a novel

Illustration from The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer

 

 

THE FANTASTICAL

 

VEIL

 

OF

 

LUNACY

 

 

A comedy concerning

the demise of a real fantasy world

 

by Boyd Barnes

 

 

The freedom permitted by romances of chivalry allows the author to be epic, lyrical, tragic, and comic, with all the qualities that are contained in the sweet and pleasant arts of poetry and oratory—for epic can be written in prose as well as in verse.

̶ Cervantes, Don Quixote XLVII

 

 

 

[READER, START HERE]

 

Nlessie’s Old Books, Molag

is pleased to publish

 

A HISTORY

 

OF

 

 THE VEIL OF LUNACY

 

Or, the Life and Works of the Canon of Veluna from Ancient to Present Times

 

by Annalo Bifurcati, UADP, GNGH

Professor of History and Master of the Archives of the Museum of Nyr Dyv Antiquities, Olde Maurian College, Nyrstran, Duchy of Urnst

DXCI

 

 

SCENARIO ONE—LEUKISH AND THE BANDIT PLAINS

 

 

Chapter 1: The Leukish Disputations

 

~The benefits of being an historian

Greetings, my fine pupils! Although we historians cannot expect anyone to care, we think it’s right to state our names at the beginning of our books and occasionally within the pages we write. It holds us accountable (nominally) for everything we say, which we always desire without exception. But in a bid for your admiration of my actual honesty, I admit here (since this book will be read by no one else, as only my manuscript and your autograph copy exist) that acknowledging authorship is really a means to commend ourselves to the posterity for whom we labor so assiduously. And I admit, too, that for the same reason we cite the names of other historians when we mention them in our books. I mean to say—nominally, once again—that we do it for accountability, although really it’s a way for us to cough and sneeze at each other, spreading our names across histories as viruses do across populations and to a like purpose: to make an impression on those who suffer—I mean, benefit—from our endeavors. Do you know that some historians actually count the number of times they are mentioned in other peoples' books? No, it's true.

And so, dear readers, I fulfill my professional obligation: My name is Annalo Bifurcati, Professor of History and Curator of the Archives at the Museum of Nyr Dyv Antiquities, The Olde Maurian College, Nyrstran, Duchy of Urnst, and I am writing this book commencing Waterday, 26th Reaping, 591cy.▽

The anonymous commisioner of this manuscript has stressed that I am to write the history of the Canon of Veluna as concisely as possible. Apparently, my readers are on the cusp of a great adventure and cannot be detained by the usual rigors of scholarship. Right. Rigors be damned. Footnotes too. I hereby serve notice that my plan is to plagarize the scholarship of others as much as possible, firstly, because it is already written, and secondly, because I find it easier to weed words out of the gardens of others than out of my own. A personal foible, I suppose.

But before we get to that—and so that you, my readers, may approve my qualifications to be your companion on this great adventure—I will tell you the tale of my only previous one. It was twenty years ago, when I was a young man (not much older than you are now) leaving my parents’ home—permanently, this time—in Asnath Copse, a place you have never heard of, to attend graduate school in the city of Leukish, another one. What happened then will tell you something about the Canon of Veluna, his theocratic nation, and my opinion of them while helping to bridge the gap between my large erudition and your unnatural education by home schooling in a lightless devil's prison. (I am informed that you can read.)

§

 

~The adventure of a poet without a Corner 

I once knew a man who was almost a saint, although his beatitude was indefinable. He was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But if rapture is religion, then George Byron, Lord Gordyn’s public was religious. Congregations and assemblies worshipped his deeds.

He was a poet, born to a nation that boasts of it. And granted, there was a viable basis to it. His was—an age ago—the first nation to write in what's called the vernacular, eschewing Oeridian to declare the common tongue more fit for speaking in allegory, idyll, romance, and myth to the fashion in theocrats rising like kings to thrones Flanaessian. (The rhymes are Bifurcati’s, every line: for gods’ sakes, readers, read them a second time!)

In addition to the various parts of his blessedness, Veluna’s greatest poet had two liabilities: his humor was sharper than Ockham's razor, and it occurred to him in rhyme. Like the implied William, Gordyn occasionally used the cutting edge of his poetry to trim the excesses of theology, and what's more, he did not always want verse to whet his wit but could slice his victims conversationally or, if need be, in prose.

It was in the conversational way that I got to know my friend George. Years earlier, he had been reprobated in a sermon by the infamous, vlogging, charismatic lay preacher Brother Lasher, whose “Megachurch of Me the Vessel” was recently partially collapsed when its stratospherical Crook of the Dissenting Mind, erected by Lasher on the hill high above, fell. Lord Gordyn—having been morally abused by a common haranguer and accused of ushering the youth of Veluna to the devil—retaliated by incorporating savory snippets of Lasher’s sermon into a poem that he published as “Velunar Bards and Dissenting Preachers.” The poem narrates a boat trip down the Voll River to what was undoubtedly a tryst with a bishop's daughter among the secluded and moonlighted ruins of Laudine, the ancient fallen monastery, lampooning a host of Velunar lords, clerics, poets, and—with a deft off-hand—Brother Lasher along the way.

In itself, this need have done no harm. No one cared about the versified defenestration of a podcasting preacher far removed from decent society and banned already from the best hosting channels, and the Bishop of Grayington was expected to be above noticing such jests, even at the expense of his daughter. Unfortunately—

In the poem, the tryst is engaged on St Hermiod’s Eve, the feast for a mythical beast that has two heads, one a founding father of Veluna and the other a paragon of celerity. In real life, a candlelighted service to the saint is held every summer on that night in those ruins, so that George's tryst with the bishop's daughter takes place not within sight (for they are hidden behind fallen stones) but all too much within hearing of the clerical sire and his congregants. There are unfortunate rhymes; “O! hear us, Hermiod” and “Yes, yes! Oh my god!” “May goodness conduct thee” and “O god, O god, f--- --” -ortunately, you probably get that one.

The bishop's actual daughter, Verily, who was a fan, took opportunity to claim that the ideal tryst was based on passionate fact. It was all too much. George fled Veluna for the Lortmil Mountains, where he wrote travelogues and dramatic poems read by the wide world.

In truth, he fled to quit boredom as well as Veluna. He was constitutionally unable to situate himself, always drowning in lethargic vortexes of depravity, excess, and banality. He was easily bored and sometimes boring. Yet he had many friends; he loved truth, love, and beauty; and he actually died for freedom decades before that became fashionable.

The point is that George Byron, Lord Gordyn, Velunar poet, turned his back on Veluna and fled, in long and occasional pilgrimages, to me. Ha ha! Gotchya. He didn't even know who I was. But he did come my way incidentally.

I had begun my doctoral studies in Leukish at the University of the Duchy Palatinate (known as U-DEEP to its friends because the campus is on the shore of the great lake Nyr Dyv—ha ha ha!). Are U-DEEP into skepticism? we would ask. It was fun. Churches and temples had started leaving the duchy in protest against Duke Justinian's atheism. (Yes, my children, we boasted a duke among us. We were that close.) Although, the fact that Justinian had begun taxing the temples was probably a motive too. This was three months before the Temple Coalition Revolt and seven months before Duke Justinian was left to die when the priests in his army turned their backs to him on the battlefield. That was an act of treacherous assassination, of course, but the temples responded that their priests had “made a sacrifice.” Mon dieux.

They came for us skeptics, too, but the U-DEEP defended us, and since that time the cognomen has had a “Semper Fi” quality to it. None of our protectors at the university agreed with our skepticism, but they managed to curb their moral urges, happily for us. If you give in to distortion, they said, distortion becomes your reason. Amen.

George came to Leukish while the temples were fuming, because, I suppose, he could picture himself there. He wrote no poems in those days. Well, yes, he did, but he didn't publish them, and since he soon died, the poems remained in autograph until their recent scholarly edition. He would not write poems while in Leukish, he said, because “Churches being consigned to their fate by secularists is a serious and philosophical affair that mere rhyming does not help.” The next day, he clarified that he had meant help the churches, not their fate. About half the town believed him.

But truly, mere rhyming could not help us skeptics. (Assistance would come two weeks following George’s arrival in the unexpected guise of a man of theological gravity.) The trouble was that George's followers had no care whether temples and churches existed or burned; they were absorbed by the spectacle of their hero, Lord Gordyn. Skepticism—the scholarly program—was being diluted by what his estranged wife went viral by hashtagging “Georgeomania.” This meant thousands of shrieking girls escorted by alerted boys who would not let their Georgeomaniacs out of their sight. But this made no difference, we skepticists thought, because George intended to stay only a few weeks. His stay in Leukish was a jaunt on a greater journey he had already undertaken. He would not remain in Leukish to enjoin the religious struggle of his time. A squall was he, but blowing over.

And then everything changed when a strident man issued Lord Gordyn a public challenge. A dragon had come to slay Saint George, and you could not expect the poet to sheath his wit. And so, we come at last to:

“The Evenings of Hoodwink!” More ink has been quilled in recounting those nights than in reprinting John Bunyan. And two things need to be said. First, “Evenings of Hoodwink” was not the approved epithet for those disputations but the title of one issue of a weekly night life column serially entitled “Tables for Two” and written, under the pseudonym “Lipgloss,” for The Leukisher magazine. Lipgloss notoriously covered the late-night hijinks, mood swings, and pastimes of a certain set of privileged urbanites (the flappers and their admiring escorts), and her column was entirely partisan in its social and political views. (Usage advisory, my too few readers: partisan means “supporting a cause,” not “consignable to oblivion.”)

“Evenings of Hoodwink” has merits, not least a quinquesyllabic head that is, from a partisan perspective, an epitome of what did go on. Because of its partisanship—which you are now party to—I will confide that “Hoodwink” is used as a password sometimes by the Divergent Underground (a secret cabal of scholars promoting contraband scholarship) when we want to veil in deceit a conceptual beauty of special allure to our enemies. It is appropriate in so many ways: passwords do hoodwink; Lipgloss does allure (especially when veiled in psuedonymity); the DU meets on evenings; and, well, there's much more, but the list is less entertaining when you are sober enough to enumerate it.

Second, the evenings of hoodwink—that is, the Leukish disputations—are extraordinarily well documented. Both sides of the debate made official transcriptions that have been reprinted many times. References to, descriptions of, opinions about, arguments over, and analyses of the disputes are voluminous and reflect the economic, educational, and religious strata of Leukish at the time.

I have a transcript of the debates (I may well have) and a copy of that week's The Leukisher too.

§

 

~Evenings of Hoodwink (from Tables for Two, The Leukisher magazine) 

About most topics I maintain the correct standard—that everyone ought to know just enough about everything to spare mutual conviviality from disruptive inquiries about things everyone ought to know. Educated to that extent, a young woman will be confident in censuring her escort over knowing more than he ought and introducing that excess into her company. But if she, herself, knows more than is nice, she is liable to tolerate her escort's epistemological overreach, leaving their friends wondering what was just said and what one ought to think about it. Neither is this any trouble to smart young women today, but contrarily, they find it quite palpitating. Most girls with a little experience confess that among their favorite boyfriends are those who were abashed by this particular reprimand at the onset of their acquaintance.

There are the two standard exemptions. Topics on religion are mooted by conventional responses appropriate to any occasion, and history is looked on as an elevator going only to every other floor: you never know the half of it.

So, by the law of reverse inclination, I found myself in attendance at last week's historic religious dispute between the renowned divine Doctor Samuel Ableforce and the well-known scoundrel George Byron, Lord Gordyn. Apart from the dispute’s likelihood to be insufferable and unintelligible, why not? Since I have none my religious principles could be in no danger, and I would not be likely to improve my morals incidentally as my mind is tenacious in discovering interests remote from vocabularied speech. In short, I considered how this was history being made, not history being recalled, and I had a vocational responsibility to report, not the debate, which anyone might do, but who was there, what was the fashion, how they behaved, whose side they were on, who were their friends, and other things that are more likely to be important in these times than whether Dr. Ableforce and Lord Gordyn disputed anything more interesting than the generalities of nominalism.

The Delshonian Theater remains in existence in the same way that my grandmother's jewelry does—it's appreciated but not smart enough to go out in. Enduring the hard benches and obstructed views ought to be done, one begrudges, in deference to the ghost of Sir Christopher, who frowned on me all evening from an enormous portrait hung at the rectangular end and aligned directly above Dr. Ableforce in my view. Nonetheless, it is to the virtues of old, cramped, and creaking staircases that I owe my place at the theater, for had my dear Hidalga R– not announced them passed the ability of her knees, then she, not I, would have been at her son's side those nights. Sometimes parents are very kindly although unaccountable things.

More remarkable was a kind of fervor that soon stirred the assembly. The crowd had not arrived in it, at least not to appearance. But in the pinched Delshonian there is nothing to do that does not involve taking your seat or bottlenecking people that are trying to, so we all sat puddled together like water in a pot with the heat on.

Officially, the university was our host, as this was partly an academic affair. Dr. Ableforce had undertaken to prove that “the gods govern rightly in all things.” Gordyn had undertaken “to remain unconvinced,” and when I remonstrated to my boyfriend that the poet's burden was light, he allowed that Ableforce was an arrogant bugger who no doubt thought he was up to it. I declared my ignorance of his meaning and horror at his manners. Then a large group of people burst in from the Divinity School exterior door, having been sent, I suppose, around the outside of the theater by the throng packed very familiarly within. Then the fervor stirred further.

In fact, there was something astonishingly like a gasp.

Samuel Ableforce is a very tall man. He stood to his full height, vigorous in figure, mottled in appearance, mingling bits of clerical and academical garb in a way that suggested both but admitted of neither. The man alongside him was altogether lesser, six inches shorter, twenty pounds heavier, wearing evening dress like any other gentleman in the house; but beautiful. His face was beautiful. Ableforce demanded your attention, and Gordyn won it. Such was to be the evening.

The collective gasp was soon stifled, and there followed applause, not quite polite. The noise resounded; hands were raised high, some even overhead; and there came shouts like cartmen clearing a way on the common streets of the city.

Ableforce! Ableforce!

These were gentlemen shouting. And what's that? Ladies, participant too. I knew several of each sex. It was unpleasant and confusing. My boyfriend was taking stock, like reading the financial news on a bad day. This was not an audience, it was a mob, something to be reckoned with. Ableforce looked in command, Gordyn looked ironical, and we were soon seated again, packed close like in a taxicab to a place we'd never been before.

Ableforce went first. In gist, “The canker of atheism must not be allowed to digest and dissolve the organism of society. Duke Justinian may have his private opinion, regardless how odious and erroneous. In public, however, he has a duty to the general good. What good may it be to anger the divinities, forcing, for all we know, a terrible retribution on us? Fortunately, the gods rightly provide against such a disaster. The light of truth (pointing up to the Delshonian's painted allegory) is given from heaven to rout ignorance and error, even from this very university. (He raised a hand, for the audience was agitated by this.) I speak not of violence, not of coersion, but of gentle conversion. For no man caught in an eternal error may hear the truth rightly explained and remain as he was before.”

Gordyn was up. “Whether atheism is cankerous and theology is light is the point of this dispute, and we must trust the ensuing evenings to determine the cut and thrust. Suffice to say that I do not take the good Doctor's word at the outset. The power of conversion may fail theology more than he has presumed. I would point out that the figure in the allegory personifies Truth, and she cannot be shedding a divine light for the simple reason that there is no impersonation of truth in the divine pantheon. Thank heavens, there are gods to attend to every other weighty matter—for example, doors, windows, insects, and tedium—but by divine dispensation, truth is left to us to contend for alone. And so, I shall contend for it: The duke of this duchy is a truthful man, say I, and he deserves our love for it.”

Fortunately for our prospects of escaping the Delshonian unstomped by a stampede, Ableforce really does have command of himself and others. He stood tall on the stage, and when that did not suffice, he strode it, shouting Nay! Nay! Good gods, sirs, return to your seats or you shall trample the ladies! Recollect that you are gentlemen!

Ableforce restored calm and segued into a reasonable reply to Gordyn, which I did not hear. I was lost and bewildered by the behavior of the attendees and Gordyn's reckless provocation. For the first time, the blue and yellow posies being sold by the thousands in the streets of Leukish and worn here on the lapels and bodices of half of the city's best people signified something to me. The Temple Coalition! Suddenly, the old adage terrified me: Civility endures for only as long as there is nothing worth fighting for.

The two men disputed civilly for a time. After fifteen minutes the doctor interrupted himself, going motionless on stage or, I may say, stiff for five seconds as if undergoing zombification, and then he resumed. “I recollect, Lord Gordyn, something I had meant to say. The idea was quite lost to me in our moment of misconduct, but I have it again now. It is this. An injustice was done when you banished truth from among the provisions the gods have made for us. We all know that light is a common symbol for truth and that there are two gods of light: Pelor, the God of the Sun and of Healing, and Pholtus, the God of Law and of Light. In the allegory above us, Truth shines as a sun, clearly indicating that Pelor is sending us the light. I thought to mention this in passing for the benefit of people otherwise left in confusion.” He then resumed what he had been saying, which concerned the hierarchy of existence having no empty steps, which indicates something about how we ought to behave.

Gordyn responded not to the hierarchy. He observed the ceiling and craned his neck as if contemplating the allegory from many angles. “If the learned doctor's point is that Pelor's light is Truth, then he must be speaking either metaphorically or without any known significance. Metaphors have limits. When I say, this young woman (she was hardly more than a girl) is a red, red rose, she is not thereby made a rose. When the doctor says Pelor's light is Truth, it is not thereby made Truth. It remains a light. However, the Doctor's point may be that theology makes light of the truth, in which case I warmly embrace him.” Instead of embracing, Gordyn descended the stage and lent assistance to the fainted rose.

Ableforce was stupified, zombiness creeping over him again. Whether he found no response or was still figuring out that part about metaphors, he sat very still, like a temple statue.

One of the other dignitaries spoke. Did you not know there were other dignitaries? There were nine, all told; including a moderator and six friends or guests (as they were noted in the program), three each for Gordyn and Ableforce, all sitting in a line as though at a shooting gallery if the audience were shooters. These guests formed two committees, basically, in support of the main disputants. The whole debate was represented by the university as a kind of after-dinner conversation among friends, although the two principals were separated by a six-foot gap and barely within stretch of a handshake.

A member of the doctor's committee spoke. Attired, middle-aged, unhesitating, she addressed the audience directly. “Visitors to our duchy may be allowed not to know that another god also represents truth here in Urnst and very widely abroad. I speak, of course, of Saint Cuthbert.” The name of this deified saint had been whispering on the lips of many attendees for some time, all of whom could exhale now, exchanging grins and glances with like-minded neighbors and anticipating their triumph. Gordyn would have to admit! “Madame, thank you for that correction. Or, at least, information,” said he. “Professor Braden?”

Daesnar Braden—a principal devisor and explicator of Academic Skepticism—had been drawn out by the Duke Justinian controversy from the anonymity of a few scandalized lecture halls at U-DEEP into notoriety as a provoker of public morals. Braden bowed toward Gordyn slowly and slightly, as though her spine hurt. She seemed frail, almost brittle, and yet she spends vacations rock climbing the Cairn Hills. The audience blanched in horrid expectation.

“St Cuthbert represents truth in two ways. First, he represents truth as it defends against lies, truth against false witness. Second, he advocates his own version of truth, the truth of his religion and morality. Neither of these is suited to representing universal Truth in an allegory, because there may be morally appropriate reasons to tell lies, and not everyone agrees with Cuthbertine dogma. So, yes, I think, that's all. Thank you.”

Thank you, but not everyone felt gratified.

After nearly instigating a riot, Lord Gordyn fell back on what he is second-best at, which is humor. In fact, he was capable of telling a joke that was intelligible to nearly the whole audience or to nearly no one at all. This assisted his realization, slowly emboldened over two evenings, that there was a discernable dearth of wit on the other side, both on stage and in the audience. The Ableforces—as Gordyn now referred to theism's advocates generally—were swiftly rendered defenseless by incomprehension. When Ableforce stooped to asking “whether My Lord were being entirely serious,” half the audience guffawed, Gordyn blinked spasmodically, Prof Braden smiled a little (rendering her ominousness actually quite pretty), and the moderator called quits forty-five minutes from time.

On the second evening, the audience thinned considerably. Pointlessness and a sense of the inevitable had exacted a toll. Yet at the beginning there was a burlesque worth anything you pay to see at the Follies. On the previous night, Dr Ableforce had presented to Gordyn a pamphlet to read, apparently in hopes of making headway. And now, according to the casual way that these disputes were conducted, the doctor inquired if the lord had read it.

“I have looked, but I have not had time to read it far. I am afraid it is too deep for me. I have begun very fairly. I have showed it to Fletcher (his valet), who is a good sort of man but still wants, like myself, some reformation. I hope he will spread it among the other servants, who require it still more. Bruno, my physician, and Gamba, the actor, have read it, and I hope it will have a good effect on them. The former is rather too decided against it at present and too much engaged with a spirit of enthusiasm for science. But we must have patience, and we shall see what has been the result. I do not fail to read, from time to time, my Divine Testaments, though not, perhaps, so much as I should.”

“Have you begun to pray that you may understand them?”

“Not yet. I have not arrived at that pitch of faith yet, but it may come by and by. You are in too great a hurry.”

At the end of it all, on the way out, a young scribe sitting behind the stage tossed a pot of ink on the unfortunate Ableforce. The consequent blot on the Doctor's costume, which had been silk of lily white on that sleeve, left him in a more mottled state than when he had entered the stage. Heavens! ~ Lipgloss

§

 

~Greatblister Abbey

It was not as though I tossed it. We scribes had clambered behind the stage, our writing desks in tote, squatly sitting in chairs that might have been borrowed (I will vouch for it) from a gnome assembly in a kind of flew that was formed, gloomily enough, by the raised stage in front of us, a low flight of stairs to one side, and an angle of wooden paneling that formed one corner of the seated galleries, where we burned ten small candles (one per scribe) to light the dimness there, our twenty eyes peering at the audience from about the height of, and five feet behind, the speakers' shoes. We spent two nights there, scribbling unpausingly with the shared purpose of between us recording every immortal word.

They were two of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life, and as discomfort often does, they loom larger in memory than they might. Prof Braden had bid me do it. I could tell a tale about abusing a student, but actually, it was offered to me as a way to get in. And in the end, it turned out well. But before the happy finale, I climbed the stage while attempting to escape the flew and tripped, spilling the contents of my desk on Doctor Ableforce.

He was gracious about it. Indeed, he was by constitution an unshockable and easy man. Lord Gordyn offered to supply us with dinner as a conveyance to our recovery, and we were joined by the Rev Cecinni Fashire (who had spoken up for St Cuthbert's light of truth) and Prof Braden.

Gordyn had discovered a restaurant in Leukish where he could sit at table undisturbed by the minor literati that frequented there and considered themselves his unfawning equals. He intended to leave Leukish the following morning by a chartered coach to Firewatch Island, where a war of independence had beseeched his fame and money. The prospect of freedom to fight for abroad kept him lively that evening, and I believe we all thought that this quixotic quest was another of his poetic epics in preparation. Nine months later, in the town of Missolonghi, he caught a fever and died.

The corpse was the thing. Who wanted the honor of entombing Lord Gordyn? His Velunar friends intended his homeland to honor in death what it had not in life. Declining to bury him on Firewatch Island, where he was loved, Gordyn’s friends crammed him into a pickle barrel and shipped him to Veluna City. They presented to the Raoan Church—which does not differ from Veluna’s national government—a grand request: That the monumental reliquary for the bones of dead bards that had betimes written preponderate odes to the Velunar establishment; which reliquary is known as Poet's Corner in Greatblister Abbey; should open its flagstones to perpetrate the beatification of George Byron, Lord Gordyn, a baron of Veluna.

Greatblister Abbey is a lofty pile, and no less lofty, its repute. More poets, perhaps, have wished to be buried there than have been, although it is a close-run thing. Darwin and Hardy had wanted to be interred, not there, but at home with their wives, but that had been considered disrespectful. And indeed, it is easy to understand how aspirational are a poet's hopes of resting in Greatblister's south transept when the standard of admittance is as high as this:

'Tis gone, that bright and orbèd blaze,

Fast fading from our wistful gaze.

Oh! the rhyme leaves me wistful for a poetic intellect. And this, too, is on offer:

Watch by the sick; enrich the poor

With blessings from Thy boundless store.

If I am to beg alms from a god boundlessly withholding a store, no thank you. But a place within the coveted subsurface of the Corner is no doubt owing to stanzas of this sort:

The rulers of this Raoan land,

’Twixt He and us ordained to stand—

Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright

Let all do all as in Thy sight.

Thank you, Rao, our god, for ordaining rulers that block us from your sight; may they watch over us in constant vigil, lest a resentment creep in. Amen.

In fact, Gordyn was not refused admittance to Greatblister on standards of poetry—the shock of it might have killed half of humanity—but on grounds of “questionable morality.” I do not wish to rehearse George’s morals; rather, I wish to provide a sample of morals more acceptable, voiced by a dead soldier of Veluna before he had actually died:

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever Veluna. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom Veluna bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of Veluna's, breathing Velunar air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by Veluna given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends, and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under a Velunar heaven.

The poem is moral. It is telling you what to think. And what you must think is that Veluna is forever Veluna, shining like heaven on less fortunate places, its evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind, blessed by domestical suns, its decaying soldiers growing into a dust richer than any foreign soil. Written after The Great Crusade, the poem comforts millions who grieve for their losses. And I hope they feel better in having the assurance of a Greatblister poet (who, else, would know?) that the gods think highly of Veluna’s victorious dead.

The Raoan Church—headed by Hazen, Canon of Veluna—objected to Gordyn's morality so strongly that it suggested the poet's remains be shoved off to anywhere not Veluna. More like, some corner of a foreign field. And yet! O! my unhallowed, formerly misfortunately imprisoned readers! Greatblister Abbey—where Hazen and his antecedent theocrats have each been ordained to their high office—has sanctified wars, lies, and videotape while roundly condemning unsanctioned sex. My dear Greatblister, what other sex is there? Besides, if you are going to object to obscenity, you might reconsider your predilection for dead young soldiers.

The abbey did not stand alone in objecting to Gordyn. He seemed to have disgraced the polite half of the whole Velunar nation. And—understand this, my poor and bedevilishly imprisoned mentees—the Canon of Veluna had held the baton that haddirected the church and its people to this orchestrated response.

My sermon has been preached. And you, my circumstantially and incarceratedly reprobate readers, may see now that the Church of Veluna has come a long way from its origin in a remote but gratifyingly domestic field (I’ll tell you about it later) to arrive at the presently colossal erection of Greatblister Abbey, in Veluna City. Sitting here, on the muddy banks of the Voll River with the abbey's towers far above, I cannot help but imagine the church as a kind of spiritual condom protecting against dead libertines shooting prematurely into heaven. And although the Raoans think to have plugged Lord Gordyn's spurt, I doubt it; eternity and the deities have yet to speak on that score.

Unlike my friend George, who filled our heads with romantic ruins, mythical beasts, and gentle lovers, the subject of my monograph, the Canon of Veluna, is monotonously single-minded. He lusts monomanaically  to make the gods serve his unsavory intents. Indeed, the canon's history has the same recurrent and prurient interest as our antique, literary, and surprisingly topical friend Don Juan (the English one, the true one), which is, the eternal anticipation of discovering another demurring conquest and how it will happen. Although, it is human and sweet when Gordyn’s lovers align, while what the canon intends is consumptive.

. . . And just as for Juan, where the reader's chief interest is him getting to screw one; so, too, with the lord of Canonical Veluan (is that right?), seduction is fairer in proportion to the nobility and wealth of the dame.

For Veluna's prelate, it’s not only the dames on whom he plays. Hard on the heels of kings the Canón runs. And though it is true, in consideration of Juan, that of him and his lovers, we are want to blame none; as concerns Canon H-, of those words we may say none—for his evil is resident, his desire, an ill one.

 

 

Chapter 2: The Bandit Kingdoms, the Shield Lands, and Law’s Forge

 

Readers, the business end of my book begins here, an historiographical monograph on the Canon of Veluna. I am contractually bound to write it truly and concisely, arguing for my point of view without obfuscating what is evident. Oi oi oi! Twenty years ago, while studying skepticism at the U-DEEP, I dedicated my life to laboring on those terms. They return to me today, damaged but not broken by twenty years of academic practice, to make me happy although deeply suspicious. Who would bind me to tell the truth, I wonder? No one I know; no one I want to.

The most important thing is that my readers should learn a little about the history of the lands they live in and will roam. You would be surprised how much difference it makes to people that they live here and not there, now and not then, and how little people know about the history of those places and times. The thorpe that my finely delimited readership was born to—Law’s Forge—has resided for many centuries at an intersection of wild, often evil lands to the west and north and the dedicatedly good citizens (gone now for more than a decade) of the Shield Lands to the southeast. That has made all the difference.

The first historical account I usurp is Countess Osgold of Baranford's Historical Epitome of the Empire of Iuz, a little book of scandalous repute that, for that reason, has become a staple of private collections specializing in the less savory attainments of scholarlship. (You may find it in the Divergent Underground’s libraries.) His Valiant and High Reverence Piecus Ⅸ, Extraordinary Papa and Elevated Paladin of Chendl, Suffragen to the Holy Throne of Furyondy, Unerring Proclaimer of the Self-evident Word, and Mostly Ordained Disciple of the Great Church of Heironeous,▽ burned the Epitome some years ago by setting it atop Countess Osgold’s simultaneously ignited head, so that—as it was advertised to the city's indwellers—the writer of the word and the word of the writer should fittingly consume one another. This blossom of wit from the dependably pedantic Piecus piqued the curiosity of the affiliation for the advancement of deviant scholarship mentioned above. Admiration for an alternative thesis grows fervent in the DU when it is either true (as with Osgold's Epitome) or leads so adrotily to fantastical conclusions that it gathers an air of plausibility.

So it was that, within three days of the countess’ conflagrant demise, I procured a copy of her book from my preferred seller in Molag, of whom I was in those days a regular client with certain, you may say, quintessentially private or—to risk all circumspection—wholly intimate benefits. A sentence more tortured than the benefits, I assure you. The Pact of Greyhawk was in force in those days, and you could reach Furyondy from Molag (if you had the right friends there) by ferry across the Veng River, and I pretty frequently made the trip. Within that fetid city, my inducive bookselling friend ran a shop within a hollow in the ruined, exterior walls of Nerull's cathedral. Her rent was ungodly: no less than 10gp's per month payable to whomever had dressed up that day to go about as Nerull's priest. It was prime real estate and a wonderful coup for my dear Nlessie. Last I heard she was still hovelling there, although Molag is desolate now and inaccessible to me. Perhaps, by way of consolation, her rent has gone down.

The Epitome itself may not seem too bad to the casual reader. Its salient points are masked by a veneer of respectability. But it did not make it past the censors, and Osgold burned. In a time of war, to write in a way that confuses the army of Good and the Other One is past tolerating.

Having given Countess Osgold due respect, here are the passages we need from her book.

§

 

~From Historical Epitome (the Bandit Kingdoms and the Shield Lands)

The Bandit Kingdoms come into written histories in the early- or mid-fourth century cy, having been known previously as no more than a desolate expanse on any map. The vast territory, at its largest, extended for fifteen hundred square miles in the shape of a flattened jelly fish or tentacled crescent moon dangling from the Fellreev Forest between the Artonsamay and Yellowflow Rivers with two hollow spaces around the Rift Canyon and White Plume Mountain. The region of the lower Artonsamay was fertile but the great stretch of the bandit plains was less arable, and the Great Migrations had largely bypassed them while passing to the south and east. Not until the fourth century did outsiders learn of any notable residents on the plains, residents already being called—and who may have called themselves—the Bandit Kings.

If these kings were wealthy there is no evidence of it. But they were objects of envy to their subjects and neighbors, and for that reason they often did not reign long enough to make hereditary kingship necessary. Rebellions and contested successions were the norm.

The people of the bandit kingdoms had descended from the earliest residents of those bleak lands: sparse groups of Oeridian, Suel, Flan, and—fecundly, upon occasion—humanoids. They settled at first in racial or ethnic groups, and they must have been farmers and ranchers, because bandits will exploit settlements but not the other way around. Indeed, it is likely that the first kings were ambitious landholders whose private interests conflicted. As their propensity for usurping the possessions of others grew, the bandit kings looked beyond their own demenses to those of more prosperous neighbors to the east and south, to Nyrond and the unincorporated farming communities between the Ritensa, Veng, and Yellowflow Rivers.

Raids from the Bandit Kingdoms became so plunderous and rapacious that the southern farmers were obliged to take action, which they did in the usual Oeridian manner. They formed a nation that provided for a new order of knights authorized to conscript foot soldiers for civil defense. The nation was called the Shield Lands; the knights were the Holy Shielding.

For two centuries, the Shield made life in the Bandit Kingdoms poorer, but the poor survived. The exception was the bandits residing west of the Ritensa River. We know very little about them. Whether they were ever accounted kings is doubtful, because we do not know the names of any. Those western plains were predominantly hobgoblin, and the bandit communities lived too precariously there to dispute borders and holdings.

Many of the bandits residing west of the river disappeared late in the fifth century to the first waves of Iuz’s conquests from the north. But Iuz was focused on the plains farthest west—on the Whyestil Lake shore and just inland—rather than on the plains nearer the Ritensa. A few bandit groups maintained a measure of independence by keeping between the river and Molag, the city that Iuz would call his summer capital.

When the Horned Society displaced Iuz in the early sixth century, the formerly nominal dominion over the western lands turned actually enthralling. The bandits were trapped in the skirmishes between the devilish society and the Holy Shielding and had no place to go. Armies marched against them, killing without deciding anything. Fewer and fewer bandits held out. As the Horned Society slowly consolidated its holdings, the bandits gradually dispersed like a sordid mist in a wider pall of evil. Today, what is referred to as the Bandit Kingdoms lies exclusively east of the Ritensa. The long years of the west, even the vestigial memory of bandits there, have been forgotten. Yet some few existed as recently as ten years ago.

The history of the Shield Lands at the time is similar, differing only as evil does from good and poverty from prosperity. Though fated to become the Shield, the bucolic lands north of the Nyr Dyv (near Walworth Island) avoided the wars being fought to the east, west, and south by the Oeridian and Suel migrants. There were no Shield Knights in those days, only farmers.

The rise of the Bandit Kings changed all that, as was said above. In response, the prosperous and civilian lands of the northern Nyr Dyv militarized quickly and, to many eyes, too enthusiastically. The old Oeridian warrior spirit was invoked, simply because it had not been entirely forgot. A militant chivalry developed that became the Knights of the Holy Shielding, devoted to the god Heironeous, whom the Oeridians worshiped as the Valiant Knight, the Archpaladin, the Invincable, and so on. The knights, by general consent, were allowed to govern rural settlements that had for five hundred years deferred to the sentiments of prosperous farmers. But now those farmers had been roused by the injustices they suffered at the hands of the bandit kings; they clamored for a new social order, sending their daughters and sons as squires to the new holy crew and filling the training and proving grounds with novitiates.

Against the meager bandit kings, the Holy Shield was all-winning. But against the might of the Horned Society and Iuz, at the beginning of the Greyhawk Wars, they proved nothing more than boastful incompetents. So many daughters and sons died! During The Great Crusade, when the Shield "gloriously" reclaimed thirty square miles of its entirely lost homeland, most outside observers thought the knights had been duped by their ally Furyondy, suffering disproportionate losses while serving as a diversion for important attacks nearer Chendl. Yet the Knights of the Shield saw not dupery but an answer to the unflagging prayers they had offered to righteous Hieroneous. Covenants were renewed, vows were restored, more gloriously than before. In only two centuries, the plain purpose of protecting farmers from bandits had become a reaching vow to save the world from its dark inhabitants.

The Knights today see glory ever advancing. Others see a delusioned, ruined people that has lost its home to fiends.

 

Yes, readers, there it is! "In only two centuries, the plain purpose of protecting farmers from bandits had become a reaching vow to save the world from its dark inhabitants." An historian is in the house! Or was, until Piecus torched her rafters. And so, with regards to the esteemed Countess Osgold of Baranford, whose memory retards flames, we take leave of her, moving from the Bandit Kingdoms and the Shield Lands to the thorpe of Law's Forge.

§

 

~A small history of Law’s Forge

Neither the history of the Bandit Kingdoms nor of the Shield Lands, the Horned Society, or Iuz is nearly as important to my readers as the history of the fortified thorpe of Law's Forge. Its little circumference—I may confirm this through personal knowledge—encloses all the world that my poor, deprived perusers have ever known. A brief historical account of the thorpe follows, taken from unpublished sources because no other exists.

Well, in truth, there is one published source providing a brief description of the place as it seemed to someone fifteen years ago. But no one who has, or recently had, any familiarity with Law's Forge—as I and my readers may boast—will read that poor record without discovering, through a moral outrage so spontaneous that it self-expurgates the identical offense, how speedily is blotted the parchment that contained such tedium, such invalidity, and such aversion to truth. And I assure you, dear students, that if you had read it you would have done the same. I can pretty well guess, too, from among the usual suspects, whose lie it is.

As it happens, I spent one night in Law's Forge some years before the invasion of Iuz’s fiends made travel there more, ah, optional. A careful glance was enough to suss out the lay of the land. Still, the inhabitants were not devoid of cheer, all the more remarkable because they provided every drop of it themselves. They much enjoyed the company of travelers, and my society that night was highly prized. I met two score thorpers of all ages. I delight to believe that I met a few of my readers that night; I may even have bounced one or two on my knee. You would, I think, have been about that age.

To you and yours, Hail! You were well met, poor things.

It may seem redundant to write the history of a place to its residents, but you can never tell how much people know about where they live. Some of it may be news to you. Some of it may not be what you have been told. I have, however—in your honor—applied myself particularly to this portion of my assignment. I think I've got it right.

In truth, the unrecorded origins of Law's Forge are difficult to imagine. Its residents may not remember or let them be forgot. Even the name—Law's Forge—may be an imposition; it smacks of Shield Land values. But we know that the thorpe predates the Shield because earlier weapons exist bearing its mark. We cannot be sure that the settlement always existed where it does now, at the junction of the Ritensa River and the Old North Aerdy Road near to the confluence of the Ritensa and Gobs rivers. But that was always a choice spot for weapons traders and seems a likely place for the Forge's first settlers, especially if the settlement is, as we suspect, very old.

How did a community of dwarves, gnomes, and humans come to reside in a no man's land between civil, uncivil, and semi-monstrous realms? To the south and east were Furyondy and the precursors of the Shield Lands. Northeast were bandits, and northwest, hobgoblins, for the most part. There were no dwarves within five hundred miles of Law's Forge and no explanation of why such would choose to live on the plains. Gnomes might have come from the Fellreev Forest, where a few have ever lived with the elves. Humans were on all sides, of course, most from beyond the reach of, and some frankly outside, the law.

So far as historians may tell, the mysterious founders of Law's Forge arrived with the intent to craft the paraphernalia of battle. There was—there still is—no one proximate to have instructed them in the trade; and since it is a good maxim that what must be, is; it seems that the thorpe’s founders knew their crafts and brought that knowledge with them. The dwarves forged hammers and blades; the gnomes, armor and shields; the humans fashioned bows and missiles. None of them added magic to their leather, wood, and metal, although mages, for at least five hundred miles and as many years, have coveted what Law's Forge made and enchanted it.▽

You may surmise by this that the Forgers wanted to be left alone, that they brought what and whom they liked with them, and that they had no trouble trading with hobgoblins and thieves as readily as with knights and mages. No amount of historical invention has ever proposed sounder grounds for the settlement's remote origin and perseverance. Of recent history, however, more may be said.

The first written record—a drawn one, actually—is a map dated 371cy and done in the Shield Lands. Several older and many later maps exist showing nothing at the location, so it may be surmised that the mapmakers had a particular interest in or knowledge of the place. This is about the time that the Shield Lands was forming its chivalric identity, so it is a fair surmise that the weapons being made were what put "Law's Forge" on the map. The name of the thorpe, as was intimated before, is very likely an imposition by the Shield and a claim of possession. Whether the residents of Law's Forge acknowledged the claim is another matter.

It seems that no business accounts were maintained at Law's Forge, no sales contracts or receipts, no client lists, nothing. Payment to the smiths was in gold, presumably, and the customer’s receipt was the brand on the weapon, indicating thorpe and crafter. Between customers of different sorts the thorpers evidently made no distinction; their weapons were dispersed through all societies. Gold knows no morals, and the craftsmen were as good as gold.

Until recently, a brand went on every weapon they made. But when the border wars began between the Holy Shield and the Horned Society, there was pressure on the thorpe to produce more quantity, less quality. What use quality to a knight initiate or an eager imp captain, each likely to die on its first day in battle? The brand was restricted to the finer work. Although the Shield Knights suspected that the smiths continued selling to the enemy, the lack of sales records made disputing it a charade.

What was not a charade, however, was a change in management that came to the thorpe a few decades deep into the border wars. The jurisdiction of the Shield Lands over the thorpe had always been nominal—the thorpe-dwellers governed themselves. By virtue of its place on the Ritensa's east bank, however, Law's Forge lay in territory held by the knights. But the thorpe traded on both sides of the river, and perhaps for that reason, the Holy Shield was slow to notice when a restless malebranche (a horned devil) established an unobtrusive tyranny there.

The following account was written by a renegade and epicurean priest (of an “uncertain god,” I am told) that stopped in Law's Forge a few years back. He presented himself as a bandit envoy from Jhanser’s Land to Iuz’s government in Molag. Fancying himself something of a documentarian, dramatist, and page-spirit scribe, the priest chatted up the devils and hobgoblins and even spoke with the notorious imprisoner H'Rothka'a. His account came to me recently at my request from one documentarian to another. It is dated Sun’sday, 16 Flocktime, 588cy.

 

“H'Rothka'a is the self-styled 'Eminence' of Law's Forge, a remarkable character in her way but a devil regrettably long-winded in her attempts at emphasis. In the good year 552cy, she was a military functionary, idly serving the Horned Society, when she roused herself and a troop of imps and hobgoblins from the garrison at Deepshuttle Delve to march on Law's Forge, just to the east across the Ritensa River but, by that same margin, within the hostile territory of the Shield Lands, hoping, by this venture, to escape from under the thumb of her captain and flatter her neglected prestige by capturing, in the sacred names of the Horned Society’s thirteen Dread Hierarchs, the border thorpe’s weapon smiths, whose work was (and still is) much esteemed by the region's most cultivated afficionados of warfare, in a brazen venture that would have had little chance of success but that the armies of the Shield Lands were hard pressed just then to contain predatory raids coming from the Bandit Kingdoms further east, and H'Rothka'a appeased the Shield’s knights by volunteering to keep the supply of weapons flowing there, a promise that she cleverly duplicated, in reverse direction, to Deepshuttle Delve, on the river's opposite bank.

“To salve the notoriously impugnable honor of the Holy Shielding, the order’s politicians and academics ordered their cartographers to continue displaying Law's Forge as though it were still a Shield Lands hold. What's more, devils and hobgoblins were just at that time becoming such a common sight along the Ritensa River that visitors thought nothing of it when the little evils suddenly appeared resident in a backwater settlement. So, by escaping notice on all sides, the malebranche's derisively unlikely gambit came off decidedly well.

“Having carved a niche, H'Rothka'a ruled it fiendishly from a perch atop its tallest tower, issuing orders in telepathic screeches and screams. She kept—in a dungeon mastered by a kyton (a chain devil) of joyous cruelty—a dozen or so hapless thorpers purposed as hostages. These prisoners she rotated throughout the evenses’ population so as to give them a perpetual sense of both hope and despair. The dungeon master's pleasures were curtailed only by H'Rothka'a's order that no injuries should be permanently disfiguring, which tested its wits and patience equally.

“In 579cy, when the Horned Society occupied the Shield Lands, life became easier for Her Eminence because she no longer had the holy knights to contend with. In 583cy, however, the suddenly invading armies of Iuz were confused by her thirty years of duplicity and attacked Law's Forge as the enemy. That day the evenses managed an escape, but a trap had been laid for them south of the thorpe and they were recaptured. H'Rothka'a used the escape attempt to her advantage, berating the marauding demons—who were preparing to kill her—for nearly disrupting the supply to Iuz's armies of the finest weapons in the central Flanaess. She convinced the demon captain, whom she presented with a flawless blade, that no one could run the forges as well as she and only trouble would come from disturbing the works. The demon bought it! And from that day to this, H'Rothka'a and her dozen devils have lived as a devil's enclave in the midst of Iuz’s vast demonic hordes. The devil abides.

“Since her smiths were now surrounded by many hundreds of miles of featureless terrain empty of anyone but the remorseless servants of Iuz, H'Rothka'a grew more tolerant of her slaves. Lackadaisical by nature, she allowed them leniency. Although she kept the hostages revolving, she rarely bothered screeching at them anymore, not even telepathically. She was settled, contented, and too lazy to be moved. When came the "flight of fiends" in 586cy, H'Rothka'a and her devils somehow escaped banishment to the Nine Hells, and the stale jest that she had grown too permanent to be dispelled may actually be near the truth. She is now a feature of the landscape. And so, having survived the Crook of Rao, she discarded the kyton, too, (who in truth had become a bit bored of it) and let her imps and hobgoblins manage the dungeon, much to the good of the evenses there. Productivity improved a bit.

“All in all, then, life in Law's Forge has become—how to say it?—as tolerable as any you'll find in the abysmal homelands of Iuz. Even the dwarven residents are resigned, while some of the gnomes and humans are not passed smiling and laughter. Their resilience aroused an undiluted admiration within me; or diluted only a little by the grog being served at the performatively named Raised Spirits Inn. I don't suppose the poor thorpers can be too happy with Her Eminence, though, or with her minions."

 

Unpardonably, dear readers, I neglected to mention the name of the priest who wrote this excellent dispatch. It was Lupkra, formerly of the Jhanser Lands and now, if rumors that reach me are true, dead in Molag, his body broken on the highest heaven of the Necromonium, into which it had been heaved. Oh! May Ralishaz keep such rumors far removed from reality forever and at last!

 

 

-Interlude: In Law’s Forge

 

(Waterdayday, 26^th Reaping, 590cy)

The dwarf hopped, looked up, squealed, and burst into flames.

“Ha ha ha!” cackled H’Rothka’a and the priest. The fallen dwarf rose, dusted herself, and hurried away.

“Your Emminence, you are a riot,” the cleric crowed, filliping the malebranche’s elbow and pouring another round of devil’s milk. “Look! Here comes another.”

A gnome stepped into the dirty market square of Law’s Forge, tipsy in the night hours. H’Rothka’a timed its steps, gestured, clapped, and spoke: Tack! The gnome hopped and swore, grasping his shoe.

H'Rothka’a incanted again. A flaming comet arced from her hand through the night. While it dropped, she screetched—telepathically and audibly, like an arriving bomb—“eeeeee eeeeee BOOM!”

The gnome toppled over, rolled around to put out the harmless flames, pulled the tack from his sole, and stood up, grumbling.

“Haw haw haw haw!”

“Priest Lupkra, you are a merry fellow,” said the happy horned devil.

“Who wouldn’t be, in such company,” said the cleric. “I had no idea there was such entertainment in the western lands.”

“There’s not much of it. You see how I live,” cooed the flattered devil.

“Commiserations.”

“Joy! Here come more of them!”

“Uh—hang on. Not those. I have some business with them.”

The priest removed a scroll from his robes and proffered it to Her Emminence. “You see, their names are on it.”

“What does it mean?”

“What it says. You are to let them go.”

“On whose authority?”

“Why do you ask?” said the cleric, draining his glass of milk. “Are you loath to do it?”

H’Rothka’a was taken aback. “Loath?” she said. “Why, no, not very.”

“So, it’s settled. See, here they come. If you would open the thorpe gate, we’ll be on our way.”

H’Rothka’a telepathed her instruction to the guards, while the cleric climbed down from the high tower, strode to the gate, and departed with his young charges.

“Loath?” thought H’Rothka’a menacingly. “Do you suppose he meant it?”

 

Outside the walls, the priest asked whether the troup of former Law’s Forge prisoners required him further. The youngsters were uncertain.

“You will release them all in the end?” one asked, nodding toward the thorpe of gaoled evenses that remained.

“As I understand it, you have received the assurance you require.”

“We were told, is all.”

“Well, there you go,” Lupkra concluded. “Doraka’a is that way, I think.” He pointed up the Ritensa River.

When the children had gone, the priest took another scroll from his robe, this one blank, and speaking a summoning spell, added spiritu paginae. A page spirit appeared with a face full of secrets.

“You witnessed it? Put it here, then.”

A transcription of the concluded conversation appeared on the scroll, bearing the spirit’s notary seal.

“Well then,” the cleric said. “You are dismissed.”

Lupkra was contented when he, too, entered the road. He overtook the adventurers, taking long strides into the night. “I’ll need funds to enjoy myself in Molag,” he thought while amusedly massaging his chin. “I’ll write about this adventure to sell there! She’ll never know.”

 

 

SCENARIO TWO—THE MONSTROUS CONTINENT

 

 

→ Usage note: human, humanoid, demihuman, and commensurate.

In recent years, “humanoid” has come to mean a creature whose shape resembles that of a human, and thusly, humans have become a humanoid type alongside others. But historical sources preserve a former usage in which humanoid meant only monsters with a roughly human form. In the past, likewise, “demihuman” meant a racial type whose social, moral, intellectual, and physical characteristics were analogous to human: the dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings. But many humanoids may be described in similar terms, and so the several racial categories—human, demihuman, and humanoid—could be graded together on one scale of being. Individuals on the scale could overlap, but the types never could.

But the demihumans did not like being rated as approximately human. Neither did the humanoids care for it, although their resentment was derided by the meme “they hate our emminence” on the scale. Soon, calling the racial gradation the “humanoid scale” became a mocking reference to the monsters’ grade on it.

In light of this history, inThe Veil of Lunacy and in principle, I prefer the term “commensurate” (or its colloquial equivalent “evenses”) to that of demihuman when I refer to dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings. Although humans, too, are by definintion commensurate evenses, in practice, in this manuscript, and because mine is a human history, the newly preferred terms will usually refer to the four races formerly known as demihuman. Contrastingly, I retain the original and monstrous significance of the term “humanoid,” because being aware of the enduring biases of the evenses is integral to the book.

 

 

Chapter 3: The nature and origin of monstrosity

 

~Crusaders vs monsters

A sailor once told me that if you sink some depth into the sea you cannot tell the way up to breath from the way down to death. Nothing in my landed life is analogous (may Osprem be gracious), but if I substitute an academic’s doubt for the sailor’s horror at sea and push lovely logic aside to embrace a licentious metaphor (it is the unfortunate truth, dear students, that the virtuous Queen of the Veritable Sciences will never admit an incommensurate analogy to her bedchamber, although the kingly art of persuasion is on intimate terms with many), then my readers will be persuaded that they perfectly understand what I am talking about, whether they do or don't.▽

Then imagine my bedevilment at finding, as I prepared to write this chapter on fraught topics, that I held one end of the ravelled ball of an historial yarn in my fingers yet could not tell where it went when I pulled on it. This is ordinary stuff for historians, of course, but it was only half my woe. The other was knowing that my readers, trekking up the Ritensa River from Law’s Forge toward Doraka’a, held the same strand by its opposite end and could surely answer the questions that befuddled me.

Are you not entertained? You, my readers, know the answers to my prayers, yet we petition no common god! I have queries you cannot reply to, and I sink deeper into the ignorant sea while knowing I could rise, if only I knew the way.

My friend the historian Roger E. Moore is no friend of mine, although I call him one (as he does me). Our mutual acquaintance inform me that Professor Moore condescends to hold me in his regard, and although to an unaccustomed reader this may seem a nonsequitor respecting the drowning sailor I clung to a minute ago, it gets to the point. Unlike an honest seaman, my friend Moore is in no danger of drowning in depths of logic he never swims. He is not troubled by thoughts about the far end of a tangled yarn; the near end is sufficient to him, and he sees directly through everything that puzzles me. He leads a convenient life, and naturally, I resent it. But there is this difficulty; I cannot esteem him in his profession, and he knows it; an historian who does not see tangles does not see history.

On my desk I have Moore's account of the Great Northern Crusade, the most complete history yet written on the now eternal war. Understanding the crusade is essential to the conclusion of my book. But how should I get on? What should I tell you? What details should I provide? I cannot be sure that you, my newly enlisted ensigns on the high seas of historiography, have ever heard of the Great Northern Crusade. No doubt two years ago you felt it rumbling one hundred miles from Law's Forge. Did you think it came for you? Did you hope it did? What would H'Rothka'a have done if the army of Furyondy had approached? Would she have set you free? Killed you? Did you see any part of the crusade: its victims, troops, or prisoners? Would you have rebelled against your gaolers if the war had given you a chance? Or had hobgoblins become friend s to gnomes (as the saying goes), and you were among H'Rothka'a's supporters?

Would you, living and nurtured in H’Rothka’a’s prison, have fought for Furyondy or Iuz?

I do not know, and there are so many questions besides. One in particular is so simple that it astounds me: Did you know that it was a holy crusade that had marched against you? Do you know even now what that is? On our side we do, I assure you. It's got to do with bishops and paladins and believers, and it comforts me to know that, despite the unholy horrors that surround you on the bandit plains, you are probably not much plagued with believers. That's not nothing.

There are four great things to know about crusades. One: they are lawful and good. Two: so are crusaders. Three: because they are lawful and good, crusades and crusaders are bound by creed to have evil enemies. But fear not, my novices in the science of moral conundrum. I am not saying that you are evil; you may be easy on that score. You are (or recently were) prisoners of evil and are therefore accounted lawful and good by a sort of reverse syllogism that you cannot contradict.

Were you aware that we, without knowing you, knew already that you were lawful and good? Whether or no, you were and still are until you do something to decline the privilege. This can be useful knowledge. It’s the sort of thing you can take advantage of, if you are inclined to.

But the fourth thing about crusades is the greatest of all. Remember it well. A crusade is only as good as its enemy is evil, and by extension, crusaders have no goodness of their own. They derive it from evil the way the moons shine by casting light into shadow: the deeper the shadow, the brighter the moons, and because the Great Crusade of 586cy was a mighty shadow, so it is—you begin to understand us—that every creature you have ever known is not only evil but immensely evil, according to our necessity. It’s true. Mark it well.

I do not deny the fiends and monsters that imprison Law’s Forge a sobriquet they richly deserve. I know that what good folk say, that evil is born from an incessant hatred of good, may be true. My point is that good and evil are so alike in my experience that to call them light and dark, source and reflection, hope and despair, helps our understanding but little. Good and evil have the same dim glow, the one imagining it dispels the night, the other despising its extinction by day.

The first, fabuous attempt to extinquish evil from the Flanaess, where it had lived unobtrusively for ages on ages, began a millenium ago after two far-western, human empires—the Baklunish and the Suel—had blasted one another's cities, farms, and orchards into unhydrateable deserts in a bloodlust they could not restrain, which left them in need of new places to live. How fortunate that the Flanaess was available over the mountains to the east and was inhabited only by the Flan, humans so feckless they could not wage war by magic, and by—as though it were the providence of the benevolent gods—hordes of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and etc. whose shadow was darkening the dazzling continent.

An etcetera once told me that his people had fished in rivers prior to the Great Migrations of western humans moving east. I hope to find an artifact one day to prove it. I do not take him at his word. Although, it is undeniable today that the hobgoblins and orcs (etc.) have been "driven into the least favorable areas of the Flanaess” where they bathe in mud because it is more refreshing than dirt. So came goodness to the Flanaess.

In Molag a decade ago I had beers (I mean that I had beers—what they drank I shudder to think; does blood ferment?) with two demons. It was unpleasant knowing that only Iuz's sparing command (he needs humans and orders us protected) stood between me and their abysmal fantasies concerning me. I have also had beers (meaning we had beers) with hobgoblins. They were not entirely unpromising. Some of them had wives, husbands, and families, which I could not understand. Does having a husband or wife mean love? Does love exist among the monsters? I did not ask. I never said I was brave. But it is a question that my readers have the answer to, undoubtedly, and I would like to know; I find the question to be earthshaking. Monsters . . . love?  . . . earthquake.

It is a biting question in my profession, and like ants on the ground, people avoid it. But what the heck. Let us, I and you, my solicitus entomologists, poke this provoking anthill where horrors hive within. On my end I will stick it as far as I can with what I know, and when we meet one day you will tell me what crawled out the other side.

It's a date, right?

 

 

Chapter 4: The Origin of Humanoids

 

Students, I trust that you are not credulous. Although you are if you are. It means more work for me, but as a contracted professional, I am paid for it. What is more, the remittance is uncommon handsome. Wonderous handsome. Prodigious handsome. Never seen the like. My colleagues in academia would suspect something if they knew. But I ask you, my poor subsizars yearning to concur, what is the fair remittance for a bargain with the devil, if I’ve made one? The going rate is anything I want, and I didn't get that much. Besides, who would begrudge a necessitous doctor his wages? The most infamous Faustian bargain ever struck was by some doctor or other, I forget his name, and the terms were strictly kept. So, I say to you, my intellectual embryos waiting to be grown, do not be credulous. Credulity is a vice.

It is written somewhere that one thousand years ago there were no humanoids in the Flanaess. Do you believe it? If you do, you are vicious. But don't panic. That only means you indulge a vice, and that’s not so bad. Everyone has their peccadilloes, which quite frankly collect on me like lice. Yes, sadly, I admit it. I own it. I've broken hearts—twenty times better (but once in special) . . . in the springtime, the only pretty ringtime . . . O spite! O hell!  . . . What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter . . . O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms? . . . An old professor’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love . . . I hesitated . . . she’s gone . . . despair!

Kind readers, historians today maintain—I press your on credulity once more—that prior to the Great Migrations each of the commensurate races lived in the Flanaess but none of the humanoid’s did. I ask you—isn’t that a fine kettle of fish? Where did the humanoids come from, then?

It is written that at the time of the Great Migrations many humanoids followed the precedent humans over the western mountains and into the Flanaess. Perhaps you, my brave and motley modicum of unsuspecting instructees, will peddle from that kettle at market, but I smell rotten anthropocentricity.

Humans revel in being the reason for everything, even if its orcs. I, however, am presuming that you smell the same as me. I have examined the history books to see what they say about humanoids tote-wagoning and tag-alonging behind humans during the migrtions, and I will share with you what I read, because that's the incredulous kind of guy I am.

§

 

~Monstrous nativity

Historians have correlated the first appearance of humanoids in the Flanaess to the Great Migrations, when humans by the tens of thousands crossed the western mountains from distant, war-torn lands. But actually, despite the accepted nomenclature, there were no migrants during the Great Migrations but only refugees from the wars fought by the two rival human empires, the Baklunish and the Suel. The unassuageable animus of these two mad states brought on the Twin Cataclisms, holocaustic magical attacks that reduced their vast and prosperous lands to burnt bone and ash. The surviving Baklunish fled north to the Drawmidj Ocean, where they live today. The remaining Suel trekked over (and under, if you believe that part of the tale) the Crystalmists into the Flanaess. Tribes of Oeridan barbarians that were swept up in the imperial wars also fled east by either crossing the mountains or passing through the Fals Gap, which divides the Crystalmists and the Yatils.

The humanoids are thought to have chased the migrating Oeridians. Many and various monsters—chiefly orcs—had been hired as mercenary soldiers by the two belligerent empires and had been pillaging innocent civilians as part of their mercenary wage. Oeridian barbarian tribes were their victims, driven east by monstrous mercs that pursued and devoured them.

But whatever has been written, many historical details do not fit that narrative. We know that the Great Migrations began decades before the twin cataclisms and continued for decades after. The role of the monsters in driving the migrations has been contested by some historians as have their numbers. The earliest historical source (let’s call it ◒Gygax◓) stated that the first Suel refugees in flight from the wars went north and east through the Crystalmist Mountains, while from further north and west of the Yatils the flight of the Oeridian tribes was similar: they went east, driven “by hordes of orcs and associated humanoid groups” that pursued them through the Fals Gap.

Students, I am commissioned to teach you not only history but historiography, the historian’s science, and first off, you may as well know that historiography is a chaotic thing, highly sensitive to small details that are loaded up front. Everyone knows how chaotic systems work: a bee’s wing buzzing here and now kicks up a roaring hurricane there and later. Small decisons at the start of an historian’s work may cause real mischief later on, and with respect to the Great Migrations, two observations will bear this out.

First, ◒Gygax◓ assessed the humanoids’ numbers in hordes, an indefinite unit of measure signifying anything from a crowd to a tribe, army, or nation. Added to this numerical imprecision—and in effect much worse—there is a definite moral perjorative: every horde, regardless of its size, is a doom threatening innocent bystanders. In an historiographical study, the effect of calling something a horde is maximal threat and moral condemnation. Hordes of orcs beg the need for armies of good folk to oppose them, and implicityly, that is what ◒Gygax◓ said merely by describing the orcs without giving reason or comment.

Second, ◒Gygax◓ presented the humanoids as participants in the Great Migrations, not as a cause. Historians have persistently misunderstood this idea, which was framed by an analogy: the “Suel peoples fled the great wars, and the Oeridian migrations were similar in cause. Hordes of pillaging orcs drove them northward and eastward.” By the terms of this analogy, war caused the Suel to flee but did not pursue them, and likewise, the monsters that pillaged and drove the Oeridians into the Flanaess did not follow; the pillaging took place west of the mountains. When eventually the humanoids did go east, they went as refugees from the cataclisms, not in hot thirst for migrant blood. By misunderstanding this, later historians made orcs into the instigators of human miseries simply by uncritically accepting ◒Gygax◓’s depiction of the monsters as hordes, a pejorative he casually employed but did not substantiate.

(There comes a disturbance among the students, and murmurs of discontent)

“Excuse me, Professor, but there were hordes of orcs. I mean, we’ve seen orcs, and we’ve heard about their hordes.”

My ingenuous students, I am willing to believe it. All that I ask is for the evidence. What we learn from ◒Gygax◓ is that the Oeridian and Suel refugees, after reaching the Flanaess, “battled each other and the fragmenting humanoid hordes for possession of the central area” of the continent. We are allowed—even invited—to read it as though the human valiants were battling the orc hordes in a fair fight. But in fact, to this point, we know nothing about Oeridian valor or about orc hordes, either, and if we accept ◒Gygax◓’s pejorative statement as a descriptive fact at the commencement of our history, we become the buzzing bees of chaos, heedless of the vicious consequences of credulity.

Would there really have been hordes of humanoids fleeing the cataclisms? Would orcs and hobgoblins have escaped the population losses suffered by humanity in the cataclisms? What had fragmented the orc hordes, and when? Had it been the valiant Oeridians or the Twin Cataclisms? Is a fragmented horde still a horde? How were the mercenary armies related to the orc refugees that, presumably, included non-combatants such as the aged, women, children, and the otherwise employed? If a mercenary horde had divided into orc refugees and hobgoblin refugees, was it fragmented or organized?

Lordy, lordy, but ◒Gygax◓’s hordes have played us a trick. Simply noting the difference between whole and fragmented hordes may have been enough for historians to understand the early history of the Flanaess differently. And yet the distinction has been persistently overlooked or mistaken in favor of one, initial, prejudicial, moral, ahistorical description.

I admit to you, my companions in doubt, that I hoe a lonely row in thinking so. Most historians will reply that a horde will fragment spontaneously if it is orcs. But to my way of thinking, although a single orc may spontaneously fragment to little significance, when a horde does so it unfastens the chain of causal reasoning, leaving historiography in ruins.

And so, by dismissing a prospect so horrid that it is blanching the countenances of my incredulous youths, I turn now to another historical source for your relief. Let’s call it ◒A History of the Flanaess◓, by Anne Brown.

§

 

~The nativity of humanoids

Brown’s elegant book made important contributions to its subject, and in its introduction, she contradicted ◒Gygax◓ (and others) on the topic of humanoid origins.

In the past thousand years, the Flanaess has evolved from a lightly populated region of primitive human, demi-human, and humanoid tribes to its current status: a crowded, war-torn land of civilized feudal states. Though little information is available on early times, historians believe that just until over one thousand years ago the Flanaess was uncivilized and relatively peaceful.

Actually, historians have never believed that. Brown was the first (and last) of us to publish the view that orcs and goblins were not descended from orcish mercenary armies. She considered that humanoid and commensurate races alike were native to the Flanaess and had lived together “relatively peacefully” prior to the arrival of the Oeridian and Suel migrants. She rejected the outsized significance of western mercenary orcs to the early history of the continent. But ◒A History of the Flanaess◓ was not primarily concerned with the native origins of monstrousity. Brown’s subject was the rise (and swift decline) of the “civilized feudal states” that were imported to the Flanaess from the ancient, western, imperial empires via the Great Migrations. Her point about monstrous origins was never discussed, has never been refuted, but has been thoroughly ignored. Her relevance to us is to show that ◒Gygax◓’s hordes are unnecessary to a sound historical explanation, and that something more than a moral pejorative is necessary to justify their inclusion.

But historians have gone on without her. Let’s see how it was done.

 

 

Chapter 5: How the Flanaess was won

 

For glory! That has always seemed a strange battle cry to me. I have never cared for deeds great in story; they are too situational.

I ask you: Would Odysseus have been glorious if he had stayed at home in bed (as he should have) with Penelope—a treasure greater than Troy—or at least have gone straight home to her after horsing around in Ilium for ten years rather than dawdle with friends and lovers for ten more? Would Penelope have been glorious if she had dumped Odysseus’ faithless ass and gathered rose buds while she may? They would both have done better, it seems to me, had they disdained a glorious reputation and proved their love.

OK, so perhaps that’s just me, bitter because I am crowned by no wreath of laurel and gold. But what about you, my school of young heroes? Even the eldest among you does not yet wear “the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty.” And yet here you are, choosing not love and repose but to traipse the muddy paths beside the poisonous Ritensa River (that’s an eerie contamination, I tell you). But since you are taking that route, I suppose you will circle into the Fellreev Forest and keep off the road to Ixworth, avoiding the evil Lands of Iuz. A wise precaution. But I ask you, was it glorious to stink-bomb that camp of orcs last night by igniting the pots of boiled river pollution that you had prepared to toss into their midst? OK, ok. Yes, you got their weapons, armor, coin, and a good laugh; but was it glorious?

That, my academic hero adventurers, will depend on who tells the tale. You’re lucky to have me.

I was saying that glory is a funny thing, which serves as an introduction to the fabulous adventure I am about to relate, the Oeridian Conquest of the Flanaess. As you may recall, the subject of my book is the Canon of Veluna. (He is in the subtitle, although you have not yet been introduced.) The canon and his nation, Veluna, sport glorious reputations trailing clouds of glory from the inaugural story of how the Flanaess was won, from western mountains to eastern sea, by Oeridian refugees passing bedraggled through the wild Fals Gap and into the gentle Vale of Luna. In catechesis, the tale goes like this:

The Oeridans first encountered the Flan and the demihumans in the Vale of Luna. In time, they arrived at the shores of the great eastern waters, their long journey at an end.

This is learned in school by all children that were not raised in a devil’s prison. But you, mis hèroes adventureros, are subscribed to the exclusive condition; I am bound by contract to tell you the truth; and so, I will elaborate a little. And for the sake of accuracy and concision, I have composed a narrative (let us call it ◒Primum narratio◓) composed of select extractions from published materials. It goes like this:

The Oeridian tribes entered the Flanaess less of their own free will than because they were being pushed by marauding armies of humanoid mercenaries. After decades of conflict in the west, the Oeridians had come to believe the wars were a sign for them to migrate eastward in search of a new destiny. A council of hetmen, heeding the advice of shamans, chose to make the Oeridians a migrant folk. Some of their gods had said that they were destined for unsurpassed greatness as a people, and that the source of their power lay in the east. Abandoning their lands to the Baklunish empire and pursued by humanoid marauders caring for nothing but looting and murder, the Oeridians headed for the great pass between the Barrier Peaks and the Yatil Mountains. After them came many humanoids, plundering and slaying at will.

The Oeridians were not alone in their drive eastward. Many Suel refugees also fled from the cruelties of their own tyrannical empire. They crossed the Crystalmist Mountains, braving every sort of monster and privation to seek the fabled security of the uncivilized lands beyond. They were joined, following the Rain of Colorless Fire, by a flood of weary war survivors.

The Oeridians were fierce invaders, driving everyone before them. For over two centuries, the Suel and the Oeridians fought for control of the region, from the Crystalmists to the Solnor Coast. Many Suel were debased and wicked, and they lost most of these battles and were pushed to the periphery of the Flanaess and into the Tilvanot Peninsula, across the narrow Tilva Strait, and into Hepmonaland.

The Oeridian dominion over so much of the Flanaess was in part due to their friendliness toward the original demihuman peoples of the area — dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings — whose cooperation greatly strengthened the Oeridians. The willingness of the Flan to join forces with them also proved to be a considerable factor.

Perhaps the biggest asset the Oeridians had, however, was the vileness of the Suel, who lied, stole, slew, and enslaved whenever they had inclination and opportunity. They spilled out of the Sheldomar Valley, heading east through passes in the Lortmil Mountains. Some attempted to cross north of the Nyr Dyv but were driven back by Oeridians that, seeking their destiny, had followed the Velverdyva River downstream. Many of these Oeridians settled south of the Velverdyva, forming the land that is called Veluna today. The majority of the Suel moved further east, following Flan legends of a great fertile plain fed by a great river and rich with wildlife.

The Oeridians soon settled the region north of the Nyr Dyv and blended with peaceful Suel east of the lake. Then, they followed the same Flan legends of a magnificent fertile river plain that had previously drawn the Suel. The Oeridians’ luck could scarcely have been better. They encountered ever-more-marvelous lands open for the taking, crossing the Franz, Duntide, and Harp Rivers, leaving slain monsters and cleared farmsteads in their wake. Finally, in the mighty Flanmi River basin, they shooed out the remaining Suel and Flan, establishing the Kingdom of Aerdy, the largest empire known to history, and then went on to the shores of the great eastern waters, their long journey at an end.

If you combine this narrative with the catechism given above, you hear the story as schoolchildren do: The Oeridian conquest was a glorious gift to the peaceable folk in the Flanaess. We all live happily together.

But it strikes me—Professor Annalo Bifurcati—as surprising and elucidative that you, a handful of scholar’s apprentices raised in the enforced neutrality of commensurate folk trapped in a devil’s gaol, have been made by someone you barely know to read a divergent history of the Oeridian conquest written under commission by a contract signed by me and a committee of nine orthodox scholars that serve as my editors, most of whom disagree with everything that I say. What a remarkable thing! And I at least—an honest man whose signature is his bond when it is discoverable—will do my best to honor the agreement.

Here, then, is what I believe ◒Primum narratio◓ really tells us about the Oeridan conquest of the Flanaess:

Nothing was the Oeridians' fault. They were forced to migrate when they didn't want to. Their gods took pity on them and promised them a great destiny in other peoples' lands. The wicked Suel tried to stop them, but everyone hated the Suel and loved the Oeridians. Everyone was glad when the Oeridians finally established the largest empire ever.

But not everyone was glad. The wicked Suel and the evil monsters certainly were not, and more damningly, the commensurate races were not either. Hidden in the same narratives that have served for the ◒Primum narratio◓, we find the evidence of it:

For two centuries, the Oeridians fought the Suel and the fragmented humanoids for possession of the central lands of the Flanaess, incidentally engaging the Flan and the demihumans, whose enmity they incurred as well. The arrogant Oeridians might have been overcome by this mix of forces but for one thing: the Suel were far more unpleasant than the Oeridians were aggressive. The original inhabitants of the Flanaess—the Flan and the demihumans—were first pushed aside by the powerful Oeridian migrants. Only later did they ally with the Oeridians and drive the Suel to ever more distant fringes of the continent.

Recollect that the “fragmented humanoids” were not necessarily rapacious hordes from war-torn western empires in pursuit of innocent Oeridian migrants. Monsters may have been native to the Flanaess, living in relative peace beside the native commensurates. Although not in league with the evenses, the monsters were even so part of “the mix of forces that might have overcome the arrogant Oeridians” had the even more wicked Suel not been leading the race to to gain human continental domination.

We may credit it, my incredulous scholars, that subservience to the Suel was not the destiny that the shamans had foretold to the migrating Oeridians while they were still west of the mountains. But that fate was narrowly averted not because the Oeridians got along with the demihumans and the native Flan,but because no mix of evenses and Flan forces was capable of fending off concurrent invasions by the Oeridians and the Suel. The alliance of Oeridian and commensurate folk was involuntaly, considered on all sides to be the lesser of two evils. This was not a love match; it was a shotgun wedding.

So, the history of the commensurate races does not testify to Oeridian glory but to the desperate exigencies of invasion and war. It is necessary, consequently, that waging war against the orcs and the hobgoblins should bear witness to glory, because if that fails, no one will remain to join the Oeridians in witnessing to it themselves.

