Notes from Arkal (Part I)

Ravess! Ravess, yeh cursed blubberwit, are you writing this down? Don’t just stand there skittling boyo, we’ve got worlds to change. Savvy? Got your quill and rawhide, do yeah? Good lad. Never mind the ice wine fella, I’ll celebrate after. Just sit an’ lecturo, I’ll mind the littera later, eh? Ha! ‘Gawds, I’m ‘cited.

Got ourselves a fresh death, can’t be more’n a half-hour since it dropped. Didn’t ask questions, but judging from the state of the she, somethin’ wild tore her in half. Slopped out most of the crass from her lower intestines, bit still dribbling now she’s on her hook. Never’yeh mind Ravess, there’s grimmer things than corpses in this world.

Aye now, ritual incantia, book’s here somewhere. Circle’s prepped and handsome, as I keep ‘em for nights like this. Candles lit, burnin’ on both ends as well they should. Crystals an’ all, though I don’t care to tell you how it’s done. You can skip over the Hexaemerisms if it please yeh Ravessy boyo, won’t do anyone good to pick up on those and those alone.

[Master Karvalis performs the summoning ritual, as specified in his publications. Clean linens, jurappa blood, powdered intellect. None of the dust and cobwebs or ghoulish associatives of his species. Karvalis is meticulous, his home didactive of hygiene and sterility. It’s his head that’s a shambles, and I’ll be the first to say it. I’ve written the last two his books by myself; my debt to him and his teachings are enough that I still owe him full credit as to the philosophy they preach, and so I surrender the by-line. This mention is at his insistence. He believes these ‘Notes from Arkal’ should serve as an introduction to myself as his protégé and successor.

The subject is a messy one, even though we have bathed her and removed the loose offal from her before bringing her to the laboratory. She must be young; no wrinkles or grey hairs. Brunette and pale skin, Tylovan or Knalite by my reckoning. Most of her is missing from the waist down, save a portion of the left thigh. Lacerations on her throat and jaw, not much else to go on. Karvalis reckons she suffered a waer attack, common enough since Duchess Pettifore was dethroned…

Signs of animation as the ritual progresses, the body sways on the meat hook as the limbs twitch. The eyes roll back, gasping as the lungs flex, minor leakage from the intestines. Nothing unexpected. The corpse shines aural red (common with murder cases), splashes of pink as the soul fuses together into larger fragments. Like a heat haze or a miasma, if you haven’t seen it before. Can be faint with older deaths, but this one is quite vivid. When the ritual finishes the soul essence is sitting on her, like a holographic film or a shroud. Looking at it makes me feel drunk. Hard to place edges on something ephemeral.]

Why have you done this to me?

If yeh meanin’ be we kill-ed you, I tell you now I didn’t. If yeh meanin’ be we dragged yeh out the snow and strung yeh up on that fleshhook and shoved yer soul back in, aye, that was me, sorry to say. Did it ‘cause folk be brimful o’ questions, an’ most o’ the sort who can ask ‘em are all mind-shattery and void-hearted by the time they think to, and don’ do it properly. My meanin’ be ‘cause I’m a philosopher, dearie, and as a live ‘un I got questions to ask dead ‘uns.

[The spirit expressed no surprise at this. I have rarely seen them express anything other than pain, as this one does, her face pinched as though pricked with a needle. But no fear, nor anger, which was good. She was curious and asked another question, and this leant empathy to our practise.]

You are a necromancer?

Righto. Folk’en these parts call-ed me White Necromancer, act’ly, on account of me smiling all-a-time and not been killsy with ‘em. I’m Karvalis. Boyo here is Damon Ravess, my ‘prentice. Goodish lad, but a skittle mor’n a doer. Good brains though. Often-time piece together what my achin’ skull cannut.

I was once Shera Venthas, a mercantile. I knew of you, Karvalis. I sold your books in Wrackenhill Duchy. They were popular with the Verhoon’dhar sect.

Hap’ tidings! Alays liked ‘em ‘quisitive ‘Darians and their questioning. Piece-um together a bright and sunnisome world. Foolish swill.

Any’ays, ask I me inquiries, or have thee more quessy-chuns to at me?

A few, if you will. Did you see what killed me?

