Like The Wind... (Closed) [Archive]

Mordelain

10-26-13, 01:04 PM

Standing east of the mighty Zaileya Mountains, the Aduyya tower was testament to the desert island’s former glory; eternally guarded by enormous creatures and inveterate sandstorms. Fortunately, for Mordelain Saythrou, the former was but her mentor, one Suresh Nuhzar.

“This does not feel right,” he moaned.

Mordelain sighed. She knew his concerns for her and their task were well placed, but selfish desires drove him to speak. His was a large man, of ample girth and fondness for date loaf, and the trek across the desert had taken its toll on his physique. What little strength he had left, he spent making her feel as guilty as possible.

“Suresh, I told you countless times.” Mordelain turned. She rested her hands on slender hips and glared. “If you don’t want to come with me, don’t.”

It was a simple enough ultimatum. Suresh volunteered to join her on the assignment. She had not forced his hand. Irrakam, for them both, was just a heartbeat away if they wanted it to be.

“No. No, we’re here now,” he wheezed.He rested forward on his knees for a moment, quite done with stumbling over the rocks that crested the rise.Despite the sun on the sands being hot and torrid, in the shadows of the Zaileya mighty peaks cast calming shade over the ancient scattered ruins.

“Once we’re safely inside we can rest. We can find shelter. Try to find water.”She prodded the fur covered ox stomach on her hip furtively. She felt the strap stop pressing into her shoulder miles back, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

“Yes, let us do that. It would be foolish to die from thirst in a trap filled cavern.” He stuck his tongue out at her before he pressed ahead.They fell silent as they continued to climb the rise. Vultures circled overhead.

“Okay…,” she said at last. She offered her apology to break the ice. “Look. Maybe I was a little hasty taking this mission from the Cult.” She circled him like an excited puppy seeking affection and praise. “Is that what you want to hear?”

Suresh remained stone-faced.They rose up the incline and through a ravine before breaking out onto the Coradan Flats.Here, the Fallien civilisation had once held court.Alular, the capital of the island stretched from where they stood to the eastern seaboard.The merchant stopped. Eyes wide. Heart racing. Rocky fists balled.

“What. What is it?” Mordelain asked.

The desert was vast near the current capital Irrakam, but there were no dunes, or Nirrakal fields, or rivers to break the monotony.There was only desolation. Shattered ruins set against a sandy backdrop. Eight-hundred feet ahead one ruin stood out from the infinite tapestry. It was not obscured by the mirage tricks of the heat jinn or the winds.

“I thought the ruins of Aduyya were empty. Abandoned. Ramshackle,” he mused. Mordelain nodded silently in agreement. “They aren’t anymore…,” he continued. He pointed ahead. Mordelain felt a deep sense of foreboding.

Mordelain

10-26-13, 01:18 PM

The tower’s entrance stood atop a raised incline. Flanked with strange pillars and split atwain by earthquake and time. Jade plinths lined the rocky outcrop that it sprang from regally. Solid great chains anchored the tower’s shaft to the land. It was marvellous to behold amidst desolation all around it.

“Suresh. Promise me one thing,” commanded Mordelain. Her tone was stark. She clenched her fists to mimic her mentor’s tension.

“Anything,” he replied non-chalant. His tempestuous stare fixated on the tower’s tip.

“You must speak to nobody of what you see here. Nobody at all.” He turned and made to object. “It’s not open for discussion,” she continued. She cut him short before could object. “This Tower as you well know is a conduit. It converts the winds of magic, and the sun, into an energy source.” She pointed to its peak and sure enough, the orb in the cage of rock and rubble crackled with lightning.

The sound tore the air and Suresh whelped. The bolts grew in intensity until a storm formed around the tower, and the hairs on their necks bristled. To the Fallieni progenitors, it was a Hydroclast; a fusion of hydroelectric mechanics and mystical arts passed down through generations of shamans. Nobody alive in Fallien, save perhaps The Exile and Mordelain, knew precisely how it worked.

“It’s…,” he mumbled. “It’s remarkable.”

“Just promise me,” she snapped. “Promise me!” Turning him sharply to face her accusing glare, Mordelain bore into his resistant façade with all her strength.

“I promise, Mordelain. Get your hands off me,” he growled. He pulled away and folded his arms defensively across his chest. The orb responded to the emotion, and shot turquoise crackles of light down the chains into the rocks.

“There is only one person in Fallien that knows how to rebuild and work one of these structures.” The tension faded from her tired body as motherly concern grew. She turned to the tower, pointed to the bronze door, and dropped her hands to her sides. “Tell me everything that you know of the Exile who dwells here?”

Suresh pulled a small ornate gourd of date wine from his pure white robes and uncorked it. He sipped the sorry last dregs and shook the container. Tucking it away, he smacked his lips, composed his thoughts, and twirled the bushels of his moustache. His dark, walnut skin glistened with sweat, and his nostrils flared with heavy, contemplative breaths.

“The Exile?” He asked to make certain he understood her question. He glanced sideways at the il’Jhain and nodded when she did. "He is a sorcerer without equal, or so they say. Powerful beyond compare. Long since exiled in spirit and law from the western side of the mountains.”

It dawned on the merchant that although the legends and whispers of the eastern seaboard were well known, he had never asked why. What had Coradan done to deserve the harshest of crimes? What had the long forgotten tribes here done to deserve abandonment?

Mordelain

10-27-13, 03:44 PM

“That’s true. There is more to him than that.” Mordelain long hoped to tell Suresh history of Fallieni fall in better circumstances than these.

“I hope that means you are going to explain,” he encouraged.

Breaking ahead swiftly Mordelain made for the rising slope to the tower’s door. She struggled to recall detail of how to access the labyrinthine madness. A task she had not needed to perform for seven centuries. The last time she had…she shuddered with odious regret.

“The Exile was a member of the Valadon. The pre-Vhadya council, governing body of Alular before the fall.”

Suresh blinked. Long had elders been Fallieni way. Now, though, it was salvation, not parasitic enslavement. He trailed behind the il’Jhain at a much slower pace, sweating more with every step. The lightning seemed to heat the air, even though it arced far above their heads. The power scared him.

“That would make him…” The rumination was all Suresh needed to coax more information from her.

Mordelain stopped to adjust her satchel. She tied up her auburn hair, and made ready for whatever trials lie ahead of them. Her simple garb appeared more and more Fallieni as days went by.

“As ancient and old as I am,” she chuckled. She stepped up onto the slope. Her sandals gave her traction on precarious ground. She began to climb. As she passed the pillars, the upturned pyramids began to rotate. “He is one of Tama,” she said meekly. The words stung her.

Coradan came to Althanas as Mordelain’s mentor, her troupe master, and her idol. Together, they had acted as envoys to the pre-Vhadya Fallieni. They sought to use the isle and its potent industrial golden age as a bridge between Althanas and their homeworld, Junkyo. Suresh charged up the slope after her, huffing and puffing, and grumbling too.

“I thought you said you were the only one of your kind?” She had. She was. She is.

She spat a hateful gobbet forcibly formed from her dry parched lips. She reached the door, pressed her palm against it, and found her strength. Though the bronze stood in the direct sunlight, it was cool to the touch. It vibrated with a vibrancy Mordelain recognised as purely mechanical.

“I am,” she said bitterly. Her tone bridled with contempt. “Coradan ceased to be a member of our order the day he chose to turn his back...”

She closed her eyes. The pang of regret overwhelmed her and her dusty attire in her mind faded. She pictured herself younger, garbed in the troubadour’s vermillion robes, and brandishing the staff that started and ended the Cataclysm.

“We were atop the Orrery at the heart of Alular,” she explained. She recited what transpired to Suresh as it unfolded in her mind. “Coradan tried to veto the unanimous vote for anchoring the Kalithrism to Fallien. There was arguing, and then finally, one other member of the council joined him.”

