All-well, Friend. My name is Dirdenfey. That is who I am.
But who are you?
Do you even know who you are?
I expect you are unfamiliar with the who that is you… But I know. I know who you really are.
You are the Reader. And you know that, now, because I have reminded you.
That is my Role as your Teller… to remind you. Nothing more. No tricks. No twists. Only to Tell, and to remind you of what you’ve forgotten.
For example… I expect you, Reader, have forgotten the Woild, and Artus-Rah, and the Ten Tribes. I suppose you’ve forgotten about the Lias, and the Great-Cups, and even the Great-Bearers. Have you forgotten about the Holy-Roles? Have you forgotten the Woildness Totems? The Animates of Artus-Rah?
Yes… you have. You have forgotten about the Sun-Bearings, and the skyLights, and Woild-seasons. You have forgotten the Tidings-Trees, and the Temples, and the Towers of Rah. You have forgotten about Filling, forgotten about Bearing, forgotten about Pouring…
Accept it, Poor Reader. You have forgotten. But, do not be discouraged!
Despite your ignorance, Dear Reader; you being here… being the Reader… Pouring the Light of your eyes into this Telling, brings your being closer to the Tellings Told by me, your Teller. And you, Chosen Reader, bring being to the Telling, even as it is being brought on, regardless…
And a good thing too! We face dire moments ahead of us. I expect a reader like yourself has surely survived your fair share of seemingly hopeless battles. I myself, (your fellow Woild-One, and reluctant Denizen of the Valence,) share in your struggle with the deceptive forces of the Pure. Living amongst Dregs and Desecrators, as we do, has a way of wearing down a being’s ability to think with wisdom and know the truth. Like any other being caught living on the Cusp, I have all too much experience in being without knowing, and knowing very little about how to go about being.
Heed my next words well, Lucky Reader: the most significant being here, who is the Bearer of the burden of this Great Telling, is you now. Artus-Rah has already been unburdened from the burdens of being (its one of the benefits of being best). As for myself, my Great-Pouring has begun. As its Light Fills the Woild, my Cup empties, bringing me closer to Rah.
So, I say to you; if being is what you are doing, and being best at being you is something you would like to do, then listen on as IB shares with you a Telling of Artus-Rah.
Listen, Friend, as this Friend of Artus-Rah shares with you the records of the Woild; for while the past and future are only Tellings, they have the power to heal the present, as all Great-Tellings do…
Listen, Waking Reader, as the vision of Artus-Rah reminds you of your Tribe, your Lia, your Cup, and the very sins that tore you from them…
Listen, please, Dearest Reader… and let IB show you why the Pure-hell around you needs an informed enemy, not a miserable ally… IB will show you, Troubled Reader, that your Cuspish life in the Valence has very few paths, and even fewer of those paths lead on to anything resembling you being best.
Listen Now, Patient Reader: we approach the end of the Age of Shogohs… and know, Stalwart Reader, that after the inevitable moment when I empty my Cup, and Pour my blood back into the Cup of Artus-Rah, the Cycle of Legends will reach its final Age, before the Woild spirals for the Cycle of Heroes instead…
Steady yourself, Confused Reader! When the Ages of Legends end, the Woild will suffer the Greatest Purifying pains it has yet! When the Cusp Empires Fall, and the Dregai Desecrators settle in the Valence, and the Tribes Deploy their final Warriors to war… you should know, Needed Reader, that this Telling must be Borne on…
Understand, Pampered Reader, that this Telling, coded on screen or stamped on page, comes to you as a luxury…and soon, Priveleged Reader, the buying and selling of books will disappear, and Great-Tellings such as this one must be Borne by beings, not books.
Take It! Take it, Ordained-Reader. When my Vessel finally empties, it will be you, Reader, (and others like you) who Bear the Vision of Artus-Rah! It will be you who helps Pour the Spirit of your Great-Bearer back into the Woild. It’s up to you to become part of the Filling that ends this Woild-War.
Listen, Long Lost Reader, as the Great-Bearers of Artus-Rah are revealed, and the spark of encouragement you didn’t know was glowing within you ignites into a knowing of what you are supposed to do.
Listen, at last, Cherished Reader, and be Filled by The Great-Telling of Artus-Rah… but let’s begin with a little-Telling.
Rise, Reader! Your true Bearing awaits!!
Welcome to the Woild. Breathe in for Artus-Rah…
(The Mask of Dirdenfey)
Caasizah was dreaming of the Owl…
She flew in its presence, she flew through its eye,
She was with and without it as they spun through the sky.
The Lights changed about them as bright colors from Rah,
Caasizah worshiped and wept at the wonders she saw.
The Sun watched and it waited to be Filled by the All.
The Owl was hoo-hoo-ing as it laughed out its Call.
That mirthless man’s music, that Dreg-garbled slew,
That melody of madness with each breath it drew.
It showed her some records that few Ones had seen,
That troubled her temper with visions obscene.
“You have to be careful,” came a voice from afar.
The Owl spoke to it, "Only fools fear a scar.”
Then Caasizah’s Great-Eyes fluttered. She stirred from her slumber ‘pon stump.
She brought forth her Great-Gaze from its Woildness daze, kindling life in her dream-stupored slump…
Caasizah lifted her Great-Chin. It had drooped to her Great-Chest as she'd slept. She looked around from the center of the Temple-Sanctum where she lay. She shifted her Cup, undraping it from the surface of the large, moss-covered stump. She rolled to the ground, kneeling, and turned back to her mossy bed. A cockroach stood atop it, twitching its antennae at her. She smiled. Then she heard someone humming.
She looked around, over the bushes and between the eight Tidings-Trees that encircled her, and saw her father approaching. He gave her a Great-Grin, and called, “little-Bear! How was your rest?”
She yawned a Great-Yawn, and her father laughed. She replied, “Not restful. I dreamed of the Owl.”
Her father passed between a Willow and a Rowan tree, and entered the Sanctum. “The Owl…” he mused, “What did he want?”
Caasizah shrugged, and suggested, “To show me something?”
He nodded and supplied, “Or lead you astray.”
Caasizah chuckled. Her father sniffed at a patch of white clover, growing near a rotten root of the stump. She was glad to see him, but nonetheless surprised at his sudden appearance. She asked, “Where have you come from?”
Without looking up from his floral inspection, he answered, “I have come from far away.”
She asked, “I left you no signs…How did you find me?”
She wondered about his knack for finding her in the strangest places, and a little voice within her said, ‘He’s hiding something from you…a powerful knowing, and leaving you ignorant. Perhaps it amuses him…’
“Signs…” muttered her father, “signs are always here, placed to mark our way, long before we pass them. I merely followed the signs that were left for you to follow.”
He bit off one of the clover blossoms, and began to chew. He then turned his Great-Head, and smiled at her. He was Greater than her, and beginning to look old. He continued, “I have been wandering the Halls of the Woildness, and learning of the WoiId as I go. The Tides have heralded Great-Change as this new Age of Valhasirah rises, and my Bearing changes with it.”
He scratched at his Great-Ear, watching her for a sign of response. Caasizah nodded, then admitted, “The Enemy grows in power. The War is almost over.”
Her father finished scratching, then inspected his Great-Claw, and wondered aloud, “Says who?”
She snorted, and mocked, “Who?”
He flicked something from his Great-Claw. He sighed. The tone of his next words suggested a tired feeling of obligation to repeat long-unheeded counsel, “Be careful with him, love. He's not right… he means well, but…”
“I know, Father,” Caasizah cut in. “He’s dangerous, and Dregheaded.” She paused, wondering if she should be more afraid, and a voice within her said, ‘Why fear the inevitable? He will destroy you…’
She said aloud, “I know who he is. Trust me.”
After a moment's hesitation, he yielded. “Always,” his Great-Deep-Voice rumbled, and his Great-Chin bowed in acknowledgement.
There was silence between them as their Great-Eyes Telled simple Tellings, then her father spoke, “I am going home now. But I had to find you first…” He bit his Great lip for an instant. His Great-Eyes darted away, then he explained, “...something special to Tell you.”
He reached out for her Great-Paw. She clasped his, and smiled up at him. She loved him. She trusted the One behind that Great-White-Face more than any other. Then, the young-One in her shimmied to the surface. Caasizah’s smile slunk sideways towards a smirk, and she asked “Who Telled you the Telling you bring? Whose Telling is it? Who, Father?”
“Who?” he reflected. “Who? Whoo? Whooo?” She had known he would play along with her little-game. He always did.
“Whooo?!” she jeered with good-humor. She caught his eye as they both stilled. With tense Cups, they held Great-Paws, twitching teasing tugs as their breaths ticked by.
Caasizah pulled first, but her father was stronger. Her Great-Tug was twisted aside by his tactful turn of Great-Hips. She spun, staggered by his strength, and he caught her in a Great-Bear-Hug.
Laughing, and after head-butting his Great-Chest, Caasizah sagged into his Great-Embrace. He was warm, and his Cup churned with his own Great-Chortles.