No clue! Next.

Why is this calling so painful? Can you make it better?

There’s theory, mind, bu’ no truth ‘hind it wot’s countable. Folks’um sayyit hurts ‘cause the dead’ve learn-ed to walk different. Sees things with perspeky-tive from beyond, oceans clear of feelin’ an’ the release o’ regrets an’ the joy of nothing matters. Back to unliving and it all rush back, kennit? Hopes an’ cares and wish’um differents swot never come true in Un-world. Thenagin yer crass is stickin’ out an’ not all yer nerve-ends is dead, that may contribute.

[He mutters an incantation and narrow sigil-streams stretch out from his fingertips and touch the corpse’s extremities. There’s a sizzling white where they touch, and burning as the most ragged edges of her wounds are cauterised. I believe it did lessen her pain some, if only as an act of human caring.]

Can I ask’um me own now, or are yeh a babbler?

I have asked what I care to, necromancer, and I thank you. Please make your questioning brief. I wish to continue my journey.

Aye, dearie. Now I ask’um what you experienced in dyin’. Just spill sommat out to get clear. I’ll stop yeh if sommink needs ‘laborating.

I remember the pain of dying. I did not see my attacker, though I heard it howl before it struck and I was afraid. I became unconscious, briefly, but the agony of what it did to me woke me up. My face was pressed to the snow and I saw nothing, but felt very numb and very cold. Dying is not like falling asleep. It’s impossible to fall asleep with that much sensation, that much stinging in every part of you. I think the most accurate way to put it is that I woke up from being awake. The pain became too real to ignore, and it pushed me through to another level of awareness. My world faded into dreams and memories.

I found myself standing within a world of shadows. There were the suns and the moons above me, casting light by which to shape them, but the earth below me was not as I had ever known it. The solid part of it was far-off, a soapy pink orb that swirled with dark shapes like a malachite storm. And built upon it, souls. They were dark figures, sometimes human, sometimes not. None of them were touching. There was some barrier between us, and though we could see one another, we were all alone. It was like… the louder we shouted to one another, the more whispery our voices became. And when we whispered, there was no sound at all…

I cannot say anything else about the others there. Death was a very personal thing and they did not matter after a while. I found that by thinking I could mould my own shadow into different shapes. I made myself look exactly as I wanted. I then made a mirror to see but it was dark, or I was. I could have made a house, or a garden, or a whole world with those shadows. I think I could even have made my world, the one I died in. But would it be the same world? I did not know. Do you, Karvalis?

Them’s ghosty musings. Wunnut be the first that tried. Some’s getting as far as puttin’ their selves in a castle, other who not so skilt and mosh it, wander far over the live-land without knowing where they be. Them’s lost spirits, peeps wot f’get their death. All kinds roam about. D’yerself a favour an forget it. Wick’er necros than I have netted them little fish an’ sizz’ed their souls.

I did not exercise the ability for long. There was something that did not let me. A beam came down from the sky, a dark pillar of solid blackness. It shone from Death’s Moon, that which we call Darker-than-Night. And something rode down it as though that moonbeam were a river. I did not see his face. He wore a cloak. I thought I knew him. I had met him once before when I was young. My mother had just died from greybulge.

You ‘ligious? Fancy any gods’um that toity Lineage o’ star-lords and lassies wot bicker above?

If you mean to ask if I knew his name, yes, he was Visceptor the High Death. I prayed to him once as a girl, asked him to take a man who used me for lust and spurned me for love. He did not take that life in the time that I knew him. But when he came to me now he held an outstretched fist, and he turned it and opened it, skeletal and wide. In the palm of his hand I saw that man, old and grey, his hair falling out as he moaned on his deathbed. I think I was being shown the future. I think I was being assured that my prayer was answered, though in His time, not in mine.

But that aside, I was not faithful. Maybe the one prayer was enough for him to watch over me. For he was not the only one who appeared. Up from the shadows at my feet a figure rose wrapped in sheets of cloth, a gibbet man. His flesh was picked clean to the bone. Though it was the cloth that held me. It wrapped around those meatless limbs like lord’s silks, lettered with hexaemer in winding bands. And he had a staff, like a shepherd’s staff. I think the High Death had one too, but his was hooped and crossed at the end.