“Who?” he asked, hanging to every word.

“The jihta Reva,” Mordelain cursed.

Mordelain

10-27-13, 08:08 PM

Reva Zaileya had been the most dominant of council members. Stunningly beautiful and viciously intelligent, Alular had risen to power much on her mind’s merit. The design of the tower and its brethren spread across the desert was primarily hers. The irony of it all astounded Mordelain, even today.

“Reva…Featherblood?” Suresh’s eyes widened to the size of an oasis. He stepped away, the implications world breaking to his isolated purview.

Mordelain nodded slowly, despite the visceral nature of her recollection. Now, the image shifted, and she witnessed Reva and Coradan arguing in the orrery’s heart – the sun chamber.

“They shouted until their lungs bled,” she whimpered. The raising of a staff, the hitting of a slave, and the shattering of bonds unfolded before her. Dark private torment. “I was powerless to stop them. I was too young, too naive, and too innocent to see what was happening.”

Coradan had already begun the connection process. As they argued, the Kalithrism was taking root in Fallien’s geography. Strands of magic tethered the nine worlds to Althanas, feeding off the gluttonous power of its premiere civilisation. It almost took hold. It almost happened. Then Reva played her trump card.

“Reva showed the council what Coradan was. She showed them where he had come from.”

Suresh gasped. “They shunned him as an outsider.”

Part of the Tama’s carefully wrought plan had been to act as envoys in secret. They presented themselves to the council, who had shielded them, and welcomed them as people of this world…of Althanas. Decades of work were swiftly undone the moment the word ‘Troubadour’ began to circulate through the city streets.

“A xenophobia that remains today!” The vision ended as Reva struck Coradan over the head with her staff and the pain recoiled into Mordelain’s tired body. She stumbled back, bolted her eyes open, and flailed her arms with a gasp.

For the first time in weeks, Suresh showed true, genuine, and altruistic concern. He leapt almost, steadied her, and veered around to her front. He came between the il’Jhain and the bronze door, a temporary anchor to the real world.

“You did nothing wrong,” he exclaimed.

Mordelain knew that all too well. She pushed him away gently, to the overbearing backdrop of lightning arcing through fetid air and nodded meekly.

“I still feel responsible,” she replied. She could have paid more attention. She could have questioned her mentor without feeling shy, reserved, and disrespectful.

“You are putting it right now. That is truly all that matters,” the merchant said as final authority on the matter. To change the subject and to give himself time to think, he turned on swollen heels. “You can start on the path to redemption divine by opening this sharmotah door.”

Mordelain allowed the distraction to take her mind off her self-doubt. She took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and took a defiant step towards the locked portal. Suresh was right, as ever he was. She had slain Reva. Judgement felt passed.

Mordelain

10-31-13, 05:36 PM

“You make it sound so simple,” she retorted. It was, but she was not giving him the satisfaction. “Step back,” she added glibly and with rancour. She glared at him, reinforcing the notion that this was her domain, her expertise, and her history living and breathing all around them.

Suresh waddled away. He teetered on the edge of the slope.

“What are you doing?” he asked intuitively. He tried to peer around her as she tinkered with something on her belt.

“The door is not locked but you cannot open it from the outside.”

Suresh blinked.

“I have to plane walk,” she added, as though she had eyes on the back of her head. “Whatever happens don’t let anyone in, or out of the tower.”

Suresh’s eyes widened and he reached out for her shoulder. It touched only air, and he cursed, very loudly, in the il’Jhain’s absence.

“Oh, ya bint el-haram,” he spat. He wished for more wine.

Mordelain always went off on her own wild adventures. Every time she left him holding the reigns of responsibility or as with the incident in the stables, the wrong end of a dagger. He winced at the memory, and rubbed a spot on his stomach where the aforementioned dagger had punctured his spleen.

“No…a whore would be too good…,” he corrected himself.

He fell silent as he became suddenly aware of the immensity of the surroundings. He turned to face the mountains and traced the jagged peaks east to west. From the eastern side of the island they were more resplendent than ever. On the slopes overhead, he made out skeletal trees and countless shale landfalls. Whatever existed on this side of Fallien pre-Vhadya had warped the landscape beyond reproach. He curled his lips into a wry smile.

“Such power she wielded,” he muttered. He meant Mordelain.

He reflected back on the times before Mordelain’s deranged idea to usurp Jya, restore Fallien, and gift the people of Irrakam cultural diversity. Then, he had firmly been in charge. He took a deep breath. Then, he had been the mentor, gifting his people decades of mercantile brilliance in the arid bazaar of the Outsider Quarter.

“Now I am the student again,” he said. He smiled; he was amused that everything had come solidly full-circle. He turned away from the mountains and began to examine the unique and alien structure of the tower.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Irrakam possessed a curious tapestry of architecture. From ancient Fallieni to Bedouin tents, it encompassed all the brilliance of the multitude of cultures that lived within its burgeoning walls. The tower, on the other hand, showed no sign of similarity. Even the western ruins showed no resemblance and that only put Suresh on edge. He frowned. The pyramids on the pillars still spiralled unnervingly, driven to motion by unseen forces.

“What hand, what symmetry, what purpose?” he asked with a pensive expression on his face. He was clearly standing firmly in the yesterday.

Mordelain

11-05-13, 05:33 PM

A few moments passed. Languishing silence that undid Suresh’s usual resolve. He continued to stare across the sands, bewildered by the alien feel of his homeland. This he determined was not his homeland, even though the sand was the same sand, the air the same air. He had wandered as far north as the Outlander’s Outpost and south to the shores of the Wide Sea.

“Not once did I ever see anything quite as strange,” he sighed.

The pyramids felt somehow connected to their arrival. Suresh tried to discern why, but lacked the knowledge to comprehend all the possibilities.

“I hope this job is…”

“Easy,” said a voice.

He clenched his fist, turned about, and produced a multi-barrelled pistol in a heartbeat.

“Peasy…” Mordelain stared down one of the barrels, eyebrow raised.

The merchant cocked the gun to one side and took a deep tense breath. His pulse was racing so hard he had to lean against a pillar, pudgy face scowling, forehead beading with sweat.

“I would have shot you!” he barked.

Mordelain chuckled. She stepped out of the doorway, which had slid open silently at her command and stretched. She had only been gone minutes from the surface of Althanas. Her desert garb was dusty, her knees bruised, and her buttocks grass-stained. Whatever she had gone through to open the tower’s entrance it was anything but easy.

“You wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied smarmily. She jostled something between her fingertips: something that had cost her enough time and effort to warrant care.

Suresh was in the right frame of mind to prove her wrong, but he was overwhelmed with sudden curiosity about what he saw immediately behind the il’Jhain, and not what she was holding.

“Oh my…,” he mumbled, barging her to one side amidst objections. He stepped into the tower’s arid antechamber.

The second Mordelain entered after him the door closed. The lighting orbed ceased thundering. The inverted pyramids stopped turning. A split-second sealed them away and the desert returned to its exile in peace.

“There’s no turning back now, Suresh.” Mordelain sighed. She pointed ahead. Orbs in the ceiling, buried in shadows, began to glow lime green to welcome her home.

“All that awaits me in Irrakam is a badly cooked lamb roast, and my mother’s all too bitter reminders of my ‘lack of station’,” he retorted. He stepped close to the solitary feature as though it were a welcoming campfire.

At the centre of the tower’s chamber stood a miniature orrery. It was made of steel, brass, and mirror gems. All worth more than a day’s work. Each represented a person, not a star, and a month or day, not a season. It was a strange clock, but it had serviced the Hydroclast for centuries and controlled its power for the betterment of Fallien.

