Scene Archives

has found a nice large rock–not crystal–to rest her back against, and is thoughtfully sewing a bit of thick blue embroidery into a palm-sized embroidery hoop, almost meditatively.

walks up to Salme, attempting to make less noise than they usually do. “Friend Salme, might I disturb you from your craft for a moment?”

finishes her stitch, and sticks the needle through the cloth, rolls up the whole project, and tucks it away with a speed that implies not embarrassment, but practice. “It’s not a disruption at all, and you can have as many moments as you like,” she says, smiling up at them.

sits down across from Salme. “I have a question, and then a request. Does your mask only remember when you wear it? Or does it share all your memories while you are the Sword Saint?”

tilts her head, and looks up at the trees, thinking for a moment, before she looks back at them. “It can remember when I’m not wearing it, but only if I … make an active effort to offer it my memories, and by then they’re already memories, and so … muddier. Does that make sense?”

ponders for a moment, “Yes, I believe so. By any chance…have you been able to view your memories of the last time you and Wolf came to this place?”

blinks. And then she blinks again. And then she laughs, with a little bit of chagrin, and says, “would you believe that I hadn’t really thought to–try? All of the memories around that, but not that.”

: “No, I find that quite reasonable. If you do not wish to, I will not ask you to. But it could prove useful to know what awaited you before. If I can help, I will. Either way, I wish to attempt to create a memory for you before we depart, at your convenience.”

: “You find it reasonable? To not look in the … most obvious direction?”

: “Until now, it was not the most obvious direction.”

: “You are very hard on yourself. From the two settlements I have seen, you are well-regarded by all. Your standards for yourself are high. Ensure that you see yourself as they see you sometimes as well, friend Salme.”

: “The regard is part of the role, not myself. There’s been an uncountable number of Sword-Saints,” she says, almost by rote, like it’s something she’s said many, many times before. “But I will consider your words.”

pauses, like she’s trying to reorient herself, and says, “That said, I would be more than happy to look now that you’ve brought it to my attention. And to record that memory for you, in whatever way I can. Do you have a preference for the two?”

: “Let us look, first. Is there any aid I can provide? I am not nearly as scholarly as Aurelius, but I have a reasonable command of gnosis.”

considers them. “It is not … usually a scholarly thing. It is …”

: “on the beast, do you have plants that … spread underneath the soil? Not roots, but creeping rootstalks, that spread out and from one plant to another to another, connecting them all but not in any ways that you would … normally order things? Like how a ginger or an iris spreads?”

nods. “Yes. Ginger grows on the Beast.”

: “Finding a memory in the mask is like. Navigating that network. If I use gnosis for it I–” she blinks. “Oh shit.”

adds, under her breath, “Badri what the actual fuck.”

tilts their head, but remains silent.

takes a breath to compose herself and takes a breath or two or ten, and then, “I had never thought I was using gnosis for that. It was. Following a single thread in a ball of tangled threads, or trying to trace the path of a single rootstalk, or diving, but Badri did something the last time he did where he–do you remember when the Omniclast–” and here, she mimes sort of … punching through the floor.

: “It would be hard to forget, I hope.”

laughs. “So the Sword-Saints, the previous Sword-Saints, they can dive together sometimes. And when I last did with Badri, he did–the same thing, the same gesture, getting us to a deeper layer of the mask, making it–easier to sift the memories.” ⁂

: “I don’t know if that was gnosis or if that is simply the manner in which one shatters boundaries or what that might be, but that is what he did. I also don’t know if–I can let a non-Sword-Saint trace the threads with me, but if you’d like to try I would very much value a second set of eyes on whatever we see.”

🙧

: “I trust your judgement. It is not my place to decide whether I am worthy to view the contents of the mask.”

considers them, and then says, “I have no idea what your attempt to use gnosis to give me clarity might yield, but why don’t we find out?”

: “Very well. I will follow your lead.” Unua’s gears briefly change their tempo, almost as if they wished to sing.

she takes the mask out of its pouch, sets it in her lap where just before the embroidery project had set, and then looks at her hands then at Unua. “I have to touch it. Do you want to–” she holds out her hand, half question.

nods. They place one hand in hers.

reaches her other hand down and touches the surface of the mask.

waits and it sees and when Salme reaches towards it it reaches towards her and pulls her mind into its presence and there is someone there with her who has not born the Mask but the Mask knows their countenance and the Mask knows Salme’s trust and then the Mask startles. That is not a thing which Salme has experienced, before. The Mask’s presence whirls around the Clockwork Knight, observing them from every angle, welcoming a cousin-sibling-friend-fellow, not a memory but a knowledge carved in bone-white wood. It is the first time that Salme has ever experienced the Mask’s attention on anything other than her. It is strange. It does not last long. The Mask attends her, memory-roots bound far beyond sight.