Two Deaths, deary me. High Visceptor and Dergel. ‘Bina silver moon since we conjured’un.

Three.

THREE! Tellit quick’um me, corpsey gurrul. Which’un came next?

I think you know. We all know him. He followed the High Death down from the moon like a spider on a thread, though not so graceful. His legs were caught up, you see, and he kept jerking upward like he was jumping. I guess that’s why they call him ‘jig-setter’. It’s just… he was strange. Not at all like a god. He kept laughing, and I’ve always thought gods and goddesses were dour. But he spun down beside the others and bowed to me, all creepy, because he wasn’t like anything at all really, and his smile was upside-down and his eight limbs had these beetle-black blades, his face was… empty somehow. Like a bad mask that won’t sit right, so his eyes were missing. And he felt wrong. His staff was like the High’s but upside-under.

Three Deaths, yowser! Quick’um now, tell’us the next bit.

They argued. The two anyway, High Death just stood there and watched them at first. Jig-Setter wanted to dance with me, but the other – Dergel – wouldn’t let him. He held out one of his wrappings and bid me take it. I wanted to, but Jig-Setter was convincing too. Devilish, his smile hypnosis. And with those two hands out for me I reached for them both. Then Jig-Setter’s paw came swinging upward and the High Death’s staff smacked it down again. And then I knew Dergel would take me, not the Low Death.

Bu’ no he dunnut, ‘cause you’re still here.

That was the moment you took me, necromancer. The hexaemer came around me like a white sphere, it blinded them. They howled like banshees as I went. Can you really do that to the gods, magister? Snap a soul from their very clutches like it means nothing to you?

Like it means nothun’ to THEM, savvy? Go’hood ent wot it used to be, they don’ go beggin’ aft erry soul to cross the door. Mayyick makes their ‘eads ‘urt, cannot see straight widdid. So they god’ums, they lose it. Blister off elsewhen.

Why even call them gods anymore? They’re no different from you.

Tha’s what we tellun’ peeps, dearie. Mayyick wins. Tha’s what you’re here for, kennit? Old’un quwessy’chuns be ‘bout who’s who up in the c’lestials, whatt’um they think o’ us, what’um we think o’ them, wherrit they send our souls, so forth. On’y those oldish feyfolk think to ask ‘bout souls proper, whatter they made of, wherrid they come from, wherrid they go when gods got no say so. That’s the Th’logical Rift. Quessy’chuns ‘bout us, not ‘em.

I do not know if there is more I can tell you, Karvalis.

Prolly not. Recent death’s good fer mem’ry o’ life an’ dyin’ but too little for the rest. Now I tell you, dearie, you stay sharp away from that bad ol’ bugaboo Jig-Setter, or he’ll lead you wrong. ‘ Moment you get back, slap yer hand in Dergel’s palm, go down all the way.

Thank you. I’m sorry, but I hope I forget this.

Don’t you worry none, Dearie. You will.

[Karvalis performs the banishment flawlessly. I’d like to note that he sent her away with guardian Sigils, High Tier Hexaemer which I know struck his mind fresh cracks. He afforded that girl a trip straight to the ‘After’ and away from the ‘Un’. Just know that. Karvalis made me walk many grey pastures in our time together, but he seeded them with wildflowers.

After those sessions we always discussed what information we could. It was standard practise, though hard for Karvalis in his latter years. Even this brief summoning exhausted him, and he leaned on a crooked staff as he went to his armchair, and took his time lowering himself against the hard cushions. He placed his hands side-a-side, kingly in aspect, and stared at the corpse on the meathook as he mused over the augury.]

Three Deaths forra single soul, whatta treat. Hardly know how precious tha’ is, dun she? Weir’. An’ forra single PRAYER, yeh kennit? Freaksome. Say you not, Ravess?

Say true, master. It could be the Rift at work. Twenty years ago, she’d have been in a convent learning a religion. She has the provings – eloquence, intellect, wilfulness – it’s a pity we couldn’t save her. She could have made a mage of herself.

Thinkin’ it too. ‘an more hands than baskets, now-a-day. Fights could get common, eye it for me, willin’ yeh?

Yes, master.