“Well, when you see this…,” she mused. She gestured for Suresh to approach and circled so that she stood opposite. There was a hum, then chaos, and then pure wonderment.

Mordelain

11-11-13, 03:28 PM

The tower vanished as the Orrery spewed light, sound, and memory. It overwhelmed Suresh, who could only drop his jaw and stare at everything he could trace in the dark. People flickered into view. Their lives mocked and chronicled by moving sands dancing mid-air.

“This is how much of pre-Vhadya Fallien worked,” Mordelain explained. She was not sure if he was listening or not, but she worked to teach herself, if not her mentor. “Memories have power beyond lightning, water, and steam. They are sages.”

She could not entirely remember how such a strange method had originated. She supposed now it did not matter. Fallien, in this age, and perhaps the next, would be far too weak and broken to wield the true extent of the Hydroclast network. That, today, was not her purpose. Even a modicum of its function would be revolutionary.

“Who…who are all these people?” he mumbled. He walked in haphazard trails around the room, trying to look at faces, signs, and parchments as lives unfolded in a seemingly chaotic pattern.

Mordelain pointed at one of the golden simalcuurms as it streamed past. Of all the faces in the Orrery, she recognised one. She stifled her surprise when it manifested.

“That is...well, Resolve,” she said.

Suresh stopped in his tracks. Finally free of the menagerie of colour’s hypnotic spell he turned to face the il’Jhain, looked at the image, and then stared purposefully at his adapted daughter.

“…the woman you met in Lornius?”

Mordelain could not quite believe it herself. The Orrery tracked the people of Fallien who, for some reason or another, would come to shape its progress through history. Given the exorcist had, to date, expressed no interest in returning to her homeland she had to wonder what part of the girl’s life she was seeing.

“I’m not sure this is a future image,” she concluded. She looked at him, nodded at his question, and then approached the smiling figurine. She reached for it and moved her hand through Resolve slowly.

The image faded, but not before the youthful face turned, smiled at somebody, and let lose a happy, raucous belly laugh. It was only when the sand swirled, and Resolve faded, that the rest of the image revealed itself. Another girl, whom Mordelain did not recognise at first appeared to the right. She was laughing too, wore a simple blouse and her hair up and braided.

“Why would you need to know the past?” Suresh asked. He cocked his head. His white robes danced with golden fire, sparkling tributaries of silver light, and circles of green flourish that marked the end and beginning of more and more memories.

Mordelain mouthed an answer but she felt transfixed by the second woman. She recognised her finally and smiled. The woman she knew as Luned Bleddyn, only a teenager in the skein sliver was the reason that Resolve Curie would shape the progress of Fallien someday. She made to speak but everything imploded and memory became reality.

Mordelain

11-11-13, 04:09 PM

Hours passed and their destination grew on the horizon. It gradually gained size and definition as minutes went by. The remains of structures became populous as they neared, but all were abandoned. Luned was agitated and anxious, and her companion could tell.

"Want to sing again?" Resolve offered; impressively chipper.

The vision blurred, and Bedouin sang distorted the illusion.

"Don't give me that," Resolve retorted. "My ass hurts, too, but we'll be there by the end of the day and can set up a more permanent camp. There are baths to be had!" She punctuated this with a jazzy uplift of her hands, as if hoping to take her friend's spirits with them. It was quickly rendered ineffective.

"I'm not sure what you expect. I can't imagine Eluriand as much more than a glorified graveyard," the scribe frowned, blue eyes set fast on the destination before them. "And the work won't be easy by any means. I'm not even sure if the landmarks on our map are still in recognizable shape."

"We'll figure it out, and maybe it'll even be fun," Resolve speculated. "Maybe there's a dreamy feral elven lad in there somewhere, gone mad from the war, and––"

Luned shot her a dirty look. "Have you been reading Rose's books again?"

"They're more interesting than yours. Abridged History of the Technological Wondercrap of Alerar," the exorcist weighed on one hand, quickly overcome by the other, "Or The Bawdy Adventures of Miss Fanny Price. Which would you pick, honestly?"

The answer was a rhetorical brow-quirk.

"Oh, come on. It has a wild man in a loincloth in it! How in the world is that not better than reading about a bunch of dead guys who wore normal clothes every boring day of their boring lives?"

Her companion couldn't help but crack a smile at that, but more for the absurdity of their conversation than anything. They were walking into what might prove to be a lot of trouble for nothing, and the imminent thing on Resolve's mind was the novel collection of questionable quality and intellectual value that their dear prostitute friend consumed shamelessly by the ton. Not that she was one to knock anyone else's hobbies, it had been a great enough hurdle to get Resolve reading in the first place, but perhaps out of desperation to find humor in the situation, Luned laughed.

The grin quickly disappeared from Resolve's lips, however, as something seemed to catch her attention, a silent signal that drew her pale eyes out to the plains once more. Her horse stirred, tossing its blond mane nervously, as if sensing her sudden change.

Luned's face dropped, a familiar sinking sensation in her stomach. "Again?"

"Several." The exorcist patted her mount's neck reassuringly, the warmth of the creature's hide just as comforting to her as she shook off the eerie sensation of death. "We're close enough now… think we can run it?"

The scribe nodded and they were off, breaking clean for the ghost city.

Mordelain

11-11-13, 07:48 PM

Mordelain and Suresh awoke some three hundred miles south of their previous location. The inertia of him or her suddenly dragged through someone’s memory was indescribable. Had Suresh tried there would have been a lot of swearing, a lot more spitting, and a lot more thrashing about than he currently managed.

“Oh quit your whining,” Mordelain seethed. She pushed herself off the floor, dusted herself down, and looked to her surroundings.

“Whining?” he snapped. He waddled upright with less finesse than the il’Jhain. “You could have at least warned me about…whatever that was!” He did not attempt to straighten his robes or check himself over. He had things that are more important on his mind than vanity.

“Look,” Mordelain said, stopping his protestation with a jab skyward. “The Hydroclast network is still partially intact.”

Suresh, giving her the benefit of the doubt followed her gesture. They were inside an identical tower to the Aduyya save for a lack of activity from the Orrery and a stagnant air. Wherever the tower was, nobody had used or occupied it for decades. Suresh picked out the dim shadows of a dormant lightning orb and somewhere high above; he could hear a deep, barely audible thrum.

“How can you tell?” he asked, genuinely interested. It was amazing how quickly a Fallieni male forgave a misdeed if presented with alcohol, machinery, or sugar glass. “It looks dead to me.”

Mordelain rolled her eyes. She bounced from heel to heel, trying to warm herself up. Inside the tower, sealed away from the sun and protected by thermal shielding, the heat of the desert became a distant memory.

“The sound you can here is a static discharge from the sphere. They never truly die. Unless they’re tampered with...” Perfection designed with longevity in mind. In that, Reva had been successful. Even if the civilisation, which hoped to use it, had long since crumbled to dust. “This may yet work.”

Suresh dropped his gaze and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“You mean there was a possibility it would not?” He really hoped this was not the case. Then again, Mordelain had become entirely happy running them both into unperfumed dangers. Dung, blood, and camel spit were Suresh Nuhzar’s perfume when she was around.

“It is the only way to get under the Keep unseen,” she said, shrugging non-chalant. That was why they were here and that was why they needed the towers.

“Are we here, then?” he asked hopefully.

“I am afraid the network, as damaged as it is, will not allow us to make one singular jump into the Keep. We will have to tread carefully. Just hope, pray, and steal our way across the Zaileya until we reach our destination.” This in itself would be no easy task. For now, Mordelain chose to ignore the fact that when they reached Irrakam they would have the small matter of its guardian to contest.