takes that acknowledgement and folds it up to examine later, so many things folded up to examine later, but now–she thinks, she asks–‘I was here before. What happened when I was here before?’

dives deep and it not far, that root is noINCOMPLETE TANGLED BURNT ASH AND DANGLING FIBRES OF WHAT ONCE WAS ROOT-BOUND CRUMBLING AT THE TOUCH THE SUGGESTION Obut the Mask is good and the Mask is well-made and it can follow through the part which is burnt away between waking up on a stone slab and this: Yeresh and Saint, in this clearing, a lightdrinker who is also a spoken-wood seeing them as close as their own promises to another would allow, the holy path through tangled root and bright-lit wood to the one dark place in Almachadta and even there, there is light, soft and resonant and echoing like a flute’s last note, the temple-cave, the place of rest. The edge of that memory is crumbling ash.

knows this, sees this, thinks, helplessly, ‘I need to see more, and more clearly. I know we were here. What was the Yeresh like before? How were we feeling? What did we see?’

‘s gears briefly stop, then start again, but differently. Steam rises from their vents. It is as if they, too, wished to sing.

remembers that hope is like a root grown deep into the earth and it remembers that hope is like a vine made of kudzu bast with which you lash yourself to the thing which you must not lose and it remembers hope echoing in the clearing and it remembers Tsemdrulukh remembering Ciet, and their fervent belief that they WOULD, one day, see their friend again and it remembers Wolf’s pride at being chosen for this task because who else but a Yeresh would be able to sing a path through wilderness-beyond-wilderness and who else but the Wolf would do, and it remembers the Saint ready to carry Almachadta’s stories into another world, and it remembers Salme’s eyes blinking rapidly under the mask, the heat of Salme’s skin alive against the bone-white wood, the beat of her heart as she faced the unknown. The memories swirl in arcs suggested by the ash that swirls in the space where the memories were, limned by a fire which warms rather than chars. The roots grow back, over some of the ash-burned spots, following that fire. They are hers and the Mask’s, again.

remembers that there was someone waiting for them in the cave, with a friendly but distant countenance and metal horns framing his face and, at that point, there is not ash but only emptiness.

thinks, ‘thank you, as always, friend,“ to the mask, and pulls her hand away.*

looks at Unua. “You saw him, right?”

: “I did. I wonder if he is busy enough with his rival that we may avoid him.”

: “To have so little faith that things might be fixed, that he would steal the workers away. I wonder if all our cases were thus.”

: “What?” she asks, a little blindly. Her pupils are blown, her fingers twisted in the heavy linen of her cloak. “Sorry–I. Don’t follow.”

: “The Architect told us the worlds were dead. He saw whatever imperfection lies within all our worlds as a foregone conclusion. Cared not enough to attempt to salvage them. And then when you and Wolf arrived to this place, to attempt to do so, he stole you away. I wonder if he truly believes it cannot be fixed, if he does not wish it to be, or if he is scared we can do what he can not.”

: “It makes me wonder of the circumstances by which the rest of us were brought there.”

nods. That makes sense. And then–“I want to kill him. I want to rip him apart in any way I can. I want to destroy him the way he thinks–oh this smug, self-involved, soulless motherfucker.” She shoves her hand over her mouth. Tries to count, but counting makes her think of tallies that make her think of the cave that make her–

places a hand on her shoulder, firmly, but kindly. “If you promise me one hit of my own, I should be glad to hold him as a punching bag for as long as you can stand for.”

: “This feeling you have. This burning anger. Wield it as one of your blades. Carry it with you to victory. But do not let it carry you.”

the pressure–grounds her. Stabilizes her. She smiles, gives a laugh that’s more an intake of air than anything else, nods. “Yes. I. Yes. You’re right.”

: “We are both right. And someday, we will both laugh, as we look back in the mask, and watch you exact your vengeance upon him.”

takes another deep breath and closes her eyes, feels the ground beneath her, the Centrelight on her face, the fabric of the cloth in her fingers, the hum of the crystals around them and Unua’s slight harmonization, the weight of their hand, the world, her world, and other worlds, and she folds and folds and folds and folds and tucks her anger away. When she opens her eyes again she is still and calm. “Yes,” she says. “We will.”

rolls her shoulders, feels the muscle stretch, hears something crack, and makes a note to herself to ask about that later, and then. “And so your other request?”

: “Yes. I would ask that you don your mask. I wish to…attempt a failsafe, should we be made to forget again.”

: “Oh, of course.” She reaches for the mask, then pauses. “Though I have a favor to ask in turn, if you don’t mind?”

: “I am always happy to help. Doubly so for a friend.”