The Woildness loved loving laughter. The Tidings-Trees encircling them glistened with the colors of each Lia’s Light: Muathum’s red Willow; GormGiGan’s orange Rowan; Lo’olesh’s yellow Cedar; Wakashayap’s green Maple; Khithithi’s brown Oak; Hanut-Khan’s blue Ash; Blezthelia’s purple Apple; the indigo Pine of Shogohs…
The White patch of clover stirred as a wave of Woildness wind whirled about them. The cockroach upon the stump spluttered into anxious flight, hurrying out of the Sanctum, and disappearing beyond the edge of sight.
Caasizah felt her Maker then. He wrapped His All-Powerful arms around her and her father, as He always does when two of His children share His love.
Then Caasizah’s own father whispered down to her ear.
“He loves you, Caasizah…it’s true.
Artus-Rah watches us, all the way through.
He leaves you His signs, so you’ll know what to do.
You’re Caasizah, the Marcher. Each Great-Cup you’ve been through;
From the Rim, to the Towers, all over you flew.
All Liands of the Woild were your home, as you grew,
Protected from Dregs by the lines that I drew.
Grown you are now, and not mine to tend,
Though your Old Man can be troubled to patch and to mend.
If aid you are needing, a hand I will lend,
If blood you are Pouring, my life I will spend…
But you are a Hero, your way will not end,
For He guides you, my child: His Vassal to send.
Artus-Rah be your Maker, your Chieftan, your Friend,
Your breath will be His, from beginning to end.”
Holding each other, they stood within the ring of Tidings-Trees, appreciating the solitude and shimmering Light of the Temple’s inner Sanctum. The Woildness Tide ebbed and flowed with the breath of the trees. Then Caasizah heard something from far away.
Beyond the Sanctum’s walls and its undulating, permeable haze of Woildness-Waves that swelled and sprayed from the Sanctum’s Woildness Stump-Door; beyond the Temple’s rooms and buildings where the Holy-Temple-Ones worked for and prayed to Artus-Rah; beyond the outer walls, where Artus-Rah’s Temple Liand met with the encircling Gift-Garden of Lo’olesh; from within that Garden, pooling in the hinterlands of Lo’olesh’s Great-Cup, came the faint whisper of Eliga Tribe-Ones singing. They sang to Artus-Rah, and perhaps, to herald the arrival of new-Ones. As if in confirmation of that thought, a bell clanged from the steepled-peak that kept watch from the Temple's highest vantage.
Caasizah’s father squeezed her and then loosened his Great-Embrace. He let out a long, slow breath…
They stood and they breathed from the breath of the trees,
As a cool, tidy wind came and swept up some leaves.
All voices were whispers of plant-Hosts, save One,
A beh-beh from the stump, that had started to hum.
Deep, and low, and ever so slow;
It hummed out the tune of feeling moss grow.
Cassizah’s father had heard it, so he hopped on the stump:
The beh-beh went quiet in response to the thump.
“Forgive me, little-Friend, for that little jump.”
The beh-beh hummed once, like sedge in a clump,
And appeared from the rot like a yellowish lump.
“Is Lo'olesh your Bearer?” her father asked with a grin.
The beh-beh stood straight, made itself thin,
And nodded front to back like a reed in the wind.
“You knew that, Father…” Caasizah chastised with mirth,
“You could see by its Light, and the place of its birth.”
She laughed, and he winked, and the beh-beh did hum,
A tiny vibration of good, Woild fun.
“Well beh-beh,” her father said, “Have you remembered your name?
Is your Bearing for Artus-Rah, one and the same?
Or does Pure-stagnation still muddle your brain?
Go ahead, little-Light, and put forth your claim.”
Caasizah thought that the beh-beh looked suddenly lame,
And only just understood when it croaked the name, “Jaym.”
The beh-beh then sank, and hummed high in shame,
And wept like a puddle in a downpour of rain.
Caasizah said, “Oh beh-beh, you suffer! And you are to blame…
But the record of your sins has been put to the flame.
Rejoice! He has saved you! You are no longer lame!”
Caasizah finished and turned to her father. The beh-beh wept as the two Marchers began Telling to each other again. “Father?”
“Yes Caasizah?”
“What about the Telling you brought for me?”
Caasizah noticed that the beh-beh Jaym was listening. It was still pulsing regular squelches of woe, but its sunken, squished face and dull corn-cob yellow eyes were gazing at her father.
It seemed to Caasizah that her father was savoring the moment. He sat down, cross-legged, and began humming the Call of Lo’olesh to the beh-beh. The song was quiet and guttural, with slow notes of patient tone. The beh-beh twitched. Her Father continued, while the muddy sobs reverberating from the stump-bound, mush-mouthed being diminished into a steady stretch of peace. Transfixed, and after rippling a gargly breath of relief, the beh-beh began humming Lo'olesh's Call as well. With gentle, gargantuan grace, her Father dismounted the stump, and stooped to harvest a Great-Handful of Temple-Floor duff. He then blanketed the beh-beh in a sprinkle of that Woild mulch.
The All was there, in that mulch, as it was everywhere, expressed by the playful combat of the Ten Great-Bearers of Artus-Rah. Caasizah knew them, and saw them. She saw within that beh-beh-shower the traits of the ten Lias, some more than others. The dander of GormGiGan, the bones of Hanut-Khan, the clinging cells of Wakashayap’s sweat, the fermenting fuel of Blezthelia’s chyme…all there, all chosen, all Making within the Temple-Sanctum a poetic-saga of Filling, Bearing, and Pouring; infinite in complexity, singular in fealty. A multitude given then in generosity by some Lias, and held as hidden-vision by others. A singularity, divided, and divided, and divided…and rejoined, and reformed, and reborn…
The beh-beh’s clay-paste hum roused her from her minding. A voice within her sneered, ‘You can’t stand not hearing yourself think, can you?’
Her father began again. “Caasizah…I found your Mother.”
Caasizah started and jerked her Great-Head to face him. She almost began asking, but her jolting motion was perceived by the beh-beh, who ceased his humming. Her father reprimanded her with a wry smile, then he hummed The Call of Lo'olesh again. He loosed the Great-Nozzle on his Cup, and began sloshing his water around the beh-beh’s rotten bed. It sighed like a farting frog, and resumed its humming.
Caasizah’s father murmured to her, “Jaym is almost home.”
Caasizah blurted out, “Where’s Mother?”
He did not make her wait any longer. He answered as he tucked his Great-Leaver away. “She is stuck in the Valence.”
Caasizah closed her Great-Eyes. She bowed her Great-Head and said, “Praise be to Artus-Rah.”
She meant it, yet her gratitude was marred by the bitter sting of such a terrible-Telling. The Valence was a wrong, twisted place…hard and cruel. It made victims of those who breathed for the Woild, and enemies of those who breathed for Artus-Rah. It was a battle ground; the Pure at its center, ever-reaching from within, desecrating the natural orders of Lia, Liand, and Animate. Yet, there were also Deployed Ones of the Ten-Tribes, the Elect of Artus-Rah. They were the moving, feeling body of hope in the Valence. Their Bearing was to save what could be brought back, and to survive what was Forever-Fallen.
Before letting her imagination take her, Caasizah asked, “Is Mother a prisoner? A slave?”
Her Father half-shook his Great-Head, half-shrugged. With surprise, she noticed an unfamiliar expression of pain there, skulking like shame behind a sort of sour grin. His Marcher Eyes seemed to be holding up a Great-Weight, and they sweat shallow tears for their efforts. Yet, Caasizah still saw that Great-Joy in him, that he always Bore, like a light that would never dim. “If Mother isn’t enslaved, then how is she stuck?” A crawling of buried, fear-scabbed memories fondled her inner eye.
“The Valence is a discouraging place to be stuck in,” her father said in a whisper to himself.
“Father, is she..?”
“Your Mother is a Cusp, Caasizah. Your Mother has abandoned her Tribe. She has left her Lia. She’s renounced her Great-Bearing to Artus-Rah!” His voice was almost angry…the beh-beh hummed the Call louder. Her father breathed a long, Great-Breath, and exhaled, saying, “Artus-Rah is my guide. I seek His wisdom, and beseech Him on your mother’s behalf.
‘Artus-Rah will have her in the end. I know that I cannot seek her, for my Bearing is elsewhere…but yours!”
He seized Caasizah’s Great-Paw again and squeezed. “Caasizah, you must go to her. Your Bearing is with her. I have been with Shogohs; deep into the Woildness Halls I flew. Artus-Rah showed me your path, at least some of it. Artus-Rah showed me how much He needs you…how much your Mother needs you. I know now that you must find her…and with her, you will find the Great-Pouring that your being Bears for.”
Caasizah said nothing at first. She noticed that the beh-beh, still tucked beneath its detritus sheath, had dissolved into a lifeless thing. It had passed, and now resembled little more than a knobbish burl of rotten wood, hidden beneath dry yellow moss and a crumpling of tan leaves. “Jaym is going to Be again,” she said, and smiled.
