The Reign of Divine Steel: Chapters VII-XII

Chapters I-VI are located here.

Chapter VII: The People’s King

All of Circadia wished to see the initiation of the First High Priests. Of course, such a viewing was impossible: the initiation took place past Horizon on the Island of the Gods. It was the first time more than a few Mortals had been granted passage to the seat of the Pantheon itself.

It is said that the Gods, usually resplendent beyond imagination, garbed themselves befitting the Mortal world. Still radiant, they were nonetheless simpler, as if they themselves might be human.

At the feasting table, T’Rer raised his drinking horn first. He called to Ardekii Trent, second son of the esteemed Trent family, and commended his just hand and resolute purpose. During the establishment of the capital, T’Rer explained, Ardekii and his kin had exercised restraint and calm as they enabled the building of the new Realm.

Next, Nepheris, with equal gratitude, called forth Wyverly Rakes, oldest daughter of the Rakes. Elegant and poised, Wyverly had assisted Nepheris in the construction of not just the tradeways and roads but the weightier alliances between Mortals and Gods themselves.

So were the first two High Priests named.

In tribute to his grandfather, Beodhen bestowed the priesthood to Pilia Lancaster, who would eventually become known as Pilia the Golden. Beodhen’s most Devout, the Lionhardts, rankled at the young God’s decision, but the Lancaster clan–still wounded from Le’neris’s death–rejoiced.

Kasamei announced that her High Priest would be a foundling taken in by the Daviyah clan. She said she knew not yet whom, as she wished to consult with the Daviyah leaders personally.

Mynair and Hyrnedhna seemed rather disinterested in the proceedings but nonetheless colluded to bring forth their own High Priests. Introduced only as the Whalespeaker and the Wolfsinger, the Mynaira and Hyrnedhnai representatives pledged to represent both the tides and the earth.

Strangely, T’Rer offered noble Verine a High Priest, and she chose Carmen Beausejour. While High Priest Beausejour would be offered no formal seat at the table of the High Clergy, she would nevertheless be afforded respect due a High Priest of a God. T’Rer commended Verine’s loyalty to her kin and applauded her graces.

Only Steramestei did not attend the festivities, instead preferring to induct her High Priest, Lyr’sterym Aspera, at a private ceremony on the Brightwater Isles.

And so were the High Priests named and welcomed. The occasion was both singular and a mirror: it reflected the genuine love between most of the Mortals and their chosen Gods. T’Rer, aided foremost by Nepheris, was many things–chief among such things was he a servant to adoration.

Chapter IIX: The People’s Queen

T’Zyri smiled wickedly at the strange cohort who gathered before her. She was surprised, and even amused, that Mortals might so effortlessly find their way through the Shadows. For a moment, T’Zyri allowed candlelight to flicker across their faces so that she might see them.

Her eyes fell upon scars, twists, turns, bursts, and burns. In the dance of light and shadow, T’Zyri found them truly magnificent.

“Speak, Mortals,” she commanded. “Even if your company might please me, the tendrils and snares of Shadow are not entirely my own.”

The Mortals nodded. They named themselves Outcasts–those strangefolk who, rather than celebrating the rise of T’Rer, spat at his feet. They recounted the stories of the Blood War: T’Zyri’s tireless schemes, the danger her brother was spared, and her sacrifices so that T’Rer might remain spotless.

“They call T’Rer’s victory bloodless,” said one, laughing at the irony, “when it is only that his surcoat remained clean as yours was dyed crimson.”

T’Zyri smiled archly, though coyly dismissed such claims. “And even if such things were true–what would you have from me?”

“Verine is a Fallen God who has taken a High Priest. Might one of us offer our services as your servant? You and you alone secured the Pantheon as it stands,” they explained, “surely you ought be represented.”

T’Zyri sighed with what one might have mistaken as kindness. “I will accept no High Priest,” she replied. “I am but a Minor God, and,” her voice dripped venom, “I respect the decisions of my Brother and the Pantheon.”

The Mortals looked to one another, quite obviously disappointed but nevertheless unsurprised, and thanked The Schemer for her charity.

“Verine embarrasses herself by accepting such a gift. I know my Brother,” T’Zyri assured. “That was vitriol, not generosity. In every ceremony in which she partakes, she reminds us of her true place–as a fallen princess with nothing to commend her save trappings of what once was.”

The Mortals looked on speechlessly as T’Zyri lost herself in thought.