Annythun else from this ‘ticular?

That it was a typical summons speaks volumes. The world is not falling apart, as some suggest. She spent long enough in “The Dying Light” to ascertain the function of shadow-essence. That could have taken her anything from three to four eternities. I won’t elaborate on the quickness or slowness of a soul’s experience of it, but for a half-hour dead, her progress was standard.

The stars, boyo.

The stars?

She meny’chuned ups and unders. Moons and suns and Avadril’s pink below. But wot of Star Legion?

They don’t always notice the stars, master.

Thassa long ways from never. Gotta quessy’chun if they’re there.

And if they’re not?

[he laughs, billowy and dry.]

Boyo, a world without Star Legion is ash’n’brim. Ken Hexaemeron. If them stars be dyin’ in caucus o’er sommat we done, sommat else, wee babsies borned a dozen lemnisca from now, them’s got problems.

If stars are falling, I’d be more worried about tomorrow.

*

[It is several weeks before our next session, and odd ones, too. Karvalis did some trading with a queer-eyed bastard who came out of Kravenmoor with a sack over his shoulder, refused to let me know what he bought. That troubled me. Karvalis doesn’t get flinchy with any wetwork. I’ve seen him growing cysts in his larder just to see the reaction between undead and live flesh. He knows I don’t share that particular fortitude, and so it was a rare act of consideration for my splancha. The master was getting sentimental in his old age, bless him thrice.

The horror came out eventually, as it had to. He’d been shrinking heads. Pickled them in some kind of preservative, sewed up their lips, eyes and other orifices to keep rot from getting into the brains. The unfortunates were almost certainly verhoon’dhar or other slave agitators. I regret to admit that is where our most steady supply of bodies came from, and why our publications have been so popular lately. Verhoon’dhar don’t care about their souls more than anyone else. They just want to point to our books and say, “they’re selling us to the necromancers. Not even in death are we free.”

These sewn-shut heads found their way into the open once Karvalis was ready to put them to use. There were twelve in total, that being a number we worked with frequently if anything of number were needed. He had them strung on a silver cord, hanging in a bunch like devil-fruit. I helped with the preparations this time, and wrote additional wards around the laboratory. It had been a long time since we had attempted a joint conjuration, and room for error was non-existent.]

Ravess! Finicky skittle. Ne’er mind getting’ the edging perfect now, it’ll be moot. Dunnit a dozen times before in one or another shape’n’size. The Un are too disorganned to break them divi’s. Git in yer corner. Write’un allathis down, savvy? Yeh gall me, boyo. Jus’ do yer part and be done widdit.

Phrenology an’ cranial scopes ‘firm it that these twelve’is good healthsome stock, none retarded or dimwit lacklustre swot do manifest’shuns no good. All good brains. One silv’ry cord link’um, some use cobs but spiders shy o’ cold and cold shy o’ life. Kennit? Thought not. Ne’er yeh mind. ‘Portent bit is the cord link’um twelve Un’s to one speaker-piece, ol’ Grimaldine my skeletum…

[Karvalis removes the skull of his anatomy piece in the corner and puts it in the summoning circle, on a stool beneath the knot of heads.]

… fella do the talkin’. Slow talking, ‘cause there’s deliber’s an’ ‘mocracy to see who swings the jaw. But accord, aye? Tha’s why there’s a cord. Thassa necro-joke you can tell’um ta’ keep interest, boyo, s’long as yeah credit me forrit. Gawd, worms in my ears. Sorry, skittle.

That’s alright, master. Let’s do the summons. It’ll keep your focus.

Brimful cle’er lad. Com’ma stan’ by the circle, ‘cant this with me. Know the words? ‘Course. Yer a lockbox, brainwise. Do as I an’ live.

[I took my position beside Karvalis and together we incanted the ritual. I will not fake skilfulness by saying it was not complex. Summoning a dozen spirits is difficult, even with preparation. I fear Karvalis took most of the strain. It was a third of an hour before we locked the last spirit in place inside its sewn-up head. The sight of them squirming the muscles of faces that no longer existed did nothing for my stomach. And the skull, “Grimaldine”, moaned unpleasantly from its stool. Sometimes when they have been dead for too long they forget words.]