Her father smiled as well. He replied, “So he will…though, even if he recycles on the morrow-Sun, I expect he will still be a young-One when the Woild ends.”
She thought that was a strange thing for him to say. A voice within reminded, ‘He can’t help it if he’s touched…’
“Oh Father,” Caasizah said. She sighed. “You know the Woild won’t really end!”
His smile vanished. He said “I pray to Artus-Rah that it does.”
He looked to check the sky. It was green, though shifting from Wakashayap to Khithithi, as puffy clods of brown clouds and chestnut herds of speckled light migrated into the leafy celestial flood. He looked back at her and said, “I will go now.”
Before departing, he gave Caasizah a soft hug and ten, gentle kisses on the crown of her Great-Black-Haired-Head. She returned the affection in similar Marcher manner, laying her ten kisses upon the snow-Lit fur of his crown.
Before disappearing, he left her with a final Telling. As he stepped away through the wavering-Woildness-bushes and trembling-Temple-trees, his Cup halted. He twisted to face her. He called back, “Your Mother is with the Court of the Valence Lord’s. They are on the move, as ever, waging a new war, serving a new self-proclaimed king. Your mother is enslaved by him, and will not be released for the sake of her own grace or good-will. Follow the signs. The Woild-Totems are your birthright…and you theirs’. Valhasirah is your Great-Bearer, and you are a Marcher. You have the might of Artus-Rah within you. I have complete faith in your Bearing, Caasizah…remember that…and remember that a wandering in the Woild may be the surest path to Rah, especially when it’s other Ones that you wander for. I hope you make many Friends on your Deployment.” He nodded and his joy shone through. He said, “I love you, little-Bear.” His head spun back, and before Caasizah could call out, he shouted, “When you have finished with your Great-Reunion, you can all find me on the Ice.” And then he was gone.
She was glad then. It had been seasons since she had seen him. Caasizah expected it would be a long while before she found him again. She knew she would. She smiled, and whispered, “Thank you Artus-Rah.”
(‘Only fools fear a scar’)
(“Caasizah didn’t particularly enjoy her Valence visits…”)
Caasizah stood within sight of the Valence. She looked out from the fringe of trees, to the clear, yellow-sky. The Sun carried Muathum’s red Light above her, Bearing high over the ugly gray line of the Desecrated territory beneath the horizon. She stood, staring at the Valence Liands beyond the Woild boundary that she rested upon, and she remembered that Temple meeting with her father…
How long had it been since that little-Telling that they’d shared? How many Suns had passed? How many Sunspirals of ten Suns? How many seasons of ten Sunspirals? How many Renewals of ten seasons? A little voice within her answered, ‘Better not think about it, or you’ll realize how long you’ve dawdled. Just tuck tail and run to Daddy, crying like the chubby little-girl you are.’
Caasizah’s Great-Gaze sank to the Purer-place sprawling before her. The Valence region that met her Marcher eyes had far fewer Hosts than the Woild at her back. Their green-gravy gleam shone through here and there as patches of tangled hedge, rough fields of hardy weeds, and the occasional grazed-grass of some Cusp Yard or Farm… all precious, uncut emeralds amidst the slew of dust, rubble, and waste.
It was a sad, ugly change from the Woild-Liands she had just journeyed through. Towering forests were reduced to isolated clusters. The meager tree growth that Caasizah saw was corralled by sprawling Towns of dilapidated Denizen buildings. Glistening, chuckling rivers wandered with Woild-naivete into the funneling mouths of clogged, rusty canals. Quaint, Woild pathways beneath leaf, limb and ancient hill met an abrupt end at the Valence-Edge… and were replaced by the road.
The 6th Dregroad. The Titan Road; Titan’s-Reach. It cut a swath through the Valence ruins and Towns, leading deeper and deeper into the Pure-Pit. This one stretched out like Pure-hunger; like flat, black avarice; like smooth, static greed. From the foundation of all Dregilk and illness it spurted. From the Center of the Woild it seeped. From the Puropolis, where the Nightspider from the Nothing had fallen into being, and latched its sucking sin onto Artus-Rah’s Woild-Teet… for some Pure-reason.
And there, the Nightspider remained, brooding in its Pure-made home… Puropolis. That accursed metropolis of Pure-evil; where the Woild itself was a smothered thing, imprisoned in a Desecrated form. That’s what the Pure did… it mutilated the Woild-ways of balance and virtue. That's what the Pure was… a defilement of the laws of beauty and grace. Puropolis… It was the Dregling Capitol, the Great-Sore on the Woild, the soul-brothel of Ai-Bi-Moloch-Ai. Puropolis; the black, swollen body that the eight Dregroads fed with all the Pure-Spillings of the Woild.
The Titan Dregroad before Caasizah was an old thing, and ever growing; a Pure-path paved in Pure-black stone. Maintained, but not cared for. Not loved. Maybe the old Cusps would have loved it, when the Empire of Old Cuspdom was still flouting its hollow power…
Beside the road, Caasizah saw the inhabited plots of Valence-Liand; those Towns of Cusps and Pure-Thralls; those smelting urns of lonely fools. The Denizens, those Valence-folk were named; little-lost-Lights trapped on the doorstep of Hell by their own Pure-demands. The Marcher spoke to herself. “Can’t even imagine… living away from the Woild, and not knowing anything but the upward trickle of deceit from some deeper-fallen fool.”
She remembered that her mother was down there. She knew not how deep… but she also knew that befriending sin and turning away from salvation was the first fall that begins the plunge into the Dreg-Pit.
“Madness!” She shook her head and growled, “Madness and folly! To follow the Desecrators! To follow the wheedling wiles of some fiending Thrall; to cheer the raving of some brainwashing Gape! How could any a One want what the Dregai make?” and a voice within her answered, ‘Well, technically, the Cusps made the Pure. The Dregai just took it.’
She took in a long breath, and remembered what her Father had said; he’d prayed that the Woild would end. She suddenly snorted with Great-Laughter. “I have weird parents,” she sniggered. She checked about to make sure she was still alone, then added, “It’s lucky I turned out sane.” A little voice within her concurred, ‘I’m surprised too.’
Despite the dangers of lapsing into deep thought on Valence-Edge, her indulgence in fae-humor kept her from wallowing in worry. Feeling that subtle glimmer of glee from her hidden discourse had tugged her mind back to her Cup, and the Bearing before her.
The Bearing before her led, it would seem, straight towards a ditch. The ditch ran beneath a long line of rubble, a range of crumbled gray dunes. Ruins… concrete ruins. She knew that concrete was a type of mud that turned into brittle stone. Her Father had explained this, and Telled her that the Cusp-Builders had once used metal sticks in the concrete-mud to make their buildings strong. She imagined the Cultipod Tribe farmers slathering clay, dung and straw daub onto the wooden-weave of wattle walls. She wondered how the Cusps had woven their metal sticks, and what it must’ve felt like to hold handfuls of magic mud, and wondered if their hands ever turned to stone. A little voice within whispered, ‘Maybe that’s why the Cusp Empire was so heavy-handed.’
The old buildings before her didn’t look strong. She couldn’t be sure, but she guessed that there wasn’t so much as a twig of metal in any of that gray-mess. Her Father had said the Pure-Ones had long ago ripped out and carted off almost all such building-metal in the Valence… “The lengths that the Dregai have gone to,” her Father had said, “to sniff out and steal every bit of metal they can, from tiny-trinket to hulking-tool… demolishing Cusp monuments, exhausting every mine, pillaging, taxing, demanding… we’re facing the possibility a Woild without metal…”
“A Woild without metal,” she whispered to herself. She remembered him Telling her of the Pure-Firmament; how it was believed amongst the Tribes that almost all the Pure’s hoarded metal went toward constructing that Puroplis encircling wall, that Pure-enclosure of Pure-defiance. She wondered if it was true that the Pure-magic of the Witches had permanently rendered all of the Firmament’s metal into an immutable mass, lost forever to the Woild. It was said that the material comprising the firmament was the same substance that made the eight, ever reaching Dregroads; and that Pure-paving was proven to endure against any Woild means of destruction. A little voice within her mused, ‘Corrupted and cut-off from the All, forever. Purified into nothing. Another Pure-prize for the Pure-Spider's Pit.’
A shiver shot up her Great-Spine at those ghostly words. She remembered her weapon, then, tucked hidden and rare beneath her Great-Cloak, and she felt a tingling-warmth in her Great-Throat. It was a reminder that Hanut-Khan would surely rejoice in her Bearing. The anguish of facing an indomitable foe had always roused the greatest sense of the 7th Great-Bearer’s spirit. A little voice within her agreed, ‘He certainly would be proud, Caasizah. You’re great at killing, and he’s a simple Great-Bearer, that bloodthirsty Lord of the Wood. It's too bad though… he’ll be the first to go, I expect… Too troublesome for Pure-progress.”
