The Blind Valiant

A RAPID, GHASTLY RIVER.

Sharur didn’t understand what Kyrillos had told him, the words he’d whispered in his ear. It had sounded like a line to an aged poem; ominous and filled with meaning.

When Sharur had finally returned to Montparnasse, repeating his lie of how Kyrillos had escaped and using the vortex back to Marrąkan Reliquary, he went straight to Kyrillos’ rooms, sorting through the contents of his desk, the trunks he had come with from Halgiers and the shelves.

But there was no relation to poetry or literature that could lead to those lines. Kyrillos hadn’t been one to indulge much to poems and fable songs.

 That was most like Genoa. Maybe I should ask her about it, see if she knows where it’s from.

No. Kyrillos had told it to him, trusted him with rambling quotes.

He had to be the one to solve it. Perhaps the quote was a clue Kyrillos had given him in a riddled manner to save him from whatever sorcery the Fell had probably cast on him.

 The silence and emptiness of his chambers threatened to swallow him whole, and Sharur started to leave but then he knocked over something from the desk.

 It was a bird mask, made of black opaque glass in the likeness of the elk owl which was native to the Southern Expanses.

  It was a finely crafted piece but Sharur remembered it as the mask Kyrillos had worn at the Alrudha festival.

 And yet there was something else it reminded him of. He reached down and picked it up and turned the mask over to where the face would be fitted to.

 There he found the faded out line of words scratched into the back of the forehead, and Sharur froze.

 His finger grazed the words; twice born, doubly doomed. The same words which he had been ransacking the room for a source to.

 At the end of the inscription, he found a mark- a most dreadfully familiar mark; the letter ‘D’ carved within a pattern of concentric runes and a symbol that was much like a folded star.

 A chill ran down his back as he muttered the only one meaning to that mark.

 All Noirish at one point in their education came across it in their history texts and even sometimes in sorcery codices.

 “Damaikar.” And with that, Sharur wondered how and where Kyrillos had gotten the mask from.

 But foremost he realized he was in the best place to find out what the mark of an Infernal who’s been dead for over a thousand years, was doing in one of Kyrillos’ belongings.

 And what the quote had to do with both Kyrillos’ situation and a forgotten menace of the Echelon.

 The musty atmosphere of the Reliquary’s archive halls felt heavy with the weight of the ages. Dark oaken bookshelves sagged beneath countless volumes of forgotten lore and history.

 Brightened manuscripts, painstakingly illustrated and copied by Diluvian hermits, shared the overcrowded shelves with the abundant literary fruits of past generations.

Leather-bound grimoires of ancestral Noirish, histories, and tomes were packed too deep in places or piled high upon the floor in tottering stacks that threatened to topple over at any minute.

 Dusty artifacts, from bygone centuries, were scattered here and there among the copious recorded scrolls.

 A ceremonial brass chalice from the fifth century, the curved scimitar of a long-dead warrior queen of Amshardt, an embossed silver plaque commemorating the epic Sack of Kosti Dům in 75 B.D.

A filigree gilded looking glass bearing the Madrigal crest of the Fausa family- all priceless relics from at least nine hundred years of Echelon history.

 Sharur had the secluded library all to himself, at this hour no one would be found in anywhere but in their beds. And the Potentates were all preoccupied with the respective tasks given to them from high command.

They were more interested in the mandated search for the fugitives than patrolling the archive and finding him amongst the accumulated debris of the past.

 Dust and cobwebs frosted the archaic tomes, testifying to how seldom these section of the archive hall was visited by the Reliquary's residents.

Even the palace’s myriad chamber-attendants seldom entered these cloistered chambers.

As a rule, the staff had been selected more for their compliant dispositions and ordinance but even they had obviously been banned from entry of the library.

Just as well, He thought.

 He had serious research to do and no desire to be interrupted. His eyes scanned the bulging bookshelves, looking for the specific records he required.

 Still wearing the same dirtied attire he had worn to Montparnasse, only throwing off the coat on the way here, he stalked the library corridors.

Outside, the storm was still going strong. Rain pelted the library’s lancet windows, causing watery shadows to dance eerily upon the walls.