“I do not know why I asked…,” he moaned. “Will you explain that ‘mirage’ of Resolve?”

Mordelain

11-11-13, 07:54 PM

...Like the Sea

http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/69/1450x816_12506_Journey_2d_fan_art_desert_journey_f antasy_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

Mordelain

11-12-13, 02:17 PM

Mordelain was not sure what to say. The infinite complexities of Tama technology fused with Fallieni ingenuity was far from easy to describe. Even she, after decades learning its machinations struggled to comprehend exactly how it worked. She guessed she had to try. Suresh at least deserved that much.

“Less mirage more recollection. What we saw happened at some point.” They stood on the verge of the spectral trees watching the duo walk towards an unknown destination. They laughed with them, and cared beyond care as they did. “Memories sometimes get trapped in the rocks, in the winds, and in the trees.” She chuckled. “Even the seas whisper of yesteryear.”

Suresh furrowed his brow and settled his gaze on the dormant Orrery at the centre of the tower’s inner chamber. He smirked at the thought of his memories languishing in the corners of the desert.

“There’s a rock in the dunes that knows about my marital bed promises?” He broke his frown to smile.

Mordelain rolled her eyes and approached the Orrery. She caressed one of the orbs that symbolised Althanas, a planet alone amongst the recollections. It was cold, unnaturally so, to the touch. The other arms were bronze, but this one was gold, signifying the world’s worth over that which had happened and which one day would happen.

“The memories are kept here as a record of Fallieni history. They are how we move so quickly through the Hydroclast network.” She reached through the mechanism’s outer ring and pressed delicately against the arm at its heart. It vibrated, like the orb overhead, and she prayed it still worked. They had come too far already to die in this silent mausoleum.

“Where are we, then?” Suresh tried to work out what knowing Resolve Curie’s intimate childhood secrets would offer their journey beneath Jya’s Keep. The thought of the dead guiding them, quite literally, sent a shiver down his spine.

Mordelain thought to herself for a moment then smiled. “If I remember correctly Resolve said she was from Astaka. Or rather, she said her family were.”

“Were?’” Suresh enquired. He did not like the sound of that.

“She was from Radasanth yet ties are strong in the blood, even if we do not know it.” She turned to face the merchant. “That means we’re likely nearer the mountains than I first thought. When we activate the Orrery look for anyone who resembles a member of the Bedouin tribes in, or indeed around the Nirakkal plains.”

“Why?” He got a headache from the strain of thinking.

“There is a ruin there I am sure. The Hydroclast is intact because I saw the ruins on the way to the spice fields of Ryuu.” She had. She was certain. She hoped.

“Okay. Let us get this over with,” he grumbled. He produced his pistol just in case, and adjusted his sand goggles to a better lens to see by in the dark. He watched as she pushed miniature Althanas casually to the left.

Mordelain

12-07-13, 02:27 PM

Once again, the chamber burst into life. The Orrery scattered sand through the air and formed memories of past lives and potential all around the duo. Resolve, Luned, and Mordelain walked, talked, and frolicked around Suresh’s head. The merchant watched wistfully, trying to ignore spoilers into his protégées tomorrow.

“You won’t find anything,” Mordelain chuckled. She kept her eyes on the sand mirage, waiting to catch a glimpse of somebody from the eastern tribes or something familiar from her time in the Nirakkal.

“I’m not looking for you,” he spat in reply. He wiped the gobbet from his chin, abashed, and buried his hands in his pockets to find his monocle. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“What has Khadija done now?” she replied. She smiled, but with her back to her mentor, he did not see her amusement. Suresh’s daughter was an enigma when stood next to her father. She was a waif-like, nimble pickpocket, every bit like her mother and every bit fond of Mordelain.

An image of Irrakam’s winter celebrations rolled past Suresh. He watched the dervish in the streets flipping through stomach wrenching rotations and the streamers fall from the Jya’s Keep. Another drifted by showing the last Jya’s inauguration. The city awash with banners belonging to the priesthood and the tribe from which the daughter in question had hailed. The very essence, the culture, and the providence of Fallien remembered in the unforgotten sands.

“It is not what she has done, Mordelain,” he said glumly. “It’s what I’m certain she’s going to do…”

Mordelain did not need to ask for further explanation. She had hardly been the model of good behaviour in her youth. Now was not the time to judge.

“I wouldn’t worry. If she’s not here she is not destined for infamy.” As she spoke, the il’Jhain ducked beneath an image. She gasped as her knees gave way. She saw somebody in the grains she had not expected to see. “Suresh, behind me!” she whelped.

The merchant turned, widened his eyes, and lurched into a run. He saw the large vision swirl past Mordelain a second time and began to circle her. In the sand, Mordelain depicted with almost perfect clarity. She stood amidst a wide, scintillating sea of sugar glass. There was a Bedouin tribeswoman standing beside her as withered as a date. She looked as wise as the ages true. They both leapt skyward on clothed wings.

“Why the blazes are y-”

“Just touch it!” she roared. There was desperation and fear in her voice. She recognised whom she was speaking. Suresh, in his insular ways, did not. The tension in the room thickened so much so the merchant found it hard to breath and his temples aching.

He reached out and touched the mirage. He and Mordelain left the Hydroclast inner chamber. The sand images lingered for a few moments but petered out and died. With a rush of stagnant air, they vanished to the Orrery and the tower fell silent.

Mordelain

12-07-13, 03:54 PM

Without thinking, Mordelain reached into the folds of her attire and pulled out her pass. The guard snatched it. She tried to look official as she remembered her first few weeks in the city. The guards had chased her from the Outsider’s Quarter to the estuary ruin of Kithdir on many an occasion, shouting and heckling at her from horseback as she skitter leaped between the realms like a will-o-wisp. He scanned it for the Freerunner symbol and chuckled sardonically.

“You may pass,” he said in a monotone voice.

The rigid attire of stewed leather, deep brown tunic and a polished steel kukri at each waist was unmistakable. The Hassid. The city Watch. Neither wore helmets, only turbans, adorned with a large owl feather running up the front of their headdress. She bowed and took back the papers before slipping between them to begin the ascent upwards.

Atop the walkway, there was a bridge. To her right it crossed the crystal waters. To her left it split into two paths, each veering off in respective directions into the two halves that made up Irrakam proper. North of course was the true Irrakam of Fallien, home of Jya and the trueborn. South, which is the road Mordelain trod along was the ragtag assortment of strange architectures and tradesmen called the Outlander Quarter.

"Home..."

The sound artisans dancing with ribbons in the hot afternoon sun warmed Mordelain’s heart. She walked with a pleasant smile on her face as she wove her way through the crowd heading to temple for prayer. She did not need to look over her shoulder to picture the imposing dome resplendent in the sun.

She took two left turns into the residential district of Harrah before looping round through the elven alleys and leafy arches of palms and chestnut. A right turn brought her through a sandy furrow in the island where the stone buildings gave way to wooden shacks, clad with iron and smattered with industry. Dwarves lived here, though she seldom saw them, busy as they were beneath the city in their bombastic forges that you could hear exploding at all hours.

“How I long for you,” she said with a long gasp of air, a slouch of her shoulders and a rub of her sweaty brow.

She did not look a pretty sight but she smiled at the sight of the Abdos. Even in the twilight, it stood triumphant. The vast courtyard in front of the familiar three doorways that lead inside was unusually quiet for this time of the day, occupied only by two carts, loaded with crates and tended to by two weary farmhands in straw hats and jade sari. Their tanned flesh seemed to shine in the heat, their backs crooked, hands dirtied by hours of hard toil.

“How I’d die for you.”

Mordelain scanned the many wide streets that ran away from the courtyard, each turning into a bazaar selling everything you could imagine. Nowhere else made her feel at peace.

