ꙮ At the entrance-way to the Boundless Fathom. You’d gotten a runner from Zvahr Yhjrn with some documents about the faith of Mu and the information about the years of the Rites of Renewal, and an invitation to come visit her again, towards the end of the day. Which is now!
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#saint
pops into the Boundless Fathom, still a bit perky but also—just a bit—tired. She’s be at it most of the day!
ꙮ One of the humans recognises you - not the same one as was there before, but they must have been given a description, or something - and runs up to hand you the elevator key, almost deferentially.
blinks at the deference, but doesn’t have the words to really change anything about it. She does smile pleasantly and say thank you, but then she’s making a beeline for the elevator.
doesn’t even really notice how small it is inside as she waits for it to take her wherever it’s taking her.
ꙮ At least it’s over fast. The elevator’s every bit as quick as it was before, and - Zvahr Yhjrn’s desk-on-a-platform is barrelassing down the balcony towards the elevator when Salme steps off.
grins at that and waves. “Got the information you sent—thank you, it’s already been useful—and got your invitation. Thank you, Zvahr Yhjrn.”
: “Shade and comfort, Salme! I’m very glad it could be helpful. I managed to log access to the closed archives already. Hop on?”
hops on. Hop! “That was quick,” she says admiringly.
: “Helps when you’re one of the senior Zvahr and you’re getting authorisation for very unusual personal guests of the Yazhn of Yazhn.” She does sound a little smug. More than a little smug. She pilots the desk-platform into the elevator, which is precisely large enough for it, and fiddles with something on her desk, and the elevator goes up, almost all the way to the very surface. There’s not quite time enough for her to ask any questions or chatter before the elevator rings a bell and opens out onto a balcony just like the one you left, except with carved stone directly overhead, rather than another balcony.
looks up at the stone ceiling, almost in awe that the ceiling exists at all. “Yes, I imagine that would help rather a lot.” She doesn’t quite hop off the desk platform (she is trying to be patient) but she does shift in the chair.
is glad Salme didn’t hop off, because there’s still some scooting around on the platform to do, and then there’s a table much like the other one far below, but there’s a fancy cloth-of-gold on this table, and the books look- absolutely ancient, albeit in nearly perfect condition. Worn from being opened and closed the God only knows how many times, but incredibly well cared-for. “There they are. The original copy of the first Grasp and the first Grasp-of-Grasps.” There’s a little bit of wonder in her own voice, too, and more than a little pride.
stares at them. “Did you know …” she starts, but she can’t quite get the words out. “Did you know that on Almachadta, written records—what few we have—don’t last that long? They. Paper or parchment, it rots and decays and tears.”
looks… genuinely devastated by this information, honestly. “Oh. God.”
shakes her head. “It’s part of. It’s just how things are. I think I might go mad, with this much knowledge at my fingertips.” She looks at Zvahr Yhjrn, “but still, it feels almost sacred, to have this.” She looks towards the tomes. “May I?”
nods, a bit, at the description - many things are sacred, shade and comfort are sacred, she certainly considers the Fathom to be sacred, in its own way; this is how she, and many others, perform the Work, after all, and that alone would be enough. And then: “Yes, you may.” She knows she doesn’t have to tell Salme to be careful.
goes over the the books, and for a moment seems caught in indecision, but then she opens, carefully, the copy of the first Grasp. She is looking at the book not just as a source of information but also as an object. How many hands have touched its pages? What is the handwriting like that tells the story? How many hands have written in it, and for how long. Who were you? She wants to know. Who were you, from so long ago?
ꙮ Its pages are worn, not from age or brittleness, but simply from touch, from being handled. The material of which they are made is subtly different - thinner, less pleasant to touch, probably less pleasant to write upon - than that of the modern copies. The handwriting looks shockingly similar to that of the modern Grasp-of-Grasps you read through, and to Zvahr Yhjrn’s own, although you can often still tell when a new author has taken over. All Zvahr, at least in terms of those who wrote here. You can imagine them - the Gorhn had already built a proper scriptorium in which they could work, documented early enough in the pages.
: “Is it always the Zvahr who keep the records? Did any Yazhn or Vehru ever keep a journal?”
