemon.
“Ah,” Gawain nodded, and they watched, eyes wide, as Allazar opened the goldpaper volume, and began to read aloud in the common tongue the words he read inscribed in the language of the D’ith…
The Book of Sardor
I, Durminenn Meritus, Master of Sek and North Sardorian of D’ith Hallencloister, do hereby solemnly attest and affirm that the contents of this tome are a true account of events witnessed by me, and that I, by my own hand and stylum auricum, committed here for all time in goldpaper those events in this, The Book of Sardor.
That I have chosen such a durable, precious, and uncommon means of passing this knowledge from my days to yours should of itself alone testify to the gravitas of the content, though, my brethren, once you have read and understood the nature of this work, there shall surely be no doubt as to the veracity of this foretelling, your doom, and the world’s ending.
The duties of all Sardorians are well known both by the Council of Sek and by each Sardor himself, and they are of course meticulously detailed elsewhere. The keys which admit the bearers to the final vault are likewise well known, and for good reason has it become tradition for them to be worn about the neck of the four Sardorians as a badge of their office, no other outward symbol of authority marking them apart from any other Master of Sek.
Yet now it falls to me to add to the burden of all who come after me. Now it falls to me to impose upon all who wear the key about their neck, as I do, this knowledge, this dread, and with it, to impose upon you all a most solemn and secret undertaking. Now it falls to me to commence a new tradition, and one known only to he who wears the key. From this day, these words shall be seen and known only by those who sit at the Cardinal Points of the D’ith Council of Sek, until the world’s ending, when all seals shall fail, all vaults be opened, all knowledge rendered dust and ashes, reason destroyed, the lights of wisdom snuffed as candles in a gale of darken days returned.
Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.
Here then are the impositions, and though you be Masters of Sek and thus possess the discipline of the mind necessary for the constraint of Staff powers, rites, fires, bindings and sundry mystic lore, I beg you do not close your minds; rather, keep them open, as open as your hands when you accepted this secret Book from your predecessor on your day of Ascension.
Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.
Admit no-one to this knowledge save your successor.
Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.
Every book and every parchment, paper, scrap or scroll passed to the Library of D’ith here in Hallencloister shall be copied, secretly, and thence in secrecy taken north, and sealed there in tunnels beneath the mount of black pyrestone known by those who dwell there as Crownmount.
Seed the lands, my brothers, with brethren of wand, rod and staff taught well the ways of the D’ith, that they may stand with faith to the fore in time of great need, and against the darkness which is to come.
Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.
Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.
Those then are the impositions.
Here then are the reasons for them:
It was well beyond the midnight hour when I was summoned from my reading-chamber to attend Master Benithet in his cell high in the eastern tower of Hallencloister. Benithet, renowned since boyhood as a dream-seer, had been labouring three days in a deep and troubled sleep from which he could not be roused either by mystic or common means. He was ancient then, and kept himself far from the mysteries of Hallencloister which occupy all our daily lives, preferring to sit alone atop the east tower gazing out towards the peaceful lands of Arrunshear; though on occasion he was seen casting fearful glances in other directions as if observing enemies gathering all about us.
Before the infirmities of age drew him away from teaching and study and up into his lonely tower, Master Benithet himself wrote a book he curiously entitled “Sepulchreum Vaticinatum” which contains sixty-four of his dream-prophecies, all of which came to pass after publication as authenticated by the Council of Sek in a later appendix to that work. At a plenary session of Hallencloister Governance (mxv.eo.110 qv) attended by all above the rank of Met in Hallencloister, Master Benithet was granted the title D’ith Vaticinator and declared a Source Unimpeachable.
Thus it was with considerable alarm that I made my way across the grand courtyard to the eastern tower, and began the steep climb to Benithet’s chamber, alone, in accordance with his wishes. Benithet was old, as I have noted, and not once in all my years in Hallencloister had the D’ith Vaticinator lain abed dream-seeing for more than a day, his visions coming always in daytime.
My alarm was greatly heightened when, upon knocking on his chamber door, I heard a cry from within to advance with caution, and on opening the door, saw Benithet still lying upon the stone table he calls bed and good for his aged back, his staff sparking and pointed directly at me.
“Master Benithet!” I cried, “It is I, your old friend, Durminenn, come in answer to your call! Put down your staff, good Master, lest one of us be burned by its fire.”
“Durminenn? Sardor Durminenn? Who’s that with you! In the shadows!”
“No-one, my old friend, I am alone, as you stipulated when you sent the boy to summon me.”
“Ah, my eyes, curse my age-addled eyes! It is dark and I see not well… but forgive an old fool… these days, Aemon’s Light and Aemon’s Fire are easily confused by my failing mind!”