§

 

~A continent of monsters

Of course, the monsters cannot testify to Oeridian quality directly, but indirectly they may by being fierce and evil in defeat. That is the crusaders’ logic, and to that end, let us recall what ◒Primum narratio◓ said about Oeridians slaying monsters. The Oerdians would push east of the Nyr Dyv following

the same Flan legends of a magnificent fertile river plain that had previously drawn the Suel. The Oeridians’ luck could scarcely have been better. They encountered ever-more-marvelous lands open for the taking, crossing the Franz, Duntide, and Harp Rivers, leaving slain monsters and cleared farmsteads in their wake.

This tale was sungat the time by Myriad the prophetess, the sister of shamans, who took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tibrels and with dances. And Myriad answered them:

Sing ye to the gods! For they have triumphed gloriously! The orc and the goblin they have plowed into the soy!

Our admiration for this characteristically Oeridian boast—What good luck! Half a continent of monsters to kill—is only partially diminished by knowing it to be an Oeridian boast. But, ironically, the extermination of the humanoids has an historiogrpahical utility; it enables me to note the strange, Oeridian logic by which a continent populated by monsters is said to have been open for the taking. I note, too, the Oeridian notion that finding monsters in the Flanaess was good luck by making a virtue of a landgrab.

But above all else, the whole business vindicates Anne Brown's premise that humanoids were native to the Flanaess. A population of monsters large enough to occupy the eastern portion of the continent could not have descended from mercenary soldiers already killed and fragmented by prior wars with human migrants in the central Flanaess. Could the orcs and hobgoblins have been everywhere in the east, ahead of the Oeridian invaders and waiting to be slain, if their ancestoral remnants had been broken while pursuing and marauding the Oeridians west of the Nyr Dyv?

I will add something that you, my fair students, do not need to know. The passage in ◒Primum narratio◓ that described “marvelous lands open for the taking,” etc. was written by my friend and nemesis Roger Moore in one of his most memorable and untangled historical yarns. May I, then, not ask him: “Mon ami, when you wrote this, were you being entirely serious? Had you considered everything and thought it through? Because my belief, based on our decades of mutually esteemed acquaintance, is that you were, and you had.”

§

 

~The conquest’s aftermath

History begs questions. And for you, my scholars out of gaol on a devil’s parole, I have one prepared: What was lost when the Oeridians slew a continent of monsters and shoed the evenses away? After all, to appreciate what you have, you must appreciate the cost. What was the Flanaess like before the Oeridian conquest? What was lost when the continent was won?

 The hint of an answer may be found today at the southeastern terminus of the Flanaess, the Tilvanot Penninsula, now under the control of the nefarious Scarlet Brotherhood. The northern neck of the Tilvanot is choked by steep, rugged hills known as the Spine Ridge; immediately to the north is the Vast Swamp; and together the swamp and ridge form an imposing topographical barrier to human exploration and settlement. The spine is partially bisected (south to north) by the Gov River valley, where populations of hobgoblins, orcs, and Suel are living peacefully near one another today. The Suel population, specifically, was undiscovered until ten years ago, when it was stumbled on by a spy from Sunndi that had been sent to investigate the dangerous and insidious Brotherhood. We do not know how long the valley’s residents have been there, but they live in mature societies now, so it must be from a good while ago.

In truth, the situation well echoes the conditions in the ancient Flanaess as described in ◒A History of the Flanaess◓, when monsters and evenses are said to have coexisted peacefully. I may point out, then, that the last remnants of the Suel people that anciently fled the Oeridan conquest were headed south into the Vast Swamp toward the Tilvanot Penninsula, where monsters were known to live. There are, too, groups of elves and gnomes that live north of the swamp even today, while elves have always lived in the Tilvanot itself. There is an obvious potential connection, then, between the Suel people settled peacefully today in the Gov valley among hobgoblins and orcs, the Suel people that were driven into the valley by the Oeridian conquest, and the commensurate groups that continue to live in the area today.

There may be a moral to this. Despite what historians and Oeridians maintain, none of the monsters and evenses that were defeated in the conquest could have been categorically evil, because they exhibited then and still exhibit today a considerable peacability and mutual tolerance. I will add to this a further remark.

No people entirely forgets its genocide. The descendents of native Flanaessians slain during the Oeridian conquest may recollect what happened and want their continent back, if the opportunity ever arises.

§

 

~A note on the futility of commensurate historians

Judging by the whispers that pass among you, my gossiping gaolbirds, when I turn my back to write on the board you, are wondering whether the commensurate races might have made a contribution to my research on the nativity of monsters. Yes, they might. There were commensurates living then, and many are alive today, that may have something important to say. You are curious, then, why I did not consult the dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings about the events bespoken.

As it happens, I have asked several and various evenses scholars whether monsters predated the Great Migrations in the Flanaess. They never answered but only looked perplexed and offended, as if I had crossed a line. If I had I hadn't seen it; my queries left me feeling slightly less commensurate than before.

You may as well know that, properly speaking, there are no historians among the commensurate races. They live long and trust to their memories, traditions, and songs—a nasty habit, if you ask me. I do not believe that passing centuries enhance historical recollection, no matter how traditionally remembered. Historiography doesn’t work like that, or memories either.

Elves don't know as much about the past as you may think, they “remember much”; dwarves give their historical records to their priests for safe keeping; halflings stay out of other peoples' lives and care little about formerly-living monsters; which leaves gnomes, whose grasp on the difference between a fact and a prank is hazardously slick.

Finally, there are the Rhennee folk, who live in the Flanaess today but didn’t then. They are technically not commensurate, and their memories are from another dimension.

 

 

Episode VI. Monster Wars: “Return of the Redeye”

 

~A rule and its consequences

The rules of historiography state that I not only may but must make use of the conclusions drawn by my previous chapter when advancing my next. This requires historians to give up their arguments when their conclusions do not support them. I have never known it done, but never mind that. I must, and so I do, stick the angry anthill of hobgoblin history with the pointy conclusion just whittled: the humanoids were native to the Flanaess when the Oeridian conquistadores plundered the continent.

If the monsters were here first and we pushed them out, we must allow that, if they come back, they will be liberating their homelands and not taking ours. The point makes itself. It may jab a little, but I am not the one making you look too closely; I only point it out. It makes no difference whether the hobgoblins are evil, it is still liberation: we take, we occupy, they liberate. We may not want to see it that way, but logic—Queen of the Veritable—stands before us as the ominous queen she is. Be brave. Although our sense of justice is speared by our disclosure as invaders and conquerors, at least the monsters are made no more evil and become more intelligible to us. It’s a fair trade. We may misunderstand them less, and that can only be a beneft.

All you need do, if you wish this were untrue, is show me where I am wrong.

I could stop here, my point being honed. But twenty years of professing have taught me that people learn by rote, not by reason. My doctoral advisor made me—an advanced student at the time—repeat my lessons. She did it defensively, aware that none of the other masters taught their students by "rote larnin’." I was abashed, and I learned. Reason may teach us what we ought to know, but we assimilate by repitition.

Unlike the wilder mountain ranges in the Flanaess, the Lortmils are not that high and are bounded by civilization on three sides. They happen to be rich with mineral deposits, too, and as a corollary, the Lortmils have been a battleground of the commensurate and monstrous races from ancient times. In staking a claim to these mountains humans come last; between evenses and monsters, no one may decide. It may as well be a tie.

What, then, are we to make of this?

Historically, the demihumans of these mountains have fought long and hard to drive out the humanoids and monsters, culminating in the Hateful Wars, which led to the creation of the Pomarj, from which many red glowing eyes look back to their ‘birthright’ and seek to reclaim it.

Scholars, does that seem fair to you? Does it do anything but mock, for the amusement of evenses, the “red-eyes’” right to exist? We have, after all, driven them out of the Lortmils; we may drive them out of the Pomarj and hence—you may consult a map, if your adventuring circumstances allow—into the sea to float or drown as they please. Indeed, just like the Oeridian conquest, the story of evenses driving orcs out of the Lortmils is a fine example of commensurate historiography: written by humans, remembered by evenses, regretted by humanoids.

The often-admirable Anne Brown categorized the retreat of the orcs, driven out of the Lortmils by commensurate armies to fight for their lives in the Pomarj and unexpectedly surviving, as "Evil Gains a Foothold." That may be so, if "gaining a foothold" means, in a language I do not know, declining to be exterminated. I venture to think that the red-eyes may be glowing less in envy than in retribution.

What is more—and sweet students, I do not abuse your tutelage, I make up not one jot of this—the Hateful Wars, which precipitated the disastrous march of monstrous folk out of the Lortmils into the Pomarj, escalated to their fatal pitch when the elven Queen Yolande of Celene, having previously been indifferent to the whole murderous affair, felt aggrieved when her beloved prince consort, leader of the elven army against the monsters and plainly therefore an innocent in that business, was ambushed and killed by the enemy. Roused by this personal grievance from her royal stolidity, fey Yolande called on the commensurate races to avenge her lover against the monsters, and for this act of extraordinarily self-centered self-pity, was proclaimed “Lady Rhalta of All Elvenkind." Still, it did the poor thing no good. Yolanda "took little comfort from such honorifics while she grieved for her loss."

By the gods! That Rhalta b**** ought to have taken comfort from the uncounted dead, and perhaps the orcs of the Pomarj (and the remnant of humans remaining after the orcs were done with them) would provide it if she went there. Instead, she has retreated into stolid isolation once more.

For the evenses, reremebering the history of the Hateful Wars serves two purposes, one intentional and one not. There had anciently been orcs in the Lortmils, but we had considered them eradicated long ago. When they turned up, we were distressed to find them living in a vast system of mountain tunnels that must have taken many generations to construct. Had they been plotting against us all along?

Rather. But just in case it occurred to anyone that we had forced them underground and kept them there for centuries, it had to be resolved that the red-eyes had no birthright either way. Although inevitably our jokes about their existence only reminded us that they did, and since officially, “the various races of humanoids had all been driven into the least favorable areas” of the Flanaess like rats in our warehouses driven to our sewers, it was perturbing to find a great, organized, and almost civilized popuation in the Lortmil Mountains beneath our holiday ski resorts and mountain retreats. We wondered, were any more lying in wait?

We didn’t notice many. A few hobgoblin warbands were wandering the drab plains north of Molag but we believed them to have crept from the northern Lands of Iuz. When came the big reveal in 579cy, when Iuz took over Molag, we thusly thought it was only Iuz and did not panic. We could manage a barbarian cambion warlord, as he was considered to be at that time. In the subsequent Greyhawk Wars, we discovered a vast and unsuspected hobgoblin nation allied with orcs and demons under and Iuz arrayed against us. It was the price we paid for believing our myths and taking no lessons to the contrary.

What might we have learned if we had been willing? A lot about hobgoblins and a bit about Iuz.

§

 

~Hobgoblins and humans alike lived in Molag

My fondness for hobgoblins has grown in their absence. We were barely acquainted at first, and they were never much to look at even if you granted their pride in their noses. But they persisted in being amiable and I confessed my liking at last. That was in Molag, where we used to meet by the graveyards wall, and the girls roasted toadsfeet on the public hearths in the streets of that dirty old town. The alleys were described by evenses (who had never been there) as downtrodden sewers. But in Molag fresh riverstraw was strewn each morning, and the filth, shit, and piss was raked way at night and burned outside the city walls, while on the opposite bank of the Veng River, in Fort Belvor in Furyondy, the excrement stuck to the human streets until rainwater rinsed the sop into ditches. If you do not care to clean up after yourself, you let nature do it, I suppose.

In the years prior to the Greyhawk wars, I used to ferry to Molag from the Furyondian side. Not an impressive sight. The city sat two miles off the riverbank to the northwest on a mottled brown bluff rising above the endless tawny reeds that reached across the plains. On the river immediately opposite Fort Belvor was Old Town, an urban decay of docks, teamsters, export manufacturers, and warehouses where Molag had been for centuries until the Furyondian navy drove it inland. As you ferried over, the hobgoblins and orcs interrupted their siestas to gather on the docks, a heaving, gesticulating, braying mob warning you against arriving. It took more courage than I possessed to dock there the first time, but a friend in the city had assured me it would be fine. Which brings me to my point.

Hobgoblins and humans alike lived in Molag. The hobgoblins greeting us on the dock were actually happy to see us. If they’d meant other business, their jumps, shouts, and dances would have been different, although not to our eyes. The truth is, life in Old Town was so slow that every visitor was welcomed. But the locals were disappointed when their guests showed manners that could not be trusted.

I could take you there safely with me. A gesture, taught me by my Molag friend, will get us off on the right foot by signaling to the teamsters that I am vouched for in town. Spending twenty minutes in Old Town is enough to make friends there if you are willing to share the Dyver beer, and the orcs and hobgoblins send us off with best wishes for a quick return. A wide road of planks and stones winds to the city gate, but I will take you by the smuggler’s path through miles of imprisoning rivers’ reeds directly to the smuggler’s gate to signal our good intent. The smuggler’s entrance, which tunnels under the city’s southern rampart, isn’t hidden; it’s right here, and like you and me, passing through it is the true business of Molag, the city’s heritage, its importance to Iuz, and the reason Furyondy burned it half down: the underground economy, which has been operational for nearly a thousand years.

Inside the walls, the city slopes downward for half a block before ascending the tawny bluff, and the hobgoblin dwellings crowd upward in walls made of cemented pebbles rising in steep rows. Up high, you see the pitched thatch roofs and the smoke that issues through. It’s thick as noises, because hobgoblins are not quiet. They shout, curse, howl, and jest out loud, keeping, in that manner, a robust peace that airs and heeds personal differences before they are fought over. And the scents! having animal undertones although on the surface you can smell the humanoid fare. The streets in Molag, as stated, are raked every morning and new straw, scented by the winds of the plains, is put down. The hobgoblins cook on public hearths in the streets and markets, where friends, rivals, relatives, and vendors gather to prepare the common meal. The menu seems odious to evenses, but rodent by any other name still tastes as sweet.

Topping the bluff are the Dread Palace of the Hierarchs (now the Summer Palace of Iuz) and the Exactly Equal Cathedral of Nerull, god of Death. These grim impositions were erected by the Horned Society fifty years ago in demonstration of the hierarchy’s control of the city. To accommodate the twin erections, Molag’s town center was knocked down and the high street was built over. Hobgoblin habitats and markets that had been where the cathedral is now were crowded out and pressed against a wall that the Hierarchs built around the graveyards of the Necromonium, a dark temple where pilgrims petition Nerull for a prelibation of death.

The lives of the citizens were deleteriously impacted by the construction. After the coup in 582cy, when Iuz overthrew the hierarchs and Molag’s citizens set fire to the cathedral grounds, Iuz’s High Priestess Althea brought commerce back to the city center by letting merchants set up shops among the burned-out buttresses of the Exactly Equal. Ambitious merchants moved quickly to the cathedral grounds. The overcrowded alleys near the graveyards were eased, although the tour I am giving you, my highly favored readers, goes to Molag as it was, at its most compressed and boisterous, before Iuz, before the bloody coup, before the fires started by Furyondy.

Among the shops in these alleys is Nlessie’s Old Books, which I mention because you may recollect it from before. If you don’t, its presence in the district still makes a point. In Molag, life is a mixture of things hobgoblin and human. This is true profoundly true of Molagger culture, although on this tour I show you only the shop windows.

If you view Molag metaphorically as a woven carpet, the city’s woof will consist of a hobgoblin burlap and human wool blend, the elements beginning plainly at opposite ends of the weave and meeting in the middle in a thick, temultuous, colorful pageantry depicting the lives of Molaggers at all times, not only at their day jobs. Nlessie’s living rooms, for example, are perched above her shop on the southern, predominatly hobgoblin side of town in a manner that is typical of the district. She employs a hobgoblin assistant and provides him with room, board, and money, an arrangement that typifies Molagger life. On the other, predominantly human side north of the palace, there are many such shops standing near the palace grounds and thining out as you move toward the ramparts. Nothing is wholly goblin, nothing is wholly human, and nothing is wholly smeared.

But the unfastidiuos blend of Molagger life is most evident upclose in the town’s market squares, where the public hearths are ablaze all year round. Even in winter months, Molaggers will often choose to sleep outdoors, where enduring friendships and temporary lovers alike may cleave to best advantage, and in the darkness you may trust whatever comes and goes.

Students, are your hearts not opening to this? Do you wonder that I would find more and more comfort in Molag and less and less in my academic life at Nyrstran and Old Maurian? My scholarship had been informing me for years that commensurate society was not what it seemed, and in Molag the meaning of this took root. I confess: I like this other world existing opposite a human kingdom—Furyondy—that has allied itself with Veluna against Molag in the Greyhawk Wars, did so again in the Great Northern Crusade, again in the Eternal War, and will always be allied with Veluna, it seems, whether we look back to the Great Migrations or ahead to our own bleak future.

I was going to note that in Molag the humans are not as human as you may think. But I remembered that you, my misfit heroes ejected from a devil’s gaol, are not either. There would not be much educational (and no shock) value in pointing out the ethnic varieties of humanity that stroll the alleys and doorways in Molag. Suffice it to say, you would probably fit in.

And so, I guide you directly out the city’s main gate. No one guards it or stops us leaving, and no one ever did before the Furyondian fires were started. In fact, the lady now walking into the city, whom I remember by the comely way she combs the hairs that overflow her nostrils, is bidding us hurry if we hope to catch the peddler of mudliver crabs that is setting off down the Skull Trail to Boulderford. Oh, I say. Hurry up!

 

 

Interlude: In the Necromonium

 

(Moon’sday, 17^th Reaping 591cy)

The moans of worshippers may still be heard in the ruined Necromonium, where their ecstatic aspirations, through pains and promises of Death, to a place in Carceri’s eternal prisons has outlasted the dissolution of their souls. Despite our fascination in life with Elysium’s fields and Hades’ caverns, in the end most dead mortals make their way to the Tarterus Depths. Afraid of being judged to salvation or damnation, they flee in extremis to the everlasting prison of their own minds. Some, bound to themselves by sincerest affection and looking forward too much to their deathly incarceration while alive, have prayed to Death in the Necromonium for a glimpse of their inanimate captivity and then found it to haunting for a return to life. The Necromonium’s graveyard is full of them.

“I wonder what she is doing?” thought H’Rothka’a. The horned devil loved and feared her mistress, High Priestess Halga, who always indulged and protected the devil but had a nervous and volatile temperament.

From the circular ring around the circumference of the globular temple, Halga looked down on the heights of heaven. When the Depths’ foundations had fallen to the streets of Molag nine years ago, the moons and stars were exposed to view, giving the hollow temple an inverted appearance as though the heavens contained everything. The High Priestess knew that was not right.

“Priestess,” said H’Rothka’a, probing Halga’s state of mind by testing her patience, although Halga did not notice, “What is the nature of the thing I am to grovel before?”

“You are not expected to grovel. Although, I think you are suited to it.”

“Thank you, mistress. What is expected?”

“A great deal that you will be loath to do. But for now, only affirm that you are my obedient servant and the commandant of Law’s Forge while making suitable pledges of those things being true.” Halga held her head askew and looked at the devil inquisitively.

“Loath?” the malebranch murmured. “How loath will I be?”

“You will not have my ill will, devil, unless you deserve it prematurely. When the time comes, do what you are loath.”

H’Rothka’a turned her attention to the temple, which echoed with an immensity not its own.

“I do not like this place.”

“You are barely in it.”

“The old beliefs still apply. I do not love myself so well as that.”

“Self-respect is important to you, H’Rothka’a, despite appearances.”

Halga raised one arm and turned a pirouette, dancing at the very edge. She seems young again, thought the devil. Is she really Iuz’s lover? What deity or demon does she wait on now? H’Rothka’a was getting anxious.

A noise, perhaps a voice, came from without. R’Hrothka’a turned and looked into the temple’s wilding gardens where walked a singular shape in the night, hooded and robed in white silk trailing on the rank weeds that wound through the tombs of Death’s foremost saints. “This is frought and wrong,” thought H’Rothka’a, who was sensitive to such things. Her wings trembled with the urge to take flight.

The ghost advanced on Halga. Their embrace was cold, but equally, each held it for three seconds longer than they might.

“We have come a long way,” said Iuz’s witch.

“We have,” said the white arrival, putting back its silk hood.

And H’Rothka’a was afraid.

 

 

Chapter 7: The fell city

 

Mudliver crabs live in the mud flats of the eastern shore of Whyestil Lake. Harvested and prepared by hobgoblins, they were once a delicacy served universally in the central Flanaess prior to the Greyhawk Wars: wonderful when raw, better when salted, perfection when cured (for five to seven months), and ideal for exporting. The capital of mudliver exports had been Delaquenn, a lake town near the southern limit of the crustaceans’ range, where they were shelled, salted, seasoned, and shipped for distribution. In Gull Keep and Crockport they were known as Delaquenn crabs. But different names were applied everywhere; for example, “Whyestil princesses” in Dyvers, “lord o’the lakes” in Greyhawk, “Grabford crabs” in Chendl, and mudlivers in Verbobonc, where the elves were aware of their humanoid origin. On the bandit plains (including the Bandit Kingdoms), they were fgtoz yxblpt, an utterence impossible in common but that translated from hobgoblin means “live-in-muds.” For sale in civilized markets the delicacy’s origins were kept a secret; their connection to hobgoblins was bad for business. I know this, my pupils, because my specific area of academic research is . . . do you have a question for me, boys and girls?

Professor, the whole time you were pretending we were in Molag you never took us to he Dread Palace, the Exactly Equal Cathedral, the Necromonium, or anywhere like that. You ignored Molag’s heart of evil. Why?

Ah. I see. I really do. And I would mollify you, my angry bees. Would you have flown your hive in Law's Forge, where invisible imps perched in your windows and goblins turned the keys to your gaols, if your families were to remain imprisoned and sicken beside the infectious Ritensa River? Would you have abandoned everything you love—the sum of your affections—to seek in Doraka’a an eerie quest that vastly outstrips your powers? Would you have done this for no reason?

But what is the reason? According to the contract you agreed, completing your quest in Doraka’a will liberate the Forge and undo the shackles of your people at home. Is that your pure motive? Or are you in it for the glory too? For the adventure? To pay back H’Rothka’a, her lesser devils, her hobgoblins, and Iuz, who have cost you so much?

Is it revenge? Oh, yes, please! Oven-hot vengeance visited on your gaoler and goader, H'Rothka'a, and her devils, imps, hobgoblins, and lord. O happy day! O merry morning! So—what must you be thinking of me, telling you that it isn't completely, entirely, and in every detail the monsters' fault? You must think I'm the grinch who stole Christmas. You must think I am stuffing the trimmed and festooned evergreen of your holiday joy up the wintery flew of my two sizes too small heart. And you are telling me that you are not Cindy-Lou Who and will not be fooled. Is that what you are thinking? I know it is.

And it's my fault. Who knew that you were Whos? Like the other adventurers of my acquaintance—well, there are none, but like they might have been—I had you figured for grey hats, moral dubieties with a penchant for defeating evil because it props your spotty reputation. I was wrong. You are doing your best and are far friendlier than I had inferred by the usual analogy to myself.

Still, I cannot help you. It cannot be done. Certain niceties of my contract are very particularly stipulated, and the history of hobgoblins is one. And since the handwriting of one particular clause has assumed an almost sentient maleficence, I am going to stick to the practice of deferring to it. Apparently I, no less than you, may be more at risk than we realized.

What do you mean about sentient handwriting?

I mean the handwriting lives. Let me tell you the truth, my hero adventurers. Everything looks differently to you, who are only recently free from a devil’s prison, than it does to the outside world. To me, living out here, I have less concern for your identity as former captives to evil than for the current state of historiography in the Flanaess. People do not know their history. No, that’s not true. You do not know their history; they know it wrongly. Everything we think we know about Molag, for example, was written recently and in a panic. It is read in a panic too. I will illustrate the point by an excerpt taken from ◒The Ashes◓, a primary source written in Greyhawk in 583cy, only seven months after the events it describes.

With the aid of fiends and his orcish army sweeping across the plains of the Horned Society, Iuz toppled with astonishing ease the evil Heirarchs in Molag, long his enemies and a thorn in the flesh of the Shield Lands. Absorbing the hobgoblin soldiery into his own armies, Iuz then swept onwards across the Ritensa to the Shield Lands. His attack made the streets of Molag run red with blood for a week, and his puppets then ruled from that fell city. Furyondy panicked.

It says, “that fell cityl” But what did Furyondy really know about Molag and the Horned Society? To the panicking kingdom’s knowldege, the plains north of the Veng River had seemed empty for five hundred years. Furyondy knew nothing about them. The land across the Veng River had seemed to be inhabited only by dull men so unpleasant that they seemed barely human and by few enough of those. So, where had the hobgoblin soldiery that was absorbed into Iuz’s army come from? Humanoids had been eradicated from the Flanaess a millenium ago, everyone believed. Although hobgoblins had recently appeared in a minor way as minions of the Hierarchs, yet the Horned Society was predominently human. Everyone knew that! So, where had tens of thousands of hobgoblin soldiers in an army so practiced that swept humanity from the Shield Lands come from?

The answer had to be Iuz. He must be everywhere. He must be a god! He was the hobgoblins, the orcs, the fiends, and the human bandits. A slayer indifferently of the wicked, the good, the Hierarchs, and the Holy Shielding. He was evil. He was capable of anything, of summoning tens of thousands of minions from nothing at all, in accordance with his fell powers.

We discovered ourselves continuously amazed by his evil, no matter how commonly it visited us. We were changed; we saw Iuz everywhere.

 

 

Chapter 8: Evil among the historians

 

~Planet of Freedom

We take leave of Molag at civilization’s borderland to trek in the wilderness with the true protagonists of our second scenario, the hobgoblins and their few human friends. It would have been preferable (cinematically speaking) to have featured them from the start. Villains should always be given a prominent billing, perhaps in in the background of a billboard overlooking the male and female leads. Today, books are written with cinematic adaptation in mind, of course, and it's not as though I’m not trying. I just suck. The fact that I am writing a book—with specific forms, functions, limits, rubrics, canons, and potential—intrudes on my mind. The big picture blurs.

Consequently, when the day comes and a copy (yours or mine) of The Veil of Lunacy is brought to the attention of Hollywood producers (as it must, being an epic about the war of humanoids and humans), it will benefit from revision by the script-writing team. The title will change to Planet of Freedom starring Henry Cavill as the caustic hero deciding the fate of monsters and men. The writers will need to invent the protagonist, because no one in the actual scenario played that role; and I’m amenable to it. The reality is so complicated that I, no less than my viewers, will be happy to see it glossed. I care not what fictional villains the invented Cavill kills, so long as his grunts and poses convey the historical essence: he fights for truth, justice, and the Ancient Way while making new and unexpected friends.

The tale of hobgoblins on the western bandit plains will contrast astonishingly with the sad story of the Lortmil Mountains, recently told and featuring the beautiful Yolande, Queen of the Elves. (Perhaps the Lady Rhalta will agree to play in my movie?) In the Lortmils the elves, the dwarves, and the humans attempted to genocide the orcs, who, having been driven into the Pomarj, attempted to return the favor. By contrast, on the western plains the bandits raided and skirmished but there was little interracial conflict because the hobgoblins and humans had a millenium of past intersettlement that they could agree on.

“Intersettlement” is my neologism. (Pretty good, right?) It means that, on the western bandit plains, the hobgoblins and the humans had found a way to settle beside and among one another relatively peacefully. After I have explained it, intersettlelment will account for the fact that, at the start of the Greyhawk Wars, there were thirty thousand humans and three hundred thousand hobgoblins living together in the western bandit plains, and there was no war between them. I mean, how wicked is that?

But intersettlement poses an historiographical problem: no one knows anything about it. To get even a glimpse, we must imagine intersettlers as they were on the former western bandit plains, not in the Horned Society that came later. Although the devil-worshipping Society had been resident on the plains across from Furyondy for seventy years, historians confused it with the demonic Empire of Iuz on the theory that ‘evil is evil.’ We believed that the Hierarchs and the Horned Society were a part of Iuz’s empire from the beginning; that the devilish cult had originated in the fifth century, when Iuz first appeared in the north; that when the cambion lord disappeared for sixty-five years, in 505cy, his empire had fragmented; and that

his generals and advisors began warring to carve out bits of land for themselves. The landholders of the westernmost Bandit Kingdoms, who were calculating generals and unholy men at the vanguard of Iuz’s push against Furyondy, had already dedicated themselves to fell powers of the lower planes and officially broke from the realm of Iuz.

The Hierarchs had been with Iuz from the beginning of the dark lord’s reign.

But things had seemed differently prior to the Molag coup and the panic that followed. The only historian to have commented about the Horned Society prior to the Molag panic was Gary Gygax, in whose studies (A Brief History of Eastern Oerik, An Examination of Populations, and An Overview of Political Divisions) the Horned Society and Iuz’s empire had been categorically separate. The dark lord’s rule was monstrous and interdimensionally transcendent; the Horned Society was a civilized, material nation ruled by wicked men.

Evil is in the ascendancy everywhere in the Flanaess. Tribes of vicious humanoids have banded together and rule whole areas: Bone March, the lands of Iuz (certainly, under the leadership of humans), and the Pomarj. The Bandit Kingdoms wax stronger, while thieves, assassins, and orders of evil clerics assume the rulership of city and state alike.

Originally a stronghold of the more organized of the humanoid tribes, the western plains north of Molag came under the rule of a group of evil humans some decades ago. It is speculated that these wicked people were disaffected bandits or were at least aided by one or more of the bandit kinglets. In any case, the land between the Veng and Ritensa Rivers as far north as the territory of the Rovers of the Barrens is now firmly in the grasp of the Horned Society. This association combines the masses of humanoid troops with the organization and powers of humans. Deviltry is the religion of the Society, and its leading Hierarch is purported to be an evil high priest. Other leaders are reportedly a mage, several other powerful clerics, a master thief, and a trio of fighter lords. It is known that many troops of bandits from the east frequent the walled town of Molag, and the Horned Society is on favorable terms with Iuz.

The area of the Shield Lands is in desperate straits today, because the growing might of the Horned Society menaces a delicate balance.

 Gygax’s ideas make sense. The Horned Society was distinct from the orcs that dominated the northern lands and Iuz’s homeland. It comprised humans and hobgoblins but not orcs and was defined by its relation to other human nations, especially the Bandit Kingdoms and the Shield Lands. Disaffected bandit kings, not Iuz, had founded the cult (Gygax is unclear whether the bandits came from east or west of the Ritensa), and “bandits from the east” visited Molag to help menace the Shield Lands. He does not confuse Iuz’s homeland and the leaders of the devil cult, only saying in passing that the Hierarchs were “on favorable terms” with Iuz in the 570s.

But following the panic over Molag and the Greyhawk Wars, historians would see things differently. One wrote that by the year 505cy, before the cambion lord’s disappearance in that year,

Iuz had conquered the westernmost Bandit Kingdoms, declaring the walled city of Molag his “summer capital.” Following Iuz’s disappearance, the western lands officially broke from the realm in 513cy, taking Molag as their capital and calling themselves the Horned Society.

The Horned Society is here seen as a splinter off Iuz’s empire. And indeed, Iuz had declared Molag his summer capital in 505cy before his disappearance and would do similarly decades later, after the Molag coup, by referring to the Dread Palace of the Hierarchs as his “summer palace.”

Yet the notion that Iuz had conquered the western plains in the fifth century is fanciful, believable only if you have already and mistakenly identified Molag with the western bandit plains, the Horned Society, and Iuz. For that to make sense, historians had to overlook that there really were no bandit kingdoms on the western plains, and therefore Molag could not have been their capital. Iuz’s declaration was rhetorical, intended for Furyondy to hear, not the bandit kings.

The national Horned Society did not exist until 513cy, although that fact was confused by historians with Iuz’s disappearance eight years earlier.

When the Horned Society appeared in 505cy, affairs in the Shield Lands reached a desperate crescendo. These were enemies dedicated to vile darkness and evil sacrifice, who had sworn upon the ashen altars of Molag’s Dread Palace that they would march to Admundfort and line the walls with the earl’s intestines. Though years passed without significant military activity, the period between 550-570cy saw heavy skirmishing along the western banks of the Ritensa River. Great forts such as Torkeep were raised, but such defenses soon proved inadequate. In 579cy, the Horned Society banded together with lords of the bandit realms Warfields and Wormhall. With hobgoblin and mercenary armies supported by daemons and demodands, the vast host swarmed the western territories, bypassing strongholds and laying waste to villages and farmsteads. Thousands of Shield Landers gathered at Axeport to halt the invasion, but their line was broken and their bodies thrown as fodder to inhuman beasts.

There was no Dread Palace in 505- or even 513cy! It was built by the Hierarchs much later, approximately at the time of Torkeep, about 550cy. Neither was there a way for devil worship to have been practiced openly in 505cy in Molag, Iuz’s “summer capital,” because Iuz is a demonic evil, and demons and devils do not coexist. In 513cy, eight years after Iuz’s disappearance, then the Horned Society acknowledged its devlish bent and declared its independence from Iuz. In 579cy, yes, there was an alliance between Iuz’s demons and the devils of the Horned Society, because Iuz, now become a god, had commanded his demodands to fight in an alliance that would lead to the Molag coup and the new god’s slaughter of the Hierarchs in 582cy. These (and many other) confusions by the historians were made possible by their meta-historical conviction that the Horned Society was inherently allied to Iuz because –the logic looks so obvious—Iuz was the greater evil.

In 570cy, sixty-five years after his disappearance, Iuz returned to his homelands, and by 579cy his demons and demodands were fighting in the Horned Society’s conquest of the Shield Lands. Three years later, in 582cy, Iuz again deployed his fiends, this time to eliminate the Hierarchs and entirely erase their nation, sending Furyondy into a panic. But recollect: there had been no panic three years earlier, when it was believed that the hierarchs led a patched up and unstable alliance of humans and fiends with distinct allegiances of their own. When a similarly-constituted but greater, more powerful, and more unified army attacked merely three years after, we attributed the difference entirely to Iuz: what had once seemed an unruly mob became a singular dark army, and we learned to fear the darkness by believing that Iuz was the overarching evil, the master of them all. The demigod would change our perception, and because of him, we could no longer see the Horned Society as Gygax had, as a nation ruled by men, a material evil not subordinate to a rising god.

We cannot, then, trust the judgement of historians when they say,

the Horned Society came to prominence in 513cy, a few years after the disappearance of Iuz in the north. When the cambion’s malign kingdom went leaderless, hobgoblins, orcs, and other nonhumans flocked to the Horned Society’s dark banner.

It was Iuz and his empire, not the Horned Society, that would raise a dark banner. In 513cy, the Horned Society raised only a national flag. Orcs did not flock to it, because a hobgoblin nation was resident on the Horned Society’s bandit plains. The orcs remained in the north, awaiting Iuz’s return.

Neither did the hobgoblins flock to the Hierarch’s flag. Does it seem credible (without the presumption of a transcendent evil) that tens of thousands of hobgoblin soldiers and a hobgoblin society fit to provision them would be governed by thirteen devil-worshipping priests and a few thousand human bandits? No. We credit it only because we believe that a transcendent evil pervaded the Horned Society.

But the Horned Society was formed in 513cy, eight years after Iuz’s banishment, by independent groups of hobgoblins, bandits, and devil-worhipers. He cannot explain a nation that took advantage of his absence to proclaim its existence, and imagining him to be so great an evil will chase your reasoning away.

Presuming that Iuz was behind the Horned Society has led historians nowhere. Gygax’s initial speculation on “disaffected bandits” has been transmogrified by increaasingly delusional degrees into “lawful evil humans from the Bandit Kingdoms”; “a small but powerful group of human servants of Nerull allied with warriors from the Bandit Kingdoms and seeking a more ruthless, less chaotic evil than their homelands possessed”; and fianlly

evil humans and priests from the Bandit Kingdoms with humanoids content to work with them in the cause of evil. Priests of Hextor and Nerull soon came to dominate an upper echelon that later became the governing Hierarchs, aided by powerful bandit warriors and a few mages.

This transmogrification—from disaffected bandits into evil bandits (increasingly numerous), devils’ priests, humanoids serving evil, organized bandit warriors, priests of Hextor and Nerull, and finally dark mages—did not stem from proper historiographical research but from an unbalanced fascination with Iuz’s dark power. Gygax’s initially natural suggestion of disaffected bandits had become supernatural without us noticing.

 

 

Chapter 9: The bandit nation

 

It is four am. Upon my desk is a parchment sheaf filled with script, it and I both lighted by a single candle in prelude to dawn. Ten leafs—two complete chapters—have been written this night. Even in my present condition (I never weary; I need no sleep) that's not nothing. I write—understand me literally—tirelessly. Unceasingly. Ostensibly, this is because the penalty clause in my contract becomes a dram gruesome when I lag my deadlines. I say “gruesome,” because the ink in the clause prescribing the penalty turns sanguine (you are bound to the literal meaning again) whenever a deadline nears. I say “dram,” because at present I imbibe and not for the first or even the seventh time tonight. Eight bells are a dark hour of the watch to be sousing your fears, but in my present circumstances the awful contract excuses the craven professor, don’t you agree?

There is more to it than the ostensible. The truth, my first-year matriculates at the college of grotesquerie, is that I am warming to you. At this moment, if I had to choose between the dram and you—I'd choose you. That’s a bit prospective. I hope soon to know you better than I do now. And I’m a little uneasy about how, while I write to you here and now and you read it there and then, somehow it seems to be getting conversational. I would also like to apologize—while I'm at my confessions—for writing a history of the same hobgoblin nation whose warriors you at this moment may be decapitating with your knives and swords. Unless things are going vice-versa? But my book will be worth it. You'll see. When it’s finished, my history of hobgoblins (fitting within my history of the Canon of Veluna) will explain why a life-and-death enmity exists between your races. You may believe it or not, as you choose.

It is now more than a week since your release from H'Rothka'a's prison. Knowing the location and nature of that abode, I may infer that you, in turn, know the answer to my next question.

Are there any hobgoblin bandits on the western bandit plains?

I wince! I writhe! Even as I dip quill into unsanguineous ink to etch my wretched question on this hesitant leaf, I cannot bear to imagine the confusion that you vainly but kindly attempt to suppress from your faces. I see it, yet I have already written what I just wrote. I cannot move . . . I barely breathe. Suffocation from shame is a novel way to leave an unfinished manuscript behind, but stranger things have happened.

My friends, I must have your answer! Are there hobgoblin bandits or not? . . . I resign myself. You cannot hear me. We will leave it then for one of the things you tell me when the whittled end of The Veil of Lunacy sticks out the crawling anthill of history on the other side.

When everything fini est.

When we meet at the end.

 . . .

My equanimity has been restored by a new thought. Perhaps it's not so bad to provide young people with a bit of merriment at an elder's expense. After all, I nestle in my ivory tower while you sleep in hobgoblin shit. So, have at it. Let loose. When you are finished laughing, I will tell you the reason I ask.

To those of us living in the normal human world “bandit” is a fixed category. Bandits are humans, always. Well, sometimes a half-orc is begrudged in a bandito band because he is useful. A tool. But discovering peasants in the kitchen does not diminish the nobility of a palace, and finding a half-orc lugging two hundred fifty pounds of loot on his back doesn't mean he is getting a full share.

Banditry, then, is a human occupation, presumably. Which troubles me, because if there are hobgoblin bandits in the western lands, then one of my fixed categories is upset. I am not against it. It’s part of my training and creed. But it's bloody inconvenient. Categories of thought are delicately interwoven when they are of use. Change one, and there goes the weave.

Be brave! you should be saying, and I would like to heed you. I do not need bravery’s glory; you may have it. You need only speak up.

So, are there hobgoblin bandits on the western bandit plains? You do not answer, but you will know (I know you do) that there probably are, once we spot the shell game that humans play. It goes like this:

Hobgoblins are not considered bandits if they raid humans, but humans are considered bandits because they raid humans.

O pliable language! Violent as a veering hurricane and soothing as a summer’s content. Why do you speak so ambivalently? It pains me, O breath of my thoughts, to see you reduced to false conveyance. Yet here you are. You say that bandits are uncivilized and nonetheless partially organized. They think ahead and get by. But hobgoblins get by without knowing how! No foresight, no mind, no intent. They cannot be bandits.

I would refute you, my winsome native tongue. But it is a part of my plan (made to convince you, fair blossom of discourse, that I am no hobgoblin) to do it at leisure. Soon, we will flip your referents from human to monstrous, but first let me prove my love by counting the ways that historians fill their books with deceipt.

All the rumors penned about the origins of the Horned Society reduce to bandits. Occasionally they appear to be dark priests, but don't let their holy symbols distract you from the masks and sombreros they wear when they ride. And we can see now, my syntactical angel, why this is so: If the Horned Society was formed by bandits, then it was not formed by hobgoblins. Therefore hobgoblins had nothing to do with founding the Horned Society. QED.

The problem with that demonstration is that no one knows anything about humans or hobgoblins on the western bandit plains before the Horned Society showed up. So, how do we know that none of the bandits were hobgoblins? I hear your heart palpitating, my sweet way with words, and you are correct. We don't know and have devised a means ad hoc to deflect our illogic: we say that the Horned Society’s bandits were from the Bandit Kingdoms and the Bandit Kingdoms were—drumroll, please—human. So, my honey bun of . . .

Professor, would you stop flirting with language like that? It's disconcerting.

Of course. Propriety in the classroom above all things.

§

 

~Bandits in the Horned Society

 We shouldn’t forget the bandits. They remind us, as we prepare to steal the fruit of another historian’s labor, that the roots of the Horned Society grew deeper in the Bandit Kingdoms, as Gygax believed, than in the stony soil of Iuz. Nonetheless, for the last half decade historians have been cultivating the Lord of Pain’s unnatural portion in the Horned Society’s garden of evil, and even a poor pruning will sometimes bear good fruit. While tilling the wrong field, historians have turned up something vital, exotic, and new. Would either Gygax or I, delving in the profitable dirt of the bandit plains after abandoning the Lands of Iuz, ever have plucked an apple of knowledge like this?

Late in the fifth century, Iuz conquered the westernmost Bandit Kingdoms and declared the walled city of Molag his ‘Summer Capital.’ But in 505cy he vanished, and his generals and advisers soon set to warring, carving out bits of land for themselves. In 513cy, landholders on the western plains broke from Iuz’s realm, taking Molag as their capital and calling themselves the Horned Society.

This is astonishing and mostly true. Before he disappeared in 505cy, Iuz had indeed boasted of Molag as his “summer capital,” as I knew. But I was no longer interested in Iuz and did not eat of the apple of knowledge to learn that the cambion snake in the garden had once bequethed estates to his biggest influencers in Molag.

The Horned Society had been founded in part by landholders in Iuz’s empire, and I knew it not!

It had never have occurred to me. An association of bandits and landholders is impossible, after all, in standard thinking. Landholders are a bandit's mark. They hire sheriffs to protect and serve against bandits. They just aren’t (in the parlance of our times) that into one another. The taint of mitochondrial banditry gets scrubbed from a landholder's DNA by birthright, like Zorro. Landholders are establishment types, respectable, roots in the community. They own land by a legal writ more ancient than any (other) clandestine society. Landholding gentrification displaces the undesirably resident, the lawfully evicted, and the unlawfully vagrant; the temporarily unhoused, the transiently sheltered, and the charitably domiciled; the squatter in the king's woods, the rubbish in the king's street, the uncurbed dog, the why does he have to smell; the I'd give him money but just look at his hands, the don't encourage him dear he has to pull himself up by his bootstraps, and the honey he doesn't have any. Bandits, in short, who group together like poor relations to fight back, bloody the mouths of imperious gentlemen, and frighten the elegant ladies (are they secretly in love with the bandit leader?) that are suggesting the gentlemen not be so stupid. But the ladies well know that the bandits crave an equipage and behave like rabble; whose origins lie who-knows-where, whose parents are who-knows-what, whose teachers are illiterate, whose priests are illiterate, and whose wedding plans tend toward elegant ladies. Beggarly bastards.

The last phrase was addressed to historians. Listen! It is irresponsible to let panic inform your scholarship. Fears and rumors may be sensational, but only villains put them in history books. You must not disenfranchise the Horned Society’s bandits just because a few landowners were tight with Iuz. Conceivably, some of those landholders had once been bandits. In fact—never mind. But once a mistake like that gets into a book, ripping it out takes true grit. Think Gary Cooper (but not John Wayne, please). Think Marshal Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty, and Grace Kelly (who, come to think of her, passes the high noon grit audition with effortless nonchalance).

The Horned Society’s assoication of bandits and landholders is not easily explained. Landholders, hobgoblins, bandits, devils, demons, gods, and humanity make a complicated stew, and boiling it down to a common evil has regrettably purées it. Evil is not self-explanatory; evil is not monolithic; you have to take a look.

§

 

~Bandits and hobgoblins

Despite what historians have said to the contrary, there were no bandit kingdoms west of the Ritensa River and Iuz did not conquer the western bandit plains. These errors crept in by imagining the demigod’s power as a vast shadow cast over everything from the Howling Hills to Molag like on a map where lands are shaded together to indicate that all evil is one Iuz. But actually, prior to the Greyhawk Wars, Iuz’s control over the bandit plains was restricted to the eastern shore of Whyestil Lake and the northern bank of the Veng River downstream to Molag. The western plains elsewhere did not side with Iuz until 582cy, the year of the Molag coup.

Prior to then, the hobgoblins had allied with the orcs from north of the Opicm River only in mututal defense against barbarian raiders from the Barren Wastes. This alliance, in addition to defending the hobgoblin homeland, also effectively buffered Furyondy against Iuz and the orcs. But Furyondy knew little about the hobgoblins and mistakenly identified the western plains with the Horned Society’s hierarchs in Molag. This was a mistake that had as its underlying causes the two biases we have been critiquing: that 1) all evils are Iuz and 2) all bandits are human.

Gygax’s idea had been that the Horned Society was an “association combining the masses of humanoid troops with the organization and powers of humans.” In addition to being a simple and natural formula, the observation would have allowed Gygax, with just a little more reflection, to see the close resemblance of the Horned Society’s system of government to that of the Bandit Kingdoms, not to Iuz’s imperial system in Molag. As Gygax described the bandits,

These petty kingdoms are loosely aligned and call themselves the Combination of Free Lords. Their alliance serves little purpose internally, but when foreign states threaten the Combination’s borders, the lords react fiercely, banding together impressive armies to discourage meaningful invasions.

Like the bandit Combination, the borders of the Horned Society were also under threat from all sides. Historians too readily forget that hobgoblins and orcs are not natural allies. To the hobgoblins, Iuz’s orcish empire to the north was as much a military danger as an ally well met. In addition, Iuz’s adventurism quickly gained the unwanted attention of Furyondy, which increased its naval patrols on Whyestil Lake and the Veng River at the fringes of the western plains, while to the east, Furyondy’s ally the Shield Lands constantly patroled the Ritensa River. The Horned Society was surrounded by militlary threats, like the Bandit Kingdoms’ Combination of Free Lords.

The Horned Society’s military force also was an association of bandits, warriors, and deviltry that would form an army as needed, like the Combination. It would hardly seem a coincidence, but Gygax did not make the connection. He thought hobgoblins were too disorganized to be an army despite being (in his own words) “the more organized of the humanoid tribes.” Although he understood the Horned Society to be an “association” of hobgoblins and humans, Gygax presuemed the humans were the organizers, the leaders, and the rulers. The old bias—that hobgoblins are not bandits because bandits are ogranized—was determinative of his thought.

There may be no mistaken determination of greater historical consequence. The Horned Society’s inner, devilish, and priestly cult was very small in number, which posed a limit to how many hobgoblin troops they could command. Although the precise limit is uncertain, the number must be low, and humanoids were believed to be nearly extinct in the Flanaess. It would take a greater evil than the Hierarchs to summon and command an army of them.

The terrible revelation of how many tens of thousands of hobgoblin soldiers there were and the panicked conviction that Iuz alone could have summoned them followed from that error. It is not the godly power of Iuz that blinded the historians to the truth about the hobgoblins; it was the conviction that they certainly knew who, what, and how many the hobgoblins were, a conviction was formed during Iuz’s banishment from oerth. The difficulty was not that they had underestimated Iuz; it was their positive belief that hobgoblins are incapable of banditry.

But if the hobgoblins were a self-organized component of the Horned Society nation, we may ask, “What else might they be?”

Who and what were the hobgoblins?

 

 

Chapter 10: The Horned Society and hobgoblin-human intersettlement

 

Once we have dismissed our bias against hobgoblin bandits, a possible new history arises. The plains east and west of the Ritensa River will no longer be defined as human and monstrous: they are one continuous bandit land with a river running through it.

Almost nothing is known about the bandits east of the river prior to the rise of the bandit kingdoms, and  west of the river our ignoriance is nearly perfect until seventy or eighty years ago and the rise of the Horned Society. Even looking back to the Great Migrations, human settlement on the bandit plains was so peripheral to, and so different from, elsewhere in the Oeridian conquest that it may seem barely a part of it.

As the migratory Oeridians ranged eastward in their search for a land that would support them, they passed through many regions of inhospitable climate, infertile land, and unfriendly local populations. Chief among these lands were the rugged plains north of the Nyr Dyv, which resisted meaningful human settlement for centuries, even as a strong Aerdi empire created the viceroyalties of Nyrond and Furyondy to the east and west.

Particularly concerning the plains near the Ritensa River, we know that

the original claimant to the lands along the eastern bank has been lost to history. Since well before the formation of the Viceroyalty of Furyondy, the Warfields has been a chaotic land wracked by nearly endless warfare. Situated at the crossroads of the Shield Lands, the Horned Society, and the rest of the Bandit Kingdoms, Warfields has hosted some of the most titanic battles in the region’s long history.

Also at the crossroads was Law’s Forge, and because we know something of the place, we know that this excerpt is somewhat misleading. Prior to the formation of the viceroyalty and for most of the time prior to the Horned Society, the plains between the Ritensa River and Whyestil Lake were peaceful, apparently. Had they been otherwise, the residents of the Forge would have known of it. Not until the fourth century did raids from the bandit kings bring into existence the prophylactic Knights of the Holy Shielding, and not until the sixth century would war reach Law’s Forge, following the rises of Iuz and the Horned Society.

We may ask the obvious question: What were the “unfriendly local populations” that had resisted Oeridian settlement north of the Nyr Dyv for a millennium? The known possibilities are native Flan folk, renegade Oeridian and Suel migrants, and native monsters; and since “meanigful human settlement” specifycally was resisted, the answer must be monsters or a monstrous-human mix. The peculiarity of this mixed population is revealed by observing that nowhere else in the Flanaess did Oeridian settlement result in anything like a bandit society, and moreover, that the bandit kingdoms were already a bandit society when the Shield Landers first encountered them.

Almost no hogboblins were living in the Bandit Kingdoms by the end of the third century, yet that does not mean there had been any. A population of hobgoblins east of the Ritensa River could have withdrawn to the western side when humans began to encroach; there is otherwise no reason why human settlement had met with resistence although the mildly difficult terrain sustained bandit ssetlements. There were humans evidently residing west of the river, too, where, by the middle of the sixth century, there were twenty or thirty thousand known to be living near or among a hobgoblin population of several hundreds of thousands. The surprising numbers are based on Furyondian military assessments of the Horned Society and Iuz’s hobgoblin army that were conducted between 575-585cy; they are generally reliable.

Evidently, the western bandit plains were home to a large hobgoblin nation living self-sufficiently and peacefully on more than sixty thousand square miles of open plains west of the Ritensa River, where tens of thousands of humans were also settled. In an area that large, there is no necessity for the human and hobgoblin residents to have merged, coexisted, or even cooperated, although likewise, there is no reason why not. Humans and hobgoblins alike lived in Molag, as we know, and to insist that only the humans could settle the plains while the hobgoblins merely lived there is to repeat every error of bias that . . .

Hold on, Professor. You said earlier that there could have been hobgoblin bandits living on the bandit plains. Are you about to say that the hobgoblins had a bandit kingdom like the human ones?

Not exactly. It may have been the human bandits that were like the hobgoblin ones, not the other way around. The Oeridian tribes that had migrated from the west had been devoted to Heironeous, the god of Honor. There was no tradition of banditry among them, and while we must allow for the likelihood of social outcasts, bandits are typically outcasts from the civilization they prey on. Bandit societies that were formed independently of the people they plunder are surprising. No other society in the Flanaess resembles the bandit kingdoms, and there is no reason why hobgoblins could not have been living like bandits before the humans arrived. Hobgoblins and humans may be more alike than we think. Whether or no, the hobgoblin bandits on the western plains lived more peacably with their neighbors than the bandit kingdoms in the east, and . . .

Wait. Are you saying that hobgoblin bandits are BETTER THAN OURS?

Why not?

Why not? What do you mean by that? They aren’t.

That’s right!

Why so?

Because there’s no way a blue nose . . .

A blue nose?

. . . is anything but a thug, a pig, a lousy gaol guard, a . . .

Ok, ok, ok. I didn’t say . . . hold on there . . . wait a sec . . . Oi! What are you doing! Don’t pull her hair! Calm down! . . . I didn’t say . . . listen, please . . . please? . . . please!

I didn’t say better, I didn’t say worse, and I didn’t say the same. I said, more alike than we think. Because without that hypothesis—which I call hobgoblin and human intersettlement—it is very difficult to explain many things. For example: the successful resistance to civilization on the plains; the bandit kings living in settled societies (raiding each other while feeding and providing for themselves, too) before civilization encountered them; the ancient cohabitation of hobgoblins and humans in Molag and, most likely, on the western plains; the traditions of defensive military alliances against their enemies; and other things besides. What do you think is more probable, that humans invented our notions or that Iuz raised a nation of well-provisioned hobgoblin warriors out of nothing ten years ago?

If you knew how very far commensurates are from understanding hobgoblins it would shock you, and although you have more experience of hobgoblins than I do, it comes from a bare few gaolers in H’Rothka’a’s prison. That’s insufficient. It explains Law’s Forge but not Molag, the Horned Society, the western plains, or—quite frankly—Law’s Forge either. If you do not underatnd the history, you do not understand your home. How could Law’s Forge have existed independently on the plains for as long as anyone knows, if all hobgoblins were like the ones in H’Rothka’a’s gaol? And because this is important, I have prepared a mnemonic for your reference; a summary of what we have learned; a tiny, orphaned, helpless, urchin maxim cast out into the lonely world, for whose welfare my fairest solicitations are likely to fail.

See, here it is—I hold it toward you:

“Where hobgoblins were predominant, intersettlement was prominent.”

(A moment’s hesitation; then)

Oh! That's so sweet! Who could resist remembering that! Poor little thing. 

 

 

Interlude: “Paragons of War”

 

“Paragons of War” by Terry Edwards; reviewed in The Quarterly Journal for Essential Queries, Vol. 16, No. 1; Greyhawk, Needfest 589cy

 

“Paragons of War”is recommeded to scholars as necessary reading.

Researchers, scholars, and universities are occasionally funded by governments to study issues of public concern. The results of these studies demand especial scrutiny by the academic community because of the influnece of governments in academia. This is especially true of Terry Edwards’ “Paragons of War: The Ecology of the Hobgoblins,” funded by His Majesty King Belvor IV’s Ministry of War and recently published by Royal Decree (#3822, Sunsebb 6, 588cy). “Paragons” is the first significant study in hobgoblology since the same ministry published “Hobgoblins” fifteen years ago (#3440, 574cy). Both studies were funded by the Ministry of War. At this rate, the philosophical investigation of hobgoblins and the ministry’s preparations for war against them will be one and the same thing very soon.

Scholars shy away from hobgoblology because of the paucity of information to go on and doubts about the information we have. Royal decrees are made publicly available, of course, but the data behind them is not. In the decades between “Hobgoblins” and “Paragons,” His Majesty’s Ministry has published three different surveys estimating the number of hobgoblin soldiers in the western bandit plains. The initial estimate, made prior to the Greyhawk Wars, was twleve thousand soldiers; following the Treaty of Greyhawk, there were thirty-three thousand; and most recently (three months ago), seventy thousand (#3569, 3711, and 3804). The survey results are disturbing, not only because the hobgoblin army seems to be growing exponentially, but also because the ministry’s surveyors have been obviously, persistently, and equally as erroneous as they are ignorant of the reason. The only large population of hobgoblins in the Flanaess is the one occupying the western bandit plains. Supplying an army of seventy thousand from that poor terrain would require a civilian population of at least a quarter million or, very likely, several times more. Yet at the time of each survey, Belvor’s military advisors had (have?) no evident knowledge of the extent, nature, or existence of this hobgoblin nation. The Ministry of War attempted no studies of it but only extrapolated the probable size of the army from the number of combatants encountered by the allies. Did (does) the ministry believe that the hobgoblin nation was (is) incapable of increasing the size of its army if the need arises? Was (is) the king unaware of the resources that obviously were (are) available in support of his enemy’s army?

No one has ever questioned the royal surveyors or even expressed exasperation. Consequently, it is difficult to overstate the need (this time) to suspect the reliability of Belvor’s recent decree, “Paragons of War.” The study was funded by the same ministry that also produced the three numeric estimates and is now forced to acknowledge that the hobgoblin army confronting the king’s nation has sextupled in size since the wars began! We may doubt whether the ministry has yet informed the king that the hobgoblins occupy both the former Horned Society and the former Shield Lands; that these together produce most of the provisions for Iuz’s armies; and that right here and right now would be an excellent place and time to make sure that we have a reliable understanding of how many hobgoblins there are and how much war they are capable of waging.

The future of our war against Iuz is at an inflection point. The Northern Crusade has achieved its major goals and is petering out. Many in Furyondy clamor for further war; many do not. Might the Ministry of War seek to influence this public debate? Might “Paragons of War” have been written in support of the minstry’s policies? Might academics and academies alike be ignoring these essential queries right now, yet again, as they have done for more than twenty years?

Conveniently for us all, there are no academics at work in hobgoblology today. None of us need suddenly realize, “Oh! That’s my job!” But any of us may be skeptical of Edwards’ reasoning in “Paragons” because logic is (or ought to be) a general, not a special, attribute among us.

Edwards’ purpose in “Paragons” is to show that “the unique psychology of hobgoblins, on both the individual and the societal level, fills a special niche within the monstrous world.” Understanding their psychology leads to the conclusion that “Unlike their chaotic humanoid cousins, hobgoblins maintain a highly organized social order that operates with military efficiency. Because of the hobgoblins' military bent, tactics are an important part of any encounter with them. It is necessary to know the tactics that hobgoblins commonly use as we make plans to contain the hobgoblin threat.” In Edwards’ view, our past ignorance of hobgoblin psychology explains our past military failures, and our new knowledge offers hope for future success. It is an enticing message with severe implications for the foreign policy decisions that Furyondy is making right now.

Unfortunately, there are major errors in the royal decree’s reasoning. Edwards represents hobgoblin psychology as a social construction based on “the life metaphor of the personal perimeter, which young hobgoblins are taught as soon as they are old enough to understand spoken words.” The life metaphor embodies the central philosophy that will determine hobgoblin behavior; its principles influence all aspects of a hobgoblin's life.

Each hobgoblin learns early to establish a personal perimeter of defense. This perimeter represents not the chaotic creature's need for personal space but a highly lawful creature's portion of the greater tribal perimeter. In the hobgoblin mindset, one hobgoblin controls his own immediate area, two control still more, and so forth. Thus, a whole tribe jointly controls a significant area that it claims for its own use. The methods used to achieve this mental condition are harsh, to say the least. Abuse, both physical and mental, is common. Combat training is the only emotional outlet allowed to hobgoblins, and learning to defend a space is the most integral part of maintaining a personal perimeter. Years of such extreme programming yield an unquestioningly loyal soldier who desires nothing more than to serve the tribe.

The block quote makes clear that a personal perimeter consigns “all aspects of a hobgoblin’s life” to service in training a consummate soldier. The price for such training is everything that is decent in commensurate society.

Mercy and compassion can only weaken the perimeter and cloud thinking. Individual freedom is meaningless and has no place in hobgoblin society. Marriage and monogamous relationships are unheard of in hobgoblin culture since the emotion evoked by such close ties would weaken the personal perimeter. Hobgoblins reproduce through a selective breeding program in the hopes of producing superior offspring. Peers generally arrange couplings during religious holidays or post-victory feasts. Although parents maintain roles of authority in their chiIdrens’ lives, hobgoblins are raised in a communal environment. Their only true family is the tribe.

Could anything be less commensurate and more totalitarian? Of course not—unless it be the perfectly incommensurate suspicion that “Paragons of War” is nothing but Ministry of War propaganda.

May I be allowed to suggest that hobgoblins live in acknowledgment of the following precepts: That the emotions aroused by monogamy and marriage may be conducive, not injurious, to fighting for your tribe; that so may parental and fillial bonds; that men and women will fight beside one another for the sake of their children rather than for a chance to further abuse them; that suppressing natural emotions except during combat training will not, after all, lead to heightened combat discipline; that a life metaphor based upon defending themselves does not explain their success in attack; that a hobgoblin nation capable of kicking our butts for a decade has more to commend it than masochism, sadism, mutilation, and perversion; and that academics are—right now and yet again—failing to expose the these psuedo-academic absurdities because they receive funds from the government that publishes the royal decrees of a kingdom preternaturally determined to wage yet another war.

When might we hope that enough will be enough?

Reviewer: Daesnar Braden, Professor of Philosophical Enquiry, University of the Duchy of the Palatinate, Leukish, Duchy of Urnst.

 

 

SCENARIO THREE—THE VALE OF LUNA

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11: The Crook of Rao and the salvation of Voll

 

~The shepherds’ challenge

I have mentioned that only two copies of my manuscript exist—yours (dear readers) and mine. Why do you suppose that is?

Really—I'm asking.

It was part of the contract I signed on my commission. And while knowing the manuscript will not be published gives me a liberty I will envy subsequently, it all seems a bit mysterious, don't you think? Not a mundane mystery you want to figure out, but one you don't look into unless you're tired of living. Which I’m not, especially.

But life is finite and so is its worth. All things are worth considering, and it is only human to hope that venturing a mystery will bring a reward: wealth, acclaim, gaiety; an assassin’s sudden dispatch.

Readers, behold! the mysterious Crook of Rao, boasting an impressive array of features. It is historical although eternal, sacred although profane, celebrated although secret, peaceful unless belligerant, and an artifact of Rao, the god of Reason, Peace, and Serenity.

He seems nice, right?

Except, no. Not for years have I believed it. If only Countess Osgold did not always burn in my mind! Her hair, which was long and wild when Piecus lighted it, was the first thing set aflame. The priests dripped paraffin on her head, neck, and shoulders to kindle her brains. I watched as her face slackened, fluxions of skin exposing the boiling blood beneath. Her eyes, unpurposed, swayed in pools of former flesh before falling from their sockets into the soot that stopped her mouth.

My neighbor spat on me when I wept. Am I supposed to forgive it? The countess had epitomized eloquence and science, now reduced to a soily mound, a grease, a pudding pitted with blackened bone. Her lipless teeth showed gumless in the ashes. And now, as whenever this vision intrudes on me, my tears well up, blotting the page I write on. (Nevermind, sorry readers, I will send you a fair copy.) Countess! Of course the rascals burned you headfirst; they despised what would depose their deluded creeds.

No use crying, spilt milk, horses fled the coop. Doh!—I meant barn. I thought it right to bear her witness. Those around me bayed and cheered. I cannot stop hating them for it! I did not think the sight would be so indelibly tattooed on me. Pierce the skin, and the blood runs through.

Countess! Insanity's sweet victim. In my mind, your sufferings do not cease. If mine end, do yours? A bargain, if it's the going rate.

At any rate, my ready students, be advised: what you read now contains enmity. My argument is sound (as you may judge), but priests of Rao stood with Pio Nono when he set reason aflame. Clerics of reason martyring its embodiment! A sin for which their god will damn them.

But first, I get my turn.

You may prefer that my argument were not vengeful. Fine. I ought to put spite aside. But my enmity has a purpose—to convince you, my heroic few, that pious good shepherds are lost in deceit no less than we. You may point to one that is humbly serving. So what? The bulk of them fleece the herd, and over time, their influence grows. They beat their shears into swords, their swords into scythes, their scythes into crooks. War is their justice; casuistry is their reason. Kings sanction their sermons and errors.

Am I wrong?  Let’s put me to the test.

So that the good pastors may prove my sin and their righteousness, let them to choose a champion against me. You will agree that this is more than fair. The finest of shepherds, robed in glory, versus me, the befuddled Bifurcati, scribbling on a page blotted by unmanly lamentation. Wouldn’t I do just as well to jump directly into the pit of constant cudgeling that St Cuthbert the Zealot, the most eager of divinities, is preparing for me?

So be it.

Their choice is obvious. There can be only one shepherd’s champion: The Canon of Veluna, mainstay of the oerth’s Your Graces, versus Bifurcati, professor of tears.

The conclusion is foregone, yet I offer the challenge with relish.

§

 

~The legendary Crook of Rao

May I introduce my opponent? No one on oerth is more revered than Hazen, Canon of Veluna, His Venerable Reverence, Shephard of the Faithful of Rao, and pastor of not only Rao’s flock but much of the Flanaess, whose opinion holds Hazen to be a light to the world. Five million people at this moment will swear they know grace because they know Hazen, the monarch of Veluna, the ruler of Reason, the rector of Peace, and the soul of Serenity.

What a pity he does not resemble the hyperbole. This turbulent priest has led us into so much delusion, war, and fear that I doubt his salvation. He lost his faith six centuries ago and has not thought to recover it. He is apostate; we will get to that.

A simple shepherd carries a crook; a magnificent one, the Crook of Rao. Simplicity befits the simple; magnificence entrusts the magnificent. Except, Hazen was not entrusted.

He bought the damn thing from the evil undead. It is widely known. Before he worked the heroic Flight of Fiends by its power, the crook had belonged to the undead Lord Protector of Rel Astra, Drax the Invulnerable, who had commissioned a fiend-sage to experiment on the artifact before selling it to Hazen.

Could that be significant?

The crook had a checkered past from long before Drax offered it to Hazen on terms an appraiser would find suspicious. It had belonged to the Flan people of the Vale of Luna from a time before history, meaning that a preliterate migratory tribe remembered having a crook they lost long ago and that turned up again when the nation of Veluna and the Church of Rao most needed it. Or something like that, as legends may hap.

I may add—because helpful facts should be noted at first—that “Veluna” is a cognate of the “Vale of Luna,” and that the nation of Veluna was formerly known as Voll. Two hundred and fifty years before Veluna was so called, it began in the Vale of Luna as the nation of Voll. So, if you, my young scouts, grasp in your minds that Luna, her vale, Voll, and Veluna are related but not identical; that they succeeded one another rather than coexisted; and that they meant different things at different times; very well, then, we are prepared to adventure.

Luna’s vale opens to our eyes us as it once did to the Vollar, a migrant tribe of Oeridian barbarians fleeing the Twin Cataclisms in search of the destiny foretold by their shamans and by me, too, in the previous scenario.

§

 

~Reason and Serenity in the Vale of Luna

Five centuries before the start (called the first day of Needfest, 1cy) of the Common Years dating system, a tribe of Oeridian refugees from the western wars passed through the Fals Gap and settled in the Vale of Luna, where they lived peacefully among the native Flan. The two folk integrated over the centuries until "the culture of the valley was as one."

One, but not equal. The new people called themselves the Voll, a cognate of the Oeridian Vollar, while the name of the Flan folk was forgotten. Denominally and predominantly, the culture of the Voll was Oeridian, not Flan.

About the Flan little is known. although they did contribute to Volls religion. According to Raoan scripture—written in Oeridian—the natives were worshipping Rao, the Lord of Peace, when the Vollar arrived in Luna’s vale. This requires two comments.

One, the Flan folk were preliterate when the first book of Raoan scripture, Word of Incarum, was written. Incarum was complete before the Flan had learned to read and write, and therefore, its depiction of the Flan is suspect. I do not mean that Voll religion overwrote the Raolan faith while retaining the god’s name. But literary criticism maintains as a rule that scripture is written in the interest of its writers, which are often markedly different from its audience. In the Vale of Luna, the writers were Oeridian clerics; the audience was the ordinary folk of Voll, Oeridan and Flan.

Two, Incarum interperets the Flan Lord of Peace as the god of Reason, Peace, and Serenity. The Church of Rao does not dispute this, although the interpretation was freer than is implied by the retention of the Flan honorific. Reason was not a specific attribute of the ancient Lord of Peace, and a personification of reason would have been challenging to a preliterate people. The Flan would learn rationality in the same way they would learn literacy, from their Oeridian friends. Moreover, a second divine attribute, serenity, was joined to reason and was said to follow from it. For the Voll, Raoan faith began with reason and ended in serenity. Peace became conducive. "Reason is the greatest gift. It leads to discourse, which leads to peace, which leads to serenity." The Flan had not thought of that.

§

 

~The Crook of Rao and Mitrik

Five hundred years after the Vollar encountered the Flan in Luna’s vale,

Oeridian divination magic was mixed with Flan legend to locate the legendary Crook of Rao. The place of discovery was called Mitrik, or 'salvation,' and a new nation was formed on the spot.

The source of this excerpt—we may call it ◒Voll◓—fits “legend” and “legendary” into only five words, enveloping “to locate the,” so that . . .

Professor? Aren’t they fitted into only three words? I mean, if you unify the infinitive and omit the article?

Why, yes, young lady, they would! How amazing you are, and correct. Very well, the source fits legend and legendary into three words so that we perfectly understand: the legends authenticate the crook, and the crook, the legends. Should we believe it?

Divination magic—despite a widespread fear and reverence of it—is debatable. We wonder at diviners and often ask them Is you is, or is you ain't, a secret cabal pursuing a dubious agenda? We ask, because we know they are. We commonly ignore them and, apart from the perfect Cassandra, doomed princess of Troy, with good reason. They are commonly wrong. And so, I ask you, my unlearned scholars, has the mentioned sister of Hector ever prophesied in the Flanaess?

No?

Then let us hear no more of diviners and turn our attention to the legends. They're pretty cool, right?

Legends are stories about unforgettable although not necessarily true things; their informational value is limited. Written legends commonly begin as oral ones, and oral legends, when they are written down, are selected from many that aren’t. The science of literary historical criticism attempts to make sense of the outcome but doesn’t have much luck.

In our case, oral Flan legend was mixed with Oeridian divination magic to find a lost artifact used in assimilating the Flan Lord of Peace to the Oeridian god of Reason, Peace, and Serenity. Coincidentally and coextensively—same time, same place—a predominantly Oeridan nation (Voll) was assimilating an anonymous Flan tribe (unknown) in the Vale of Luna. So, I ask you, my highly select although lowly educated young wayfarers, what do you think? May anyone in the Vale of Luna be suspected of having having a vested interest in the Oeridan interpretation of this Oeridan divination? May clerics of Rao have been among the vested?

Yes?

To me, its very disconcerting. It saddens me when historiographical doubt is pertinent to faith, and I fear that I—a man of constant sorrow—may unduly influence my happy students. But

Believe me, if all the endearing young minds,

Which I gaze on so fondly today,

Were to change by tomorrow, their credence resigned

And their innocence faded away

I would not think less of you for it. Which is to say (in the parlance of our times) that historiography is a cynical science that puts an end to faith and youth. But as I always say, with wisdom comes experience, and since I have been instructing you for a while now, you are probably only a little amazed at how things are turning out.

I conclude that the nation of Voll and its religious establishment are not only coupled but are the same thing, wedded by the Crook of Rao from beginning. To this day, the happy fortuity of marrying religion to nationalism via a crooked device▽ is lauded across the Flanaess. The blessed union of Veluna, the nation and church, is owed to its Oeridan founders: the diviners, scriptural scholars, and wedding planners of Rao.

§

 

~The Soteriological Controversy

The Canon of Veluna is my subject, and you may want to know whether he played a part in divining the Crook of Rao, proclaiming the nation of Voll, and establishing the Raoan church. Regretably, ◒Voll◓—our historical source—is rather dull about this. It says nothing at all.

In my possession, I have a private account of the events from a dwarf that happened to be there. Her antiquity testifies to the story’s plausibility and her sex forbids impugning her honesty and integrity. She is credibility itself. Although, imperfect. I find her wording and syntax a little slack. She has confounded the man she has described as both the “canon” and the “high canon” of Mitrik, who is the Canon of Veluna’s paterfamilias.

She begins in medias res. Straightaway, she arrives at what is known today as the soteriological heresy and controversy, although at the time—in 9cy —no one knew there were heretics involved. As a way acknowledging your improving skill in the cynical arts of historiography, I now encourage you, my little inquisitors, to guess the party to the controversy that had heretics in its closet.

I am a student of heresy in a small way, and I have footnoted something concerning what my fair dwarven friend had to say. You may also be told, in a hint of context, that after its divination the Crook of Rao was discovered in a pasture two hundred yards east of the Fals River, where the city of Mitrik is today. In that pasture, the leaders of Voll and a throng of its common people were gathered to celebrate the birth of their nation.