“No, I want no High Priest,” she restated. “But I do appreciate loyalty.”

She looked at the group of them, and the shadows in the room hissed and writhed amongst themselves.

“You are of Kurik, are you not?” T’Zyri asked the Mortals.

One stepped forward. “A few of us are, my Lady–myself and my brother are of the Zmeyanov family.”

T’Zyri felt her heart ache, but she knew not why.

“Then take my word to Kurik first so that my most Devout may hear of this invitation.” T’Zyri settled into her throne as she offered her command. “I need no High Priest, but I am desirous of a Court loyal to me and, moreover, the Realm of Light and Shadow.”

T’Zyri explained to the Mortals the difficult journey before them. After what seemed like hours, she concluded, “To Kurik go and send the first invitation. From there, travel the Realm. Be sure to walk in the quiet. Remember that your road will be dark and cold, as must be your heart, face, words, and hands. Whenever you bring ice and shadow before you, do it from my Mother’s purview: light and flame.”

The Mortals thanked the Schemer in low tones and, truly grateful, wondered on the path ahead of them.

T’Zyri smiled to herself as the first members of the Court of Whispers set to return from Shadow.

I would make a fine Queen.

Chapter IX: The Prince of Paupers

As T’Rer and Nepheris, supported by Kasamei and Beodhen, wielded guiding light and open palm, the shape of Mortal and Divine partnership took ample form. While Faeris’lyr had been beloved by Mortals and before him Zyr’Zane and T’Myrim had inspired them, in what came to be known as the Era of Steel and Silver, the Second Pantheon brought true command and camaraderie to Circadia.

It is true: the Wildqueen and the Sea Maiden operated in their own corners of forest, tide, and the frightening place where ocean meets earth. And it is true, T’Zyri ruled far more than most saw, and Opix still drifted between places of power. Only Verine, shackled by her own sense of duty, served what seemed a proper role.

Two Gods, of course, might have troubled the watchful observer.

The Star Lady had well established herself amongst the Mortals. In her mind, she had done more than enough by bringing them to the edges of Dream–their requests for ever more tired her in the same way such requests invigorated Nepheris or Beodhen. Increasingly she took to the stars to think on her own and, as she thought, she herself became the listener to voices silent to most.

Gu’labir found himself merely amused. When one has committed himself to festering in the deep and dark, one hears just as much as those who live in the silent stars. While he heard the rumblings of the ancient voices, he was far more delighted by the strange tales the Mortals were telling one another.

Gu’labir had neither been offered nor had he requested a High Priest. It had all seemed too much to appease the King of Gods, even if he appreciated the merit. Verine, clinging to whatever picture of herself she once had, of course used the Mortals, but it seemed a waste of time. Better off leaving them to their own devices and watching what they cultivated.

And Gu’labir was unsurprised when they crowned their own High Priest: as if mocking the Jealous God, he was a man born to filth but strutting garish approximations of Verine’s colors. Gu’labir laughed heartily when he saw that they too raised jeweled chalices, and they too sported ornate daggers. However, where Verine demanded the blood of the worthy, his own followers sated their rituals with the hearts of pigs and, when specifically called, the ruinous Mortal humors that build and break nations.

Most of the time, Gu’labir’s strange cults took to caverns, tunnels, and even subterranean temples consecrated with Mortal imagination. In such places they engaged in revelry and prayer, and even Gu’labir found himself tempted by their audacity. Particularly when they spoke on the Blood War.

Though their language melted from lurid to vulgar, the cults celebrated not just the Rotten One but the True Queen who might have reigned above him. They spoke to their genius and the defeat of the Dynasty–defeat that, they claimed, would unravel under the feet of the King of the Gods.

Gu’labir found only some truth in their tales but nevertheless applauded every telling.

Across Circadia, Mortals flourished.

Chapter X: The Beginning of Divine Magic

If the first 100 years of the Second Pantheon’s Reign was a time of growth, the next 150 years was one of profound inspiration. It was, above all things, the time of Mana.

Prior to the Second Pantheon, Mortals had occasionally been struck with bursts of Divine Magic. A follower of Pel’Pyri, faced with an insurmountable danger, might channel forth a great burst of flame. A follower of Le’neris, caught in heady tides, might find themselves able to breathe in the salty waves as a fish might. But such moments were fleeting and rare.