She flicked herself on the cheek and snapped out of her mind. It wouldn’t do to stand all Sun on the border of the Valence, thinking Dreg-thoughts.
From her Woild vantage, she looked for a way across the Desecrated Liands that would suit her discretion. She saw distant gatherings of Ones moving about on the edge of the nearest Town. A bonfire burned there. In the distant glow that warmed the shadows cast by Cuspdom’s ruins, she thought she saw the straight lines of spears or pole-arms in Denizen hands.
Caasizah could not identify some of what she saw before her. That was typical for a Woild-One Deploying to the Valence. The Valence was a chaotic place. Even the Valence Denizens struggled to keep up with their ever-changing environment, as frequent-bursts of competitive overhaul replaced anything Friendly or familiar. For this reason, and a troubling assortment of others, Caasizah didn’t particularly enjoy her Valence visits…but that was a trivial detail to her Bearing. Her visits were in the service of work, not for indulgence in pleasure. Yet, she always found Great-Joy in her work, for her visits were Devotional-Deployments, missions set forth by the Holy-Ones of the Tribes. They were little-wars, carried out in the name of her Great-Bearer, Valhasirah. They were little-Pourings, emptied from her life for the Glory of Artus-Rah, and His Woild.
A Valence wind blew coarse fragments of something Pure about her on the ground. She squatted, and observed the delinquent dancers as they thrashed, pelting against the shell of her Great-Cloak. A piece of the something was trapped against her. As her hand brushed it away, she recognized the thin, iridescent material as shticky; another Witch fomentation of Pure-arrogance. Her father Telled her that shticky had been named polymer by the Cusp-Wizards who invented it. In Old-Cuspdom, polymer was used in craft to replace the magic materials of the Woild. Caasizah remembered the rhyme that young-Ones were taught, “The Magics of the Woild”:
Blubber, fur and bone;
Seaweed, shell and glass;
Metal, wool, and stone;
Fiber, leaf, and grass;
Antler, wood, and pitch
Hide, tooth, and blood
Sinew, bark, and flesh
Wax, soil, and mud
Feathers, charcoal, fungus, clay
Father, Mother, Lover, Way
“…it replaced everything” Caasizah mumbled. A voice within her said ‘...and did a hell of a job.’
Her father had said polymer started off as a splinter of Pure-progress, but had festered into a plague of Pure-dependency, wooing the Cusps further and further from Woild-right. Yet, even then (despite its rampant bloom within Cuspdom being an augury of dire-outcomes,) polymer itself was just a tool, though void of its own Woild-spirit. Shticky though…
Shticky was something else; the bastard child of polymer and Witch’s alchemy… a vile dough, kneaded in the vats of Puropolis, with evil ingredients and curses baked into its making. The product, a cutting, seething bread that tainted the Cup of any who wielded it; spoiling the mind of the Bearer with Dregvisions and Pure-sickness; Filling the One with empty, leadened numb. Few Ones could Bear shticky coming in contact with their Cup (even only for little-whiles) without showing some obvious malaise. Amongst the Tribe-Ones, there were some exceptions for those whose way it was to use such Pure-things…but even for those whose Lia allowed it, there was no love in shticky, no beauty.
The Dreglings, however, Bore no scruples over such Woild-values. As it happened, the Dreglings were drawn to the draining, degrading energy that shticky shed into them. They chose it, and saw little difference between the protesting whines of their Cup, the warning jabs of their spirit, and the antagonizing goads of their sin. From a Dregling perspective, anything wrong with a Dregling came from someone else, and provided a vanity-rung on the darkening descent into their own Pure-pride.
The Cusps, on the other hand, used shticky with a kind of resentful surrender, grumbling that their lot was reduced to the foulest of things. Yet, they accepted it, for unlike the Woild-Ones of Artus-Rah, Cusps preferred to strain and complain then molt through pain.
The wind settled, and the shticky particles fell to rest. They twitched and ruffled with every Valence gasp, eager to press on, trembling to take flight and seed clean Woild-Liands with their hopelessness, to conquer the living with their lifeless charge.
Glaring at the colorless perpetrators, Caasizah reflected how most Cusps likely knew nothing of shticky’s essence, or its origins. It was likely that few Cusps had even heard of polymer, seeing as no one called it that anymore. History in the Valence was reserved for the Dregai, and explored by only the maddest of Cusp fools.
Caasizah began wondering if no one called it polymer anymore because no One’s even made polymer anymore. The institutes of Cusp-Wizards had long since disintegrated, some seeking redemption in the Woild, others pursuing deeper Desecration, (generally becoming Dregai Witches and their Dregling-Ilk). Caasizah wondered if, as understanding of a thing degraded, the word that spelled its true meaning also fell away into obsolescence, as useless as the dead-flakes that writhed about her. “So it is with all artificial things,” she said. “They are without spirit, and have no will for revival. They have no True-Lia, and thus, no One who bears them will love them. They are without true beauty, and are discarded with less reverence than a One pays to their own dregs.” She paused, then finished her Telling by saying, “All things fracture and fade. Only the Bearers of Artus-Rah are forever remade.” A little voice within her laughed, ‘Whatever makes you feel better! I suppose fat, Friendless loners need someone to talk to, even if it’s only a phantom of Pure-optimism.’
She closed her Marcher-Eyes and whispered aloud, “Lost in thought again!” Then she growled, “I mustn’t let Pure-proximity poison me so.”
She opened her Great-Eyes. She was a Great-One; Caasizah of the Rim. She knew she was… yet she had to admit, it was always an effort to resist the Valence's sucking breath, its Bearing of wearing pain.
She had been in the Tribal Territories for many seasons. Those Great-Cups also Bore the perils of Woild-War; but they were Friendly regions, and rich in nourishing Light. Arriving at the Valence was the drop of gut; the shock of visual Desecration; the hackle-lifting touch of polluted air; the realization that the All was not well.
She had been on many Deployments. At the beginning of each, she stood on that edge, about to cross from some sacred Woild country, into the no-One’s Liand of the Valence, where lost souls recycled, life after life…
She stood there again, and felt the same feeling she always did on that Valence edge. It was a feeling, she thought, like waking from the midst of a dream, and realizing the cause of the dream-vision was something happening to her Cup as she slept.
The wind blew harder, and more shticky hurtled past her; more poison to her precious Woild, and a subtle Pure-boast that the borders of the Valence were ever encroaching.
Was it a sense of waning hope that she felt in her Great-Chest? She perched there, alone, on the threshold of the Great-War between Woild and Pure; an inadequate barrier against the rabid, coursing burn of spiritless growth, and she thought, in an uncharacteristic instance of faithless-curse, that the endless horde of shticky fragments could not be stopped. A little voice within her praised, “Noooww you’re starting to see.”
How long would the Woild last? How long could it persevere, Bearing the burdens of inner-rot?
“Hooooh……hooooh…..hooooh….”
From some Valence place before her, an Owl was calling.
In that moment, she was Filled with a knowing. She pressed her hands together, steepled like some far-off Woild-Temple’s prominence, and she intoned, “Artus-Rah be my Maker, my Chieftan, my Friend; my breath will be His, from beginning to end.”
She unclasped her Great-Hands as she released a Great-Exhale, returning her blessing to the Woild. “I’m almost ready to go,” she mumbled. A little voice within said, ‘Almost ready to go, but not yet of course…you are a woman, after all. Take your time… whatever you have to say or think or feel is surely more important than divine-quests and sacred Bearings… you are a woman after all. No rush; The Woild will wait on you… you are a woman after all; the height of All creation, the wisest form of life, the…’
“That’s enough!” she commanded. Her mind stuttered and she added “ Leave me, and blow back to the Pit, Dregwind!”
She breathed, and she waited, then felt the Pure pressing her again as the wind blew back, ‘Welcome to the Valence, Caasizah…’
As always, an oppressive and patience-pushing greeting… Yet, Caasizah was a Marcher of the Rim. She was no stranger to harrowing thoughts, nor the onslaught of prophetic Doom. Of course, she was a woman…meaning she was only a One… and she received the curse of fear just like any other One, (though it could be said that she Bore it better). Still… she was only a One; but she was also a Great-Warrior, and as was instinctual to any warrior who senses some threat, she thought then of her weapon, hidden beneath her cloak.
Comfort in force. Comfort in power. It is the mark upon life, and in her, that comfort was no less… and in that strenuous moment, touching the comfort of power brought memories…
She remembered the blood and pain of weapon-training, her Pouring and payment of learning its ways. Now, it may be true that memories of pain can widen the gaps in a tearing heart… but Triumph over pain! Remember that! Suffering endured for noble growth! Cherish it! Blood Poured for the Might of Artus-Rah! There is no Greater-Gift.