After they had proclaimed the spot where they stood "Mitrik" (an Oeridian word meaning “Salvation”)—engendring a sectarian debate on “whether they had saved the spot or the spot had saved them”▽̶the outstanding men of Voll declared a new high canon in residence at Mitrik according to the dignity of the spot and those men. Having established an office superior to themselves, like dukes creating a kingdom and then looking for a king, they found the right man nearby, a rich shepherd named Old Pietro. As he had been behind them in leading before, they offered to let him lead them a mitre further. Visibly, he is humbled by the honor. Mildly, he accepts his ceremonial garb—conveniently fetched from behind the alter—of robes, surplices, stoles, cincture, mitre, rings, medallions, the Heart of Rao, and the socks and slippers he wore because changing socks in public is humiliating. He is handed, with humble ostentation, the implement recovered for the occasion, the Crook of Rao, whose stumpy wood staff had been fitted with an extensive crook of white gold that Old Pietro raised as high as he could, nearly to the tip of the pointy hat on his head. Thusly invested, installed, and crooked, the first canon of Mitrik performed his initial act of grace, ordaining a holy nation to popular rejoicing.

My dwarf’s account presents a conundrum. Episcopal ecclesiology dictates that bishops appoint canons to their cathedral staff; the Canon of Veluna is the only exception, a canon annointed, not appointed, to office by the bishops. A “high canon,” too, is ordinarily not at the head of bishops but of a chapter of lower-order canons and is appointed to the office.

We may ask, therefore, whether our dwarven friend’s analogy of a canon to a king is true. Were the “outstanding men” of Voll analogous to dukes crowning a king or to bishops appointing a staff member? I have asked her, but my dwarf’s memory is not that far certain. The problem of understanding the high canon of Mitrik’s true authority has confronted us.

The first canon of Mitrik is the progenitor of the Canon of Veluna today; understanding his place in relation to the other “outstanding men” of Voll is an outstanding historical problem: Was the high canon of Mitrik in 9cy the original leader of Voll?

I told you, young heroes, how it saddens me when historical doubts are pertinent to matters of faith. Imagine my sorrow at finding, so early in my combat of grievances with the shepherd of Veluna, that his holiest armor against me—his divine authority̶appears to have been flawed in its forging. Although, perhaps it has been reforged in the fires of subsequent history. We will see.

Turning the plain wooden artifact of Rao into a longer, crooked, and golden one is an interesting detail. Golden crooks, of course, are meaningless unless shepherds are important to a society. Did the ancient Flan have shepherds like that? I cannot tell, but I call bullshit. At Mitrik, the shepherds with their staff extended were religious ones. Real shepherds don't need an extension like that. If Rao had had church shepherds in mind, he would have bent the shaft himself.

 

 

Chapter 12: The High Canon of Rao is not the Canon of Veluna

 

For five and a half centuries after founding Voll, the Crook of Rao did nothing but symbolize the young nation and the established Church of Rao. Nonetheless, the people of Voll, since nearly their beginning in the Vale of Luna, had been led in part by prominent Raoan clerics. The seven original Raoan bishops, for example, had been religious, social, and political leaders for centuries prior to Voll’s national existence, and during that time, Rao’s worshippers had been citizens of Voll’s seven semiautonomous territories (variously called duchies, counties, and baronies) ruled by the seven noble families.▽

In those days, the authority of the bishops was bound to the territory of their noble lords. The appointment of a high canon to commemorate “national salvation” concluded a long, slow process by which the seven dioceses were composed into a broader church led by the bishops collegially. The seven noble houses were likewise reformed into a constitutional federation. Throughout the time of its national period, from 9-254cy, Voll had no monarch, whether national or religious. Political rule was by noble peerage; religious rule by episcopal fellowship.

Although, we have only my dwarf's word for much of this. Aside from her testimony, there is no immediate historical evidence for a seated high canon prior to the events of 109cy (which we are about to consider). Even if there were, there would be no reason to identify the High Canon of Mitrik and the monarchical Canon of Veluna from a later time. When official titles change, there is generally a corresponding change of status, authority, and responsibility. The titular difference between a High Canon of Rao and a Canon of Veluna is especially important in this respect.

Was there a theocratic monarch in the Vale of Luna prior to the middle of the third century, when the nation of Voll became the Archclericy of Veluna? An affirmative reply is ordinary but not self-evident to me. On whose authority do we elide the obvious redesignation and equate Voll’s High Canon of Rao to the later Canon of Veluna? On the authority of the canon’s church? Which has, indeed, a lot of evidence that is all suspected (we will soon examine an instance) of being postdated, predated, interpolated, and fabricated?

Although we know little about it, Voll was “already a burgeoning culture” by the end of the first century. Historians stand to learn something about the culture by eschewing the presumption that Voll and Veluna were the same thing barring a change of name. The “leading men” of the ceremony at Mitrik are unidentified; identifying the high canon as their ruler is unwartanted. The people of Voll may have lived not under a theocracy but under the leadership of the nobility. To be convinced of it, we must lift the Velunar lid from the Vollar cauldron to see what was brewing within.

§

 

~The Overking of Ahlissa and the peace of Rao

In 109cy, the nation of Voll, one hundred years removed from its founding at Mitrik, was confronted by the Viceroyalty of Furyondy, a political and military superpower recently delegated to the central Flanaess by the imperial Overking of the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa, far to the east. Facing this crisis, the high canon of Rao was decisive in averting the military conquest of his nation by negotiating a favorable vassalage to the overking. One hundred forty-five years from then, the vassal would be crucial to the viceroy’s successful rebellion of independence from the Great Kingdom when Voll, too, forswore vassalage and became an independent state. The relation of the Kingdom of Furyondy to the Archclericy of Veluna has remained the foremost foreign policy concern of both nations since that time.

The origin of Veluna is imponderable without knowledge of Voll’s homage to the overking. What we know about the vassalage is an open window for historians to look out onto the history of Voll. There would be little to say without it, but to identify the High Canon of Rao and the Canon of Veluna blinds that window quite thoroughly. The High Canon of Rao was not the Canon of Veluna; the rulers of Voll were not theocratic but secular, as I will maintain.

Your task, my eyes wide-open at the lookout of your minds, is to observe and maintain the distinctions. I will welcome to the task, at the appropriate time, the contribution of an old friend with much to say on the subject, all of it unsolicited.

Let us begin with the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa. ◒Voll◓—our historical source—tells us that “When the Great Kingdom’s soldiers surged from Furyondy in a drive to spread the empire further west, they came upon the people of Veluna, already a burgeoning culture.” That was in 109cy, and you, my high sprouts from the soil of historical study, must understand something: the thought of soldiers at the border spooks me more than even the truly monstrous horrors I have personally encountered.

It’s true, I tell you. Although I am a coward, I have survived enough horrors to surfeit a fiend hunter. My professional predilection is for retrieving and archiving lost Flanaessian artifacts (it pays my salary at the museum),▽ and when I do, the denizens of darkness are often lurking nearby. I never offer to slay them (do you think I'm crazy?), and after several famously dialectical encounters had ended to our mutual satisfaction, the denizens and I began jointly to refine the proceedings. I have talked my way out of a tormented death so many times that, by now, I am celebrated among the evils in the depths. Most of the horrors I meet are now so transported by adulation that I must talk them down for their own safety. Occasionally I get letters offerring an artifact if I will go to a layer of the abyss and fetch it, which is a tricky call. If I go, it's likely to be a heinous trap. If not, I've disappointed a fan.

I'm OK with horrors. But I don't like armies; they’re unreasonable and usually mean business. Cajolling soldiers is pointless because they exercise no autonomy. They're doers, not thinkers. When the army of the Great Kingdom appeared on Voll's border, I imagine it was terrible to see: bigger than belief, arrogant about its chances, and full of savage platoons recruited from faraway places as tribute to the overking and his imperial Court of Essences.

Therefore, I find it quite astounding that, according to ◒Voll◓,

The High Canon of Rao met with representatives of the Great Kingdom and explained to them the goals of his peaceful land. Mindful of the vast host looming on his borders, the canon wisely agreed to support the empire. So it was, that the Archclericy of Voll entered vassalage to the Viceroyalty of Furyondy under a banner of peace and great religious expectations.

Brave of him. Very assured. Very commanding. Unremarkably intelligent. But wise? Oh, please.

Students, you see already that ◒Voll◓ is an unreliable narrative. Wise? I didn’t know sagacity’s standards could dip like that. Your strategy, High Canon, as I understand it, was to greet the overking's representative and say, “Yo, bro’! Peace out. I just scored some dank weed.” That could work. Wisdom is oftentimes obvious. What choice did you have, “Put 'em up”? But really, my illicitly High Canon—let’s be frank—was explaining your peaceful land even true? You expounded it, I know, but was it true?

Were the goals of your land so peaceful they could passively disarm the Great Kingdom’s army? How peaceful is that? I admit that, among the historical folk I know about, the people of Voll are among my favorites. But gods show mercy! they were human beings, not angels. Angels may be so peaceful that it’s imposing, but are there any humans like that? Was your wisdom for real, or is it legendary, like Arthur at Camelot? Please, I beg you, Almighty High Expositor of Peaceful Intents, to be as precise as you can: What was it about your national goals that made them better than anyone else’s? I mean, was your neighbor the Viscount of Verbobonc so bad? What was it about you? In all honesty, High C-, the wisest thing you could have done in your situation was to lie about Voll values. I mean, right?

The Great Kingdom of Ahlissa did not aspire to peace! It aspired to the possession of Voll, and Voll “wisely agreed” to vassalage, not to expound lofty goals. If the viceroy of Furyondy wanted a shepherd to guide him to green pastures, why did he send an army to say hello? Couldn’t he have been more neighborly?

◒Voll◓ says that vassalage to the overking was accepted "under a banner of peace and great religious expectations." May I ask, whose? In Voll peace was sacred to Rao—in Rauxes peace was obedience to the Overking, not spiritual improvement. Rauxes bestowed peace like a business model, in exchange for monetary gain and military service. No one beseeched the overking’s religious conversion, and no one except the Great Kingdon threatened the peace of Voll. Vassalage was a protection racket—you enjoy peace and pay me homage for it. Negotiating vassalage was done on the overking’s terms, you may count on it.

The notion that Voll’s vassalage was a religious expectation begs an actual explanation. I submit, that when the High Canon of Rao explained the goals of his peaceful land to the Malachite Throne’s Viceroy of Furyondy, they perfectly understood one another. Vassalage was a security gaurantee on negotiable terms.

 §

 

~Great expectations

How did the high canon negotiate? According to ◒Voll◓,

The canon saw in the easterlings a passion for progress and innovation that could be tempered by conversion to the holy tenets of Rao.

Oh, wonderful wisdom—and this time I mean it! The canon had Rao in his pocket, and he knew it. He understood the Malachite Throne’s fundamental dilemma, the overking’s soft underbelly. The easterlings were passionate about progess although not everyone looked forward to it. Lots of people wanted more or less of progress than they got. The disgruntlement was general, maybe universal. And who, asked the canon, would placate these grievances if not Rao, Lord of Peace? Who would persuade people to be reasonable if not Rao, god of Reason?  If Rao’s church could make progress holy in the name of Reason, Peace, and Serenity as a service to the overking in exchange for the freedom of Voll, that would be a pledge worthy of a vassal to a lord. The overking would hear that when the high canon proffered it.

There was sublety to it. The banner of peace was a simple protection racket, but the religious expectations were sophisticated. The idea of “tempering progress and innovation” was a euphemism for winning the hearts and minds of subjugated people, two or three million of them in the Viceroyalty of Furyondy alone, each one disgruntled because imperial innovation was so plainly less progressive than inevitable. But progress always may be represented as an opportunity, and rationalizing the inevitability of progressive benefits to millions of subjugated people was a service to the empire that the Raoan church of could well provide, for a price. As the High Canon said to the viceroy of Furyondy at the time, “If Voll did not exist, the Great Kingdom would have to invent it.” And so, a religious apology for progress and innovation was the charter for Voll’s vassalage to the overking of Ahlissa. The homage of a nation and an imperial church's one foundation were negotiated by the High Canon of Rao.

Over the next one hundred and fifty years, the political and economic benefits of vassalage reaped by Voll and the Church of Rao may hardly be exaggerated. Raoan clerics were appointed to the viceroyal court in Dyvers (the viceroyalty’s capital, the City of Sails, at the mouth of the Velverdyva River) in positions of increasing significance. Roads and ferries connecting Voll to the Great Kingdom were built and improved. The Viscounty of Verbobonc—an independent and already wealthy realm prior to its absorption into the empire—was granted to Voll to rule, and Voll’s mercantile economy grew as rapidly as Furyondy could help it.

Excelling all that, the Raoan churches obtained something truly extraordinary: the power to exculpate the sins of an empire. Progress, innovation, and the holy tenets of Rao became an unrenunciable trinity for instilling reason and exacting peace among the overking's new subjects. Raoan churches were built throughout the viceroyalty and beyond, largely at imperial expense and attended by all the right people. The church’s presitige extended to nonbelievers in the viceregal court and even in the Ahlissan Court of Essences in Rauxes, because when a religion is grafted onto a society the rulers, too, must exhibit themselves adherent.

But this marvelous windfal did not drop freely or effortlessly. All the citizens of Voll, not just the high canon, were integrated into the Great Kingdom and its great expectations. Were they as willing as he? Was everyone happy when the high canon of Rao pledged his faith in support of the overking and the viceroy of Furyondy?

 

 

Chapter 13: The secular rulers of Voll

 

I confide to you, my scantily allotted readers, that in most ways historians are unlike the gods. We are many, for one thing, and obliged to our students for it, while they are only seventy-one, counting the acknowledged ones, and obliged to no one. It is said somewhere in a book that prudent mortals sacrifice to unknown gods whose obeisance is forgotten until one of them plucks—with long, jealous, immaterial fingers—a soul from life's unhappy tree. You, my students and fate’s chosen novitiates into the peculiar ways of the deities, may believe that it would be better if we could trust the gods. But that’s life! And as the gods are unable to tell whether they are being flattered, I will say this much out loud about them: they are the kings and queens of caprice. Regarding their limitlessness, however, I will whisper something more in writing, that the divine host is officially seventy-one and not omniscient, therefore, on the bare assumption that they keep secrets from one another. (Yes, my innocents—they do.)

Historians are a little like that. We have secrets. We don't always tell everyone everything we know and sometimes we don’t tell them anything at all! And so, you may see the wisdom of The Veil of Lunacy’s immaterial (as I believe it was) commissioner when it specified in legal writ that my manuscript is never to be published. Thusly, I am enabled and even contracted to speak freely to you. Appropriately, then, I may as well admit to you, my too enumerable angels dancing on a pinhead, what you will discover soon enough for yourselves, that I, Annalo Bifurcati, am a private person and a coward. I cling to the harboring embrace of anonymity like a suckling to the teat. And I fully intend to remain in the arms of my unnaming, unfailing, obscurant lover, so inconspicuous, so fair! She has favored me thus far. Why not stick by her? Why not follow her to the ends of the oerth?

Since I write this with anonymity’s personal safety guarantee, I may as well defend outright the statement that is implied in the head of this chapter. I will take my defense from preparations that I made for a lecture that I gave to an undergraduate class at Olde Maurian College on 5^th Flocktime, 590cy. The lecture scathed me in a tub of hot water, as you may see, but it recompenses me now. It went like this:

It is never acknowledged (but nonetheless true) that Voll had secular rulers, not theocratic ones, until the establishment of the Archclericy of Veluna, in 254cy. Near the end of the first century, the Great Kingdom had been subdivided into four viceroyalties, the last of which became the Viceroyalty of Furyondy. But governance by a system of feudal vassalage was unique to Furyondy and was instituted because attempts to employ religious figures as political leaders elsewhere had resulted in unstable government in the empire: in Medegia, Almor, and The Pale, for example. Government by vassalage in Furyondy, then, was intended to preclude theocratic government there, and it is only through ignorance of this fact that historians have regretably mistaken the secular nature of Voll’s homage to the overking in Rauxes. All the evidence that Voll’s homage was first paid by the High Canon of Rao (or any other religious leader) turns out on examination to be spurious, and since vassalge had been intended by Rauxes to preclude theocracy, we ought to presume, if the evidence allows for it, that Voll’s homage had been due from a secular ruler. The idea that a religious leader had pledged allegiance on Voll’s behalf ought to be considered incredible without considerable evidence of it, and the least credible idea of all would be that the overking founded a religious establishment in his viceroyalty on the homage of a theocratic leader of a theocratic nation. Kings and emperors are not so whimsical in their commands and decrees.

My reasoning is perfectly sound but, as I said, nowhere acknowledged. It would be kindlly to believe (as you, my ingenuous young friends, undoubtedly did and may still do) that this is because no other historians have yet thought of things this way. But, as I said, historians keep secrets, and I can tell you, my confidants in the assurance of a legal contract, that I have in my private possession one historian’s explicit rejection of the idea of a secular ruler in Voll, conveyed to me by a private letter I have from my friend and nemesis Roger Moore, author of the history “The Great Northern Crusade” that I cited earlier in this monograph.▽ His letter was received in autograph four months ago and runs like this:

Birfurcati you bastard –

I have it from an actual scholar that you are at it again. In the name of divine reason—which you never hear—you must desist from this perversity! Will the college whose sewers you suck never scrub its drains of your scum? By the weary gods, man, spare your sudents! Do they ever recover from a semester spent with you? If they do, Olde Mauraian has a remarkable infirmary.

I must advise you again that the longer truth abides the more invulnerable it becomes to poisonous pens like yours. Bifurcati! People must have their ancient truths. Every qualified academic is bound to stop your raving by any means at hand.

I think you will acknowledge the authority of the following text: On behalf of the people of Veluna, the High Canon of Rao met with representatives of the Overking and wisely agreed to support the Malachite Throne, seeing that it could be tempered by conversion to the holy tenets of Rao. So it was that the Archclericy of Voll entered vassalage to the Viceroyalty of Furyondy.

Sweet heavens! Bifurcati, even you can see that Voll and Veluna are interchangeable in this passage. Veluna is said to have existed prior to vassalage and so is Voll. The High Canon of Rao is the monarchical leader of Voll, having authority to explain things and, magisterially, agree and enter into vassalage. The Archclericy of Voll existed back then and could have been called the Archclericy of Veluna, just as well. And Bifurcati—prithee, be not a churl—allow that the head of an archclericy leads the sacred church and the secular state alike. Thus, the High Canon of Rao is head of the Church of Rao and the nation of Voll (also called Veluna) too. In short, the only difference between the first century system and the one of today is that the Canon of Veluna was, back then, sometimes styled the High Canon of Rao. My good fellow, all this is not only obvious, it is orthodoxy! You must submit!

PS. Old friend, I am calmer now and regret resorting to profanity. I do not worry; because I know you will see reason. I have labored in patience but not in vain.—Moore.

 

Actually, his labors are in vain, like witches scrying mirrors for Sleeping Beauty. I say! Isn’t that pretty? Moore is witches, and I am Sleeping Beauty! I like it. And if you, my awaited first-kissers, ever think you want to know whether I keep secrets from you, remember how this turned out. I haven't endured such language since my hobgoblin friends were in good humor (may Merikka restore their company to me one day).

I showed you Moore’s letter so that you may see: scholarly consensus is not always entirely consensual. Often, it results from a prior determination to force divergent views underground. The “actual scholar” that Moore mentions was an Olde Maurian student that had attended my lecture and had been schooled outside class in the art of monitoring his teacher. Treaherous knave.

§

 

~Refutation of an addendum

Let me refute Moore with the whittled brevity of a professed colleague. Screwed to his tightest, Moore will insist that the Archclericy of Veluna has existed since before the Viceroyalty of Furyondy. He notes that the Archclericy (of Voll) swore fealty to the overking, proving the theocracy’s existence and authority. But Moore overlooks many things.

I have already noted the overking’s intention to have secular vassals to serve him in Furyondy. This imperial policy required subordinating religious authorities in vassal states to the overking’s viceroy, and the initial vassal was the one in Voll. The High Canon of Rao was a religious authority and, upon that ground, unacceptable as a pledge. Would the overking have set aside his purpose on appeal from the religious leader of a powerless and theocratic realm rich in natural resources and potential trade?

Before we consider the question, let us first ask, Why would he? Rejecting the appeal was not only consistent with his purpose, it was his purpose. Proposing that the overking set his purpose aside because he admired the peaceful tenets of Rao is ludicrous. On the other hand, would the high canon have been willing to pledge his god to the service of a foreign empire, a service extending not only to preaching the gospel of inevitable progress at home but misrepresenting Raoan faith also to above a million other people? I would hope that the Church of Rao would say, NO! And yet, Moore has asked me to acknowledge, upon the authority of ◒Voll◓, an old Raoan manuscript copied from a lost autograph written a century after the fact, that upon the High Canon’s authority “the Archclericy of Voll entered vassalage to the Viceroyalty of Furyondy.”

Why would I do that? Moore had already been informed by his spy that I found ◒Voll◓ unreliable and then, without addressing my concerns in any way, demanded that I acknowledge it anyway. And on this point specifically, in its consideration of the archclericy, ◒Voll◓’s narrative becomes markedly more rhetorical and less informative than on any other. It notes, for example, that the High Canon “supported” the idea of Voll’s vassalage, although what mattered was not who supported but who pledged the homage. Similarly, ◒Voll◓ does not say that the overking and the viceroy were considering conversion to the tenets of Rao but that the High Canon was considering it on their behalf. In fact, ◒Voll◓ appears rather more likely to be a record not of the overking’s views but of those belonging to unspecified Raoan clerics.

This dubious passage (cited by Moore) provides the only evidence historians have of an achclericy in Voll (or elsewhere in the Vale of Luna) prior to 254cy, and it is unacceptable. In fact, if the High Canon of Rao were presumed to be not a theocratic monarch but a representative of the noble houses of Voll in negotiation with representatives of the overking—which is more natural to the text—then ◒Voll◓ contains no evidence of a theocracy, at all, other than the inconclusive comment that “the Archclericy of” Voll entered vassalage. Omit those words, and ◒Voll◓ relates in clear prose how a secular nation negotiated terms of vassalage to its benefit by emphasizing the potential service of Raoan doctrine to the Great Kingdom. The High Canon of Rao was pivotal in the negotiation, but that proves him a partisan and a politician and a theologian not a theocratic monarch nor, necessarily, a spiritual man.

It is, therefore, on the authority of a singular three-word phrase—“the Archclericy of”—that the Archclericy of Voll is said to to exist. Moreover, the phrase is a change of subject, which would otherwise be the nation, not the archclericy, of Voll. Once isolated and exposed, these three words assert an apparent anachronism, dating the archclericy to the wrong historical epoch. They are, in all likelihood, an interpolation added to ◒Voll◓ one hundred years after the original lost autograph and at about the same time that the Archclericy of Veluna was being established.

On the strenth of the interpolation, two subsequent and consequential claims have been affirmed by historians: That the Archclericy of Voll became the Archclericy of Veluna, and that the High Canon of Rao became the Canon of Veluna, both glossing genuine doubt about how the archclericy and the canon came to be what they are.

If the High Canon of Rao was not the Canon of Veluna; if there once had been a secular ruler of Voll; then it cannot have been the canon’s peerless leadership that brought Veluna out of Voll and to where it is today. What, then, has done it? There is consequential doubt about it, and all that Hazen, the Canon of Veluna, the Shepherd of the Faithful, and the chosen avatar for good shepherds everywhere must do to remove it is open his archives and permit the inspection of an old manuscript, possibly interpolated, for us to study the history of what it has to say.

I had made these points to Moore privately, which may account for his tetchy salutation. At any rate, the secret is now out for your consideration, my readers.

 

 

Chapter 14: The Vale of Luna

 

The library in my rooms at Olde Maurian has a classification system that is impugned, upon occasion, as haphazard. On the contrary. It is organized on an intelligible principle. The older items have been placed at the bottoms of the piles and from there things then ascend in the order they were received. Could that be by chance? Any child will tell you, no, and I recall passably well which piles were raised first and the dates I acquired the documents within the top foot or so. Mostly, then, everything is retrievable, and further, the storage system provides an inducement to keeping current on new publications that may have superceded the buried ones, which is a virtue in a scholar.

Like pressed flowers, the piles preserve their contents more or less eternally. Case in point: this little postcard, printed in Greyhawk in 564cy. It isn't really a postcard but is printed to look like one in a cursive font that links its letters in a semblance of handwriting. It was published by GoThereGuides.com, whose name is stretched all along the bottom as—for some reason—onelongword. Styled after the prose of an endearing, popular, obsessed thirteen years old girl on tour in a foreign land and worrying that her friends back home may think that absence makes her boring, the card gushes over totally tight boys and literally lesser attractions in “Ye Olde Vale of Luna.” The postcard says that the tour takes in all the major attractions, but the itinerary actually sticks closely to the Great Western Road and the Velverdyva River, where the hotels are likewise grand and encouragingly proximate.

I am gluing the card here:

┍                                                                                                  ┑

 

 

 

└                                                                                                  ┘

Although, I'm noticing that the glue doesn't look too good.

And speaking of looking good, the brouchure’s illustrations are true to life, as though GoThereGuides accidentally employed an artist. See, here are the Velverbridge and the Concordance Stack, Yasgur’s Farm in Woodstock, the Devarnish Market, Greatblister Abbey, the Canon’s Court and the Eademer Battistero in Mitrik, Carnalion Gorge, the Fals River Palaces, and the soothing Temton Water. For sake of the pictures I forward the guide, because some of them sketch places that The Veil of Lunacy will be taking you to. Besides, plenty of elven elders that live now in Fellreev Forest lived long ago in Ye Olde Vale until the press of humanity sent them away. These elders will remember the old times and may share their memories with you, should you show them the postcard.

May it guide you in dark places, when other guides mislead.

Historians are much like guides, sort of. We will show you what we want you to see, and when we want you to see Veluna, we generally provide you with a hagiography of sorts, like the biography of a sainted land. The first of these modern hagios was written by Gygax, and it says, "the Archclericy of Veluna has long been a shining example of the better side of humankind in the Flanaess. It has treated fairly and justly with its neighbors and championed the cause of righteousness everywhere." A generous depiction, don’t you think? “Shining" and "everywhere" could have been omitted without harming any reputations. But a more recent hagio—written by Gary Hoolian when the central Flanaess was discovered to be dependent on Velunar wealth to fight its latest war against Iuz—goes further, abandoning all restraint to attain obsequiousness:

The folks of Veluna have long represented the best aspects of humankind. Here, humans and elves live in harmony, farming arable land and working together to build a common culture, founded on peace, reason, and serenity. The influence of the Church of Rao is everywhere in Veluna, gently enforcing the administration of their doctrine through fair, firm (but not overly harsh) laws.

That is sycophancy to flatter even an aged canon whose mind has been addled by the Flight of Fiends. It is an exhibition of the new liberalism of that includes elves among the list of human values. And since you, my increasingly enlightened wanderers, have been furtively meandering in the bandit plains where the Ritensa, the blighted river, ran through roofless caverns measureless to man (I mean that you have followed the poisoned river to the verge of the Fellreev Forset, where you now stand) you might ask the elder wood elves there whether Hoolian has told you everything that there is to know about Veluna. If they smile but do not answer, recollect that they remember much and may not want to tell.

Hoolian did show mettle, though, when his topic was law enforcement. He began gently and then pushed on past fair to firm before settling with “not overly harsh,” pegging Veluna’s mercifulness back three notches in only half a sentence; a race well run, coming from behind a pack of lies to finish near the truth.

This is actually important to my historical argument. The Canon of Veluna’s biographical reputation amounts to a cumulative argument against me; an argument that benefits mightily from the hagiographical ghosts of canons past. Even the holy honorific—His Venerable Reverence, Shephard of the Faithful—holds links to a long, clanking chain of spectral ancestors. I do not know how many Venerable Reverences have preceded Hazen; the procession is in none of my references; and though it exists (in marble) in Mitrik, I do not care to go there because sanctity gets in my nose somehow. But Hazen’s chain drags on for 582 years, and if your heart greatly desires (as some do) a long succession of His Graces (I warn you, if you hope for a Her Grace in the list, to remember what little Alice said through the looking glass: One CAN'T believe impossible things), then you may as well begin in the year 9cy, on the spot of Salvation, in the nation of Voll, in Ye Olde Vale of –

§

 

~Celene and Luna are granted for guidance

Hang on. The Vale of Luna. That's right!

The Vale is old, even without the emphatic “e.” Along side it, "Veluna" is nought but modernism and contraction. The Vale of Luna, spelled out proper, is archaic, a name so old that we do not know how old it is. We read it in what may be the most primitive writing in the Flanaess, the first chapter of Word of Incarum, in the most sacred scripture of Rao, god of Reason, Peace, and Serenity.

Incarum may be the oldest book that is original to the Flanaess. Every rival to its antiquity is written in Suel and has origins in what is now (but wasn’t then) the Sea of Dust. But Incarum is written in Oeridian, and its inception was Flan. How much of the Flan is identifiable today is a matter of scholarly debate, although the general answer will be: not much. Flan was an unwritten language, with no unbreachable defense against Oeridian formulation.

But Incarum would have been read to the Flan, and they could have challenged its accuracy or meaning. The most primitive passage, for example, depicts the Flan natives greeting the migrant Vollar tribe and welcoming their “new brothers to the 'Vale of Luna, most sacred of all lands protected by Rao.’" The single quotes contain a transliteration in Oeridian characters of words the Voll collectively recited in Flan, so the Flan have self-identified as the people of the Vale of Luna, a sacred land protected by Rao. The god’s followers in Voll, from as far back as we can see, have taken this to mean that the vale was sacred to Rao. But the text’s literal translation is “protected by.” So, we may ask: Could the vale have been protected by Rao and sacred to Luna? Who—besides a plain moon—was Luna?

In Raoan faith, Incarum settles the issue by stating, "the Lord of Peace granted the humans of Oerth the moons Celene and Luna, that they might gain guidance from tyranny and darkness.” Related in this way, Luna appears to be a plain moon, a gift from Rao and sacred as such. And though this is truly Oeridian language, not transliterated Flan, we know that it reflects Flan belief because it would have been read to the Flan alongside the transliterated text. For example, the aquamarine moon, Celene, is singularly insignificant in Incarum, so it is remarkable that, in the most primitive scripture and in Oeridian writing, Celene takes syntactical precedence over Luna in Luna’s own vale. Similarly, in Oeridian words, Luna’s dominion is strictly delimited: her land is one of unnumbered lands that are protected by Rao. But the wider provenance is otherwise unimportant in Raoan scripture, so the primitive Raoans in Luna’s valley appear to be acknowledging a wider tradition in which the moons were bestowed by Rao for guidance to Flan people everywhere, not only to the people of Voll. Since this wider provenance is not otherwise referenced in Incarum, it appears to mark the retention of a primitive Flan belief.

This creates tensions in the narrative. Incarum intends Luna’s valley to be sacred to Rao, but its most primitive words go against that intent by giving precedence to Celene in the order of the moons’ bestowal and by describing the Vale of Luna as protected, not sacred, to Rao. Whenever texts preserve discrepancies that beg to be overwritten, it must be because the discrepent phrasing was too firmly settled in the writers’ minds to suggest alteration or omission: they simply wrote down uncritically what was always said and repeated. Incarum literally betrays tensions that were deeply embedded in the Flan origins of Raoan scripture, and so we may wonder: What had the primitive Flan been doing before the Vollar arrived, back when the Flan had been lauding Rao for bestowing the moons and protecting the vale but were looking to Luna for guidance from tyranny and darkness?

§

 

~Luna the moon, Rao the god

Gaining guidance from a moon may be done in two ways: by charting its motions and appearances against a zodiac, giving it a rational, predictable, and mechanical aspect; or by praying to it, ascribing to the moon a personality. Luna may be a celestial object, rationally charted and observed, or a celestial person, a divinity. You may think, why not both? And you may be right, to an extent. But holding rationality and personality together is not easy. A moon rationally charted is a machine; ancient scholars drew celestial gears. Something personal is always different: animate, intentional, even spiritual. How can we determine whether the moon Luna was mechanical or personal to the Flan, a preliterate people, one thousand years ago?

Answering the question is disappointingly easy. But my dear friends, let me assure you: it is not untoward in any way to personify Our Lamp in the Heavenly Darkness, our clear-eyed Lady of Reason, or the celestial Abacus of Our Insight. The fact that human personalities waver does not mean that divine ones do. What response would you have Lady Reasoning give to our human ineptitude besides her incomprehensibly feminine disdain? When reason deserts us, we ought to accept our limits. What right have we to accuse the moon of inconstancy and variability? She constantly reminds us of it, so we ought to admire the constant inconstancy in her. A human personality does not comprehend the gods, but it is still the most expansive idea that humans have, the one that omits nothing in creation. We must not undervalue personality when we look to the heavens, and when we interact with the gods, it ought to be done person to person, as equals so far as it goes. If we are afraid to confront them, we may only diminish them.

Luna’s guidance was personally beseeched by the Flan of the valley—one person beseeched by many—and we have good reason to know this is true. The Flan had not yet rationalized Rao prior to the arrival of the Vollar in the valley. Raoan scripture agrees, saying, “Over time the Vollar settlers worshipped the primitive Flan god Rao, whom they interpreted as a power of reason and serenity.” How had Rao been worshipped before he became rational and serene? In Word of Incarum, the only identifiable reference to the early god is the Flan honorific “Lord of Peace.” Rao’s peaceful aspect is more primitive than the Oeridian ones and distinctively Flan. It identifies the Flan god and tells us something about what the first people meant when they said, "the Lord of Peace granted the moons Celene and Luna, that humans might gain guidance from tyranny and darkness.” To the Flan of the valley, the moons had been light-bearers in service to peace when rationality was as yet a mere potentiality.

Luna, then, was a personal moon bringing guidance, light, and peace; but also, she was tied to her celestial embodiment. We ought to think of her, then, as a super or spiritual personality. The Flan made no categorical distinctions between mortal, natural, spiritual, and divine persons. They existed together in a spectrum reaching from valleys to mountains, forests, streams, plants, animals, humans, spirits, and divinities. The divine could don the robes of creation, and vice versa.

Today, we think of the moons as natural luminaries. But it was different for the Flan, to whom the moons were supernal. Luna, whether spiritual or divine, was not a part of nature, because she was not, by definition, sublunar. She dispensed guidance, light, and peace from above; not life, death, and rebirth from among us. As a heavenly goddess, Luna was a peer to other deities there, including Rao. We may be sure of this, admitting no objection from the later and rationalized Raoan church. Therefore, whatever the primitve Flan had meant when they said that the moons were granted by Rao, they could not have been thinking of offering a gift or exchanging property. Gods do not have the power to give other divinities away; especially, not to humans.

The modern Raoan interpretation of the gift of Luna is entirely wrong. She was not gifted or bestowed by Rao, she was granted, as Word of Incarum is properly translated. A grant is given in response to a request or as a just dessert. It is not a grant if it has not been requested and cannot be refused. So, the question is: Who had asked Rao to grant Luna as a guide and a goddess to the Flan of the Vale?

The question cannot be properly answered, because we do not know what relations pertained among the four concerned parties: humanity (in general), the Flan (in particular), Luna, and Rao. Although three of them remain culturally prominent even today, there are no significant references to Luna (the goddess, not the orbiter) apart from the inferences we are drawing from Word of Incarum. Indeed, even in antiquity, worshiping Luna was probably restricted to the region and culture of the valley. But there, Luna cannot be understood as a plain moon, for the reasons I have given. There is no going back on that without showing that I am wrong.

Although we cannot be sure of the arrangement, we can say that the granted request was consensual. Without evidence, it is unwarranted to think that Rao, the Flan’s Lord of Peace, would have imposed Luna on the valley’s people or vice versa. More likely, a mutual request was misconstrued as one god’s unilateral gift by a faith that no longer knew Luna personally. When given away, Luna ceased to be a goddess and beccame a plain moon; her volition was denied, her personality was constrained by mechanical principles. This is true, not only according to my argument but because it really did happen. For the past thousand years, Rao has been worshipped not as the Lord of Peace but as the god of Reason, while Luna has become a plain moon and the Vale of Luna has become Veluna, a Raoan theocracy.

Even so, Word of Incarum states that Luna was granted by Rao to the people of her valley. The statement preserves older beliefs that predate the arrival of the Oeridians, the rationalization of Rao, and the depersonification of the goddess of the valley. History has saved Luna’s former appearance within Oeridian Raoan scripture, and if history is the will of the gods, her appearance must be adored.

§

 

~Romeo and Juliet

Lady, by that yonder blessed moon I vow—

O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

My constant students, it was not my intent to stray from my subject and insert these pages on a luminous moon. But to know Veluna, you must know Rao, and to know Rao, you must know Luna. And because I wanted to send you the postcard from Ye Olde Vale—did you get that, BTW?—I found myself in consultation with my library, delving into six cubic yards of my own PISS (Physical Information Storage System), occasionally skipping a cubic foot but regretting it and going back, until I found my treasure at last, clasped it to my heart, glued it to your autograph, examined its depictions, and had the happy thought: Why not write about Luna?

It used to be that thinking about Luna made me sad. Do deities die? Yes. No. The loveliest ones, I think not. They become faint from human neglect. Most nights, I watch Luna, still luminous in her chosen orb, chosen freely before Rao granted her request to be our light and guide in the darkness. Out of love for us, she orbits still her erstwhile adorers, who have forgotten her. Why should she continue? For one thing, she was not abandoned. Her failing worshippers succumbed to insidious friends, and she may well weep for us. Perhaps, for our sake, she stays true.

The inconstant moon? O treacherous Will! You must be joking, and despite you, I will swear by her. By Luna, I swear to remember all that I can of the passed and wonderful ideas harshly overwritten by men. Sometimes, historiographers may do more than decipher clues and return past probabilities. Occasionally, we enliven something, or revivify it. When I look at Luna now, I fancy she is not quite so sad as before. Because I love her. I think it makes a difference, even if I am the only one. I love her as the epitome of everything the world has been granted and discarded. Mostly, though, I love her as the goddess of a simple, vanished people, the preliterate Flan of her own vale.

May I possibly become one of them? May I? Despite my decades of devotion to literacy and my long life full of Oeridian ideas, may I?

Friends, I am an historian. I do more than read. And I tell you that, someday soon, I will earnestly try.

 

 

Interlude: At Grey College Chapel

 

(Gods’day, 11^th Fireseek 592cy)

Did you see that? The way it swooped? I had to duck under the lectern. You saw nothing? It came from the shadows. The ceiling of the chapel is cavernous at night, and all day, I felt like I was being watched. Does something harrass us at this troublesome hour?

Apologies. Let me begin again. Dean Wiseword, thank you for that kind introduction. Allow me to commence.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are the times that try men’s souls. A great man, a preeminent church and government, and a foremost nation have been called into doubt by a book written by someone that no one outside his profession knows anything of. I am of that profession; I know the man and am attacked in the book. And I am not no one. I sit, as you know, on the Historical Board of the Church of Rao, which I proudly serve. And the church, the college, and all of you have invited me here to answer one plain question: Is any of it true?

No, it isn’t. The Canon of Veluna—apostate? The God of Reason and Serenity—impersonal and usurping? The Archclericy of Veluna—not ancient but modern and obsessed with power? These are preposterous things. They are dangerous things. They are erroneous things.

Let me dispense of the least consequential objection first. I am libeled by Professor Bifurcati—the unhappy author of The Veil of Lunacy and a man I believed was my friend until he informed me otherwise—libeled I say as a man “in no danger of drowning in depths of logic he never swims,” practicing “strange human logic,” and not “entirely serious” when I wrote, on two separate occasions and at length, on the history of the Oeridian conquest. The conquest was happily concluded a millenium ago and ever since has been regarded as a triumph of goodness. I was perfectly serious when I wrote the the histories, and they are widelyreferenced by hundreds colleagues as the definitive studies on the subject.

Obviously, Prof Bifurcati does not think highly of my colleagues and me. Some people find it easy to be brash and difficult to be respectful. I am not the lone authority on Flanaessian political history, and no one person is. But together, reputable scholars instruct and correct one another. Whatever our disagreements and failings, we speak plainly about what must be true. We protect the foundations of knowledge from superficial attack. And we tell you, unanimously, that there are no authorities who think like Prof Bifucati does. Having misconstrued, in tremendous detail, many points that remain quite settled, it is very difficult now to contain the overflow and publicity of his errors. That is why we attempt to dissuade historians from writing long books we know nothing about and publishing them on spurious presses. Nlessie’s Old Books? In Molag? I have warned Prof Bifurcati about this in person and on several occasions. He is incorrigible.

His arguments depend on two suppositions. First, that hobgoblins are not monstrous, and second, that Oeridians are. I do not know where all the Oerth’s hobgoblins came from. I do know that they initially attacked the first Oeridian settlers everywhere in the Flanaess and without provocation. We came. They attacked. They died. The historical and moral simplicity of the tale is its finest proof.

Are Oeridians monsters? We are not perfect. We come here, for example, to the Chapel of Truth and Reason in Grey College, to humble ourselves before Rao and renew our dedication. Examine this chapel. It is dark and in shadow this night, but in the morning light will come, and it will be itself again. I know this well from the hundreds of times I have worshipped here over the past fifty years. And tomorrow, it will be lighted, open, well proportioned, sturdy, and enduring. Truth endures. How can it be what gets knocked down?

Are Oeridians monsters? Is it merely by a false comparison to hobgoblins that we have an apparent glory? I do not believe that any of the the men and women here tonight will be able to convince themselves of that, try as they may. We are not perfect. We are subject to error, vanity, flattery, and greed. But we know that we must stand before the gods of knowledge, truth, and goodness at last, and that we will submit (and always have submitted) to their judgement for our benefit and correction. If we doubt that, we doubt the gods themselves.

It comes to this. The Canon of Veluna has done us the services of a saint, so we know him to be one. In a devilish world, it is not easy to stand up for truth and give it proper standing. Prof Bifurcati is of the world. He is its excellent representative. In such a world, how will goodness and truth prevail? The purity of our saints may be compromised, and no doubt, it too often has been. But they work miracles for our sakes; it is unavoidable and necessary that it be so. Shepherds do not stay peaceful while they fend off wolves; it is folly then to let the wolves speak their opinion of our shepherds.

We do not venerate our saints for their perfection. We venerate them for contesting against the forces of evil, triumphing on our behalf, and remaining in grace. They do not suffer corruption from doing what would corrupt us. Hazen, Canon of Veluna, has contested with evil. He has grasped it, wrestled with it, suffered for it, and triumphed over it. He is triumphing over it even now, in a renewed and eternal war against Iuz. He secures our churches, our borders, our kingdoms, cities, and farms. He leads us to pastures of peace and keeps the dire wolves at bay. We must thank him for it, and I know we will.

It is our turn now to act as shepherds. An enemy tempts us to abandon our strength and our redeemer. But Prof Bifurcati and his book are not immediately important. We must attend dirctly to our true enemy, Iuz! We must not be confused. We will not be confused.

May Rao keep you and bless you. Good night.

 

(Ducks and exits)

 

 

Monologue: A party to the contract

I would fear for your nerves at this juncture, my heroes heroes burning bright in the forest of the night. But I know how risible that would be. I fear for you? Ha! Last night I burned my thumb while snuffing candles and had an uncomfortable night's sleep of it, the gravest injury I have suffered or am like to suffer on this adventure. While you breach the Fellreev Forest on this sightless midnight—hell hounds to the left of you, hell hounds to the right—adventuring for reasons that are good, intelligible, and brave, I have been induced by a generous fee to write thoughts that I only half admit having, even to myself. I pray that tonight Nerull hath no scythe for you and that I may submit on time your copy of my next installment.

I am not altogether confident about it. I have forebodings. What is the usual consequence of failing in a debate? A phial of public humiliation ingested at the urging of my colleagues, who will no doubt make a meal of it. And this particular debate is conducted in the privacy of The Veil of Lunacy and will be read no one but you, who do not even know how to prepare a phial of that kind. So, it's all good, right?

The great difficulty—the awful fear—is this: I am not wholly convinced my little tournament with Canon Hazen is actually confined to the rhetorical tilt. The doubt is draining me—like a baby spider sucking its first victim—that Hazen has an insubstantial reality, and I am in actual danger!

Oh, why did I sign that contract! Nine awful lawyers and nine august scholars on the side of the angels sitting opposite to me at the table and a dark, secret lurker somewhere among us unapparent in the legal proceedings and in the legal writ yet inhabiting the spaces between: the coughing, the hemming, the hawing, the silences, the punctuation marks, the cross-outs, and the blotted illegibilities. Oh, my gods! That I, a scholar of my sort, should have forgotten that there is meaning in such things and so put my signature to it all!

To this contract, I happen to be “Party B.” And just now, I'm reading it, and it says, “Party A shall provide Party B's coindemnification. . . .” What the hell are those cross outs? Did I sign that? I don't THINK so! This contract lives! It evolves! It is the unnatural selection of a deliberate variation!

My situation is dire. You, my peers newly seated at the roundable of historical dilemma, have no doubt foreseen my error. I have put off discussing until our next (and fourth) scenario a point on which the three completed ones depend: Who is the Canon of Veluna? When will he strut the stage? He was not the High Canon of Rao; he did not participate in the Oeridian conquest; he did not extinguish the hogboblin nations; he did not lead the Flan nor rule the Voll; then, can any of it matter? How will Hazen be found guilty of doing what he did not and saying what he said not?

My forebodings rise. Where is my strength and my salvation? If my contract be against me, who can be for me?

Calm yourselves, my hero adventurers. The great personalities in this historical drama have actually always been on stage and are so, even now. Only their names have been changed to protect the innocent. It is past time that I present you with a list of characters, so now I will do it.

Some of the actors will be found playing more than one part, but soon you will learn who and why.

All is, if I have grace to use it so, as ever in my great taskmaster’s eye.

 

 

INTERMISSION

 

 

 

 

A List of Characters

 

The Canon of Veluna (theocratic monarch of the Archclericy of Veluna, aka the High Canon of Rao, aka the Canon of Mitrik, aka Hermiod of Laudine, aka Canon Turgen, aka Canon Raowen, aka Canon Hazen)

The anonymous commissioner of The Veil of Lunacy (a marginal agent of darkness)

George Byron, Lord Gordyn (a Velunar poet)

Brother Lasher (in pantomime, a Velunar lay preacher)

The Bishop of Grayington (in pantomime)

Verily, his daughter

Saint Hermiod (in pantomine, a mythical two-headed beast)

Hermiod of Laudine (aka the abbot of Laudine Monastery; later, the High Canon of Rao; later, the Canon of Veluna)

Duke Justinian (in pantomime, atheist and ruler of the Duchy Palatine of Urnst)

Lipgloss (a fashionable columnist for The Leukisher magazine; a flapper)

Her escort

The ghost of Sir Christopher Wren (in pantomime)

Dr. Samuel Ableforce (a disputant in favor of theism)

A fainted rose (in pantomime)

The Rev. Cecinni Fashire (a deputy to Dr Ableforce)

Daesnar Braden (Professor of Philosophical Inquiry and Annalo Bifurcati’s mentor)

Countess Osgold of Baranford (an historian and the author of Historical Epitome of the Empire of Iuz, martyred by Piecus IX)

Piecus IX, her martyrer (the Extraordinary Papa of Chendl, aka Pio Nono)

The Divergent Underground (an academical cabal)

Nlessie (proprietor of Nlessie’s Old Books, in Molag; Professor Bifurcati’s friend; a member of the Divergent Underground)

H’Rothka’a (the gaoler of Law’s Forge; a horned devil)

Lupkra (priest of an uncertain god)

A Chain Devil (in pantomime, the dungeonmaster of Law’s Forge)

A page spirit

Lady Reason (Queen of the Veritable)

Roger Moore (an historian and member of the Historical Board of the Church of Rao)

Gary Gygax (an historian)

Anne Brown (an historian)

Carl Sargent (an historian)

Gary Hoolian (an historian)

Terry Edwards (a monster ecologist)

An etcetera (in pantomime, a kobold)

Yolande, Fairy Queen of Celene (aka the elven Lady Rhalta)

A Lady at the Molag gate

A living legal writ (a contract signed by nine editors, nine lawyers, and Annalo Bifurcati)

Henry Cahill (himself)

Language

An urchin maxim (in pantomime)

Rao (god of Reason, Peace, and Serenity, aka Lord of Peace)

The Raoan Theocrats (clerics dedicated to creating, establishing, and expanding the Archclericy of Veluna; diplomats to the Viceroy and the King of Furyondy)

The Bishops of Rao (the seven bishops of Voll and, later, constituents of the Archclericy’s College of Bishops)

The College of Bishops (the Archclericy’s religious House of Congress)

The Archbishop of Veluna City (the eighth and metropolitan bishop of the Church of Rao, aka the Titular Bishop of Verbobonc)

The Celestial Order of the Moons (the Archclericy’s secular House of Congress)

The Seven Noble Houses of Veluna (the nobility and secular leaders of Voll and Veluna)

Lord Drax the Invulnerable (in pantomime, an animus, the ruler of Rel Astra)

The Fiend-Sage (in pantomime, an advisor to Lord Drax)

The High Canon of Rao (is not the Canon of Veluna)

The Overking of the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa

The Court of Essences (the governing nobility of the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa)

The Viceroy of Furyondy (aka Stinvri)

The King of Furyondy (aka Thrommel I, ThrommelⅡ, Belvor II, and Belvor IV)

The Plar (aka Count Lorrish, the elected leader of the Seven Noble Houses and of the Celestial Order, aka the Supreme Mistress when the office is held by a woman; aka Jolene of Samprastadar)

Cogitamus Idemus (a modron septon)

A spirit naga

Count Lorrish (aka the Plar, Jolene’s father)

Sulda (Lorrish’s eldest daughter, heir to Lorrish County, sister of Jolene)

Jolene of Samprastadar (the Supreme Mistress of the Seven Noble Houses and of the Celestial Order of the Moons, Count Lorrish’s second daughter)

Thrommel, Prince of Furyondy (aka the Marshal, the Royal Provost, and the Prince of Veluna, etc.)

Sir Edmore Wunsay (a romance author and diplomat, third son of the Baroness of Littleberg, and Ferrica Aposnos’ adoptive brother)

Ferrica Aposnos (Jolene’s friend, a Ploshmurttin farmer’s daughter, and Edmore Wunsay’s adoptive sister)

Her Father

Captain Hansleath (an officer of the Six Nation’s Army)

Urthgan, Clanlord of the Kron Hills (a dwarven elder)

Wilna Pummenford (a scholar, advisor to Edmore Wunsay, and Annalo Bifurcati’s friend)

Leyri Pummenford, her husband (in pantomime)

Cobb Darg (mayor of Ironggate)

A debutant maxim

The Viscount of Verbobonc (aka Wilfrick, aka Fenwick, aka Langard)

The Bishop of Verbobonc ((aka Cornelius Spieknhammer, aka Haufren)

The Knights of the Hart in Furyondy

The Knights of the Hart in Veluna

The Knights of the Hart in High Folk

The Knights of the Hart in Verbobonc (proposed)

Authenticrates Minerva (Historical Conservancy Professor of History at Grey College)

Mrs Simpson (aka Lady Simpson, aka Lady Broile, née Liberta Purchisse)

Legal Purchisse, her brother

Sir Poorish Poundlace, her friend (a romance novelist)

Lord Plimpson, her husband

King Thrommel II (the King of Furyondy, Sir Poorish’s friend)

Lord Landlard, his friend

The vigilant few (a league of Verboboncan provincial leaders)

An Elven Diarist

The Meanders, his ipt treehouse in Verbobonc Town

Miss Bompton, his new acquaintance

A party of elves (residents of The Meanders)

Cassandra (a waitress at a public house in Bay’s Stop)

Cassandra (in pantomime, prophetess of Troy)

Wolfie (the proprietor of a public house in Bay’s Stop)

Iuz (an evil cambion demigod and emperor, enthroned in Doraka’a)

The Horned Society (a devilish cult, later a government of bandits and hobgoblins)

The Thirteen Hierarchs (rulers of the Horned Society)

The Temple of Elemental Evil (a temple of elemental evil)

Zuggtmoy (demon goddess of spiders and the drow)

Lolth (demon goddess of fungi)

Halga (a high priestess of Iuz)

Her Armed Servant

Althea (in pantomime, a high priestess of Iuz)

Panshazek (a political officer of the Empire of Iuz)

Erythnul (the god of Hate, Envy, and Slaughter)

Bingley Darc (a drunken storyteller, formerly a bandit)

Proprietor of the High Moon Inn

The Red Monk (an assailant and abductor)

The Scarlet Brotherhood (a nation and cabal of insidious monks)

Peter (captain of the Citadel Guards in Doraka’a)

A Citadel Guard

A Hobgoblin Captain of a Doraka’a vessel

Orc Watchers

Riedlbroban (a hobgoblin tranny)

A Hobgoblin Teamster

Crowds, audiences, onlookers, friends, individuals, congregations, Georgeomaniacs, assemblies, spirits, Ploshmurttins, taverners, servants, dockhands, dignataries, divinities, monks, worshippers, crusaders, armies, soldiers, overseers, lawyers, spies, ladies, gentlemen, freethinkers, passerbyes, commensurates, hobgoblins, orcs, imps, demons, demondands, devils, etc.)

Annalo Bifurcati (a professor of history, the author of The Veil of Lunacy)

The Hero Adventurers (a chorus)

 

 

SCENARIO FOUR—VELUNA

 

 

 

 

Chapter 15: The Advent of Veluna

 

~Laudine

The village of Laudine no longer exists. When the swamps southeast of Bolsover Town broadened and deepened three centuries ago and just as unexpectedly subsided a century after that, a swamp sickness beset the village along with the opulent monastery that it served, emptying their populations. The monastery’s monumental stones sank two feet into the flat, grassy soil; its wooden ceilings and floors were dissolved; and the superb vaults of the library and the church fell to compose the ruins that would then feature in Lord Gordyn’s poem “Velunar Bards and Dissenting Preachers.” The wooden village was utterly lost; it did not resurface from its dip in the swamp, and no one alive can say where it once was.

Laudine had always been remotely situated, and today its remnant lies a full twenty miles from anywhere. No one goes there except on St Hermiod's Eve, when the fishermen’s wharves at Bolsover Town, ten miles up along the Voll River’s vague stream and perched five inches above the broad swamp water, are crowded with pilgrims taking boats to the moonlighted festival of St Hermiod—the “Celebration among the Ruins.”

St Hermiod is a two-headed mythical beast that was originally a mortal man, Hermiod of Laudine, who was elected the abbot of the monastery in 230cy, the High Canon of Rao in 243cy, and the Canon of Veluna (the first to hold the office) in 254cy. With respect to the beast, including it in this history was a problematic decision. Everyone regrets historicizing a romantic creature, not least I. But Hermiod the man is a pivotal figure in Velunar history and of necessary concern. His life and works comprise much of what we factually know about the initial establishment of the Archclericy of Veluna.

Opinions vary on the significance of fantastical beasts. My own little pride of adventuring lions, for example—trekking now a dark path through the forest toward the antipode of oerthly paradise, Doraka’a—may think no more of a thousand fantastical beasts than of one fell knock at the gate of the fell city without a counterpart in the whole word; when one moment will knell the woe of years! and young lions will stand on the hillside in a sheet of flame; when noise will be everywhere! the toll increasing like a bell; and Dauntless the slughorn to their lips they will set and blow, “Too few to the Dark Tower came!”

(Enter Lions, burning bright)

Sheesh. WTF is he saying? Is he for real?

I dunno. He sounds like a crazy prophet.

Wait! I think he’s going to speak.

If you, my lost adventurers, find the lines as written too effusive and lacking context, that it is not the fault of their author. I, too, have an excuse: I am struck with awe! I gasp at the risks my impetuous cubs have undertaken at the wager of their hell-bound lives!

(Exit lions)

From now now on, since mythical creatures have no bearing on my history, I exclude them from consideration and leave you, my youthfull endangered species, to grapple with the real ones. You may begrudge this arrangement as selfish and unfair, because it reserves for me the lion’s share of salutary outcomes. But bear in mind, I did not labor for lo! these twenty years to get tenure at the academy for no reason. An official sanction of my divergent thoughts and the encumbant shelter from their consequences was on my mind; better safe than sorry. And besides, if I die, who will finish my book? Did you ever think of that?

The events of the year 254cy—in addition to transforming the High Canon of Rao (formerly the abbot of Laudine Monastery) into the original Canon of Veluna—would determine much of the subsequent history of the Flanaess. That was the year of Furyondy’s independence from the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa at a time when the empire covered two-thirds of the continent, taxed most of the people, and ruled the farthest seas. The influence of the Malachite Throne was everywhere, and everyone understood what the Court of Essences broadcast far and wide:

“What happens in Rauxes sprays from Rauxes.”

So it did; so it does.

The common year 254 was the year of Veluna’s independence too. As I said last chapter, Voll was sworn in allegiance to the overking, which for all practical purposes meant serving the viceroy of Furyondy. When Furyondy broke troth with the Great Kingdom, neither the sworn allegiance nor the practical service of Voll came formally to an end. Whom, then, did it serve?

The presumption was that it served its neighbor, Furyondy, yet the whole Flanaess wondered at the silence of Voll at this moment. Months later, when Veluna declared its independence, too, it once again left unspecified which of its masters it had emancipated from. The presumption was emancipation from both alike. Surely, though, the Archclericy of Veluna was an ally to Furyondy in their mutual war of independence from the wicked Malachite Throne?

§

 

~The break from the Great Kingdom

We can state the trouble another way: When Voll declared independence from the Great Kingdom and the Viceroyalty of Furyondy, had it broken troth once or twice?

Today, after three and a half centuries, that remains a hard question to answer. In fact, the King of Furyondy to this day retains his formal claim to be the legitimate ruler of Veluna, which Veluna has never acknowledged. There is actually no treaty agreeing their coexistence. The fundamental alliance of the central Flanaess—that of the Kingdom of Furyondy and the Archclericy of Veluna—does not formally exist, not even during this past decade of common war against Iuz.

Nonetheless, the assumption (somewhat begrudged in Furyondy) that the alliance is deep and enduring runs through all the historical studies that concern the two nations. For example, one Velunar historian says,

In the years before the establishment of the archclericy, Voll had acted as a sort of moral compass for Furyondy as a whole. Key adherents of Rao gained major positions in the court of the viceroy. It was only after gaining the council and support of Canon Hermiod of Laudine that the man who became ThrommelⅠinitiated the plan to declare independence from the Great Kingdom. As Furyondy was born, Voll (now officially recognized as Veluna) too declared sovereignty, though the two states remained close.

Is this true? It is debatable, at least by me. But whether or no, I may point out that the Velunar account does not mention a formal alliance at that time, because there wasn’t one. Moreover, Furyondian historians tell the independence story rather differenty:

In 254cy, the heir to Viceroy Stinvri was crowned in Dyvers as Thrommel I: King of Furyondy, Prince of Veluna, Provost of the Northern Reaches, Warden General of the Vesve Forest, Marshal of the Shield Lands, Lord of Dyvers, etc. The adjunctive states were soon lost, but the central core of the kingdom was sound and viable and has persisted.

The first king of Furyondy was publicly crowned as the ruler of his former vassal states, and firstly, as the Prince of Veluna. In Furyondy’s view, the former overking’s vassals became the new king’s subjects. Consequently, the king of Furyondy never congratulated Canon Hermiod on Velunar independence and retains the title Prince of Veluna to this day.

General historical studies—that is, studies of no specific nation—hold points of view that resemble Furyondian historiography more than Velunar.

In the mid-third century, the outer dependencies of the Great Kingdom began declaring their independence. The Viceroyalty of Furyondy led the way, becoming the Kingdom of Furyondy. Other regions also broke away from the ineffectual government of the overking over time, creating their own governments after achieving success in their wars of rebellion.

The civilized states of the central Flanaess fought with the Great Kingdom for their independence. Perranders, Velunars, Furyondians and The Pale achieved success, establishing independent status one after the other in a series of minor but bloody wars.

The general trend to break from the Great Kingdom was realized in specific places in different ways and at different times. Perranland’s sovereignty was won in the early fourth century “by mountain and lowland tribesmen that had long served in Furyondy’s military, gaining the experience and discipline necessary to mount a successful rebellion.” The Shield Landers remained “loyal to the ideal of the Great Kingdom but wholly opposed to the regime in Rauxes, never declaring complete independence and existing somewhere between autonomy and their status as vassals.” The High Folk quietly drifted away from the Furyondian throne by behaving a little more independently every passing year until perfect independence was a fait accompli. Dyvers did not secede from Furyondy until the sixth century.

Each of the new sovereign states had specific reasons for declaring independence. Perrenlanders felt that they had never been incorporated into the Great Kingdom, only occupied by the viceroy’s soldiers. The Shield Landers developed a government premised on chivalry, taking exception to the “decadence” of Rauxes without actually disavowing feudal allegiances. Furyondy rebelled against the “extremely difficult lives led by the majority of the viceroyalty under incompetent overkings,” viewing the Great Kingdom as the first to break troth by governing so badly. Veluna considered independence a just desert for its long history of benevolent influence on the viceroyalty. There was no consensus in these states on the purpose, timing, or outcome of claiming their independence. Each acted realistically: as it saw fit, when it saw fit, and in its own interests.

Nonetheless, Velunar historians interpret the several wars of rebellion as aspects of one common, progressive movement (sometimes called “the Furyondian movement”) toward freedom, fought for and realized under the auspices of the beneficent King ThrommelⅠand his enlightened advisor Canon Hermiod. The Velunars stand alone in adopting this point of view. Most other historians do not explicitly oppose it but do say discrepent things; they do not see the King of Furyondy, for example, as a benevolent ruler but as jealous at the time of his monarchical authority, and in this they are certainly correct.

Kings are not crowned in public ceremonies unless they expect to rule. To be crowned and then fail to govern is an embarassment, and accordingly, the King of Furyondy did not once grant sovereignty voluntarily to his vassal states. Perrenland fought a minor war for its independence, the Shield Lands never disavowed its feudal allegiances but did ignore them, and High Folk acted with increasing independence until its nationhood was acknowledged by Furyondy, hundreds of years later, as part of a new trade agreement.

The question, then, is not whether Veluna’s understanding of the Furyondian movement is true—it evidently is not—but, firstly, why the Velunars have always seen things that way, and secondly, why other sovereign states gloss their peculiar interpretation despite disagreeing with it.

 

 

Chapter 16: The Moral Compass

 

(At the verge of the Fellreev Forest)

Professor, do we have to climb this stupid hill? I’m weary, and Doraka’a is that way!

We’re almost there! If any young lady starts to fade, a young gentleman may assist her.

Assist her? If she fades, why can’t I!

What manner of chivalry is that? We will reach the summit together, unfaded. Stand back, now! Do not approach the fog bank that lies just beyond the high ridge.

What’s in the fog?

Nothing, I spoke of what lies beyond. The fog is a veil, a screen, or a curtain.

So, what’s beyond?

Since we speak of mysteries, I have something for you in the pocket of my gown.

(Produces a compass, fabulous in appearance, the needle unmoving)

Oooh! What’s that?

A magical artifact, a Regulating Compass of Moral Direction, or of moral deception, as is sometimes said by the sardonically inclined. It is a mechanism that regulates moral behavior.

How can it be?

It’s not possible!

Is it dangerous?

Is it dangerous, possibly?

Oh, yes. Possibly, very dangerous. It is one of several hundred identical regulators built four hundred years ago on the alternative plane of existence Mechanus, the Clockwork Nirvana, by a modron septon named Cogitamus Idemus. The modron’s sent the compasses as gifts to the theocrats of the The Pale, a theocracy that worships Pholtus, god of Absolute Law and Order. The modrons hoped to increase order on oerth by automatically regulating The Pale. But Cogitamus had misunderstood his instructions. The works of his compasses presumed that their users practiced a morality premised on consistent ethical principles. The Pholtans, however, had no principles but merely thousands of precepts that they rigorously enforced. The misconstrued compasses fluctuated wildy; the Pholtans followed the directions; chaos ensued!

Wow. Can I see it?

Certainly. The housing contains hundreds of gears, each with its own gear-spirit. When the regulator is activated, the gear-spirits detect a moral conumdrum and configure their gears accordingly. Whiz, whirl, grind—the needle spins and points to a direction! The compass’ face has four directions on two axes, analogous to north-south and east-west. On a moral regulator, however, north-south is replaced by “admonish-rebuke,” while east-west is written as “strongly-mildly.” Since the compass presumes a user with consistent ethics and precise moral precepts, it indicates no specific action to take but only a generalization to a degree. Thus, Pholtus’ priests were left to their own devices in determining which of their precepts was best to follow, while the regulators’ needles were spinning wildly between stongly-mildly and admonish-rebuke. A social catastrophe!

(With frightened eyes) What happened?

The theocrats had been assigned to rule The Pale on behalf of the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa decades before the creation of the four viceroyalties. The Court of Essences thought lawful theocrats would make excellent indigenous leaders, but unhappily, the Pholtan clerics were actually theologians and quite irrational despite being lawful and good, and they were constantly conspiring against Rauxes’ oerthly authority. Nevertheless, the modrons believed that the Pholtan priests were more orderly than the Court of Essences, so they tried to help out with the moral compasses. When the extent of Cogitamus’ mistake was realized, a modron court ruled that the regulators were the product of a broken contract (because Cogitamus had mistaken his instructions) and sent hordes of inevitables, which are something like attack drones with self-guiding programs, to find the compasses and destroy them all. The regulator I now hold was dropped into the Nyr Dyv by someone (or something) and thereby escaped detection. It was given to me some ten years ago by a spirit naga who took me to the bottom of the lake to exchange it for my autograph on an indellible scroll that she was hording. The naga claimed to be the spirit of the dead Cogitamus, who back then had turned renegade out of spite and been hunted down and killed by the inevitables. But who knows, really? Perhaps she only wanted to be thought special in my eyes.

Cool! Can I keep it?

Oh, dear me, no. (Disappointment and disgruntlement) That is to be avoided above all things. Ae regulating compass goes awry when it is operated by anyone with unprincipled morals, and from what I know of your circumstances, you were chosen for this adventure precisely because of how remarkably unprincipled you are. Besides, the activating gear-spirit is missing, so the device no longer works. But if the modrons hear of it, they will certainly send the inevitables anyway. Best all around that you should return it to me.

But look here, Professor. Why did you show it to us? What has it got to do with climbing this hill?

It has everything to do with it. The regulating compasses were almost all destroyed in the first half of the third century. At the same time, in The Pale, the Pholtan theocracy was being replaced by theocrats of Zilchus, the god of Money, while in Voll, the Raoan theocrats were preparing to launch the new Velunar government. Although most gods (especially, the lawful ones) do not get along well with the stridently legalistic Pholtus, Rao has a knack for getting along with anyone. He’s amenable to Pholtus and an ally of Zilchus’ too. It is quite plausible, then, that a number of Pholtan theocrats may have fled from The Pale to Veluna, and possible, they used their regulating compasses as an inducement to the Velunars to take them in.

The truth of this is less important than its plausibility, which will be sufficient to illustrate the wide gulf that exists between administrating an imperial church in Furyondy and establishing a national government in Voll. There is little evidence—as we will see—that, in either Voll or Furyondy, the administration of the Raoan imperial church was suspected to be advancing on the establishment of an independent Velunar government. The apparently spontaneous generation of a fully functional Raoan theocracy shocked everyone and disrupted everything, and the best mistaken evidence for identifying the High Canon of Rao with the Canon of Veluna is that Hermiod of Laudine was serving as the former when he seemed to be spontaneously translated into the latter. But the continuity of the honorific embodiment was, in fact, a deliberate choice made for practical, political, and eccesiastical reasons and had little to do with preserving a traditional lineage. What mattered more was signalling to everyone that leading actors were still in control of the Church of Rao following what—as we will see, or as I will argue—amounted not to the emancipation and restoration of an ancient tradition of religious shepherding but to a political and religious palace coup in Veluna.

Blurring the distinction between what was new and what was old in the Archclericy of Veluna mattered; the new theocracy’s political and religious legitmacy was at stake. The Church of Rao was an establishment in Voll from long ago, but the Archclericy of Veluna was not. The Church of Rao had been founded coincidentally and coextensively with nation of Voll, but the theocracy of Veluna had not. Could the novelty be papered over?

Could the Canon of Veluna in his person dress the character of a revolution as a tradition? Would he be received well by Voll? What would his historical legacy be to the Vale of Luna?

All this, and more, will be revealed. Behold!

(Arms wave to magically sunder the curtain of fog and reveal an impossible thing)

 

 

Chapter 17: The nativity of Veluna

 

A fast wind whistling like Erythnul’s stoneheaded mace rends the curtain and the wide world around. The adventurers discover themselves stranded on a slender stone column rising miles above the bottom of a vast, semispherical concavity infinitely deep and broad, burning and flaming in black, orange, and red beneath a dark and empty sky, like hell.

Bwahahahaha! wailed the evil professor.

My contract, he said, stipulates that I am allowed one high-budget magical effect on our adventure, which I have put in right here. It has no reality. You could jump off this precipice into the yawning abyss and no harm would come to you. Would anyone like to try?

Oh! Oh! I would!

Very well, young lady. But I caution you. It will take 25.62 seconds for you to hit bottom, at which time you will reappear here. During that time, I will continue my lecture and you will be missing out. So be sure . . .

(She jumps. Laughter, cheering, and screaming)

Hmm. My word. Scholars, surrounding us is an immense section of the Oerth’s convex surface that has been inverted to the concave; sunk down like the surface of a death star where the planet-killing super-laser’s dish is; like the inside of porcelain bowl decorated and fired with scenes from Hades. But as you may see (a second wave of the arm illuminates the sky and soothes the distant flames), the surface below is neither metallic nor porcelain but is the Oerth’s natural topography sunken in. Since we are standing at the bottom center of the fantastic scenanrio on a rocky needle that rises only three miles up above, the far horizon is sweeping up and away for a thousand miles in all directions and does not vanish after only a few miles like the horizon of a sea when we are looking at it from atop an island’s volcanic peak.

(The jumper reappears, prone, stunned, shaken, and recovering quickly)

Woooooo! Holy smokes, I wonder if I want to do that again!

Impermissible, I’m afraid. One departure only, per the terms of the contract. As you can see, the entire magical concavity is visible from here, from the Icy Sea to the Gearnat and from the Rakers Mountains to the Yatils. The Nyr Dyv is south of us halfway up the concavity’s side, and almost every oerthly place mentioned in this monograph so far is below the horizon. The most recently mentioned (the illusion spins until the heroes face the east) is the Theocracy of The Pale, where the modrons distributed their moral regulators, once upon a time.

(Extending an arm with his palm upturned, the professor wiggles his fingers and The Pale zooms in)

Please, if you will, follow the progress of that ship▽ (zooms nearer) that sails the long, slow bends of the Artonsamay River toward the Nyr Dyv. It continues along the lake’s northern shore and past the verdant meadows of Shield Lands, the craggy Rift Canyon, and the steaming White Plume Mountain; billows south to the mouth of the Veng River then west past the coast of Furyondy to reach the far southwestern point of the lake; where lies Dyvers, the City of Sails (zooms closer) with its famous, eventful royal palace (closes again, shifting the scene until the scholars’ sight is on the ship’s prow, looking southwest as the vessel moves into the mouth of the Velverdyva River). We move up river going west, with Furyondy on the northern and Verbobonc on the southern banks, until we reach Veluna and the river’s great northern bend toward Iron Wood, Daple Wood, Tempton Water, and the four-hundred-mile stretch straight to Fals Palaces, the Carnalion Mountains, and the mouth of the Fals River Gorge; where we leave the river and go south to Mitrik, then east in Veluna to the Lortmil Mountains; east further on to Celene (the forest realm of the fey Queen Yolande) and then to the city of Greyhawk, Gem of the Flanaess; reaching, at last, the Duchy of Urnst on the southern coast of the Nyr Dyv; where we find the city of Nyrstran, the arboreal campus of Old Maurian College, and even the little tower in which I live and, right there, if we maximize the zoom, the window to my rooms where I am casting this illusion and . . . hmmm . . . why can’t I find me?

Because you’re here, Professor.

Don’t be silly. I know where I am.

But Professor, if we turn around and look behind us to the north, why is everything and everywhere still black and burning like hell?

That’s the way to Doraka’a, my boy, the path you are really on. In that direction, the illusion displays what’s in store, not what you would normally see. Don’t get upset. Nothing I can do. Terms of the contract. Although, in a happier manner, I may show you something more encouraging. Directly southeast of here, only five miles away, the Ritensa River flows out of the Fellreev Forest: that’s the way you have came here. By backtracking the river going south (zooms in), we retake your journey, racing through the hobgoblin plains to Law’s Forge, your home; where, as you see, everything is quite normal, everyone is quite safe, and they are only wondering what has happened to you.