However, as the bond between the Second Pantheon and the Gods grew stronger, Mortals were filled with incredible power: worshiping the Gods, they found themselves able to channel supernatural powers that mirrored the very actions of the deities they served.

Kasamei’s Voyagers learned to walk in Shadow and even whisper the secrets of Death.

Steramestei’s Dreamers found themselves bathed in the Star Lady’s inspiration and vision, starlight glittering from their temples.

Nephersis’s Bound wove themselves into the fabrics and order. They reveled in the discovery that the wishes of those Mortals around them were made palpable and much more real than simple feeling.

Beodhen and Hyrnedhna’s Beasts trod the forest with a graceful ferocity unique to those loyal to moss and hardship.

Mynair’s Tidal creatures, even those who walked primarily on land, learned to turn their limbs and minds in the shape of water.

And T’Rer’s followers were perhaps the most powerful: they wielded the Divine Steel that so characterized the King of the Gods.

Chapter XI: For the Family, Once More

Basking in the praise of Mortals, T’Rer, King of the Gods, declared a year of rest. He wished to look upon the work that the Pantheon and their Mortals had created together. And, in truth, he felt himself grow weary.

Verine sensed such weariness. Out of either desperation or guile, she took his respite as a sign to beg a private audience with the Righteous God.

“My lord,” she said, kneeling before T’Rer’s throne in T’Zane. “You know I would not come to you in your year of rest foolishly.”

T’Rer looked to the Fallen Goddess and smiled. Like him, she had aged. The bloom of her cheeks had faded, and her eyes, once bright and attentive, were dull and searching. T’Rer, in turn, had grown heavy in brow and shoulder–though the fine countenance of the King of the Gods was still praised, many said it was as though you could see the weight of the Realm upon him.

Gods do not age as Mortals do, of course. They do not wrinkle and weaken through a normal course of years. Instead, their bodies suggest the ravages of their duties–the heavier the cost, the older they grow in body and soul.

T’Rer scoffed at this. What little wonder that he and Verine might age while the others still glowed in the hues of Horizon. Kasamei and Steramestei, older than most, still glittered with the effortless splendor of the night sky. Mynair rose like the dawn swell of the ocean, while Hyrnedhna threaded the landscape with the intensity of a young forest. Beodhen surely shone most brilliantly, his Divine work suffusing him with beauty surpassing nearly every other. Even Nepheris, diligent in his work, sparkled with the youth afforded to him by Mortal love.

T’Rer scowled. Though proud of his creases and scars, he thought it nonetheless unjust that he might so well show the burdens of his position. All the more so because Mortals whispered of his sister, The Schemer, radiant in her court of shadows, attended by admiring Whispers both Divine and Mundane.

“My lord,” Verine spoke again. “Does something trouble you?”

T’Rer realized he had been lost in his thoughts and was startled. “Nothing, dear Verine. Rest merely offers me the chance to think on work.”

Verine nodded with sympathy. “And what work it has been, my King!” She offered him her hand, bejeweled and polished, and he accepted it kindly. Verine’s niceties were little more than that, but he nonetheless appreciated the remnants of courtly fashion she afforded. T’Rer had never been part of the Dynasty, nor had he ever thought particularly much of it, but he appreciated the decorum that Verine and her older nephew supplied.

“It has been such work,” she continued, “that I feel myself a traitor coming to you with worries.”

T’Rer gestured dismissal and assured her, “Please, Verine. Do not think of yourself as a burden. I know that, always, you are thinking on the good of your fallen Brother’s realm.” Verine momentarily bristled, though it was unclear what precisely caused the offense.

“Quite right you are, my lord. And I am grateful you know I only come out of a sense of responsibility,” and she made a small bow. “From the halls of Vyr’Vera, I hear my own share of gossip and rumor. While the Devout of the Dynasty are as righteous as your own followers, I cannot say so for all that visit my halls.”

“Your feasts are quite decadent,” T’Rer offered drily. “Or so I’ve heard. I imagine they attract all types.”

“Quite so,” Verine grimaced. “And I have heard some unseemly things,” she paused. “You know, of course, of the Cults?”

T’Rer sighed. “The ones to my sister and the Hedonist?”

Verine nodded, “Yes, my lord.”