Sharur’s gaze fell on the rectangular pine door of an inconspicuous closet, tucked between two looming oak bookcases.

 In truth, it had been a long time since he hadn't visited the archives here or at home in Amphion, not since his apprentice years. The apprentices were rarely permitted use of it nor had the time outside their practical studies.

 But he dimly recalled that the codices covering the early decades after the Deluge were kept in this long-abandoned closet.

In theory, the information would have to be there. He jiggled the antique crystal doorknob, only to find the closet door locked. And he soon realized it was more than a simple lock.

Of course, Sharur thought, scowling. Lemegeton only knew who had bound this.

 Unwilling to be thwarted so quickly, he conjured an unlocking incantation and pierced its interlocking spell work which he had to guess had lasted for a lot longer than he had been living at the Reliquary.

Boom! His spell, cracked through whatever barring magic, wood and brass structure of the obstinate doors, and with a kick he blasted it right off its hinges.

Dusty light poured into the interior of the closet, exposing its contents for the first time in, he figured, uncounted decades.

 Sharur smiled to himself as he spotted several dozen ponderous tomes, locked away behind a thick glass case just as he had been hoping. The cabinet inside the closet was unlocked, sparing further vandalism.

 He sifted through the enclosed volumes, peering closely at their timeworn spines and covers of, were most disturbingly, grimoires of the Left Path.

  Selecting four or five of the most promising choices, he carried the heavy texts over to a maple table resting in the center of this restricted parts of the archives.

He blew decades’ worth of dust off both the books and the table before sitting down to inspect the ancient volumes. In an ideal environment, he would peruse the texts at leisure, carefully reading each and every word.

 Sharur sensed, however, that time was running out and his absence in his quarters could be noticed, so he flipped briskly but gently through the dry and crumbling pages, searching urgently for the answers he hungered for.

Columns of intricate calligraphy were accompanied by faded etchings depicting old spells and curses which should’ve disgusted him, a dedicated acolyte of the Right Palm.

 But these dark instructions struck a cord of nothing but intrigue in him.

I thought Fells possessed no other grimoire than their hallowed Lemegeton. What then are these...?

There were scenes from the long crusade against the Infernals. At first, Sharur nodded in approval at portraits of ancient Noirish riding to battle, wielding their righteous sorceries in a militia tableaux filling his Noir heart with pride.

 Yet, as he continued to peruse the elaborately detailed woodcuts, he was disturbed to see several illustrations that more closely resembled massacres than honest warfare.

 Ghastly images, portrayed deviled men and women (recognizable by their twisting horns, deviled wings and other markers) being shackled, tortured and burned at the crucifix by his ancestors.

Fell children were hurled like fuel into the rising flames or else were crushed beneath the silver-shod hooves of the Echelon steeds, their childish and innocent proportions no protection against this merciless kin.

 Even over the gulf of centuries, the fear and anguish of the forsaken Fells came across loud and clear.

Frowning, Sharur turned the page, only to encounter an equally unsettling illustration that showed chained Fells; men, women and children, being forced to their knees and destroyed.

Leering warriors of the Echelon, brandishing vicious sorcery and iron weapons, looked on as their unrelenting power were brought against unfortunate victims.

“What are these?” Sharur gasped out loud, revulsion mixed with disbelief spiking from the grisly images.

Ancient myths? Diluvian propaganda?

 He ran his ringed finger down the yellowing parchment, trying to find some explanation for the book's unsettling illustrations.

 His green eyes narrowed at the horrid discovery as he struggled to decipher the adjacent text.

 Unfortunately, the scribbled chicken scratches appeared to be written in an archaic form of Purgatic, which couldn't be spoken by any Echelon noble.

He gazed in frustration at the tiny, indecipherable calligraphy, which was cleverly interlaced with rows of miniature sketches, matching the spells being burned onto the flesh of the various defeated.

Perhaps, he speculated, these pages constituted a catalog of the individual spells from individual practitioners.

Peering more closely at the mysterious invocation, he couldn't help observing that although the spells varied slightly from illustration to illustration.