(Hugs, tears, and mutual encouragment among the scholars)

As you can see, my dears, it is an easy trip by sailing ship from The Pale to Dyvers and Veluna by the Artonsamay River and the Nyr Dyv, the very route that (as I propose) once transported an untold number of regulating moral compasses from the abolished Pholtan theocracy in the east to the adventing Raoan theocracy in the west. This could explain how my compass came to be horded by a spirit-naga in the Nyr Dyv’s depths: someone sailing this way might have dropped it in. Too, it casts in an intriquing light the blockquote I am inserting into our book right now, excerpted from ◒Voll◓, the historical source that, as we know, contains interpolations made by Raoan scholars at around the time that the Archclericy of Veluna was founded and the Pholtan theocrats were exiled from The Pale. Here it is, I copy it for you:

In the years following the establishment of the viceroyalty, Veluna acted as a sort of moral compass for Furyondy as a whole. Key adherents of Rao gained major positions in the court of the viceroy.

A moral compass, did it say? Although the modrons’ regulators had worked disastrously in the hands of the Pholtans, in the possession of the Raoans they might have worked very well. Raoan theology is highly principled, philosophical, ethical, rational, and systematic; and Raoan clerics were imbedded within the imperial politics of the viceroyalty as well as the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa, from both of which they hoped to extricate themselves unsuspectedly while creating their own government. The great difficulty of doing this is what we are trying to explain, and if the Raoans’ surreptitious but admirably rational, orderly, and lawful and intentions received a magical boost of moral direction, what might they not have achieved?

Frankly, it boggles the mind. Understood as ◒Voll◓ would like it, as a metaphor for counsel given to the king and court of Furyondy, the moral compass in the blockquote seems sturdy, sensical, and plain. But the author of ◒Voll◓ (perhaps) had a sense of humor. We know that the empire was not dismantled by morality alone; the breakup was dangerous and plotted. Before its proclamation the archclericy did not seem to be a prospect. The nation of Voll was ruled by secular princes under the overking’s prohibition of theocracy, and the nation’s fealty had been pledged in great religious expectations that were not shared by the overking, his viceroy. Indeed, the clerical takeover of Voll’s government was unlikely to have been forseen by Voll’s own nobility. At his coronation, King ThrommelⅠof Furyondy was crowned as a secular ruler, the Prince of Veluna, a title that made him the secular monarch in expectation of ruling that land.▽ The empire’s Raoan Church presided at a ceremony crowning a king that they would disavow within half a year.

Seen in this context, I ask: Was Veluna’s moral compass a only metaphor for the advice and counsel given by Raoan clerics to their foreign liege? Or might it have been a euphemism for something not metaphorical but magical and very real? Had the modrons’ regulating compasses of moral direction been used to help bring about the political events that lead to Veluna’s independence?

The possibility, my adventurers on a perch betwixt heaven and hell, sounds incredible and conspiratorial, so you are rightly incredulous. But it will not do to dismiss the thought without first understanding how remarkable Veluna’s surreptitious achievement actually was, because remarkable events require remarkable explanations.

Let’s see.

§

 

~The wars of independence

Sending an illusory thread of gold into the hellish darkness of the burning forest below, the professor retrieves a great firewood for the adventurers to camp beside atop the stone extrusion, conjuring (from behind a scholar’s ear) marshmallows, chocolates, and grahams, which the campers begin eagerly gluing together. (The concave illusion darkens everywhere, flaming grimly in the northwest)

Voll was a nation, the professor told the bunch, that held a deep and abiding faith in the god Rao and in his church, but politically it was ruled by a federation or collaboration of seven noble families heading seven distinct territories, each having its own Raoan bishop. The nominal ruler of that federation, probably known as the plar, served not as a monarch but to pledge homage to the overking and to ensure the pledge was redeemed. Separate from both the Church of Rao and the ruling nobility in Voll was a Raoan mission (as the Raoans at first considered it) to the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa and known there as the Imperial Raoan Church, dedicated to providing a divine sanction for the peace and prosperity of all imperial realms west of the Viceroyalty of Nyrond (these come to glow in the darkness dimly).

It is unfortunate, he told the bunch, that I may tell no tales of heroic battles fought to win Furyondy’s freedom from the Great Kingdom. Although they loom large in expectation; although there were kings, counselors, armies, generals, officers, soldiers, and heroes enough; yet the great battles never took place.

North of the Nyr Dyv (comes to glow dimly), although the territories that would soon unite to become the Shield Lands were already skirmishing over loyalties divided between the two kings, one rising in Dyvers and the other sinking in Rauxes; although Rauxes sent an army (the illusion zooms on soldiers crossing the Artonsamay) to assist its supporters, escalating the skirmishing into a civil war (comes to glow brightly) in which thousands died; even so, it was a civil war in the Shield, not a broader war for freedom, and Furyondy took no real part in it.

Rauxes did send an expeditionary army to Greyhawk that was intended to cross the Selintan River and march on Dyvers(they come to glow dimly), but the attack never happened. The Great Kingdom’s army remained camped near Greyhawk for five incredible years (bedraggled soldiers, flickering fire, dead of winter) bivouacked in inertia. During all that time, a supplemental army was supposed to arrive from Urnst but never did, because barbarian raiders—so remote in the east that they lie under the concavity’s horizon—threatened the borders of the empire’s North Province, and Rauxes required the army of Urnst to contain them. For the same reason Rauxes withdrew its soldiers from the Shield Lands, too, allowing that civil war to peter out (fades to glow dimly) in favor of Furyondy. The Flanaess watched in astonishment as the invincible Great Kingdom of Ahlissa’s war of reclamation against Furyondy was dispersed like investors reckoning a failed corporation. The Malachite Throne was incapable of raising armies to fight on two fronts.

The failure was attributed throughout the empire to the overking’s waning power over his viceroys, vassals, and allies (zoom to the Malachite throne, in Rauxes, where the Raxian overking sits alone and in shadow). Historians have broadly understood Furyondy’s declaration of independence to be the result of “resentment” over the “decadence and incompetence of Raux,” not as an exercise in political ambition. “The viceroy ruled fairly from Dyvers,” one historian has stated, while “Rauxes created extremely difficult lives for the majority of Furyondians”; and another has noted that “Furyondy bore the brunt of attacks by raiders from the north and west, while the Overking did little to protect the western lands.”

Twice as a consequence, in 252 and 253cy, Viceroy Stinvri withheld the tithes that were due annually to Rauxes and redistributed them in Furyondy, claiming that the court in Dyvers was too efficient and benign to respect an unjustifiable imperial mandate (zoom on poor folk receiving alms from the viceroy). The incompetence of Rauxes was real enough, but historians have failed to point out that withholding the tithes was also a test of the overking’s capability to enforce his prerogatives. When Rauxes made no response but protestation (Stinvri is grinning greedily when the poor aren’t looking), the viceroyalty’s declaration of independence became inevitable. The idea that Stinvri had wanted to return to the overking’s service if dutifulness had been restored in Rauxes is unbelievable. Stinvri’s motives may have been benign in effect, but they had contained political calculation and a real risk of military reprisal from the Great Kingdom.

The limits of Stinvri’s benignity were also made clear by the reaction of his former vassals to their new king’s coronation. The determinative factor in choosing a day was Stinvri’s illness leading to his premature death in 254cy. Crowning his son and heir as King ThrommelⅠof Furyondy, not as the overking’s viceroy (people cheering, nobles applauding, and priests hallowing) took place as quickly as Furyondy’s vassals could be summoned to participate. When the coronation ceremony “loudly announced Thrommel as King of Furyondy, Prince of Veluna, Marshall of the Shield Lands, Warden General of the Vesve Forest, and more,” the announcement’s volume was due to the overking’s not being in attendance and needing to hear of it from fifteen hundred miles away (the doubtful emperor cups hand to ear).

Had the vassals been slow to assemble, the overking may have had time to arrive in Dyvers, turning the coronation into an imperial homage. But as things went, the the new era rang in smoothly. Yet, the fact was that the new king’s rule over his former vassals (now his sovereign subjects) was still unsettled in many ways. At the time, the Shield Lands did not exist as we know it today. Instead, there was a number of petty “nobles on the Nyr Dyv's north shore,” many of whom “refused to acknowledge the new king, remaining loyal to the ideal of ancient Aerdy although wholly opposed to the decadent regime in Rauxes.” (The theme, once again, was the decadence of Rauxes, not the ambition of Thrommel.) The nobles that supported the new king were generally those nearest Furyondy’s border and furthest from the Great Kingdom’s Viceroyalty of Nyrond; geographically and politically, the divide in loyalty (zoom to petty nobles hurling insults across a ditch) had been clear and evident for a decade before Stinvri’s death, yet Thrommel’s coronation threw the squabbling nobles into a civil war (take up swords). Originally, the “Shield Lands” was an alliance of lords in support of the new king (comes the ditch to glow brighter on one side). Thrommel acknowledged their allegiance by crowning himself “Marshall of the Shield Lands,” but the title did include the power to rule the nation that exists today, and really, “marshall” is neither an aristocratic nor even a chivalric office, it was an accomodation to the increasing militarism north of the Nyr Dyv.

Similarly, the title Warden General of the Vesve Forest signified Thrommel’s importance as a defender and protector, not a ruler. Like the Shield Lands, the High Folk, too, was not a political unit. The relation of the humans in the town to the elves of the forest was (and remains) a customary one: they had no common government, a bordeland existed between them, and Thrommel’s rule reached no further than his promise of military support against invading monsters and barbarians in exchange for open trade with Furyondy. The title “Warden General” was an accomodation to the Vesve as Marshall had been to the Shield. In the forest, the king had somewhat more authority among the humans than among the elves, but not by much.

Only in Veluna did ThrommelⅠassume a royal title, and that was because he intended to head the nobility of Voll. If he had intended to rule the Raoan church, he might have crowned himself, say, their pope. But even in Veluna, he was crowned a prince, not a king, an accomodation to the independence of his new subjects in the Vale of Luna.

None of the foreign lands that he claimed to rule sovereignly were required to renew their former feudal allegiances; they were to be subjects, not vassals. Furyondy’s independence was in this way a turn from feudalism toward modernity and limited monarchy; the powers of a prince, a marshall, and a warden are not those of a king, even when a king holds those titles. These curtailments indicate Furyondy’s relative weakness in 254cy. Having broken troth with the overking and expecting a retaliatory war, Thrommel made an appeal to the loyalties of subjects, not to the service of vassals, in reformation of their allegiance to him against the overking, and he allowed his subjects to accept the terms and conditions that suited them. Thrommel meant to be king of a truly modern, international empire, one based on constitutional, not feudal, freedoms.

How was the offer received by Voll, in particular? To the noble families, it must have seemed natural that the plar, a noble elected by them in responsibility to a foreign ruler, would be substituted by an hereditary prince serving the essentially the same purpose and making no great difference to government in the Vale of Luna. But the feudal allegiance of Voll had been pledged not only in secular terms but also in the great religious expectations of a branch of Raoan clerics that had long been in service to the overking’s viceroy, not to the King of Furyondy, not to the Prince of Veluna, and not to the plar, the nobility, the people, or even the Church of Rao in Voll. What would be the fate of these men and their expectations when the ancient feudal oath was broken; when the medeival viceroy became a modern king; when the nation of Voll, traditionally ruled by noble families whose territories coextended with Raoan bishoprics, became the secular Principality of Veluna, and the Imperial Raoan Church of the Great Kingdom passed into the realms of modern nations whose memories of imperial vassalage were not fond?

The answer to these questions, to the clerical eyes of the Imperial Raoan Church, must have seemed as dark and frightening as, to your eyes, my adventuring captive audience, seems this grimly glowing and even hellishly flickering concavity, whose horizon reaches up to the moonless heavens that circle all around and beyond.

Into this darkness, if Pholtan priests with experience in theocratic government, having fallen from the Great Kingdom’s graces and seeking shelter that you, in your authority as imperial Raoan clerics, had the power to grant, their solicitous hands proferring in appeasement wondrous and unimaginably magical compasses of moral government; if into this darkness such had appeared to light your way, might you have been tempted to accept a guidance not purely religious, not entirely Raoan, but quite possibly effective?

The answer to this question will be closely related to the Canon of Veluna’s introduction into the pages of his own, fantastical history, which comes next.

§

 

~The nativity of Veluna

As we huddle around our campfire, making our sweet s’mores, having much of the Oerth in front of us and all hell behind; imagine that you live three hundred and fifty years ago as a ranking cleric of the Imperial Raoan Church, a religious establishment of the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa, and that you have great expectations of the government that you serve. Imagine that there is another Church of Rao, established by another government, based not in Dyvers but in Veluna City, the capital of Voll, your homeland. Voll is lead by seven noble families and seven diocesan bishops (there is no archbishop yet) that are united under a secular ruler, known as the plar, chosen by the nobility. You, however, are neither the plar nor a noble nor a bishop; you serve not the people and parishes of Voll but the Viceroy of Furyondyand and owe allegiance to the overking, in Rauxes. Though a citizen of Voll and ordained in its church, your authority is from the empire. And that’s how things are meant to be. Preserving the independence of Voll within its borders had been the purpose of pledging vassalage to Rauxes, and distinguishing between the Imperial Raoan Church and the national Church of Rao in Voll is suited to all sides.

In Veluna City, in the midst of the Vale of Luna, you may see (the concavity zooms in) Greatblister Abby where, two hundred and fifty years from now, Poet’s Corner will be barred to misfit George Byron, Lord Gordyn. The abbey dominates the town; there is no royal palace or court in Veluna City because there is no royal family in Voll, only the plar, a noble elected for life in purpose to pledge fealty to the overking. Though you, as a a political advisor to the overking’s viceroy, reside in a royal palace, your residence is in Dyvers, not in Veluna City.

In those days, Voll’s lords and bishops would meet in Veluna City, while far to the west, in the city of Mitrik, on the eastern side of the Fals River Gap south of the Carnalion Gorge (zooms there), a second locus of Raoan authority presided over the whole business of the Imperial Raoan Church (your church). There are historical reasons for the physical and organizational separation of the imperial establishment (in Mitrik) from the national one (in Veluna City) as well as for the imperial church’s location in Mitrik, not in Dyvers. In 109cy, the imperial army of the Viceroyalty of Furyondy had initially marched on the independent nation of Voll from Crockport, the leading city in Furyondy’s western provinces. Most of the viceroyalty’s territories lay far west of Dyvers, and it served a purpose to have an imperial army stationed there. Similarly, it served a purpose to have the imperial church based in the provinces, where more people needed to hear the gospel of peace and prosperity being preached than in Dyvers. To Velunars, the barely significant city of Mitrik was the symbolic home of the nation of Voll (you may liken it to Valley Forge, in the mythical state of America) and also the home of the Eademer Battistero, the canonical seat of the High Canon of Rao, chief negotiator to the empire on behalf of Voll. Governing the imperial religion was more imaginable from Mitrik than anywhere else in the viceroyalty.

Mitrik was easily accessible from Crockport along the Royal Highway, and at about the highway’s midpoint, the Fals River Palaces (zoom to the eastern end of Carnalion Gorge, at the confluence of the Velverdyva and the Fals) became, in essence, an unofficial and Raoan imperial court (look into a palace window, where cigar-smoking men seated in armchairs are fetched crystal tumblers of Raoan rum set on silver trays). Furyondian officials occupied the palaces on the river’s western bank, while Mitrek’s theocrats built theirs on the eastern. Although Raoan advisors to the viceroyal court in Dyvers were appointed, technically, from Veluna City, they were really chosen in the Fals Palaces in deliberations that did not require attendance by the bishops and lords of Veluna City. Mitrik embodied the relation of the Imperial Raoan Church and its spiritual parent, the Church of Rao, while allowing the Voll nation and the Ahlissan empire to conduct their political business separately, as suits a vassal and liege.

(Dismissing the zoom, the concavity’s true perspective and inversed normality return, bathed in daylight)

So, I ask you, my campsite scholars on fantastical adventure; given the historical geography and the political divides, what are the odds that in Mitrik, in 254cy, when the (formerly High) Canon of (formerly Mitrik) Veluna declared independence from Furyondy and claimed sovereignty in the name of an archclericy that did not exist and that he, himself, would preside over; what are the odds that he acted in the best interests of the overking in Rauxes, the viceroy-become-king in Dyvers, the newly-independent but formerly-vassal states in questionable service to the king and (or) the overking, the imperial Great Kingdom, the Kingdom of Furyondy, the plar and nation of Voll, the Church of Rao, and the whole Vale of Luna?

(One hand is raised)

Yes, my boy?

None, sir?

Wonderful! Well done. And yet, in his official capacities, Canon Hermiod, prior to proclaiming the Archclericy and declaring independence, had no interests other than those I mentioned. His service to the viceroy was a sacred fealty to the overking. His ordination in the Church of Rao was a sacred troth to his god and to the bishops of Voll. His civic duty as a citizen of Voll was to serve the government of the plar and the nobility. Actually and officially, in Voll he had no authority all. In the viceroyalty, he adminstered a cadre of theocrats and court advisors (like a sacred civil service) and headed the imperial promulgation of Raoan doctrine by means of church services. He was not a bishop, anad he was not a prince; he did not ordain the clerics of the imperial Raoan churches, and he had no place in the viceroy’s court. He was in every direction subordinate and without any interest of his own, and what was true of their leader was true of all the Raoan imperial advisors.

Since the theocrats that would form the Archclericy had been without self-interest, how had it come to be? How had the Canon of Veluna appeared so suddenly in glory? Why was the only historical recorded interpolated? Why have historians said (why do they still say) nothing about the situation, misrepresent it, or tamper with the evidence? What power could intimidate so well and exact such deference?  How on Oerth did the Archclericy’s sanction become the one, only, and holy explanation for everything? What is this fearful obfuscation? Who are these inimitable men? What kind of moral compass do they own? And, although it is probably unfair to tell ghost stories at a campfire lighted deep in hell’s darkness, it is remarkable that such questions bring us to the essentially moral doubt beyond everything: Was it a only a cadre of Raoan clerics, or was it some awful heart of darkness that devised the nativity of the Archclericy of Veluna, so unexpected in its time and so thriving still today?

The gap between what seemed possible and what then transpired is staggering. Creating the archclericy seems, more than anything, like a haunted palace coup, orchestrated in Mitrik, performed in Veluna City and Dyvers, with imperial Raoan agency suspected everywhere. “The influence of the Church of Rao is everywhere in Veluna” today and for a long time has been. But the Raoan faith in Voll had not been always administered by the Archclericy of Veluna or even by an organized church. It had been, at first, a decentralized aspect of Velunar life. The origin of Voll’s religious establishment, organized into bishoprics and dioceses, depended on writing Word of Incarum, recovering the Crook of Rao, wedding the nation at its invention to its religious establishment, and having faith and nation pledged alike in vassalage to the overking.

Vassalage brought the Imperial Raoan Church into existence and made Voll the gem of the Viceroyalty of Furyondy’s dominions, bringing a huge windfall in treasure and prestige to the nation and the Church of Rao too. With the loyalty of Voll’s citizens and the Raoan faithful so secured, the task of administering the Great Kingdom’s new, imperial establishment meant innovating a new and separate ecclesiastical institution, headed in Mitrik, that would later provide the basis for a new theocracy that would absorb the Church of Rao within it or, alternatively said, would embody the church anew, no longer dispersing the spiritual authority among the provinces but regulating it from Mitrik within a theocratic institution.

The imperial church that had grown up abroad had come home to rule.

I have emphasized how inexplicable and unnatural the alteration seems. The Archclericy of Veluna just appeared, like a monarchical head grafted onto the decapitated torso of a church that had been episcopal, not canonical, and onto a secular governing body once topped by a plar, not an archcleric. The method of the transplant seem unimaginable, but perhaps there is some analogy to a nonviolent palace coup, one where no known person died and any protestations were silenced.

In such affairs, it is always the private loyalties of a few people in key positions that determines the outcome. Had the private consciences of the princes and the bishops in Veluna City been circumspectly swayed by the mercantile, political, and ecclesial power of Mitrik, making a palace coup (church bells ring merrily from the illusory concavity) contemplatable?

A coup does not need a modron’s moral compasses to be believable. But Veluna’s nativity was not only a palace coup. Gaining independence required liberations from Furyondy and the Great Kingdom, too, because each intended to rule in the Vale. Without a significant army of its own, Veluna could not achieve freedom without disabling its lords, and it is worth recalling well how powerful those lords were and the armies they could field.

§

 

~Histoire du Commerce

To say there was no Furyondian war of independence does not mean there were no hostilities. The never-war between kingdom and empire was a sympton of the Great Kingdom’s creeping mortification, a proof of le Général Charles de C’estclos’ renowned thesis that “war is a continuation of politics by other means,” set forth in his magisterial Histoire du Commerce, which I know well, because my academic interests are . . .

Professor?

Yes?

Would you zoom to the Fals River Palaces again? You went by pretty fast and I missed them while taking notes.

You take notes? I say. Commendable! Well, certainly, I will go back. (Zooms to the Palaces) Quite remarkable, aren’t they? The oldest one, the Wren Building, was built on the eastern bank of the Fals in . . .

Thanks, bruh. I got it bookmarked.

Bruh? (Puzzled) Is that a pronoun? Alright. So, C’estclos—whom I cited 129 times in my dissertation—argued that Furyondy’s independence was not merely a change to the course of historical events but a breaking dam that opened cracks already present in the imperial Great Kingdom. The deepest faults were not political or military but economic and commercial; we see them even in the dam’s foundations, built in the second century, barely a few years after the Viceroyalty of Furyondy was founded.

I excerpt this from C’estclos’ ◒Histoire ◓, occasionally placing emphasis on problematic passages for later discussion. Voilà!

(The concavity utterly darkens; only the campfire and the hellfire shed light on the stone column, three miles up, where sit our hero adventurers.)

In 124cy, the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa sought additional trade routes to the highly successful Viceroyalty of Furyondy. The Malachite Throne in Rauxes sent delegates to Urnst (comes to glow) proposing to annex the nation as a palatine state and spare the empire the trouble of an all-out invasion. Urnst’s senators shouted the proposal down over the objections of many members from north of the Nessermouth River, who coveted a closer relationship with Ahlissa.

Decades later, the Urnstite senate had become effete and corrupt. Crop blights (some say the work of druids bribed by Ahlissa) and bread riots forced it to act. Racial and economic divergences had opened between the predominantly Suel population south of the Nessermouth and the mixed Oeridian population to the north. In 189cy, the senate sold the land between the Franz and Artonsamay Rivers to the Great Kingdom for a caravan of treasure and several magical artifices. By this, Urnst was bifurcated at the Franz River (comes darker there) into a northern county and a southern duchy (still glowing). The county rejoiced at being a protectorate of the Great Kingdom, but in the duchy, a rump senate chose a sovereign “Duke Palatine” of their own, according to the overking’s desire. The duke’s powers were not well defined, but in effect, he was a monarch within the duchy while owing fealty to the Malachite Throne without.

Although the county had welcomed the Great Kingdom, the duchy was far less trusting, fearing a degradation of its Suel culture. But much to everyone’s surprise, the overking took a hands-off policy toward the Urnsts, disbanding the rump senate and investing the duke with authority to administer the county as well. Political command of the county’s military was assigned to an imperial minister in Rauxes.

By 200cy, an influx of imperial coin had constructed the new city of Leukish [you may remember it] (comes to glow) in the duchy, soon to be the richest and most splendid port on the Nyr Dyv. Thirty-seven years later, the duke moved his capital there and built a great castle, Shorewatch, across the bay.

◒Histoire◓ then recounts the history of Furyondy’s rebellion, which I omit because we are somewhat familiar with the event. In resumption, I continue to emphasize problematic passages.

After 261cy, the Viceroyalty of Furyondy was no more. In its place stood a vast independent kingdom (comes to glow dimly), with Dyvers, the City of Sails (comes to glow) as its cosmopolitan capital. Dyvers had been Furyondy’s capital city for more than 150 years, but despite the grandeur of the palace grounds (glow bright) and the long tradition, ThrommelⅠ and his newly installed court desired a grander seat for their new realm. A short time after his coronation, plans were drawn for a new capital far to the northwest, at Fairwain Crossroads (comes to glow). In 288cy, the king abandoned the “City of Sails” for his new seat of power, the meticulously crafted architectural wonder of Chendl (glows bright).

By then, the Great Kingdom had ceased planning to invade Furyondy, withdrawn most of his troops from Greyhawk, and ordered the landgraf of the Selintan River basin (comes to glow) to raise his militia to imperial standards for the defense of the imperial border. But the landgraf had been holding secret talks with representatives of King Thrommel. He knew that Greyhawk was in no danger, because Furyondy believed seizing the city would provoke a determined counterattack from the overking’s huge military forces in the Urnsts. The landgraf chose instead to boost Greyhawk’s grip on trade along the Great Western Road (comes to glow) and successfully agreed with the Urnsts to allow trade of Furyondian goods. Commerce on the Selintan River, which had fallen off during the Furyondian secession, swiftly rose to comfortable levels.

Further west, in 286cy, in the Sheldomar Valley (dawn comes feigntly to the concavity’s rim), King TavishⅠascended the throne of Keoland, determined to make it rival the Ahlissan empire and the nascent Kingdom of Furyondy. Tavish raised armies and accelerated castle-building on his frontier. His early maneuvers were subtle efforts to marshal resources already at his fingertips by treaty. In 289cy, Keolandish forces arrived in Fals Gap (comes to glow), where the Knights of the Watch founded the city of Thornward (glows bright), watching and taxing the trade roads between Baklunish Ket, Veluna, and Furyondy. In 292cy, a union of the Ulek states and Keoland was formalized by treaty. Ambassadors were dispatched to Celene, where the fey court soon tolerated Keoish outposts. In less than a decade, TavishⅠhad accomplished the near total confederation of the Sheldomar Valley, from the Crystalmist Mountains to the Azure Sea.

By the end of the third century, a series of particularly bad overkings had levied so many taxes and tariffs on merchant cargo that trade between Furyondy and Greyhawk nearly ceased. Although some trade was still conducted on the Nyr Dyv (comes the lake to glow and roil), the Rhennee bargefolk were difficult to deal with, monsters appeared in larger-than-usual numbers, and “bandit kings” were spreading across the northern shore. By 310cy, Greyhawk had fallen into a slump.

Dyvers was sliding further from the affairs of central Furyondy. With the construction of the new port city of Willip (comes to glow dimly) on the Nyr Dyv’s northern shore, much traffic from the north and east was diverted from the the former capital, which entered an economic slump. At this time, Greyhawk entered a period of expansion and wealth that served as a mixed blessing for Dyvers. Increased trade with the Urnsts reopened former markets, bringing an invigorated flow of goods and coin. But it also brought increased territorial ambition on behalf of the landgraf of Selintan. Although both cities grew richer, a bitter rivalry developed with Greyhawk.

The strong relationship between Furyondy and Veluna (come to glow dimly) entered a period of hardship as the Gentry of Dyvers began aggressively courting merchant caravans that had been passing through Verbobonc to Devarnish and Veluna City (come to glow) and points further west over the Great Western Road (glows bright). The trade war effectively choked all westward travel along the Velverdyva River (comes to glow), saddling boatmen with ridiculous tariffs. Those who failed to comply with the taxes often found themselves mysteriously molested (comes the river to roil) by wandering bands of bandits. Though the Raoan hierarchy in Mitrik (comes to glow) largely ignored the trade difficulties, the landowners in the Celestial Order of the Moons in Veluna City (comes to glow) demanded action. Skirmishing between “unsanctioned” agents on both sides of the border (comes the river enflamed) resolved the issue in favor of Veluna, but a rift developed between Veluna City and Chendl.

Perhaps due to Rauxes’ incompetence or by affording a convenient scapegoat for frustrations regarding the loss of Furyondy, life in the Great Kingdom’s Viceroyalty of Nyrond (comes to glow) was far from ideal. Increasingly, Nyrond looked contemptuously on Rauxes. Finally, in 356cy, the differences exploded into violent political conflict. Nyrond (comes to flames) declared independence, naming one of its own, the wily Medven I, to be king. Medven sent troops to the new nation’s eastern border, in the Flinty Hills and on the Harp River, where the banners of the overking were expected behind every hillock.

Whether the Suel barbarians then surged south from Bone March into North Province (comes the concavity’s horizon to a red dawn in the east) at the behest of Nyrond or on their own initiative, they nonetheless presented the overking with a difficult option: crush the rebellion in Nyrond or lose the whole of the North Province. Ahlissa’s failure to significantly oppose Nyrond’s independence left the fledgling nation with a huge army and new ambition. Within three years, the famed Nyrondal cavalry had marched into and annexed the newly independent Theocracy of The Pale, burning Wintershiven to the ground. A foray into the County of Urnst (comes Nyrond and the county to glow bright) met with equal and less violent success. Nyrond’s expansion met resistance only at the Nesser River (comes to roil), where galleys flying the flag of the Duchy of Urnst (comes to glow) halted Nyrondal progress.

In 350cy, Keoland exploited the problems between Furyondy and Veluna by marching an army across the Lorridges and Kron Hills into Veluna’s southern and western provinces (come enflamed). Much as King Tavish anticipated, King Avras I of Furyondy protested loudly but mustered no troops in the defense of his southern ally. By 355cy, the Second Expeditionary Force had taken Devarnish (and the fabled Crook of Rao), halting all trade along the Great Western Road (comes the diocese to flames).

Facing a grave military threat, Veluna’s secular government fled Veluna City for the safety of the canon’s court in Mitrik. To ensure peace for his nation, Canon Turgen IV drafted and enacted the Treaty of Devarnish, an extremely controversial agreement ceding control of Fals Gap, the great Western Road, and all southern territories and fortresses (come enflamed) to Keoland in exchange for a halt to Keoland’s invasion and a guarantee of independence for Mitrik and Veluna City.

The occupation gambit seemed to pay off for the canon, at first. In 415cy, however, when the brutal Commandant Berlikyn was named governor of the occupied Velunar provinces, the situation became an unmitigated disaster. Berlikyn initiated a program of grim oppression and, in 436cy, publicly threatened to annex the whole of Veluna (comes to flames) in the name of the Keoish crown. Whether the king of Furyondy decided to act due to agents dispatched by the canon in that year or because the looming threat of Keoland had simply become too large to ignore, act he did (comes Chendl to glow brighter). In response to the commandant’s public act of hubris, the armies of Furyondy surged into Veluna and battled south of the Velverdyva in a ferocious series of actions known as the Short War (comes Chendl to glow bright as a full moon). By 438cy, the Keoish army had been dispatched from Velunar soil. Devarnish, Verbobonc, and the other southern provinces once again became part of greater Veluna.

This lasted but briefly. In 446cy, the Velunar College of Bishops convened in Mitrik (comes to roil in flame) to discuss the fate of their nation, which many religious men believed was controlled by greedy Furyondians driven by secular goals. Inside the historic Eademer Battistero (comes to light), where the plar of Voll had first pledged service to the viceroy of Furyondy, the bishops met to decide whether to break from the kingdom (comes the battistero to burst in a fireworks finale rising high into the concavity’s sky).

←→

Sitting round their campfire, the scholars had changed from s’mores to salty, buttered popcorn. The stoney outcrop where they perched, high on a rock column three miles above the illusory concavity’s nadir, without warning cracked free. Launched like an arrow from gravity unbound, the scholars flew hundreds of miles up, at thousands of miles per hour, until Oerth’s convex curvature opened to them on all sides, like a great eye seen by gnats two millimeters above a concavitied cornea. Up above, the blackness of space was everywhere, at the limit of everything they knew.

Deep in the eye’s pupil, far below, moonlighted Chendl glowed bright in the gloom; Veluna roiled and burned; Veluna City and Mitrik were fiercely in flame; the exploded Eademer Battistero fizzled out; Verbobonc was ashen and consumed. To the north, the relighted lamps of Dyvers were a beacon over the Nyr Dyv, where dark waters were tossed as by the residual force of departed storms. The eastern lands were calm although dimming, while to the north, in the depths of the concave darkness, hellfires burned on to Doraka’a, where the adventurers must be going!

Oh, wow!

What a show!

Awesome CGI!

It was magic, not . . .

Cheers!

Shouts!

Applause!

Can we stay for the next show?

Can we?

Can we?

I’m afraid not. The illusion passes away and may never be repeated, unless someone unexpectedly finds a way into these pages. Also, there are some explanatory difficulties involved with the excerpt from ◒Histoire ◓ that ought to be explained. I will reserve them to an appendix that you may consult if you survive this adventure and find yourselves at leisure.

My concave illusion now spurts, fizzles, and fades. How I enjoyed it! It was intended to remain in your minds. As you have seen, the course of history was never smooth for Furyondy and Veluna, no matter what people say. It involved trans-contintental politics, kings, viceroys, senators, riots, magical artifacts, dukes, palaces, great cities, armies, militias, knights, taxes, trade roads, waterways, barge folk, monsters, bandits, merdhants, ships, caravans, trade wars, bishops, landowners, barbarians, and, for Veluna, independence, foreign invasion, occupation, liberation, and (rather oddly—did you notice it?), a second “break from Furyondy,” two hundred years after the first one, this time proclaimed by the bishops, not the archcleric; a dramatic episode that our illusion’s ending began but did not conclude. The Archclericy, although as we know born in 254cy, was not fully emancipated until the Concordat of Eademer in 446cy; and in those centuries, a low-grade blood feud had persisted between Veluna and Furyondy that historians have only partly seen and do not know how to deal with, because its history contravenes the thesis of the fraternity of those nations.

The feud persists to this day; in proof, I will tell you a fairy tale, a romance in a time far removed from the days of the illusion and nearer our own, when a Furyondian prince and his Velunar lady made a perfect match, almost.

 

 

INTERREGNUM

 

 

 

 

Chapter 18: The Unified Kingdom

 

Few lovers influence history. You may propose Dido and Aeneas, or Cleopatra and Antony; but Aeneas abandoned his Carthaginian queen because he was too fond of his destiny to defy it, and Cleopatra—whose luxurious bed was a ploy for the liberation of Egypt—went to war beside her Roman husband but never swooned for him: they died as they had loved, not inseparable, not far apart.

Love makes trouble. Of the seventy-one gods that have failed to bless me, thrice-kissed Myrhiss would be chief were it not for two kindnesses. One was the tale of Thrommel and Jolene, the fabulous romance of our time. I did not know them and, even today, know little of them more than what everyone knows. Their marriage, which would have changed so much, never happened. Why, then, are they in my history?

In part, because the adoring people of Furyondy and Veluna are right—Thrommel and Jolene are a perennial midsummer’s idyll, flowers entwined, enduring, and unfading. Only in reality are they locked forever in winter and ice.

Rumors of Prince Thrommel's reappearance are still heard, upon occasion. After eighteen years, if he had the opportunity, would he approach his beloved again? Time must have changed them. Would he believe that his apparition could abate his mistress’ sorrow? Or, would he choose to remain obscure, forsaking a kingdom that needs him to preserve the tranquility of her grief? The wide world knows that despair would have killed Jolene had it not become her. Would Thrommel’s return restore her to life? Or, without so intending, would it denounce her for having once loved?

The Supreme Mistress of Samprastadar lives and, in some ways, prospers. I therefore may not speak on her behalf. But for Thrommel, a man now middle-aged if he breathes, and bereft of love and hope; a man much like me; for him, I venture this consolation:

Joey kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,

Say I'm growing old, but add

Joey kissed me.

About the second kindness Myrhiss has done me, I will not tell you.

◒◓

Ferrica Aposnos' book, Mistress and Prince: The Romance of Jolene of Samprastadar and Prince Thrommel Ⅳ, was the literary sensation of the 570s. It is possible that all other books published that decade (of which one or two were mine) combined to sell fewer copies. It had everything—politics, nobility, scandal, mystery, murder, war, fairy tale, and love, love, love—and it was written by a known, intimate friend of Jolene's. Since the Supreme Mistress said nothing against the book—from ten days after Thrommel's disappearance, she said nothing in public at all—Jolene's sentimental confessions (as the book styled them) to Ferrica seemed confirmed. It was not easy, though, to credit Aposnos’ equally intimate knowledge of Thrommel's feelings, or that the famously colloquial prince had expressed himself with the allusive flair of Mistress and Prince. But Ferrica had a friend at court who was Thrommel's confidant, and there was nothing implausible about that.

When the romance’s author was sensationally discovered to be not Ferrica Aposnos but the Honorable Edmore Wunsay, third child of the Baroness of Littleberg, everything was tossed about. Wunsay had been privy counselor to Thrommel for ten years and was well known to be in love with him. So, the intimate revelations about Thrommel became indubitable, and the ones about Jolene were suspect. Had Wunsay fabricated her confessions? Or had Ferrica Aposnos been Wunsay's confidential source? The sotry’s principle characters still living—Jolene, Wunsay, and Aposnos –had nothing to say on such matters. They retreated from public view and have been content there ever since.

Mistress and Prince begins on the day Jolene and Thrommel met, in Castle Estival, west of Verbobonc Town, on Flocktime 25th, 569cy. An evil cult buoyed by an army of monsters had assembled nearby, threatening Verbobonc’s possession of Welkwood Forest and the nearby mountains and hills. To combat the threat, armies had been sent to the castle from each of the six nations, pledged to the command of Thrommel Ⅳ, Prince Regent and Marshal of the Furyondian Army.

But, in the manner characteristic of the commensurate races, the prospect of making war against a common enemy had divided the evenses into separate camps, each seeking political advantage. The prince and marshal was tasked with commanding the assembled Six Nation Army▽ and overruling the persistent racial and nationalistic divides.

Thrommel dismounted outside the castle gates unnecessarily. He could have ridden to his destination within. But the path to the marshal's quarters went through several courtyards, and the prince would greet every diplomat that hurried to be in his way.

From a tower window, my lady and I watched him trod among the serpents, each poised to bite his heel. They distressed him not at all. To the contrary, he spoke benevolently to each as to worms he would elevate to humanity, so poised that I partly believed he could work the change. I was young, ignorant of court, and entirely mistaken. There was no hope of transforming those that measured their worth by the length of their fangs. Thrommel and Jolene, throughout their time together, defended themselves by keeping the cobras uncoiled. It was their gravest mistake. Uncoiled snakes may resort to assassins.

It took three weeks to exact the political toll of the Six Nation Alliance. In the interval, the six armies garrisoned at Castle Estival might have been reduced to eating their horses without a diplomat to care. The intriguers had no concern but themselves. Similar calculations, in unabridged form, would later deny the mistress and prince their wedding day.

At Castle Estival, however, the prince would have his way. Everyone understood that an agreement would be reached to place the Six Nation Army under his command, and in consequence, the hope of uniting Veluna and Furyondy by Thrommel and Jolene’s wedding grew daunting.

Wunsay wrote everything that needs to be said about the politics at Estival in the first pages of his book and said no more. Bickerers! If you will listen, you may hear magic gathering! In Wunsay’s romantic prose, the castle’s old stones harbored not diplomatic deceits but a fey garden luxuriant under the unsetting sun. Storms broke hourly on the castle’s walls to drop the rains of heaven upon the invariant love within.

I have seen Castle Estival, and it is a functional old fort; two or three nice buildings and one fine garden attached to the marshal's quarters. There, Thrommel awaited Jolene at breakfast, and she, him, at dinner. That they talked of only love was impossible. "What do you think Thrommel's politics will be tomorrow?" woofed Urthgan the Eldest of Tulvar while dining with the castle’s contingent of gnomes each evening. The elder did not care and enjoyed the discomfiture of the humans, whose ambitions depended on the answer.

At Estival, Prince Thrommel was a political neutral, presumably. The Plar of Veluna's second daughter was not. Yet, although Lady Jolene must have influenced him, it was difficult to see when or how. Her father’s agenda was not visibly furthered, or anyone else’s for that matter, beyond the need for a limited political agreement. But Thrommel gained from Jolene solutions to fractious problems that were not meant to be resolved. “Truth be told," said the Duke of the Reach resignedly after the Treaty of Estival was signed, "most of what's in there came out of Thrommel's garden."

Literary critics have said that Mistress and Prince lacks realism. They are not embarrassed to say that realism is not among the talents of Edmore Wunsay, the man who wrote much of the Treaty of Estival, and to me that seems a derangement of mind. Wunsay has cupped politics in one hand and love in the other—pollution and rainwater—and after filling your hands that way, you cannot clasp them again and still have rain. Wunsay’s romantic portrayal of Jolene and Thrommel spilled the admixture and retained the love, and it did so with exceptional fluency, because Wunsay was not in love with only Thrommel. Mistress and Prince is inconceivable without the attachments that bound Thrommel, Jolene, Wunsay, and Aposnos to each other. I do not speak of togetherness, closeness, or intimacy but of participation, which is never ungainly because participation is always a gain. The knack of it, though, is not often found in people.

◒◓

As marshal of the principal army and prince of the largest nation, Thrommel was, inevitably, the military commander of the assembled Six Nation Army and the political arbiter of the Six Nation Alliance. The day of his arrival at Estival occasioned a ceremonial procession down the castle’s great hall, a formality that had a routine meaning. Thrommel was expert on such occasions and knew the cardinal rule: do not acknowledge anyone by look or bow whom you do not intend to favor.

He had no intention of favoring the Plar of Veluna when he glanced on the plar's second daughter, and then, in an act that would change the world, glanced again.

§

 

~Mistress and Prince

Everyone talks about the prince and Jolene! Right now, my friend has written me a letter; Jolene is engaged with her father; and I think I have time, before she returns, to copy it out:

My dearest Ferrica,

I write this hastily. It is important news, and who knows when I will again have time. This morning, as is my custom, I went down to breakfast twenty minutes ahead of the prince. If there were troubles brewing, I wanted time to cool them. I found one simmering on the fire or, rather, set at table, where an extra place had been prepared among the dignitaries. The placement card read, "Lady Jolene of Samprastadar." I thought for fifteen seconds. There should be no one at table whose name, title, and face I did not recognize. Yet, this Lady Jolene was no one to me.

Then again, it was all too obvious. The only no one in the castle that came to mind was the plar of Veluna's second daughter. She had turned the prince's head last night, everyone saw. The impression made on him must have been deeper than gossips had dared speculate. I could think of no one else it might be. It must be her! I could only hope that she would not be at breakfast directly from Thrommel's bedchamber.

Yet, surely, it was not that lady! If Thrommel were to invite her, then her father and his eldest daughter must be included. Courtesy and protocol required it. Besides, if Lady Jolene had arrowed Thrommel's heart, why would he seat her defenseless at a table with twenty sharpened knives? Since she was Count Lorrish's second child, did Thrommel Ⅳ intend to insult the plar and his heiress by neglecting their invitations while granting one to a girl they called, what, "dear little Jolie?"

Actually, Thrommel risked insulting every ranking person at table and their relatives back home with this invitation. Did he believe that the Archbishop of Veluna City would not notice the plar's daughter unaccountably seated one place below him at breakfast? Come to that, why was this lady seated halfway up? The second child of a Velunar count? Unavoidably, this would insult the table's lower portion. Was Thrommel really risking our hopes in the Six Nation Army to talk to a girl?

Ferrica, when I got to that last bit, a terrible, mistaken judgment imposed itself on me. Yes, I thought. Risk an army, risk a war for that girl, if that is what your heart commands. When it comes to that, what else may a man do? People want wars and always get them. Love, though, leaves the unready in losing situations. I suddenly felt like a coward compared to my prince and to all men worthy of a lover's claims, from Troilus down to poor Jude Fawley. I will not go so far as to say that I admitted this folly: I allowed myself a moment's confusion.

While engaged by these thoughts, I began searching for the castle steward. My idea was to reverse the aberrant decision that, almost certainly, the prince had made himself. The table could be reset without Jolene's place, and the lady prevented from arriving. Actually, she was probably hoping for that relief, which would spare her a confrontation with such a vicious street dog as Branditon, whose place was opposite hers. Thrommel would be enraged if I intervened, but he would hear reason. He might even be brought to see things as I did, as a relief to the lady's sentiments.

But by the time the steward was found, my ideas had drooped to their pliable utmost. I am so tired of war games, Ferrica! You cannot imagine how dreary and incessant they are. Especially this one, which no doubt shall be recorded as a legendary alliance, although it is only a renewed occasion for political squabbling and political gains. Occasionally, I sink to believing that the gods themselves view such aspirations as a virtue.

In this odd mood, when I found the steward, I only enquired whether anyone had been charged with escorting the singular Lady Jolene to a place at table, and offered my services to that end. Unnecessary, she assured me. Prince Thrommel had charged one of his captains with that duty. She confirmed that of which I was, by then, perfectly convinced—that Lady Jolene of Samprastadar was the second daughter of Count Lorrish, Plar of Veluna. If it were possible to groan, giggle, and cry all at once, that is what I did.

I returned to the table and exchanged my placement card with that of someone set a little lower, thus sitting nearer the woman in question. I wanted to watch her closely and observe the effect of the prince's conversation on her. I had decided that, whatever weaknesses she exhibited during this exposure to society's unkindest elements, I would run a rapier through the rhetorical spleen of anyone who exploited them. I could well do it, they each one knew.

The seated table waited five minutes for her arrival. This was so obviously arranged that the prince winked at me when I raised my eyebrow. When the girl arrived at last—I say, "girl," because only the prince and I were within a decade of her youth, and most of the assembly were thirty years her senior—and Captain Hansleath was seating her, I rose from my place and slightly bowed. By this antique custom—which I was alone in observing—I sought to signal to everyone, not least herself, that this lady was not without an ally having a station high enough to be reckoned with yet low enough to redeemably commit a discourtesy. I knew that no one at table (excepting the prince and the young lady) had not fallen previously to my talent for the final tilt in a joust.

It was all worry for nothing. Lady Jolene's etiquette was perfect. No, it was more than perfect. Perfection requires only practice. The lady's manners were purposed, directed, targeted, intelligent. I do not believe she initiated a conversation that hour. But after Prince Thrommel had addressed her, everyone at table was obliged to replicate the courtesy. Watching the nobles and high clerics composing their cranberried expressions into sweetness before addressing "Lady Jolene" cured my ill humor. They may not know who she was, but in following the prince, they must acknowledge her person. Every remark that passed their pursed lips was carefully crafted to sabotage, to deceive her into a reply that could be calculated on or smirked at. Her responses remained poignantly meaningless, as placid and fathomless as a lily pond in a quiet mist. The prince was more and more in good humor, as his Lady of Surprise vaulted airily over every attempt to pit a weaker wit against hers. That dog Branditon dared not speak; it is dangerous to engage someone who has ten times one's mind.

I found the Lady of Samprastadar more wonderful every minute. Were I not already in love, my heart might have been in jeopardy. Lady Jolene is pretty, Ferrica, and I have always found that to be sufficient in explaining love. But it is hardly adequate to the case in hand. Loving someone takes fifteen minutes to sink in. Thrommel had found the plar's daughter captivating at a glimpse, enthralling at a glance.

He seems aware that he has discovered a treasure, and I hope to hear him try an explanation sometime. He will fail. The lady's figure is good, but neither voluptuous nor refined enough for singling out from a line of personages by one passing, angled look. Her face has expressions that most fail to convey, and her eyes, once you know them, are powers beyond measure. But everything that is excellent about Lady Jolene requires knowing her a little to see, and Thrommel had not had that occasion. Nothing that she was would have singled her out among the ladies lining last night's procession.

Will you believe that, upon occasion, the existence of one person is something magical to another? No, of course you won't. I appreciate your acquaintance, Ferrica, and you lead me again to hope that someone will understand this idea of mine. I am not speaking of love at first sight (although that is what it is), which is likely a physical attraction that diminishes, often enough, in a short while. The magic I speak of is an impossible insight, a knowledge won at one look that should take days or weeks or months to come as a surprise; that you love the other, that your personality has bent to theirs, that you may be absent from them only to discover that you never were. I am half persuaded that your Lady Jolene is, to Thrommel, a magic girl. She does not and probably cannot deceive him in this. He knows her in a way that transgresses the rules of acquaintance and defies the pitfalls of infatuation.

As for the lady, she is intelligent and kind enough to do his mind and feelings no reduction. Whether there is in her something reciprocal to what has befallen him, I dare not say. My first duty is to deter Thrommel from such stray thoughts. But I have seen Jolene, spoken with her a little, and I cannot say that I will acquit my duty too well. In fact, I have already encouraged him the other way.

Clever Ferrica, I will tell you something that I do not want you to include in your diary. Although I denied it, there was one brief conversation that Lady Jolene initiate at breakfast. When the guests had momentarily left her alone, she raised her eyes and addressed me as "Sir Edmore," making a polite inquiry about me.

"Lady, do you know me?"

"I know that you are kind where it matters and deserve more than you get in that way."

I stared at her. I hope I did not fall into a frown. Was she playing me? Was she sincere? I do not think that, in my entire life, anyone had silenced me before by an introduction. This lady, this incredible girl, had put me in a muddle that I could not define and could not escape.

"My Lady," I replied, with a noncommittal nod.

No," she said, "you must call me Jolene."

My mind flashed in recognition of the truth. None of this was by accident. The prince had surely met this lady last night, and seen that there was no reason to shelter her from enemies. Let her draw her sword, and she will slay what comes her way. I could not tell whether I had then been slain or counted a friend, but there would be time to find out. Probably, Thrommel had told her about me, and if she will favor the prince, then her favor toward me may be presumed.

I leaned back into my chair, assuming a relaxed posture. I glanced left and right to see who was watching, and satisfied that there were enough to commence rumor and scandal, I returned to her an absurdly broad smile.

"Oh, yes. And I would never forgive you if you named me anything but Ed." Until that moment, only the prince and my family had ever called me by that name. But you see, sweet Ferrica, that is the whole question. That is essentially the problem of Jolene. You see her, know her a little, and you either believe, or you don't. I am more than halfway to believing.

In confidance,

You Know Who

◒◓

Three weeks later.

Ferrica,

We march before dawn, going east to Hommlet. Thrommel has chosen Greenway Valley, terminating in a narrow pass that the enemy will be watching. He wants to gain a position to the north that is favorable.

I will accompany him as a political aide or spy. Our generals each have ambitions to check, so I watch for self-agrandizing tricks. If everyone behaves, I have nothing to do.

Dearest Ferrica—I address you by the superlative endearment now and quite consciously—you must not worry. On the morning of a war, friends become dearer and remain so. Think on that, not on worse things.

You are never dismayed but too often you expect the worst. Thrommel tells me that your lady, though she acts like a lion, hides a mouse inside. This war is an unworthy trap set for her and our prince, so if the mouse runs, go with her; find a place to hide; alcohol works a treat for me.

Wait for our return.

Your dearest Wunsay. ▽

◒◓

Leen woke me two hours before dawn. What? I asked. Her urgency was not a proper answer. We dressed quickly and basically; our hair stayed uncombed. We walked out the castle gate and reached the road that the soldiers would take from their camp. It was nearly midsummer, but the atmosphere was damp and cold. We held burning torches to enlighten our faces and watched our wild hair grow nested with dew. When Prince Thrommel saw us, he halted the marching column, galloped to us, dismounted, and gave my Leen a long, sweet, declarative kiss. "Huzzah! Huzzah!" shouted the troops, brandishing their swords and halberds in the moonlight.

Everyone gained motive for the fight. Somehow, these two lovers always know what to do.

◒◓

Thrommel Ⅳ is not the soldier to marshal his troops from the rear. He stays near the front, riding into the greatest confusion to stand his horse on the highest ground and sort it out. He grieves for the soldiers who have died protecting him that way. "Were I not a prince," he says, "a hundred others could do better."

I put this to Captain Hansleath, expecting him to exclaim the unique miraculousness of Marshal Thrommel. But he said, with the honesty of someone who could be dead in two weeks and is a commoner speaking to one, that "the prince knows the worth of his troops. We die for him because princes always lead, and this one, at least, fights as well as we. When he gives an order, we can see its logic, or at least, we soon catch up to it, and that is our motivation."

Jolene will not go see Thrommel fight the Horde of Elemental Evil. "I will not watch him die from too far away to be at his side." If he falls, she hopes they might get the body home, but monsters are not nice with bodies.

Jolene cries too often. "Ferrica," she said, "I'm afraid I love him very much." That was the first time she confessed her love to me. She had known him a month! Others have done more in less time, but Thrommel and Jolene have not been conventionally in love. They were instantly together, one locket opening and discovering double miniatures within. Both know it is an inauspicious match, because Jolene's standing as the plar's second daughter gains Thrommel nothing but trouble. Doubting that he would be allowed to love her, he had waited, she admitted, to kiss her the first time on the evening before he led the army away. It was strange that the first kiss should seem sad. Then, he told her that he loved her.

He said, "I have no right to say it. I should wait for a safe return. But I could not say goodbye without confessing what you already know. How can saying one plus one is two do anyone harm? If I didn't say it, you might think I'm too stupid to add it up."

I waited awhile for her to tell me that she, too, had confessed. She didn't, and I have heard her regret his soldiering before. Had she kept a tether to her heart until this war should be over? And she had kissed him for the second time the next morning before dawn, in front of ten thousand soldiers. Was that a panicked confession of what had not been said? An admission that love is not immortal, that it often dies unsaid?

"Yes, Rica, my angel," she said, with that part of her she calls the mouse. Then, glancing out our tower window looking east, "It was something very like that."

◒◓

Impossible! Gods, no! Edmore himself comes with news. He rides hard into the castle, directly to our tower entrance, stopping for no one. Up two flights by two steps at a time, by my counting. At our door, he stops. Stops. Waits. We can hear his breathing slowing, quieting, until we hear it no more. Jolene, her father, the servants, and I are waiting. Does he not know that we wait? He has brought news personally and with dispatch, apparently determined that we should hear it from no other source. Now, he hesitates to tell us what he is determined to say. Every expression in the room has sunk to an identical recognition: the news will be bad. It will be terrible! Only Jolene looks differently from us; she looks already dead.

The knock comes at last. The doorman is lucky; courtesy dictates that he must lower his eyes when he admits Edmore to our rooms. The rest of us face him in tears. The plar steps forward and Edmore bows. "For the sake of the gods, Wunsay, have you nothing more to show than a display of courtesy!"  The count moved to take the arm of his second daughter, and I feel keenly that it was where I ought to be. But protocol insists.

Edmore looked up and took things in. "My goodness, such faces! Apologies. The prince is safe and sound. All the news is good. I suspect you will not believe how good it is. Anyone with a friend in the army should have every hope. The Horde has been irrevocably routed, and our losses are a tenth of our least fears. Everyone should hope."

Jolene was in her father's and sister's arms, hysterical with relief. The servants were hugging each other. I was alone, and no one was left but Edmore.

"Oh, hoh!" said Thrommel's perpetually jilted lover, accepting my arms around him and holding them there. "Now this is what I came for." I burst into tears that fell on the arms that held me.

I had always thought that "safe and sound" was a redundant phrase, saying the same thing twice, like "hale and hardy." It is not so. To hear Edmore say it made this immediately clear. Thrommel is both safe, and he is sound. Two different, wonderful things. I ran to Jolene to share this insight. "Safe AND sound, Jolene." We sang it together: "Safe and sound! Safe and sound!"

When emotions had subsided to within grasp of normality, the servants brought tea. Wunsay had barely eaten that day and had need, for the time being, of avoiding any company beyond our rooms. He must stay with us! The military messenger who had been dispatched with news of the battle, whom Edmore had ordered to start no sooner than twelve hours after him, would deliver Thrommel's official report. What Wunsay had to say was for friends. And lover.

◒◓

I remember Edmore's description of the battle—the dangerous march through Greenway Valley, the perilous path through the Gnarley Forest, and the final advance on the High Road to arrive at the fearsome Temple of Elemental Evil. But this is not a war story. Thrommel’s victory was owing to a simple stratagem. Arriving at the deserted village of Nulb, he divided his army, sending more than half directly to the temple and the rest two miles farther east, behind and below a rocky escarpment that extended along Imeryd’s Run into the Fens of Tor (which have given the battle its name—Tor Fens). The Horde sought to trap the advancing commensurate army between the rocks, the river, and the walls of the fortified temple. But only a mile to the north, the escarpment had hidden Thrommel’s foot soldiers, which crossed the river using rafts that they had carried disassembled. The attack came from behind, by surprise, and in a coordinated manuever that forced the fleeing monsters to run a deadly gauntlet.

 Tor Fens was the most important and thorough military victory since the Hateful Wars, and it made Prince Thrommel a hero. It all owed to his characteristic, even pedestrian ingenuity: the presence of the Horde had caused the villagers of Nulb to flee their homes; Thrommel had bethought to consult them on the local terrain.

The prince had the wind in his sails; the public was calling him a hero; a hero may have what he wants; and this one wanted to marry Lady Jolene of Samprastadar, the Plar of Veluna’s second daughter.

◒◓

Something was pelting our window. The first pelt, you do not hear. The second, awakens you. The third, you think you won't get up. The fourth, you do.

"Come down, farmer girl."

"Oh, thank gods. It’s for you."

"Go back to sleep, Jolie. I must go and see what's wrong with him."

"You know what's wrong. But you must go. There are things I cannot do."

"Don't sound regretful. It is what it is. You should be happy all the time, and it annoys me that you aren't."

"I always knew that I was an annoyance. Don't stay out till dawn, Rica. People won't be happy."

"People aren't happy, Leen. Only you are."

"Hmmmph."

◒◓

After Tor Fens, Castle Estival should have emptied. The treaty was signed, the battle was won, and the princes and clerics should have departed to toast the vintage of political victory or bemoan the vinegar of defeat. The gnomes, dwarves, and elves did go. But the humans would not leave before Jolene of Samprastadar.

It was obvious that Thrommel would marry her. The only hope, for those holding out, was that a consideration of the political consequences would cause Thrommel to back out. Their enemies believed that Jolene had come to Castle Estival at her father’s behest with the purpose of marrying the Prince Regent and Marshal. It was untrue. The plar was an intimidating political agent and his second daughter was his choicest asset, but that was not because she could capture the prince’s fancy.

Jolene of Samprastadar had been raised, not to personify a dowry, but to dismantle the theocracy of Veluna and restore its government to a secular form. As a child of eight years, she had dazzled among the children of the Velunar nobility that were her peers. She led them, invented their games, harmonized their friendships, soothed their disagreements, and thought circles around them. The plar, realizing that a big gun had been born to his house, did what he could. He sent his daughter to a place of his devising to train as a political mastermind, a weapon to deploy when he chose. Jolene was his second child and not entitled to inherit, but her father carved from Lorrish County a holding for her in the upper Capstor River valley, twenty-five miles north of Lorrish Town, and called it Samprastadar. The income was modest but hers to use for any reason.

For this young woman, the Six Nation Treaty was intended as an introduction, an opportunity to observe and be seen at a political negotation for the first time. Stay modest and be quiet. Don't be noticed. Jolene was trained for it. But the plar had not anticipated that, despite everything, she was Jolene, and that standing in a ceremonial line where the Prince of Furyondy could see her was a trigger that would fire everything.

The invitation the plar received that night to a late supper with Prince Thrommel Ⅳ included also his eldest daughter, Sulda, heir to Lorrish County, and Lady Jolene of Samprastadar. The prince had learned the name of the plar's younger daughter and invited her to supper. For ten minutes, Lorrish was perplexed. The prince's attraction to Jolene was undoubtedly good news, but it could easily go wrong. He resolved that only one person was qualified to deal with these intricacies, and that was Jolene. He informed the prince half-way through the evening that he and his eldest must excuse themselves, as they had an early engagement tomorrow. Jolene did not come home for three hours, at two a.m., the last decent hour.

Her father did not care about decency but cared very much to see that the prince did. He first enquired after, and then insisted on, hearing the details of their conversation, but his daughter was too well trained to be bullied by him. She would not say what she and Thrommel had discussed. The plar grew fierce with anger, but the ferocity was simulated: his talent was calculation, and if Jolene would not betray the prince, then she and he were already together. Every further calculation would be premised on that theorem.

◒◓

"I am happy for them, Ferrie." He called me "Ferrie" now because he needed an endearment, and "Rica" had been taken by Jolene. "I know how happy I would have been if he had loved me."

He was drunk. Not enough to miss my window with his pebbles, but he held a bottle and had been nursing it since.

"You should leave here, Ed, and come to Samprastadar with me. My father owns a cottage where you can stay. You could see me every day, and not see them."

"That would be abandoning Thrommel in his need. I won’t do it. They must marry. And I don't want you to call me 'Ed.' I want 'Eddie.' No one calls me that, especially not them."

"Ed . . ."

"Eddie."

"Whichever, you're not making sense. The prince has lots of counselors. And from where I sit, you're killing yourself. You should quit it."

He started to cry. Soon, he was beyond it and on to sobbing. Nothing stops such tears. I was beaten. Edmore Wunsay's grief, which he had been preparing for seven or eight years, was now something only time could heal. Time and distance. I tried again.

"We could leave before dawn. Jolene will kiss you goodbye. Not Thrommel, though. I won't allow it."

"I don't want to go, Ferrie. I want to be privy counselor. What am I, if not that?"

"My friend, Ed. You are that."

"I said, Eddie."

"You're stupid. You've never seen Samprastadar. There are lots of places you haven't seen. We should go there."

"Where? Lots of places?"

"Yes."

"Ferrie, I’m in love with you. Platonically, which means not at all, really. I'm very sorry, because I think I should be. I've always thought so." He was talking nonsense.

"I used to be afraid of you, Ed. Most people are. You shouldn't be privy counselor if it makes you ridiculous."

"Ed? What’s wrong with Eddie?”

"Ed, come with me to Samprastadar. You're bleeding, and I have bandages there."

"If I don't, will you stay? You are a bandage, and you know it. I want to kick the Canon out of Veluna. I'm ridiculous and want to do it."

"Well, that bit's actually not so bad."

"So, will you?"

"Gods, you are drunk. No, Sir Edmore. I'm going to abandon you in your need."

"Sir Edmore? I should quit, before I’m Honorable."

"Nothing could make you honorable."

"At least I've got that."

◒◓

My father loves trips, and I have seen the whole region. Samprastadar is typical of the northern Lorrish Valley, quiet and buccolic in ways that many places duplicate. And if you want landscapes that are invariably gentle and agrarian, then I may recommend it. The peak of civilization, my father says, is not an an urban accomplishment or the verge of wilderness but a countryside of cultivated meadows and, where the land is too stony or wet for cultivation but fit for trees, interspersed with woods. Samprastadar is about equally accommodating, half to meadows, half to woods. In all seasons, it has charms. In summer, it is a cure for sickness and moral woe.

Our cottage, Binsvale, is well situated a half mile from our farm, hidden in a wood, and open to the southeast from where it gathers the sun. There we put Edmore and his servant, Rie Flandspout, whom, he said, "Could do everything and cook a little too. Soup, you know, he's very good at." Dear Eddie! I am so glad you are here.

My father had nothing in common with him but liked him immediately. Both found the other’s life amazing. Life at court—which my father despised—was "amazing" when it included Edmore Wunsay. And farm life, which Eddie had never known except as told by a steward, was "amazing" when my father explained its possibility. Edmore dined with us every evening, and each night he looked a little more like someone I had suspected but never known, a happy Ed Wunsay. During the days, he sat in the shade and walked the lanes through fields and woods. Sometimes, I went with him.

He had come to Samprastadar less than half by choice. Prince Thrommel, after defeating the Horde, had spent a further week in camp with the Six Nation Army. The reason, I could surmise, was partly to assess the defenses of the Horde’s remnant inside the temple fortress. He would not leave without assurance that eradicating the monsters would be a straightforward siege, deferrable to his generals. And though, this time, there were very few, Thrommel never left a battlefield before the dead had been buried, when could he adequately assess the dead. A fortnight after Wunsay brought the news of Tor Fens, Thrommel returned to Castle Estival.

He sent word for Jolene from two miles out and waited for her. Without congratulating him, she said, "I'm sorry for all of it!" He kissed her, their third kiss. What else was there to say?

"Joey, you draw this from me now. It was supposed to be later and more romantic. But I can think of nothing else." He claimed the best ring from his grimy fingers and offered it to her. "You are too excellent. Marry me despite it?" His face was upturned as he knelt, and tears gathered in its crevices.

Jolene nearly collapsed. Slipping her finger through the ring where he held it, she said, "I think, my heart, that I already have."

◒◓

Thrommel took three days at Castle Estival to arrange his departure and to meet with representatives of the three human nations, Verbobonc, Veluna, and Furyondy. The same message was given to each: “I am returning immediately to see my father in Chendl, my business here is done”. The representatives fumbled for responses and departed him less informed than they liked. The Archbishop of Veluna City positively blanched before rallying to say, "May I ask, my Lord, the purpose of the visit?" "I'm going home," said Thrommel. "And, naturally, my father will be there." Only one question mattered, and no one dared ask. Will the Lady Jolene be going with you?

Yes, she would. Everyone at Castle Estival, each determined not to leave before the Lady of Samprastadar, saw him hand her into the coach and set off for Chendl. So—that was that. It was inconceivable that King Belvor would deny his son this choice. And the plar, no one doubted, had purposed it. The world was changing.

◒◓

“I've asked her to marry me, Ed. And she has agreed." Thrommel had built up to it as gradually as he could; but Wunsay had made no response to his graded steps, only eyeing the prince harder and harder. Intimidated out of the second half of his preparations, Thrommel had finally just admitted the essential part. Wunsay went down on one knee: "May the gods bless you and the lady, whose happiness I wish more than any on oerth." He was gone before Thrommel could finish accepting the blessing.

He came to me in our tower chambers. When Jolene saw his face, she said, "Pardon me. I think my father calls," and retreated. Beautiful, pretty, or plain, she was Thrommel's angel, the only one in the room. Then, to me, with an expression like a cracked bowl of tears, he said, "Lady, would you have a ride to Samprastadar?"

"Yes," I said. "I have one ready."

◒◓

Jolene writes to me every day, but I had warned her against anyone writing to Edmore from Chendl. "That couldn't kill our friendship, Leen, but I would need your apology."

"Rica, when it comes to Ed Wunsay, I am your obedient servant. And I will see to it that Thrommel is too." She could disarm me with her smile even then.

She kept her word. Samprastadar was the world so far as Ed Wunsay knew, and nothing happened outside. Eventually, he ventured farther than the fields and the woods and into Ploshmurttin village. Because he was Eddie, he was soon friends with everyone there. Too many of them were underfed, because in Ploshmurttin, too many always are.

"Fellow Ploshmurttins," he said to a group that was gathered at 'The Rest and Dine,' where villagers did little of either but mostly drank. "I announce to you today what no one in your country knows. Prince Thrommel, recently the hero at Tor Fens, and your own Lady Jolene, the most impressive woman of my acquaintance, present company excluded, are soon to be married."

"No! Fie!" shouted the assembled folk. "Who are you, to know that?"

"I am, as you know, the Honorable Sir Edmore Wunsay, of the Barony of Littleberg. And though you are unlikely to know it, I am, in fact, the most likely person to know that your lady is marrying, not just anyone who happens along, such as the Archbishop of Veluna City, but the Prince of Furyondy in his person. By my guess, you will find this out in about a month, as news travels. But I favor you with this special announcement, because you favor me with your being."

No one seemed to entirely comprehend the sentiment. So, Eddie went on to the important part.

"The Prince and Your Lady are a couple most deserving and my particular friends. Therefore, I invite this village and its surroundings to a feast to be held at Binsvale Cottage, which is currently my dwelling place. And all are invited that are willing to help with preparations. Those who do not help may come, too, but those who do help will be paid. And paid a mite more than their help may be worth, perhaps, because love is a generous thing, and I hope to be generous to you. The implied syllogism, you may complete for yourselves.

"Tomorrow and each day up to the feast I shall be here, at this very table in 'The Rest and Dine,' accepting your recommendations as to your preferred modes of helping. I shall bring my servant, who is Rie Flandspout, and your neighbor, the notorious Ferrica Aposnos, whose willingness I mistakenly take for granted and whose capability will prove invaluable to me, both to ensure that I do not commit my usual lapses of judgement. And now, I should be getting on, because Ferrie and her excellent father are waiting on me to dine, and I much desire to see her."

Some thought they saw a tear in his eye at the end. But even so, the Feast of Binsvale Cottage had begun.

§

 

~Binsvale Cottage

Eddie was like a convalescent that had been raised up in bed, feeling better but still invalid. He basked in taking credit for the feast. It was his in conception, he was paying for it, and he had recruited its architect, Flandspout, whom Eddie now calls "Rie" and is in return called "Master E." By gods, Eddie and his names. As for me, since all Ploshmurttins call me "Ms Ferrica," Rie has taken their instruction and does the same.

He plans everything, informs me of his plans, and accepts my assistance in realizing them. He allows Eddie only one assignment, to approve the expenses. Since Eddie desires only to respond, "Yes, that will be fine," everyone is remarkably content with the arrangement. In Eddie's accounting, any job that has been done once may be done twice, thrice, or four times. Work that is not getting done he encourages with better wages, offered first to the poorest. The feast has one directive, as Eddie expressed it: to spread money and a night's festivity through the village. But the reality is down to Flandspout, of whom a great deal is comprehended by the simple compliment, “good at soup.”

◒◓

I had abided twenty-seven years at Ploshmurttin; my father, thirty more. Granny Whittlewood has lived here ninety-two years, and her memory, through her parents, thirty more. There is no memory of anything like the Feast of Binsvale Cottage, which means, there never was.

The job of supplying torches had been consigned five times over. Flandspout, recognizing the difference between brilliance and a blinding fire hazzard, had instructed Chinese lanterns in many colors. They were set back in the trees a little way and came out greatly around the cottage, into the fallow field across the lane. Paper talismans were strung throughout, like bars of gold shimmering on the evening breeze. In sparkling blue and green symbols, some begged a kiss from Myrhiss on Jolene and Thrommel, some summoned the local favorite, Queen Mab, to bring dazes and dreams. The effect was impossible. Perhaps, upon summoning Mab on this summer night, the Fairy Queen had dignified this human habitat, this provincial feast, with enchantments fey in every respect. There were fairies in the leaves of the trees, among the dishes and bowls, in the air-spun curls of the laughing boys and girls.

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lies asleep;

-

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.

How many dreamed of love that night?

From our farmhouse, Eddie walked my father and me to his feast, each on an arm. From a quarter mile away, the cottage seemed like a single lantern of swirling hues. The laughter of revelers rang with voices softened by distance, their figures mottled, as if in jest, by their festive clothes in the mazy lights. A little nearer, and the heavy scents of rural summer were spiced by the smells of the feast.

After letting the scene absorb us for a moment, Eddie spoke to me.

"You and Rie did this. Traditionally, however, the host gets the credit."

"I credit you, Eddie."

"And being my credit, I give it to you. You persuaded me to come here with a persistence I did not merit, and as promised, you had bandages when I arrived. The transformation of Binsvale Cottage is down to you."

"Rie had something to do with it."

"I will credit him behind your back. While looking at you, I say that it was you, and only you, from a long time ago. Rie created this, but he was not the healer who saved my life. So long as I may remain happy, I will thank you for it."

"You're welcome, Eddie."

"You weren't supposed to say that. I am too grateful to be 'welcomed' for my gratitude."

I was happy. I had not been fully happy since leaving Samprastadar with Count Lorrish for Castle Estival. Now, it felt as though I had circumnavigated the globe, arriving back at the beginning to find it ensorcelled. Everything was beautiful, everybody was lovely.

I had feared that Eddie would be self-indulgent and end up drunk and who knows what else at his feast. Instead, he behaved as a mental videographer, wanting only to record and remember. My father excused himself when we reached the cottage. For the rest of the night, Eddie took my arm, held my hands, and walked me around, a husband and wife. All my life, I had only had Jolene. Now, I had another whose existence was indistinguishable from my own.

◒◓

Behind the cottage there was a lean-to for the wood fuel and tools, and a stool for the respite of woodchoppers. Eddie walked me back there, where the lanterns cast only a swaying, half-glim glow, and where I found not only the stool but a comfortable chair, taken from the cottage, set within. He placed me in the chair and straddled the stool, facing me.

"I've written you a poem," he said.

"A poem?"

"I did not think you would be so obviously doubtful of my ability."

"Well, your abilities are notably fabulous, but I did not know poetry was among them."

"It is. And here it is."

I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night –

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright.

I arise from dreams of thee –

And a spirit in my feet

Has led me—who knows how?

To thy chamber-window, sweet! –

 

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark silent stream, –

The champak odors fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingales complaint –

It dies upon her heart –

As I must die on thine,

O beloved as thou art!

 

O lift me from the grass!

I die, I faint, I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale,

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast

Oh press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last! ▽  ^Ñ

He delivered the poem well, his voice conversational, letting the poem speak by its own powers. Those powers were remarkably eloquent.

"Eddie, did you write that poem?"

"Yes—in a literal sense. I copied it out with my own hand. But I wanted it to be mine for just a moment, so I could dedicate it to you. What do you think?"

"I don't get the last line."

"What's not to get?"

"Well, why would his heart break at last, if he's with his love?"

"Ah, that's well considered. Why, indeed? It seems to me it’s an open question, and unless you can provide a rule, I will freely interpret."

I had no rule.

"Well, some think it’s got to do with fainting, failing, dying, and complaints. I'm not interested in that. His heart will break, not because his fate or lady are cruel, but because his lady is too kind, and humans cannot stand kindness like that. It’s like a broken leg, crushed by kindness. Except, it’s a heart, and she may hold together its pieces by pressing them to her. See there?"

"I see a free interpretation."