Mordelain

12-08-13, 10:02 AM

Mordelain and Suresh tumbled unceremoniously out of a portal. It radiated green light, darker than olive with flecks of yellow. The il’Jhain managed to roll twice before she came to and rose. Suresh, less agile than his protégée, slap dashed across sandy stone with grunts and snorts. Mordelain would have helped him up, had she not seen where they had landed.

“Oh no…”

The tower that once stood around them was no more. A three feet buttress of sandstone wall surrounded the circular platform, a raised dais to technology long crumbled. The wind that whipped over the wall was warm, and the sun high, but still she felt cold at the sight. There was no Orrery. There was no lightning stone. There was no way forwards.

“What is it?” the merchant grumbled. He pushed himself upright with much difficulty and reddened brow.

“The tower is gone.”

Suresh examined his surroundings when he was steady on his feet and took in the severity of their situation. True enough, there was nothing but the circle. The sand had gathered at the foot of the tower’s interior and the wind had mottled the outer wall to within an inch of its life.

“Surely we would have noticed this ruin before?” he enquired. The size of the tower’s base amidst a flat sand plain was hard to miss.

Mordelain shook her head.

“Remember what we saw?” She reflected back on the memories they had witnessed in the Orrery’s recollections. “I think we’re on the very northern tip of Fallien, east of the Zaileya and a stone’s throw from the Outlander’s Post.”

Suresh furrowed his brow. The wind whipped sand over the wall, making the sun glare harder to see through and a wrong move deadly. He adjusted his goggled over his eyes, turned, and advanced to the eastern curvature of the tower. Sure enough, when he looked out across the desert it ended abruptly in a crystalline sea obscured behind hazy veil.

“So much for Bedouin tribes!” he cursed.

Mordelain shook her head.

“This is not our doing.” She was certain she had touched the right memory. The connection was strong. The sugar glass had practically formed in front of them before they dragged through time, mind, and space. “Somebody has tampered with the Hydroclast network.” She put her mind to working out whom, but swiftly came to realise she knew exactly who the culprit was. “Coradan…it was Coradan!” she shouted to the merchant exasperated.

Suresh turned about. His expression was stoic, stony, a cold grimace.

“How could he possibly know?”

Mordelain adjusted her silk scarf: a feeble, but welcome resistance against the encroaching storm. She had to strain to make out Suresh’s features against the halcyon backdrop, but did not like his glare. She waved for him to approach and gestured them out the circle and behind the wall. The sanctuary it offered was all too welcome. The wind died. They sighed.

“It is my place to know," said a husky male voice.

Mordelain

12-16-13, 07:13 AM

Coradan had always been an enigmatic soul. His charisma was his truest weapon, alongside a command of sand and an intellect as keen as it was vicious and calculating. Leering down at his former apprentice, the weight of the desert behind him, she felt his presence begin to crush her.

“I should cut you where you stand,” she spat. The Tama let lose a light-hearted chuckle. It was a dismissal as much as a sign of bemusement.

“You could try Mordelain, by all means.”

From atop the ruined wall of the tower the sand mage let the wind wash over him. His clothes, meagre wrappings and solidified sand plates fluttered. His hair danced, his eyes sparkled, and the talismanic tattoos on his arms and torso flickered with barely contained power. With a lurch, he dropped from the height and crashed to the ground. His heavy bulk from his armour, double his own weight, crushed the ancient rock.

“But I am not here to harm you.”

The blasé manner in which Coradan gave the revelation brought no comfort to the il’Jhain. Suresh, with careful steps, circled around the Exile until he approached his pupil’s side. With a fatherly stance, he stood defiantly between her and harm’s way.

“Why do I not look convinced?” the merchant said sourly. He produced his pistol in a flash, its multi-barrelled mechanism perhaps the one thing they possessed that threatened the plane walker.

Coradan shook his disapprovingly. “I do not expect you to trust me, Suresh. I expect you; however, to listen to what I have to say once. You are here, after all, to kill Priestess Jya. No?” He raised an eyebrow, which solicited a grunt of frustration from the merchant, and a raised heartbeat from Mordelain.

They were. Mordelain would not readily admit to the fact, but somehow, she did not see the point curtailing Coradan’s knowledge. If he controlled the network, he saw all of Fallien and all of Fallien was open to him. If her intentions now known amongst the Freerunners, who saw her as a paragon of equality and a key to the guild’s future success…then Coradan must surely know... Murder, or so it seemed, was just ends to a means.

“Speak, Exile, and then you will answer for your deception.” Mordelain found her strength on the merit of her need, for once, to protect Suresh. He knew the dangers of the desert well enough but this was her foe, this was her history as it lived and breathed.

“I want to make sure she dies in as public a manner as possible. “His deadpan delivery unnerved Mordelain. She had expected resistance, as he had long ago when they were Troubadours vested in Fallien’s religious culture. He was more the desert than the sands themselves.

“What have you got to gain from her death?” she asked hesitantly. “Save for your own empowerment...”

Coradan chuckled. He pointed a finger at Suresh, and then gestured for them all to move out the wind.

Mordelain

02-21-14, 02:20 PM

Sheltered from Coradan’s storm, but not his sadism, the duo glared at their former hero. Idolising this man had been Mordelain’s life, her every waking moment. To gaze upon him haggard and in exile drove a kukri into her heart and twisted it thrice.

“Well…now what?” Suresh asked without an ounce of trepidation. He, used to debate and heated moments of ‘mercantile risk’, flinched not at the imminent and more than likely fatal danger they were in.

“An excellent question,” Mordelain added to reinforce the point. She stood ten feet from her mentor and twenty from Coradan. Arms folded, eyes narrowed, elegant attire stayed to lifelessness. Her hair remained eschew, her skin dusty, her limbs feverish and tired.

Coradan shook his head. “The pertinent question is what I can do for you.”

Hesitation.

“That seems less like a question and more a fact.”

“Your friend is sharp, Mordelain,” the sand mage chuckled. His laughter ground castles to dust. “I have not come to hurt you. I did not know you were here, never mind alive.” His momentary display of compassion threw Mordelain wide of the mark. She baulked. He smiled wider. She frowned. “I am glad you are.”

“Then allow me to rephrase.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Why should I listen to you when you deserve so much to die where you stand?”

Though free of the wind, they were not free of the desert’s effects. Sweat continued in torrents to roll down Mordelain’s back. Her auburn hair, lacquered and stinking clung to her forehead. Her dagger, produced in a flick of a wrist felt heavy and warm to the touch. Its cold comforting lethality acquainted in the arenas of the Bedouin lost to the turn of time out in the wilds of Fallien.

“You can try.”

She did.

“Millions died!” she roared. In a flicker, she vanished. She reappeared riotously rampant and ruminating the crumbling sandstone beneath her feet. The desert considered her care, and rejected it.

“I played part, but not the lead in that episode!” came Coradan’s reply. The Exile, exiled doubt in readiness for his defence. He span on a heel and conjured a staff from nothingness. It clashed against her dagger and knocked it off course. He vanished to avoid her stumble and she too fled the desert.

“I…,” Suresh made to comment, but produced his pistol and pulled on his sand goggles instead. He was going to need a sharp aim, not a sharp tongue.

Down the sides of the tower, a wail fell like a veil of sadness. Something within, perhaps a fragment of the thunderstone or an echo of an Orrery reached out at the conflict. Suresh felt it as rush of blood to the head, and then silence. Mordelain, from whatever blasted heath appeared twenty feet away soaked to bone.

“No!” she screamed.

Too late. Suresh flinched. The whispers of the ancient technology tearing at his resolve. His pistol fired a single, flintlock shot. Straight into her shoulder.