“I am aware of such organizations, though I must be honest,” and T’Rer sighed deeply. “They trouble me little.” Afterall, T’Zyri was but a Minor Goddess and Gu’labir one seemingly disinterested in any sort of structure. “We must allow people to worship as they would–while it, of course, concerns me that they speak out against me, I must guard against seeming to be,” and here, he paused, “an autocrat.”

“Of course, my lord, and given the lies spread during my own brother’s reign, I imagine you must be all the more cautious!” This response surprised T’Rer, but he did not interrupt Verine. He had never considered that he would be considered in the same light as the late Faeris’lyr. Verine continued, “And normally I would agree with you, were it not for the tenor of their slander…and the feeble truth behind some of it.”

Involuntarily, T’Rer found himself leaning into Verine’s warning. She spoke in hushed tones of the Cult of Gu’labir and the Court of Whispers, T’Zyri’s own worshippers. Far from simple followers of disgraced and unimportant Gods, the Cults passionately told stories of “the True Queen” and the injustices she suffered following her brother’s betrayal of her pride.

T’Rer frowned and, confused, asked, “Gu’labir’s followers praise my sister?”

“Loudly, my lord,” Verine affirmed. “And moreover, they praise the dagger.”

This stirred something within T’Rer. He imagined the dagger, hewn by the Rotten One and gifted to the Schemer, and he imagined it readied at his sister’s slim hip.

Verine continued, adamantly wondering that, should Mortals become emboldened by these stories, would they not encourage the Goddess to once more use the foul blade?

“This does trouble me,” T’Rer finally conceded. “But what is to be done? If I were to simply punish such Mortals, would they not seek further violence against me?”

Verine supplied quickly, “With your blessing, my lord, I would happily dissuade any I hear speaking ill of you, as would my followers.”

“But dissuasion is not enough,” T’Rer felt a queasy pit knot in his stomach.

“Be assured, my lord, I have a plan.”

For the Family.

Chapter XII: The Cloisters

To any who did not know her, Verine’s plan might seem out of character. However, it was crafted with both cunning and a surprising knowledge of the things that most worried T’Rer’s gaze.

To combat the growing Cults of T’Zyri and Gu’labir, Verine offered a very simple strategy: Divine suppression of information she deemed sensitive. She argued convincingly to T’Rer that the Blood War, in particular, was a showing of weakness on many fronts. Not only did it suggest the deadly ambition of the Schemer, but so too did it suggest the failings of Gods.

“The way the Mortals tell it,” Verine insisted, “it is a story of failure, not victory. And it must be hidden away lest it lead to a greater loss of life.”

When T’Rer presented Verine’s concerns and resulting plan to the rest of the Pantheon, they universally demanded its dismissal. Beodhen guffawed at the idea that loss suggests weakness, and Nepheris maintained that no Reign is maintained through ignorance. Kasamei and Mynair argued that Mortals ought to know the war that shaped their Pantheon, and Kasamei pointed out that stories of the Blood War had done nothing but buoy the Pantheon. Somewhat less passionate, Steramestei and Hyrnedhna nonetheless found the entire proposal offensive.

For the first time in his Reign, T’Rer refused to accept the perspectives of the other Gods. He maintained that Verine was correct–the stories of the Blood War would be the end of the Pantheon, let alone his undoing.

“And so hiding them away is your solution?” Nepheris balked in disgust.

“That is all there is to do, my friend,” T’Rer offered Nepheris his hand, but Nepheris refused it. Still, T’Rer gave him little choice and commanded a great project: he commanded Nepheris to build a hall in which all stories might be enshrined–a place, he insisted, where dangerous knowledge would be safely kept.

As Nepheris built, T’Rer began enacting his own magic. Little by little, memories of the First Blood War were lost. It was as if a great sleep swept the land and, in that dreamless sleep, history was lost.

However, Nepheris assured against complete loss. While T’Rer was distracted with the work of forgetting, Nepheris, guided by Kasamei, journeyed to the shadows. There, he warned the Schemer of her brother’s plans. She merely laughed, assuring him that Secrecy can find even forgotten Truth. Nevertheless, the Schemer, who might have made a fine queen, grew cold with the warning.

Having spoken to the dark, Nepheris then returned to finish The Cloisters.

T’Rer had suggested that these towers be tended by his own Aspects, the Gargoyles. However, Nepheris, Bound to Mortals, instead found the most assiduous and skeptical of scholars. Binding us to our work, he asked us to take up the improbable task of defending truth from God and Mortal alike.

Since that moment, we have written, recorded, and waited.