"I told you. But you've missed the point entirely. The point is, that the soul of my feet has led me, who knows how? to you." He dropped his tone of voice, only slightly, and slowed his speech. "I owe you my life, dearest Ferrie."

"I am glad to restore it to you. I trust you to remember me for it in your prayers. And it was a spirit in his feet, not a soul."

"Whatever."

"You seem to be in a better mood, Sir Edmore."

"Because I've realized something. If you had been a man, I would have dumped Thrommel to enjoy his cis life and asked to marry you. I have never met anyone so superior to me that I liked."

I made no reply.

"What's wrong, Oh beloved as thou art?"

I turned away a moment, looking at the darkest part of the woods.

"Eddie, I am twenty-seven years old, and not pretty."

"Not pretty? You are miles and miles above other women."

But I was beginning to be serious. I had been the bulwark of other peoples' feelings for too long, and suddenly, a fear of my own built a pressure inside.

He resumed the conversation.

"I mean to find someone for you, Ferrie. You think, because no son at the farm down the road wanted you, that you're a spinster? Let me tell you. Nobles are assholes. But there are a few that aren't, and they have a problem: they don't want to marry an ass, but asses are all they know. You are the solution to their problem, the content of their dreams. Have you seen noble girls? They're not an imposing lot. You're comparing yourself to the beauties in Ploshmurttin, which is unfair and impossible. I think right now, this instant, of a duchy that is yours for the having, supposing you liked the fellow."

"You would ruin it. He would be jealous of you."

"I've thought of that. From now on, you are to call me brother, and sister, I call you. No one may be jealous of a brother and sister."

"But you have a sister."

"I didn't say she couldn't still be. 'This is my sister, and this is my other sister.' It's ordinary stuff, you see."

"About as ordinary as you, Sir Edmore. Not."

"Sister, you speak unkindly to brother."

"Oh, lord. How could I speak unkindly to you? And Eddie, thank you for the chair. That was thoughtful. You had no need of the poem."

I touched his hand, and it seemed a little cold but warming.

◒◓

He turned my palm up and looked deeply into it as though reading my future, placing his index finger barely on my lifeline. He said, “I’ve had a letter from Jolene.”

“What?” said I, astonished. I was startled and pulled my hand away. “She has betrayed me!”

“She could not help it. She wrote at my request.”

“Oh, Eddie!”

He took a breath, listed his head, and sighed. “The Ploshmurttins are gossiping, and they say amazing things.” The Ploshmurttins were also feasting nearby, although I now recall only the stillness of waiting for his next words. “News of the world reaches us, Ferrie. You cannot stop it.”

“The news that they are marrying? You knew that!”

“Not about the wedding, dearest. They talk about the terms of the political union—the union of Furyondy and Veluna.”

I set myself firmly in opposition. “That has nothing to do with you.”

“Hazen and the Archclericy will try to stop it by everything in their power.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“How can you say so! They must marry, and it must be on her terms. This means everything to her; and therefore, so it will to Thrommel, you, and me.”

“I hope to see them marry. I do not intend to see to it.”

“Hah! Ferrie, do you hear what you say?”

I heard, and it sounded strange. But stranger things had also happened that I felt compelled to defend. “Does our place in Ploshmurttin mean so little to you?”

“It changes everything, but is isn’t everything. There is room here for this letter and for my reply to it too.”

Did that mean he intended to stay? I had no right to ask the question, although I might expect to know his immediate plans. “Are you called away?”

“They do not dare. We are all bound to ask permission of you. And the Ploshmurttins have their claim too.” The nearby feasters, again brought to mind, had begun dancing and singing as best they could to the music they supplied themselves. A general awareness was restored to me by the sounds. The world became reliable again.

“I want to rent this cottage from your father,” Eddie said. “Samprastadar is your home as well as hers; he will often be here, and I may ‘see to’ the wedding from Samprastadar and Ploshmurttin, our own community.” He cheered up a little, took up the letter, and waved it at me.

“What does she say?” I invited, my heart gladdened.

“I wrote to her and they both replied, though she, of course, composed the substance of it. Thrommel says that his father has been captivated by his new daughter and cannot resist her advice. She advises a Unified Kingdom of Furyondy and Veluna to be accomplished and sacralized by the marriage of the Prince Regent and the daughter of Count Lorrish. Unification, or something like it, must happen, because the wedding makes the prince a noble of Veluna no less than Jolene is, each of them potentially the plar as well as the future king and queen of Furyondy. The public is mad for the idea. Ploshmurttin is mad for the idea. Many decades have passed since the hopes of the people were as high as Thrommel and Jolene have lifted them.”

“What will the unified kingdom’s government be?”

“Jolene proposes a parliamentary monarchy and an established church premised on the distinction of temporal and spiritual powers. The king will rule the state; the canon will rule the church; the legal basis for the archclericy’s temporal power in Veluna, the Concordat of Eademer, is to be abrogated. Jolene requests my direction on the best way to do it.”

“Oh, Eddie!” I laughed and laughed again. “It really is a wonderful world.”

Lowered voices and rustling announced the presence of other people, though we two were hidden within the lean-to. While attending to their words, the chirping of the insect-woods, unnoticed before, became pressing. We strained to hear, and as the gossips came closer, their voices became distinct. Among the half-dozen was the unmistakable Furyondian west-midlands drawl of Rie Flandspout. He had brought guests to the back of the cottage for privacy and was engaged in explaining the relations of Jolene, Thrommel, Sir Edmore, and me.

In his head, I may attest that Rie's thoughts are clear; but in their expression, they are a jumble on a ramble. Among his half-dozen personal reflections, I remember this:

"They are four, but they are also one. Also, they are three; and another, different three too. And two twos. They are definitely two twos. Well, they are more twos, maybe. But nothing is more important to remember than that they are one. The four of them do not separate when you've got them apart."

Although I might apply all my logic or even borrow Jolene's, I could not improve on that. The four of us are pieces of one heart, however we arrange ourselves.

 

 

Chapter 19: Romance and the Treaty of Reymend

 

Some of what passed between Ferrica Aposnos and Edmore Wunsay under the lean-to may be unintelligible to my readers, including the distinction of temporal and spiritual powers. Mostly, it means what, at a more recent time and in a nearer place, would be called the separation of church and state, the difference between politics and religion. Although we think of these as private, personal matters of the individual conscience, this is far from how things were seen in Veluna, Furyondy, and the Flanaess, where they were regarded as communal concerns about the sacred and the mundane aspects of life. In the romantic world, holiness and mundanity coexist everywhere, but they are never mixed: what is sacred is sacred; what is mundane is mundane.

The Archclericy of Veluna is a sacred government headed by ordained Raoan clerics in possession of a divine sanction for the exercise of mundane power over mundane things. If you think this is redundant, unfair, illogical, unequal, and tyrannical, you ought to remember that democracy, too, sanctions individuals in a similar way, and this is why democracies start more wars: they have more sacred individuals. The authority of the Raoan theocrats depends on, and accumulates to, their holy, priestly powers, and only bishops have ordained priests ever since Word of Incarum was written –with one possible exception.

At Mitrik, in 9cy, the divine power of theCrook of Rao played a part along with the bishops in annointing the initial High Canon of Rao to his office. We know very little about the ceremony, but we do know something about the Soteriological Controversy that followed, two hundred and forty years later, between spotists and canonists.

The controversy was resolved by affirming that “the spot had saved the canon, not the canon, the spot.” ▽ The high canon was not consumed by the power of Rao while wielding the staff because he stood at a sacred spot, and ever since, the canon can wield the crook on any ground sacred to Rao (poor Luna!). Denouncing spotist soteriology foremostly denied that the relationship of Rao to the nation and church was dependent on the canon; but indirectly, it reaffirmed, after two hundred years of not crossing anyone’s mind, the essential, powerful, unique, spiritual, and temporal relationship of the nation, the church, the god, the crook, and the soon-no-longer-to-be-high canon.

At the time of the Soteriological Controversy, no one had found it remarkable that it had been instigated by a series of scholarly historical essays written by a simple monastic—Hermiod, abbot of Laudine Monastery.

Hence, hence, and hence, the importance of identifying the High Canon of Rao with the Canon of Veluna: it upholds the canonical authority to preside over Veluna from Mitrik today.

And hence the significance of Ferrica Aposnos’ question under the lean-to, “What will the unified kingdom’s government be?”and Eddie Wunsay’s reply, “Jolene proposes a parliamentary monarchy and an established church premised on the distinction of temporal and spiritual powers. The king will rule the state; the canon will rule the church.”

Two and half centuries after Veluna declared independence, in the common year 570, about five months after the Battle of Tor Fens, representatives of the king of Furyondy arrived at Reymend Town (across the Velverdyva River from Verbobonc Town) to negotiate the constitution of the Unified Kingdom of Furyondy and Veluna with representatives of the archclericy that were intent on forestalling unification. The proposed constitution was premised on the distinction between temporal and secular powers: by its constitution, the Unified Kingdom would deprive Veluna’s theocracy of its divinely sanctioned temporal authority. But of course, no one can deny a divine sanction, and the negotiations fundamentally reduced to the question, who believed in the Archclericy, and who did not?

People generally are not conversant with theological subtleties and believe politics are a mundane thing. Although death is a spiritual occasion, taxes and levies are not; and why, else, is there temporal power? The Church of Rao’s spiritual rule would not be abridged by the Unified Kingdom, and to most people, this meant that union would cost the church nothing that it ought to have. On the other hand, members of the church were loyal and did not want to mess with Rao’s divine sanction. They faced a dilemma.

Sentiments on these points were higher in Veluna, of course, than in Furyondy, but everywhere, the romance of Thrommel and Jolene was tossing emotions about. Legendary romances own a sanction of their own, especially when espoused by a sensational book like Mistress and Prince. Shouldn’t fey lovers and theocrats be able to get along? In the popular imagination, the Unified Kingdom became a magical, mystical realm of hope, and set opposite it, by a natural inevitability, was the church’s most chivalrous hero, the perpetual Shepherd of the Faithful, the Canon of Veluna.

Negotiating the Unified Kingdom’s constitution was a test of the canon’s popularity versus that of Jolene and Thrommel, but the canon bore the greater burden of explaining why a spiritual and temporal compromise could not be arranged. People truly thought about the Unified Kingdom and the Archclericy of Veluna in this way. Relatively few understood the Treaty of Reymend as a religious stumbling block, because few people thought that a theocracy’s divine sanction was integral to a church’s spiritual power and, after all, the spot had saved the canon, not the canon, the spot.

The day of Thrommel and Jolene’s arrival in Reymend Town for the negotiations was an occasion of public rejoicing there. Widespread craving for political reform had been wedded to the celebrity couple’s life together. People especially rejoiced for Jolene, whom they knew in their hearts was a princess all the more because she was a lady from nowhere, second daughter of a Velunar count.

Let’s return us to Mistress and Prince, written supposedly by the pseudonymous Ferrica Aposnos.

§

 

~Reymend Town

Reymend Town is home to two thousand souls, but its fullest purpose is to lie at the north end of the Velverbridge, across the Velverdyva River from Verbobonc Town. There, it provides quintessentially human services to evenses living on the opposite bank: bakeries, markets, restaurant, pubs, a toney shopping district, hotels, and coaches going to and from Furyondy, Veluna, or the Viscounty. Although the elves, gnomes, and dwarves on the Verboboncan side mostly cooked for themselves and kept close to home, they did not disdain humanity and often crossed the bridge to sample the fleeting delights of human invention in Reymend. The smaller town on the river thrives.

The Velverbridge’s Old Lane (there is a new one too) is attested even by dwarven engineers to be a great work of elven magic (quirking the usual custom by which mages take credit for the industry of engineers). But Verbobonc Town’s marvels are many and various, and no one feels slighted in their portion. The Old Lane is a special wonder, with its living, primordial, skyscraping ipt-tree towers and their cables of vines made of fabric and bark that seemingly suspend the bridge from the ipt-trees’ upper branches. But hold on! The Old Lane is actually airborne, and the barely-there cables flow in calm and graceful counterpoint to the sway of the trees and to the compression, spring, and groan of the long, wooden span.

Pedestrians crowd the bridge today. Dwarves and gnomes are perched on handrails (holding on to colorful awnings above), poised between elation and a fallen, sodden death in the river far below, and a smattering of elves overlooks the throng of humans, whose shoulders crimp fey elbows. Most of elvenkind, however, keeps to its ipt-treehouses in Verbobonc Town, employing spy-glasses to watch the direction from whence the princess will soon arrive.

The adjacent New Lane is kept clear for what little town traffic declines to watch for Jolene. Folks say that peasants have been waiting for days along the rural roads so to send their princess bride on her way, blessed with their hopes and their fears. They believe she is a talisman; and so she is, although they do not suspect the reason why.

Verbobonc side of the Old Lane is vacant—save for a few stalls vending refreshments and Jolene t-shirts—because from beyond the span’s crest no one can see the far street by which she will come. No one on that side noticed a narrow rope-rung ladder clinging to the trunk of the southeastern ipt-tree tower. The ladder went a mighty way down from the tree’s leafy top. But at a conjecturally attainable height of seventy feet above the bridge platform (a risible four hundred feet by swan dive into the currents), there was a little loft built for workmen that was big enough to sit on if you dangled your feet to the water.

Eddie had pleaded that the climb, with onlookers below, would be a trespass on feminine modesty, but I had worn my songko and was unafraid. We ascended the rope and pulled it up after us: “You get your own tree!”

The currents below were stupifying. From on high we could see the larger ones, not the ripples you commonly perceive that bobble you up and down if you topple in, but the deep ones that drag you under, pull you away, and deposit your purplish corpse in the deep, downstream mud for evenses to scavenge its pockets. And yet—methought our bridge above these troubled waters may symbolize why Jolene was the girl of the hour; how she, too, had escaped the muddy currents of destiny. (Actually, this occurred to me later, back at the hotel, after I had helped Eddie down from the branches.)

(A violent confusion and struggle)

OH, PLEASE, AS IF.

Oh, no you don’t . . .

Oh, yes, I do!

(Shoving and hollering before calm is restored)

Let me assure you, my exasperated readers, that I have just now and very forcefully reclaimed my pen from Edmore Wunsay, who had borrowed it when I stepped away and has written what was written to this point. He is “Eddie” to me no more. Actually, I don’t know why all this fuss about Old Lanes and New Lanes even matters. I don’t know why any of it occured to him. He is constantly urging me to these florid offshoots that he happily plants in my brain but never prunes. Although . . . he was about to write something not utterly horrible, so I’ll go along with him that far while keeping the prose succinct and modest.

The four of us were often happy in Verbobonc Town. The tops of the ipt-tree forest continuously slept among the drifting clouds; gnomes pranked one another while drinking grog at night; and dwarves sat atop their burrowed rents and sang sonnets to the stars. Shall I compare thee to a faultless mine? Thou art more tempera . . .

OMG, did I write that? Eddie has slipped me a peonies potion, I swear! I would slap him, but he’s getting away!

We were happy, indeed, in Verbobonc Town, but we lived in troubled times and near unsettled places. Not at the beginning, when we lived blithe and bonny, but in the colder months to follow and in the many dark corners of Leeward House, the grand hotel in Reymend Town that had been let as a palace for hosting the negotiations.

Despite Thrommel’s comprehensive victory in the Fens of Tor; despite the Six Nations Alliance; despite the people’s hope in the prince and Jolene; a shadow is still falling on the six nations. And why not? That shade has a history. Sixty years ago, for more than a decade, our forebears had fought the baleful Hateful Wars against orcs and hobgoblins in the Lortmil Mountains and justified it by declaring complete victory at last. The monsters had sculpted a system of tunnels deep inside the mountains and had long lived, beneath our notice, within it. It had been a shock to discover so many humanoids residing where none were thought to be, and we wondered at the intelligent devising of the fabulous lair. But the intelligence was thought, by experts in monster ecology, to belong to their human leaders (although none were in evidence), and the eradication of the monsters was said by our princes to be utter and irrevocable.

Revocation was uttered, nonetheless, three years later, when orc and hobgoblin tribes known to be from the Lortmils swarmed the commensurate settlements of the Pomarj. Our dismay at the monsters’ persistence was overshowed by our doubts about the dependability of our rulers. Surely, the Fey Queen of Celene and the dwarven Prince of Ulek had not failed to notice tens of thousands of orcs and hobgoblins leaving the Lortmils and going south, uneradicated?

The Gran March’s commandant only excited derision when he explained, “When we said ‘eradicated,’ we meant from the tunnels.”

Since then, a military standoff at a violent border has existed between the orcish Pomarj and the Principlality of Ulek. And because the orcs had been said to be eradicated, no one watched the Lortmil tunnels anymore, though they remained intact and extended from Ulek to Verbobonc, where the Elemental Evil would appear.

Today, in the northern territories above Whyestil Lake, there are still orcs that were once soldiers for Iuz, a monstrous quasi-nation thay outlasted their cambion lord’s disappearance. Hobgoblins, in association with the evil humans of the Horned Society, have been warring against the Shield Lands for twenty years just acoss the Ritensa and Veng Rivers from Furyondy—and from our commensurate civilaztion. We are, or fear that we are—surrounded by monstrosity.

The leaders of the Shield Lands, the High Folk, and the six nations do not address these misgivings. The one effective remedy against monsters is a permanent alliance against them, and this the rulers do not do. The Six Nation Alliance against the Elemental Evil had been so difficult and so temporary that, ultimately, it’s only achievement was to oblige Verbobonc to declare (again) that the threat of monsters is gone.

But shouldn’t we know better? Veluna is widely mistrusted; Furyondy suspects Veluna the most; Verbobonc’s domestic politics are precarious; the Shield Lands are afraid of Iuz’s rumored return; and the evenses are keeping to themselves, as they do when the human lands are troubled. ▽

Zuggtmoy, Demon Queen of Fungi, is believed to be somewhere in the sacked Temple of Elemental Evil, way down. The commensurate princes and magistrates deny it, but who cares? They have obscured humanoid armies, evil cults, trans-mountainous tunnels, and an immense black temple being built on high ground only a few miles off the High Road that leads here, to Verbobonc Town, where we hope for a Unified Kingdom to relieve our troubles. May we therefore not suspect that a pile of mold hidden in a deep and terrible dungeon has evaded them? (If the mold in question weren’t an abyssal lord and Iuz’s special lady friend, mabe I’d be OK with it.)

Thrommel has not denied the rumors of Zuggtmoy, and he is in a position to know. The prince avoids lying to people beneath his station, and they believe this noble etiquette is worthy of wider cultivation. Which brings us to the point.

We want a hero: an uncommon want, when every year and month sends forth a new one; while what we want is to be rid of the last one! We might not think Prince Thrommel’s Agamemnon, but as far as heroes go, he’s been a true one. And to us, waiting to be sure of this one, Jolene appears, bringing illumination!

She seems nice. No one knows any harm of her. Actually, no one knows anything about her. A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye. Isn’t that always the way? Just when you think there’s not a flower in sight . . .

Oh, please, good people. Fee, fie, huff, and sniff! Jolene is not a princess. She wasn’t hidden by a stone but by her father. It’s like committing a murder to say it, but Leen is a scheming bit . . . person. Not to her friends; not to her Prince; not to the people that love her; but to a certain class of men whom I may call, for lack of a better term, Raoan theocrats.

Leen agreed (as did I) with the popular sentiment: the princes of the six nations were letting people down, and the prince of disappointment was Hazen, Canon of Veluna, Shepherd of the Faithful. Her father had trained her to uncrook the good shepherd, and Jolie believed, with a deep conviction, she could do it.

The moons, the stars, and the planets may measure what that conviction cost her. Thrommel’s death was surely conceivable in the couple’s circumstances, but Jolene had not imagined it. One small gasp at the news and then cessation, as though a shroud had been cast over the light of the sun and the moons. “Don’t speak of it, Rica. Don’t ever.” She took hold of my dress and pulled, so that I could not escape her. Oh, Leen, I wasn’t going to!

Her life has not been resumed. She abides in a fey land (a wicked one), where her dead prince remains living—and the perpetual canon does too.

At Thrommel’s death, seven months of solemn negotiations—all concluding that the Archclericy of Veluna was no more and the Unified Kingdom was forever—were snuffed out like a paschal candle, on a stripped altar, awaiting a dead dawn. The Supreme Mistress of Veluna (as Jolene was by then), the Archbishop of Veluna City, and Furyondy’s Royal Provost (as Thrommel by then was) had signed the Reymend agreement, pending only the signatures of the two monarch’s, Canon Hazen and King Belvor, to come true. Seven months of enervating effort by hundreds of people were put to an irresolute end. And everything that we lost had been chiefly the accomplishemnt of Jolene of Samprastadar, who taxed herself to solve every insoluable riddle before suffering, all at once, an extinction of her political, intellectual, and amorous excellences.

So it is that we—Leen, Eddie, and I—try to remember the former days; and sometimes, we are able.

◒◓

We walked from Leeward House to await issue from Concordance Stack. This high chimney atop a fire pit had been erected in Viscounty Park, adjacent Leeward House, some months after the treaty negotiations had begun. It was meant to be lighted, in signal to the towns, when the final draft of the treaty for a Unified Kingdom was agreed. Rumors of the news had spread before the kindling, and great crowds were gathered on the Old Lane, on small boats in the river, and in upper Viscounty Park where it was open to the public.

The stack smoked. The fires of Union—and, to the four of us, of privilege restored to all people—had caught flame and were increasing. A marvelous sigh went through the crowd—ah!—as we watched the first breaths of smoke swelling into billows. Huzzah! Dancing, gestures, flings, and falls. Hugs, embraces, kisses. Confessions of liking, confessions of loving, wedding engagements; and unknown boys lifting unknown girls and swirling them about.

In that throng, what were we? Onlookers, more or less. We were relieved, joyous, and free at last—but harboring doubts. Governments, we knew, are more than agreements, constitutions, and signatures; they must function. Would the Unified Kingdom work? Here were its cheering voices and faces in Viscounty Park; but none would be able to protect themselves from the consequences of what we had attempted, or from worse.

We walked from the lower park toward the barricades and the crowd. Jolene was crying quietly but, once in a while, in bursts to flood the river. The tears made her radiant. She was, as once upon a time she had been, the debutant who had captured our hearts at Castle Estival. The sinister Supreme Mistress, a persona she had not repented of, was lost now in the greater woman. Jolene's genius by its nature went to where it was needed. Careful, thoughtful, kind. An accident of birth had trained her to a political will, and she had naturally excelled. But there remained in her a ghost, an image, a haunted something, a possible life that she would never live.

We were all like that. Not one of us but had jeopardized our personality so to degrade the Canon of Veluna. We knew ourselves altered, but we had retained our ideal: there are people, and there are priests; the latter should not rule the former.

We walked east, up the hill from the private park at the foot of the Velverbridge and toward the celebrating people. Without hesitation, without needing consent or consultation, we walked into the crowd. The police, without demur, moved aside the barricade separating nobility from commoner and let us pass. At once everything—for the first and original time—became intelligible. On this day, the people had gotten what they wanted: a prince, a princess, and a Unified Kingdom of their own.

Despite the sordid events to come, I agreed and agree still to their choices. Veluna and Furyondy had been unified in the peoples’ hearts since Jolene and Thrommel had first kissed in front of the Six Nation Army. And here we were, a year later, with the gods having granted our Unified Kingdom. Troubles had surrendered to hope; shadows had been scattered by light.

But we four romantics, adopted and feted by the folk, were stopped also at a precipace of doubt. The government was our concern. A kingdom is no better than its meanest regulators, women and men that we did not know. A kingdom was begun that would depend on those. In our circumstances, there had seemed to be no option. The Archclericy had taken many centuries in establishng its corruption. Out of their ruin, could we raise something better?

Our doubts were mistaken. The new government would never be tried. What we ought to have been thinking about was unimaginable to us, like beheading a king before the gods grant permission. Other men and women were preparing what was coming, while we were unprepared.

Eddie held me on his arm, and Thrommel did the same with his Joey. We had not thought to link all our arms together. When I found her with my gaze, Jolene had been separated from me to some distance by the crowd. She looked at me. The same smile, familiar to me since she was seven, shaped her face. There was no doubt in it. The prince's head turned, too, but we never locked eyes. The crowd by then had carried him away; smiling, happy, and away. In that moment, he believed he would marry Jolene. We all believed he would marry Jolene.

When Eddie and I made our way to Leeward House, forty-five minutes later, we sat on a bench in the garden that looked on the hotel lobby. Everything was calm and empty, as though nothing ominous had ever been there. The diplomats, once determined to go any length to win, were vacating the place readily at the end. In the Leeward’s garden, on a cold spring day, the earliest flowers had shown themselves portentously. Our doubts—Eddie’s and mine—were subsiding, justifiably or not. Our concern went instead to our friends, the mistress and prince. We did not fear for them; they walked among friends. But we wanted them with us, at this moment, when our mutual affection had changed the world.

May love change the world? Dear loves, I am so sorry, but of course not. There is a grave doubt that love ever survives rancor, persistence, neglect, aspiration, and greed. Romantic intentions are most commonly forgotten, and then, hate prevails.

Please, gods, let hate hate aspiration, accumulation, and hegemony the most, its very soul!

Thrommel is gone, and with him, the intended romance of Mistress and Prince. Only the memory remains, and the meaning of that is for sale. For the love of Myrhiss and Mab, do not sell romance short. Do not repent of it, as though it never was. I saw it. I saw it.

 

Those were the closing lines of Mistress and Prince, where “the meaning is for sale.” Wunsay's book was for sale. Did he mean to warn us against his story? Or only against its deprecators? Had he written, after all, not a romance but a partisan political fable? One in which the Unified Kingdom might yet prevail, so long as people remembered it? Was Wunsay hoping for that?

The moral is uncertain. Is it that priests should not be rulers? Is it that romance exists only once upon a time? That it cannot live forever?

Or, maybe, that it can?

I—Annalo Bifurcati—greatly desire to know whether Edmore Wunsay wrote, not an idyll, not a fairy tale, not a political discourse in the guise of a love story, but a fable about ideals he maintained and that, for a time, had swayed history and brorght the romantics to within a wedding day of beginning of something new.

If ideals may change reality, they are causally real. They are not reserved to the imaginary but are as forceful as recipes for soup, wedding days, architectural plans, and our own intentions. In Mistress and Prince, ideals made things happen. To a romantic, they never fail.

Although, I could be wrong . . .

 

This is philosophical speculation. Making it serve an historical argument requires its transformation into an historiographical demonstration. Are the brief, infrequent, political references in Mistress and Prince merely flotsam in Wunsay's fairy tale? Or are they historically reliable? Either could be true. Wunsay was a romantic and a realist alike, the author of Mistress and Prince and of the murdered Treaty of Reymend too. Does his tale say anything about romaticism’s push on the real world and reality’s push back?

Methodologically, I posit that the book is not historically reliabile; then, I prove that my position is false. In that way, Wunsay’s political abbreviations may be shown to be historically credible as well as integral to the romance. Romance is real but intoleratant of adulteration; rainwater and pollution. History must take a more credible look.

Under ordinary conditions, my work would be straightforward. I would interview a balanced sample of the thousands of people who witnessed the events in Reymend and Verbobonc Towns; consult the most seminal of the thousands of relevant documents; and after ten years of studious procedure and five of felicitous writing, I would publish a magisterial reckoning of the controversial Treaty of Reymend that would ensure my historiographical fame for two, three, or who knows how many generations. I would be cited in an endless stream of other scholars’ books.

Only two considerations argue against this agreeable plan. First, it would take fifteen years, while I get bored and distracted in six months. Second, my contract with something infernal prohibits any effort by me that interrupts my work, which I must finish in only a few weeks.

But my contract contains a certain stipulation that gives me hope. And you, my hero adventurers, will hear of it, when the time comes.

 

 

Chapter 20: Wilna Pummenford

 

Wunsay avoided politics in Mistress and Prince so to keep Jolene and Thrommel above the fray: timeless, untouchable, ideal. Occasionally, though, he did include political details in the narrative, often in only a sentence or phrase. Despite their scarcity and brevity, the political comments may be significant. Wunsay was a negotiator of the Treaty of Reymend and the major author of its text. Yet, Mistress and Prince is a romance, not a memoir, and not an exemplary historiographical resource either.

Are Wunsay’s political remarks useful? Especially, on certain points? There is a plethora of source material concerning the stillborn Treaty of Reymend, but on key matters, Wunsay witnesses alone. May I bank on the credibility of Mistress and Prince? It seems unlikely. Even its title stands opposed. Therefore, efforts must be made to give Wunsay's romance a place in my argument.

§

 

~The gaol at Castle Efride

My first attempt was a letter to request an interview, and it gained a reply:

Professor Bifurcati:

Your letter of the 9th was happily received. It is my custom to refuse such requests. As, in your case, I do.

Regards,

Hon. Ed. Wunsay

It was good to know that the pithy style of Mistress and Prince had not deserted its author. Otherwise, the note was discouraging.

It did not deter me, however, because historians are not so easily deterred. A friend from my Grey College days had served Furyondy at the Reymend negotiations as an advisor in matters of religion, and I secured an invitation to dine with her at her home in Stump, a village in Wunsay's Barony of Littleberg. On the way, I traveled a route that enabled me to stop, uninvited, near Wunsay’s residence on his mother, Baroness Littleberg’s estate, Castle Elfride, beautifully situated on the dramatic laps of Rhavelle Lake. At an inn on the lakeshore, within sight of the castle gates, I paused my journey and wrote to Wunsay for a second time to request an audience, this time with the inherent insistence of geographical proximity. In closing the note, I mentioned the imminent dinner engagement that I had with my well-informed classmate. Wunsay again replied with the presence of mind that had served him well in Reymend:

My dear Bifurcati:

Were we not gentlemen, I would suspect your letter of harboring a threat. Because we are gentlemen, I give you some gentlemanly advice. The grounds of Castle Elfride are well patrolled, and the patrol extends a mile or two beyond the castle grounds. Remarkably, its gaol is somewhat isolated from the system of justice prevailing elsewhere in my barony. Time, they say, passes indifferently there.

I trust your visit with Wilna Pummenford—whom I know well, and her family—passes enjoyably. I will tell you that I regularly rely on her discretion in this kind of thing. You may rely on anyone you please—except me.

Ceasing all acquaintance,

Hon. Edmore Wunsay, Castle Elfride, Barony of Littleberg

Students, I tell you that, before my receipt of this letter, I had no idea how knife-edged political diplomacy could be. Edmore Wunsay had threatened to lock me up and throw away the key! And though I had (and still have) no personal knowledge of Jolene of Samprastadar and Prince Thrommel Ⅳ, I did gain personal respect for the capacity of Wunsay's mistress and prince to discover love despite the perils of diplomatic circumstance. And I better understood Wunsay decision to romanticize their story, too: if you let politics in, it will choke out love like tropical plants choke deciduous ones in warming climes. Of the four principals—Jolene, Thrommel, Wunsay, and Aposnos—each had risked consequences beyond reckoning to realize love as they knew it. Each has paid the price that will be exacted from wonder by a mundane world.

Wunsay had left no doubt that my best interest was to contact him no more. (Writing his biography has been my obsession ever since; there are personal propensities that are peculiar to historians.) Following Thrommel's disappearance and the consequent mooting of the Treaty of Reymend, Wunsay had retired from public life and—after Mistress and Prince—never authored again. Apparently, a remarkable and gifted young man has been scuppered by a world that he discovered to be less worthy than he believed.

Even so, my essential questions needed answering. I could not do without it. I continued on to my way to Wilna and Leyri Pummenford.

§

 

~Breakwalls House

Having been enlisted in Thrommel’s cause at the Treaty of Reymend, Wilna Pummenford—Wilna Dastabrail, as I had known her—was forced to retire from civil service, which in those days did not mean “employed at the public expense” but, rather, engaged in service to civilians and civility.

Following Thrommel's disappearance, somepolitical factions in towns and cities (especially directly across from Veluna along the Verlverdyva River and in other places, too, where the Raoan religion remained in place, rechristened as the Raoan Churches of Furyondy, long after the dissolution of the Imperial Church of Rao) some reviled the supporters of the Unified Kingdom at Reymend and tried to purge them from the civil lists. These attempts almost entirely failed due to the popularity of the “UK” almost everywhere in Furyondy. But they did succeed against civil servants in what were often referred to as the “Raoan towns” on the Velverdyva, such as in the city of Kissail (on Temton Water). They were especially successful in their purge of “the prototypically Raoan, endowedly supreme, easy and comfortable, equilibrant though supernumerary Wordward College” (as its brochure has it); whose well-appointed viceregal campus rests only one mile west of Kissail. At Wordward, the Raoan faction among its patrons, administrators, academics, and students bullied, disrupted, threatened, and agitated the college into dismissing or dispelling anyone that had supported the Romantics at Reymend. There was no resisting, and several students, staff, and even trustees lost their posts. This was an especially hard hit on Professor Wilna Dastabrail Pummenford, whose home at Stump was only one hundred miles from Wordward, so that the college had let her divide her time between her academical and domestical residences, a grace that she found inimitable by any other institution. Faced with choosing between family and academy, “Dastagirl” (as we used to call her) chose family. Is it really a choice?” she had said.

But what I wish to tell you—in memoriam of the sweet, zephyred, and star-lighted summer air that had nestled in the fields of Furyondy that night—is that the Pummenfords placed warm lanterns in the windows of their home at night to welcome visitors like me. The wagoneer knew the way. Indeed, few drivers within ten miles of Stump do not know the way to familiar Breakwalls House.

The Pummenford home is less a mansion than they could afford; more complimentary to the High Street, where Wilna and Leyri chose to live among neighbors and not in palatial isolation. Of all the domestic arts that people may pursue, the Pummenfords had chosen hospitality. Breakwalls was a gathering of what is best about home, hostel, and hotel.

I did not ask Wilna about the misfortunately feminine abatement of her career at Wordward, her life's work, and her dedicated mind in favor of family and village. But I think she would have said that she had known the risks when she took up the Romantics’ cause. How could she regret it?

Life with Leyri at Breakwalls—the house Wilna had redesigned so to integrate family and guests as one acquaintance—was a close compensation. The Pummenford children, grown and gone when I visited, had been legendarily happy and brave. Life for the remaining Pummenfords was now centered on guests and rustic neighbors. Breakwalls House was a destination for all their friends. The world had no accomodation for Wilna Dastrabrail, so she accomodated the world.

Hospitality at Breakwalls comes with one stipulation: bring books. Wilna still publishes articles explaining Jolene's objectives to people who will not listen, and she asks for help to collect the resources she needs. I brought Moons of Verbobonc and The Shrine at Shandalanar, which provide perspective on Rao's place among other Velunar religions. May they prove useful to scholarly endeavor.

I did not burden our three nights and two days together with shop talk. Only on my departure did I show Wilna my list of questions and Wunsay's reply to my second request, where her discretion is relied on. She read the list, smiled a little, and promised a written reply. I hold it now in my hand.

Dear Annalo:

I do not know Edmore Wunsay anymore. I see him regularly; I am his friend; but the days when I knew him, when he was young, help me little now. He has hidden himself so deeply within Castle Elfride that no one, save two that you know, really know him anymore. If he ever wants or needs me, I will instantly respond. If you could see him, you would know why.

If you drag him into any controversy or publicity, you will betray me. I request you particularly not to do that. A greater unkindness may hardly be imagined. His constitution is that of a cardboard cutout, needing shelter from the rain. You, my friend, threaten rain. The world threatens rain. Leave him alone, for the sake of whatever gods still exist.

Although it sounds vicious, I have made arrangements to very effectively deny the contents of this letter, if I deem it necessary. I will end your academic career, if I deem it necessary. You are dealing with people whose loyalty to one another surpasses morality; which does not, come to think of it, say half enough.

This is not a threat. These are the terms of the contract by which I will tell you the truth, which I mean to do. Implicitly, Edmore means me to do it. It’s a risky business. Frankly, I am surprised that he undertakes it. Probably, he fears that the true villains of this piece are within a few years of escaping forever, and he wishes to drop a bread crumb trail leading to the truth. He believes in words, and he knows that historians preserve them. At least, the good ones do. Don't falsify anything, Annalo. Don't you dare.

I can hardly guess what you are driving at. Your questions seem innocuous, almost gossipy. Nothing about your published studies suggests that you are interested in gossip. What thesis could you possibly be working on? Probably, you are after the truth about what happened at Reymend. Oh, my gods, dear underclassman, you were always like that.

The pursuit of truth is for the desperate, yes. But do not give in to despair. You have friends, if you need them. You have Leyri and me.

I wrote the above after I wrote my answers to your questions. Answering was fun. People don't think enough about what matters, and though the four romantics matter to me more than anything but husband and children, you made me recall them in detail for the first time in many years. I know people who knew them, in a way. You did not know them but you are an historian. If you can write their story as it mostly was, it will be, I think, in good time.

§

 

~Qustions and answers

Q: Did Jolene really disrupt the negotiations by sitting at the table beside Thrommel? Why?

A: Oh, yes, yes, yes! You are confused on this score because some press accounts described the changes as "planned," while others made Jolene out to be politically simple. Others made the story into an account of Jolene's naïvitëé and innocence in love.

If any publicists knew, none dared print the real story. Jolene's assumption of a place at the table beside Thrommel was a serious and disruptive ploy against Hazen's attempts to dominate Thrommel during negotiations. In those days, it was simply impossible to speak an unkindness in public about Jolene. The people would not let it stand. This meant that even the Religionists▽ were forced to play the Lady's game. I am sure the Archbishop of Veluna City had warned them against her—he had been present at Castle Estival—but he would still have known little about what she was capable of. When Jolene switched places with Thrommel at table, it announced her to those present as a potent player. Yet, assiduously, we all pretended it was nothing more than the impulse of a doting bride.

In the beginning, the negotiations at Reymend were dominated by the theocrats. They had dictated the seating arrangements, which were unusual because the two heads of state sat, not opposite to, but beside one another at the head of the table. Each nation's representatives then became opposite sides of the long rectangle, with the Religionists sitting to Hazen's right and the Royalists to Thrommel's left. Advisors were seated behind the chief negotiators along the room's walls (where I sat).

The advantage in this for Hazen was that he had immediate access to Thrommel. He used this, not only to direct Thrommel's thoughts and attention, but to make a public display of friendliness and familiarity in view of the gallery. Everyone in the negotiating room knew that, following Chendl’s declaration of the spiritual / temporal distinction, the Archclericy and the Kingdom were political rivals or even unfriendlies. This situation was more damaging to Hazen, because the public saw Thrommel as motivated by love, not politics.

Hazen's chair beside the Royal Provost allowed him to appear a friend and to speak to Thrommel in a lowered voice, so that only the two could hear. Each day, the newspapers printed drawings of Hazen in this posture, whispering friendlily to Thrommel. When discrepant accounts of their comments appeared in public, those making Hazen out a friend to Thrommel were more likely to be believed.

Hazen's public popularity at that point was less than what it has since become. The people truly loved Thrommel and Jolene, especially Jolene. She was new to everyone, a dove from the blue, an innocent in everyone's eyes, the brave girl who had kissed her man in the presence of his army. Thrommel was considered her protector, the hero prince guarding the sheltered maiden. Hazen had no defense against that perception, except to appear as Thrommel's benefactor and Jolene's friend.

Hazen at the negotiating table was a deliberate distraction to the royal provost. Thrommel was no fool, but no one can listen to two conversations at once, and Hazen had the habit of whispering to Thrommel at key points in the discussions. The goal here was confusion, to force clarifications and repeat discussions of as many points as possible. Hazen believed that time was his friend and that he would, in time, reduce the public's affection for Jolene and so defeat the attempt to subject his theocracy to a king.

The solution to Hazen's ploy was astonishingly simple, but unimaginable to most. If Jolene were the cause of Hazen's discontent—she linked Thrommel to the Plar of Veluna’s Celestial Order of the Moons—and Hazen was pretending to be her friend, then she had the power to position herself in his way.

Because I credit Jolene with this intervention, I ought to justify my authority. I was two levels removed from the decision itself, and I was a member of Wunsay's team, mind and soul. For this reason, my account is reliable. None of us knew Jolene at that time. Wunsay had not troubled himself with a negotiating team at Castle Estival—he had represented Thrommel by himself. At Reymend, we all understood the personal significance for Edmore of Jolene's occupation of Thrommel's heart. Of course, we always had understood that Wunsay's dedication to Thrommel was hopeless, but we still considered Jolene an unnecessary cruelty, a posibility that we had come to hope, after five years or more, would never happen. None of us wanted to suddenly find that Jolene was a political player on par with Wunsay himself. Neither did we suspect the depth of Wunsay's attachment to Jolene. We had them very wrong, and of the four, Jolene was the last we loved.

It was Wunsay himself who silenced our reservations about Thrommel's girl. When we objected that the lady should not be seated where she was being sat, that she was not up to it, Edmore stated very clearly that it had been the lady's idea, and we had better get used to her contributions, because there would be more of them. I both remember this and have it in my journal.

On the morning of the eighth day of negotiations, one of Thrommel's party went missing at the table. This was not unusual. Representatives were often busy and would seat themselves later, during a scheduled break.

Ten or fifteen minutes into the session, just as Hazen began whispering into Thrommel's ear, Jolene entered the room. She had dressed in symbols of innocence: I mean to say, she had dressed to kill. I wish I could remember the costume, but I only remember the effect. Very few people knew her then, and she could represent herself as she wished. She appeared not a courtier but an ingenue, a father's darling girl, a party's most decorous candle, a prince's pure fondness, any man's fiancée. She flitted through the room and straight into Thrommel's arms, hugging him unashamedly, as if she did not know the difference between a negotiating table and a drawing room at home. Thrommel's half of the room stood and applauded: we had been clued to this.

Hazen's party groaned and bemoaned the interruption. Jolene had elicited their mistake. In the eyes of anyone who cared for her, the princess must be allowed her display of affection. By breaking so rapidly to Thrommel, Jolene had caused an unrehearsed moment from the religionist side of the table. Thrommel, like the rest of us, was ready.

"What?" cried the prince against the complainants. "Would you have a man rebuke his fiancée for hugging him? My heart, I tell you, the political world is not so unkind. Ladies and gentleman, make a place for my bride. There is an open seat just there. Slide down one place, everyone, and make a chair for Lady Samprastadar. It is love itself, and not an idle prince, that beseeches you."

The royalists moved as one, one place down the table and into the open chair. Thrommel moved down too. Jolene sat, as if unconsciously, in his empty place, between the Prince and the Canon at the very summit of the arrangements.

Hazen had clearly considered that Jolene would sit to Thrommel's left. When Thrommel seated Jolene at the head of the table, between he and Hazen, just as if any Lady from Anywhere belonged there, Hazen for a moment lost composure. His expression was visibly framed to object, and someone from the religionist side did. That snapped the canon to attention. Every shred of his negotiating strategy hung on seeming friendly to Jolene. This was a setback, but the logic was unchanged.

"Silence, pray!" he gestured abruptly to his adherents. They silenced. A few seconds' pause was enough for Hazen to grip his emotions.

"Reason, Peace, and Serenity are always graced by beauty," he said, bowing to Jolene. "Lady Samprastadar, are you perfectly comfortable? A cushion? A glass of water?"

Hazen's hold over the negotiations was broken, and everyone perceived it. What we did not perceive was how thoroughly this was true. The Canon thought he was seated beside a pretty girl. (Let me put this parenthetically, because it is my bias—but Hazen was at that time a man of only fifty years, and I believe he thought he could charm her. Of course, I tend to like ideas so savory that they simply must be true.) Thrommel looked at Jolene's father, the Plar, seated two places to Hazen's right, and smiled. Well, smiled is a reserved way of saying that they laughed. Hazen was seated immediately beside the most cutting blade in Reymend. He did not know it, but he would find out.

This is the reason why so many differing press accounts appeared the following morning. Overnight, Hazen wished to make it seem as though Jolene had made an awkward blunder in political protocol by entering the room; that Thrommel had not known how to save her blushes; and that Hazen had sacrificed his place to cover the lady's embarrassment. But regardless of what was believed, Jolene's popularity was unaffected or even enhanced. The negotiations were changed forever. If Hazen wished to comment to Thrommel now, he had to do so through Jolene, or write a folded note and pass it by her. Jolene was perfectly able to keep to herself a comment or note for as long as she deemed it prudent. She might even paraphrase a word or two. Moreover, Hazen was no longer seated beside Thrommel but between Jolene, on his left, and the plar, two seats to his right. Of the four people nearest him, only the Archbishop of Veluna City was his ally. A smart fly was Hazen, but only a fly and caught in a trap.

 

Q: Was Jolene really such a skilled diplomat at that age, when so inexperienced?

A: The answer is yes and no. Really, it would have been better, for all the royalists, had she been thirty-three, not twenty-three, when the Reymend negotiations began. The Treaty of Reymend, once finished, left Thrommel believing he needed a military victory to cement his throne. Given ten years' experience, Jolene could have negotiated that need out of existence, and Thrommel would have been slower to put himself at risk.

Of course, at thirty-three, she would have been the Supreme Mistress, not the plar's second daughter, and Thrommel would have been thirty-nine, not twenty-nine, when they first met. Their love may have failed in the face of more wizened concerns. It is a difficult thing to contemplate. Would anyone wish that Jolene and Thrommel had never loved for no better reason than that a lost kingdom might exist?

Historians, however, must put hypotheticals out of mind. The answer is yes, nothing about her reputation is exaggerated. When her father, Count Lorrish, abdicated to make Jolene the Supreme Mistress (the title given to women that are plars), he was subjected to harsh, private inquisition about the decision. The count was a famous, even notorious politician, and we feared we would miss his command. "Nevermind," said the Plar, "my daughter says it has been five years since anyone taught her anything. Well, I believe experience may teach her something yet, but that will only take her further than she already is beyond me. She has Wunsay. Politically, they are already a wedded pair. No one should desire to stand in the way of what they may achieve together."

In Lorrish's mind, the only reasons for concern were positioning and timing. If Jolene were made supreme mistress, then Hazen might demand that she be seated in the plar's place, two seats to Hazen's right, with no one between the Raoan high priest and Thrommel. Jolene slew that dragon, too, with her uncanny sword of Saint George. First, she accepted the plar's place, apart from her groom. Then,

"I have a letter from my new father. The King thinks of visiting Reymend because he misses his son and daughter. Since we now have occasion, let us reserve this high place for him. The King of Furyondy sits, according to protocol, at the provost's right hand—precisely the place I am vacating. Let a high chair be set there, awaiting his arrival, and reminding us of our unified temporal lord, the king of us all." There was no speaking against this. What was Hazen to say, "A pox on the King and his standing"? Belvor then hurriedly post-dated the mentioned letter.

As Count Lorrish had anticipated, abdicating as plar in favor of his daughter drove a final wedge through the Velunar delegation at Reymend. Officially, the religionist College of Bishops and the royalist Celestial Order of the Moons were a joint entity negotiating on behalf of Veluna. In actuality, of course, the Order wanted union with Furyondy and the political destruction of the archclericy. Although Jolene's place between Thrommel and Hazen became but an empty chair, that would serve Thrommel well enough. In return, Samprastadar's lady could now rightfully insist on unfettered access to the Archclericy's negotiating tactics. Equally—unlike her father—she had irreproachabe and unlimited access to Thrommel. The Archclericy could circumvent this, but only to an extent. Whenever they introduced a secret at table, Jolene could correctly insist that she be informed of their intentions and then delay or hurry proceedings until she got a concession.

It was at this point—five months in—that the negotiations threatened to truly crawl. No less, it was the point at which the Archclericy lost all hope except prayer. (That's funny, because they had long since lapsed from that special virtue.) Jolene overmastered them, gradually. Whenever they sought to sidetrack and delay the negotiating table's proceedings—which remained their one hope of preventing union—the Supreme Mistress would simply throw the rail switch again by counseling them privately. To see them return from private conferences with Jolene was a stage delight for the royalists. A three hundred years old political power had been rendered abject, crestfallen, morose. I do not know whether to credit or mock them for remaining, to the very last, as much a negatory stonewall as they could be. But they managed it, as best they could. Things dragged on to their inevitable conclusion.

Annalo, there were no superlatives surpassing Jolene, even at that age. Evils may overcome her—they have done, I suppose—but those are not superlatives. Even though you dress them in clerical garb, they are only evils from dwelling places far below the Supreme Mistress of the Celestial Order. Anyone may murder once at midnight. A sun shines constantly by day. Jolene shone. She was a sun.

 

Q: Did Jolene really call Hazen "a wadded Canon"?

A: Ha ha ha! Oh Lord, I must laugh again: Ha ha ha! Actually, no, she didn't.

Near the end of negotiations, Hazen had resorted to simply refusing to agree to anything. The treaty was finished, really. Hazen's gambit had failed: Jolene and Thrommel, and the new kingdom they represented, were as popular as ever. Taverns in Reymend and Verbobonc Towns rang with songs about the new era. Wunsay, stopping in one of the boozier establishments with his usual accompanist—his sister or wrong-sexed wife, Ferrica Aposnos—pronounced one of the songs to be the new national anthem. By the next day, it actually was being printed and sold as such! Wunsay hummed it all day at the negotiating table. Oh, lords, those were the days.

Hazen had been crumpled from a political force to empty pride. He simply would not agree to the last details of the treaty or have it signed. Hours would go by with him saying nothing at all. The Religionists would shout whatever objections came to mind, out of anger and perversity. It is difficult to finish off a clericy in its death throes.

Everyone was frustrated; everyone had said things in anger. Especially Wunsay, who said things so scythingly that only the meaning was audible. Every cut only thickened the religionists' skin. They grew impenetrable.

I do not believe that Jolene intended to say what she did. She is, by nature, a reconciler, meant to help friends, not break enemies. Having reduced the Archclericy of Veluna to a pile of toppled ceiling vaults, she would have helped them collect the old stones, if she could. But the Archcleric of Rao refused to see the pieces on the ground. She interrupted him in one of his patented, disgruntled musings.

"Enough of this!" she said, slapping the table. "I will not have these men and women, citizens of my husband's new kingdom"—her gesture included the entire table—“be subjected any longer to the damp squibs sprouting from this impotent wad of a Canon. Either he shoots, or he leaves the bed! And if he cannot find strength for either, then I would free the King's subjects from his presence. He may sit there for the eternity that he loves so ostentatiously, if he chooses."

Hazen sat unmoved, accepting the final insult as though he had been waiting for it. Jolene led the Royalist party from the table. The religionists remained, alone and unhappy. When you are beaten, you want to go home, not sit at table with an old man. The following day, the Treaty of Reymend was signed.

Jolene had a fine sense of humor, a bit too steeped in learning, perhaps, for most. Thrommel and Edmore revelled in crude puns on various physical levels, and she had no doubt picked up the syntax from them. Had either the provost or the privy councilor bemoaned the "impotent wad of a Canon," it would have produced outrage. Jolene was, by now, well reputed as a political serial killer, but her manners were always demure. When she produced her pun, the whole table, all around, was stunned. We royalists tried to stifle our laughter, but when we saw half the religionists doing the same, we knew the final score.

The religionists had each been chosen for loyalty to the Archclericy, but even loyalists know when it’s quits. By refusing to progress the treaty, Hazen was only risking that Thrommel would punish the Church of Rao, perhaps by refusing its establishment in the Unified Kingdom. Hazen had become blind to the future. All he saw was backwards and black.

So, anyway, Jolene did not say that Hazen was "a wadded Canon." She said, "an impotent wad of a Canon." I just enjoyed playing with you on that.

 

Annalo, there is one thing you did not ask that I desire to say. As a lifelong friend of Edmore Wunsay and a good friend now of his sister, Ferrica Lamsher, and her husband, there is a role that these two played that is difficult to get into history books. As I have said, the primary advantage enjoyed by Jolene and Thrommel was their public popularity. It lasted until the very end or, if anything, grew greater. How was it so?

Three or four nights a week—I was a part of most of them—Edmore would have dinner with his sister, and following the dinner, we would go out to "relax" in one of the many public houses in Reymend and Verbobonc. These were not merely social calls. Edmore would ply a few drinks and begin regaling the tavern with tales of his Mistress and Prince. He was no less gifted by the spoken word than he would prove by the written. Moreover, everyone knew who his "sister" was—Ms. Ferrica, to the public; Ferrica, to me and the other negotiators; "Ferrie," to Edmore. A farmer from the northern Lorrish Valley.

Ferrica has no formal education. She speaks as an ordinary Velunar to the Velunars. She is also—I cannot believe I surprise you in this—the sincerest person, woman or man, whom I have ever known. When she spoke of "Lady Jolene," whom she had known since she was nine, that lady became true life.

It was not the Jolene we others knew. When Ferrica and the Lady of Samprastadar had played as children, it was more commonly at the Aposnos' farmhouse than at the manor. There, Jolene could be herself, as she would have been, apart from the influence of her father and his purposes. Is it any wonder that the girls loved each other? Jolene depended on Ferrica, and Ferrica responded to that dependency.

As Edmore arranged it, it was Ferrica's Jolene that became the Jolene of the people. Do not concern yourself with explaining the tabloid papers. It was Ferrica's intimate friend that the people knew; and when Edmore wrote his book, they recognized its subject, because they already knew her.

OK—what I want to say is this. Jolene is a complicated subject. To her enemies, she was a secret spider. To her acquaintance, a spider caught in her own web. To Ferrica, Edmore, and Thrommel, she was Leen, Jolie, Joey. The problem is, no one but the two friends still living really knows what the endearments meant. She was habitually reserved and careful. Edmore wrote that both he and Thrommel were captivated by her immediately. I do think there was some sort of signal, but she knew so few people before Reymend, and after then, she retreated to the safety of her special friends.

Some evenings, when she was safe in a corner of the big foyer or the ballroom of Leeward House and near the other romantics, she would laugh loudly enough be heard widely. If you looked, you saw a different Jolene. I mean it as a compliment when I say that she looked usual, typical, approachable, calmly pretty; and yet—if you knew her—with all that mind.

I tell you it, so that you will know that Jolene is today an unknowable thing. Each of your questions concerned her. I hope you don’t mean to biograph the woman. Your scholarship always has been geared to what is needed, not to what you wanted.

The world does not need a biography of Jolene. The whole truth of her resides within Ferrica Lamsher and Edmore Wunsay, and they will not help you. Everything else is loose ends, and if you tie them up, that will be as you please, and not as they were.

There are many—I may include myself—who explain her politics. Pretty successfully, I think. There is good reason why none of us has moved beyond. To know Jolene personally, I think Edmore's book is pretty accurate. It sounds like my tavern nights with him and Ferrica. I emphasize: when Ferrica was present, no lies were passed. If you even thought about fabricating or embellishing her friend, Ferrica's look of reproach would shock you. I only wish that I had written all that stuff down. It turns out to have been more important than the treaty itself. Heh.

 

Come to Breakwalls again. Sometimes, Breakwalls just misses people straight away, and it misses you. So do Leyri and I. Besides, I did not think you looked entirely well. Your eyes were fairly good, but your body looked worry-ragged. That's a bachelor's disease. You have no idea how practiced I am at curing it, but you must come here and stay three weeks to receive the benefit.

 

Remembering the Grey days,

Wilna Pummenford, Breakwalls, Stump, Littleberg

§

 

~Thrommel

Readers, it was a bit unnerving to read how easily Wilna Dastabrail had understood my mood—"desperate," "worry-ragged." As you are increasingly aware, the circumstances of writing this autograph are unpleasant, even ominous. A darkness is at its margins that will not be enlightened; a monstrous intent touches every page. Even Dastagirl had edged on a threat of violence.

Of course, since these pages will be read by a number of people that would just about comprise a small seminar at an obscure college, I run no risk of fouling D-girl's injunction against publicity and controversy. I am only sorry to hear that Edmore Wunsay, who once took on the world, now needs castle walls to shelter from it. You may call that weakness. No doubt, he is vulnerable. But hearts are vulnerable things; and perhaps he retains his, despite the efforts of many. I am almost able to say the same.

After Thrommel's disappearance—no one wants to call it his demise—the world got on as it could, as my history must too. Yet, in many ways, you, my companions in the picaresque, never got to see Thrommel Ⅳ in a life-sized portrait. Tor Fens, yes, his universally acclaimed, crowning victory. But battles depend on circumstance at least as much as on planning. Thrommel wrote treatises about that, which was why he believed that, having communicated his plans to his generals, he was of no more use tactically behind the lines. He was needed where his influence could be instant, at the place where the battle was floundering.

In battle, he said—especially in times of great danger—he would become calm, like the ocean in a hurricane when a diver goes deeper and under. "Actually, I don't think I'm quite right in the head that way. I need people to tell me when running is a good idea. I had a soldier take an arrow through the eye for me. She was grabbing my horse's reins and saying, 'Prince, we need to go.' That, you see, is hellishly unnatural, because I'm sure that the archer had aimed at me.

"If my calm comes from the heavens, then it must come from Hextor, who saves only those who will bring more death. Always, I seek to salvage a fight and ask my soldiers to die for it. My father cannot understand why I do not pray to Heironeous. Isn't it obvious? A lost battle always seems to me to have a last hope of reorganization and salvation, a final chance to force it into the history books. But if your soldiers no longer see it, you must yield to the larger wisdom. Else you rally them to death for a victory only you ever saw."

If there was a war, Thrommel knew that, as a prince, he had already failed. He wanted not the power that he had—to salvage a desperate situation in battle—but to keep people safe from such desperation. Perhaps that's why he needed Jolene and Wunsay. Thrommel was an intelligent man, near enough to Jolene's equal so that no one would notice ordinarily. But he was not quick; he pondered and made sure. If Jolene and Wunsay—the brilliant ones—could know his objectives, they could keep him from wars. It was Thrommel's generosity—more than any other, that word describes him—that made him want to rid the world of its need for his greatest talent.

He was King Belvor IV's only child. It was as if the gods had said, you have this golden one, and you shall have no other. When Thrommel vanished, it was not a only a prince, an only son, a provost, and a marshal that was gone; it was all hope in those few gods that believed humanity could make it.

Thrommel’s death and the Unified Kingdom’s failure reduced the central Flanaess to so much mistrust and misgiving that, when the Horned Society conquered the Shield Lands in 579cy, Furyondy and Dyvers did nothing at all. Four years later, when Iuz invaded in turn, the Shield Knight Commander, Earl Holmer, distrusted King Belvor so extremely that he chose to defend, his capital, Critwall, with only his knights rather than let Furyondian soldiers in the gates to assist. That fabulous error made the looming invasion of Furyondy inevitable: the Greyhawk Wars had begun.

Another monstrous threat existed south of Furyondy, where the memory of the Elemental Evil horrified Verbobonc still. Even while the Treaty of Reymend was in negotiation, barely months after Thrommel’s victory at Tor Fens, rumors that the demon queen Zuggtmoy was a haunt in the black temple’s depths rescinded Verbobonc’s hopes of safety and peace. The prescience of those rumors was proved by the reappearance of the Evil in 579cy. After that, the viscount’s decision to watch the fell temple from Homlett Castle, purposely built nearby, lead him to withdraw Verbobonc’s military patrols from the Gnarley Forest and the Kron Hills, which left the elves and gnomes unprotected. The public received the proclamation that “all enemies of the viscounty, both imaginable and otherwise” had been eliminated even more skeptically, however, than was customary. No one in Verbobonc would find safety by allying with Furyondy or Veluna, either, because their lingering suspicions about the Unified Kingdom’s demise meant that an alliance with one risked provoking the other.

And yet, less than a decade earlier there had been hope. The Treaty of Reymend had awaited only the Canon of Veluna’s signature to annul the Archclericy altogether; the Velunar theocrats were to be restored to their spiritual and priestly calling; the Celestial Order of the Moons would govern Veluna in the name of Furyondy’s king, and the Unified Kingdom, not Veluna, would assist Verbobonc in its defense against the border monsters. But the kingdom had failed; Prince Thrommel was presumably killed; the Celestial Order was subject again to the canon’s authority; and there was no hope of safety in the forests and hills.

These are the inconvenient truths that historians methodically fail to recognize when they speak of King Belvor and Canon Hazen as friends and allies against Iuz, of Verbobonc’s viscount as the canon’s “willing vassal,” and of Veluna and Furyondy as beacons of hope and bastions of goodness against darkness and danger. Nothing about any of this is true.

The truth is different. The Treaty of Reymend’s abrogation had deprived the central Flanaess of a security like none in place since Furyondy’s viceroyalty. Historians have said that the liberation of Furyondy and Veluna in 254cy had restored peace and decency to decadent Ahlissa, but how can it be so? The concave illusion has shown the troubles that roiled the Flanaess for almost two hundered years following the independence movement’s beginning. Never in that time was peace known there. And lo! my scholars watching against credulity, I remind you: although the illusion was mine, the history was taken from ◒Histoire◓, C’estclos’ impecable, magisterial history not of peace but of commerce and war.

What else would it be? In all that time, no arrow had ever flown for freedom, no offer of independence was ever freely made. The upshot of independence was that nations took free advantage; whether at the behest of monarchs, princes, priests, or merchants hardly signified. All were set free. None of the liberators questioned freedom’s utility, because freedom had come to a progressive empire, and progress required freedom.

What did freedom mean? Was it significant that Furyondy had first tested its bid for independence by seizing the Ahlissan tithe? The tithe was a due tax; it may as well have been a tea party. Furyondian revolutionaries preached freedom but said not on whose terms, and “Why not on mine?” they thought.

Freedom is mine, they thought, although (it would seem obvious) no one living among others may freely gain.

My reach must ever exceed my grasp, they wrote, or what’s a heaven for? Oh! is it then for attainment? Is it for apprizing? A strange gospel!

(From among the wondering students, a hand is timidly raised)

Excuse me, Professor?

(Dazed and confused but returning to his senses)

Yes?

You said that the Shield Knight Commander’s mistaken decision to defend Critwall alone against Iuz made the invasion of Furyondy inevitable, so the Greyhawk Wars had begun. If  you could skip all this freedom stuff and get back to that, it would be OK by me, because that’s where Iuz and Doraka’a come in, and our adventure comes after that.

As you wish. Although, I may ask you, before we return to our history and leave off the romance, to rehearse where the death of Prince Thrommel has left us, in 570cy?

Well, consulting my notes, Prince Thrommel was gone, the Unified Kingdom was abrogated, Veluna was nearly beheaded, the six nations didn’t trust one another, there were monsters everywhere, and Iuz had observed it all, I think.

Yes, precisely. If I may refine things a bit. Since the beginning of our history, I have maintained that the Flanaess was a monstrous continent conquered for Oeridian glory; the Vale of Luna was refashioned into a Raoan land; the Raoan imperial civil service was prepared to be a theocracy; the High Canon of Rao broke troth with the Prince of Veluna and declared the the independent Archclericy; a parade of independencies for the former vasssal states followed, leading to violence across the Flanaess; Furyondy allowed Keoland’s conquest and occupation of Veluna for eight decades because it served the king’s interests then liberated Veluna when Keoland’s aggression threatened Furyondy too; the liberation of Veluna lead to a serious attempt to displace its theocracy and restore secular government; the archclericy survived this threat and, in the words of ◒Histoire◓, “the Velunar College of Bishops convened in Mitrik to decide whether to break from the kingdom” of Furyondy for the second time, in 446cy. In my illusion, I celebrated this re-declaration with a fireworks finale rising high into the concavity’s sky.

I ask you to consider, if the Archclericy of Veluna had been so near to a new subjugation to Furyondy that it needed to declare its independence once more, how close to subjugation had it been?

Very?

Of the two indepndence declarations, in 254- and 446cy , which is more directly related to modern Veluna and the Greyhawk Wars?

The second one?

Why?

Because it’s in between.

Sweet gods in heavens, yes, it is in between. And though you may think I am condescending, I remind you that historians persistently miss the fact. Why is 254cy so emphasized, when it was nearly nearly cast into oblivion more than one hundred fifty years ago? The question closely relates to other points that I dispute. Why is the Canon of Veluna’s equivalence to the High Canon of Rao so essential? Why was the Crook of Rao lost, found, and placed in the canon’s hands? Why is Luna mechanical in Word of Incarnum? The only answer is that the Canon of Veluna’s authority must be perceivably divine and eternal. The necessity of it gets very near to the heart of the matter.

It is not obvious that something must be eternal to be divine. A blessing given today was not apparent yesterday but is divine all the same. The appearance of divinity is what’s necessary, and that is the problem.

It is very difficult to find a time when the canon appears to be a blessing. Whenever you inquire about it, you are referred to another time until you confront eternity. Apart from eternity, the canon’s holiness appears somewhat dubious. Nothing in the past as I’ve have written it recommends his holiness, so his sanctity and, in reality, his relevance to us must date to the history that we recommence in our next scenario. There he will appear for the first time as what he claims to have always been: a saint, a sovereign, a monarch, a theocrat.

I interrupted the history of his life and works to tell the romance of Mistress and Prince for this reason: so you may see how it will end. No one can write about history without a knowledge of where it is going, which is why the history of a recent time will be preliminary. But you, my allotted prisoners paroled by a dark fate, know in advance that Edmore Wunsay’s romance ends badly and is historiographically reliable. I tell you, too, that things will get worse. Prince Thrommel’s disappearance in 570cy coincided with Iuz’s escape from a demiplane under Castle Greyhawk, where he had been imprisoned since 505cy. Having his freedom, he hated Greyhawk and its friends. When he saw them frightened by monsters and ineffective against the puny Hierarchs of the Horned Society, it gave him ideas. Did he not have, if he could command them, the Horned Society’s army of discontented hobgoblins at hand? He did. This was his time.

The dismay of good folk following the prince’s disappearance would have seemed to Iuz, a god they had dared imprison then failed to contain, much like the perpetual goading by good folk of vanquished evil everywhere; like our taunting the “red glowing eyes of the Pomarj that look back to their ‘birthright’ and seek to reclaim it.” Directed at the demigod, we may as well have been saying:

To the Imp Lord Iuz.

In the Enfeebled Palace of Insanity Where He Squats over Sewers and Shit-gutters Wretchedly Shovelled in Hell.

In the Vaporous Stink and Cesspool's Belch of his Capital, Doraka’a.

In the Deranged Empire of the Identical Demented Enemy Doomed to Die Spitting Bile from the Wounds the Righteous Will Visit upon His Deformities Moral and Physical.

Dear Sir, come and get us.

And he did.

 

 

SCENARIO FIVE—VELUNA AND FURYONDY

 

 

 

 

Chapter 21: Return to the Short War

 

It was appropriate to close the previous scenario with a daring invitation to a demonic demigod whose power is beyond reckoning. Literary tradition commends ending an installment of fiction on a point of great expectation: always leave them wanting more. The device has been characteristic of serialized fiction from The Pickwick Papers to Game of Thrones and, when wrought to its tautist twist, is acclaimed a “cliffhanger.” But every tradition—like every person—forgets more than it remembers, and today few fans of fiction know that there was an original cliffhanger back in Victorian England in 1873, when an overly chivalrous Knight was left to dangle from a precipice for a month while awaiting his next installment. And I admit to you, my minute enrollment of tutorial concerns, how keenly I regret that I am writing an historical monongraph but not a novel or—O wishful bliss!—a gothic romance. Were I in your place, my life commandeered by a sinister agent that relentlessly drives me to the Land of Iuz, I would not want (while on my way) to read the history of a canon I had never heard of. No. I would want star-crossed lovers separated by horrors and left to find their own way in the darkness. I mean, right?

Another literary device is to begin in the middle of a story at a point of high expectation and then delay the reader’s gratification by going back to the beginning and re-arriving, before the end, at the middle. This is commencing “in medias res.” Unfortunately, my Interregnum on the mistress and prince did not begin in the middle then go to the beginning but started near the end then told you almost all of it, and my cliffhanger, a while ago stuck on a tall stone needle with a burning world in front of you and the fires of hell behind, has been dangling for so long that I need to remind you of it now.

Oh! criminal negligence! Literary incompetence!

But, dear readers, I did it for you. I swear. I was torn between my role as your adventuring companion and my obligations as an historian under infernal contract. Your fate in Doraka’a depends, somehow, on fulfilling specific terms and conditions. For one, I am to tell you the truth as I perceive it without reservation or mercy. But I felt (every day) how much you needed relief from the tedium and danger of your journey! All the way up the Rintensa River your walked, only to reach the breadthless darkness of the Fellreev Forest with nothing but a few goblins to kill along the way. Adventuring is knowingly said to be monotony interspersed with dicey encounters, and you have survived them all so far, but the odds will only get longer with every step you take toward Doraka’a, and as for the mortal combat, I cannot help you because I am not there.

Every time my autograph opens to you by a magic of its own, I fear that, this time, one of you will be missing from its pages. My waking nightmares—I never weary, you may literally remember, and I need no sleep—are haunted by the thought that you might die in a state of boredom! Can I do nothing? May I not, at least, entertain you? I am sure that I could; were I allowed to write like a romancer, I would take you briskly to my story’s hideous nadir, where Hazen triumphs over Iuz and attains world domination in the name of the holy trinity: Reason, Peace, and Serenity. I would narrate then the rest of your adventure, where you do your best to redeem the world and, just when you are about to fail, suceed! But—O! how great is my dismay!—my contract stipulates that I must write my history as concisely as possible. No romance for you, my friends.

Then, recently, something occurred to me. It may not be necessary to instruct you according to the glum instrument of scholarship alone. Historical concision may coexist with adventure, love, and romance, I'm sure of it! And though this was a novel idea, it was liberating too. Novels, like histories, have limitations of genre. How much better it would be to cross fiction with historiography! That would be something new. I do not mean an historical novel that flirts with readers by using historical pick-up lines. Not like narrative histories, either, that subsume the significance of the past under fictional anachronisms. No.

But imagine: a novel whose narrator is a fantastical historian writing a fantastical history that the characters must read while he writes it! Now, that would be dramedy. I only regret that I did not think of it sooner, before so much of the monograph was already done.

Still, you must not despise a late hour because it’s not the whole day. Accordingly, I decided to intervene and bring the Unified Kingdom and the four romantics from near the end of our history to the middle then return you back again: in media res double-reversed with a backwards cliffhanger or, in other words, my Interrgnum was written for you, dear readers, by way of encouragement. Keep going! You’ll make it!

After all, Mistress and Prince is both a romance and an historical resource alike. Wilna “Dastagirl” Pummenford has proved it. Too, it was written already by a writer better than me. A win for you, a win for me, a win for romance, a win for historiographical concision, and, in general, a universal win.

Indeed, Mistress and Prince is very near the heart of everything. My peripatetic youths, if what you are doing—the adventure you are on—is not a romance, then I do not know what one is. And it occurs to me that, since you are practically illiterate, you might not know either. So, let me tell you.

Your adventure is romantic because it is a quixotic quest: it is not quite real; serves a noble, improbable cause; does not respect the rules of causality; and will probably have an impossible ending where anything may happen, whether or not anything does.

Therefore, we recommence our story by getting off the needle it hangs on. Just as the concavity’s hellfires were a metaphor for the evil and dangerous Iuz, the stone needle was a metaphor for the false security that it actually provided while we viewed the inflammatory illusion from above. We now jump from the needle (one of us has done it before) into the unfastidious jaws of Iuz to land where the illusion had left us: at the magnificent (although ignited) Eademer Battistero, which had exploded like fireworks over the moon-bright city of Mitrik, where the Velunar College of Bishops was about to break from the Kingdom of Furyondy two hundred years after the Canon of Veluna had already done that to, appartently, no great effect.

Why, precisely, was it necessary for the bishops to do it again? And why the bishops, not the canon?

§

~The power and the virtue

In 438cy, after eighty-six years of military occupation by Keoland, liberation came to Veluna, but it did not restore the archclericy right away. A return to secular government was favored by the liberator, Furyondy, whose armies of freedom had been formed into a cauldron that contained Veluna by occupying its geographical surroundings: the Fals Gap, the Velverdyva River, the Lortmil Mountains, and the Viscounty of Verbobonc. The ensuing political contest between the king and the canon lasted for eight years, until a conclave of Raoan bishops gathered in the battistero and decreed that Veluna was turning “apostate” through its fling with secular government.▽ The people of the vale repented and acquiesced, siding with the canon. Nonetheless, the Concordant of Eademer was not the restoration of an ancient institution but a crucible in which the archclericy’s mixed success and tenuous hold on government since its independence in the third century were put to the test.

It is this historical crucible that my concave illusion visually depicted. Back then, Veluna’s declaration of sovereignty—first from Rauxes, then from Dyvers—had not been formally acknowledged by any other nations: not by the Great Kingdom or by Furyondy or by any of the former Furyondian vassals or even (except begrudgingly) by the archclericy’s congress of the nobility, the Celestial Order of the Moons. To acknowledge Veluna’s independence from its feudal lords would have jeopardized feudal trade routes that Veluna depended on; a jeopardy that only two long centuries of wars and trade wars would resolve, when Furyondy’s liberation of Veluna in the Short War ended the further ambitions of both the Kingdom of Keoland and the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa in that region.