Mordelain

03-21-14, 07:19 AM

...Like the Sand

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/112/c/6/c6a6b0df6ee1a092304278fc6c5b77ec-d62b0z5.jpg

Mordelain

03-21-14, 04:52 PM

“Mordelain?” A hushed voice whispered in the odious gloom. “Mordelain, wake up!”

Had she the strength to do so she would have done. Pain writhed over her skin, snakes of torment born of fate and fear. Slowly, she realised she was lying down. Her bruised skin cold against a smooth surface. Her eyes were open but there was no light to see by save midnight.

“Mordelain Saythrou. Wake up!” The voice stopped whispering and made to bark a second time before a rattle in the distance drove the speaker to silence. It sounded like keys on a chain. Footsteps. Echoes.

Am I in a cell?

Her thoughts drove her to further heights of suffering. Her head span. Aching every inch, the planes walker kept trying to move her limbs. She flexed her muscles in many directions, but rewarded her efforts with statuesque abandon. She was helpless. Flashbacks and fumbling drove her to the moment she last remembered being conscious.

“If you can hear me, you have to stay awake.” Undoubtedly, Suresh, Mordelain’s companion through the aeons brought comfort to the planes walker. If she were in discomfort then no doubt he was too. It was a small start to revenge for his terrible aim.

“Open the door.”

Coradan!

Mordelain’s thoughts focussed the second she heard the Tama’s voice. There was a sound alike to a key in a lock, turning, and then a door pushed inwards. Light erupted into the stone chamber and sealed her eyes shut. Pain like a hot iron to the forehead finally brought her to life. She curled her toes, clenched her fists, and ground her teeth.

“Come to torment us again I see.”

Suresh was leant against the opposite wall to the door. Mordelain was in the centre of the cell, head to the door, feet to the merchant. Realised and mobile, she tested her arms and found them unbound. Wherever they were, Coradan believed they were not going to escape. A curse would have escaped her lips had they not been cracked and dry as the drought plains of Shreya.

“Hardly Suresh. You remain here in these quarters whilst I determine Mordelain’s intent. Our reunion was…,” the sand mage trailed off. He stepped into the cell and came into the merchant’s view. His charismatic yet malefic grin kept Suresh on his toes.

“A decade too soon?” Mordelain spat wryly. She coughed. A guttural noise heralded a searing pain as she realised just how dehydrated she was.

How long have we been in here?

Coradan looked down at his former student. He knelt disdainfully to lend a hand. Mordelain refused, though more because she could not stand than because she loathed him so. He shook his head, produced a water gourd from the ether and poured a trickle into her reluctant quivering lips.

“Much of what you have heard about me is hearsay.” Satisfied his charge was comforted the sand mage stood and returned to the portal. “We are in fact working to same ends.”

Mordelain

03-22-14, 01:17 PM

“What could we possibly have in common?” Mordelain whispered hoarsely. The harder she fought against her injuries the quicker she succumbed to them.

Sandstone made the walls frustratingly brittle. The door was nothing more than a three-inch sandalwood divide. The corridor beyond was almost palatial in form. The planes walker strained herself one last time to gaze out at freedom. She felt her body try to fall away into the Void, the space between the nine worlds, but something stopped her. Doubts drew her to blame Coradan, but in her heart – mind damaged, she could not muster a jump.

“Why, we both want to see Jya dead and the Tama restored.” There was no anger, smarm, or bitterness to the man’s statement.

“How could you know of our plans?” Suresh interjected.

He tried to rise, but found his long numb arms chained behind his back; manacles stubborn and steel for a ‘brute’ in the sand mage’s eyes. He swore, very loudly, in three languages. Producing two glasses from thin air or perhaps from the sand that formed his cloth and glamour Coradan offered Mordelain a sip of amber nectar. She refused it at first, but found herself forced into recovery. He spoke not until he had offered the same hospitality to the merchant, who was less than reluctant. His gulped eagerly of the liquor, not as clean spirited as the il'Jhain.

“I may be an exile Suresh but I have eyes and ears everywhere.” He withdrew. Cups turned to sand anew, and wove about his musculature into ribbons and bandages. The desert became one with its self-proclaimed master.

“What have they heard?” Mordelain pressed a palm flat against the floor near her head. With shaking limbs, she pushed herself half-upright.

“Change is afoot.” The sand mage was by her side and helping her up before she could object. “With the death of religion comes the return to the enlightened ways of old.”

“Pre-Vhadya,” Suresh said flatly. He gave in trying to free himself from his bonds.

“Precisely,” Coradan affirmed.

Mordelain rubbed her temple.

“We both wish to see Fallien restored to the way it was before the…incident.” Mordelain snorted at his sincerity. The act brought up blood, clinging to her alveolar from the stubbornness of her wounds. The bullet still lingered in her shoulder; the jabbing pain was testament to that.

“You feel guilt, Coradan?” Rhetoric and disbelief dripped poisonously from her every syllable.

“We may not be human my dear but we are inexorably mortal, malleable, and open to the harsh reality of our actions.” His tattoos glimmered in the light from the corridor. Blue lines of electricity marked ley lines of power on his skin. “I wish to offer a token of my aid and wherever you accept it or not, I shall not keep you prisoner here.” Doubt found its way insidiously into the cell. A deep breath through bloodies nostrils illuminated the state of things. It was the unmistakable smell of guardhouse blues and subterranean dwelling.

Mordelain

03-30-14, 06:52 PM

“Where is here exactly?” Mordelain mumbled. Her lip quivered with both trepidation and fever. The blood in her tired limbs was poisoned – Suresh’s fiery ammunition beautiful yet bane of the living.

Coradan stepped out of light and waved at the portal. Cocksure and demure, his tattoos came to life resplendent. The glow illuminated his piercing eyes, rugged skin, and sandworm platitudes. Like all the Tama, his presence in the room was god-like. Commanding armies of unseen with his voice the man brought Mordelain to her senses. She stood without the need for words. Spirits plucked her up on strings.

“Be wary, daughter,” Suresh warned. He erred on the side of caution even though he found himself easing from his troubles and warming to the man so presumed to be their enemy. “Snakes slither even when dead.”

The proverb of old wives and haggard bazaar merchants put the il’Jhain ill at ease. With shaky steps, Mordelain advanced. Out into the corridor illuminated she wavered. Immediately, her eyes narrowed, focussed, and flickered with realisation. She knew exactly where she was.

“Jihta!”

Her exclamation was undoubtable heard for miles, despite its entombment in the depths of Jya’s Keep. The word bitterly bounced buoyantly along the boardwalk and out into the great hall beyond. Like a scared pup, she scuttled make into the cell with strength renewed.

“What is it?” Suresh rose despite his bondage. “Mordelain!”

Sweating fear itself, the il’Jhain tried to calm her nerves. She balled her fists, wrapped in bandages bloodied and brittle. Coradan clapped and lit the room, sand flames dancing from torches in long rusted brackets. The fire was grainy, but warm and nourishing.

“We’re in the Keep.” Coarse words cut deep.

“When your colleague shot you I had to bring you to the one place in Fallien equipped to contend with such wounds.” Coradan circled Mordelain, inspecting her recovery in the light of half-formed day. He had done the best he could with the guidance of his spies in the ranks of the priestesses. “To keep you safe whilst I sourced the lightning stone, I had to disguise you as enemies of state.” Enemies of state were not gifted death as a reprieve from their crimes.

“So unchain me,” the merchant spat.

“Gladly.”

Coradan did not look at Suresh. He raised a fist, conjured a staff, and drove its end into the dirt. A lash of soil given structure shot across the chamber. It darted behind the merchant, entered the lock like a thief in the night and undid the chains. They fell to the floor like the severed heads of a fallen hydra.