: “The Sword-Saint … it isn’t … formal. We each bring our own take on the role, something of ourselves, our culture, our history, our–roots, if you’ll forgive the trope,” she says, with a brief wave of her hand at the trees. “And we listen, and we meet whoever tells us their story where they are. So I was wondering if you could, or would, tell me the story, the failsafe, the way you would if you were on the Beast.”

: “or, as the End jinn would. Or as you, Unua, would.”

: “That’s all,” and then she puts on the Mask.

places a hand on Salme’s shoulder, as before. Their gears and steam slowly change their tempo. No longer singing a strange song. Now they function as drums. A bright, but calm light spills out through their eyes, their mouth, and from the edges of their faceplate. They push every emotion they have towards the mask, hoping to make the memory stick. “Sword Saint. If you have awoken and do not remember what has come to pass, you are Salme, daughter of Badri, friend of Wolf, Aurelius, Archie, Awoken, and Unua. You are braver, kinder, and stronger than you give yourself credit for and perhaps even than you know. We journeyed deep into the Tangle to save your world from itself and possibly from the Architect, who stole us from our homes. Together we walked Strange Paths that led us back to Almachadta. Now we return to see what awaits us, and how we might battle what ails your world. When memory eludes you and the mask, remember the warm fires of friendship that showed you the path once before.” They pause. “Sword Saint, if you did not wake, un-remembering, and instead have found or inherited this mask. Know that we strove to save your world. Steel yourself and follow this memory. However it ends, you will need the knowledge to carry on what we have begun.”

: “I am Unua. No. I am now called Unua, but the name does not sing to me. I have lived longer than most humans in the Beast are fortunate to. I was the first Endjinn to emerge from the Beast. At first, people thought me a fiend, until I spoke, and sang. I was defeated by our Scorpion-Queen, not out of malice, but out of a desire for knowledge that can only be gained through the Rite. My sword shall always he hers. As the years went on, more of my kind came forth. Most of us stayed near Queenstown, but soon, the world was as much our home as anyone else’s. We fought, cooked, built, battled, alongside the humans. As time went on, the fiends changed. They grew in cunning, and eventually in deadliness. I wondered if they were now as I was. I do not know if I discovered my answer. I cannot rest until I do.”

as Unua drifts to silence, so too does the flow of gnosis, and the light. 🙧

waits, and waits, and waits, and lets the silence fall, and then she takes off the mask, and there are tears in her eyes, on her cheeks, but her smile is bright and her eyes gleam. “That was beautiful. That was perfect. Thank you for the story.”

: “I am happy to tell you any story I remember, friend. Thank you for helping all of us.”

tucks away her mask, and then moves over and throws her arms around Unua. “You are good and brave and kind, friend. It has been a pleasure.”

pulls away, and sits, and then, after a brief pause, says, “can you tell me about the Scorpion Queen?”

: “Of course. I have lived long, but her rule has been longer still. She is undefeated in combat, and upon her victory, takes her challengers blade as forfeit. She burns it into her throne, ever-growing, sharp with the swords of those that would best her. We are a city of warriors, but when the strongest of fiends come forth, even she takes up arms. I would say she fights alongside us, but the reality is, when she joins battle, the battle is over. She is not unkind in her strength. She immediately saw Endjinn as “people” instead of fiends. She does insist on fighting them when they show up though. Something about not having to go as easy on us. She is ever-waiting on her throne. Didn’t bat an eye when I showed up. If a fiend the size of a mountain showed up, I hardly think she’d bother blinking.”

draws her knees up to her chest. “Do you think she is–just? Do you think the Beast is a better world for having her rule it?”

: “Our world is one of might. She is the strongest. Her strength is not that of a tyrant. Her whims are not exacted in oil or rust, but in the occasional battle. Sometimes she is more…interested in making statements via combat, but she is content to rule, and to be the sword by which all danger that would threaten Queenstown perishes. Granted, she also loves the praises she receives and the attention. I think she likes having young upstart challengers face her than she likes doing anything else.”

: “I see,” she says, like she’s … carefully rotating something in her head. “And what do you think about–cheating? At the Rite, on the Beast? Does that concept exist?”

: “Should we make to the Beast, I would wager that we make it…three steps into Queenstown before we are summoned to challenge her.”

: “Cheating? I do not think she comes by her strength dishonestly.”

: “I see her strength similar to how we saw the Omniclast. When he…” Unua makes the breaking motion, “Her mastery of combat and the rite is so great, that it exceeds what many are capable of.”

notes their use of many, and folds this story, too, up, away to look at later. “Thank you, friend-who-is-called-Unua.”

: “You are most welcome! But remember, should we make it to Queenstown, we will fight her. And lose. Just let me lose first. I’ve got practice.” You could swear they’re smiling.

laughs again, warmly. “All right. I’ll let you lose first.”

: “I am no stranger to loss. It is natural. Especially when you fight against the world itself. The important thing to remember, is that one failure is not the end of a story. Just a verse.”