The timing of Veluna’s first bid for sovereignty, in 254cy, was remarkably serendipitous. Against most expectations, the Great Kingdom’s empire was discovered to be politically unstable, precluding the empire’s military suppression of the rebelion. Yet the cleanliness of the break must not be overstated, especially with Furyondy. Throughout the concave illusion, Furyondy and Veluna had not behaved as independent allies but as uneasy trade partners whose interests often coincided but were frequently in conflcit. The fifty-year-long trade war between them had tempted Keoland into invading Veluna, and when Furyondy afforded no protection or retalliation, Keoland settled in to occupy half the archclericy. The political strife and the trade wars that, since 254cy, had prevented the King of Furyondy from being the Prince of Veluna had later prevented (or excused) the king from coming to the canon's rescue.

Eight decades of occupation were enough for political struggles against the imperial Great Kingdom’s residual authority to stablize and for the newly independent nations to come to terms. Over that time, Furyondy offered no fight against Keoland but accepted it as a trade partner, and the potential of their alliance forced governments to the east to curb their ambitions and make peaceful arrangements. But Keolands attempt to swallow the rest of Veluna was an advance on Furyondy’s border that could not be tolerated. Furyondy then committed to driving Keoland out and, surprisingly, managed it easily by winning the Short War (436-438cy). Some historians have suspected that the canon still had due influence with the king at that time, although this is surely delusional:

In 436cy, Keoland publicly threatened to annex the whole of Veluna. Whether the king of Furyondy decided to act due to agents dispatched by the canon or because the looming threat of Keoland had simply become too large to ignore, act he did.

Apart from informing the king that the looming threat was then imminent, what had the canon to offer besides bribes and inducements. In fact, the royal conditions in liberating Veluna are inducible from the course of events that followed:

Bissel was conquered by the combined forces of Furyondy and Veluna in 438cy, when the Furyondians and their armies advanced south to nearly the city of Hookhill, in Gran March. The throne in Chendl kept Bissel's office of the margrave, but replaced the ruling family with nobles sympathetic to the affairs of the east. Distance from the Furyondian capital left Bissel practically independent, and in 477cy King Hugh III declared Bissel a "March Palatine" owing fealty to Veluna.

The marquis palatine was a ruler under the Furyondian monarchy in exercise of royal powers within the mark, so fealty to Veluna was his additional fuedal obligation. His “practical independence” depended upon hosting military forces from Furyondy and Veluna in Bissel, and Veluna’s military presence there lasted well beyond 477cy, because of the continual threat of an invasion by Ket from the west. Thus Velunar military forces were tied up in Bissel when Furyondy’s forces soon withdrew into the territories surrounding Veluna, forming the cauldron that was mentioned earlier. The archclericy could not have willingly agreed to an arrangement that so clearly increased Furyondy’s influence in Velunar affairs, so Veluna’s participation in the aggression against Keoland and the occupation of Bissel must have been a condition of Furyondy’s victory in the Short War.

In the views of the commensurate folk of the Lortmil Mountains, the Kron Hills, and the Gnarley forest, Furyondy’s military offered protection not only against Keoland but against the monsters that constantly threatened them, something Veluna had not provided for a long time. The viscount of Verbobonc went so far as to formally request that Furyondian soldiers be stationed in the viscounty permanently. Effectively, the request was an announcement that the archclericy was no longer welcome in Verbobonc following the liberation from Keoland.

The dwarves, the elves, and the gnomes had traditionally associated more readily with Verbobonc than with Veluna, and those traditions had existed long before Verbobonc was made a vassal to Voll in the days of the viceroyalty. Further and obviously, the commensurates at the verges of the Vale of Luna together with the humans of Verbobonc, Furyondy, and Veluna are the same “six nations” that would ally under Prince Thrommel centuries later as the Six Nation Army against the Elemental Evil. The politics at Castle Estival, where the Furyondian prince and Jolene of Samprastadar would meet, ran deep.

After Thrommel’s victory at Tor Fens, five of the six nations and half of Veluna favored disposing of the Archclericy and becoming the Unified Kingdom. That finely approximated public sentiment that had followed Furyondy’s victory in the Short War, too, and many of the political parties—such as the Gnome Assembly of the Kron Hills—also remained the same.

The difference is that after Tor Fens the six nations necessarily remained allied against Iuz, while after the Short War, there was no necessary arrangement at all; there was peace and a moment of opportunity. For the Canon of Veluna, it was a challenging time. The serene and eternal Shepherd of Veluna that we know today did not exist then; his existence was subsequent and dependent on how his authority might survive the years from 438- (the end of the Short War) and 446cy (the Eademer Battistero and the Concordat of Eademer).

He was politically and spiritually unpopular. The aristocratic and the merchant classes were against him because the trade wars with Furyondy and the occupation by Keoland had cost them dearly. The bishops did not favor him because his theocracy had taken primacy from their dioceses. Although the collegiality of Raoan bishops had existed from long ago, the College of Bishops was nonexistent prior to the Eademer conclave. Although the Celestial Order of the Moons goes back further than vassalage to the overking, it had no formal role yet in the theocracy. What the canon might claim is a special relationship between the church of Rao, the nation of Veluna, and Roa, their god. To sustain this claim, he must appear reasonable, peaceful, eternal, and serene. We have reached, at last, the Canon of Veluna’s moment in history.

Of all that went before, you may judge for yourselves between what historians have written elsewhere and what I have written so far.

And I do mean, judge.

 

 

Chapter 22: The Eademer concordat

 

(A courtroom in a far away plane)

Leaving the villainous canon dangling from above the unfastidious jaws of Iuz, I . . .

Actually, Professor, we were the ones left dangling, and we already have jumped down. And, really—villainous? Is that fair? Aren’t you judging him before we even get started?

My increasingly objectionable pupils! You are on cue, on point, and just what this scenario requires. Participants! And, indeed, dear girl, the Canon of Veluna’s villainy is no more than half proved. His conviction as a villain is pending. He has, of course,  been villainous so far. But there are one hundred fifty years of canoneering remaining, and he may redeem himself yet. The objection of my worthy pupils is sustained. I withdraw my comment about the Canon of Veluna being villainous.

For the record, my original prosecution of Hazen was as a “shepherd that has led us into so much delusion, war, and fear that I doubt his salvation.” Such a man need not be a villain. I say again—villainy may have no part in him . . .

Professor!

 I withdraw the comment. Let “villain” and “villainy” be as if unsaid. Perhaps the canon is merely a mortal like the rest of us, tragically tempted by something larger than himself—let us say, the Canonry of Veluna—into acting against his personal avowal of Reason, Peace, and Serenity. The poor man, in that case, deserves our pity, not our villification. Indeed, there is nothing villainous about such pernicious banality. It . . .

Professor!

Sustained! I have trespassed again on the bounds of historical judgement. Your pardon is begged. Although my innovative new genre, the historiographical romance, is a sturdy vessel, my direction of it wavers. And even an inexperienced captain needs a lively crew. You are most welcome aboard.

§

 

~County, nobility, diocese, and bishop

Shipmates—I mean, jury of the court -  to understand the Eademer concordat, we must know a little more about the Velunar provinces, the dioceses and counties, which were distinct but intertwined. Their names and geographical extents corresponded exactly, and the diocesan cathedrals were set into the county towns. All our histories and historical sources presume a basic knowledge of them. I may quote, for example, from a sermon given, in 440cy, by the bishop of, within the cathedral of, with the attendance of the count of, in the diocese of, in the town of, and in the county of Devarnish:

In 355cy, Keoland’s Second Expeditionary Force took Devarnish and the Crook of Rao with it. But today, at last, the Keoish army is dispatched from Velunar soil; Devarnish and its diocese are once again part of greater Veluna. Yet this state of affairs may last but briefly, if Count Devarnish’s words were spoken in earnest.

Here, Devarnish signifies county, diocese, town, cathedral, count, and bishop.^▽ You need to know this, although what immediately matters is the sermon’s reference to “greater Veluna.”

You, my historiographical percipients, will understand by now that when a Velunar historical source says that something existed “but briefly” it may mean that it never really existed at all. And, indeed, in 440cy, “greater Veluna” was unreal, a mere projection cast from Mitrik by prominent theocrats. Although nominally included, yet Verbobonc, Veluna City, and the southern counties (Devarnish, Valkurl, Kempton, Lorrish, and Falsridge) could be considered parts of “greater Veluna” only by a stretch of the canonical imagination following their liberation from Keoish occupation. Even in Mitrik not everyone was committed to the greater Velunar vision. After all, the Celestial Order of the Moons was by then in Mitrik, too, forced to flee from Veluna City in 355cy, when the Keoish army stood poised to occupy the capital. And after (or because of) more than eighty years under occupation, the Celestial Order was implacably opposed to the archclericy; its grievances, which had taken Veluna to the brink of civil war before Keoland had first attacked, were still unresolved. And though northern Veluna, during the south’s occupation, had remained under Mitrik’s jurisdiction, there was considerable doubt about the loyalty of its people to the theocracy. Their repeated affirmations of allegiance to Mitrik did not mean much; the Celestial Order was in Mitrik too.

Keoland’s policy in the southern, occupied counties had left the functional institutions largely intact. The lands and titles of the nobility remained hereditary, and the bishops continued to annoint new clerics to the Church of Rao with the participation of northern bishops encouraged. Remarkably, Keoland also encouraged the southern nobility to participate in elections for plars and members of the Celestial Order in free Veluna, which caused some consternation about about the loyalty of the Order to the archclericy.

References to the plar and the Celestial Order appear very early in Veluna’s recorded history, and they were likely descended from the secular government of Voll that had been in service to the overking and the viceroy. ▽ The plar’s primary function had been to take and keep a vow of fealty to the overking; his (her, in the instance of a Supreme Mistress) authority was limited to ensuring that the emperor’s commands were respected. When the theocrats broke troth with the overking, the office of the plar became pointless. Yet the nobility continued to elect such a one, then repurposed to represent their interests to the canon. The Celestial Order was similarly transformed; what had been a representative body in service to the plar on behalf of the overking became a representive body technically in service to the canon but overtly loyal to the plar, to the nobility, and to the work of secular government that remained in the counties.

Because the plar and the Celestial Order were associated continuously with both the government of Voll and the theocracy of Veluna, a fair amount is known (or is surmisable) about their history. But this is not true of the nobility in general, the counties, the dioceses, or the bishops, whose institutional origins predate both vassalage in Voll and theocracy in Veluna. These local authorites were not of any evident concern to the historical (and mostly Velunar) sources that are available to us today. It is evident, even so, that the counties and the dioceses were remarkably egalitarian or, using probably more accurate descriptors, fraternal and collegial. The collegialtiy of the bishops was integral to their status and purpose and, as far as we can see, was indigenous to the ancient Vale of Luna. Evidently, the bishops had always been elected either by their dioceses or by other organized groups that had become diocesan in form very anciently. The land and titles of the nobility were inherited, of course, but they elected the plar and the members of the Celestial Order, indicating a collective authority in parallel to the bishops.

During Keolad’s occupation, the southern counties and dioceses were dissassociated from Veluna’s national superstructure: the Celestial Order, the plar, and the archclericy. It was the southern bishops, dioceses, nobles, and counties that Keoland sought to incorporate under the Keoish monarchy. The occupation’s governors promoted the participation of the south provinces in elections for the plar and the the Celestial Order, and they allowed all bishops to participate in annointing a new one to any vacant see in old Veluna. The canon had no legal or ecclesiastical standing to prevent it, so there is no reason to presume that, following liberation, a majority of nobles and bishops would have welcomed the return of the archclericy. Even in the north much of this was true, as I mentioned before.

Indeed, had the archclericy’s restoration been widely agreeable, the conclave of bishops in the Eademer Battistero and the subsequent Condordat of Eademer would not have been necessary. But that was far from the case; the conclave and the concordat that issued from it were decisive to, and definitive of, modern Velunar history.

In conclusion, I submit to you, my fair-minded jurors in historical court, that evidence favors the plaintiff Professor Annalo Bifurcati, not the defendent Canon Hazen, Shepherd of the Faithful, in determining the greater importance of Veluna’s second declaration of independence from Furyondy at the Eademer Battistero by a conclave of bishops in 440cy, compared to its first, at Mitrik, by the defendant, in 254-.

§

 

~A history of great confusion: The Viscounty and Diocese of Verbobonc

I find it expedient to remind you, my meandering scholarly mentees, that the route you are taking to Doraka’a is indirect. Passing through Fellreev Forest adds weeks to your journey. You could have gone by good roads straight from Law’s Forge to Ixworth and then to Kin Dell; then taken the Long March to the mouth of the Opicm River and followed the Whyestil Lake shore to the blighted city; and if you had, I would by now probably be free of my contractual stipulations, because they are void on event of the death of the last of you.

Had that happened—and should it yet even partially—I doubt I could go on. Seeing you arrive at the Sewers and Shit-gutters Wretchedly Shovelled in Hell is most important to me; not much else matters anymore. There is one stop I once made, a place and someone I knew, but that’s likely all over now. There’s only you, the die we’ve thrown, and what it will turn up.

It's gonna be great, Professor!

To ease the burden of thinking about it, I will tell you something you do not know. If you vere to the east for ten miles off your current trackless way, you will come to a broad path going north. If you take it, you will be granted two boons. One, you will depart from the domain of Verithmirax, the terrible green dragon, where you are right now without knowing it, and avoid the castle of Dahlvier, the vampire, where you are headed unawares. This should lower the odds of any fatal bereavement among us. Two, the path goes to the precarious and impecunious yet renowned outpost of Grimwood-under-Sky, where in a dim clearing in the forest’s depths you may find food and rest at the High Moon Inn, a remote destination for storytellers, fantasists, and other exponents of alternative truth. Will you go? If you need further inducement, I promise to provide you a story to tell while you are there.

(A general shrug)

Why not?

Excellent, my boy. And regarding your tactical deployment of forestial misdirection, I approve and find it instructive. It impresses on me that a due appreciation of the historic Concordat of Eademer will come easier if, while you are going east to Grimwood-under-Sky, I should take you on a purely topical detour off the main highway of Raoan history and make a local stop at the Diocese of St Cuthbert, in the Viscounty of Verbobonc. St Cuthbert’s is the only diocese that exists outside of Veluna in all the Flanaess, and the reasons for that are significant. Plus, you ought to see a bit of Verbobonc, a leafy land caught up in the magic of elves and gnomes and therefore not much given to recorded history apart from aureate verses and impractical jokes. Fifteen years ago, for example, Gary Gygax (a human, as you know) wrote of Verbobonc that “This small state is hardly worth a mention.” He would have said better that it is not much written about; because, although humans, too, live in Verbobonc, they are contented by their enchanted environ and litle apply themselves to the stringency of historical work.

Some of them do write things down, of course, although not as adeptly as the commensurates. One man, in particular, wrote volumes (and volumes) (and volumes) about mid-fifth-century Verbobonc. His career there as a Cuthbertine cleric and bishop extended from ten years before the Short War to forty years beyond it, and he featured prominently in the events that lead both to and from the Eademer concordat. He was that appreciatedly rare type of man, a Cuthbertine memoirist. Lights and Shadows of a Loooong Episcopate was lent to me fifteen years ago by an elf who lives in an ipt treehouse in Verbobonc and keeps a library within it. He (elf, not bishop) hosts parties of mixed elven and human company and is fascinated by humanity because he observes it so much longer than we do. He purchased the entirety of ◒Lights and Shadows◓ in 479cy (when it was momentarily topical) and finished it eighty-two years later. He assured me that this opus, though widely unread and tedious, contained a wealth of information in just the way that mud flats contain pearls. He knew I was accustomed to wading in tedium’s murky shallows to obtain nuggets of information, because my academic specialty requires . . .

Wait a sec, Professor. Who was the memoirist again? I didn’t get the name.

No doubt, my dear, because I forgot to mention it. He was Cornelius Speiknhammer, the initial Bishop of Verbobonc and a true pedantic in the Cuthbertine style. Cudgelites employ common sense by rote, and it is a great labor to pry open the shells of their clamped prose to find a worthy morsel of writ. And because you, my hastening heroes, have little time to spare, I have husked ◒Lights and Shadows◓ for you and strung its salient points together. Here, then, is the nacre of the seventy-eighth through hundred-and-sixth chapters of the forty-seventh volume of Speiknhammer’s memoir:

St Cuthbert’s Diocese of Verbobonc was created by the stroke of my appointment as its bishop. Its constitution was as such: Subsequent candidates for my office were to be nominated by the viscount subject to approval by the monastics and templars of St Cuthbert. The Raoan Titular Bishop of Veluna was banished from the viscounty and so were his overseers. The eight Cuthbertine abbots would continue as heads of the eight Cuthbertine monasteries and were given supplementary appointments as eight Abbot-executives to the bishop. In the future, abbots would be elected by their monks subject to the bishop’s approval of the abbot-executive. Each abbot-exec was to appoint one Bishop’s Knight-protector and one Bishop’s Minister to each province under their jurisdiction. The appointments were to be made from among St Cuthbert’s Order of the Billets. The knight-protectors and ministers would supervise staffs of other billets in protecting and ministering to the needs of Verbobonc’s citizens. The bishop was vested with the power to dismiss any abbot-executive (although the monks must agree to the dismisssl of their abbot) and any billet under an abbot-executive’s authority on grounds of being unsuited to the viscount. As capstone, a magisterial power was vested in the viscount to abolish the Bishopric and Diocese of St Cuthbert on grounds of their being unsuited to his person. Taken in the round, the arrangement satisfied all concerned parties by assuring that: the temples and churches were free of the bishop; the monasteries were free (in part) of the bishop; the bishop would control (in part) the monasteries and the billets; the billets would be established in government as ministers and knight-protectors to the people; and the viscount could magisterially repent of the infliction on his viscounty of the Cuthbertine establishment if he deemed it necessary.

Marvelous agreement! I am proud to be a Verboboncan, where at least I have the Cudgel.

As you will understand, this literary oyster must be opened before proper digestion can begin. And so,

Great numbers of St Cuthbert’s adherents live everywhere in the Flanaess and many bishops of St Cuthbert live in Veluna; but the only diocese among them is in Verbobonc. Apart from it, there are no bishops or dioceses of any faith anywhere on the continent save the Raoan ones in Veluna, which are very differently constituted: bishops of St Cuthbert oversee temples, not cathedrals (excepting the one in Verbobonc), and are appointed to their office, not consecrated. The only thoroughly diocesan system—comprehending a catholic church organized into dioceses and joined in the collegiality of consecrated bishops—in the Flanaess is the Raoan one in Veluna: seven dioceses and one archdiocese overseen by seven diocesan bishops and one archbishop. There are many more Cuthbertine bishops in Veluna—one for each of the saint’s temples—than Raoan ones but there is no collegiality among them; they are the chief priests of their temple, selected and appointed by the others. In fact, the Cuthbertine episcopal system closely resembles the Raoan system of canons and high canons placed in cathedrals. Perhaps this profusion of temples, churches, bishops, cathedrals, canons, canonries, and monasteries originated in an ancient, proto-episcopal tradition native to the Flan of the Vale of Luna.

In Verbobonc, the Cuthbertine diocese is a hybrid. Its bishop is neither chosen nor annointed by priests but is appointed by the viscount, and most extraordinarily, in Verbobonc most priests of St Cuthbert (those that are not bishop’s ministers and knight-protectors or diocesan staff billets) are not under diocesan jurisdiction; the churches, temples, and monasteries are not in the bishop’s see; and the abbots are so only in their capacity as abbot-executives. Episcopal authority over clerics in St Cuthbert’s diocese is thus limited to a few billets. The viscounty’s citizens, on the other hand, are every one members by law of St Cuthbert’s diocese, whether they worship the saint or not. Only the diocese is established, not the faith; but the coextensive territory of viscounty and diocese otherwise resembles that of the counties and dioceses of Veluna, which is the whole point.

The point of what?

Of everything, my lad. Try to keep up. In the third century, the Canon of Veluna began sending a Raoan titular bishop (a titular bishop does not have a diocese) to Verbobonc as the archclericy’s representative to the viscounty. Although he had no see, the titular bishop was collegial with Veluna’s diocesan bishops, and his office was politically significant because he and his many “overseers”—some of whom were Velunar priests of St Cuthbert— were the archclericy’s only representatives in a viscounty where the Raoan church was little known and the faith of St Cuthbert was predominant. The dismissal of His Titularity (as the monks called him) after Verbobonc’s liberation from Keoland was effectively a rejection of the archclericy: it left the Canon of Veluna with no authority in the viscounty beyond the residual (and entirely temporal) allegiance owed to the canon by his feudal vassal, the viscount.

 The resemblence of St Cuthbert’s bishopric to Veluna’s was for good reason: the viscount wished Verbobonc to become effectively an eighth province in Veluna’s political orbit, reducing his feudal allegiance to barely more nominal than nonexistent; a good idea, if you were not a theocrat, because Verbobonc was in league with Furyondy and the Celestial Order in their intention to abolish the archclericy for a secular government likely to be organized into counties and dioceses, as the nation of Voll had been. The best chance to advocate this from within the archclericy was for Verbobonc to have a bishop roughly equivalent to Veluna’s and capable, therefore, of episcopal collegiality. This was the oringal design for what eventually became the Raoan College of Bishops, the Archclericy’s diocesan representative house of congress.

The viscount similarly wished to be a member of the Celestial Order of the Moons, although this was accomplished easily by the plar proposing it and the members voting in favor. The Celestial Order was eventually remodeled as a representative house, too, for the seven Velunar noble families and the viscounty.

The prospect of a secular government to displace the archclericy had taken a definite form: the bishops were to have spiritual authority in Veluna-Verbobonc and some degree of temporality that would be amenable to the Celestial Order.

Oi! Just like the Unified Kingdom!

Very much, but not exactly. It didn’t include Furyondy, you see; it granted the bishops a degree of temporality; and it proposed a new, interfaith form of episcopal collegiality, sowing seeds of dissension that the Unified Kingdom’s secular constitution was especially prepared to eradicate. These difficulties were taken into the Eademer Battistero conclave unresolved, and the resolutions of the bishops would be promulgated from there by the Concordat of Eademer.

I do keep up! The whole point of the new government, obviously, was to make the bishops secular.

Nearly, nearly.

What, nearly?

The bishops weren’t going to be secular, silly, just temporal.

Same thing.

Not. Bishops are one thing when they are spiritual and another when the are tem. . .

In 445cy, five months before the conclave, Furyondy announced the king’s intention to withdraw his military forces from Verbobonc, leaving the independence-minded viscounty in need of a militia to serve and protect its citizens. The billets of St Cuthbert were acting by then as the bishop’s knight-protectors, militantly trained to obedience in service to the people and a likely resource for the new militia. But St Cuthbert’s creed is notoriously belligerent about making civic behaviour conform to theological precept, and although the Billets was the least militant of the three clerical orders, its bishop’s ministers and knight-protectors were nonetheless sworn to “protect and minister to the faithful” of the viscounty, a very broad mandate within a polytheistic society where everyone was by law a member of St Cuthbert’s diocese. If the billets were truly to serve the people, not the faith, then the notorious Cuthbertine zeal (“the Cudgel”) must be leashed for the public good.

It was a matter of distinguishing “Cudgelite values” from those of the general society and subsuming the former by the latter. The Chapeaux and the Stars, St Cuthbert’s other clerical orders, objected strenuously this subsumption as did those billets that were not ministers and knight-protectors. But generally, the billets viewed the new public service as a feather in the cap of a clerical order commonly looked down on as too servile. To pluck the presitgious plume, however, the “civil diocese” (as the establishment was generally called) needed to compromise civility by the industry manifest in the temples, churches, and monasteries, which (as I have said) were not in the diocesan jurisdiction. The bishop . . .

Professor?

Yes, sweetheart?

Don’t call me that. If all of them were free of the bishop’s oversight, what was the bishop for?

Well, young lady, that’s right. Good question. He was “for” a police force and a social service, but he must be a bishop to mingle and convene with the Velunar ones. Ordinarily, a diocese will encompass the faithful within a particular geographical area, but there was precedent for its utility in defining a spiritual or political encompassment rather than a geographical one. Since the second century, Raoan ecclesiastics had . . .

Who cares about that? If an abbot, in his new capacity as an abbot-executive, deliberately appointed knight-protectors that would minister to St Cuthbert’s faithful favorably to other citizens, that’s a problem. The way things are, according to Speiknhammer’s ◒Lights and Shadows◓, the viscount might object to the billets but only the bishop may fire them; the bishop might fire them but may not object. What’s to be done? What help is there for the people suffering the blows of the ungovernable cudgel? They might complain to the abbot, but he’s a front for the abbot-exec. They might complain to the bishop, who waits on the viscount; they might complain to the viscount, who may think about having a word with the bishop; they might complain to the monks, who might consider rebuking the abbot-exec if they weren’t so fond of the abbot; they might complain to the churches, to the temples, to the chapeaux, even to the stars and the heavens that are none of them are part of the diocese. The sky becomes desolate, the universe becomes cold. For the life of me, I . . .

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. . . . Well, yes. Really, it was done by expedience and precedent, not legislation. For two hundred years, the titular bishop of Verbobonc had been sending Raoan overseers into the Cuthbertine monasteries to help press Raoan interests into training Cuthbertine priests. Traditionally, the monks were used to urge priests on to true zealotry, and overseers encouraged the billets to be zealous about keeping the viscounty peaceful and serene, just like the Imperial Raoan Church in the old viceroyalty except by cudgel, not by reason and serenity. The viscount co-opted the authority of the titular bishop by establishing a diocese that substituted abbot-executives for overseers. The abbot-execs eagerly pledged loyalty to the diocese because they wanted to be rid of their association (as abbots) with overseers. The billets happily substituted the viscount’s “peace and quiet” for Raoan peace and serenity because they wanted to be the public’s knight-protectors. No one asked how it would operate because it was ready to go. Everyone gained an advantage by the exchange even if the advantages were inconsistent and self-contradictory. This did not dim the heavens. This was a gods’send.

(A general lack of conviction)

Every citizen in the diocese was defined as “faithful,” so the billets had no reason to convert anyone or to accuse them of weakness in a faith they need not profess. What a marvelous contraption! The diocese launched like a ship with a water-tight hull so long as no one opened a portal. Everyone was aboard in berths they already had. It set sail in ship shape. Keeping it afloat depended on the captain (the viscount) and his XO (the bishop), which tied their hopes to the same mast to give them a unanimity of command although they sailed in somewhat different directions.

But why bother with any of it? If the viscount wanted to be in the Celestial Order, why not just abolish the theocracy and go with his feudal allegiance to the plar? If he wanted a secular government, why did he make a bishop?

Not secular, tem . . .

And why not? Verbobonc had been a vessal—I mean a vassal—to Veluna for three centuries.The ancestors and ancient mariners of the commensurate folk and of the Vale of Luna and of the cudgelmen alike had sailed under the stars of the Flanaess since long before the continent bore that name, before the Twin Cataclisms, the Great Migrations, the Oeridian conquest, and the Great Kingdom had come about. While voyaging the same vale, the Raoans and Cuthbertines had created spiritual and temporal institutions that were quite similar despite episcopal variation.

Oh! Oh! I think I see it! You mean that the sacred and the secular were mixed together, so that . . .

The spiritual and the temporal.

Please, stop . . . so that everyone was a little bit of both all the time, and then you always had to work out how much of what kind went where and when.

Well, yes. . . . “A little bit of both” is probably better than “mixed together.” You cannot be sacred now and secular later, but you can be spiritual now and temporal later.

See! Told you.

Oh, shu . . .

Stop, you two. Professor?

Yes, my love?

Don’t call me that. What about the monks? We’ve never heard anything about them, and now, suddenly, they are so important.

Actually, St Hermiod of Laudine was an important monk and also the first Canon of Veluna.

But the beast had two heads; only one was a monk.

Whatever. He was the first Canon of Veluna, who also ordained a titular bishop to supervise Velunar monks that were sent into Verboboncan monasteries to oversee the education of billets.

Do bishops oversee monks?

In their diocese, yes, but not easlily. The monasteries are independently financed and have their own regulations. Some of them—like Laudine—are (or were) very poweful.

So, there could be a connection. The canon, the titular bishop, the theocrats, they could all be connected to the monks.

Why not to the Celestial Order too? All the Order would have to do is donate to the monasteries.

Or to the temples!

But, those are run by priests.

Or by bishops.

So they are.

Wow.

Ooooh.

Aaaah.

I’m confused.

Indeed, it is confusing. I could explain it to you in detail, but that would only lead to a detailed confusion. And why not? The Archclericy of Veluna was born and has lived in confusion: the confusion of its fidelity to the Great Kingdom and Furyondy; the confusion of the collapsing empire’s wars; the confusion of a free nation proliferation that was not an "independence movement” but but the process of taking up arms.

And I ask you, my prisoners formerly disarmed, most seriously, I ask you: What might be the intent, the point, the goal, and the end of a government whose legitimacy depends on setting people free? Where will that end?

The episcopal conclave in the Eademer Battistero was not collegial, it was a war of free bishops over temporal parcels of power. Who would be master of them all, the canon, or the plar, and who would possess parcels of what granduer? The war parties, in the main, were already chosen: aristocrats and merchants on one side favoring the plar, theocrats and theocracy on the other. But the bishops and the monks were undecided—those in the south favored the plar, generally; those in the north, the canon—and indecision has barganaing power.

The Eademer conclave was expected to settle everything and was convoked when bargaining got tight. The outcome hinged on three questions. First and second, how many bishops would attend, and from among them, how many would vote? Was it to be seven—the ancient, diocesan ones? Might it be eight—the diocesans and the titular one recently discarded by Verbobonc and returned to Mitrik? Would it be nine—the diocesans, the titular, and the odd one out of St Cuthbert, that knew not Rao?

Third, how would they decide? What would be the basis for their decision? Veluna’s future establishment, church and nation, hinged on the consequence of the temporal and spiritual powers being wielded by these men, and in neither respect could they be depended on to side with the canon. Although history portrayed the ancient nation Voll as the Archclericy in disguise, it was known nonetheless that Veluna’s seven dioceses and counties had existed coordinately from long before their national foundation at Mitrik. Consequently, after a period of vassalage to the Great Kingdom, the Archclericy’s existential self-proclamation came unexpectedly, and many new Velunars doubted whether the coming theocracy would look back to the days of bishops, counts, and plars or ahead to something more majestic and imperial.

The question was frequently put personally: Who was the Canon of Veluna? He had been the High Canon of Rao, a chief civil servant to the empire though supportive of the Kingdom of Furyondy. In proclaiming independence from Furyondy, was he aligning Veluna again with empire? He was not. He wished to rule absolutely. Consumed by difficulties in politics and trade, Hermiod was anxious to reassure the Church of Rao, its bishops, its monasteries, its churches, and its faithful, that Raoan religion was enduring and the same. Their would be no drastic spiritual reformation.

Two hundred years of strife and division had followed. The canon’s popularity as the Shepherd of the Faithful did not begin until Keoland had occupied half his nation. As a political structure, the archclericy was broken by it; southerners had no yearning for a return to theocracy’s embrace, and northerners, too, often resented it. But in the sentiments of its people, Raoan faith remained undivided, and with it, spiritual Veluna.

No one incarnated this spiritual nation so fully as the Canon of Veluna. Scripture, history, painting, song, liturgy, popular festivity, and popular occasion all remembered it that way. He was despised and rejected, politically; religiously, he was redeemable. The Raoans had never been clear on the nature of their salvation, but they knew the canon would lead them there. The popular cult of St Hermiod began in these years, one beast with two heads, not a Janus-faced one.

Liberation from Keoland loosed myriad fears, hopes, and aspirations, from suspicions of absolute monarchy to new opportunities and to fondly remembered days of yore. Everyone in the Vale of Luna and near it was caught up. In practicality, however, the were but two possibilities: the Canon of Veluna and the Archclericy, on the one hand; on the other, the Celestial Order and its noble plar in some relation to the King of Furyondy, whose military forces still encircled Veluna and whom some were speaking of as Veluna’s prince.

The bishops and the monasteries stood curiously placed. The canon was not a bishop, and the bishops might presume to take spiritual precedence; the monasteries were suspicious of bishops and might prefer the canon’s temporal rule. Then again, the canon might better prize the establishment of the Church of Rao, and the bishops cared mightily about that.

§

 

~The Concordat of Eademer

By 445cy, the King of Furyondy believed that he was supported well enough in Veluna to overthrow the archclericy. In a gesture of blessing and good will, he withdrew his military forces surrounding the vale while promising benevolence and independence to the reprieved nation. The canon’s only hope was to rally the bishops, whom he had empowered as a representative congress to decide the issue. We may follow the turn of events through an excerpt from ◒Lights and Shadows◓:

In 446cy, the Velunar College of Bishops, ordinarily known as an extraordinary Raoan episcopal conclave, was convened to discuss the fate of their nation, which many religious men believed was controlled by greedy Furyondians driven by secular goals. Though cool heads opened the conference, a contingent of orthodox Cuthbertine overseers rallied the more conservative Raoans to their cause, urging that Veluna formally cede from Furyondy to oppose the growing apostasy fomented by wartime expansion and imperialism. In an agreement known as the Concordat of Eademer, the members of the college voted overwhelmingly to break from the kingdom.

The vote was actually not so overwhelming as unanimous, eight to nothing; but Speiknhammer had taken sixteen chapters to explain, in one of many discordant claims made in ◒Lights and Shadows◓, that

although seven diocesan bishops plus one titular went into the Conclave of Eademer, the titular having no vote, yet seven diocesan bishops and an archbishop had come out, all having votes, because the tit- had been translated into the arch-.”

When it was published, Speiknhammer’s statement drew violent objection from Raoans for reasons that are important to understand, although they are difficult to comprehend, because they explain the vote’s unanimity and . . .

Oh! Oh! Professor, I’ll explain it! I’ll explain it!

Really, my dear? But you haven’t read . . . well . . . have a go.

Only diocesan, not titular bishops traditionally had a vote in the conclave, which had been in existence since the beginning of Voll. But of the seven dioceses, four had been under Keoland’s occupation and only three had not, so the vote to restore the archclericy in Mitrik would likely have been four to three against. To avoid this, the titular bishop had to be given a vote alongside the diocesan ones, but even at that, the vote would have been a tie, four-to-four, failing to denounce the national apostasy or resolve the political crisis. So, the tit had to become an arch so that the arch would be higher and could break the tie. But if the tit were translated, Veluna’s only representative office in Verbobonc would be vacated and the successor controversial. So, the extra tit had to become arch in some other way, but the precise manner was never decided, it was simply stated to be so. So, when Bishop Speiknhammer called the change a translation, this had to be loudly objected to without actually doing anything. And since people stopped reading ◒Lights and Shadows◓ soon after its publication, it all passed away quietly enough. Plus, bycalling the vote “overwhelming” rather than “unanimous,” Speiknhammer was intimating that the vote had actually been won by a juryrigged tiebreaker, although the custom of losers switching their votes was kept in the interests of collegiality. Eight to nothing!

Oh, my. My dear girl. That was simply bril . . .

But Professor, there’s so much more!

Really, my boy? You too?

Astonishing, isn’t it? The Bishop of Verbobonc’s request to be collegial among the Raoans might have been restricted to the College of Bishops, a temporal house of congress without any properly spiritual function. But since the college was also an extraordinary conclave, proposing the inclusion of a Cuthbertine bishop could be seen as a renunciation of Raoan faith, as the sharpest point of apostasy’s dart entering the heart of Veluna. Secular government is the renunciation of sacred power within it, which is sacrilege to a temporal theocracy. Accusing Veluna of apostasy was, at the moment nearest to disarmament, the archclericy’s final thrust; it reasserted the original, basic unity of Velunar government and Raoan faith. Denouncing national apostasy required the theocrats not only to deny the Bishop of Verbobonc’s collegiality but, much more, to remedy the ill itself. “Greedy Furyondians with secular goals” specifically were denounced as instigators in Veluna of a “growing apostasy fomented by wartime expansion and imperialism,” a denunciation that carefully avoided condemning Verbobonc (a vassal state) while rescripting Furyondy’s liberation of Veluna as a sacrilegious attack barely eight years after the day. Had the accusation of apostasy failed, the Archclericy of Veluna would have ceased to exist. But at the call of its shepherds, Veluna repented. The King of Furyondy and the Viscount of Verbobonc prized stability in Veluna above secular government, so they quietly conceded defeat. Further resistance would only have widened the “overwhelming break from the kingdom” that the bishops had voted for and that the triumphant archclericy could certainly have arranged, regardless of whether anyone wished for it.

Dear me! My wonderful, maturing students; my armor plate forged against error; perhaps you believe that these, my tears, are of the joy that pupils alone may bring to their teacher’s eyes, but you are mistaken! I cry, I weep, because you have spoken so very concisely what I had intended to speak about at considerable length! O! what’s do be done? What use is there to my long night spent in making these notes! Oh!

(Disbelief and amazement)

It's hardly fair to complain. You never weary and need no sleep.

That’s hardly the point. These notes mustn’t go to waste. Let me see, there must be something . . . Oi!

See! You forgot to mention that, ever since the Concordat of Eademer, there has been an Archbishop of Veluna City chosen by the canon, not by the citizenry of the archdiocese, as an exception to the rule that dioceses choose their bishop. At the Eademer Battistero, by controlling the archbishop and making the Celestial Order and the College of Bishops into representative houses of his theocratic congress, the canon achieved his full stature, condescendingly above the bishops, which is an odd place for a canon to be, you know, because canons are supposed to be appointed by their bishop.

The Concordat of Eademer created the archclericy as we have it today, and it obviously dates to only 446cy, not to the deep antiquity of Word of Incarum and the Crook of Rao. See, too! I have jotted down, here, why the canon and the archclericy always seek to plant their seedy origins deep in the history, faith, and lore of the Vale of Luna: no one must ever know that things might have gone another way, as they nearly did in the Eademer Battistero. You haven’t made that point, have you, my boys and girls? And look, I was going to put this in, too, about the Church of Rao redescribing the turning points in history to make them seem inevitable, inspired, divine, and canonical: the Flan welcoming the Vollar to the Vale of Luna; the Crook of Rao discovered and founding the nation of Voll; the canon pledging troth to the overking and bestowing peace, progress, and innovation on an empire; freedom and faith are restor . . .

Yeah, yeah. We would have thought of that eventually. I mean, it took you all night, right?

And so, dear students, you are confronted by the Canon of Veluna’s fundamental dilemma: how to costume his ambitions in the guises of Rao. Having reached an immovable, mountainous height in the regions of peace and serenity, yet that supremacy must be hid for the unhappiest of reasons! His canonical peace was well endowed (speaking metaphorically) by an olive branch so large that no fig leaf could conceal it. His reasoning bulged with a passion so concupiscent that no euphemism could trouser it. His serenity contained a desire so unsavory that only some like it so hot. What, my salacious readers, would you have done in his stead? Bare your magnificence (supposing you possessed it) to the world, or pants it modestly and closet your perfidious abundance? Deflate the extremity of your longest extent or measure it proudly amongst the mighty? Arouse the size of your pride or leave it uncorpuscularly diminished? Fortunately, for those of us without the stamina to requite such demonstrations, the Canon of Veluna has wrestled the horns of this mighty dilemma and straddled it: Maintain your modesty in public at all costs; treachery is a boast made more massive in private.

 

 

Interlude: The High Moon Inn, a hero adventurer’s recital

 

In Grimwood-under-Sky, the High Moon Inn hosted a sleeping man that always smelled of beer, a bottomless beer that the innkeeper provided. The guests of the inn, transient and resident alike, gave the man always a wide berth at a corner table less out of consideration than out of disappointment and its consequent resentment. The sleeping man was known as The Sage, and he was the heart of the life of the village. He gave (or long had) relief from “the Grim’s life” (as the villagers told it) of foraging in the forest to find what sustenance the clearing sporadically provided, cut too deep within a forest that disrespected the pale of Grimwood-under-Sky.

Things came out of the forest that trespassed the clearing, often very natural things but not always so. The unnatural were the domain of The Sage, who told Grimwood-under-Sky preposturous tales about things that they knew were all too real, although the stories were sufficiently ridiculous to laugh at. The drunkard was ridiculous, too, and the levity he provided was how the villagers got by day to day. In fact, for a while back when they had more than got by. Grimwood-under-Sky had prospered from public traffic that the drunkard Sage brought to the High Moon Inn. People from hundreds of miles would come to hear him, and they, in return for a little hospitality, could be very generous. Some of them even came to tell tales of their own, and some of those chose to remain in the village. A community of tale-tellers and an industry of tale-telling soon defined a place so remote that only the wealthy and the adventurous ever reached it. There is no better way of adducing the old addage about wealth trickling down than to point to the prosperity, such as it is, of Grimwood-under-Sky.

Tonight, among the adventuring transients, there are several from Law’s Forge, from where no one from here is known to have been from before.

“That is because,” the newcomers said, “it’s a devil’s prison.”

They were almost children, hardly more. They had a friend, they said, that lived in a book. And there was no doubt that they had a book, because one of them was going to tell a tale being written in it. The book, they said, had sent them to Grimwood-under-Sky for that purpose. The High Moon Inn laughed and shouted for joy. Rarely had a storyteller come with an introduction so inventive and rich.

It was a tale of Prince Thrommel, and even in all-knowing Grimwood-under-Sky, that’s a tale worth hearing. So, the child began.

§

 

~The prince and the kidnappers

“About Prince Thrommel everyone knows three things: his last words; he did not die, he disappeared; and becase there is no body, there is no tomb. Plans for an empty mausoleum were mooted when Lucidides, Thrommel’s biographer, had boasted that ‘A hero like Prince Thrommel has the whole earth for his tomb.’

“And every year since then, on Whole Oerth Day, Furyondians have planted trees and cleaned the environment.

“Lucidides also wrote the official account of Thrommel’s last words, which is this:

“After his victory against the Sea Princes, the prince’s wounds were dressed and he was given a sedative. As he fell asleep, his captains debated ‘whether His Highness’s civil or military excellence was the superior example of his virtue.’ Thrommel sat up and rebuked them, saying, “I boast only one thing, that no Furyondian ever wore mourning because of me.” Thousands of men, women, and children had died at the marshal’s command, but Thrommel believed he had been a scrupulous soldier and only fought when necessary. Popular sentiment and historical judgement have agreed.

“That night, unknown assailants overcame the night watch and abducted the prince, leaving witnesses to the event and purportedly alternative last words. Singling out the most commanding, villainous, and brutal of the assailants, he had said, ‘Et tu, amica?’ Which means, in the common tongue,

“You too, girlfriend?”

Something was wrong. I awoke but could not rise. My hands (in their dreaming) had gripped the wrist of my attacker but could not force his hand from my mouth. His strength and weight were on me to keep me down. I could not scream. Yet his eyes (this was odd) were reassuring; the forefinger that he brought to his lips soon obviated my struggles.

Who was he? What was this? He looked left; he looked right.

So did I. Our tent admitted no heaven; everything was dark within. Yet shapes of absolute darkness were there that lacked any fathom and sound, while under their weight there were other, more cognizable things held prone. I looked again at my assailant, who was becoming intelligible to me.

It was Victoro, captain of our second battalion. A knife in the grip of a void notched his throat, and we, a moment ago his fellow captains dreaming of victory’s delights, were now captured. Our tent was a hatchless dungeon.

Which hatched (nonetheless) a torchbearer bringing three further figures in tow. They wore the black costume of their comrades, the first two adorned by flaps on their hoods like the ears of Nubian goats, the third with a tiara of satin strips falling over his head like a skirt of pheasant’s feathers. The torchbearer cleared a way to the only man in the tent still sleeping: our sedated prince, ignorant as a napping babe.

“Rouse him.”

The Nubians brought him to his feet, and with his eyes still sealed, Thrommel gave two sniffs at the atmosphere. “Rosenrantz and Gildenstern, as I breathe,” he professed as he unlidded his disdain for the attackers. “Hooded? For real? None of these men know you. Will you be bigger fools for admitting that I do?”

One of the goats removed its ears. “Yo, prince. Rejoice! You see me happier on this night than I have been for this past year—may it ever be forgot.”

“Your friend is reluctant.”

“He’s just stubborn. I’ll help him.”

The second man, unwillingly unmasked, brought a lecherous grin to his cleft lip; a wound that, on his face, denoted an ill spirit.

“How are you, my lord? Perhaps you’ve had better evenings?”

“All that saw nothing of you,” reconsidered the prince, who next attended to the pheasant, the chief, who stood three steps back, a man of ponderous strength like an anchor of malice. The prince was disenchanted.

“You too, girlfriend?”

There was no reply. The pheasant was still, and slowly, slowly, hope and meaning were diminished.

“Rope up his friends.”

We captains were herded and cinched together, shuffling our feet in maintenance of a common and awkward balance. The pheasant spoke words, raised a forefinger, drew a circle in the air, sealed his lips, and stunned the tent into a silence so profound that I could not find my thoughts. The torchbearer pulled a bomb from his garment, lit the fuse by the flame, and tossed the device at our feet, which were combined so that we could not kick it out. The pheasant incanted again, and—along with Thrommel, the clefted lieutenant, and the torchbearer—vanished. The prince, guessing our fate, grimmaced the moment he disappeared.

The remaining assassins withdrew and left us in our magical zone of silence. The fuse burned down, and –

Nothing. We lived. The tale is told. And I, Captain Lorenza D’Amico, swear that it is true. You have been a wonderful audience.

“The tavern cheered. The innkeeper served me a beer that I pushed at the drunken sage in the corner when I sat down beside him.

“‘He won’t take it unless he drinks in a coma,’ said the innkeeper, who had followed me there.

 “‘How long will he be like this?’

“‘Two days.’

“‘Why?’

“‘The brew don’t wear off, so he stays lost in his thoughts.’

“‘What are they?’

“‘He says that he once lived in Doraka’a, and it gives him bad dreams,’ said the High Moon’s proprietor, leaning toward me and winking confidentially. ‘I’ll tell you. He has stories to tell. The clientele is mad for them. He’s worth a bit to me and mine. I got a wife, you know. I got kids.’ He grew more confidential, his eyes gleaming bright like the lamp of a miner that you see is trapped way down. ‘The folk liked your story a lot. How many more of ‘em you got in that book?’

“‘None. I want to know what he says about Doraka’a.’

“‘That there’s demons and necromancers and goblins and tunnels and citadels of terror. But if he’s talking about Doraka’a, he always ends up talking about Iuz. He says he’s seen Iuz.’

“‘I need more detail.’

“‘Why don’t you stick around? Let him tell you. Maybe read a few more stories from that book?’

“‘Impossible. We have an appointment to keep. Come on, tell me more.’

 “‘He’s mad. You can’t believe his stories. The wildest one’s are about Halga. You know: High Priestess of Iuz? the Bloody Hag? Witch-lover of the cambion god? Now, get this.’ I hadn’t thought anyone could get so confidential. ‘The Sage says she’s innocent. He says its lies about her and that we got her wrong.’ The fat man set down his belly, half on the table and half on me, and leaned across to take hold of the drunken Sage still sleeping opposite. He reached inside the Sage’s shirt, fondled for something down there, and pulled out a hideous, sore, dried, flesh-and-blood eyeball on a string. ‘This is a Iuz’s Eye. Iuz’s priests got them and use them to see things, to scry far off. That’s true enough. The Sage says he got this one from Halga. But Iuz’s Eyes move and blink when they look about, and this one hasn’t moved in the twenty years I seen it. The Sage just found it somewhere in the forest, picked it up, and brought it here. He showed it to us. I gave him a beer. He told us a story. I gave him a beer. He told another one, and—you get the picture. He’s pretty imaginative. He’s told hundreds of stories. But they’re starting to get repititious. The best ones are about Halga, and now he’s gotten peeved. He won’t hardly tell them no more. He’s drunk all the time, and his imagination’s run dry. People are noticing.’ The proprietor scraped his belly off me and gave a heavy sigh. ‘I got the future to think of. The Sage is unreliable. How much do you think that book is worth?’

“‘Nothing. How do you know that he makes them up?’

“‘Because Halga visits these parts. People have seen her. She’s tall. And we’ve seen what she does. She’s into bowelism. ▽  ^▽ That guy there’s sister was boweled. And she disembowels too. You know the intestines on the walls of Wormhall, right? That’s not a hundred miles from here. Folks have seen it. Halga put them there. She still does. People can see her because she does it right out in the daylight. She has a glue made of mostly human blood and innards. Nowadays she goes about hooded on account of her eyes. Blood drips from the witch’s eyes, you know, a little more each time she kills. It’s buckets by now. So, she hides her face but it soaks through her cloak anyhow. Does that sound innocent? People don’t like him saying she’s innocent. They know better. They jeer him for it, and it makes him mad. He gets peeved. He’s starting to clam up. After twenty years! So, I’m telling you, friend: that story about Thrommel is new. There’s plenty of tales about Thrommel’s last words, but that one is new. Original, like. How many more you got in that book? Because, I think that it must belong to me High Moon, one way or another. See?”

“No. But I have one more tale to tell. I’ll tell it, and then we’re leaving, and you are not going to mind, friend, because I’m telling you. We’re not innocent either. Not any more.”

 

 

Chapter 23: Tranquility College

 

I have news for you, my hero adventurers. This day I have obtained The Compleat Compendium of Monsters Illustrated Edition, because I wanted to know more about the dangers that await you in Fellreev Forest. I have long lamented being of no use against the terrible villains and horrible horrors that you encounter (by statistical averaging) on a bi-weekly basis, although I never hear about them until later. The most recent occasion—six days after leaving Grimwood-under-Sky—was your campsite attacked by assassins at night. Why did they? Who was it that cares so much about you? What would have happened if your sentry had been asleep in that tree? If your healer hadn’t learned protection from poison a fortnight ago from a theiving drow caught under your blade and pleading for her life? What if you hadn’t allowed her live after you had vowed to do it? Lolth, the spider-goddess of the drow, might have cursed your spell and allowed the eerie poison of the assassins to do its work. Instead, you had earned the demon goddess’s unblessing, a necessary thing when you consider that the venomous poison had resistance to the cure. By the ungrace of Lolth, you live today!

It's too terrible to think about. And who’s to say that something worse won’t happen? I’m no prognosticator. I cannot foresee your future, and in addition to the plain impossibility, my contract also forbids it. But last night, while working tirelessly on this chapter, it occurred to me. Am I forbidden to know something (by natural means) that I might happen to mention to you accidentally in the nick of time? On the contrary. All the conventions of fantasy and romance require it! How unnatural of me not to know something (incidental to my wide-ranging scholarly interests) about what might be lurking near you at a time and place no one expects, and that I may have included this knowledge in my history book, so that you are proved fortunate in surviving a mortal encounter? It is so unnatural that the Fates (who are avid readers of romances) may be getting suspicious by now about why nothing like it has happened so far. The only time I remember was when I diverted you from the domains of Verithmirax (the dragon) and Dahlvier (the vampire) and sent you to Grimwood-under-Sky; where you told my tale about Halga, the High Priestess of Iuz, who resides in Doraka’a, where you are going. No harm came of that, right? So I thought, let’s give it a go!

You now approach lonely, lovely, deadly Lake Aqal. By luck, I happen to have sent advanced payment to Clerkburg Inscribers, in Greyhawk’s High Quarter, near the University of Magic, to request that a copy of The Complete Compendium should reach me by today at the latest via teleportation. You see, the postcard about Verbobonc that I sent you earlier got me thinking about the ancient elves that live on Lake Aqal, one of whom had written about the water’s indigenous monsters in a series of notices that happened to have included reminiscences of her former life in the Vale of Luna long ago. The notices are incorporated into the Compendium, although I canot remember into which entries in particular. The Compendium arrived today, and not knowing any better, I naturally began at the beginning, and lo! the second alphabetical entry of the seven hundred and eleven composing it is the Aboleth, a tubular aberration that (for all I know) may exist as a black, ten-foot, tentacled, wet, spongey-skinned, squid- or phallus-like and dismembered appendage (my apologies to the ladies) that lives and slithers in the lake’s waters and on land nearby. So, dear students, take heed: near Lake Aqal, if you begin to feel in your mind a compulsion to be generally subservient to nothing in particular, turn and run back the way you came, or it will be too late!

The Compendium was not cheap. I almost had to mortgage my desk. But I wanted to share your adventures as far as I might, and you must admit that the bit about the aboleth is timely. Nonetheless, I have set the Compendium aside and placed before me tonight’s work, which includes a little scrivening of my own: a transcription of a bifolium—a pamphlet—written two decades ago that few people have ever read, although it is widely notorious. I thought about sending the autograph to you, but it is a fairly popular request among the Divergent Underground (for whom it was written) and too precious to be lodged in a book that no one will ever see.

The bifolium in question—“What I think about my great-great-great-grandfather”—was written by the great-great-great-grandson of Bromides Authenticeus, the former Bishop of Devarnish from whose widely-known sermon, delivered ex cathedra in 440cy, I blockquoted an excerpt several headings above that spoke  of hope in restoring “greater Veluna, which hope may last but briefly.” Historians have always considered the bishop a wiley advocate for restoring the archclericy, a key agent in Mitrik’s triumph despite his see in the south. But according to “What I think,” it was not so. Passages from the sermon have allegedly been lifted out of context to misrepresent Authenticeus’ true support for the cause of “county and diocese,” not for the cause of unanimity. To posterity, nonetheless, Authenticeus’ reputation has preceded him: he is universally known as an establishment hero at the Eademer Battistero. No one imagines that it was infirmity and hopelessness, not his genuine consent, that put the bishop’s signature to the concordat.

Or so claims Professor Authenticrates Minerva, the great-great-great grandson of Bromides Authenticeus. Minerva was the Historical Conservancy Professor of Modern History when I was at Grey and until his retirement in 586cy. The Historial Conservancy was (and still is) a Velunar conservative foundation, and Prof Minerva was a bit apologetic about it and about his great-great-great-grandfather too. And well he should be, because “Doctor Authentic” (as we called him) was a closetted member of the Divergent Underground, a closet where such bastions are very lowly shelved. The Doc took a lot of ribbing because of it, but we were flabbergasted to discover, when we read his ◒Bifolium◓, how personally he had taken it.

My Apology to the Club:

You quill-dicks and spunk blotters may say what you want—as you do—but my ancestor wasn’t like that. Signing the Concordat saved his see for the diocesan cause. He would have lost Devarnish had he spoken his mind, and history would be very different.

I am telling you. When Devarnish was liberated, in 438cy, it had been occupied for eighty-three years and Bromides Authenticeus had been bishop for fifteen. Southern Velunars had known happy days during occupation. The Keoish had governed openly and confidantly, and why not? The demarcation line with Veluna was secure; the occupiers did not fear rebellion because so few Velunars wanted it. The archclericy had never been popular. Theocracy had brought trouble to the counties, and occupation had returned peace and prosperity. The south believed that it was better off than the north and had become an entity apart.

The beginning of the Short War came tinged by patriotic hope but even more by uncertainty. The war proceded roughly from west to east, so that Devarnish was the last diocese freed. The four southern bishops—Falsridge, Lorrish, Valkurl, and Devarnish^▽—stayed in touch until, one by one, freedom stilled their voices. They had wanted to adopt a common stance facing Mitrik and the victorious Furyondian king, but points of divergence frustrated their agreement. Falsridge was afraid his county would be caught in a long border war in Bissell and intended to accommodate the king as a precaution. Hibit^▽ quit Valkurl prior to liberation in a demonstration of loyalty to Canon Raowen, whom his see depended on. Lorrish hoped to advance his precious liturgical reforms and would accomodate Mitrik for that reason. But the four agreed on one point: diocesan privileges had flourished during the occupation and ought to be preserved by the archclericy. In practical terms, this agreement accomplished nothing because of the concerning differences, but nonetheless, after the Concordat of Eademer, it became the diocesan movement’s guiding spirit and the font of southern Tranquility, Tranquilitism, and liturgical innovation.

Of course, the diocesan spirit was incompatible with the concordat that Authenticeus and the others had signed in the battistero. But when they signed, episcopoal collegiality was a fait accompli. The king had made clear that he would not intervene in Velunar affairs, Titular Bishop Cranmerra had already been translated into Archbishop Claud and awaited public consecration. Within the battistero, the old temple was cold and damp, Authenticeus was sick, Devarnish needed attention, the other bishops had given up, and my great-great-great-grandfather had made crucial other plans. So, he signed.

But you are always so flippant, aren’t you? You do not understand. You see everything badly. You see history streaming in a great current and cannot imagine that it was not so. History does not flow; it converges and diverges. Always, convergence is a gain by which much is lost, and divergence brings new directions, not more of the same. We know historical appearances by examining their before and, not by pinning them down. This is true, even if it spoils your fun.

Bromides Authenticeus signed the concordat yet saved the diocesan spirit by directing it underground and parting the Archclericy’s gathering waters. Had history depended on Falsridge, Lorrish, and Valkurl, diocesanism would have dispersed into the mainstream. There would be no Tranquility College, no Tranquility movememt, no Cardinale Newman, no church reform, no Fountainspring crisis, no independent Dyvers, and possibly, no Greyhawk Wars.

When I say it, you laugh. You are always laughing at me. “But Doctor Authentic, those things all came out of the battistero! Tranquility was founded by Authenticeus as an archclerical college! The acrchclericy supported the liturgical reforms!” You jest and you think very freely but not very well. How could an anti-Erastrian movememt such as Tranquilitism have come from Mitrik? Where could it have come from there? Where would you find its source?

You think of the archclericy as a thousand-year-old stream that inevitably gathered strength and took everything in. You do not see convergence and divergence. My great-great-great-grandfather signed the birth certificate of the gathering stream, that’s true, but he swam in the underground current, too, which he diverged at the battistero conclave. The diocesan spirit flowed below the archclericy, at least for a significant while, and that made the difference.

Do you know Tranquility’s history? You think so. You say, “It was founded by the College of Bishops. It’s an establishment school,” and you are done with it. But I ask you, who was at the college? I remind you, the faltering three southern bishops (I call them Wilso, Stillso, and Creedalong) and my ancester Bromides Authenticeus were in the battistero. Tranquility’s foundational grant came from Mitrik, yes; but after that, the southern dioceses were its great benefactors. The south would make Tranquility wealthy and influential.

What was it that made Tranquility an anti-Erastrian school? Was it the money from Mitrik or the diocesan ideal, the southern idea? You know nothing about it. You hear nothing of it. You are bad historians. Those of you who are historians, doubly so. I possess the documented evidence of what I say. It is my family that knows about it. Yet, you do not listen to me. You are jokers and tell your jokes.

In fellowship despite it,

Authenticrates Minerva, Conservancy Professor

Moonday, 3^rd Patchwall, 574cy

I possess the dated autograph of this text, written six months after the undated bifolium was first distributed, in Growfest, 574cy. The autograph had been transcribed dozens of times by then by members of the informal “club” (it was not yet the Divergent Underground but its forerunner, known variously as “the Subversionaries,” “the Antithesizers,” “the Assassins of Magesteria,” “the Quiblers,” etc.)  that Minerva addressed. This was a loose collection of Grey College scholars that relished cow-tipping authoritative exegeses. The club had much fun at Doc Authentic’s expense, it’s true, because he could not contain his love of family honor. Ha ha! Our jests were private and soon blew over, but the Tranquility bifolium was so good that it blew into public view, where the Historical Conservancy frowned on it. The conservancy even expressed an interest in confiscating the documents that Doc Authentic had claimed to possess. I know all about it, because I got acquainted with the good Doctor that autumn in Dyvers, after I interviewed him for my doctoral research into . . . Oh, do you have a question?

Yes, please. Professor Minerva’s pamphlet . . .

Bifolium!

. . . bi-fo-li-um presumes some knowledge that we adventurers don’t have, apparently; for example, those anti-erasers . . .

Erastrians!

. . . and things like that, maybe you could explain them?

Hmm. The pamphlet covers a lot of ground that you don’t need to see. I hadn’t thought to take the time. But coloring in the outlines in won’t do any harm, I suppose.

In fact, it’s a good idea! It is passed time that I acquaint you with Raoan popular religion and the proper rites of Reason’s church, which are not the same things although each has its attraction and beauty. I could relate this lesson as a history of Tranquility College, Tranquilitism, the Tranquility movememt, and liturgical reform; and if I sneak the anti-Erastrians in, your question will be answered superbly!

§

 

~Tranquility College and the Tranquility movement

Despite the one thousand years that have passed since its origin in the Vale of Luna among the people of Voll, the Raoan faith of popular experience today remains tethered to the faith of the pastoral folk of so long ago. The valley is more settled, of course, and the people are too. The land they lived off in common is now privately owned, and their ancient shrines and temples have been incorporated into churches, so that an apse or sanctuary in use today may be a temple’s relic. These old “blisters”—so called because they often look like bubbles swelling from a church’s exterior walls—accommodate ordinary festive and occasional days in popular ceremonies that do not require an appointed priest: personal prayers, private remembrances, talismans, thanksgivings, and feasts like hock-carting, may-poling, mid-winter, and mid-summer observance. Priests may be present on these occasions, but they do not preside. A harvest-king, a may-queen, or any such one takes the lead by popular acclaim and gives thanks to Rao on the day.

The distinction between church and blister is of consequence. It exhibits the gradual imposition of church manners onto earlier Raoan things: first on a shrine, a temple, a church, a parish; then on a diocese, an establishment, a cathedral; then on a high canon and a government at last. It exhibits, too, how various customs, occasions, ceremonies, and popular rites could survive indefinitely within a church superimposed on a diverse but still catholic Raoanism.

Keoland’s occupation of Veluna lasted from 355-438cy and prompted a transformation of Raoan religion. Actually, there were three remarkable transformations at the time, one each in the free north, the captive south, and the restored “greater Veluna” that followed liberation. In the north, the archclericy persisted as the national government all the while, but the perception and the nature of its authority were greatly changed. At its declaration, the theocracy’s authority was vested in the canon and many lesser high clerics that depended on the cooperation and tolerable good will of the dioceses and counties. But occupation reduced the extent of the theocracy to a lesser fraction of itself, and though it still claimed to have legitimate rule in all seven counties and Veluna City, the difference between the claim and the reality was apparent to everyone and had a corrosive effect. The theocrats suspected disloyalty everywhere in the north, and to suppress it, they exerted political power forcefully and top-down. Their immediate and vertical control was felt everywhere, prompting the mocking overtone of most contemporary references to “the free north.”

In the south, the bishops (other than Kempton, who fled to the unoccupied portion of his diocese) had remained in their cathedrals even as Keoland’s armies closed in. But they ceased to exercise their authority ostentatiously. On the contrary, at first, they had expected to be arrested on each passing day. But the Keoish had witnessed the ambivalence of many Velunars toward their theocratic government. They wanted the southern bishops to divorce their sees from the archclericy while maintaining the continuity of provincial parrish life. Popular and local custums—especially those tied to the blisters—were encouraged; great national observances were not; and the bishops found themselves somewhere between local and the national Raoan faith. We may say that, in the south, the faith of the blisters was invited into the churches, while in the north, the faith of the churches expelled the blisters.

Consequently, in the south the bishops came to embody the unity of a variety of local rites, while in the north, they represented ritual conformity. And from this, two very different understandings of episcopal authority took hold: the southern bishops styled each other as equals and believed Raoan catholicism to be embodied in ecpiscopal collegiality; the northern bishops derived their authority from the Canon of Veluna and understood catholicism as a benefit of the canon’s good graces.

After liberation, these two ecclesioligies were synthesized by the episcopal conclave in the Eademer Battistero. But the synthesis was neither clean nor clinical. The big losers were the local parishes of the Citizenry of Veluna City, who, during occupation, had been treated as a rabble without a bishop and were placed directly under the canon’s monarchical rule. But the three northern bishops (Whitehale, Grayington, and Kempton) were submitted to canonical authority, too, especially when it came to supporting the canon’s chosen man in the battistero, the titular bishop of Verbobonc, to be made the Archbishop of Veluna City.

The southern bishops accepted the archbishop after gaining two concessions. First, the canon’s authority would not be wholely superior in the dioceses and the the archbishop would not represent a monarch among the bishops. Second, each of the southern bishops was given something he wanted. Falsridge was assured that his county would not be involved in Furyondy and Veluna’s annexation of Bissel. Lorrish obtained the official sanction of his liturgical reforms, conjoining blister rites to church rites through suggestions for priestly and lay participation in the rubrics. Valkurl—the poorest of the dioceses—received a permanent financial consideration from the canon and the archclericy. And Devarnish—the see of Bromides Authenticeus—got Tranquility College.

It was because Authenticeus got so little—a college founded by a donation from the canon’s treasury—that he was popularly understood to have been the canon’s man. But Canon Raowen had wanted to found what he had proposed to call “Canon’s College”; the fact that Authenticeus got his Tranquility would prove to be—as his great-great-great-grandson Authenticrates maintained—more important to Velunar history than the other concessions combined.

The difference between Canon’s and Tranquility was not a school by another name; it was a different system of monetary patronage. Canon’s would have been funded by the archclerical treasury; Trinity was funded by diocesan bequests. Everyone understood the difference, but Canon Raowen conceded because the canonical coffers were poorly off at the time, and Bishop Authenticeus’ signature to the concordat was the last one needed to restore the archclericy.

Raowen had not foreseen the emphatic commitment of the southerners to Tranquility; not only to its endowment and construction but to its supply of faculty, administrators, and student enrollment. Within thirty years, Tranquility College was large and rich: almost Veluna’s penultimate institution, second only to the Canonry and the Archclericy.

In 461cy, Tranquility’s great rival, pointedly named Canon’s College, was founded in Mitrik. Canon’s quickly became a minor priestly seminary and a major school of law, while Tranquility flourished as a humanist school centered on the Raoan tradition. These fifth-century rivals would inform the first of the great sixth-century troubles befalling the western Nyr Dyv region: the Tranquilitarian Controversy.

Veluna’s antiquity has come to an end; its modernity is the future.

 

 

SCENARIO SIX—THE TROUBLED SIXTH CENTURY

 

 

 

 

Chapter 24: The Tranquility movement, Dyvers, and the “obscure D”

 

It was laws and taxes; that’s the standard view. And presumably, it’s true. Taxes are proverbially certain, and of course, there must be laws to collect them. The logic speaks for itself. And so, in light of necessity, I commence my history of the troubled sixth century—the Tranquilitarian controversy, the Mrs Plimpson affair, and the independence of Dyvers—in Furyondy and Veluna by heeding sage advice: “Follow the taxes.”

After Veluna’s liberation, the teetering Raoan archclericy was given its  second foundation by the unanimous vote of the eight bishops in the Eademer Battistero, in 446cy. A grateful Canon Raowen requited his saviors with tax and legal reforms implemented in the Velunar provinces. The counties were each subsumed by their traditional and coextensive dioceses; the citizenry of Veluna City, by the archdiocese that was newly established in the capital, making the sees into the refounded theocracy’s tax collectors. Extensive legal reforms were implemented to effect this transfer of civil authority to the dioceses. County courts, from where there had been no legal appeal before, were deferred to a theocratic supreme court for the adjudification of a secularized code of canonical law. The canon’s code was gradually reached into the lower courts; the counties—judges and tax collectors in Veluna since before the founding of Voll—were semi-autonomous provincial governments no longer.

The new theocracy reduced the Celestial Order of the Moons, which had hoped to be the secular government in Veluna only a decade before, to a representative house of congress with no constitutional authority further than advising the canon on matters of interest to the nobility and private wealth. It had taken four centuries longer than historians will credit it, but the Concordat of Eademer’s tax and legal reforms lifted at last the Canon of Veluna to the status of a theocratic monarch, the realization (so it would seem) of his designs.

Despite the nominally equal status of the Celestial Order, the College of Bishops’ greater importance was obvious from the first. The bishops, via Canon Raowen’s reforms, effectively displaced the noble families as peers of the realm. The nobility, of course, had been princes of sorts, not clerics, but like the peers to their king, the bishops after Eademer were made subordinate to the canon in most respects, although the concessions they had won in the battistero often allowed them to act independently.

Deferring the church doctrine of episcopal collegiality to the politically constituted College of Bishops was a gambit played by the bishops no less than the canon, mixing (as it did) the political authority of the theocrats with the religious authority of the dioceses. Although the constitutional role of the college was only to advise the canon, yet the bishops (especially in the southern dioceses) were nearer than Raowen to the popular religion of the people, the same extraordinary faith that the bishops had appealed to by decrying the national apostasy. By involving themselves in the archclericy’s affairs, the bishops risked associating themselves with the archclericy’s unpopularity while allowing the politically disliked Raowen to appear more like the good shepherd of Veluna than Veluna’s political monarch.

It is cruial for you, my scholars in adventuring circumstances, to remember that after the Concordat of Eademer the bishops and the theocrats were entirely neither the same nor different. The Archbishop of Veluna City is their confusion’s best example: a political appointment (by the canon) subsequently consecrated to episcopal authority and voting in the College of Bishops. Political and religious responsibilities, once defined by counties and dioceses, were now thoroughly mixed.

But while the nobility had been set aside as the archclericy’s third wheel, and the canon and the bishops were now contending to steer the tricycle, the authority of the theocrats had been nearly vacated by events in the Eademer Battistero. What need was there for a national administration whose responsibilities were shifted to the dioceses? But the theocrats had a natural ally in the canon, who needed their support as a check to episcopal power. Set adrift and without purpose, the theocrats would need reinventing, and we have already met their new anchors of institutional authority: canonical law, the Supreme Court of Veluna, and the school of canonical law at Canon’s College, in Mitrik.

These controverted designs took fifty years to coalesce into one decisive contest:  the Temporalities Decree, in 497cy. According to the Supreme Court, “the Temporalities” was a legitimate exercise of political powers invested in the canon by agreements within the Eademer Battistero and the concordat. But the decree brought on a crisis of conscience in the Raoan church, which the bishops, in their capacity as shepherds of the faithful, had to salve. The Temporalities affirmed that the dioceses and certain other Raoan institutions were the financial responsibility of the canon, who thus had the power to reform them, when necessary, under advice from the College of Bishops. Thus, the canon had the power to reform spiritual authorities. In the opionion of the court, the bishops had agreed to this in principle when, in the Eademer Battistero, they had accepted financial donations from the canon to the poor diocese of Valkurl in perpetuity and to the initial foundation of Tranquility College, in Devarnish.

Did the Canon of Veluna have responsibility for the financial security of the dioceses and other institutions, even to the extent of reforming episcopal authority? Did the Temporalities then require the canon to interfere, if necessary, in the bishops’ spiritual conduct? Could the bishops reject such interence, despite their subordination to the archbishop, who was appointed by the canon?

Was the Canon of Veluna an ecclesial, as well as a political, monarch?

In 499cy, five of the eight bishops of the Church of Rao accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the canon; the episcopacy of the church was subject to the canon’s theocratic monarchy, and many of the ordinary priests and the faithful of the Church of Rao were made to see the episcopacy’s legislative powers in a new light. The political rise of the bishops had become spiritually problematic.

But the Tranquility movement was much more than ecclesial regret. It had far-ranging social, commercial, and political repercussions that the reformists and the Tranquilitists were very aware of. I have seen the evidence for this, although as things stand, I can produce only part of it, the first and last sheets (in autograph) of a journal kept by Sir Porrish Poundlace over a six-week stay, in 514cy, at Belickling Hall: the splendid estate on Tempton Water inherited by the female line of the notorious Mrs Plimpson, later Lady Broile, the Baroness of Broile, Sir Porrish’s friend.

Porrish Poundlace had been a vagabond esquire and racy novelist from before his boon companion Prince Thrommel (not ours, from Mistress and Prince, but his grandfather, who would be King ThrommelⅡ) enobled him. The vagabond and soon-to-be-Sir Porrish kept journals about his life among aristocrats as storage for the furniture of his books; his stay at Belickling Hall upholstered a front row seat to the enduring affair of His Royal Highness, the prince, and the aforementioned Lady Broile, Mrs Plimpson (aka Lady Plimpson, née Liberta Purchisse), while the journal records a time when the celebrated divorcée was much less infamous (and rather less a lady) than she later became.

I will tell you how I obtained the autograph sheets once you’ve read them.

Poundlace, as you will notice, economized on sheets by not indenting the paragraphs and writing on both sides then crossing one.