“The stone?” Mordelain heard whispers in the recesses of her mind. The Void, the space between worlds was reaching out to her. Like the wind, like the sand, and like the seas of Fallien…this seemed right. This seemed natural. This seemed like an alliance forged of necessity, good, and fate.

“You’re not considering listening to this madman?” Suresh armed himself with a cocked pistol.

Mordelain

03-30-14, 07:16 PM

Mordelain showed the merchant she was sincere by staring down the barrel of his gun. The memory sparked in her mind like an unwelcome guest. Her shoulder twanged with pain and regret and instinctively her fingers probed the seeping wound.

“Odd sentiment, given the only one here who has brought us harm is you.”

Coradan and Suresh stared at one another furiously. Had Mordelain not been present she was sure a shot then a curse would be his answer. Suresh dead a moment later, returned to sand and the state of being the Radar call ‘Stasis’. She would have found him the next day, oblivious to his trials and eager to make a dishonest days wage in the spice bazaars.

“I will pull the trigger myself with the barrel pressed against my temple. Will you be happy with that, should I as much as sneeze?”

“There will be a long line, I assure you.”

“It’s just all too convenient. How did you know we were looking for a stone?” Folding his arms the merchant slipped the pistol beneath his bellowing robes and stood resolute and bitter as ever. Little could please Suresh, save Mordelain’s laughter, date wine, and profits.

Coradan, a man with all the answers, twirled flamboyant. He walked forth, like a god amongst believers and disappeared into the room beyond the cell. Mordelain, assuming he was taking lead, practically dragged Suresh with her amidst painful limps. Sodden hair, mucked cloth, and grime her still regal attire.

“The Cult is less than secretive about its attempts to infiltrate the Hydroclast network. I have monitored the towers for centuries. Rebuilt them. Maintained them. Improved them.” Arms outstretched, Coradan pointed at the different machinations that hung from the rafters and stood atop frames and steel trees on display.

The workshop beneath the Keep appeared abandoned. Jya, perhaps in her foolish ‘wisdom’, had once experiment with the technology once promised to bring peace and eternity to the once verdant metropolis. Though the dusty machines themselves appeared in working order, the tools that tinkered were not. Rust. Ruin. Rage. An endeavour given up to faith’s fickle fallacy.

“Instead of challenging them directly I chose subterfuge.” He turned centre of the workshop and waited for Suresh and Mordelain to catch up.

“To what end?” she asked.

Curling lips into cruel smile, the Exile set his staff at ease at the centre of the ancient glyph set into the stone. It was worn, paced and prodded by pedants and priests countless times over the centuries. Try as they might, only a Tama could wield the power contained within. It was the Troubadour symbol for key – success came only with a birthright all but extinguished from the universe.

“I wished to find an answer to an age old problem. How to restore the network once and for all.”

“Like Suresh said,” she said softly. Her eyes, piercingly strong despite her weakened state besieged Coradan’s confidence. “It is all too convenient.” The glyph ignited at her doubt.

Mordelain

03-30-14, 07:27 PM

Wrapped in light and purpose Coradan worked the mechanism with his staff as rod of command. He pointed up into the shadows. Something stirred and whirred. Mordelain and Suresh turned their attentions as instructed and settled sights on a distant blue star. It grew. It grew again. Down on chains, a blue sphere akin to the ones atop each of the towers set all across the desert island.

“They tried to activate it without the Orrery. When they did, I drew to it. Within its sphere, celestial and clear, a memory.”

With a mental push Coradan made clear they were to move away from the glyph and the ebb and flow of energy that ensorcelled his body – he was conduit as much as controller. Life and death in his hands. Sand evoker.

“I saw in that imagery a tall, red haired woman and her bulwark father figure.”

The stone came to ten feet above his head. It seemed to be working, but Mordelain was not certain if it illuminated by his magic, or its own. It was magnificent all the same.

“’Bulwark’?” Suresh snapped. He bit his lip when Mordelain shot him a glare. He took a deep breath, to calm his nerves, and settled on a draft of liquor from a gourd the il’Jhain had yet to confiscate.

Dropping his guard, gaze, and gallantry, the Exile released the spell. The glyph faded, and with it the veins of magic that operated the various tools and hidden depths of the Keep. Mordelain was certain other edifices of ancient technology hidden in trapdoors, cupboards, and corridors. One day, when this particular mystery became mystery no more, she would return.

“It showed me a battle. A war waged in secret, save for the final death throes of the enemy.” He clapped his hands. A single tendril of sand writhed out of his shoulder and seeped upwards to the stone. As though it were wary, and sentient, it teetered between touching and cowering from the thrumming artefact.

“I like the sound of this,” Mordelain said. All too ready to hear of her success.

“I am afraid it is not all triumph and testimony through the ages, dancer.” Mordelain narrowed her gaze at him at the use of a belittling title, but he continued all the same. “I will show you what I saw. I will give you what Reva Featherblood denied you. I will allow you to take this stone, lost to the Hydroclast Network for zealot’s inquisition.”

Silence.

“What will you want in return?” Mordelain folded her arms across her chest, despite the pulled muscle tightening around the bullet like a death grip. “You always were…mercantile.” A flash of malice brought illumination to her for once. Charisma became her weapon, not his, for just long enough.

“I want you to tell me that you want to truly attempt what you intend to attempt. Ask me to see the future. Ask me, Mordelain Saythrou, to admit that I was wrong.”

“Admit you’re wrong.”

Mordelain

03-30-14, 07:30 PM

A lonely mountainside but not alone. Below, a vein of silver concurrent with the skyline. Its apex a jade opal, shining in the glare of the spring’s zenith – sun unrivalled in ferocity or beauty. Flanked by tulips and guarded by poppies, Mordelain Saythrou watched in hope. Dead trees, dirty ground, and golden leaves were her thorns, a brow beading with sweat and suffering and blood. She, the martyr, had sacrificed much to look upon this Eden. This paradise. This sanctuary.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

The bulwark figure of her mentor shifted on the log. They had perched on the fallen sycamore hours ago, and not buttocks ached and spines groaned beneath the weight of indecision. The mountains that rise up from the tributary had begun to lose their splendour, lustre, and lucre. On the edge of vision, mists obfuscated peaks grand and pious pinnacles. Sun, crashing through clouds churned the heavens into ambrosia butter: red, gold, and yellow, orange, eggshell.

“You have searched for these people for centuries my daughter.” The flat tone was dismissive of her emotions and entirely to the point. The merchant looked down at the valley. He followed the river from eastern view to western panorama, and settled on that green and pleasant land.

From this high the people there were miniscule. Black specks crawling through grass like insects. North of the field a camp: tents, no more than canvas canopies to chide the wind for interfering. Mordelain imagined the Tama would paint symbols of old upon the walls. Tama wards and glyphs against the supposed evils of the wilds. She chuckled, leaving Suresh pious and alone in his conviction.

“I searched for an answer, not a people.” Goosebumps on skin. Hair eschew. At peace, the planes walker rose. “I wanted to know if I was truly alone.” She was not. The valley was testament enough to that. “Still, I feel lonely.” Suresh her mentor, Fallien her home, and the desert full of her people Mordelain felt torn between a step forwards to the unknown and a step back to the familiar.

Looking at the pine slops beyond the river, Suresh could see why such a realm would intimidate even an il’Jhain. Though no harpies haunted and harried the skies, no doubt new dangers awaited them if they chose to climb down the descent and travel along riverbank to the Bedouin’s camp. He took a deep breath. The air was refreshing, a cold snap of conscience to the soul.

Mordelain took to tightening her belt, straps, and wits. Her auburn hair was ablaze against the turn of winter and autumn’s end all around. Evergreen in the folly, the mountaintops were becoming a barren shrub land. Only the flowers, specks of blue, red against a brown, and slate backdrop reminded her she was near life; love rotation.