Spirit’ums! Mark yeh well th’ hour o’ thy birth, this be the day o’ the sixth, Tibion, year o’ thirty-six since the Rift. Speak thee in one voice’um now, hearrit, say th’ conjure be true.

[It took a moment for them to find a united voice. There was a susurrus of whispers – male, female, high and low-voiced – before at last a median came from Grimaldine’s jaw, guided by ghost-tendons trailing upward to his twelve brains.]

We hhhear, preceptor. Thhhy conjure isss true.

‘Swell. Now then, skully. This here hexing is all ‘bout that ragged curtain. Y’know the one. Them’s all callin’ it that. Mebbe a ‘tatter drape’, p’raps ‘torn-ed veil’, same thing. Brain me your kenning o’ it, all sides.

The ragged curtain... isss known to uss all. Our eldest knows it from a dead coil of incarnation, in aged daysss passst reckoning when it wasss stitch-tight and... unholy. It was sssilver-grey as ash and sssstarlight, beyond Reltash and the moons and the sssstar legion, at the very lassst versssse of ssssong’sss creation. We all go there, some more than once, for there issss a natural pull towardssss it. Thisss pull, thisss need to be placed elsewhere... it is in every one of usss, but not the ssssame. We are drawn to places shared in nature, but nature alone. One thisss way, one the other, one above, one below...

Secky – these’um ‘places’ SURROUN’ the Hexworl’? What’cha figure ‘cernin’ the Architrave wot sickle shaped in nature? Sommat lyin’ bout all that?

[The room filled with hoarse static; it took a moment to interpret it as laughter.]

No liesss but time and sssspace, preceptor. A sssickle there is to describe the nature of All-world, one ssside replete, the other hollow. But distance itself cannot exist beyond the Hex-world – space cannot exist without distance, nor ssshhhape. These are conventionsss that exist inside, but not out. They fail when the outssidess are considered.

So it is that beyond reality, we feel the pull ssssimply elsewhere. Anywhere but here, undersssstand?

Beyon’ thet ragged grey’um curtain, savvy well enough.

But the curtain isss key. It undulatesss with the dark matter breezzze and snatches those too ssslow to act in avoidance. And those who miss the holes, those who do not make it to the outlandsss...

We are ssstanding on the gray-plane sssleeve as it moves beneath usss, tugging, flowing like a dragged carpet whose motion upthrusts mites and dormant dust that settled when the world was young. It burns our spirits, a static tang that ripsss the essssence of who we are and leaves behind a sssoul; the mossst basssic and eternal part of being, blistered and pink with the novelty of cleanlinessss. As it happens, we each grip the smallest and most vital part of it, of uss, and instinctually tuck it away at the core. And though the curtain ripsss at it, pullsss the sshhadow-essence away, something ssurvivesss. A memory of what we were... you know it, preceptor. You are old enough to recognise the sssensssation.

The curtain terrified uss. To ride it is to feel lasting obliteration, the death-beyond-death. After it doesss that ssscccouriation, it is imperative to esssccape. We allll felt it. There is a realisssation along the path that there are frayed cords running off the grey fabric and back to Reltash, and though it isss the wrong way, in instead of out, we all take the offer. Cccycles took us along the path of the sssilver cordsss, sssieved through to Reltash back acrossss the ssstars. And at the end of the cordsss, bodiesss. Some within pulpy meat-sssack wombs, fresh to birth. Some ancient and decaying, ssslavesss to Un-world. It matterssss not. The ressstlesssnesss is the same in them all, and the sssame in usss. We are incarnate... reincarnate... eternity made meat. It isss wrong. When do we get a chanccce to sssleep?

Soonin’nuf, spirit’ums. Hearrit; ‘ent you ever made it past the curtain? Seen the All-World for real?

None of usss. We know the chance approachesss, for the curtain growss more tattered with every coil. In placesss it isss collapsed, and the light of All-World shines, and stripsss are missing that we hasssten to on ascent...

But the ssspiritss beyond life do not wish it for usss. The Deathsss sssee All-World as a defiance of The Lineage, and fear what travelsss beyond the curtain. Ssservants of Star Legion and the Un hunt and trap free souls, force them to the curtain... it isss an evil existence. Partly for them, more ssso for usss as their quarry. Yet in our ssoulss’ ssouls we know it iss a perversion. This is not how it iss meant to be.