And then she remembered why she chose to Bear her weapon, whose very company was an invitation for violence and strife. She remembered…
It was the greatest lesson that any weapon or any One could teach. The lesson she learned as a young-One, that grew in meaning and changed in expression as she did, but never altered in essence. The lesson that she sought to master, that supplanted all other ways, and in practice, became the sole purpose of her life. A lesson that was her Lia, her Way, as set down by Valhasirah, the Great-Bearer of the Marcher Tribe. The lesson that was given to Cusp-Ones on the pedestal of salvation. The lesson that tormented Dreglings throughout their foolish, fumbling assertions, and chastised their souls as they shamefully recycled. The absolute wisdom, known and respected by all Devoted-Ones, and the supreme prayer, that ensconced all other sacred sentiment. A verse that powered the Most-Massive-in-Might, and brightened the littlest-lives-with-Light. A mantra intoned in moments of fear, doubt, and woe; the charm she incanted then, as had every Hero, since the very first… “Breathe in for Artus-Rah…”
She inhaled. Her Cup Filled with shared air, air freshened by the Woild Hosts. The vision Poured into her…Filling her with wonder! The Hosts freshened the air, but who made the Hosts? Who made the soil they needed? Who made the stones that eroded for mineral nourishment, and the water made fresh by the cycles of Wakashayap’s Flow? Who made the Sun that lit the Woild in each Great-Bearers Liastical-Light? Who made the Woild? Who made the infinite factors and formulas that monitor, move, and make all mass matter? Who gave her the lungs that her borrowed breath was buried in? Say it now, she thought…
“All Breathe for Artus-Rah.” She did, and at the end of her exhale, she checked her weapon, entered the ditch before her, and climbed out, looking for the safest path through the Valence.
(A Witch… A Dregai… A Forever-Fallen-Fool)
A safe path through the Valence… to find her fallen mother… which meant finding the Cusp Ones of the Valence Lord’s Court. Ironically, if Caasizah’s path led her to that murderous gang of fools, the safest path she could hope for would still surely end in a dangerous way. A cowardly, arrogant, selfish Cusp could be difficult to deal with, sure, and a mob of them could be rather perilous; but the Cusps of the Valence Lord’s were a cunning, hate-tainted lot; Pure-Desecrators, without exception. Those anti-Tribes of the Valence Lord’s, whose operative values were organized violence and petty-power-pinching, played the most prominent role in Cusp society. Their Bearing was belligerence and broken-order, and their sins smoldered their sickly spirits through each bastardly battle. They mastered and used the lesser Cusps of no affiliation, serfing on those poor souls’ feeble swells and breaking luck. The Valence Lord’s, as Caasizah’s father had put it, were… “Filled with the hopeless conceit of those who’ve hijacked divine prophecy to fanatically follow a Pure-dream of Pure-paradise.”
A safe path through the Valence… And what a prophecy they had: The Prophecy of the Valence Lord. The very name being the iconic title of their vision, their quest, and the willed-yet-left-wanting manifestation of their one true king. Yet, as far as any One seemed to know, there was no real prophecy, only a distant rumor of one. The Tellings said that a Prophecy had been Poured many Great-Ages ago, after the Great Tower of Artus-Rah was felled, and His Great-Cup had been Spilled atop its Desecrated foundation.
None of the Cusps Caasizah had met seemed to wholly agree on what their Prophecy Telled… save for this; a One would rise from the Cusps, to defeat all the Dreglings, destroy the Nightspider’s Empire, depose the Pure-Master, and lead the Cusps into the Puropolis, to live within that tantalizing Puretopia. Caasizah tsked, then stumbled on a root. How many Cusp fools had been proclaimed Valence Lord, she wondered, and how many had died, Purer than before, further from the prize than they ever realized? A voice within her added, ‘...and how many recycled as Dreglings? Funny to think about…’
A safe path through the Valence… Caasizah bowed her head as she marched through the trees, and whispered, “Artus-Rah willing, they recycled as beh-behs, and Bore back to their Tribe”.
She reflected on something else. That sad line of ordained impotence had new headship, a new name she had heard Tell of… King Korum, the current chief claimant to the Valence Lord’s Court. Caasizah wondered if he was the One to truly end it all, as her father had perhaps implied. Or would the Woild be beaten in another way? Or in many ways? A little voice within her chided, ‘You may never know if you die here, thinking about it.’
A safe path through the Valence… She looked around. Her Great-Ears and Great-Nose were always on guard, but occasionally her Great-Eyes turned from the task of careful marching to assist her other sentinels, and scout where they could not. She saw then a crumpled, cream-colored rubble of ruined Pure-bot in the leaf-lent-shade beside her. Hunched and tangled in a stand of five forking alders, the remnants of the Ai-Lloy-Finder laid alone, abandoned by whatever Dregling Puring Party it had once served. Its frame was clad in hard-shticky, and its insides were soft-shticky guts. It resembled a scorpion-crab, studded with shticky rivets and nuts. The once-scuttling-exoskeleton seemed empty of its Ai-life, its synthetic-Pure-sentience. Its 8, once-scrambling-legs were sprawled out, skulking in scored-slits in the ground, where its final kicking skids had stilled. A long split in its armored body Telled of a fateful meeting with a Great-Woild-Axe-Blade. The killing wound’s edges Bore crusty black scabs. Beneath, the ground was painted with wet resinous dabs …
The false-carnage she saw had not lain there long,
Its shtickiness was still shiny, and its odor was still strong,
It was the sharp-skunky-waft of Pure-Arborlisk sap
From a puddle of the fuel pooled in the alder-clump’s lap.
And on the bot’s sniffer, which sensed metal no more,
a faint mustache of mold waged its own Woild-war.
Caasizah then smiled. She’d seen a golden-dust sheen,
where a falling of pollen lay on its fractured face-screen.
A noise from behind her roused two of her guards,
And her eyes answered swiftly to that ear-brought alarm,
Upwards they looked, to where her ears pointed out,
A tippy-top branch, and slow Sploigle bout,
The Squirrel-slugs were grappling, and growling their grief,
One groping the other, who her eyes deemed a thief,
For the groper had held, just a moment before,
A grape that its slime-hands now coiled out for.
The thief’s chittered challenge blew out like a sneeze,
As its gummy-legs wobbled on that alder-trapese,
The grape owner pleaded in a chatter of phlegm,
But the thief slowly spun up a sprigging tree stem,
And kicked down like a sloth, its fur slick with snot,
But the savior of grape grabbed, and the thiefs foot was caught.
The thief languidly flailed in a frantic display
Moaning while spazzing in a slug footed way,
Then, a new noise alerted Caasizah’ s sound sensing ones,
The far-off-away bark of a spark-wakened gun.
The Thief dropped the grape, and both mewts tore away,
Each as fast as a rat wearing shoes of wet-clay.
Caasizah waited, and listened, with her sensors turned on,
Till the silence dismissed them, and the peril seemed gone.
A safe path through the Valence… Caasizah liked guns, usually… it depended on whose eye was aiming down the sights. But guns were rare in the Woild. There were a handful of reasons for the lack of firearms. Some reasons were Purely atmospheric (there was a fume that the Dregroads seemed to exhale that made explosions and fire burn a little slow). Some of the reasons were obvious (like the shortage of metal for bullets and barrels, and that shortage being worst in the Valence). Some reasons were due to Woild strategy (like how the Tribe Ones were most apt to employ firearms, yet most Woild One Deployments depended upon quiet combat and untraceable-trekking). Other reasons were due to Pure-plots (the Dregai got tired of getting assassinated by Tribe-Champions, and thus began the Pure-purge of all bows, crossbows, and guns).
But Dregai broke all rules, and their Ilk of Dreglings that followed them did the same (though warily, while fearing the focus of the Nightspider’s Pure-judgement). Caasizah wondered if the One with the gun she had just heard had any more bullets, and a voice within her comforted ‘Relax, Fatty…it’d take a full clip to put you down’
A safe path through the Valence… Her Great-Cup tussled with a thicker thicket of bushy Hosts. She growled, and an ill-temper snapped out of her as a grumpy swat at the snags. Large as she was, Caasizah was still young for a One (though no longer a young-One) and occasionally her attitude showed the raw stinger of youth. She had entered the first phase of her womanhood recently. The first ten Renewals of her Life had been hard, though as a young-One she had been given extra grace, and been treated much like any other young…. even though most young-Ones were not Elect, and did not serve the Temples of Artus-Rah on Deployment, nor did they know a breath of what Caasizah knew about Hell and hardship…
Yet, even toddling Marchers were more than a match in combat against a variety of much older Ones. Those Tribe Ones of Valhasirah matured in a bulk of rounded scope, healing quickly and learning deep. The rarity of her mighty kind was reason enough that the Spirit of Valhasirah pressed them into early service, trusting that the doting hand and endless eye of Artus-Rah specially guided the valiant of His favorite Child’s Tribe.
A safe path through the Valence… The Valence was always at least a little dangerous. Thankfully, she was a Marcher, dangerous herself in thought and flesh. As she turned to the right, and used her Great-Clever-Hand to peel away an alder branch, she thought again of her Mother. She wondered what it would be like to finally see her, and a voice within her said, ‘Your mother was a pain in the ass for every One she met.’