“Then allow me to light the hall, old friend,” said I, and lit for him an Aemon’s Light to show the way empty behind me, and he nodding his gratitude laid his staff to rest beside him.
I closed the door and sealed it at his request, and sat where he indicated upon the only chair in the room, close enough to his bedside to hear the rattle and wheeze of his age
d breathing. A lamp lit and shuttered narrow, I observed his eyes, wide and wild with dread, flicking this way and that as if seeing ghosts all about us in the gloom.
“We are doomed!” he whispered, his voice quavering, and he clutched my arm with a bony claw of a hand, the grip surprisingly strong and I confess, a little painful.
“Doomed how? Doomed why?” I gasped.
“I have seen the world’s ending! In fire, and in dust! I have seen the brethren razed by fire! I have seen the brethren touched by darkness fall in classroom, cloister, cell and vault! All our work! All our brothers! All our knowledge rendered dust and ashes and decay!”
At this last, his eyes wild and rolling, he coughed, and gasped for breath, and tried to raise himself up. I helped him to sit, propped against the cold stone wall of the tower, a flat and yellowed pillow behind him against the chill. He was light and dry as bones, and I feared those bones might break in my arms while he settled, and I wrapped a blanket about him.
“I saw fire come!” he gasped, his eyes flicking to the door and to the narrow slit of the window behind me, his voice never more than a whisper. “I saw it come in a gilded cask born by elves like brigands in the dead of night. I saw the cask placed upon water and the brigands melt away. I saw the gates of the citadel sealed, unbreakable! And I saw the cask upon the water blossom like a flower in the daytime, and from it, the foulest of creatures and the foulest of fiery hearts emerged! The one disappeared in the cleansing light of day, the other, oh the other!”
And here, Benithet began to weep, as the though the last juices of his life were slipping from his eyes, as unstoppable as grains of sand held in a desperate fist.
“Oh Sardor Durminenn… I saw the fiery heart glow, and the brethren nearby fresh from battering the gates with their staves approached in curiosity and gazed in horror at the heart of that flower! Never have I seen such a foul fire burn without flame! Those nearest cried out, their flesh mottled and peeling from their bones! Shields of Baramenn failed! None could approach to close up the petals of that evil flower… The sun rose, and at noon, fire blossomed anew, lightning, putrid brown like caked blood, arced and danced, striking down all those who came near! Wood burned! Blue men burned! The brethren burned!”
“Blue men?” I asked, confused and more than a little terrified.
“Blue men!” he insisted, his hands wringing beneath the blanket. “Blue men! So many of them! They burned! Oh Sardor, they all burned to ashes!”
“When? When is this to come to pass?” I heard myself demanding in my dread, but my words moved him not, lost as he was in the memory of his visions of blue men and brethren burning.
“Darkness came, and the fires died,” he announced softly, as though he were reading to a child, but then his features clouded, and his eyes became wild again. “But death came with it! Darkness, in the shadows! Flitting here! A touch there! And there! And death making dust of our brothers! I saw them gathered in the dining hall, the boys, and the pat, and the pat-Met, lamps and wands and Rods of Aemon lit but to no avail! Death passes beneath the long tables! They do not see it! They do not see it! It moved so swiftly through the shadows there, I saw them die in their dozens!”
He fell quiet then, and seemed unaware of my presence. I gave him water, and spoke to him, quietly, uttering feeble words I hoped might keep him from the abyss, his eyes though clouded still wild, still seeing the horrors of his dreaming. He wet himself, oblivious, and I removed the sopping blanket and nightgown, and found in a hall cupboard dry bedding, and made him as comfortable as I could. An hour later, or perhaps two, his senses returned, and he recognised me.
“We are doomed, Durminenn,” he whispered. “All here will be dust and ashes. Everything we know, everything we have worked for.”
“Can we save nothing?”
“Save how? It is the world’s ending.”
“The elves have built a mighty tower, in the forest, at Ostinath. Toorsen of the elven brethren of the Viell has done this. Surely we can with his aid save our work, send it there to the tower for safekeeping?”
But his eyes widened further still and he shook his head so violently I thought his frail and bony neck might snap with the shock of it.
“Toorsen is mad!”
“Mad how? Mad when? Was it not he who aided in the binding of Morloch beyond the Teeth?”