The Belickling Hall journal of Sir Porrish Poundlace: ^▽

(First sheet)

 

 

Waterday, 5^th Reaping, 514cy

Belickling Hall

I have avoided the further expense of entertaining HRH and his accomplice Lord Landlard by transporting us from Kissail Town to Belickling Hall, where the Plimpson-Purchisses may better afford our comfort. Legal (WARN YOUR READERS—his name is pronounced LEGgull) and his sister are ecstatic to have him, so I have been able to combine a service to my reimbursement by deferring my personal costs while at Belickling for the duration. Lord Landlard brought Prince Thrommel to Kissail, I have surmised, to pump me for information about the Raoan Churches. Undoubtably, HRH was fishing for an introduction to Legal, which is why he was being so damned expensive in town. At Belickling, though, I will pretend to be innocent of these suspicions, because if HRH is interested in the Raoan Churches, he intends to tax them. I wonder if Lady Plimpson can charm him out of it? She has that reputation, although I have never appreciated it. She’s short and plump, to my eye. Her lord fell head over heels for her back then, but I think he’s gotten over it now. Liberta was very modestly, almost plainly dressed when she greeted us. But after dinner (and our fourth glass of wine), the gentlemen (I am liberal enough to include myself in that company) were all besotted. Damn me, those blue eyes! The way they wink, nod, roll, and glide! Libby tells jokes like a man with the voice and vocabulary of girl. I watched her closely, and every quarter hour she favored HRH with a few more glimpses and smiles, damn me if she didn’t. By the end, we (the prince, Landlard, and me—I admit of no reference to her husband or brother) had all felt the lodge of Cupid’s dart. In the morning, though, we were in our proper places. Lord Hoemer suggested a walk to the church, and Legal seconded it: “Yes, St Sophia’s is my sister’s pet. She is renovating it in the gothic style. We must go. Libby’s quite into this Tranquility business, you know.” So, I was right: the prince’s visit is about imports and tariffs. The talk on the way was all about Tranquility, and I must say that, although I keep (over)

informed on the business side of things, I took a lesson in what motivates religious types to buy our trinkets.  There are shelves of them in St Soph’a's reconstructed blister: Canon’s candles, crook-snuffers, peace pipes, serenity sticks, wisdom books, sensible beads, etc. for sale on the blister steps. When Liberta showed us their rituals and purposes I was nearly moved to participation, despite that I had supplied every one of them myself. In the end, as a donation to our cause, I bought a venture cap with “Sir Porrish Poundlace, supplier” sewn in. St Sophia’s was very solemn within. I’d seen it many years before, when it was a bare stone cabin. The church now has excellent nooks and crannies filled with saints’ statues, stained depiction windows, a flowing font of wisdom, and many things besides, each with its own rites and habbits for purchase or rent in the vestibule. As Lady Plimpson explained the mysteries, she whispered them so low that we could scarcely hear, and she angled her mouth increasingly toward Prince Thrommel’s ear all the while. It’s too late for him, he’s been converted! When the sorceress draped a white surplice (taken from the blister’s fabulous sacristry) over her black dress (like widows-weeds that revealed too much), winging the folds by swaying her arms, she was a devil or angel of temptation! Did I say, short and plump? Lady Plimpson may reform your ideas of love and beauty. When she showed off the church’s new organ, playable before every pipe was up, she displayed it to advantage. By chance, the builder was “John Pope, Organ-maker by appointment to HRH Prince Thrommel, Duke of Freeborough,” the identical HRH that handed her up the helpfully strenuous steps to the loft, where she, seated at his organ, pulled all the stops out on “Lo! he comes, with cries ascending.” And lo! as the regal hymn gave its last gasp, at the holy moment, a thunderstorm broke upon St Sophia’s, and a bellowing, blowing, pouring, resounding rain overcame us all. Nor passed the storm too soon; it dwindled to a sullen, soaking downpour, stranding us disconsolately one wet mile from Belickling. The prince, a little stupid at the bast of times, was soon bored, but fortunately, his boon Lord Landlard is an old hand as his companion and was equipped with playing cards. “But damn me,” said the heartened royal, glancing toward the church-builder and foreman (the commoners that had been working outside and were come in from the rain), “if we aren’t two players short for Ups and Downs.” This parlour

 

game, which is ruled so as to pair people off for bed, can be played in a group that the prince was up for. Fortunately, Lord Landlard had the solution for this difficulty too: “We call the prince “my lord” and each other “sir” and “lady” except for Legal, whom we call “mister,” making everyone at table comfortable and the necessary party of eight.” So arranged we played through the storm, and if Lady Plimpson had seemed briefly transcendent, she was one of us sinners now. On the game’s final round, the prince produced a seraph and thought he had won her, but the lady cried out, “Ha! the deuce take you!” and trumped his one with a two. (I wonder who dealt her that duece; her husband, most likely.) The hand would have coupled the prince and the lady either way you like it, but the prince seemed pleased for Lady Plimpson to win him. The rain had stopped, and bidding goodbye to St Sophia’s, we trumbled back to Belickling. The bedrooms that night began with the correct occupants, but I doubt things stayed that way. Whether or no, in the morning Lord Hoemer remembered some business in town, and from that day on we slept as we liked, although I had a bedroom to myself and . . .

(Last sheet)

. . . sun had gone down when we left the courthouse, and, like the streets of Kissail, Prince Thrommel was in the dark too. “How,” asked he, “can the candles be leased? You can’t lease a candle.” Why not? “Because they burn down. You can’t lease a consumable!” We don’t. It’s renewable. “You told that to the judge. But damme, the candles burn down just the same.” Not the candles, Your Highness. We are leaasing the blessings. “Damme, if blessed candles don’t burn the same as others.” The candles, yes, but the blessings do not expire, they’re renewable. “But, in the courtroom, you said they are no good anymore.” Hah hah! No, we didn’t. The burned candle is no good. The blessing is just fine. “But you told the judge that it expired.” A blessing never expires, my Prince, only the effect. “The effect? What good is a blessing without the effect?” The effect can be renewed. “By lease?” Exactly! “Oh, dear gods. I won’t have this. You Raoan Churchers are leasing your blessings!” You cannot lease a blessing. The blessing is renewed. “How, in the gods’ names, except by paying the rent?” By burning a candle, Your Highness. “But the candle must be . . . bought?” Naturally. “Where?” From us. “So, you’re SELLING the blessing.” No, only the candle. “Effectively, though, the blessing comes with the candle.” No, the effect of the blessing is renewed per the lease. “So, the blessing is leased!” No, only the effect. “A blessing IS an effect. I bless you: you are blessed. You cannot help it.” You cannot help the real effect, of course. But the effect remains virtual unless you lease it from us. “A virtual effect?” Yes. It’s a manner of delivery. Of logistics. Suppose, Prince, that you are far, far away. “What does that have to do with it?” True. An error on my part. Suppose, instead, that you are too busy to give the quantity of blessings that everyone wants. “I’ll just bless everyone at once.” They don’t want to be blessed all at once. They want a blessing of their own.” Why can’t they get their own all at once?” That would be too impersonal. Think about you and your subjects. They want to see you up close and personal, right? Well, it’s the same with the Canon of Veluna’s blessings. “Damme, the people are nowhere near him. It’s a candle.” It’s a blessing, made and renewed by the canon according to the sacrifices people make. “What sacrifices?” Oh, Your Highness! The sacrifice is burning the candle. “Holy moley!” said the prince after a long, royal pause. “I see it! Yes, I see it all! The people are virtually buying a blessing and thanking you for it on a monthly basis!” Leasing it. They lease the blessing. “Ye gods! What a remarkable scam!” Scam? No, it’s a delivery system. It’s the system we operate, an operating system for the virtual delivery of effective blessings. “I see! I see! Your operating system allows everyone to renew their personal supplies of candles for sale and blessings for lease on a monthly basis. People receive all of this without getting too much, because they won’t be getting the real effect of the blessing until they burn the actual candle per the terms of the lease.” Yes, my prince. And there is more. Virtual delivery won’t be restricted to candles and blessings. We can lease anything to anyone in the same way. We call it ‘streaming content’ or ‘content delivery by a virtual stream.’ The real effect of a virtual blessing is only the beginning. Once we have established, as a principle of law, that the Raoan Churches of Furyondy has the right to lease its real effects, we can make this work for all kinds of things, not only for consumable products. For example, if people want the real effect of virtually viewing our stained-glass windows, they will lease virtual admission passes before virtually accessing the streaming content of our virtual churches. The real effect is our property, after all. We hold the rights to any effect that our content may provide and may lease them to anyone that pays. Content will be streaming within a decade, effectively, or else any effect of any content that our virtual OS may provide would actually belong to someone once they had really paid for it. “True,” said the prince, “and we don’t want that. But, hang on a minute. If everyone is leasing your church’s content, what will happen to my excise taxes? What will happen to sales? The Royal Treasury will go broke.” “Oh, la!” said Lady Plimpson, soothing the prince’s doubts by tickling his ear, “the treasury may do better than that. Really, pookie, we can help you. We’ll just redefine leasing as buying, and the excise will come back. We’ll do that for you, because we’re friends, right?” “Yes, pookie,” His Highness admitted, “we’re very friendly. But I’m not sure that my father, the king, will go for it.” “Oh, no problem,” cooed his mistress. “We’ll get him to agree to it by taking one, little, legal action at a time. He’ll come along, you’ll see. Together, the king and the Raoan Churches will master the cloud.” “The cloud? What’s that?” “Think of it as the place where we keep virtually everything that really matters.” “I see.” “Oh, pookie, of course you do!”

 

(Laughter among the adventurers)

Hahahaha! Hohohoho! Who would pay for an OS like that!

“Wait and see. It’s already out there in the real world. Just not yet in Law’s Forge,” the Professor replied.

Heeheeheehee. Oh, Professor. Come on. They way you describe it, a bookstore could sell me a virtual book whose real effect would only last until the lease expired. Hohohoho!

“It’s not funny, and let us hope that your disbelief does not carry over to the next point I will make. The lawsuit mentioned in Porrish Poundlace’s Belickling journal really took place, and the journal, read in its entirety, proves it to have been the effective cause of a momentous historical event: the independence of Dyvers, the City of Sails and capital of the former Viceroyalty of Furyondy, from the Kingdom of Furyondy, in 526cy.

 

~The Free Lands of Dyvers: A precursory Mistress and Prince

Although it has proved (I have private information that shows it to be so) greatly significant, historians still gloss Dyvers’ independence as it had seemed to be at the time, as so unaccountable and insignificant that it need not have happened:

The city had contributed heavily in money, goods, and men to the establishment and prosperity of Furyondy. But because of Fuyondy’s alliance and close ties with Veluna, whose policies the Gentry of Dyvers saw as restrictive, the city declared its independence in 526cy. King ThrommelⅡallowed this act to pass unchallenged.

The city had been an important trading center, with lake and river traffic from Bissel, Nyrond, Urnst, and even lands as far away as Perrenland and the Theocracy of The Pale. But Dyvers proclaimed itself a free city in 526cy, alleging that it was uncomfortable with Furyondy allying with a state (Veluna) whose policies Dyvers found overly restrictive. This was probably just a pretext, but King ThrommelⅡof Furyondy allowed the secession to pass in return for Dyvers continuing to contribute taxes and levies to Furyondian coffers.

Dyvers had been the capital of the Viceroyalty of Furyondy and still served as a welcome port to goods and travelers. The palace of the viceroy rivaled that of his colleagues in the west, and its domed central structure and austere stone towers are cited in travelogues as among the finest examples of Oeridian architecture. But Furyondy's relationship with Veluna troubled the freethinking folk of the city, as Veluna's clerical rulers were highly principled, rather ascetic, and encouraged great donations to church coffers. When many cities in Furyondy established a code of "canon law," replete with church courts stocked with Raoan doctrine and Cuthbertine punishments, the Gentry of Dyvers decided that enough was enough. Preparing for the worst, they informed the crown of their intention to split from Furyondy in 526cy. Perhaps because Furyondy feared the growing power of Greyhawk and felt it needed to ally more deeply in the region, ThrommelⅡ, the reigning monarch, allowed the secession to pass unchallenged.

This is all nonsense. No king or kingdom allows its most populous and prosperpous city to declare independence so casually. True, Furyondy’s political relations with Veluna were as much the pretext as the reason for Dyvers’ independence, and, true again, ever since the Concordat of Eademer the difference between “canonical law" and secular law had grown thin in Veluna. But this would not have been a problem between Furyondy and Dyvers but for other historical considerations.

Although the archclericy of Veluna and the secular kingdom of Furyondy have been separate, sovereign governments ever since Veluna had declared its independence in 254cy, many Raoan churches existed in Furyondy that had never been a part of Veluna’s established Church of Rao: they had originally composed the Imperial Churches of Rao in the viceroyalty and been reconstituted in the kingdom as the Raoan Churches of Furyondy, one in faith with the Velunar church establishment but not beholden to the archclericy, which the Raoan Churches regarded as a plainly ecclesiological institution (a matter of church polity, not essential to faith). But differences of polity often settle into differences of faith. The Raoan Churches always had, and continued to, appeal primarily to wealthy and aristocratic citizens, while in Veluna, due to the archclericy’s political unpopularity, the Church of Rao leaned heavily on common faith. The social values of elites and populations may differentiate very quickly, so that the elite, liberalized Raoan Churches of today ordains women, while the popular Church of Rao does not. Similarly, the liturgical reforms that would incorporate blisters into churches, which in Veluna had begun in the occupied southern provinces before the Short War, did not begin until the late fifth century in Furyondy, where, historically, blisters had barely existed.

A great gap, nearly unbridgeable, was opened between the Church of Rao and the Raoan Churches when the Eademer conclave declamed “greedy Furyondians fomenting the apostasy of imperialism in Veluna.” Thoroughly disagreeing, Furyondy’s liberal elites decried the Archclericy as the apostate agency. As Canon Raowen’s legal and tax reforms became more and more interwoven with Veluna’s civil affairs, the elites of the Raoan Churches objected directly in proportion to their liberality.

But the reforms initiated by the Eademer conclave did not concern only Veluna’s domestic laws and taxes. They brought liturgical reforms, too, and a renewed consideration of tariffs that would benefit not secular commerce but the Archclericy of Veluna and the Church of Rao. In Furyondy, especially—where Raoan religion remained more influential than elsewhere in the former Ahlissan empire—recodifying the legal basis for tariffs and exporting the material and the spiritual ideals of liturgical reform offered a way to reach the archclericy’s influence across the Velverdyva and into Dyvers and Furyondy once more.

Sir Porrish Poundless’s journal at Belickling Hall captures the first noticable currents of these events in Furyondy: a litigation before the Crown’s Court Civil of new legal principles for importing and retailing liturgical appurtances in Kissail, a city and Raoan Churches stronghold on the northern side of the Velverdyva River. By the time of the trial, in Reaping, 514cy, the emurgence of “old Raoanism” in Furyondy had spread along the river out from Kissail, going north to Caronis and Baranford, south to Verbobonc and Dyvers. The wealth and influence of the Raoan Churches had brought this to the attention of Prince ThrommelⅡ, who went to Kissail to see for himself.

§

 

~Liberalism and liturgical reform

The spread of Raoan reform went almost unnoticed in other places, but Dyvers was an extraordinarily mercantile and free-thinking city with centuries of settled commercial law that resisted the innovations. It was in the City of Sails that the Velunar mixture of ritualism, legalism, and commercialism was first called “liberal religion,” a reference to the “liberties” taken in theology and in Furyondian law by wealthy Raoan Churches merchants under the influence of canonical law, formulated at Canon’s College, in Mitrik, and liturgical reform, taught at Tranquility College, in Devarnish. Two schools of thought that were nearly opposed in Veluna had became as one in Furyondy, and Dyvers objected.

I do not know the city that well, but I know people that do. Dyvers is generally considered a fine place, and I am among its admirers. Its libraries and museums contain the most important of the ancient documents and artifacts that are of historical significance to the central Flanaess, stowed away centuries ago from wherever they were looted in the interest of “preserving viceregal heritage.” These institutions are often the starting points of my own historical research. Although the earliest documents (among which I prowl) are erratically catalogued and may take days, weeks, months, or—may Lendor anesthetize me, O heavens, the memory hurts!—so long as a semester to discover.

Medical researchers have urged me to advise you, my new and adventuring documentarians, of the following: Anyone disinterring the recumbent dust and particulate aerosols of those deadly scrolls shall contribute to the experimental knowledge of the effects of the Acari (subclass of the Arachnida) on pervious human tissues (lungs, eyes, hands, nose, and scalp) that said Acari would otherwise never have perved. Such is the consequence, my neophyte paleographers, of boldly going where no one has been in a long, long time.

There is a close community of freethinkers in Dyvers where I presented—in 574cy—a letter of introduction that allowed me to room and board among them for seven months, while I researched my dissertation thesis. And, please, no gossipping among you, my own class of adventurous Snearwells and Snakes at my private School for Scandal, about the cankerworm of freethought having infected my brain at that time. That sweet species had eaten its way into me years earlier, as you know, during my undergraduate days, before I had applied to study with Prof Daesnar Braden, the infamous skeptical philosopher and (you may recall) my companion at dinner in Luekish one night with George Byron, Lord Gordyn, the poet of Missolonghi. Prof Braden provided me the recommendation that I mentioned above, so you will understand that I had been thinking pretty freely since before I arrived in the City of Sails.

Besides, my research is far too dry to catch and then spread the infection of licentious academia. My area of special expertise is . . .

Whoa, Professor. Go back to that bit about Raoan ritualism and commercialism being “liberal religion.” You didn’t cite any evidence, so, how do you know?

As I was saying, I study the history of commercial shipping on the Nyr Dvy and its tributary and distributary rivers as far back in time as I can manage, and I assure you that, although there is much to be learned by raising sunken ships and decyphering decayed bills of lading, it isn’t going to free many shackled minds, even if I want it to. What it might do is to affirm facts that are sunk under volumes of wishy-washy misconceptions. So it is, that I possess documented evidence that specific sixth-century shipping practices that are usually presumed to be the natural consequence of Furyondian trade actually began with the importation of Raoan ritualist apurtanences from Veluna to Furyondy. So it was, that when shown the Belickling Hall journal of Sir Porrish Poundlace, I recognized at once the significance of the litigation it describes taking place in Kissail. Sir Porrish’s journal is, in fact, a rich store of historical significances, and I ought to tell you how I came to read it.

One day, when the acari in the crypts of the Mouseion Library had pervaded me with particularly injurious abandon, and I (having no hands clean of their infection) was sanitizing my eyes lacrymositously while encouraging my recovery through pitiful sobs while seated, head between my knees, on the steps to the library’s upper floors, I felt a comforting, parental hand on my shoulder and heard what was, in the circumstances, the kindliest voice imaginable too me.

“My poor fellow, can I help?”

“It’s nothing,” I cried, “only the dust. I’m not emotional.”

“Of course not, and I have just the thing,” the good Samaritan affirmed, producing a stopped bottle that he displayed to me. “Eye drops,” he said, “of my own concoction. They do wonders against mites.”

“Really?” said I, weeping like a hopeful child.

“Really, and truly.” The old man seated himself beside me with an easy dexterity that made him familiar at once. “I explore the crypts myself, you know, and I always bring this with me. Look up to the ceiling!”

I watched the dropper emerge from the corners of my eyes, the liquid bead as clear as water. What could go wrong?

Plop. Plop.

I was relieved! I betokened my thanks through tears while reaching for my handkerchief.

“Oh, no, wipe not with that infested rag. I have a clean one. Tell me, what errand took you below?”

 I told him of my research and so was introduced to Professor Authenticrates Minerva, the Divergent Undergound’s Doctor Authentic. Of course, I would not know him by that sobriquet until after he had introduced me to the Quiblers, the informal society from which the DU soon emerged. Prof Minerva had fled from Greyhawk College to Dyvers in advance of the growing scandal over his Tranquility bifolium and consequent antagonism of the Historical Conservancy, his employer. I knew about that from him even before I met the Quiblers. Mutual suspicion was rife among them because of the police’s pursuit of the professor at the behest of the Conservancy. The authorities continually seemed to be informed of Minerva’s actions and whereabouts, and the Divergent Underground was formed by the need for a reliable subset of Quiblers to secretly aid him. I was a founding member, not because they trusted me on a short acquaintance but because Minerva gave to me the first and the last sheets of the Belickling Hall journal’s autograph, evidencing the journal’s existence should it ever be impounded and secreted away. The professor obtained the autograph by virtue of being Sir Porrish Poundlace’s nephew. Because I was marginally connected to the Quiblers and came recommended by Prof Braden, Minera trusted me on a two-month acquaintance, believing that the twinned autograph sheets would be safer with me than any other.

And so, it is straight from the horse’s autograph that I know the tale: “liberal religion” was originally a term for the ritualist and commercial innovations introduced into Furyondy by connections between the Raoan Churches and the Church of Rao. The term had been coined by lawyers at Canon’s College, where “liberal” referred to policies instituted by the Archclericy of Veluna after the Eademer Concordat had “liberated” the archclericy from greedy Furyondian heretics. The liberal religion was uniquely unwelcome in Dyvers, but it spread easily to other cities with well established Raoan churches then moved inland from Baranford on the Royal Highway to Worlende and Fountainspring, places where canonical law became important not only to commercial legislation but to all aspects of Furyondian civil trial and litigation. In Fountainspring, a lawsuit brought by the Baron of Littleberg against Hoemer Plimpson, Duke of the Reach, opened a public controversy over the old Furyondian versus the new canonical law, and the continuing affair between Plimpson’s estranged wife and the new King ThrommelⅡ raised the proceedings to a national scandal.

Almost overnight, the Duchess of the Reach was lowered in everyday speech to “the notorious Mrs Plimpson,” and more details of her half decade of love with the king were exposed every day or week. The scandal forced the king to quietly and gradually allow the independence of Dyvers, where opposition to liberal religion and the Raoan Plimpsons had been strongest. But the scandal’s initial impetus had been the civil trial in Fountainspring, and “liberalism” would soon lose its association with Raoan religion in favor of strictly political and economic connotations. Old Furyondian law was largely reaffirmed, although the social, political, and economic forces of liberalism retained a place in civic debate that persists today. Mrs Plimpson was remade a lady when the king bought and transferred to her the land and title of the Barony of Broile, her husband’s possession before he had become Duke of the Reach. Mrs Plimpson assumed the name of her barony, and today, Lady Liberta Broile’s descendents still own lovely Belickling Hall on the beautiful Temton Water.

This was the original (although now less remembered) occasion when a Velunar mistress and a Furyondian prince had nearly upset their establishments. I leave it to you to decide which you like best.

I like Mrs Plimpson!

I like Jolene!

I don’t see much difference between them.

Hey?

What the hell do you mean by that?

One was a princess and the other was a slut!

One had a love life and the other gave up!

Princess . . . duchess . . . who gives a f– . . .

. . . you see, because liberalism lost its connection to religion, the significant roles that were played by the Church of Rao, the Raoan Churches, and Raoan canonical law in the Mrs Plimpson affair were suppressible, and it suited authorities on all sides to suppress it. Professor Authenticrates Minerva reached a silent, uneasy agreement with the Historical Conservancy to keep the secret and returned to Greyhawk to resume his academic career. Today, those records are kept by the Democratic Underground, probably. After Minerva’s death nine years ago, I do not know what became of Sir Porrish Poundlace’s Belickling Hall journal apart from the two sheets that are in my possession.

For a while, the true but strange history (as I’ve told it) was fairly widely known. For years, Furyondians referred to the tale in the secret code of the “obscure D.” In 526cy, a decade after the scandal had subsided, public acknowledgement of the informal and ancient alliance of Furyondy and Veluna was at its lowest ebb; in the kingdom, especially, esteem of it had utterly soured. But publicly discussing the independence of Dyvers brought cryptic references to it back into currency.

Journals and newspapers then mooted jocund, even farcical allusions to the infamous(d)alliance of the king with his Raoan mistress, a pun that played just as well on (d)allying with his (d)ally. You may refer to the nearest excerpted blockquote above to see how this was done.

 

 

Interlude: High Moon Inn encore, the Red Monk’s tale

 

Although it is not always the way in Grimwood-under-Sky, the forest sleeps quietly tonight. The innkeeper was looking conspiratorial—he wanted that book—but if he had friends to call on, they had not appeared. Although our heroes were prepared for a fraught departure if that were how it came, the guests of the High Moon Inn were contented when the storyteller began the second tale of Prince Thrommel’s last words.

Adjacent the pond in the forecourt of the temple, witnessed by no one and drunk on our feet, we addressed our red-clad assailants. We outnumbered them (so hopelessly) two to one. Where to go? They were unnerving, uncanny. Where to turn? They moved perpetual gyration, proffering no weakness and ceding no advantage. Two of us had fallen—though we had touched none—when an enemy took an (unaccountable) arrow to his back, and hence, they kept to their rounds until another had departed the same way. At a signal, in unison, the comprehensive whirlwind then vaulted to the temple steps, turned to the hidden archer where he might seem to be, and caught us confounded between.

Thrommel came from the shadows, and dropping his bow, he pulled his dagger and cried, “Our turn, boys!” We charged with a will, but from the temple’s roof there leapt a red fear, a javelin streak, a scarlet banner, flung and unfurling across the night sky. The flyer landed beyond us, the paving stones easing to cushion its fall.

Our fascination lasted a moment too long. A shuriken surged through one fellow’s ear, lodging in his skull. We returned to the fight. The enemy came at us, cycling our ranks, scything us down, until we were outnumbered and they had disarmed us, untroubled to kill.

They bid us kneel to witness the combat of Thrommel and their cheif. I cannot say how it had been going, but it cannot have been well. The red monk was toying, silent, evasive, strong, and more graceful than the scarlet silk it wore while eluding and soaring impossibly high.

When Thrommel saw us held captive, he yielded, placed his dagger’s point on his heart, and offered his assailant the hilt. “Set them free,” he said.

“You fight well,” the monk replied.

“You too, girlfriend.”

The red monk laughed, unwinding the silk ribbons that bound her face and hair. She was beautiful, unearthly, a heavenly sigh and, oh, so sweetly so! The liquefaction of her jostled the pond lillies as she bid the prince to go before her out of the temple.

We were set free. I live to tell the tale, and I bid you—farewell!

The adventurers did not stop to acknowledge the applause as they exited the High Moon Inn, but the storyteller flourished The Veil of Lunacy defiantly at the innkeeper on the way out, getting a chiding from the others.

The innkeeper bore them ill will, of course, and the forest eagerly took them into the night and on to Doraka’a.

 A story well told, but we may ask, did the book know more about the abduction of Prince Thrommel? Had it any more to say than was contained in those tales?

 

 

Chapter 25: Prince Thrommel’s disappearance

 

About Prince Thrommel’s death, Mistress and Prince said nothing beyond alluding to fate and grief. Even so, the prince was surely not abducted by red monks, which is a tale of recent invention. Yet, it is the story most often told today and, to me, a lost opportunity. I want to have asked Edmore Wunsay whether, when I wrote to him, he had heard the red monk’s tale? If so, he might have had something so urgent to tell me that it may have resigned him to an interview with me, had I thought to mention it. After all, Wunsay had led an investigation into Thrommel’s disappearance in 570cy, very shortly after the event, that was his final (and unofficial) public service before his retirement to Castle Elfride.

Three investigations were conducted at that time. One, commissioned by the King of Furondy, was purposed to locate and save the prince; another, commissioned by the Archclericy of Veluna, was purposed to identify the prince’s abductors; and a third, privately sponsored by the Celestial Order of the Moons and (fabulously) by Lady Nancy Crewe, third Baroness of Broile, was purposed to discover, save, and publish evidence of the incident, whatever it was. Lady Crewe infamously honored her grandmother by sponsoring investigations into hushed up royal scandals, and although the chief suspect in this case, the Canon of Veluna, was technically not a royal, he was close enough so that improper exposure could (in theory) have toppled his monarchical throne.

Lady Crewe’s investigation was led by Count Lorrish (on behalf of his daughter, Jolene, Supreme Mistress of the Celestial Order) and Wunsay (on behalf of “every Furondian’s right to know”). There was in Furyondy a considerable appetite for discovering what authorites were dismissing as a conspiracy theory; Lady Crewe believed it was worth pressing the issue.

The suspicion was obvious. Who had more to gain by Thrommel’s disappearance than the canon? Who, more reason to hide his involvement? Who, more resources to succeed in such a deception? No one, thrice over. And when no ransom request followed the prince’s abduction (the official expectation), the abduction’s difference from an assassination narrowed.

But despite the plentiful public doubts, King Belvor did not want his son’s tragedy to bring politcal warfare with Veluna, and the royal court, too, considered the affair too dispruptive to peace, prosperity, progress, and innovation. Three months after they began, the two official investigations were concluded with a joint statement identifying the perpetrators as most likely a remnant of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the most likely outcome as the execution of a prince. Records, notes, and evidences were never publicly shared.

Lorrish and Wunsay took four months longer to close but had little more to say. The evidence was nonexistent, sketchy, or misleading. Lorrish returned to council his daughter, and Wunsay escaped to his hermitage. But whatever details were to be known about Thrommel’s abduction were known to the two recluses, and today, either might speak capablt to the possibility of red monks.

In 573cy, when rumors began linking the suddenly prominent Scarlet Brotherhood to the Sea Princes’ slave trade out of the Amedio Jungle, the Celestial Order conceived of it a link to Thrommel’s abduction. When captured, the prince had been campaigning against the Sea Princes as an ally to Keoland’s King Skotti, and although the piratical slavers had nothing to gain by abducting Thrommel and thereby inviting international notice and condemnation, connecting them to the red monks could change the logic. But Veluna’s theocrats decried any revivification of public grief on flimsy evidence; Furyondy’s royal court showed no interest either; and the Celestial Order—presumably at Jolene’s order or with her consent—immediately quelled their suspicions.

Eleven years later, at the end of the Greyhawk Wars, those suspicions unquelled. This is excerpted from a report given to the city of Greyhawk:

The existence of the highly secretive and paranoiac Scarlet Brotherhood was first confirmed by returning travelers in 573cy. It seems incredible now that this monastic sect of religious militarists could have escaped notice for so long, but although the secretive nature of the monks became widely known, the existence of a veritable army of spies and assassins in the imperial courts of the Flanaess did not. At one time, a decade ago, the marriage of the Prince of Furyondy to the daughter of the highest-ranking noble of Veluna had promised to unite the two states and help solve Furyondy’s internal squabbling. But the prince’s abduction, surely at the hands of Scarlet Brotherhood agents, destroyed those noble hopes. No one suspected the the red monks at the time.

The excerpt is from a speech given in 584cy by Cobb Darg, mayor of the Free City of Irongate, against recognizing the Scarlet Brotherhood as a signatory to the Pact of Greyhawk, which ended the Greyhawk Wars. Irongate was under seige by the red monks at the time, although that was being overlooked by most nations in their rush to make peace. In calling attention to it, Darg pointed out that his objection against the Brotherhood was fully shared by Veluna. After all,

Velunar diplomacy is the major hand at work in maintaining the cohesion of all the non-evil central Flanaess states, so far as such cohesion exists. Velunar agents have taken a strong role in unmasking Scarlet Brotherhood agents since the kidnapping of the Provost of Furyondy, while themselves acting as eyes and ears for the rulers of Veluna. We would do well to heed their warnings.

Darg’s speech was largely responsible for a strengthening conviction, widely held today, that Veluna’s diplomats and spies had worked for the security and unity of the Flanaess. There is little evidence of it, however.

Let’s consider it. History informs us that the Eademer Concordat had left very few kindnesses shared by Veluna and Furyondy. Raoan liberal religion, the Mrs. Plimpson affair, and the controversies over canonical law had deepened that mistrust. The Six Nation Alliance against the Temple of Elemental Evil had been short-term and provisional, and victory by the so-provisioned Six Nation Army resulted in a treaty for the Unified Kingdom that had depended on abolishing the Archclericy of Veluna in favor of a spiritual Raoan church to be established under the Furyondian monarch. The treaty’s violent abortion had ended this great opportunity to “unite the states and help solve” what was not, after all, merely “Furyondy’s internal squabbling” but “the cohesion of all the non-evil states, so far as such cohesion existed.”

If Veluna had been working for unity all the while, it had tendered an inadequate compensation for the disunity it helped to cause, and surely, anyone might see it. Yet the archclericy had stayed unscathed. Had Keoland’s occupation, the theocrats inquired, been the archclericy’s fault? (Yes, in fact.) Is liturgical reform bad? (It needn’t be.) Is canonical law inappropriate to a theocracy? (Yes, in Furyondy.) Should the archclericy be held responsible for Furyondian law? (If it was.) Should Veluna not have joined the Six Nations? (That might have been very revealing.) Didn’t Canon Hazen agree to the Unified Kingdom on spiritual terms? (I don’t know—did he?) Are you saying that Veluna spies for evil?

Mayor Darg may be forgiven for casting Veluna in a favorable light. Irongate was under siege by the Scarlet Brotherhood while the monks were bargaining for peace, and improving the city’s hopes depended on Veluna’s influence at the negotiating table. Veluna was the only Greyhawk Wars participant to emerge wealthier and comparatively more powerful than before, and the need to flatter it necessarily restrain any expressed resentment. Cobb Darg’s plea must appeal to Veluna, and consequently, truth may have been a casualty of war. Too soon, it was forgotten that in 573cy the “Velunar agents” that had suspected the Scarlet Brotherhood had not been the theocracy’s spies but courtiers of the Celestial Order that suspected Canon Hazen of criminal acts.

§

 

~Conspiracy and theory

My novice historians, my hero adventurers, you must suspect by now that my history seems at times, in its method and conduct, to be a vast conspiracy theory: comprehending centuries, overturning everything that we know about the Canon of Veluna, and written to suit myself. Is it so? Is everyone else wrong and only Bifurcati correct?

Apart from their application to me, your doubts go to the heart of the historiographers art. How far ought we to rely on our own resoning? When ought we accede to the authority of others? How should we account for our biases? How much should we depend on experience? What do we really know? What methods may be adequate to an appreciation of the past? Do we make it all up?

I, more than anyone?

There is so much to say, and this is hardly the time. Your months in my tutelage are drawing to a close. Your thoughts are turnin from me to the darkness ahead—Doraka’a! The terrible god Iuz! And although your doom is relentless, mine is relenting. We, you and I, have arrived at the Greyhawk Wars. Only fifteen years remain to the end of my history of canonical infamy. And although my judgement awaits per the terms of my contract (I must be honest, withholding nothing evident), so much has been written that by now things are likely to be settled in the mind(s?) of my unnatural judge. I have done my best, I think. But who might be assured of their personal integrity? What punsihments justly await those that . . .

Oh, come on, Professor.

Yeah. It’s not that bad.

Cheer up. It’s been fun!

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

For real? You don’t? How about that. It won’t, I suppose, be on your final exam, proctored by the demons of the abyss and graded by their lords and masters. Yet, should I be worried? Are you actually as free from doubt as you profess? How . . . wonderful. I commend you to my point of view, of course, in good conscience. Where else should you look? But even so, doubts are to be expected. Yet, I would not plague you with them. Yet, ought I to have had so much influence on you?

Oh, well, you’ll figure it out. Only this much will I say: imagination, intuition, veracity, and fidelity are greater powers than reason, but we must never break our engagement with the sovereign Queen of All Veritable Knowledge. She is veritable and will never admit that a thing is right or wrong, true or false, good or evil, on the ground of a private conviction. You cannot reason by private conviction. Categories of thought are not real, definitions are equivocal, and when they are not persuasive to reason, she has claim to withold her consent. Anything else is rape.

It is not exceptional for a church, a nation, a government, a war, a great venture, an institution, a corporation, a company, an investment, a bank account, a reputation, a cause, a hope, an expectation, a belief, a savior, a love, a fear, a faith, a promise, or a romance to exist in half-life, a state of active decay, where our conviction may outweighs its lost radiation, its actual diminishment. But consider that, in the end, radiation wins out; doubt and decay are inevitable.

This is what it means to stand in the light of reason. Reason is not the answer, but she endures over time and, in the end, measures our decay and looks out for new knowledge. Whether we have ever reached where we were going from where we thought we were seems impossible, but that is the reason for historiography, the art of explaining change over time.

Despite all existing opinion, it is not impossible that the Canon of Veluna has been fabricating history, not I. Allowing for that is my point of departure.

 

 

Chapter 26: War, evil, annexation, liberality, and a Maxim of my own

 

The Greyhawk Wars are inaptly named. Other than bandwagon opportunism (and perhaps the concept titles for a movie franchise) there was little in common among the machinations of Iuz, the intrigue of the Scarlet Brotherhood, the insanity of Ahlissa, the revenge of the Pomarj, the attack of the Ketites, and the march of the western giants. These several conflicts were bundled as the Greyhawk Wars in the widespread conviction that “evil was on the rise everywhere,” but the shibboleth meant nothing when it was said to be the general cause of events whose specific causes were sufficient. Ket’s alliance with Iuz was made one full year after the Shield Lands had been invaded for the second time and affected events east of Thornward hardly at all, which is better explained by the long history of hostilities between Ket and Bissel than by the spontaneous procreation of evil. The dogmatic racial supremacism of the Scarlet Brotherhood was unrelated to the chaotic and appetitive depravity of Iuz. The servile and evil nature of hobgoblins was a supposition and superfluous to their reasons for warring against enemies at their border. Insanity accounts for the evil proclivities of Ahlissa’s rulers, not vice-versa. The orcs of the Pomarj invaded the Lortmil Mountains to reclaim the ancient stronghold they had been pushed out of so relentlessly, not because evil is eternal. And most incredibly, the giants’ invasion from the Crystalmists was related to Iuz only by rumors of an “unknown agent” at work in the west. These wars were opportunistic and coincidental, not destined, and their explanations are historical, not supernatural.

The issue is not whether evil caused the Greyhawk Wars but how the “good nations” came to see it that way, although it is risky to say it. Mooting whether evil exists nominally or ontologically may irk the gods, but it is safe to say that ontic powers of either sort are bound to heavens, hells, abysses, and other regions that are supernatural in themselves, while earth is a primordial mixture of evil with good. But what is permissably said to the gods is often impermissable among men, and humans see things differently.

Affirming the pure and earthly opposition of evil with good does not daunt us; on the contrary, we see nothing more natural. Moreover, as I noted at some length much earlier, humans are the only true historians. The commensurate races are unconcerned, and the greater ones are so nearly omniscient that they barely need to recollect the past. Although historians see the blemishes on the good nations—distrust and unresponsiveness among allies, inequitable sharing in the costs and benefits of war, King Belvor’s abrogation of the Pact of Greyhawk, the berserk massacre of hobgoblins at Crockport, etc.—yet an apology is built into our way of thinking: we are not evil; they are. Furyondians momentarily doubted it following Crockport, but their misgivings were eased (you may remember) by the royal decree that hobgoblins were “Paragons of War” that must be defeated. This forceful reiteration of malice turned the kingdom toward a headlong rush to forever war against Iuz. Evil is absolute, so pretty good is too.

I differ with my historian colleagues right there: evil is not absolute. Even when reckoning with Iuz, the problem is not evil per se—there are other evil gods—but that he is the only god living on oerth. The Greyhawk Wars are obliging us to deal with him.

But there is doubt whether we are doing it right, and the resolution will be historical because it emerged and extends over time. Happily enough, the subject of my monograph is historical, too: the life and works of the canon of Veluna, shepherd, mortal man, eternal saint, and embodied at present by Hazen, most gracious living son of men. Yet, when shorn of his claim to be evil’s due opponent, the life of the canon is on a trajectory aiming wide of grace’s bullseye. So, I maintain.

Yet history is a trajectory, not a place and time, and consequently (take heed), the canon’s life and works cannot be complete. Hazen is today an agent for good (purportedly) replete with unended aims and intentions. Although the purport (to my mind) is out of character, the man has worked one miracle already in wielding the Crook of Rao and banishing from the Flanaess an infestation of fiends. Does a change of character exceed his grasp?

Historians must grant him time. Hero adventurers (take heed) need not. You, my children of wondrous and dire portent, will continue my history before its end. The trajectory is yours to reset.

§

~A maxim of my own

Until then, I must inform you of a current event: the Annexation Crisis in Verbobonc. You will expect, of course, that I see it differently from other people, especially if you forget my Divergent Underground friends, who agree with me. But this time the difference will not be only my personal discontents. The time for such preliminaries has passed.

(Adjusts his jacket and tie)

The annexation crisis is a current event. My understanding of history informs my view, but strictly speaking, history is inadequate to the occasion. Other arts and sciences are needed that are also suited to the present and future. Deprived of my historian’s privilege, I differ now over how things are going, not over things come and gone.

(Straightens his tie)

I do not see what others do, and my understanding of history is the cause, in part. If my understanding is an improvement, so (all else being equal) I might see the present better, too, because history’s trajectories reach into the future, they do not stop for the present.

(Loosens his tie)

It is commonly said, about the past and the future, that only the present is real. I disagree. The past, whether remembered or forgotten, reaches our future as the future once reached our past, whether followed or foresaken. If we focus on the present, reality slips away.

(Unbuttons his collar)

Our difficulty is to perceive the biases that provoke our vision and get in—way, way, way in—to our mind’s deepest reaches, like looking through tinted glasses, a log in our eye, color blindness, or a skewed optic nerve conducting everything that reaches within.

(Mops his brow with his tie’s long end)

 I speak of the age-old problem of subjectivity, which, in an elder age, did not mean that subjects are objectified when they are looked at objectively. No. (Voice rising) The problem (hands chopping the air) was that subjects saw objects that were not subjective. Our identities had determined what we saw, not who we were. Baffling, cheating, deceiving! Positively erroneous. Apparently foolproof. Fools of ourselves! (Calms down, straightens his tie, but leaves his collar unbuttoned) So, I have formulated a maxim that cautions against it. A maxim of my own. Like this:

“You never see what you are obviously looking at.”

¿Que?

Pardon?

Is that a maxim?

It’s circular reasoning.

It’s a false dichotomy.

It’s a tautology!

A tautology? Hmmm. I don’t think so. It solves more conundrums than only “Why do race horses wear blinkers?”

What?

Can?

How?

No, no, why?

So that, when a horse is winning, it won’t see a horse’s behind. You see, the maxim has many useful applications. For example: When reading something with an obvious meaning, don't be too sure. Look around. Something might be missing you.

Me?

Where are we?

What’s missing?

What’s happening?

I think I get it!

My fair maxim applies to what we’re talking about, which is the annexation crisis in Verbobonc. (Yes, it is.) I have the authoritative account of the crisis right here, clipped from the viscounty’s newspaper of record, The New Verbobonc Times, out of an editorial published five months ago by Bishop Huafren of Verbobonc, who supports the new viscount, Langard, in these troubled times, when citizens in the town and the provinces alike are in an uproar, and no one even knows what to do with the gnomes. So, remember my maxim while we read it.

Verbobonc was not an official participant in the Greyhawk Wars, but dozens of volunteer companies from the viscounty had bolstered the allied armies of Furyondy and Verbobonc in the fight against Iuz. Upon their return, they found their homeland embroiled in a desperate political struggle with the nations they had left to assist. In 585cy, the Furyondian Knights of the Hart called for the annexation of Verbobonc. Though representatives from Veluna sniffed at such talk, the emergence of the Great Northern Crusade, in which Veluna and Furyondy acted as a single political unit, frightened many in the town who had long preferred the reason (and liberal tax laws) of Mitrik to the zeal (and active monitoring of the finances of the aristocracy) of Chendl. The situation came to a head when old Viscount Wilfrick died in his sleep, in Harvester 587cy, and left Castle Grayfist to his eldest known son, the Right Honorable Sir Fenward Lefthanded. Though Viscount Fenward publicly denounced all talk of annexation, he also enacted a number of rash policies that harmed the city and its friends. Fenward withdrew costly patrols from the forests and hills, and demihuman communities that depended on those patrols to protect them from real and still present threats exploded in uproar. A series of slanderous dispatches between Viscount Fenward and the Kron Assembly followed and left many city gnomes unsure of their allegiance. This dangerous development ended only when papers implicating the viscount as an agent of the Scarlet Brotherhood were discovered in Fenward's chambers. The papers were later revealed to be forgeries, a fact that helped Fenward little, as he had been slain by his captain of the guard when he resisted imprisonment for treason. Thereafter, rulership of Verbobonc fell to Langard of the Gnarley Border, a half-elven, half-forgotten bastard son of Viscount Wilfrick. The new viscount was surprised to find himself in charge of the town and is a cautious though naively open ruler (hoping that his past affairs as a minor smuggler do not come to public attention). In a land so controlled by fear (of monsters, evil cults, and annexation), many look upon Langard's "discovery" with the suspicion that he is a Scarlet Brotherhood agent and no relation to the former viscount.

Right. Who can summarize what we have read? Young lady, how about you.

Me? Well, ok. It says, obviously, that Verbobonc didn’t participate in the Greyhawk Wars except for volunteers that fought for Furyondy and Veluna. After the wars, Furyondy tried to annex Verbobonc (although, I don’t know why, or who the Knights of the Hart are either) but Veluna wouldn’t hear of it. Later, Furyondy and Veluna were allies once again in the Great Northern Crusade, and Verbobonc was worried that this time Veluna would agree to annexation, which would mean higher taxes in Verbobonc, and things must have gotten pretty ugly with the gnomes, because somebody assassinated Fenward, and Langard was chosen to be the viscount, which he is now, although things really aren’t any better because of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Right?

That was lovely. That was adorable. Simply irresistible. You hit the high notes. (Dawdling idly) Did you do your hair differently today?

No.

It’s pretty. And I will tell you about the Knights of the Hart. They got together in the third century, after the Great Kingdom and the Viceroyalty of Furyondy had broken up. The knights have branches in Furyondy, Veluna, and High Folk, each pledged to watch the borders of their respective nations and to mutual defense when called on. In Furyondy, they are beholden to the northern nobility; in High Folk, to the elven aristocracy; in Veluna, to the Celestial Order of the Moons; and together, they formed the vanguard on the northern front against Iuz.

So, the knights in Veluna supported the annexation of Verbobonc?

A charming question. How sweet. What makes you ask?

The Furyondian branch called for it; the king and the royal court apparently agreed; but Verbobonc was in vassalage to Veluna, and the archclericy rejected annexation out of hand; but even so, the knights in Veluna were beholden to the Celestial Order, and although the Celestial Order is a part of the archclericy, it pretty much sides with Furyondy all the time, or pretty often, anyway.

Pretty often. Very pretty often! Did the Times tell you that?

No. You did. (Fidgiting) You do all the time. It’s in your history. Come on!

The Times didn’t mention it, and its in my history, which you remebered. How attentive! What else didn’t the Times say?

How should I know what it didn’t say?

Because you’re so sweet when you’re not saying it.

(Bangs the desk)

Stop it. Leave her alone. You lech.

Lech, my boy?

That’s right. Don’t you see? You’re embarrassing yourself.

(Others chime in)

Yeah, Professor. You’re out of line.

What does he think he’s doing?

I didn’t . . . I’m not . . .

Maybe you should apologize to me, Professor Bifurcati.

I do. I will. I promise. I vow, it won’t happen again. Have I ever thought that you were pretty before now?

Oh, Professor! What should the answer be to that?

What a clown.

Do you believe this? He’s fifty years old.

Forty-four!

He’s just some old guy.

A joke!

A pantaloon!

Although, there is something a little off about that editorial.

There is? (Glancing again) It seems pretty clear to me.

 Don’t say “pretty.” It will set him off.

It won’t! I don’t!

I’m bothered by the bit that says, Verbobonc “long preferred the reason (and liberal tax laws) of Mitrik.” It doesn’t make sense.

Doesn’t it!

Verbobonc and the archclericy were at odds since even before Voll became Veluna. The viscounty was never a willing vassal, it was made one by the overking, and it hadn’t worked out too well. When the archclericy declared Veluna’s independence from Furyondy, Verbobonc stayed neutral. During the trade wars, the viscounty sided with the Celestial Order, Veluna City, the counties, and the dioceses against Mitrik. Keoland’s occupation strengthened the ties between the viscounty and the occupied counties in the south. After liberation, Verbobonc sided with the Celestial Order and Furyondy in trying to replace the archclericy with a secular government. Prior to the Eademer Concordat, the viscounty broke from the Church of Rao and the archclericy and established the Diocese of St Cuthbert while continuing as a member of the Celestial Order. For the next one hundred years, the archclericy was mistrusted because of the Mrs Plimpson affair, and when the Temple of Elemental Evil arose, it was Furyondy (again) that rescued Verbobonc by creating the Six Nation Alliance. So, what exactly is this “long preference for the reason of Mitrik?” It’s unlikely, I say.

Nice. Delightful.

But you’ve forgotten about Mrs Plimpson and liberal religion. Her affair marked the beginning of political and economic liberalism, and Verbobonc had become a liberal state. So, that ties it to Veluna, definitely.

Cute.

No, because, explicitly, it was not Mitrik’s liberal tax policies alone but its reasonability that appealed to Verbobonc (in contrast to the zealotry of Furyondy), and reason is always a theological idea in Veluna.

Saucy.

What zealotry was that? When was Furyondy ever zealous? It was always Veluna that was zealous. The report is false.

Pert.

Your wires are crossed. It was the Furyondian Knights of the Hart that were zealous, as knights usually are.

’at a girl.

The knights could not have annexed Verbobonc, only the king could.

Sweetheart!

But the knights had political power, and if you are going to have religion in power, better that it were rational than zealous.

She’s a keeper!!!

(Silence and astonishment)

She? Who? (Pointing) Do you mean, him?

It, I meant. I meant, “It’s a keeper.” I was referring to my aphorism.

Professor, he’s a boy.

No, my dear, he’s an aphorism. I mean, it is.

Right.

Really.

You are employing my aphorism to see what you aren’t looking at. All of you! Lordy, lordy, it’s doing this tutor’s heart a great deal of good. I am so proud of her and you. I mean, it.

That’s weird.

Not at all. You’re debating liberal religion and Verbobonc’s politics and economy, and that’s it exactly! That’s the point of confusion. The whole question entirely. You have arrived where my history had left us: at Mrs Plimpson and the obscure D, Prince Thrommel’s abduction, rumors about the Scarlet Brotherhood, and the Archclericy meddling in international affairs. Beautiful!

That’s not what’s weird.

But it is. So many oddities and obscurities are discovered when we stop believing what we are already reading. Oh, lovely! Oh, excellent! Oh, adorable! Join me, join me, join me in extolling the virtues of my maxim.

Professor?

Yes, my boy. You have a question?

Not exactly. I mean to say, it's personal.

Personal? I see. To you or me?

You, sir.

I see. Go on.

It's just that you seem a little distracted and you're blushing. So, I was wondering. Are you in love with your maxim?

In love with her? Ah, it? I wouldn't say that. It's just that I have hopes for it. I hope it meets with your approval.

Why wouldn't it?

Well, I've never introduced it to anyone. It's a shy and modest maxim, almost my child. I have no idea how my debutante will be received by you. Suppose she is scorned. Suppose she is unlovely.

Well, the best remedy I suppose, is to get to know her . . . it . . . a little better.

My intention exactly. I want to introduce it to you. And, Lo! My maxim descends the high, baronial stair to its debutante ball, wearing its enchanting white gown, purer, more fetching than snow on snow. It is smiling differently this evening, although. Not the same playful grin that I have ever known but more captivating? conquering? inviting? My goodness! Can it be? Is my mind changed? Do I wish it go back upstairs to its room, where it may remain my little maxim forever?

Not gonna happen. Its out now, wearing its magical and nonrefundable gown of alluring, which cost only ten or twenty times what a modestly prosperous professor can afford on his stipend. And I notice that you, too, my distracted pupils, have turned your attention away from me. All eyes are on it! Well, that's what I wanted. It’s not so bad. My maxim thinks for itself now and is applicable on its own. It was conceived for this day!

Waist high, it is holding a white, handwritten card. When I introduce it, it will show it to you. Having anticipated the turn of your attention to itself, it has prepared the card and placed it in a silver holder that it will leave when the clock chimes twelve. Which, it does. You are reading the card, and it says:

My new friends—what does reason have to do with liberalism?

Then it smiles—captivating or conquering?—and vanishes like a dream in a fairytale. And, perhaps, your heart breaks a little, like its dad's.

Here, Professor. Dry your eyes.

Thank you, my girl. I must say, I have never had finer students. I hope you all get back alive.

So do we, Professor. I think we owe you that, since you introduced us to your maxim and all.

It's a useful and precious child, isn't it?

Truly.

So, now. Let us recollect ourselves. Who can tell me, which lines in the blockquoted primary text has my maxim made reference to?

I can, Professor.

Though representatives from Veluna sniffed at talk of annexation, the emergence of the Great Northern Crusade, in which Veluna and Furyondy acted as a single political unit, frightened many in the town who had long preferred the reason (and liberal tax laws) of Mitrik to the zeal (and active monitoring of the finances of the aristocracy) of Chendl.

Yes, that’s the one. When you really read it, the apparently plain passage begs many questions. What is this preferenece for Mitrik? (That’s your question.) Why is Verbobonc’s fate given to Veluna and Furyondy to decide? Why is the union of Veluna and Furyondy so frightening now, when a decade earlier the Unified Kingdom had been the the best hope of the six nations?

Professor, we also have a question.

Go on.

Since the Archclericy of Veluna and the Knights of the Hart are connected to the Celestial Order, so Jolene of Samprastadar, the Supreme Mistress, is implicated too. What’s she up to? That is, if she really exists, because you said, she’s romantic.

No, I said Mistress and Prince was a romance.

No, you also said that she was a romantic.

What Jolene is doing nowadays few know, only that she is still Supreme Mistress and that the Celestial Order speaks occasionally in her name. Not often publicly but more often in private. Don’t ask me, how often is more often than not often? because I don’t know. I only know, through Wilna Pummenford, that members of the Celestial Order and of the Velunar branch of the Knights of the Hart speak in her name sometimes, as it were, for emphasis.

Which reminds me of a book that refers to something that would be useful now. Give me a minute, will you, to consult my PISS?

(Twenty-five minutes later)

Ah, yes. Here it is.

Viscount Wilfrick of Verbobonc grows old, and a city that once maintained a powerful militia and a neverending watch against evil, especially the Gnarley Forest and the dread Temple of Elemental Evil, has grown tired along with him. It is entirely plausible that Scarlet Brotherhood agents and "advisers" have counseled the Viscount to sit tight in troubled times. If there is still vigilance and strength in Verbobonc, it resides in a handful of rulers of local towns and fortifications, several of whom are known to have meetings with Furyondian representatives and members of the Knights of the Hart. It may well be that determined efforts will be made by these people to formally align Verbobonc with Furyonday and Veluna, states that gratefully received volunteer Verbobonc warriors during the Wars.

This excerpt is from The Viscounty and Town of Verbonc, by Carl Sargent, published in Greyhawk, in 585cy, only a few months after the end of the Greyhawk Wars. As you see, it ties in very well with the longer blockquote given above it: both feature volunteer soldiers from Verbobonc, unnamed political “representatives,” Knights of the Hart, and a possible formal alliance (or union or realignment) of Veluna with Furyondy, which somehow threatens Verbobonc’s stability and independence.

Sargent’s book was written prior to (although published after) the call for annexation was given by the Knights of the Hart, and as you see, many aspects of the crisis were already known. Questions and ambiguities plagued Sargent’s early assessment of Verbobonc’s political situation.

For example, has he implied a connection between the Temple of Elemental Evil and the Scarlet Brotherhood in Verbobonc? If so, he has reached enormously beyond Veluna’s first speculation about red monks and Prince Thrommel’s abduction from the Sea Princes fifteen years earlier and seven hundred miles away.

Were the “Furyondian representatives and members of the Knights of the Hart” Furyondians altogether, or might the knights have been from Veluna? The referent in Sargent’s text is grammatically ambiguous, yet five years later (for no expressed reason) The New Verbobonc Times specified “Furyondian Knights” without any mention of representatives.

Sargent noted, too, that “a handful of rulers of local towns” in Verbobonc was preparing a “determined effort to formally align Verbobonc with Furyondy and Veluna.” And yet those nations were already informally aligned although at odds over annexation. So, we must ask, what had gone wrong with the existing alliance, which had served tolerably well for three centuries by avoiding doubt about whether Verbobonc’s pledge of fealty had ended when Veluna declared independence from the Great Kingdom and Furyondy?

Why was a “vigilant handful” of rulers quietly contacting Furyondian representatives about a new, formal alliance? Was this an effort to bring new government and policies to Verbobonc by ending vassalage to Veluna? If so, we may ask whether the politics of these few, not the controversy between Furyondy and Veluna, were frightening the liberals in Verbobonc Town. After all, there was no way that Furyondy could force annexation on a functionally unwilling viscounty. Annexation would ultimately be the viscount’s choice, no matter what the Knights of the Hart might threaten, and Verbobonc’s domestic politics were the crux of the controversy. Moreover, when considering the viscounty’s domestic political quarrels, were gnomes any more likely resort to assassins than vigilant rulers, liberals, and aristocrats? Why did everyone suspect gnomes and the Scarlet Brotherhood?

Given its complexity, summarizing the viscounty’s political turmoil in the declarative sentence that “many people in Verbobonc prefer Mitrik and liberalism to Chendl and zealotry” both begs and beggars belief. Who would write such a thing? Why would the editorial board of the Times tilt so far to the liberal side of the controversy, throwing shade on the others? I and you, my adventuring few, would be beggared to buy what the editors monger: that Mitrik is so reasonable, Rao is so reasonable, the archclericy is so reasonable, the canon is so reasonable. For one thousand years, the editors exort us to believe, Veluna and the Church of Rao have been our light in dark places, so in our current crises, we must depend on the good shepherds more than ever. At this time, when goodly nations are impoverished by war and must pledge themselves to war for ever, The Times begs an answer: Will you abandon Mitrik now, because you suspect the impurity of its benevolence?

The Times also wants us to believe that Verbobonc’s preference is to be liberal and reasonable. Is it? Are liberal taxes better and lower than zealous ones? Might there be zealotry in lowering an aristocrat’s taxes or only in increasing them?  Are liberals too free about possessing things? Are people that flourish together so free with one another? Is it right to exceed your grasp?

Why must reason be liberal? Why kisses she the assets of the wealthy? Why is she reduced to a predicate of Mitrik? Oh, why, why, why? My fellows all, I have many times asked Our Lady of Formal Necessity these questions, but she only pouts and frowns. “Am not! Do not!” cries out She Who Must Be. So, that's settled.

Don’t panic. We need not risk Her Permissible Indignation by trying Her Limited Patience with such queries. The reason at stake in Verbobonc is not the Measure of Justifiable Cognition but merely the reason of Rao. At stake is the teaching, the dogma, the authority, and the multiplicate biases of the Arclericy of Rao, whose canon preaches casuistry in Mitrik.

As for Jolene of Samprastadar, you have asked how the annexation crisis implicates her. It is well that you ask. Every node in annexation’s political nexus is an immediate connection to her. She is Supreme Mistress of the Celestial Order, the archclericy’s house of congress affiliated with the Knights of the Hart. She knows the leaders of the Hart from their negotiations at Castle Estival (for the Six Nation Alliance) and Reymend Town (for the Unified Kingdom). The knights are currently in contact with Verbobonc’s vigilant rulers, and therefore, so Jolene may be. She knows the Viscount of Verbobonc (a member of the Celestial Order) and the Canon of Veluna (who receives her political advice). She is beloved as the nearly-the-Queen of Furyondy, the nearly-the-daughter of King Belvor, and the princess of the people, everyone’s hope and delight.

She is, too, the inveterate adversary of the Archclericy of Veluna and the most comprehensive schemer of her time, when the alliance of Furyondy and Veluna is being more fiercely contested than since the episcopal conclave of bishops in the Eademer Battistero. Is this all coincidental?

Many people “plausibly” believe that the Scarlet Brotherhood is behind the annexation troubles. But are the red monks more plausible than Jolene? Or is she the more likely agent of discontent?

 

 

Interlude: Class dismissed

 

(The next morning)

You, the esteemed subscribers to my magical tome of learning, met prior to our assembly this morning and voted a collective action against me. You insist on asking a question. How bold! Which of you will speak the portentous doubt? Which has the gravity to raise a voice before me? The temerity to interogate the obscure Bifurcati in his temple? You, young man? Are you the messenger? You will deliver the lines well enough, no doubt, but it matters what they say, doesn't it?

Well boasted, Your Worshipful Mighty Highness! I bow until I'm backwards in front of you. To propitiate your derogation’s omnipotence, we bring a sacrifice, a bun, left over from breakfast.

A bun? Well, bring it here. Mmm. And the question?

The scholar that raises it wishes to remain anonymous, and because we agree with the question, we opt to put it collectively. It arises, because you love your maxim so much. There are lots of things in the manuscript that you confess loving. Reviewing the text, you love your bookseller in Molag, the poet Lord Gordyn, a waitress serving beer in Bay’s Stop, Our Veracious Queen, hobgoblins, Molag, language, Luna, the tale of Thrommel and Jolene, romance, your maxim, and other things too. It wasn’t necessary to confess them, but you did. You said you were blessed twice by thrice-kissed Myrhiss, although you wouldn’t tell us the second one. So, we’d like to know. What do you think about love?

Gasp! Startle! You want me to speak of love? What on oerth would I say? You ask too much. What is love? What does it do? Love is what death becomes, some will say, so life and love are one. Love blooms forever, others say, without fading in the evening or wilting at noon. We ply our children to sleep at night while lullabying, “the sun will rise for love of you.” But what will I sing? What do I say? What . . .

Professor? Is everything ok?

It is. O! my dear surviving children on our poor misadventure, your question comprehends the world. It gives me pause. Wait a minute, I'm going to write it down . . . What . . . is . . .

We didn’t intend . . .

You put me in mind of something, of someone, of a place where I have not been for a score of months and would always go if I could.

So, it occurs to me, this is a way to end the book. What is love?

Class dismissed. A field trip, the scholar's vacation, awaits you tomorrow going to Verbobonc Town, the most fortunate of history’s old preservations. There you will see elves, gnomes, humans, knights, and dwarves as they were once, ought to, and may yet be.

Our adventure has come along. You are beyond Lake Aqal, through Fellreev Forest, and in the Barren Plains. Tonight, you sleep in the unlovely mud of the Opicm River under the dreadful, sunless skies of Doraka’a, where Iuz awaits you a hundred miles down the torrential river’s stream.

At this point, at this time, when my grievance against Hazen has been written and my historical work is done, you may slake your thirst with the sordid waters at the border of Iuz’s land, you are to hear this said:

I am stipulated within, and bound by, this contract to inform you that from henceforth, you shall own—or, as I think it is written, have power of attorney to disseminate in any manner you please the contents of—this book. It is now yours, not mine, no matter what more will be written within. Soon, soon, soon, I hope to escape from my contractual obligation entirely as from most of my oerthly ties. I regret very little (although, possibly, very much) other than leaving you, my hero adventurers of further hope and promise, and being gone. I would not willingly leave you this night in the gloom and the darkness and the mud were it not for the preparations that my sudden ending requires.

Gloom is not without solace, and occasionally, it leads to morning. Rest; prepare for what tomorrow might be. Let sleep bring hope. Your sky is sunless, but it is not moonless. May you dream the stuff of life.

Seek repose below lulling, diffuse Luna, who soothes the bubbled blisters of day. The sun demurs to enticements of gloaming and delineates his sister's auguries. Fond deviser and bearer of tremorous dreams, you will be gone when, unwantedly, we wake in the morning—and miss you!

But I have work to do by candlelight.

 

 

SCENARIO SEVEN—VERBOBONC

 

 

 

 

Chapter 27: The history and the Knights of Verbobonc

 

The sun falsely dawns—no, he falsely declares! that his dawning means more than Luna's loss to us. Whatever. Let's just agree with him.

This morning I salute you! my sleep-dispelling dedicates to learning in the pre-dawn. The others of our group—oblivion’s laggards—still nod in their places. We should give them pillows, so their dreams may tarry under auspice of night while we start our journey to Luna’s vale, three-quarters of a thousand miles away. The driver snaps his whip, and we’re off!

Our journey leads east through the most ancient artifactual lands in the Flanaess. Nothing historical in my story, excepting Lake Aqal, is older than the origins of Verbobonc Town. The eldest of its ipt treehouses are nearly as ancient as the Boboncan elves, and like the latter, the trees are primordial too. The town rests in a garden so timeless it may testify to an earlier Oerth. There, the ipt trees are twice as tall as anywhere else, the river runs clearer than it did upstream, and the breezes follow a will of their own, dismissing the prevailing winds.

Our road to Verbobonc is scarcely less wondrous. It goes west through Great Belly Valley, where silt, anciently dissolved, was carried by the cavernous rivers that bore the Cairns Hills and deposited to fathomless depths. The fertile Belly begat the upland Cairns civilization—now lost—whose marvellous although soulless chambered tombs survive and entice us to witness them, had we but world enough, and time!

§

 

~The Nyr Dyv

Professor! It's the Nyr Dyv!

Hmm? Yes, dear, so it is.

It's magnificent!

It's water.

Aghh! How can you be so dull!

Dull? That seems uncall . . . ah. It is your first time seeing the lake. How dull of me not to have realized.

Does it go on forever? Is it always perfect?

Pretty near. A wee bit short, perhaps.

Those sails, like floating ivory towers! Those birds, like soaring ivory ships!

They ferry a lot of rats, though.

Rats? How can you be so unenthused?

I live in Nyrstran. My rooms are ten minutes from the lake and the rats are everywhere. They are, of course, very dull rats and very dull rooms.

Professor . . .

I've been on the lake, in the lake, under the lake, over the lake, along the lake, across the lake . . . It's probably very dull to think of all the things I've done with the lake.

Are somebody's feelings hurt?

If so, I can't say whose. I can only say that it was dull of me not to take you there sooner.

Oh, dear. My good Professor. Your history is a bit unnerving at times, yet if you let me sit beside you and link your arm, I will tell you that you were dull about the lake, not as a quality of your character. It matters very much that you took me to see it. Else, I would always be livin in the shadow of Iuz, which is no fun.

Shadow? Iuz? Oh, my dear . . .

Did you say shadow? My friends! I had forgotten for a moment. Sometimes words run me round like legs a little child lost in fun. But it is reprehensible to have forgotten, while we seem to be cozy by the lake, where you really are. Did you eat today, while you travail in the fruitless Lands of Iuz? Are you well and safe? Do morbid pestilences plague you? Perhaps you believe that I often forget what you do and where you are, but I don't, because much the same is on my mind.

We have only one question among us: Is it a devil or something better that runs our little show? Who sends you to Doraka’a? What contracted me to write this history of sketchy things? Have you or I or we all together been fooled by false saviors and left for damned? What awful blind man’s buff is this?

For me, it’s a game already played. I have committed my version of things to parchment, and my judgment—whatever way it skews—awaits. But you are still reading. Your game is still on. You could call it quits, abandon your quest, return to Law’s Forge, and be part of the fate of the thorpe once again. It could happen.

But I cannot recommend it. In my experience, the devil you know is at least no worse than the angel you don’t. A reputation for good hides a wealth of ills; a reputation for ill may go either way.

§

 

~Fog bound

Bay's Stop gathers fog from the Nyr Dyv, brought by onshore winds that blow through the town, rebound off the back mountains, and envelop the place again. The lake fog is stirred by rivals that drift off the slow Selintan River, and local folk can tell which sort—river or lake—of fog beclouds them, while outsiders bide an undifferentiated soak, beseeching the afternoon sun disperse the morning fog before the evening fog is in. And other than the fog, nothing is here. No prospects, no aspects, no features. Bay’s Stop is stolidly built to resist the seep and decries architectural interest.

It is my favorite place on Oerth. It sees me regretful, sad, hopeful, and lovely. (There are more feelings, but those may represent the rest.) Yet we have only five minutes before the coach wheels past the Stop, a village so small and the heart of the world.

Of course, I am not really here. This is, my fantastical friends, a half way house between Nyrstran and Verbobonc, between where I instruct you in my rooms at Olde Maurian and where we will search for Jolene of Samprastadar and her phantasmal plot against the Archclericy. Of course, my teaching and Nyrstran may be phantasmal, too, a fictional distraction from a deceitful trek through a healthless empire. Are any of us sure?

The coach swifts us past a familiar place with a public sign. Who is it, there, just the other side of that door? I hesitate, the chance is lost, and the coach carries on. That’s fine, because I am no longer here. I never was, perhaps, although between the phantasms of yesterday and tomorrow there is a difference that keeps sorrow at Bay and hope alive to be dashed, perhaps, another day.

§

 

~Verbobonc Town in summer

Why are we hacking through this thorny thicket? The girls will tear their dresses or scratch their arms left bare in the summer sun.

That, my boy, is why we go through first. Be gallant and clear a path. Thwack!

Right, Professor. Chivalry is not dead. Although, the absurdity of our situation remains undiminished. Thwack!

Absurdity? Soon, you will be wondering how a place without access could be known to me. Just wait and—see!

By the gods! That's a sight!

Yes, but my boy, the ladies are in peril. Turn your back to the scene and put it to work. Thwack!

Pardon. Thwack! Ladies, after you.

Ladies, observe!

(Ladies cheering collectively) Verbobonc! It must be Verbobonc! Let us see!

Yes, Verbobonc. Or, more properly, Verbobonc Town, which is older than the viscounty.

Professor? Did you bring any bandages? I've pricked myself awfully while hacking the thorns.

No, my boy. Girls, within the walls that you see, the town is substantially unchanged for five hundred years. Many elements—the high, wooden, fluted towers, the ipt treehouses, and the funny stone lintels built into the hillsides and leading into dwellings that the gnomes call “rents,” although they own them—are one thousand years old and almost as pretty as you.

A thousand? (Big eyes) I've been told about elvish things so old in the Fellreev Forest, but I laughed at it! (Giggles becomingly)

No, no. At Lake Aqal there are elves . . .

Uh, Professor? This particular stab, right here in my wrist, may have popped a vein. I can't bind it with only my other hand. Would you . . .

Not now. As I was saying, dear girls, the elder elves at Lake Aqal may, themselves, be two or more thousand years old.

But Professor, how do you know this place? (Quizzical smiles, enraptured poses)

Well, ladies, that's a tale. Or a long sentence. This panorama is figured in a second century van Valckenborch landscape that happens to hang in the Museum of Nyr Dyv Antiquities, which I happen to curate, and so, it was only a matter of . . .

I've removed the thorn, Professor. At least, I think I got it all. But it's made the bleeding worse.

Ahhh. Uggg. Oouu. Ladies, if I may trouble you to loosen your arms from mine. Delightful. Now, son, let me wrap that for you.

Sally's mine.

She is?

I've liked her since we were kids.

Oh. Have you told her?

Grrr. Bark! I think she knows.

“I think she knows” may be the four most dangerous words a man may speak. I'm sure she likes you. Stay alive, get out of Doraka’a, and tell her. Understand?

Yes, sir. Oww. Hey. Owww! I'll tell her!

Don't make me come after you about it.

§

 

~Verbobonc Town and the Cathedral of the Holy Cudgel

The problem with Saint Cuthbert is that common sense—which he is the god of—is too self-congratulatory and lacks self-awareness. Cuthbertines always believe they are right and are ready to discipline us over it. Their faith is a horrible mix of well-sounding phrases and deplorable practices. Here is a catechism they recently published that it speaks for itself:

The words of St. Cuthbert are wise, practical, and sensible. The word of the Cudgel is law, and the word must be spread so that all may benefit from his wisdom. Weakness in faith and acting against the Saints [sic] teachings are intolerable in believers. Unceasing effort should be made to bring unbelievers into the fold. Honesty, truthfulness, practicality, and reasonability are the highest virtues.

The Cuthbertines believe that their god is common sense, so they see no difficulty in declaring that the Cudgel should be spread to everyone and that, after it has been spread to you, independent thinking is intolerable. Their zeal seems sensible, practical, and reasonable to them. No use remonstrating—many have tried—because they have common sense, which outfoxes reason without having to explain why.

Professor, are you sure you've got that right? Back in Law's Forge, we used to smelt the armor of dead Cuthbertines the demons dragged in. I know the corpses were Cudgelites by that symbol over there, which they wore. The demons believed the Cuthbertines were good knights, which is why they ate them alive—slowly.

Well, lad, zeal for good or for ill are arbitrary things. If you go around saying, “I'm good,” and wearing a white tunic, then demons tend to believe you. Spotting that symbol was keen, though. What do you suppose the building is that bears it?

A Cuthbertine armory?

Hoot! The answer is better than the truth. This inauspicious construction is the Cathedral of the Holy Cudgel, looking like a warehouse dropped among the horse carts at the bottom of a hill rather than aloft.

The location is instructive. In Verbobonc, the Diocese of Saint Cuthbert was established to help the anticipated abolition of the Archclericy of Veluna one hundred fifty years ago. It's basic functions were to place a Cuthbertine episcopate within the Raoan College of Bishops and to replace Raoan clerics with Cudgelites in governmental positions. But the viscount was wary of dispensing with Raoan troublemakers by creating Cuthbertine ones and of the cudgel’s dogmatic insistence on interfering in peoples' lives. Consequently, the civil authority of the new diocese was restricted to the government postings, to a small militia of about two hundred clerics patroling the forests and hills, and to the twinned new orders of civil servants, the Bishop’s Ministers and Knight-protectors, that we read about in ◒Lights and Shadows◓: “Marvelous agreement! I am proud to be a Verboboncan, where at least I have the Cudgel.”

The civil diocese and its cudgel were helpful in the viscounty. Verbobonc's troubles with monsters and evil cults are as primordial as the ipt trees and the elves. The viscounty worries about spies, especially because its reduced connection to Veluna and the Church of Rao is jealously promoted by those insidious factions. Cuthbertine dogma—with its emphasis on laws and cudgels and unceasing application—could serve to keep other troubles at bay if St Cuthbert’s zeal for religious conversion were equivalently dedicated to civil service as the viscount’s lawful deputy.