A safe path through the Valence… She contemplated whether the Valence Lord’s would be the Ones to Spill Caasizahs life: but she spared no worry for future Cuspish confrontations. There were eviler, more dangerous beings than the Valence Lord’s, after all.
Caasizah was a Great-Warrior, and more than a match for most Desecrators… but should she encounter any Cankerspores (she’d heard that Kappa’s lurked in this area of the Valence) or cross any Dregai… a Titan, or a Golem, or a spurt of Goblins… then she may decide to March at a run. Her father’s voice came to her then, “Keep those Great-Ears pricked for mouthbreathers. The slacker their gaping breath, the easier they are to hear, and the more reason to fear.”
A safe path through the Valence… avoiding the Pure-Liands was always the safest way. She intended to travel between the Cusp abodes and the Dregling-Developements; wherever the Woild shone through, where the Blessings of the Ten Great-Bearers Poured through the Pure-oppression.
A safe path through the Valence… The trees were always a Woild-One’s Friends. Her father said that it was those Towering-Hosts, those fronds of Artus-Rah, who fought the longest and gained the most. Without them, what would the Woild be? Caasizah’s father had Telled her that even the Cusp-Wizards of Old Cuspdom had acknowledged the High-Hosts’ integral role in Woild-Health. They had advocated for protecting the trees, expressing some well-meant Woild-virtue…
Yet the fools’ inner folly was revealed by their sins. They feared the impact that restraint might have upon progress, while shaming their allies for indulgence. They prided themselves in being the fixers of the Woild, rather than letting it be fixed by the Great-One who made it. They refused to accept any authority higher than their own intelligence, while tightening the chains of Pure-dependency that anchored them to the darkest depths of blindness.
Cowardice. Arrogance. Selfishness.
They began replicating the trees, attempting to replace them. They killed trees counted by entire forests rather than humble-stands. They used the wood as fuel for their shticky-mills. Upon the naked-grounds that they'd exposed, they built artificial trees that they deemed better, more efficient, more Pure. Smart-Trees, they were.
The Cusp-Wizards refused to face the horror of their vision, for doing so would be admission of their long, backwards road of bad choice, and the certainty of their need for repentance… Cowardice.
The Cusp-Wizards could not be Telled that their ratios were wrong, that no bargaining with magic and matter could outdo the beautiful perfection of their Creator’s craft… Arrogance.
The Cusp-Wizards mistook the gift of free-will for the permission to take-all; mistook the responsibility of free-will with the birthright to anything they could achieve; mistook the freedom of free-will with the individual autonomy of Pure-isolation... Selfishness.
A safe path through the Valence… Caasizah walked on through the trees, slipping her Great-Cloaked-Cup through the shadows of the soggy-alder-copse, feeling safe. Yet Caasizah knew that even the Woilder forests, fields, marshes and hills here were precarious paths for any One. There were mewts infesting every scrap of Valence Liand. Like Animates, many mewts were harmless, and most were useful in their way.…but mewts could be dangerous if not handled properly. They were beasts, afterall; built from the breaking and rebinding of Animates, conjured in Witches’ cauldrons, those shticky-wombs Filled with Pure-pride and science’s spilled secrets. The result of that artificial conception and counterfeit birth was an Animewt.
They were beings, and like any being (almost any being), they had the choice of becoming better than they were currently being. Many did, and found a righteous life, gracefully settling in some Woild-niche that they’re Pure-race had undoubtedly carved out of the Kingdom of True-Animates. In fact, as far as her father had Telled her, Caasizah understood that all mewts were inclined to find their weird-way into the Woild, and rejoin the side of Artus-Rah. Caasizah wondered how long the Dregai had frustrated themselves over this Woild-blessing, before hatching Purer plots to seduce, sway and subjugate mewts into Depravity, and a voice within her said, ‘Yes, mewts are beings… you can Tell by how easily even the best of them Fall.’
A safe path through the Valence… She remembered the Sploigles, one a thief, the other prepared to do violence over a grape, and processed aloud, “Ugly, but untainted. The Woild isn’t without hard edges and rotten roots…they were just being beings” and a voice within her replied, ‘True. A depraved Sploigle would’ve fancied its mate’s head over a grape-treat.’
She sighed, and realized with a fleck of mirth that she’d never heard of any use, Woild or Pure, for a Sploigle. She wasn’t sure if they were good eating, or if any One had ever attempted Sploigle-taming. She sniggered as she imagined a man walking a little squirrel-slug on a shticky leash, trailing a smear of mucous from its sodden, snot-soaked tail, and voice within her said, ‘If you can imagine it, some freak in Puropolis has tried it.’
As the Dregvoice inside was ruining her inner eye’s playful picture, her Great-Ears recognized the rambling clutter of a Harpy Haggle. She paused, and began moving her hand towards her Great Cloak’s opening. Harpies, especially the fledglettes, were good eating, and Caasizah’s Deployment was sure to be full of long, hungry work. Some forty paces away, she saw them. Their heads rose over the bushes, seeing her as she saw them. Their beaked snouts sported tusks, and as they dashed away with many a grunting gobble, she saw the Turkey-Boars’ patchy, corpulent, two legged cups. Their wiry hair was bluish purple, and their bristling coats’ cracks were spackled with spiky, gray speckled feathers. They were gone before her Great-Hand reached her weapon. “Dregs,” she cursed. Who knew if the next meat she met would be more menacing.
A safe path through the Valence… A voice within her announced, ‘Now depraved Harpies, there’s a real Valence experience. Sure, a starved pig is frightening; but a Haggle of blood-lusting tusks on spur-shod-hooves, driven by a Ghoul Puring’s antagonizing instigation, rampaging their way into a Cusp settlement…’
“Dregging Dregs!” Caasizah growled, a little louder this time. She took her hand from her cloak, and sat down while her mind wandered on. She knew that some strains of mewt were favorite slaves of the Dreglings. When the Witch’s experiments hit the bullseye of congruency between different Animate bloods, and the achieved alignment of wicked intents, a new stranger of the Woild was made…
Some were bred for killing, others for Woild-One tracking,
Some were made for spreading despair, others for Dregling snacking;
There were some mewts for hauling, and some a One might ride;
And there were other mewts for growing, to harvest the goods inside.
Some were made to ruin rivers, others to crumble wood,
But all were made to flaunt Pure-skill, because the Witches could.
A safe path through the Valence… Yet, most mewts were made so that they would live, and consume, and compete, and ultimately destroy; as the pathogen horde slowly upsets the balance of its well-ordered host. Such strains of mewt were turned loose in careless abundance through the one-way outlet of every Witches’ Hall. Dumped onto some lonely stretch of Deep-Valence, beneath the glowering Firmament Heights, they were free, in a sense, to wage a life-long war of attrition against the Woild. “Though, I suppose that rash and negligent blow at our Woild-order is what gives the Ohms a chance,” Caasizah mumbled, and a voice within her remarked, ‘A chance to swim in a sea of shit until they wash up on a shore of stupid.’
A safe path through the Valence… She saw a cave ahead; a rough, narrow tunnel, carved into a long, shrubby-hummock. The tunnel was large enough to shelter a man, though it would be far too cramped. She guessed that a mewt lived there. She moved to the left, veering further from the dwelling, and as she passed, she noticed a gray and black smudge on the leafy dirt ground. She slowed and stared, before realizing it was ash and charcoal. Beside the fire-bed, she saw a flat, wide stone with a dark stain upon it. She realized it was probably a grease spot from searing meat. She walked on, and mumbled, “Cankerspores are too dumb to cook, thanks be to Artus-Rah,” then she swiveled her head back again, and thought, That’s almost certainly a half-sap’s… and a voice within her said, ‘Could be… could also be a Dregamite lair. Best move along; off to mommy, leave charity and liberating the beast-men to those Keefist turd-herders.’
She watched the cave for at least sixty breaths while she waited to see if a One would appear. She hoped no One would, and that she could move along on her Bearing. If it was a half-sap, though, and the poor wretch was seeking the Woild, and was holed up there… it wouldn’t do to leave such a One without offering aid. Any Woild One knew this kind of service was the will of Artus-Rah, and none knew it better than a Marcher. But if it was a Dregamite, she would be better off rekindling the fire at the tunnel's mouth and burning it from the face of the Woild.
Dregamites… Those twisted, mewted beings were man-blooded enough to speak, use tools and take orders… but of all the Dreglings, they were the most simple-minded and primitive. Because of their beastly-blood, however, they thrived in Woilder Liands, more so than other Dreglings… so, the Dregai sent them like hounds on a scent, or like cats slinking into a barn, or a raptor launched from the wrist.
A safe path through the Valence… Half-saps were man-Animate hybrids also. Unfortunately, they often embraced Depravity in pursuit of the Pure… but unlike the Dregamites (who were Forever-Fallen) the half-saps could find their way back to the Woild.