“Morloch is bound but not his will! Toorsen was drawn to the tower of Morloch’s dreaming and looked within before fleeing… Morloch planted in him like a seed his will and Toorsen bears that madness now and for all time. Trapped is Toorsen on the penumbral line twixt light and dark and bound there. The half-dark elf! The half-light! He is neither light nor shadow… Toorsen Grey-Elf! I saw him fly beyond the dragon of the north… I saw it! And I saw the fire come, Durminenn, I saw the fire come and it was borne in a barrel by elves like brigands in the night…”
And here, his hand shot from beneath the fresh blankets and I thought he reached for my throat. But instead his claw clutched at the robes beneath my chin and drew me forward with astonishing strength for such a small and wizened old man as he. He held me there, my eyes but inches from his, and through the clouds of his orbs I saw a light burning deep within their gleaming. A strange light, deep, and powerful.
“Never trust the Viell!” he spat, and there was a strength in his voice that made my spine shudder.
Then, he sighed, the light in his eyes faded, and he slumped back against the useless pillow, which offered as much comfort to him as his words did to me.
For hours after that, he rambled, one moment lucid, the next lost in the horror of the memories of his visions. Much of the time, though, he seemed not to know I was there, and so I sat, and with plain pencil and my notebook, I wrote down every word he uttered until, an hour before dawn, Master Benithet, D’ith Vaticinator, Source Unimpeachable, passed from this world.
I do not know how much time must pass before the destruction of the Hallencloister as seen by Benithet, but that the ending of our world shall come to pass is not in doubt. Many of his utterances in themselves mean little, but taken as a whole they paint a picture of indescribable horror which surely must take place far in our future, as I write now. He spoke of war in the north, and Morloch’s return from beyond the Teeth, though in guarded conversations with the wisest of the Council held later I confirmed my own belief that, it still being now so short a time since Morloch’s binding, any such return is surely far beyond the realms of probability, if not indeed beyond all possibility.
My interpretation of the sayings of Master Benithet before his passing is perhaps no more valid than any which might be formed by each and every Sardorian who succeeds me. The major signs of impending catastrophe appear to be these: a great loss in the west, a great loss in the south, a great war in the north, all occurring in the same generation of commonkind. I do not know the ‘blue men’ to whom Benithet referred, and no amount of study made discreetly at my quiet request has revealed so much as a hint as to their identity.
I append hereafter all the sayings of Master Benithet in the hours before his passing, but once again I adjure you all, my successors, to guard well these secrets and this book. The world cannot know of them, lest all order collapse and witless barbarism herald the ending of all commonkind.
Abandon hope, my brothers, for there is none.
Admit no-one to this knowledge save your successor.
Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.
Every book and every parchment, paper, scrap or scroll passed to the Library of D’ith here in Hallencloister shall be copied, secretly, and thence in secrecy taken north, and sealed there in tunnels beneath the mount of black pyrestone known by those who dwell there as Crownmount.
Seed the lands, my brothers, with brethren of wand, rod and staff taught well the ways of the D’ith, that they may stand with faith to the fore in time of great need, against the darkness which is to come.
Trust not the Viell of the forest realm.
Aband
on hope, my brothers, for there is none.
Here ends the Foreword of the Book of Sardor
Durminenn Meritus, Master of Sek and North Sardorian of D’ith Hallencloister
oOo
14. The Appendix
“There is more,” Allazar sighed, turning the gold leaves of the book, “Snatches of Benithet’s prophetic dream-seeing, pages of them… wait…”
A packet had slipped from the back of the book, and Allazar picked it up, and unfolded it.
“Oh,” he sighed. “Sardor Eljon has added his own account of events, on fine vellum.”
“Read it, Allazar, for all of us to hear. Let us all learn of the treachery of the ToorsenViell and the manner of the Hallencloister’s destruction.”
The wizard nodded, and in the light from his staff, gently held the sheets of vellum by the edges, as if rough treatment might cause the smooth and durable leaves to disappear before their eyes. He cleared a throat already constricted by unfathomable sorrow, drew in a breath, and continued reading aloud.
I, Eljon Meritus, Master of Sek and Sardorian of D’ith Hallencloister, do hereby solemnly attest and affirm that the contents of these pages are a true account of events witnessed by me, and that I, by my own hand, committed here for posterity those events in this final appendix to The Book of Sardor. There is no goldpaper to be found here in the crystal chamber of the North Tower where now I sit and write, awaiting the coming of the Last Sardor, in thunder and in lightning, as foreseen by Master Benithet so long ago.
The world has ended.
Its ending came as foretold, in fire, and in shadow.
Nothing could we do. Not even I, who knew what one day must come, could prepare for the ending, so quickly did it arrive and with such dreadful speed did it make manifest the visions of elder days. The signs were all there; the loss of Pellarn, the destruction of Raheen, and word come down from the north of a dark army rising and Morloch preparing to breach his binding. Still we thought we had time. I thought we had time.