 They all had been designed with the same runic patterns as the one he had found on the mask; around one of seven ornate capital letters: K, L, A, H, V, I, & D.

Despite his thick clothes, a shiver passed through Sharur.

 His mind fleeing from the distressing implications of the medieval woodcuts, he put the incriminating tome aside and reached for a different book.

To his relief, this book was written in much simpler dialect- Marrąkan. Flipping through it, however, he discovered that many of the entries and illustrations had been blacked out with liberal applications of indelible ink.

Furthermore, dozens of pages appeared to have been torn out and discarded. Sharur raised the book off the table and turned it over experimentally; none of the missing pages came falling out.

Interesting, Sharur thought, his suspicions aroused.

Why had someone gone to such efforts to cover up the past? What dark secret was being concealed?

Leafing through the plundered volume, he came across a portrait of a solitary dark skinned man, his four horns extended prominently about his head like a crown.

Intriguingly, the Fell’s face had been completely burned away, leaving a circular gap near the top of the etching. Sharur examined the mutilated portrait more carefully.

Visible on the faceless Fell’s right arm was an elaborate arm ring incorporating a large D in its silvery centre.

D as in Damaikar?

 Sharur thought unwillingly. A charred caption beneath the portrait read: “Damaikar, the Unseemly. Scourge of Arsinor.” Proving his theory right.

 Sharur smiled grimly. Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought.

 This was what he had been looking for. Beneath Damaikar’s defaced portrait was another etching, depicting a heated battle between armed Fells and Echelon.

 Both armed with iron swords and their Lemegeton powers took on hordes of their enemies, with each side inflicting grievous harm upon the other.  

 Shrieking Fells, their faces contorted in agony, were impaled three or four deep on the iron lances of Echelon cavalrymen, while elsewhere on the page.

Fells called down their dark gifts and tore unlucky Echelon soldiers asunder. In the background, smoke and fire belched into the night sky from the mouths of several remote mountain caves and open fields.

Sharur hastily closed over the book grabbed the third and fourth books that looked to be more of the first sort- a compendium of infernal spells, and stuffed them in the folds of his workout tunic.

He lurched out of his chair and whirled toward the exit. Sealing the doors back in place to prevent suspicion when and if the Potentates came through here.

Sharur came to a stop as he met his uncle’s young betrothed standing in the doorway, a velvet robe over her lace nightgown.

His mind went into momentary frenzy of being caught red handed.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere... there’s something I need to ask you...” the princess explained, waving aside falling russet hair, sounding a trifle put out.

She glanced around the dark musty archive hall with disdain, as though no one in his right mind would frequent such a tedious place at a tedious time.

Why, so you can join the rest of the family in demonizing Kyrillos? Sharur thought in response to Louscha’s complaint.

“I haven’t got time right now. We can talk later... or never as you all seem to want.” He said brusquely.

 Whatever the Kinship wanted with the knowledge of Damaikar’s resting place and Kyrillos’ abduction, Sharur needed to uncover it in time before it put his family in jeopardy.

Appeasing the princess’ peace of mind was the least of Sharur’s concerns at the moment.

 He moved toward the exit, expecting her to step aside. Instead, a slim pale arm shot out, blocking the doorway.

“Sharur, what your uncle said...” the words seemed to pain her as they came out.

He shook his head. “Made things perfectly clear, Louscha. We all have duties to this family to fulfill at the expense of things we hold dear. You should heed the advice.”

 He locked eyes with her, then shot a cool glance at the princess’s outstretched arm. Wilting before Sharur’s steely gaze, Louscha lowered her arm and stepped aside, allowing him to pass over the threshold into the corridor beyond.

“Just so you know, I don’t care what you or Manfri Mortimer say, I will not forsake Kyrillos... he needs our help and if the people he has grown up knowing, won’t give it to him. Then I will.” Louscha declared with a fierce zeal that surprised him.

 Sharur stopped and glanced over at the woman whom they barely knew enough about.

 Why would you help him? You barely know Kyrillos.

 Yet looking at the anguish she was trying to conceal and remembering how she had advocated against the rousting, he couldn't help but think a little better of this foreign mortal princess.

 So he whispered back before he left. “Neither will I.”