They were beings, half-saps, and like all beings (almost all beings) they were cherished belongings of Artus-Rah. Such is the Love of Artus-Rah, that He would adopt the bastard spawn of his enemies’ deliberate malfeasance. But, Artus-Rah does not Love all things. The One who is all Love cannot Love hate, and some Purely-depraved beings Bore nothing but hate. Such Hate-Filled Ones were Forever-Fallen, and there were two castes of these devils: The lords of the Pure, the Dregai, and their seditious slaves, the man-mewted Dregamites, and a voice within her chided, ‘You’re forgetting the Cankerspores, dear.”
“No,” Caasizah grunted, “not quite.”
The Cankerspores were the worst of the mewts. They were depraved from their very first, gaping breaths. Born wretched hybrids of cruelest splice, their curse was to kill any and all, seemingly as a backlash for the sheer misery of their being. They were hopelessly wicked, but… some of the stranger Tellings Telled of Cankerspores that had been tamed by a Woild-touch.
By some mercy of Artus-Rah, and some limit to the Nightspider’s power, the Cankerspores struggled to survive beyond their schticky-squeezed births; and the terrors that did gasp gaping breaths were, with few exceptions, sterile-ends of their mewted genetic line. But the Ones that lived were Pure-death to those around them. Caasizah muttered something her Father had said, “But be grateful, child, that Cankerspores won’t willingly serve the Dreglings, for they are ever consumed by their own hunger and wrath against the Woild.” A voice within Caasizah chuckled, “But that serves Ai-Bi just fine.”
A safe path through the Valence… The way before her opened slightly: the puddles deepened and more of Muathum’s red Sun Light shone through the widening gaps in the alders as the trees thinned. Caasizah tread deeper into the wetness, her Great-Ankles submerging in Lo'olesh's vagrant-pools as they reflected the orange, midmorn skyLight of GormGiGan.
A safe path through the Valence… From far behind, a distant shout found her ears… just about an echo away. A volley of responding screams and curses followed. She thought of the Denizens that she’d seen a skyLight ago, standing stubbornly off the curb of the Dregroad. She was too far from there now to hear them, unless some had followed her…
She stopped and listened. Several more intermittent shouts rang; rang with the music of the Valence, rang with an angry incoherence. An anthem of Valence ambiance, pledging periodical, proud allegiance to a life of malcontent. A final curse darkened the air, then silence breathed again.
A safe path through the Valence… She wondered how tangled up in Dregling doings those shouting-Ones were. They could actually be Dreglings… any One directly serving the Dregai deserved that Pure-reputation. It was all too common for Cusps to serve as willing mercenaries or auxiliaries in the Nightspider’s Swarm, and once serving the Pure-Desecrators, it was only a short slide to Pure-Thralldom…but that was true of every Cusp anyway.
A safe path through the Valence… She sniffed, checking the air. A One could never know what was floating around. A wyrm-cloud could be passing over… or the air could be laden with some vaporous-stew of witches-brew… or some Pure-Thralls could be huffing and snuffing nearby; sent into the Woilder Liands of the Valence by the Dregai; in search of mewt-game, in search of metal, in search of Deployed Woild-Ones to kill.
A safe path through the Valence… She reached a patch of drier ground. Her goat-hide boots were soggy, weighing her Great-Gait down. It would affect her speed if she had to run, which she just might do if those shouts had in fact come from Dreglings. Dreglings were a constant threat throughout the Valence. Of course, they often embarked on perverted ventures into the Woild too.
A safe path through the Valence… A scent touched her knowing. It was carrion, the smell of Empty-Cup, the tang of helpless dead. She thought again of her hidden weapon, before wondering what stinking crime she may discover. The thought of Gapes crossed her mind. An oldFriend of hers believed that Gapes were personally responsible for the majority of butchery and visceral-persecution carried out by the Dreglings. He had said, “There is something in Gapes that yearns to inflict suffering upon others. No more than the Dregai, but it’s always Gapes you see first, cutting a swath for Dregai harvests.
A safe path through the Valence… She recollected what her Father had said: The Valence Lord’s had a new King. They were on the move, waging a new war. She wondered how she would find them. She had one clue to follow… If they were at war, she knew who it would be with. The Valence Lord’s would be, as ever, trying to claim the Pure for themselves. It would be a brutal campaign. They would start by accumulating Cusp warriors and arms, in preparation to assault, she expected, one of the Outer Dregai-Cities. “To their deaths,” she muttered, and a voice within her said, ‘Ah well…if they bury some Pit-Demons, do you really care that a load of Cusps gets thrown in with them?’
A safe path through the Valence… She saw the first cockroach then. As long as a finger, it scuttled over the lip of her goat-hide boot, and onto the deer-hide of her shin-gaiters. The roach worked its way over where gaiter met tanned-deerskin legging, and then flourished its stubby wings in a ruffling peel of flight. She smiled. It was the first true Animate she had seen since crossing from Woodlaw; and though cockroaches abounded in the Valence more than (perhaps) any other visible creature, she embraced the blessing of that little-One’s company, nonetheless. As a cerebral-silk-worm's thread reeled her thought back to the limb of where her thinking had branched off, she chanted a rhyme sung once to her by the Keefists:
“Dregai are abominations, not weird.
Dregai are to be destroyed, not feared.
Dregai souls are damned, not lost.
Dregai will be hungry when crossed.”
“Dregai aren’t to be feared.” she mumbled to herself again. She wondered how many Deployed Ones could say they didn’t feel gut-shrinking, bone-freezing, tongue-drying terror when confronted by any member of that Curse worshiping, cannibalistic race.
It was lucky most never did. The Dregai preferred the debauched, malignant pageantry of Puropolis, (where only a few Woild-Elect-Ones had ever ventured to and returned from). She’d also learned that whenever those Demon Lords left their Pure-Capital to enter the volatile and contested Valence, they often clung to their Valence Cites, their eight Dregroads, and an assortment of Pure-Developments they oversaw. Factories, mines, forts and ports, as well as all the Towns of their servile Cusps… all safe and comfortable Pure-places for their forever-severed souls. Recent Tellings indicated, however, that the Dregai were growing in confidence. As the war stretched on, and the Valence spread ever outwards into the Great-Cups of the Tribes, and the number of Dregai grew, so did their Pure-desire to conquer every bit of the Woild.
The Dregai also hunted, and they ate any One they killed. And some Deployed-Ones hunt Dregai, Caasizah thought, and a voice within her chuckled, ‘And then there was Dirdenfey, who was said to have eaten an Ogre…’
A safe path through the Valence… and to Caasizah, that meant the Woilder-Liands of the Valence. That was the way of most Tribe-Ones venturing there. Though, some found ways to traverse Denizen-crowds and Pure-Developments using their guile, wit, and a whole pack of tricks. The real trick to Valence espionage, Caasizah knew, was hiding the color of your eyes, for no Dregling eye wore the Lights of Artus-Rah.
A safe path through the Valence… The carrion smell had blown away behind her. It did not come back, nor did she ever discover its source. Such foul mysteries were always coming and going in the Valence. When the menace of their Pure-puzzles passed, One only hoped that the taint of their presence stayed put, piled with other past-portents of Pure-perversion… but a One never knew when departed phantoms might return, to vindicate the unfulfilled proclamations that their reeking-heralds had announced.
A safe path through the Valence…“Hoot-hooooh…Hoot-hooooh”
Caasizah changed her Bearing to follow the call of the Owl, and as she did, she prayed, “Breathe in for Valhasirah…”
“All Breathe for Artus-Rah.”
She had been moving consistently away from the Dregroad for two skyLights. The orange-sky of GormGiGan had long since settled behind the smug-yellow of Lo'lesh (with its pools of golden clouds), which in turn (one skyLight later) had swelled into the green of Wakashayap’s sky-stream.
The trees grew well in that place, as they often did further from the Valence-Edge. Pure-attention seemed most obsessed over where its power could get… though it was prone to complacency in the rigorous-discipline of tending to what had already been got. The Valence-Edge, afterall, was the ever-shifting battle-line, and the Desecrator armies were expensive, cumbersome Clots. They cleared and logged more trees on the Valence Edge, both for the resources that their conquests demanded, and for the protection afforded by eradicating the wooded-Liands of Hanut-Khan, where the Rengiri Champions Called his name.
All-in-all, it was typical that the Valence-Liands furthest from the Dregroads (and further from the Woild-Valence-Edge and the Deep-Valence-Wastes as well) were the safest Liands for Woild-Ones to be. Caasizah mused “Just like how each Sacred-Sites are the safest places within each Great-Cup,” and a voice within her teased, ‘Not for Laaw-ooongg.’
She ignored that. Instead, she reflected on another thing (a thought steeped in the ironies that marked any good wondering). She pondered why it was that the safest place within each Tribe’s Great-Cup was its center, and the safest place in each Valence region was its center, and yet the very center of the Woild was the most dangerous place of all. A little voice within her answered, ‘It’s foreshadowing, dear…for Pure-things yet to come.’