“Only one thing will put me to rest.” Her decision came with the appearance of the sun proper. The sky ignited. Heaven descended as she did.

Mordelain

03-30-14, 07:44 PM

The sand tendril retreated into Coradan. Mordelain breathed heavily. Sweat poured more profusely from her brow and down her back with the strain of portent. Suresh, uncertain what witnessed dropped to his knees. His eyes glazed. His heart raced. His body broken.

“I.”

Coradan frowned. “The death of Jya will lead you on a journey spanning worlds.”

“I…didn't ever.”

“You, Mordelain Saythrou, will overcome the stigma levied at our people by the people of the Kalithrism.” Truth seemed to permeate the chamber. Each of Coradan’s mounting statements elevated the dim sense of hope that buried itself in the recesses of her heart.

“Why would Jya’s end make this come to pass?”

Taking it upon himself to elaborate, the sand mage utilised his skills to conjure facsimiles and animalcules of the priestess and the people close to her. As they danced like puppets, he became animated and excitable. Like a troubadour proper, he brought the story to life, literally and metaphorically with words and wonder.

“People freed from Fallien. Trade brought to shores. Days of old rekindled in ancient, withered ruins.” Flute song bounced into being. Mordelain smiled a childhood memory sparking. “One death,” he paused, to scatter Jya to the shadows. “Thousands of lives.” Hundreds of statuesque citizens appeared life-size about the Exile.

A hundred souls, eyes lifelike and staring caused Suresh to scuttle back and feebly take aim. His hand shook, his eyes tired, his worldview crumbling. Coradan did not attempt to defend himself. The desert robes of his ensemble flickered in an unseen, tepid wind. Warmth filled the chamber. Prospects. Hope. Continuing his enunciation of tomorrow, the sand mage trilled.

“Pariah though you may become in days ahead my child, all the same, a lonely daughter wandering winds wayward worlds in wicked wonder.” He bowed, and the crowd bowed with him. When he righted himself, the people cascaded into minutes of music, and then dunes. Coradan turned. Fallien’s landscape mimicked on the floor.

“Away from the desert, once crossed in earnest, I assume?” She smirked. This was a prophecy spoken by Bedouin and bandits for decades. One woman to lead the people to new horizons. They all believed the woman was Jya. In truth, it was. However, it was Jya’s death, not the many lives she led that brought courage.

Coradan walked over the desert. His feet made light work of the dunes, soon crushed to footprints and long-forgotten beauty. With his back to them, he began to fade.

“Where are you going?” she pleaded. Cut from the heart of artistry, she found herself exasperated, separated, and alone. Disconnected from the Void filled only by the search for her people.

Coradan said only one word as he set the Tower of Ghubar into the ruins of Fallien of Old. It pierced the stone and rested tree-like feet away. His robes formed blackened wings. His eyes, star like, cast torchlight through the chamber’s darkness as though guiding her honest way.

“Junkyo.”

To be continued in Soul of the Somnambulist (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27239-Soul-of-the-Somnambulist&p=227266#post227266)...

Quentin Boone

06-05-14, 09:23 PM

Thread Title: Like The Wind... (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?26182)
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: Mordelain

Plot: 20.5/30

Story- 7/10
The story was a solid one with enough intrigue and mystery to keep the reader hooked. It also did a good job of linking past and future to make the reader interested in older threads and looking forward to future ones. The only downside to the story was the lack of a real cllimax; there was the final reveal, true, but it didn't feel impactful enough to quite make the story complete. While the story does continue in a subsequent thread, following the usual plot structure for 'episodes' will make your score higher here.

Setting- 6.5/10
In the early half of the thread, setting is very well described and utilised multiple senses to really bring the desert of Fallien to life. The effects of setting on your character were also well used to help bring their environment to life. Towards the middle of the thread, this started to die off a little. Description was lacking in explaining the Orrery, which made it difficult to really envisage how it looked. The final scene in the cell also felt lacklustre - the room was difficult to picture and it was hard to place your character's positions within the room.

Description was there, but didn't really immerse the reader in the same way as the earlier parts of the thread.

Pacing- 7/10
Mostly, the thread moved at a reasonable pace - it wasn't too slow and generally didn't move too fast. The score here was hurt due to two things: Firstly, the Orrery flashbacks/forwards were a little jarring and didn't have real transitions to and from them. Secondly, the time jump from the encounter with Coradan to the cell felt rushed and out of place in a thread that mostly ran in 'real time'.

Character: 23/30

Communication- 8/10
Spoken and unspoken communication were both used near-masterfully. The reader got a real impression of the characters through their communication. Coradan's speech took on a tone that really emphasised his age power. A higher score was missed however because it felt like the characters, especially Suresh, would have a very foreign-sounding accent and it would have been good to highlight this through the writing.

Action-8/10
Actions were used effectively to bring characters to life and really show their interactions one with another. Little details really added colour to the writing, such as Mordelain trying to get up in the cell towards the end. Having Suresh pull the trigger on Mordelain was a fantastic use of showing, rather than telling, his current state of mind. A higher score could have been achieved here had that 'trick' been used more often so that actions showed emotion a little more, rather than simply telling the reader.

Persona- 7/10
An excellent job was done of bringing the characters to life. Relationships were brought to life and the reader got a good feel of how Morderlain and Suresh viewed each other, and the complex relationship between Mordelain and Coradan. The only thing that didn't ring true was Mordelain's very swift transition from murderess intent and distrust toward Coradan to trusting everything he said. On that note, however, Suresh's maintained mistrst and hostility towards the sand mage was a real highlight and only added emphasis to the father-daughter-like feelings.

Prose: 20/30

Mechanics- 6/10
Mechanics were generally fine, but there were a few stand-out errors that repeated throughout the thread. There was a few places where words were missing. Commas were also missing in various places - they were used to 'open' the start of an additional clause in a sentence but the 'closing' comma was often missing. An example of each follows:

South, which is the road Mordelain trod along was the ragtag assortment of strange architectures and tradesmen called the Outlander Quarter.

There should be a comma after 'trod along'. This would properly separate the additional clause and make the sentence much clearer.

Coradan shook his disapprovingly.

Should have been 'shook his head...'

There were other minor spelling and grammatical errors that would easily have been spotted with a thorough proof read. Without these errors, a much higher score would have been achieved.

Clarity- 7/10
Most everything in the thread was clear. The score was hurt by the points raised above about Setting and Mechanics. If these weren't present, a near-perfect score might have been awarded.

Technique- 7/10
The writing was peppered with enough imagery to give it real flavour and flair without feeling bogged down by metaphor. Other devices were used really well, especially during Coradan's almost-prophetic speech towards the end of the thread - the word and sentence structure choices there really brought home that he was a troubador.

There was also a definite comfort in personal style, and while the slightly 'heavier' prose carries a sophistication that speaks of older writings, it can sometimes be too heavy. This occasionally slows down the reading and distracts from the content more than is intended. If the prose was made even only slightly lighter, an equilibrium would be reached that keeps the same tone without detracting from everything else.

Wildcard: 7/10
I really enjoyed this thread - the story was interesting and gave a good insight into Fallieni history and origins. I especially enjoyed Coradan's little speech at the end - it reminded me of Thom Merrilin, from The Wheel of Time, telling stories in 'High Chant'.

Final Score: 70.5/100

Member Link (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?15209-Mordelain) receives:

2961 EXP!
297 GP!

Congratulations!

As it currently stands, you don't yet meet the requirements of the mission. You have found the artefact, but have yet to steal it and escape unnoticed. If this is covered in the sequel thread, please reference this judgement which confirms you infiltrated The Keep without being noticed or killing anyone, so you can be considered for the rewards.