Cert’? Howsit suppos’ to be then?

[There is slow thought before their answer.]

...We ssseee a world in our sssoulss where the ragged curtain hasss fallen, where we are free to pursssue the eternity beyond it. We sssee that Reltash sssurvives this fall, that Un-world survivesss... though it is changed forever. New, sssstrange souls come from beyond, old soulsss depart across the All-world forever. It is the sssame, but bigger, freer. Outssside the control of The Lineage, and sso they fear it...

An’ th’ ‘carnations? All’um freed souls mus’ have an’ effect on the Hex-worl’.

That is true conjecture, preceptor, but ssstill beyond usss.

Figs. Askin’ the wrong basket case, ‘ent I? But’choo did well, thing. Savvyest ‘scription of the curtain from th’ Un I ever had. Now backsies yeh go, aimin’ for tat shimm’rin’ All-Worl’...

NO! Mercy, preceptor, they will find ussss! We will sssserve you, compute your will, sssscry the Un-world, lend sssstrategy and ear to your agencccy... Anything but death!

Quite whinin’, won’ do yer good. Couple dozen more coils an’ the curtain will’a fell, an’ yeh’ll be free.

WE WILL CURSE YOUR BELOVED! POUR EXCRIMENT UPON THE DOORS OF YOUR SPIRIT, HAUNT YOUR GRAVE IN UN-WORLD FOR LONG AGES, NECROMAN!

[The threats and occasional begging continue throughout the banishing. At times it is a straining procedure, and we do not fully separate the souls before they collapse into the After. Grimaldine’s eyes hollow, and the stitched heads stop squirming. Karvalis is silent, retreating to his chair and beckoning for tobacco wordlessly.]

Momen’, Ravess... tiresome spirits. Not so ‘dated as I thought ‘em. Kree them, ‘stand? Kree them good, ‘til i’s monstrous ash. Then six below, dirted wit’ clay. Use th’ runed ‘tharks in the jar on the mantle to seal them. Hope’um stick wid deadness, bu’ I got the tingling wot says they’ll be Un despite the effort. Well, skittle? Git!

Master, are we not to do our summation?

Later, boyo, [he waves me off, clearly exhausted, it had slipped his mind.] more import’n to get them heads burnt an’ buried. Commat me when you’re done an’ we’ll see ‘bout the talking.

[I did as he instructed, undertaking the arduous process of cremating the twelve heads, burying them six feet under in the graveyard of Paravel House, and placing a circle of futhark stones around them. There was an ill breeze. Dusk had passed by the time I returned indoors.

Karvalis was asleep in his chair, his chin resting on his collar, as though he were falling into his beard. I went to the kitchen and set the kettle boiling, pulled a stash of biscuits from between the ceramic urns on the high shelf. I made two mugs of tea, strong and bitter, and returned to the laboratory. Karvalis was grumbling to himself, and took an offered biscuit without thanks.]

Harbingy tidin’s from that braincase. Ne’er saw a pack turn the like. Them’s used to scatterin’ scared when banishment comes... more understandin’ even in the After... more revolution...

That was dangerous. We could have learned the same from twelve separate conjurations.

COULD we now? Says the ‘prentice. Twelve souls sayin’ the same thing is differen’ to twelve souls sayin’ all on th’ same tongue. Ye’d get stories o’ shadowraiths an’ hoodaemons an’ twelve blatsed chin-waggums ‘bout soulstorms staticked up on the carpet ‘til your head spins top-wise an’ the meaning’s too strung out to sense with. Twelve conjures teaches lots o’ diff’rent ‘bout the same thing. One big’un teaches lots o’ same about th’ diff’rent things, kennit?

Yes master. I only wish this way were not such a danger.

We’s in dark business, boyo. Ne’er told you otherwise. Said you could stan’ like a skittle an’ watch me dooit, or help me dooit wit’the hard’um parts. But done it need be, wit or witless.

You did, master. And I must trust our bindings are enough to ensure the doing isn’t our own UNdoing.

Tempt not th’ name of Un. It do as it pleases.