: “People do keep journals, yes, and usually there’s a logbook kept of major projects the Gorhn and Vehru are working on that they provide us copies with. I think… Hang on a moment, I’ll be right back.” And the platform zooms off, down between two rows of bookshelves, and you hear her humming curiously and then going “Hah!” and then she’s on her way back with a silk-covered binder open on her desk. “Gorhn construction documents for the first shelter outside the City’s walls. I knew that first Grasp referenced it, so I’m sure we must have had a copy.”
nods. “May I see that as well?” She’s still carefully turning pages. She’s skimming for information—anything that might contradict what she read in the Grasp-of-Grasps—but she’s also searching for signs of who these people were, and how they thought, and what they loved.
ꙮ She waves Salme over. The Grasp-of-Grasps certainly condenses information - a lot of lists of who was awoken and who went to their rest and how they related to other humans or Kin, what their Work was; a lot of construction within the City, that early on. More Gorhn and fewer Zvahr than there are today, you think. A devotion to the Work that’s immediately familiar if you’ve spent any time near the Temple, or talked to any particularly devout humans. (You get the impression that perhaps the devotion is played up, a little, for the history books, but the Work was certainly done, so.)
(so)
goes over to Zvarh Yhjrn and peeks at the Gorhn construction documents.
uses her arms to scootch her chair over a little, so you can stand next to her and take a look. They’re… incredibly dry, honestly, although the diagrams are beautiful and meticulous; page after page of artistic patterns cut into the stone, conscious of the fact that what they carved that year would set the tone for the entire City. You still recognise some of those same fundamental patterns today, although they’ve elaborated and changed, slowly, with time.
looks more at the diagrams than at the words. “Do you know how they … decided? The patterns, but also … why a pyramid?”
rummages around on her desk a bit, grumbling contentedly. “Hang on… blast it. I know you’re here somewhere, there’s always a process document… yes!” She carefully lays out a sheet of paper, fresh as the day it was written. “The Yazhn convened the people of the City who wished to discuss the topic of the City’s aesthetic, and led a discussion… some of the patterns were discarded or picked by popular acclaim… each of the Kin Clades got to pick the pattern that would distinguish their structures particularly, those are still the same today…” She scans over the rest of the document as she talks. “As for the Temple, that was built, already, when the First Cohort awoke. Just the Temple, rising from the desert. It’s where the First awoke, it was their shelter until the City would suffice.” And some of that, at least, was in the copy of the Grasp-of-Grasps Salme’d read, but it’s in more detail in this original Grasp, those first years.
: “Did … how did the First know what their roles would be? That the Zvahr would record and handle information, and the Gorhn would build?” And then she asks the question that she actually wants to ask, which is, “did you know this is what you wanted to do? To work in the Fathom?”
: “Did you know I asked that very question? It’s what prompted me to read through the first Grasp-of-Grasps, and it doesn’t really…” She does something funny and toothy with her face. “The story they left us starts with the Kin and humans awakening in the Temple, already knowing the Work that would be before them.” ⁂
: “As for me… heh. No. My first Work involved accompanying the Rohsu, actually. Surveying sites for new fields, making notes of the gnosis composition of the local sand, that sort of thing. Then Elementals broke through the front line.” She shifts her chair again, by bracing her arms against the desk, enough that Salme can see that she’s missing one leg well above the knee, and missing the foot of her other leg. “God-forsaken things made it rather difficult for me to accompany the Rohsu, after that, but I spent my recovery in the Fathom, and realised I quite liked it here.”
looks at her, and tension she didn’t know she was holding relaxes from her body. “I’m glad that … Qarina was explaining a bit, how your society works. It’s very different from mine. We don’t have any single god, and, well, it’s fairly easy to disregard the gods we do have if you don’t find one or several you wish to serve, which I never did. I haven’t … wanted to offend, by asking inappropriate questions. So.” She laughs a little nervously, and the relief is clear in her voice. “I’m glad you wondered too. I’m always wondering so many things.” ⁂
considers Zvahr Yhjrn for a moment, considers her story, and then appears the Mask from its seemingly-hidden pouch and wears it. Her posture changes again—back straightening, not with tension but with careful attention to what she’s about to say. There’s a moment that feels longer that it actually is as she recalls the story Yhjrn just told her into the Mask. “Thank you for the story of how you found your way, Zvahr Yhjrn. It will live on in the memories of Almachadta—and hopefully the rest of the planes—for as long as the Mask endures.” She slips the Mask off again, becoming simply herself. “Thank you. It is … the memories are always clearer, if I wear the Mask.” 🙧
straightens up at her desk with a proud and clear smile. It’s– she’s not going to SAY that she thinks it’s an honour, because that seems crass, somehow, but you can tell just from the way her face’s brightened and her scales around her horns darkened, just a little. “May it endure as long as our texts have, then.” And then, “And don’t worry about asking ‘inappropriate’ questions. You weren’t brought up as a creche-cohort, you’ve not lived here your whole life, how in the God’s mercy could you know our ways?” She laughs, lightly. “Although there are questions even the Zvahr don’t know the answer to, I’ll warn you. But someone probably will, it’s just a matter of finding them.”