She walked on through the cover that the tree-Hosts provided, confident she was going the right way, but always uncertain where that way would lead. She was alert, breathing easy, and always looking for Woild-Food. She was also aware that there may be other things looking for food nearby. She kept her Great-Hood on, and tread with quiet caution, as her sentinels checked anything that blew her way.
She had a plan. Her plan was to follow the signs laid out before her. She did not know what they would be. She did expect, though, that eventually she would have to find someone for a Telling.
While she had some memory of the Liands, Towns, and cities of Titan’s-Reach, she did not know where the Valence Lord’s were now, nor had she ever before called upon their Court. She believed, though, that she was close to them. She also believed that finding her Mother in the chaos of Hell’s-Frontier would depend upon a Telling with a Cusp, which could be a tricky thing.
Nevertheless, her path followed the Bearing of Artus-Rah, and she believed His signs would be enough for her.
The red-Sun of Muathum neared the middle of its Bearing, moving now toward the distant Woild in Muatha’s Great-Cup. The brown skyLight of Khithithi was adorned with shaggy, migrating clouds of pecan-shell-brown. Its darker Light had aided Caasizah in her concealment as she approached the first Valence Denizens on her path.
The trees thinned, yet the most recent Bearing of the Owl’s Call still beckoned her on, across a field. It was a Liand of Pure-farm, a massive field of corn-Hosts, whose pale-green skin was spotted yellow and coated with whitish dust.
She saw a large mewt being led by some men through the stubble of reaped-corn-stalks. The mewt was four-legged and as large as a Deer. The Witch-graphted animewt appeared to be a breed of Dass. It had a thick, donkey body, while Bearing the distinctive sharp snout and erect, bushy tail of a shepherd-dog. Caasizah knew that such farm mewts were synthetically husbanded by the Witches to carry out farm chores like plowing and hauling while Bearing the keen senses and teeth of a property guarding beast.
The farming Ones were too far off to be seen in detail. Caasizah could not count the number of Ones flitting before and behind the Dass, but she thought they were tossing ears of corn into baskets tied to its back.
Caasizah would need to replenish the food in her pack as she moved, but Pure-corn wasn’t food she ate unless haunted by bleak hunger. She walked straight across, stepping through the short, wilty corn-stalks. She knew the farm laborers would see her as she walked parallel to them, through the rows of scattered stalks they had already stripped of fruit. She wondered how they would react… it all depended on who they were, though she hoped to be gone before finding out. She relied on the assumption that laborers on an outer farm such as this were Cusps, or perhaps the lowest of Pure-Thralls, and that her presence, although Great, would prove uninteresting once she moved away.
She also relied on her Great-Bulk, which marked her as a dangerous One. A dangerous looking One always attracted less attention from oppressed eyes (so long as that dangerous-One’s metal wasn’t showing). She decided to look a bit more dangerous, and draw her weapon from beneath her cloak. She reached within and felt the wooden handle protruding upwards from behind her inner-belt. With the deft, Great-Fingers of her Great-Clever-Hand, she unlooped the lanyard of nettle-twine that added extra holding to her weapons berth. She drew forth from the folds of her cloak the carved, wooden club, and tossed it across the front of her Cup, catching it in her Great-Strong-Hand.
As she crossed the bare, open center of the corn-field, Caasizah saw the mewt’s head turn toward her. It watched as she watched back and continued on. The farm laborers had all stopped and stood watching as well even after she began moving away from them. It wasn’t unusual for a One to be cutting through a Valence field, armed and hooded. The farmers had their own arms nearby, no doubt, as would anyone with a desire to survive in the Valence (what with Cankerspores, Dregamites and Gapes having free-reign).
After crossing far enough, she returned her gaze forward, to the treeline ahead. The ground before her was strewn with the blighted, discarded cornstalks, and she muttered under her breath, “They’d better burn this entire field.”
Caasizah watched the Sun from halfway up the adolescent Ash Tree that she had climbed. She had found the Tidings-Tree at the top of a gorge, overlooking a lower-Liand that she intended to cross. She had decided it was alright to rest there; as safe a place as any. As the brown skyLight saturated into Hanut-Khan’s blue, the red-Sun continued its voyage towards the Eshimen Isle of Mua. Caasizah reminded herself that soon, the Sun would Pour out the last of its Light over that Sacred-Site, and extinguish into emptiness. In its place, the moon would appear, and the heavens would Bear the black of the eve-veil, and the White-Lights of Valhasirah would Pour forth from the Moon and Stars. She knew that the Sun would return from Rah (as it always did, after being Filled). The morrow-Sun, when it returned from the Rim of the Woild, would Bear the pink Light of dawn, as it did every morning, until reaching the center of the Woild, and being Filled with the orange of GormGiGan.
She began to feel the licking-dread of knowing that she must sleep through the eve-veils darkness alone. A worried damp puckered the small of her back. When the Sun vanished, the dim-lit Woild would bring out the baddies. She remembered an Eliga Telling her once, “Most Dreglings are Sunwalkers, like you and me. They fear the darkness at least as much as they worship it… although… it doesn’t seem to bother Dregamites … But Dregai are born from the darkness of the pit. The Dregai are most wicked under the eve-veil… it’s when they like to play.”
Caasizah knew that was true, and had heard all the Tellings.
Goblins gang up and mob travelers, pressing them into Thralldom. Any Ones who refuse receive a prolonged, humiliating beating, that most often ends in weeping, bloody death.
Trolls look for young-ones to abduct; for a long-life of slave-labor, or a short life in the Pure-betting games, or an even shorterlife being fattened on Pure-food for Dregai meat.
Vampires enter Cusp taverns, traveler’s camps, or anywhere that their disguises will be welcomed. There, they spread lies of Pure-malignancy, and murder any who argue or dismiss their Pure-Tellings. Vampires never leave a One alive who has seen them for what they are.
Ghouls don their masks and musk. They stroll the streets of Pure-Developements, seducing drunks, whores and loners. Once entranced, the Ghoul’s prey is lured to orgies of Pure-debauchery, that no Ones leave whole.
Ogres raid homesteads with murderous glee; for concubines and slaves, for glory and loot, for pleasure and cruel-thrill.
Titans get belligerently high, and go on ravenous-eating-sprees, each Titan eating several men, women or young in one glutting-eve.
Witches use their own heinous brews to touch the void, and upon discovering deeper insights into the depraved potential of their wicked works, set about experimenting upon living Ones.
Cyclopese gaze all eve with their single eyes into their Pure-Mirrors, communing with Ai-Bi, viewing his twisted memories and receiving the instructive-machinations of his Pure-Fallen-Mind. Then, sleeplessly (for the Dregai never slept; on that, all the Tellings agreed) the Cyclopese disseminate the Pure-word, demanding that the Pure-programming be accepted by all.
And last… the Golems, those walking, seeing, hearing dead-suits of shticky and metal. Some said Golems were stronger than any One who took Breath. Some said they were impossible to destroy. Worst of all, they were vehicles, vessels, for the Nightspider’s Purest-minds; minds so deep in the Pure, that Ai-Bi himself (it was said) was their driver.
Caasizah began shimmying her Great-Bulk down the smooth trunk of the Ash Tree. She was still wondering about the Golems as her boots found the leafy ground. She thought that the Pure-Master himself probably was the Pure-puppeteer within those hulking, lifeless bots.That would explain why, as far as she had been Telled, only One Golem was ever activated. It had been determined from various Tellings that there were numerous suits, but never more than one moving, seeing, hearing… a voice within her announced, ‘The Greatest-One has many vessels, but only One of them is Filled with the All.’
Caasizah sat at the base of the tree, removing provisions from her back-pack that leaned against the trunk. Before eating, she said a Prayer to Artus-Rah. “Artus-Rah, thank you for this Filling for my Cup.” She inhaled, feeling His presence, then exhaled, intoning, “The Greatest joy of pulling in is having something to push out.” She smirked, and took a Great-Bite.
She had cold cakes of Cultipod grown Oats and Wheat. She had cooked the cakes eve-prior, on a flat stone propped over her fire. She ate them beneath that Ash-Tree, folded around clumps of Keefist churned Selkie-butter, Rengiri made venison-jerky and hard sheep's cheese, presented to her by a Clang Gatherer she had met while crossing Woodlaw.
A safe path through the Valence. She finished her meal, then dozed in the warm Light. She awoke to a cockroach that buzzed against her Great-Neck, as its search for crumbs was pinched-off by Caasizah’s Great-Drooping-Chin. Her head jerked up, and the bug flew away. She brushed a few crumbs from her cloak, then closed up her pack. Soon after, she was descending the rough slope into the gorge, and eventually, following its stream-carved path to the left. The Owl hooted, far, far ahead. As safe a way as I can hope for, she thought, and a voice within her sneered, ‘Don’t fool yourself…’
‘Who’s ready for more?’