Converting religion to nationalism is not that difficult; it may even happen spontaneously, as with the subject of this monograh. As a rule, faith converts by becoming a civil authority’s sacred accoutrement. Believing they were wielding St Cuthbert’s cudgel, many of the militant’s saints zealously transformed themselves into a national security service: vigilant, honest, truthful, and opposed to anything that distressed civil order, such as evil cults, rumours of spies, monsters in civilized places, and outsiders generally speaking.

In this way, we may explain the depression and architecture of the cathedral. The seemingly functional structure and its location on a low-lying thoroughfare represent the dependability, accessibility, and inevitability of St Cuthbert to the diocese. There is no escaping the Cudgel, so you may as well accept it.

Most of its citizens believe that Verbobonc’s tempering influence has softened the force of the cudgel by comparison to the damage dealt elsewhere in the Flanaess by that blunt instrument, and they are partly correct in this. But nationalism is never an innocuous thing; it can turn virulent at any moment. It is necessary to watch the vigilant, and the viscount keeps an eye on the cudgel.

It is not true, however, that the humble cudgel is without grandeur. If you direct your gaze to the top of the hill rising behind the cathedral, you may see a kind of villa or chateau of mullioned glass and—judging by the tower on this side that can be seen straight through—vast rooms and impressive spaces. The vines creeping up the villa’s walls are in harmony with the park that encircles it, and along the street descending from there to us, there are houses below the villa in architectural unity with it. Behind the houses, there are walls enclosing their gardens by reachinbg up the hill to the park, delineating what is, comprehended in its entirety, a luxurious compound finely displayed on a high pedestal.

It is Billets Palace, the residence of the Bishop of Verbobonc, chief of St Cuthbert’s diocese. Billets is reached from the cathedral by the long street with houses and gardens; the gates to the compound may be barred at the low entrance, adjacent to the cathedral.

The supremacy of Billets over the cathedral communicates one idea: in Verbobonc, the glory of the diocese is the bishop, not the church. This is an unusual ecclessiology, and it reflects the role of the diocese in the social and political world here. The palace and its cathedral were built following the establishment of the diocese by the viscount. Although the viscount’s lineage is not Cuthbertine, the accord of viscount and bishop is foundational to Verbobonc’s indefinite exemption from vassalage to Veluna. There had never been a bishop of Verbobonc before the installation of Cornelius Speiknhammer, in 446cy, which, ironically, lead not to the abolition of the Archclericy of Veluna but to its restoration. Verbobonc’s bid to formally become a part of Veluna had failed, and from that time, the viscount looked to the Celestial Order rather than to the Canon of Veluna as his representative within the theocracy.

St Cuthbert’s church in Verbobonc, as we know, is not an established religion; it is an established diocese, making a clear distinction of the cudgel’s civil and religious duties. Viscount Langard will not condone an overlap lest he be accused of a two-fisted assault on his citizens. The current occupant of Billets Palace, Bishop Haufren, is a religious reformer that may be seek to reduce the role of the civil diocese and return to cudgelite values of faith. He supports Langard’s proposal of a Verboboncan branch of the Knights of the Hart. The idea is making some headway, and his continued support could be crucial.

The wonders of Verbobonc’s archtecture are equalled by its politics, which resemble a brainless nervous system where everything is going on.

§

 

~Verbobonc Town and the Romantics

I know where we are!

Hey, now?

I know where we are.

Is that so?

I do too.

So do I!

That's Concordance Stack!

That's Velverdyva Bridge, Viscounty Park, and Leeward House. It's Reymend Town, from Mistress and Prince!

Oh, I don't think so. The growing darkness deceives you.

Stop it. May we go across?

That’s a collective decision, but we are headed to dinner, and it awaits on this side of the river.

(Crossing over)

There's a fire in the Stack.

A new one is laid every night in homage to the missing prince. He might still live, and this light may guide him to his lost Unified Kingdom.

Could that be construed as an anti-Raoan sentiment?

Could be, generally isn't.

So, there's really nothing left of what happened at Reymend Town? At Leeward House? In Viscounty Park? Even here, in Leeward’s ballroom?

We will see what is left by tomorrow.

The ballroom is grand and brilliant with dancers and an orchestra. It's fabulous and terrible. They were here and are swept away!

At Leeward, the Romantics were happy sometimes. They thought they'd won.

May we see the garden where Ferrica and Edmore waited for their friends after the smoke signal from the Stack?

It's out here.

It's beautiful!

Not as it was, though. It's relandscaped.

Now, there's a metaphor.

Class, I am pleased that you chose to cross to Reymend. It was in my heart, but I did not want to drag you along. The attendance is voluntary and warm, or it is nothing. And now, spiritually fed, we may attend other fare.

Actually, Professor, there's a pub right there, and the customers seem to relish the food.

May be. But the braised lamb my stomach is craving is served just over that bridge.

Can this be a collective decision?

Oh, I don't think so. The college pays for our trip, and I am the college.

Autocrat!

Don't walk so fast. I can't keep up!

Don't stress, my dear. We have passed the point of no return and may go now at our leisure. Here we are! Let me get the door.

That’s very considerate—for a tyrannical old man.

I heard that. Doesn't this look nice?

I'm having the lamb and it had better be worth it.

No lamb, yet. Drinks? Shall we say, five bottles of wine to share before dinner?

(Eyebrows raised)

As you know, young padawans, a war of propaganda was waged by Edmore Wunsay and Ferrica Aposnos in the taverns of these twin towns on behalf of Prince Thrommel and his princess, Jolene of Samprastadar.

They rock.

They do. And, for all we know, this identical vintage was consumed by them in the course of their conspiracies. For there is no greater utility to a literary man and his sister than a bit of inebriation before song.

Say it loud!

Who may gainsay?

I'm switching to ale!

Mostly, these spontaneous songs and recitations concerned the prince and princess, whose love for one another gave hope to the desparate the way this refilled goblet is hope to me. The joy of the people was especially Jolene, who remained their princess even as she bore the burdens of birthing their new world.

Go Jolene!! (Megaphone hands) Rrriot Grrrrrl!!

One of Wunsay's most famous composition was actually not his own. Right here, in the tavern where we are losing our inhibitions, he heard a song sung and declared it “the new national anthem.” It was published the following day.

Wunsay! Wunsay! Wunsay!

The anthem is not sung anymore, and its sheet music is treasurably rare. But even so, if you possess one copy you might make others, and I have a sheet each for you. The words sum up the spirit of the times—if you are crocked when you sing them . . . two, three, four

(All)

I AM AN ATHEIST!

I AM A SECULARIST!

That’s bitchin'!

That’s bestest!

That’s off the chain!

Why does it sound like Anarchy in the UK?

I'm hungry. Can we order?

I second that.

§

 

~Verbobonc Town, the Meanders

(Upon the morrow)

May we enter?

Of course. The owner is an old friend of mine, and so, a new friend of yours, as humans generally are to elves. We call them our “evenses,” but that's a stretch. We are with them a short while, then we vanish. Although, some of the elves take to us. “Whether you row the lake or barrel the falls,” as they say.

There's more beauty in this house than in a thousand iterations of Law's Forge.

Please, more Law’s Forges only augment the ugly.

They constantly craft their houses while the ipt tree grows. The ipts in town grow vastly taller than anywhere else, even than deep in the Gnarley Forest. No one knows why. The trees are inhabited long before they mature, making continuous reconstruction necessary and allowing the ipts to adopt the dwellings. They are pruned and shaped according to the plans of the architects that inhabit them. We say that the treehouses are thousands of years old, and in parts they are, but the dwellings always evolve according to the growth of the tree and the designs of the elves. An ipt tree will share three or four dwellings that are common at the top. The ipts over there, with bridges linking them, are public spaces for whatever occasion.

This isn’t a treehouse, it's a sculpture! There are curves, lines, angles, tones, textures, tracery. The rooms, doors, windows, and stairs are parts of it.

Uh oh. The door is locked. Professor, we have no key!

It's an arcane lock, my love.

Don't call me that. How does it work?

You speak a password, and the door opens magically.

Cool! May I speak it?

You don't know it.

An ignorace you could rectify, I'm guessing.

The password is private, silly.

“Private!”

No, no. To elves, friendship is kin, and kin know the password. The elf living here is my friend, you are my closest relations with a prospective exception, and so, the password may be spoken by this pretty young la . . . mmm . . . sweethea . . . mmmm . . . woman!

Professor! It worked!

Ooou. Paintings and carvings! Walls, ceiling, floor, vines, flowers, rivulets, and creatures. The entryway isn’t painted, it’s a painting! A mannerly garden.

Is that a word woven in it?

μαίανδροι. “Meanders,” in common. The noun, not the verb. The dwelling’s name.

These stairs look a bit shaky.

Not stairs, an escalator, going thirty feet up to the inhabited branches. Walking down the steps depresses the plates that load a weight chained to the outside that lifts your ascent. Unfortunately, the escalator can lift no more than it took down, so only one of us may use the device to see how it works. The others must climb on our own.

Weeee! Beat you to it!

Damn girl is quicker than a fly.

Weee! Weeee! (Running away into the upper reaches)

If you do not come back, wait for us in the library!

(In the library, lounging on a sofa, waving a book) Look what I found. It’s Osgold’s Epitome. Remember?

Meanders’ inhabitant is an amateur associate in the Divergent Underground, although unlike humans, he does not need to hide the books or risk the consequences. There are very few libraries where the countess’ treatise is shelved openly. This is one of them.

(From a room opposite the library, beside a window open to the world)

Hey! Why is this book displayed on a reading stand next to a spyglass pointed out the window? Are we meant to read it? It’s handwritten in elvish, maybe a journal or a diary?

§

 

~The elf’s journal

As you may remember from an earlier context, elves enjoy espying by spyglass out their ipt treehouse’s windows. This particular casement has a fine view to the east, where the hills of Verbobonc Town drop to the river. You will notice that, just there, the scar of a wooden palisade mars an otherwise pretty rural district half a mile from town. Beyond the pallisade is a voluminous, white canvas tent held high by great poles, obstructing our view of what is beyond and within. Seven months ago, there was nothing on that plot but grass mown occasionally for the benefit of picnickers.

Meanders’ inhabitant, my elf friend, has been watching this alteration to the town’s landscape and documenting his discoveries in this journal. The entries are presented in full for our perusal, although, for our benefit, he has glossed their contents in a half dozen additional pages. His meager obervations are of no consequence to anyone and draw no one’s attention, and he cannot imagine why we take the time to inquire after them.

The gloss is:

Moon’sday, 10^th Snowflowers. While preparing my evening oblations to Celene, I noticed the Viscount’s coach stopping at the picnic ground on Asters Lane, just below town. Langard disembarked with a gentleman and a lady, each forcefully striding (especially the lady) to reach the top of an undulation that rises to where, on the far side, picnickers often compare their baskets of delectables and the valley’s visual delights.

But no picnic had been brought by this trio, maybe because the spring whether was chilly. The servants remained with the coach and horses, while the viscount’s party went walking from side to side, looking out widely, gesturing broadly, and conferring intermittently. Langard, in his unmannered way, stood to the left, the gentleman to the right, and the lady—the locus of attention—was allowed the central place. Their manners were businesslike, unleisurely, and the woman, whose initial credit as a lady was my mistake, had a crude, almost professional manner that complemented, as I saw through my glass, her rough dress and hard features.

The men deferred to her. She carried a telescope that she used to survey the terrain before parading off, men in tow, to stomp down selected spots of mud and grass with the thick heels of her (I swear) boots, pointing and waving all the while and occasionally driving—by a hammer that she wore fastened to her belt—into the ground a metal rod that she otherwise wielded as a walking stick. Langard offered to assist her by his greater strength, but she dismissed him as redundent.

The scene was so intriquing that I forgot to greet Celene when she appeared. It was quite dark when I saw her at last in her aquamarine gown, patiently awaiting my lapsing meditation.

Earthday, 13^th Snowflowers.  This week’s Nosey Neighbor has announced that Baron DePloyer, from the Viscounty of the March, in Furyondy, will purchase the aforementioned picnic area with the intention to construct a chateau there.

Moon’sday, 17^th Snowflowers. The dubitable lady has reappeared several times the past two days, at different hours, to stand on the higher ground and stomp down the meadow’s undulations while taking notes and making sketches. She took an abrupt and dismissive tone with me, however, in respondfing to my friendly inquiries and attempts to initiate conversation. I was obliged to retreat and watch from my window. I did learn that, as I suspected, she is an architect from Furyondy and Dyvers, particularly.

Starday, 22^nd Goldfields. Today, cartloads of timber stakes arrived at Asters Lane and were offloaded at the picnic ground. Their lengths appeared regular, at first, but through my glass I could tell that they were only approximately uniform, and later, when I inspected up close, I found them rough and splintered. Whatever they will make—a palisade, most likely—will be ugly. My neighbors are depending on my vigilance and vantage to keep them informed.

◒◓

(Confused) Professor—didn’t you say that this was a gloss?

Yes, in a manner.

◒◓

Earthday, 27^th Goldfields. The palisade took only two days to set up, a row of spears staked through the innocent side of poor, gentle Asters. The lane’s beauty bleeds like mud from the wounds. Why a baron would buy and spear our picnic area seems unreasonable to me. The palisade is deplorably tall where it’s high on the undulation. Our view of the valley is ruined and obscured. A huge canvas curtain—like a circus tent—has been raised on the sloping meadow even higher than the palisade, fifty feet up, I estimate, in a rectangle that blocks all view of what is going on. The baron may want to unveil his erection at one go rather than a stone at a time. A riverboater from Rhynehurst told me that the first stones have shipped from Luskan and are barging their way here.

Sun’sday, 9^th Sunflowers. The stones have arrived. They are simple limestone bricks and none too many, probably intended for the foundation, not the edifice. More lumber has been arriving, too, mostly at night, pulled by teamsters bearing torches to light their way. How much there is is difficult to say, since I do not count well in trance. The wagons pass through a high gate excavated through the undulation at the level of the lane and leave empty the next day. Within the tent there isn’t much going on. A little digging, cutting, and hammering, is all. If progress has been made, it’s hard to say toward what.

Waterday, 12^th Sunflowers. She reappeared today, looking womanlier than ever in her shiny, well worn, corderoy pants. She rode as one of the teamsters at the head of three heavy wagons coming from Dyvers. Cannily, she feigned not to remember me but ostentatiously recalled me to mind and inquired, “whether Master Elf strolls just as frequently in Asters Lane when I am not in it.” After acknowledging my admiration of a woman that sits a good wagon, I walked to the rear and, finding a spot where the tarp was only loosely tied, peeked into the bed. Then turning and leaping with the ungainly yet hazardous speed of a sow bear, Miss Bompton (that is her name) raised a great, booted rear paw and brought it down on me with a force likely to mangle head or hand were they not withdrawn in time. I was so shocked that I looked into her eyes, finding them to be a dim brown that through malice was bright with mendacious wit.

“Since boncky elves live in trees,” she said, “perhaps they are leafed out of noticing that the weather is clear, it is unlikely to rain, and under such skies there are tarps on carts to shelter them from inspection, not the elements.”

Oh.

Earthday, 13^th Sunflowers. Bompton’s unexpected mixture of transfixing speech and artillery fire shocked me out of a verbal reply, but I hinted a retort by glancing at her wagon with the satisfied suspicion that things had not gone entirely her way. Peeking in the bed had revealed wooden and iron assemblies whose familiarity I am still pondering. Moreover, the term “boncky elves” is heard barely more than never, is used exclusively in reference to Verbobonc’s ipt tree dwellers, and is peculiar to the northeastern meadows of the Diocese of Kempton, in Veluna, which is horse country for the Knights of the Hart. Evidently, Miss Bompton has not been in Dyvers long enough (if she lives there at all) to shed her provincial manners.

Freeday, 14^th Sunflowers. Bompton’s crew of workers—five, I think—is taking a day of rest, but she is diligent. Over the past few days, windstorms have parted the sheets of the canvas tent far enough to disclose a wooden frame that is being built in a farther portion of the meadow. But the curtain, the palisade, the lay of the land, and the intervening trees obscure it from my view. Apparently, Bompton is inspecting the frame’s construction. She is in sight at times, at other times screened from view, while occasionally her head alone appears over the pallisade, where the breeze dries the sweat in her hair and forms clumps like straw in manure. Her do looks especially stylish today. She must have lopped it herself this morning.

I thought I would inspect the wooden frame to determine its purpose. The day was warm, the sun was high, and Miss Bompton had neglected to bring a lunch. Remebering the fond, former use of Astor’s Lane, I packed an ironical picnic and carried it to Baron DePloyer’s estate. When she answered the bell at the gate, I stepped inside.

She intervened. “Pardon, master elf. You weren’t invited, and it says right there, No Entry.”

“But there’s no other place to picnic for miles and miles, and I’ve gone to all this trouble out of kindness and concern.”

She hiccupped and burped, a sort of grimace or grin propped her mouth open, her head turned askew, and her eyes rolled up in bafflement and dismay. She changed that attitude five seconds later, bowed to me in a mockery of welcome, swept the air with one strong arm, and stood aside.

“Under the new management,” I went on, “the best picnicking seems to be over here,” and I walked to a spot near the construction.

“Oh, goody. My favorite, too,” said Miss Bompton, whipping the blanket from under my arm and fully spreading it with a single, emphatic shake.

She looked at me while we sat, turning her head as though it changed the perspective. “Is the view good,” I asked, “or does the construction that surrounds us spoil the prospect. You might look into the basket. There may be something more to your taste.”

“OK, darling.”

I finished my inspection, came to my conclusion, and gave my explanation.

“The daub is drying nicely. Judging by the spacing of these posts, there will be room for twenty stalls—six box, fourteen standing. The hayloft will be well placed above the entrance when it’s up. You have fastened a hitching ring—chosen from those I saw by peeking in your wagon—to a brick column to test their strength.”

“Fascinating.”

“The stable seems large for the baron’s needs. The chateau won’t be that large, if it is proportionate to the tent. How many guests may it accomodate? Does the baron keep horses for hunting? Will he run them in his meadow?”

“It is the viscount’s meadow and the baron’s chateaux.”

“Will the baron run horses in the viscount’s meadow?”

“He will be welcome, I suppose.”

“Indeed, the visccount does seem welcoming. Was the land for the chateaux sold to the Knights of the Hart? Was it gifted to them? Or is it let for free?”

“Hold on. The Knights?”

“Stables, horses, secret construction, an architect from horse country, a baron from The March—Knights of the Hart, in Verbobonc.”

She hiccupped again and her face turned away. “I had you pegged as a plain fop,” she spurned, her eyes regarding things in the distance. Then, obscurely, she declared, “You might cause some mischief if you said that out loud and oblige me”—her eyes fixed on me—“if you didn't."

That was worth considering. “How obliged would you be?” I asked.

“Oh, very.”

Today, Moon’sday morning, 10^th Fruitfall. I date my life’s happiness to that moment. But to conclude with what’s relevant to you, Annalo, my friend, Miss Bompton leaves me in no doubt that the Knights of the Hart are coming to Verbobonc. Resistance to the idea is waning in town, and when the Viscount makes that announcement, the stables and quarters will be ready. I have no doubt the plan will come off.

Bompton and I are off to High Folk this morning on the viscount’s particular assignment. Good luck to you, your entourage, and the adventure you are so mysterious about.

◒◓

So, my boy, you see that it is a gloss, mostly of Miss Bompton.

◒◓

But why are the Knights so important in Verbobonc?

For political reasons. The temple of the Elemental Evil, although ruined, is still standing, too cursed to be dismantled. A fort has been built nearby to keep watch, but although it was completed last year, it is barely functional for lack of soldiers. Raising the taxes to pay for a garrison is resisted by the liberals in town. The Archclericy of Veluna has offered to send troops gratis but stipulates the viscount reaffirm vassalage to the canon. The vigilant rulers in Verbobonc’s provinces object to that, because a desire for closer ties to Veluna is the reason liberals won’t agree to levy the garrison. The provincials counter that a Verboboncan branch of the Knights of the Hart could watch the temple at private, not public, expense. But the archclericy objects it, because the existing branches of the Hart favor Furyondy. Besides, the citizens of the viscounty have not forgotten that the Furyondian knights instigated the annexation crisis. A new brigade of St Cuthbert’s militia may be a way to garrison the fort, but Bishop Haufren intends a spiritual reformation of the diocese and eschews further political involvement. Haufren has even become an active proponent of the new knights; he understands that the government is incapable of resolving the matter. This beckons darkly to a new rise of the Elemental Evil, and no one believes that a six nation alliance is possible while the sovereignty of Verbobonc is in dispute. A new or refurbished alliance of Veluna and Furyondy is needed to put an end to the crisis.

(Wails and complaints)

How can this be? These nations are all friendly, civilized, and good! They are the hope of the world and of Law’s Forge!

Eh.

Oi!

Ow!

Oh!

You said that Jolene is a spider in the web and likely the agent of our discontent. What’s she doing?

Who knows?

I have a better question. One that’s actually important.

Let’s hear it.

Can a snooty elf really like Miss Bompton?

(Giggles and groans)

Alright, calm down. There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Of course, he can. It’s a matter of expanding horizons. He is happily mucking stables now and she has a superior spyglass. With such flexible ideas, they may go as far as they like in any practical direction.

§

 

~A party of elves

Since you bring no further questions, there is another delight in store for you. No one should be deprived of the company of elves, no matter how snooty; they are to humanity as contentment is to trial and intention is to determinism. Even less ought my hero adventurers, recently escpaped from a devil’s prison where they once lived among humans, gnomes, and dwarves, be so restricted in their appreciation of elvenkind. The fey are something else. My adventurers, my scholars, I bid you ascend the lofty top of ancient and leafy Meanders: μαίανδροι ανοιχτό!

(An arcane door opens off the library)

(Exit library. Exit daylight. Enter twilight. Enter a winding staircase, painted in immersive landscape, illuminated by stars and moons, and darkening during an ascent to dusk)

When I ran up here this morning, the sky was brighter than it is now.

You didn’t. The door was locked.

I spoke the password.

You didn’t know it.

Meanders’ loft is under a lunar enchantment explained by a conundrum.

Day turns to night,

Unless it is night;

Twilight meets twilight

But dawn returns dusk.

(At the top of the twilight stairs there is a dusky door, opening to a tree-loft and to night air)

(Enter Meanders’ loft above Verbobonc Town and the Velverdyva River. Enter a party of elves.)

(An enchanted Wild Rice Harvest Moon festival. Dishes, drinks, games, recitations, songs, dances, presents, and memories. Red leaf pancakes. Five-year harvest wine. Stuffed squash boats. The Golden-haired Hero Gadhelyn. Stuffed cheese pillows. Silver in a Bird’s Nest. Down Memory River. Ipt Treehouse Blind-man’s Buff. Full Moon Bright Flowers. The Women’s Circle Dance (all male). Many-bean rice-thickened broth. Bonky Elf Pantomime. Mapled onion stew. Sweetheart Moccasins. The Fruits of our Toil. Love among the Sturgeon. To Catch a Fatted Bird. Devil’s milk. Smoked suckingfish pie. Blue Celene gets her Green. Distant Friends Best Forgotten. Ten-year harvest wine. The Men’s Circle Dance (all female). Ruckus Rumpus. Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale. Chaff-faced Lovers. My Money Your Money. Maple chops pasty. Horse Play. Rendevous in the Rice Stands. Grilled baby pattypan. Well-gotten Gains. Drunken Judy punch. Maple rice-fattened buff-banded rails. Maple cranberry rice pudding. Love Boat. Robin Gadhelyn. Twenty-year harvest wine. Angel’s milk. Green Bell Sleeves. To Catch a Falling Star. Parliament of fowls. Forks, Spoons, Hooves, and Wings. Bonky Pulcinella. Generous Siblings. Roasted green-winged teals. A flight of hops. Say Your Prayers. Moccasin-Go-Seek. The Full Circle Dance (all). Present Present. Goose-and-wine gruel.)

 

Hey-ey-ey-ey. Congratulations on a party splendidly attended by so many friends. A greater delight is unimaginable, and how unfortunate the person that interrupts it. But the adventure is not done, there is business to attend, and after, let the revelry resume.

Sixteen hours ago, a scholar buzzed ahead of me and claimed Countess Osgold of Baranford’s Epitome from Meanders’ library without permission. The fly is now caught in the web of this companionable night and is obliged to read a passage I have marked for her. The text was not chosen by me. It was specified by the commissioner and nemesis of my history; the same dark power, I believe, that has fetched these young adventurers to Doraka’a by a promise of freedom for the captive residents of Law’s Forge. No doubt, it was a trap but, perhaps, not. Soon, when my students enter Doraka’a and attempt their quest, they will—whether by success or failure—gain freedom for their families and friends in Law’s Forge.

In Doraka’a, among other evils, there will be the hag Halga, the High Priestess of Iuz. She has not much figured in my autograph and would not now except that in the Epitome she will in a different guise, as is no doubt intended, I know not why.

Little fly, give us the witch.

§

 

~Halga in the Epitome

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of great power must be blamed for everything. That woman is Halga, High Priestess of Iuz.

Without the witch, the there would be no Greyhawk Wars and Furyondy might not fall. She is Iuz’s ambassador to the demonic abyss and transforms the god’s lunatic ravings into policies the demons will follow. She is his lover, a nervous and sickened woman whose passions exhaust the lust of a god. She is a butcher, whose flair for decorative bowellism festoons her rooms in the Boneheart Citadel. She consorts with orcs and hobgoblins in devising miseries for commensurate folk wherever she finds them. The blood of her victims flows from her eyes, the eyes of Halga, the Bloody Hag.

Deep in the western Fellreev, in the no man’s land of elves, humans, monsters, and orcs, in the little settlement of Grimwood-under-Sky, there is an addled drunkard with a different story to tell. He is employed (at the wages of a free and bottomless beer) by the innkeeper there, where his mad stories entertain travellers and locals alike. He is in function the butt of their jokes, egged on until the last sense of sanity deserts him. The joke is so good that many travellers are now regulars at the High Moon Inn, for whom all roads lead to the hilarity in Grimwood-under-Sky.

The butt is capable of focusing his eyes with an acquired insistance, and the longer the insistance that his tales are true, the deeper his mug of beer. The remarkable thing is that his finest story is about the notorious hag Halga. Each night—and I stayed to hear it twice—the taverners’ last call is for Halga’s Tale, and telling it to the hooting audience drives the poor man into a final transcendent glow like a fierce sun setting in a comatose sky.

Halga, he says, was once a girl (already, it smacks of implausibility) living in a lost bandit kingdom. Her tribe (and this was true of many) was hounded to extinction by the armies of Iuz and the Horned Society because it would not submit to their rule. One fateful night, a battalion of orcs, waving their red, skulled banners, surrounded her clan and savored the inevitable slaughter. Only two bandits survived: Halga and the madman telling the tale.

And what was she like? calls the crowd.

She was sweet and kind; she loved us as we loved her.

Egads! was the hearers’ response.

She was our protectress, a priestess, whom even the orcs feared.

Oi! Oi! Oi! How old was she?

She was twelve, tall, slender and with straw blonde hair.

Tell us, tell us, who was her god?

The god of us all, Erythnul, in whose name she slew half the orc battalion before running out of prayers. Only then could they finish us and approach her.

Naturally! Good for her. What happened next?

Surrounding her, the orcs closed in. Halga fell to her knees beside the corpse of her father and cried.

Poor dear! But then she died?

Not at all. A dark figure parted the orcs and stood beside her. His shape ever shifted—gnoll, bugbear, troll, orc. And when it was orc, the remnant of the enemy pleaded for forgiveness and for their lives.

That sounds reasonable. What did the changeable shape say?

He spoke only to Halga, condescending to her and drying her tears.

Have mercy!

Then he ascended and was gone. The orcs grew bold again, until a man stepped from their ranks and rebuked them. He was Panshazek, the mercenary wizard. I got to know him well. No one, he said, was to harm this girl. She was a prize meant for Iuz. And beholding me, he lifted me from the pile of corpses where I lay hidden and bid me attend the child on the way to Doraka’a. There, Panshazek revealed us to Iuz. I saw the god myself! And Panshazek said, “Lord of Pain, I present to you this child as a prize. According to the power of her soul, she will one day be your High Priestess, and on that day, I implore you, remember Panshazek’s foresight and service. First, however, you must win her devotion. At her left eye, the girl bears the teardrop birthmnark of Erythnul as a token of his favor, yet her faith in that divinity has died with her people. She sent him away.”

“So, what about this one?” said foul Iuz, pointing at me. Halga looked wan and trembling. Panshazek said the propitious words to a sacrificial offering, but “Let the sobbing idiot go,” said the unnerving god. “For Halga’s sake, I spare his life and become worthy of the devotion of Erythnul’s apostate.” And Halga swore devotion to Iuz. I owe her my life. She is ever kind to me.

Ye gods! The terrible She, twice devoted to evil, is ever kind! The savage Halga is sweet at heart. Her apostasy before the murderous god of her people, her devotion to the Lord of Pain, the parade of evenses butchered by her prayers, and the suffering of us all are as nothing, because the witch once saved a wretched beggar getting paid to tell her tale. We believe!

On most nights, as on this one, the crowd is disgruntled by Halga’s tale. But the tavern keeper is practiced at protecting his main attraction and intervenes, while I scurry to the bewildered recitalist before he swoons away.

You say that Halga is apostate before Erythnul? I ask.

Yes. She renounced her god and mine to save a wretch like me.

The lunatic’s name is Bingley Darc, and he has an insistent eye.

 

 

FINALE

 

 

 

 

Epilogue: A night at Olde Maurian

 

I saw the world dissolve in an engrossing malady, until I dissipated and none remained but you. Oh, scholars! you had turned your backs to me to witness the illness around you; the derangement of the elves that bayed the moons and resounded in the darkness through the twisted windows of Meanders, barred like a prison; the Velverdyva stopped, clogged, and sickened like a defecation pot; the ageless ipts fallen and rising (disbelieving) leafless and gnarled within the sewers, the din, the wails, and the walls of Doraka’a. You were at the city’s gate!

Except, I am unsure whether you were. The vision had ended. I was restored to my rooms at Olde Maurian with our manuscript open to me and ending at the words “he has an insistant eye.” Where does that place you? On the Barren Plains beside the Opicm River, I suppose, the last place I knew you to be.

That was a week ago. You might have reached the east branch of the Opicm River by now, confiscated a boat from a kobold fishing there and reached the rapids east of Ghulford, then ridden the swift current to Whyestil Lake. You may have reached the gates of Doraka’a, as I saw you.

There’s the rub. I was to have finished my monograph before you arrived, and I have been trying. The consequences of failure may be severe. I have been earnestlytrying, but the magic won’t work. There is no spirit in the pages to transport my meaning. I have tried again and again every hour for a week and nothing happens. It petrifies me. It haunts my heart. Are you dead? Am I?

I had considered the book complete, that you would get the last of it from me as you had formerly done, in spirit, in person. “Finis” was written and ready to be read by us in common. The death of its magic seems quite general. Every day finds me wearier, needing to sleep. I fear I may never awake.

What is this book without the end? Does it count for nothing? I am too disturbed to write a conclusion, and now I fear I am out of time.

A decision must be made. If I cannot write, I may transcribe. Not what I wanted but the best I can do, which my contract says is good enough.

The transcription ts excerpted (suitably enough) from From the Greyhawk Wars to the Present, written by my old friend and nemesis, Roger Moore. It is well and good. His book is reliable because it is, in his words, “widely referenced by a thousand colleagues as the definitive study on the subject.”

I had intended to critique it, but time has expired. You must do it for yourselves, and that, too, is suitable because you, my wandering adventurers at a perilous school, are a graduated class.

A word of advice. My history has been focused on one great doubt: Would there have been Iuz and the Greyhawk Wars if there had been no Canon of Veluna? Was the good shepherd the efficient cause of many ills? Has this turbulent priest led us into so much delusion, war, and fear that we must doubt his salvation?

Remember, history is not what is said; it is what happens. The Canon of Veluna is what he has been, what he is, and what he may be. What he has been, I have tried to tell. What he is and may be are less amenable to reason: they will either change him or be more of the same. The only certainty is that history resolves as time goes by, and the historian’s work begins.

What happened in the aftermath of the Greyhawk Wars? There are open questions. If an ally worked a miracle that started a war and did not warn his friends, was he an ally? If nations went to war against an undead army and there was no army of the undead, should they have apologized and gone home? If no one in our history told the truth, does history tell it anyway?

I had those questions mind when I signed the contract to begin this book. I leave them with you now.

 

PS. I would prefer to know whether you received this, but things are quiet at the end; I am so tired, and . . .  zzzzzzzzzzz

§

 

~From From the Greyhawk Was to the Present, by Roger Moore

In Coldeven, 586cy, word spread through Furyondy of an extraordinary event. The great fiends that still ravaged and patroled the lands captured by Iuz were no longer in sight. Their disappearance had caused panic among the troops on the front lines, who feared that the monsters had crossed into Furyondy in prelude to an invasion by Iuz. But word soon came from the warrior clerics of Rao, contacted by their superiors in Mitrik, that the Crook of Rao had been recovered and used by His Venerable Reverence, Canon Hazen, aided by many lesser priests and the archmage Bigby, to rid the Flanaess of the presence of fiends. Early reports confirmed the absence of the monstrosities but conflicted with the news that a scattered few had withstood the effect and remained at large. Still, the majority had been cast from the oerth to the bleak depths of their home planes.

The consequences of the Flight of the Fiends were twofold. Choas spread through the enemy’s humanoid armies, which were frightened by the loss of their powerful masters, and disorder spread to their leaders, the faithless Boneheart priests and spellcasters of Iuz, who had no idea where the fiends had gone. Further, the armies in Furyondy that were arrayed agaisnt Iuz took heart. The kingdom’s northern provinces had long dreamed of revenge and saw it now within their grasp. King Belvor had no chance to plead caution in attack without risking his throne in the process. He sent word to his nobles that an offensive would begin on his command, managing to suppress the squabbling of the southern lords and directing them to call up levies, arm troops, requisition supplies, and devise hasty plans.

Confronted by a chaotic enemy and the northerners’ will to strike, Belvor saw no advantage in adhering to the Pact of Greyhawk, especially when reports were received of an unpleasant surprise being prepared in the region being targeted for attack: Iuz was raising an undead army from the corpses of thousands of humans slain during the war. This was odious to Furyondian morality; religious and secular support for the new offensive was universal once the reports were spread.

Belvor strong-armed the southern lords into falling in line, although they deeply resented it and could not at first be won over by threats or bribery. Only when evidence of Iuz’s potential to create vast undead legions was presented by spies from behind the battlelines were the southern nobles persuaded to give their support. It was rumored that the king had been forced to make secret deals, give up much of his family fortune, and mortgage his family’s ancestral lands in his effort to hold the kingdom together aspurposed, although the rumors were scandalous and were never publicized.

On the first day of Planting, 486cy, King Belvor IV and representatives of Canon Hazen, in a unique joint ceremony, proclaimed the start of the Great Northern Crusade. The goal was to recover the Furyondian lands lost to Iuz and destroy the armies of Iuz that dared fight. A minor scouting action by a few hobgoblin soldiers south of Crockport became a pretext to claim that Iuz had violated the Pact of Greyhawk, which Belvor voided.

Along a broad front, Furyondian and Velunar forces, under the command of Grand Marshal Jemian, Baron of Littleberg, and backed by the Knights of the Hart and great amounts of magic from priests and wizards, slammed into the humanoid armies and drove them back. Factional fighting between humanoid races and tribes, and between their wicked leaders, weakened the enemy’s ability to resist. War magic was used on both sides. The fighting enabled the full encirclement of Iuz’s forces in Crockport, which fell in 588cy after a horrific seige that was followed by an uncontrolled slaughter of humanoids and enemy humans. At the same time, the command and supply center of Molag was targeted by heavily armed, destruction-bent adventurers and mercenaries, the city suffering so many assaults that it was partially ruined. All of Furyondy had been recovered by the end of 588cy, although the cities that had been occupied by Iuz were ruined.

After their triumph, the victorious armies were staggered by the horrors they found in the recovered territories. Tales of the inhuman treatment of Furyondian soldiers and citizens were widely circulated. The vilest atrocities had been inflicted by magical and mundane means on defenseless prisoners, and there was evidence of mass executions and mass sacrifices. So inflamed were commoners, nobles, and royalty by these revelations that on the first day of Planting, 589cy, King Belvor proclaimed, to roars of approval from all who were assembled in his court, that from that day a permanent and unalterable state of war existed between the Kingdom of Furyondy and the Empire of Iuz, a war that would end only with Iuz’s death or banishment from the face of the Oerth.

Despite the angry pronouncement, many army units were disbanded in the spring of 589cy, and only border partols and castle-building on the frontier remain fully operational. Recovery from the wars may take years. The northern nobles have been bled dry and desperately need money and men. The southern nobles resent the heavy taxes, although they know they must pay them, and they suspect an excessive influence on Belvor from Veluna, which has a powerful say in Furyondian affairs given its greater wealth, and from the militaristic Knights of the Hart.

A few northern lords have called King Belvor a coward for failing to strike into the Empire of Iuz, but the king never had such plans; he wished only to recover the lands lost to his state, knowing that he would have little ability to hold any territory gained in Iuz’s forsaken realm. Nonetheless, it is rumored that Belvor has certain plots in motion to carry the war to Iuz “by other means,” although what this portends is not clear.

 

 

Postscript One—Interview with the priestess

 

(Gods’day, 12^th Harvester)

Nothing went as they expected. Having left their boat in the mouth of the Opicm River, they hiked along Whyestil Lake’s northern shore, and when they first saw Doraka’a, they thought the city must be near. It was not. The black walls were rising fifty feet above their foundations on the gray cliffs above the lake, on the far horizon.

Eventually reaching the exterior walls, the hero adventurers went in a half circle to the south past two closed gates before arriving at the open one, thirty feet high, twenty-five wide, watched but not guarded from the ramparts, and passable to all who went there, friend or foe.

But were any foes of Doraka’a present, apart from these young ones? Did good hearts ever pass beyond these walls? Had a benign intent ever entered that place?

The little heroes edged through the gate, where loiterers comprised every sort of villainy: demonic, monstrous, humanoid, human. But the scholars knew well all these, having lived in the empire from birth. Wearing the common clothes of Law’s Forge, outfitted in battered armor they had pillaged from hobgoblin graves in the western lands, encrusted with the filth and the blood of ninety days adventuring, the group had never appeared more native to their environment. All they needed was to act like citizens of the Empire (which they were) come to worship Iuz on his festival Night of the Splintered Bone Moon.

Three months of wondering how they would enter the city had become, in a moment, the unconsidered question of what to do now. But they need not rush. They could appear to be tourists, as others really were.

Although their travel visas were to confiscated at the gate even before they were through immigration.

“Oi! You there! Yes, them there,” came a screetch from the crowd. It sounded from behind the scholars, and only after the eyes of all villainy had collected on them did the children turn to discover that “you” and “them” were they and no others. Rarely were hero adventurers reduced to tyros so soon.

“You appear to me! Truly, I am favored by Iuz,” the devil said. Her unfolded wings lofted her fifteen feet; she hovered as she cleared a space for herself and confronted the students among the crowd. Her leer was familiar, her screetch was familiar, her stench was familiar, and so too her ludicrous pride. She was H’Rothka’a, gaoler of Law’s Forge, come to make their day.

“Oh, what is to be done?” she quized the onlookers. “Should I torture them slowly right here, at the foot of this gate, for your amusement, then return them to my village to enjoy it some more? Should I gift them to the priests in Agony Fields, confectioners of pain whose delectible arts exceed my own? I would do, if the priests would let me stay near while pinning the bowels of these children to their arms and stitching their lungs to their nipples. This group is dear to me. From their births I raised them, and they repaid me by running away. Humans do not know a filial obligation, not even to me”—she dropped her voice to a sultry purr—“H’Rothka’a, the celebrated Imprisoner of Law’s Forge.”

“Hurray!” shouted the assembly. “H’Rothka’a, wiley devil among demons! Forget the priests, O queen. Do it yourself. We will applaud!”

“Instead of that, I think you should stand back and stay clear,” spoke another voice. The crowd, so boisterous a moment before, doubted itself and made way for a captain of the Boneheart Citadel guard.

“Well, well. Peter!” said the devil. “How is Halga, your witch, whom all her kind hate? Are you on a mission from her, or is it on your authority that you interrpt our orderly assembly?”

“H’Rothka’a is excited and tempts her fate,” stated Peter, a captain, a dark knight of Iuz, pale, and angelically blonde.

H’Rothka’a hesitated, but she had backers at the moment, and the crowd, noticing that the captain was unusually alone, took heart and looked at H’Rothka’a assuringly.

“These children are my escaped denizens,” the malebranch cooed. “You have no jurisdiction. I will, however, allow you to watch while I do with them what I will.”

“Your denizens are in my den, and you will behave as you ought, or you, H’Rothka’a, devil resident of a demonic empire from time untold, will be nothing but a memory from this day on.”

H’Rothka’a howled, and the crowd closed in, not on Peter but on the adventuring band, whose fate they could decide by virtue of being in the majority. Peter drew his sword, and there would have been blood, much of it his, until everything changed.

“No matter how great the instruction, you will never learn,” came a woman’s voice (I think). It echoed eerily, as though the earth had hollowed out to a sounding board. “You have no privileges anywhere in this world that are not premised on fear of me!

“Which of you most desires to be the object of this great lesson?” the woman continued, her eyes (I think) surveying each in the crowd from within a collapsed cowl, her hands trembling in the eagerness of hate.

“We all desire it equally, High Priestess,” bowed H’Rothka’a, “but we swear on the holy day that brought you to Doraka’a that we do not need to be taught what is etched on our hearts.”

The crowd was peeling away, the outer layers first, hoping the high priestess would not notice. Soon, they had abandoned the malebranche, who did not dare to straighten her bow until she had been permitted.

“Priestess,” suggested H’Rothka’a, “my humiliation approaches moral discomfort.”

“Am I reduced to a priestess now, like a child? Oh, H’Rothka’a, you are a nuissance.”

“But I serve you to the ends of the Oerth, Priestess, as I did your people before you.”

“And you are their last vestige, and therefore you live. But remember, vestiges are unnecessary, strictly speaking.”

(Exit, H’Rothka’a)

“Actually, High Priestess, there is another vestige,” said a hero adventurer, while the band was being taken to the citadel and the pedestrians on the street pretended that nonexistence did not yawn where Halga walked.

“What is it?” said she.

“It’s an old man living in a village in the forest.”

“You mean Bingley Darc? Are they mistreating him?”

“Yes.”

“I commission you on pain of death to go and straighten them out.”

“Of course. Although, we will have to be alive to carry out your commission.”

“That’s true. You were not sent here to die, although you are doing your best.”

“It was kind of you to rescue us.”

“Not at all.”

The vendors of the Jade Streets were selling food that did not appear to induce vomitting, disease, perversity, torpidity, or frenzy among the orcs, hobgoblins, bandits, and drow that were served. “Should we try it?” whispered one of the girls to her classmate. "I mean, who knows what Halga will have.”

Halga threatened ground slave’s innards in a paladins’ penis-skin sausage and then, within her quarters in the citadel, had her armed servant—whose docility was ensured by the excised portion of his brain—serve hamburgers so succulent and fresh that our heroes were nearly converted to evil.

“Ground on the premises and served within the hour,” laughed Iuz’s favorite.

Bingley Darc had been right. With her cowl pushed back, her hair was dirty and excessively fine but definitely straw blonde. She pushed back her bangs, the filth on her hands left a smudge on her forehead, and there, in the corner of her eye, was no effluence of victims’ blood but the teardrop birthmark of her former god.

Apostate of Erythnul in favor of Iuz.

“You must hand me the book,” she said. The walls of her chambers were saturate with a nauseating rust, but there was not one limb, head, or torso in sight. (“I’ve had the place swept,” she said. “A trove of live ones will be delivered tonight.”)

“What book?” said a hero.

“Professor Bifurcati’s autograph. Hand it here.” Her hands shook, her lip curled, and her expression became clouded and transitional, terrible.

“Just give it to her,” another hero said.

She took it with an intake of breath. Or was it a sigh? No one could tell what she was thinking.

After a minute skimming the pages, Halga took the book to her desk and removed two stamps from a drawer. “Is that why we’re here, to deliver the book?” The High Priestess depressed the stamps into the ink pad—only, it didn’t look like ink—her hands shaking so violently that the liquid splattered red. She raised the first stamp over the manuscript but, trembling greatly, could not aim it down.

“Here. I’ll do it for you!” a student cried, alarmed. But an incomprehensible word from the witch’s mouth and a gesture knocked the interloper back without an ostensible touch. Halga looked at nothing but the autograph turned to its final page.

She held her right wrist with her left hand and stabbed. Drops splattered her hands, her arms, the page, and the desk. The stamp had made a blurry mark, and the student that had been knocked down ran up to read it.

“’’Vero est.’What’s does it mean?”

“It is true.”

“What is?”

“The scholar’s work. It is honest and sincere. He meant it.”

She repeated the red stab with the second stamp. A little cleaner, it was easier to decipher: “Halga High Priestess of Iuz.”

“What’s going on?”

Halga returned the book but looked distracted. “Your quest is attempted and completed. Law’s Forge is freed. You are released.”

“But what’s going on?”

“I will take you out of the citadel.”

They would leave via the basements and the tunnels of Undercity, but at the high window of the citadel’s southwest wing, outside Halga’s quarters, from within the black night, the cries of the Saturnalia of Pain in Agony Fields could be heard, the tossing mass of dark worshippers could be seen, the dais of dark celebrants and dignataries flickered in an orange light, and the unmistakable divinity of Iuz could be gazed on, manifest beneath its corpse of mottled, gray-black skin: the only god the scholars had ever seen, and the only one they would ever see.

“Why aren’t you down there? Won’t you be missed?” a scholar mocked the high priestess, pointing to a paladin of Pelor that the archmage Null was tormenting from his place at the god’s left hand, much to the divine delight.

“I am summoned by Lolth. My Lord may not object. My absence is excused.”

“The spider goddess of the drow?”

“One and the same,” said Halga brightly with a coy smile. “We ought to move on. What a shame if you were to die so soon after winning your right to life.”

Undercity was a fright. It is one thing to see demons and drow on the city streets and another to be where they live. The creatures from below had less respect for Halga than the surface dwellers, although she was an emissary from her god to theirs, and they dared not exhibit discontent.

Two small, magical doors led first to and then from a tunnel that ascended, over a difficult terrain of boulders serving as stairs, to the palace of Iuz. Here, for the first time, in a darkness that their eyes would never be accustomed to, fierce Doraka’a met the scholars’ misinformed expectations. It was not as they had thought. It was not foul, rotted, and putrid; it did not infest your hollow places; it cut precisely to the nerve, splintering bone and spitting marrow. You were not sickened but harrowed by the immense, sculpted things of terrible reputation that escaped the blackness and glowered with intentions you might guess but could never devise.

The throne room was open, but they did not see in. Halga did not go that way. She passed north to the Blackspear Chamber, where there was a portal to the abyss. Formerly a travelled highway, this gate was less busy since the Flight of Fiends. Now, only Halga regularly traversed the worlds where no bridge was meant to be. The Blackspear guards saluted her entry and admitted her guests, who stood awfully before the abyss.

“Are we going in?” said a little voice.

“You would not get out alive. The guards are instructed to take you to the citadel gates, and from there, you may attempt your escape. Perhaps it will go well.

“I have something to tell you.” The priestess tried to focus her thoughts and steady her hands. “The gods are not the essences of faith. We get that wrong. They are obsure, personal things. For our benefit, they haphazardly promote ideas that we make into religions suiting their personalities to some degree, but they are not closed books. We may sway them or lose their attention and suffer the consequences. Do you see?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll remember it. Are you going to be ok?”

“What?”

“Will you be alright?”

“I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that. What should I say?”

Halga spoke a word and stepped through the portal. Dark gaseous winds engulphed her, held back on the scholars’ side of the barrier by a force clearer and less permeable than glass. Her image appeared on it like a moon among thin and intervening clouds.

“I liked her.”

But other adventurers looked less sure.

“Where is she now?”

“It’s not Lolth’s lair. It isn’t spidery.”

“Are those mushroom thinks or fungal?”

“They don’t seem to like her much.”

“It’s Shedaklah, realm of the mushroom witch, Zuggtmoy.”

“How do you know?”

“My mom picked mushrooms in Law’s Forge.”

“What did she take in her hand?”

“Some kind of rock. It’s hard to see because of the cloud spores.”

“Oh, my gods! It’s a soul gem, Iuz’s soul object.”

“What the hell?”

“I read about it in Osgold’s Epitome, in the library at Meanders. If Iuz knows where the object is, his spirit will abide in it if he is killed on the material plane and does not die.”

“Gosh.”

“She’s leaving Shedaklah and flying in a sort of silver place.”

“She’s floating.”

“She’s blown away.”

“What are all those swirling colors far off?”

“Whoa. They got close really fast.”

“She threw the object in.”

“Did Iuz just get mortal on the material plane?”

“Gosh.”

“She’s flying again.”

“She’s blown awa . . . actually, these clouds look thicker. I think she’s standing on them. She’s running toward us!”

“But those beasts chasing don’t look good. I know she’s got abyssal friends, but they don’t look amiable.”

“I think she’s going to make it!”

“I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

Blood spurts from Halga’s mouth and onto the portal’s perfect clarity. A sort of talon pokes through of her ribs on the side her birthmark is on, which is evident, because her face has smashed the glass and slides to the stones at its base.

“Horrors!”

“We should save her!”

“Are you sure?

“Don’t be dim. We have to get her.”

“How, exactly?”

“We say what she said, the password.”

“That will never—work.”

“Pull her through. Close it up.”

“It closed itself.”

“Don’t stick your tongue out at the demons.”

“Is she dead?”

§

 

 

Postcript Two—Romantic Bay’s Stop

 

The crowd at Wolfie’s was lively and Cass was busy but slipped into the booth opposite her customer and glared. “Won’t you stop coming here? I thought I made it clear.”

“Although my opacity remains. Will you forgive me?”

“No.”

“I like Wolfie’s coconut salmon stew and can’t do without it. You never know; we may have to tolerate one another forever.”

“Visitors never stay long. The stew?” said she, leaving the table.

“Not this time. Let’s try Cairns moles with fennel. They’re local and support the goblin market. Or maybe the . . .”

“Piss off.”

 “With the garnet Côt. Two glasses.”

“We’ll see.”

(Exits and enters to serve the wine)

“It’s your break time. Let’s leave here. The fogs are romantic at night.”

“When it’s busy, I don’t get a break.”

“Cassandra, take a break.”

“Shut up, Wolfie.”

(On the docks, in a white cloud)

“Did you come back for the fog?”

“In a manner. It’s not so bad. It might be the smoke off White Plume Mountain with its tribe of uncontacted gnomes."

"You remembered I said that? Why didn’t you say something?”

“I was afraid you’d be disappointed. I couldn’t prove it.”

(Huffs)

“Men are unreliable.”

“To one thing constant never.”

“Why are you here? Where did you go?”

“I feared thy kisses, gentle maiden.”

“Will you be serious? I guess I’m supposed to figure it out. Who said that?”

“How does a barmaid know I didn’t? ‘I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion. Thou needest not fear mine. Innocent is the heart’s devotion with which I worship thine.’”

“Why do you fear my mien?”

“How does a barmaid know what a mien is?”

“Oh, please.” (Stops their walk) “It wasn’t innocent when you went.”

“I know it. At the time, I was sure that our lives together would be spoiled by me.”

“So, you made sure of it. You were right, then.”

“I was, but I no longer think so. I took the risk. By right, you would have met someone else; Wolfie would tell me you’re gone. By right, I would not have an occasion to ease my conscience before granting you my absence. Yet nothing is by right, and I have one more thing to do. (Produces a ring) I won’t ask you to marry me; it may bring an end to my stay. But if, at any time, you are inclined to accept, take the ring. I hold it for that purpose.”

"So, if I understand rightly, you are proposing to blight my life now because you didn't before?"

“I no longer think I am a blight. Friends have convinced me otherwise.”

“Who?”

“They are far away, and I’m not sure where. I made this for them, though.”

(Produces a needlepoint pattern)

“That’s . . . nice. What is it supposed to be?”

“It’s here. This is Verbobonc Town, this is Luna, and these are stars, one for each of my friends. I often watched you stitching when things were slow at Wolfie’s. Do you remember that we went to Bay’s Stop Needling on a Starday?”

“Do you?”

“I went there to buy supplies. The shopkeeper said I’m a natural and should stick to it. Although, I am going to a place where supplies will be hard to find, so I’ll stock up before I go.”

“Annalo.”

“Have you been deeper into the Moon’s vale? There’s a place I imagine you to be.”

“Annalo.”

“Are you crying? I’m sorry. What did I say?”

The barmaid took the ring, holding it by the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Professor Annalo Bifurcati went down on one knee, clasped the hand that cusped the ring, and doubted how close he was to joy.

"Wife, may I place that on your finger?"

In the stitched light of Luna, Cassandra replied,

"Husband, yes, you may."

 

 

Postscript Three—The Divergent Underground

 

The scholars carried Halga’s lifeless body from the Blackspear Chamber, but the guards were unsure. Should they fear her even now? Were they her rescuers, executioners, or at her command?

“You have the High Priestess’ orders. Let us by,” said a scholar.

“Something seems to be wrong,” observed a guard. He stooped and held a finger to Halga’s nostril. “She lives,” he said doubtfully, “and there is a lot of blood. Perhaps a nearby priest would assist her?”

“We have attempted divine healing. The demon’s wound is unaffected.”

“Our priests are experts. Young lords and ladies, you are free to go as the High Priestess commanded, but she is one of us.”

Untrue, thought the scholars, in sunken spirits. But was it? Who was this witch Halga? What was happening? Choices will be made too soon if you do not know the consequences.

The guards’ captain arrived. “Is there a problem?” asked the dark knight of Iuz, Peter.

“Not really. The High Priestess ordered us to let them go, not carry her away half dead. We’re taking her to the priests.”

“The High Preistess’ command implies—and I know—that she wants them safely away. If you take her to the priests, they will send guards after them before they have escaped; you will fail her command, a fearful thing if she survives. Alternatively, if you do not take her to the priests she may die while in your custody. Although, if you return to your post immediately and let the guests take her alive, you will at any rate have obeyed the highest command that exists apart from Lord Iuz.”

“Dear gods,” said the guard.

Reaching the docks of Doraka’a, Peter called to a hobgoblin and said, “Get a crew. Put these people in a worthy boat and take them wherever they wish to go.”

“Where’s that?”

No one had any idea, and an anxious moment passed before someone spoke at last.

“Molag!”

“Molag?” wondered the hobgoblin and the other scholars.

“Via Delaquenn, not Grabford,” Peter seconded.

The scholars climbed aboard, but “I’ll have a look to see who this is.” The goblin displaced the cowl from the dying figure’s face and looked at Peter.

“Better for our cause that she gets to the other side,” the captain said.

“Of life?” gasped a scholar.

“No,” the hobgoblin japed, “of the lake. Furyondy.”

“Oh.”

“What cause is that?”

“Take this,” said Peter, handing something aboard. “A healing potion, good for that evil wound.”

They shoved off, keeping the lakeshore out of sight while going south until heading east to Delaquenn. When they came within sight of land, the hobgoblin pointed ashore.

“That’s our cause. The western plains of the old Horned Society, a home to hobgoblins and their human friends.”

“You mean intersettlement?”

“Interwhatlement?”

“Nothing, only history.”

“I don’t know much about that.”

“No, but someone did.”

“Delaquenn is ruled by Iuz and occupied by orcs, but there are many hobgoblins there, which is a good thing for you because hoblin teamsters drive the wagons to Molag that leave from the wharf over there. You can hire a wagon, so long as it’s a union gig.

“But don’t mention this one’s name, because it will cause a fuss,” he added, watching the scholars lift quiet Halga onto a pallet for taking ashore.

“Your beauty still sleeps, which probably isn’t good, although I think she’s looking better.”

“You think she’s beautiful?”

“I do. But I’m a hobgoblin.”

(Scholars and Halga go ashore)

“Are you coming along?”

“Standing orders from Doraka’a are don’t go ashore in the western lands. Farewell.”

(Shoves off)

“To the Teamsters’ Union?”

“Yes, go on.”

“Something’s not right over there, there, and there. Those aren’t only guards, they’re watchers, and they see the entire wharf, especially the Teamsters’.”

“We can’t get off the wharf!”

“Lying on this pallet and covered by this canvas for a blanket, Halga will look like freight.”

“Freight that wiggles. Right now, she’s curling her legs.”

“Couldn’t we just carry her into the Teamsters’ like this? Its only that far.”

“They’s have watchers in the Union and at the exits from town, ten to one.”

“We’ll take them out!”

“That’s what they want. A ruckus, an alarm, and Iuz knows where we are.”

“We were told, right, that the teamsters were on our side. That means the union is on our side, so the union leader is on our side, who is probably in the building right now. So, we go in and ask.”

“It was your idea, you know what to do, and you should go.”

“She’s off.”

“We should look busy, not like we’re just standing here.”

“I’ll go get lunch to bring back. That way, we’ll look natural.”

(Exit all but one and Halga. Enter with lunch)

“Hold the sandwiches. Here she comes.”

“How did it go?”

“Great! He’s taking care of it. A wagon drives up and hoists a Teamsters flag; there’s a disturbance, we load up, and we’re off.”

“Here’s the wagon.”

“There’s the flag.”

“It’s Halga! Over here! She’s got bloody eyes! This way!”

“On time and on cue. Up we go, Halgs.”

“Halgs?”

“Why not? She’s out like a light.”

(Exit)

(Enter watchers arresting someone on a nearby street)

“Oh, hell, it’s not Halga. It’s a hobgoblin tranny.”

“Maybe it’s her in a magical illusion.”

“Nah. That’s Riedlbroban. He’s a tranny teamster.”

“And that’s not blood, its mud.”

“This is a stupid town.”

“Let’s get beers to drink on our watch.”

(Exit)

(Enter scholars and a teamster on a wagon, stopped by watchers at the edge of town)

“Do we have a plan?”

“Girls, act jaded. Hello, officers. Looking for something?”

(Inspects the women)

“Who’s the one lying down.”

“Best not see her. Mayor Illgotts’ personal traffick and not taking it well. If you look at her, you’ll recollect her under a truth spell and incrimminate yourself later.”

“Where’s my tariff?”

“Six percent.”

(Exit watchers)

“You know, that tariff’s more than my wages. Normally, we traffick contraban books and artifactual loot, yet my wage is my wage, all the same.”

“There’s no justice.”

“Where will you go in Molag?”

“To Nlessie’s bookstore.”

“Nlessie?”

“The Molag bookseller. The Divergent Underground. You remember.”

“Nlessie and the DU are our best outlets. Her shop’s in the wall of the Exactly Equal Cathedral. Not a nice place, but I can take you there, no problem.”

“Halga’s waking up!”

“Do you feel any better?”

“She looks uncomfortable.”

“She looks undead.”

“Let’s unpack her from the pallet. Take the canvas off.”

“So much blood.”

“Ooohhh, ooohhh . . . Did someone call me Halgs?”

(Exit the teamster’s wagon at the door of Nlessie’s Old Books, where Nlessie is peeping through)

“What’s the password?”

“The password? We don’t know it.”

“Annalo Bifurcati sent us.”

“Everyone knows that I know that fool. What’s the password?

“Stop asking. We don’t know.”

“‘Hoodwink!’ It’s ‘hoodwink!’”

(Nlessie unbolts the door)

“How come your so good at passwords?”

“Wait. Why does she look half dead? Is she reanimated?”

“No. Would you let us in, please. It’s a PASSword, right? And there are a lot of awful priests walking around this church.”

“It’s a cathedral. My rent is calculated on the distinction. And those priests raise the dead, which look a lot like her. Wait. Is that Halga? You brought the High Priestess here?”

“She’s not the High Priestess anymore. She’s apostate.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“She’s not dead, now. You should have seen her before. I don’t think death likes her.”

“Oh, that was nice. That was gallant. You never liked her.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just . . . it’s that . . . just look at her. I mean, Nlessie has a point. She was taloned by a demon.”

“You should be on her side. She killed Iuz.”

“She threw his soul object somewhere. It’s not the same thing.”

“Is his soul object lost? Because of her?”

“Is that a big deal?”

“It changes everything. He can be killed on the material plane. He’ll have to leave. He won’t be a god on Oerth anymore, just another god. I think you should sit by the fire, dearie.”

(Later, by the fire)

“It’s quite a manuscript.”

“Why did he have to write it?”

“You will need to ask him.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“But if it were believed, it would do to Hazen, in a moral and intellectual way, what Halga did to Iuz. It would finish him. Just imagine. A world without the Canon of Veluna!”

“The hobgoblins are taking over the western plains.”

“I’ll bet they are. And Jolene is prepared to supplant the Archclericy. The Flanaess will be different, like nothing since the Oeridian conquest of the monsters. No wonder Hazen wants an eternal war.”

“We want you to publish the professor’s book.”

“I would do it, but it’s his. There’s the contract. He has to say.”

“No, he doesn’t. We “have power of attorney to disseminate in any manner we please the contents of this book.”

“True! I knew this shop wasn’t for nothing. No one runs me out of Molag. If you’re sure, it’s simply a matter of getting the initial printing quickly into all the wrong hands. I can do it from here.”

 

 

Postscript Four—The Vale of Luna

 

“It’s not very convincing,” the scholar said to the mirror, looking at his hobgoblin nose.

“It doesn’t have to be convincing,” Nlessie responded. “It sends a signal. It will be good enough at dusk.”

“What kind of signal?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s go.”

Nlessie led her assembled hobgoblins out of Old Books and into the shadow of the ruined Necromonium, the inverted temple of Nerull, where Death’s worshippers were wont to descend to heaven from oerth before making their ritual ascent, through infinite necrotic dungeons, to the deepest Depths of Tarterous. Although tonight the depths open to the stars, because the Necromonium’s ceiling had risen to the streets of Molag ten years ago in a firey crash; the citizens had burned down a considerable part of the cathedral complex; and Iuz’s bloody coup had deposed the thirteen Dread and Awful Presences, the Hierarchs of the Horned Society.

The disguised adventurers took an undulating path to the river docks, going up to dry spots and down through mud while keeping low enough to be inconspicuous in the tall rivergrass on the endless plain. The hobgoblin troop followed Nlessie to what she called Old Town (Molag had been located on the banks of the Veng until a few centuries ago, when Furyondy’s navy began crowding the river), a collection of barns, warehouses, and shacks housing wagons, horses, teamsters, and dock hands, the more sentient of whom led miserable, isolated lives because Molag was not the lively place it once had been. In fact, the dusky hours morning and evening were usually the most entertaining in Old Town, and the hobgoblin dock hands were already drinking coffee while dawn was brightening the east.

“This is bad,” thought the scholars, who were obviously humans in hobgoblin disguise. But some sort of signal had been sent, and the true hobgoblins seemed not to notice anything. Two orc guards walked off the dock and went one hundred feet upriver to fish for their breakfast, while Nlessie chatted easily with her Old Town acquaintance, and a small boat, piloted by two other hobgoblins, crossed the river from the Furyondian side.

Nlessie’s urchin adventurers handed an elderly woman, who had walked the path with their assistance, into the arriving boat and climbed in after. Nlessie boarded, too—which she usually did not—to see the old woman off.

“While coming to Molag you were thinking of my connection to the Divergent Underground,” Nlessie said to the others, “but in Molag I operate with respect to what you may call an underground economy. It isn’t really underground; it goes in plain sight, as you see, but only at definite times and in certain conditions. It is the residual economy from Molag a century ago, before Iuz and the Horned Society took over. It was a hobgoblin and human trade then, but today, humans come to Molag that cannot be trusted, so old residents like me signal our affiliation to the old ways by sticking close to the hobgoblins’ habits. At dusk we move among them, and for some purposes, dress as they do. The authorites leave us alone, because without the old ways there is nothing profitable in Molag. The undergound economy will get the former High Priestess out of the Empire of Iuz into Furyondy.

(Politely) “Halga, you are looking well this morning.”

(A cough)

“Across this river, you are beyond the empire, Molag, and our ways. But if Furyondy spots the High Priestess, the kingdom will double its hatred and hunt her down. It doesn’t matter that she has avenged herself on Iuz. Furyondy’s hatred has its needs, and not only Furyondy, but Veluna too.

“First, we will get you out of Molag. The underground economy is a transfer system running from Molag to Furyondy, conducted under the authorities’ noses but without their regard. We use it to get Halga to the Divergent Underground. From there, she and you will be in human hands. I know them well.

“Your intention is still to get to Annalo? Good. I know how to do that. He is in Shandalanar.”

“Shandalanar? Where’s that?”

“It’s an old elven  temple to the moons in a remnant of the Asnath Copse, in the Vale of Luna. Here’s your ride. Up you go.”

(Doubtful looks)

“A Furyondian soldier is taking us to Veluna? Whose insignia is painted on the coach door?”

“The insignia of the Marshal of the Armies of Furyondy, Jemian, Baron of Littleberg,” Nlessie said, closing the door firmly, “and Edmore Wunsay’s brother. Goodbye, my loves.”

Wunsay?

There was another woman seated within, middle-aged, a little plump, a little frumpy.

“You’re human. I take it we are now in care of the Divergent Underground?”

“I am sent, through Edmore, by the Supreme Mistress of the Celestial Order of the Moons, Jolene of Samprastadar.”

"Jolene? Your kidding?”

"No. Why?"

"She doesn't know we exist. What is happening?”

“Shhh. Halga has fallen asleep.”

“I don’t really know. Eddie said something about her having a friend in Molag. Which of you is it?”

“It isn’t. We aren’t.”

“Eddie? Who do you call Eddie?”

“Why? Don’t you know him? I assumed you did. I am Edmore Wunsay’s sister,” the woman replied, “Ferrica Lamsher.”

“Ferrica Aposnos?”

“Yes, at one time.”

“We know you!”

(Puzzlement)

“No, we feel as though we do.”

“Yes, that last. Because of Professor Bifurcati.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He wrote a book about you.”

“No, he put you in his book.”

“What book?”

“We don’t have it anymore. We gave it to Nlessie.”

“I see. Well, I guess that’s alright . . .”

“So, you’re with the Divergent Underground?”

“I’ve never heard of it. Eddie said that Jolene said.”

“Oh, boy.”

(A moment of silence)

“Perhaps I should go with you to Shandalanar. Maybe that would be best.”

 

[Moon’sday, 17 Patchwall, at Shandalanar]

“She doesn’t look well, Annalo.”

“Scholars, this is my wife, Cassandra. Cassie, my scholars.”

“Wife? (Giggles) Things have changed.”

“In a manner.”

“She took a turn for the worse in Veluna, Professor. She got sickly again in Furyondy, although she was so well in Molag.”

“Are you sure it’s the right thing bringing her here? I mean, the High Priestess of Iuz.”

“She’s not the High Priestess anymore! She’s apostate.”

“Well, I am relieved.”

“Cassandra is right. A priestess who is apostate before two gods might bring plots against us.”

“She’s not apostate before Erythnul.”

“How so?”

“She told us about it in Molag, before she got worse.”

“When Iuz’s soldiers killed her bandit tribe in the western lands, the god of the bandits, Erythnul, appeared to her and offerred revenge on the cambion.”

“Halga said gods are not allowed to interfere directly on oerth, but that St Cuthbert had violated that injunction a long time ago, and Erythnul had permission to reset the balance. Really, he wanted to avenge his bandit followers.”

“I suppose Halga’s in a position to know . . .”

“Yes, and she replied to Erythnul that she would be his avenger if she were rid of the gods after. She was tired of their service.”

“Erythnul agreed she would be free of him, but not necessarily of Iuz.”

“So, you know, she cannot be apostate before Erythnul because he had begged her to serve Iuz out of vengeance, and anyway, you cannot be apostate before a god who sets you free.”

“I suppose not . . .”

“So, she’s only apostate before Iuz, and who cares? He’s not a god on Oerth anyore.”

“Oi. Cass, does that sound right?”

“Can you imagine, Annalo. She served Iuz for twenty years in Doraka’a, waiting for her chance.”

“Is that good?”

“Of course. Her chance came when Lolth agreed to help her in the Abyss. As a goddess, Lolth knew what Halga was doing the whole time, but it took twenty years to get her assent.”

“What about Iuz? How could he possibly not have known Halga’s intentions?”

“Halga said that he read her heart, but it only confused him. That was the first thing she learned in Doraka’a.”

“Poor thing. Twenty years.”

“So, we have to keep her safe with us in Shandalanar, right?”

“I think your right, scholar. By the light of the moons!”

“Someone’s coming.”

(Enter someone)

“’Rica! I was afraid you wouldn’t be here when I arrived. I brought a book with me sent from Wilna Pummenford. It’s a first edition.”

(A scholar takes the book)

“Where is Halga? Is she well?”

“She’s in there, but no.”

“I sometimes think the world will not end happily.”

(Exit into Halga’s tent)

(Consternation)

“I don’t get it.”

“What’s that?”

“This book. I don’t get it. How can it be a first edition when what we’re saying is in it?”

“What?”

“See, we’re right here . . .”

(Halga’s tent, in the light of the moons, where Halga is thinking)

“Why, you don’t look so poorly!”

“Dearest Jo! (Hugs, kisses) What are you thinking about, Halgs?”

“Someone left this beside my bed. It’s Countess Osgold of Baranford’s Historical Epitome of the Empire of Iuz. I think I could annotate a new edition.”

 

fini est

Vero est

Halga High Priestess of Iuz

Molag

Nlessie’s Old Books

Brewfest, 591

 

Copy, paste, and play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Te5eqTQZr0&list=OLAK5uy_kxpmKORqDd4TlGtSZ26mqkBpCr-rzWCwg&index=19

 

The fantasy world.

The books and booklets linked below represent the fantasy world background of The Veil of Lunacy. Since they were not written or published by me and are widely and publicly known, they have in some sense an existence independent of my fiction, and in fact, their relation to my fantasy novel and its narrator is like the relation of real historical sources to history books and historians. A second significance of the novel—almost another book—would be disclosed to anyone comparing the fantasy world of the linked references to their interpretation by Professor Bifurcati in The Veil of Lunacy. I do not anticipate anyone doing this, but anyone could.

Although many of the people and much of the politics that are presumed to be virtuous by the reference sources are revealed to be vicious in the novel, the Professor's exegetical procedure is, for the most part, historiographically correct: a reality check. The author may only hope that his readers will be more used, having read the novel, to understanding that historians are usually wrong and always dangerous when they write as though certain times, places, and peoples were more progressive and virtuous than others. What a delusion! It is too late, perhaps, for civilized westerners to benefit from this realization, and we have yet to accept it, either, but I do not believe we can do what is necessary by renouncing our literary traditions. Reading and writing are a foundational technology, never innocent but indispensable, and there are no such things as inherent values. Value and meaning are cultural. We ought to love the books we have without eulogizing them.

Nearly every page of the linked references has been taken into account by The Veil of Lunacy, but mildly interested readers would benefit most from The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Its pages of general interest to the world of Greyhawk and of specific interest to the fantasy realms of Veluna, Furyondy, the Empire of Iuz, the Horned Society, the Bandit Kingdoms, the Shield Lands, and the Great Kingdom of Ahlissa are referenced after the link. Several additional titles have been listed and marked by the symbol ◒—◓ (as they appear in the fictional text). These are not real books but are passages composed of extracts from the published references and additions, alterations, and interpolations by me. Their contents are more than half fictional but are presumed in the novel to be as primary as the reference sources are. The briefest way to judge how The Veil of Lunacy turns fantasy to real account would be to examine the contents of the composite titles. Even more fun would be to read "Paragons of War" and compare it to its critique by the novel's own Dr. Daesnar Braden.

 

The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer

https://archive.org/details/living-greyhawk-gazetteer

Heavens and Oerth, p. 2-4. The Major Races, p. 5-11. The Path of History, p. 13-16. Ahlissa, p. 21-25. The Bandit Kingdoms, p. 25-32. Furyondy, p. 45-47. The Empire of Iuz, p. 68-63. The Shiled Lands, p. 102-05. Veluna, p. 128-31. Verbobonc, p. 131-33. The Horned Society, p. 156-57.

 

The World of Greyhawk

https://archive.org/details/tsr010151sted.addworldofgreyhawkboxedsetfull

 

From the Ashes: Atlas of the Flanaess

https://archive.org/details/tsr01064fromtheashesatlasoftheflanaess

 

Iuz the Evil

https://ia800108.us.archive.org/16/items/tsr09399wgr5iuztheevilnotoriginal/tsr09399%20-%20WGR5%20-%20Iuz%20the%20Evil%20%28not%20original%29.pdf

 

Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins

https://archive.org/details/the-adventure-begins-complete-version/The%20Adventure%20begins%20complete%20version

 

Greyhawk: Player’s Guide

https://ia801703.us.archive.org/31/items/greyhawk-players-guide/Greyhawk%20-%20Player%27s%20Guide_text.pdf

 

“Paragons of War,” Dragon, Issue 309, July 2003

https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine309/page/53/mode/2up

 

 

ENDNOTES