looks at her and smiles and it’s really—she looks really, really young then, when she does, and likes she’s just been given a gift that she can’t begin to articulate the contours of. “Oh! Speaking of questions!” She pulls a small rolled scroll over paper out of the same hidden pouch where she keeps the Mask, and hands it to Yhjrn. “You asked about how the Mask functions. I wrote down what I could.” And if Yhjrn unrolls the small scroll, she’ll see the contents of the newly-created {Sword-Saint’s Mask} folio written out in Salme’s careful hand (with footnotes!).
https://strangepaths.aludel.xyz/library/the-sword-saints-mask
immediately scans it, and her face brightens more, and then she puts it to the side so as to not get distracted utterly whilst Salme’s right here in front of her. “Oh, -thank you-, Salme, this is lovely…”
: “It’s my pleasure, really. I—I like sharing things that I know.” She blushes a little herself, though she couldn’t quite say why. “Sometimes I feel like I know so little, so it’s always important when there’s something I can add.”
: “Which, I suppose one question concerning something I don’t know much about at all is … are there any words in a language different than the one we’re speaking now that are attested? The Samudrans call it ‘Ancient’ and it looks …” she uses a finger to trace some strange, angular letters in the air with a carefully controlled thread of burning gnosis.
squints at it, and frowns, and scrunches up her face adorably, and copies the letters down onto a notebook on her desk, having carefully put away the Gorhn construction notes, and then she squints and frowns and scrunches up her face at her notebook instead. “Not that I can recall. Although I’d swear I’d seen a -few- glyphs like that bouncing around in a Shade, but I think I might could say that about any old squiggle you could imagine, Shades being as they are. Hnnn.”
: “Is that standard? With shades? That they’re made of glyphs? And have they always been here? Have the elementals also always been here?”
: “There was a Zvahr once whose calling was to study Shades, and he tried to make a record of every glyph he ever saw, and do you know what he said? That the glyphs he wrote down once, he never even saw again, they just kept coming up with new ones.” She laughs. “Eventually he gave up on THAT project and just studied their behaviour instead. They and the Elementals were both here wandering the desert already when the First Cohort woke, though, yes.”
makes a soft hmm noise. “That’s … really interesting. I’m not sure what it means if anything, but it’s fascinating. Oh! I want to make sure to get a look at the first Grasp-of-Grasps since you have it set out, but … I suppose one more question is … since you were just correlating all of the information on the Rites of Renewal for me, could you tell me … do you remember the names of any of the Yazhn who presided over the Rites?”
slips the Mask back on and goes to open the other book set out for her. She takes extra time to carefully feel the paper under her fingers, to hear the creak of the tome’s spine, to absorb the style of the handwriting.
ꙮ And the Mask will carry all of these things, now.
grumbles, again. “Did I not include that in the– the God salvage me, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I meant to. Hang on.” She puts a sheet of paper over another sheet of paper on which she’s taken copious notes in ludicrously small, cramped handwriting that still manages to be legible, and invokes a bright flash of gnosis, and she hands Salme a paper that’s light where the first paper was dark. “Is this legible to you? I can write it out properly if I need to, but this is faster.”
blinks at the paper and looks at it. She can read it just fine, but she’s staring at Yhjrn in wonder. “What on earth did you just do?” She sounds awestruck, and she’s grateful that she caught that bit of magic with the Mask, though again she slips it off, tucking both it and the paper in its hidden pouch.
laughs, delightedly. “The gnosis is just… a very bright, very scoped light. The magic there’s in the paper. The Yazhn invented it, the God knows how long ago, it’s certainly in a Grasp-of-Grasps somewhere, the story goes that the Yazhn in question loved playing the Encirclement Game with the head scribe of the Fathom at the time, and the Zvahr was always up to his ears in copying work, so the Yazhn decided that he’d solve the problem by inventing paper that you could copy to using the Sun’s light. Eventually, someone else figured out that you can just… summon up a bright enough light yourself and save yourself the trip outside.”
stares at her, and then laughs so loudly and brightly she startles herself a little. “That’s an amazing story. I—I love it. That’s the kind of story I’d make sure the Mask kept forever.”
considers her for a moment. “I think that’s all my questions for the moment. I do have a document about our journeys thus far that I’ve been working on copying down for you, but it’s fairly long and I’ve been running around a lot. I did … I did mention sharing a memory from the Mask, if you’d like to see? Or, I guess, is there anything you’d like from me?”
: “Tch, there’ll be time. Do let yourself slow down and catch your breath, though.” She smiles. “That said, I’m far too curious about the prospect of sharing a memory from the Mask to ever turn that down. I do always love a good story.”
sets the Mask on the table in front of her. “I … hm. Well. If you touch the Mask with me, we should be able to enter the Mask together. And I think—well, we’ll see if inspiration strikes when we get there.*
looks at the Mask with the reverence with which she looked at the ancient books, and with which she handled the Gorhn’s documents, and looks up at Salme, and holds out her hand, and she makes sure to touch the Mask at the exact same time as Salme did because that’s how she interpreted the instructions and she’s careful about her methodology with handling archives, blast it.
steps into the Mask with Yhjrn, and they fall—not too far down, not the infinity into the dark where Bahamut is remembered and remembers, but far for a single cycle. It feels like flying, as it always does.
laughs, in -utter- delight, and a very small and not-itself-undelighted admixture of sheer terror.
arrives with Yhjrn in a moment where the air is thick with the smell of food—thick stews and berry tarts and many, many pies—and overhead hangs a light not unlike the sun but completely unlike the sun. It warms but does not burn, and it casts the scene before them in lacy illumination. Somewhere, a flute like the sound of the wind plays, and before them two dozen people dance in a complex, interlocking series of dance steps. People are laughing, people are singing, and though they and the Mask-bearer knows the Dim encroaches, in this moment there is joy. ⁂
knows, because the Mask-bearer knows, and so Yhjrn knows, that village is barely a village, that the village will grow and sprawl as villages have before. Salme knows, because the Mask-bearer knows, and so Yhjrn knows, that it has only been a generation since the world started anew, and the Mask-bearer looks out on this seed of a village and he resolves to find in the Mask, which is new to him, the best technology to get this cycle to happiness as fast as he possibly can. ⁂
wags her tail in time to the music, because this Mask-bearer has a fluffy white tail that he can’t quite control, and taps her foot which is his foot, and he almost sets the Mask aside to go dance, but then a woman holding an enormous cat approaches with the look of a story in her eye, and he waits. And she tells him the story of her cat, Pumpkin, who ate an entire two pumpkin pies, and went from white to orange overnight, and so Pumpkin’s story is immortalized in the Mask, at least for now. ⁂
then the Mask-bearer sets aside the Mask, and the memory grows dimmer, somehow watery, but she knows, because the Mask-bearer knows, and so Yhjrn too knows, what it’s like to dance under the Centrelight as the year moves into the dim, when everything is young and new and ripe with potential. 🙧
knows, too, with the Mask-bearer’s thoughts, the purpose of the Mask, at the beginning of a cycle, and she loves this, she loves the Mask so deeply for this, and there is a pang of– something deep and bright, of pride and sorrow, for a world that has neither Zvahr nor Vehru but which has persons admirable as these. It is not the Work, of course; she would not imply that about a world not her own. But still, what she recognises here, above all else, is shade and comfort, and the will to keep knowledge alive, and this she loves no matter the form it takes.
thinks, though she does not know, but she thinks that they are all more the same than they are different. And she loves this too. As much as the Mask has hurt her, as much as it has, at times, been hard to bear, the honor of keeping knowledge alive, the honor of bringing shade and comfort—she has loved it too. “Stay as long as you like. When you’re ready, we can simply fall or fly out of the memory.” This memory lasts long, well into the dimming of the Centrelight’s day cycle. She chose it—she chose it for many reasons, but partly so Yhjrn could have as much of the memory as she’d like.
ꙮ And they both stay in that memory, with Yhjrn’s wonder at the Dim, of a night restful and gentle, of the sound of crickets that fills the air when the sounds of the festival fade, for quite some time indeed.