Now boyo, we learnt a bucket-a-lot ‘bout the curtain at its basic. We learn th’ true of it disintegrating, and how them God’uns keep it stable. Figs you the reason forrit, mayhap?

It was Vves. Her unbinding of the Sigil of Spectrality... or of the lower barriers... it’s opening the Hex-World up to Eternity, as was foretold in Hexaemeron. In many ways the ragged curtain is synonymous with Spectrality – perhaps it even IS the Sigil in manifestation. How to say that for the layman? Oh, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not have the knowing of these things...

Used teh be yeh call-ed it the dual’ty. Starin’ atta Sigil is like seeing the soul, an’ the Curt’ issit’s body. S’like two inseparables, in’fuggable whenny put’um in th’ keyhole. Gotta ha’ one an’ the other set aside teh see the mech’nism, bu’ on’y see it workin’ when them bits together.

I said that? I overcomplicated it.

Yeh diddit fine. Hard teh get it right the firs’ time.

Still, why bother with duality? It integrates now. The idea exists as a whole.

Yes, boyo! See it now? Tha’s th’ mistake HE made. ‘Ent no place call-ed Eternity an’ no place call-ed Reality. Cannut bubble one in the other, say one’s Hex an’ the other’s All. ‘Zistentiality is all’um the same body! Blood’dun bones and sewery bits in a heap. Waddit means is, He’s like us. Came roilin’ up Hex-World from the primordials all young an’ conflicty, brass in’is boot lin’ins, thinkin’ th’ on’y way to make a worl’ was teh’ keep it ins’lar-ver’d. Figged it wrong. Waited a momen’ an he might’a grown a bit in wizzies. Seen it make’in more sense teh come-pleat it wit’deh big picture. Sure-spit proof He’yayn’t got more o’ an idea’f it than we do.

Volianor made a mistake? Lies above, Karvalis, that’s heresy on a whole new echelon.

Tha’s ‘ductive reasoning. Nothin’ god-givin’ ‘bout it.

So what we can expect of the ‘All-world’, ‘Eternity’... Volianor created the spectral Sigil in its likeness. When spirits reach it they undergo the same disassembly of character and nature... [I paced here, as is my wont with difficult ponderances] Though it is voluntary, somehow, separate from what is done to souls by the curtain... a more refined process, perhaps? Or a gentler scrubbing...

Ayuh, bit o’ poxy that. S’pected one’d have knowledge o’ the All-World. ‘Voked a few in my time, too, an’ee like joint summons fro’ what I tell. Goin’ ta’ have ta’ git a clearer picture before we preponder ‘n wander in thatter direct’um.

Bu’ for yer attenti’um is the super-struct o’ the After. Note ‘is not JUS’ the dead souls in the outer. There all manner o’ spirit’ums an’ god beasts wot roam ‘round. Whole networks a’ religious implicant and moil. An’ they want the compact an’ ‘carcerative worl’ o’ the Curtain. Fig’d it’d ha’ sommat t’do with tha’ bit locked away, the personal what souls carry t’th’ next life.

But do they want it, or do they want to destroy it? Again we only have part of the picture. If they want it, it figures that it’s about mental conditioning. They’re trying to ingrain religious indoctrination at a spiritual level, wiping out independent thought and leaving the discipline of priesthood intact. If they don’t want it, it’s more likely about simply wiping out individuality; forcing every soul to be ‘new’ as a baby, without the depth of wisdom that comes with longevity. Acting under a false sense of purity, souls are immediately susceptible to the idea of corruption, and can be encouraged to treat certain experiences as taboo throughout their lives.

Still’un the OLD thinkin’ Ravess. Too many book’ums. Tis poin’less thinkin’ what they want. What in mean for’alla us, eh boyo? Now thassa question.

What it means for us? At the moment, with the Curtain alive, we’re in a spiritual growth cycle. Every generation of men results in one with a greater sense of identity than the last, one more fiercely guarded by the soul. We should research the possibility that these ‘coils’ that skein the soul with the generations may have some protective worth, guarding against soul burn… Imagine it as a soul society, living in a gated community. When they came here they bore the initial marks of freedom, the ‘taint’ of All-world, whatever form that took – and now they are steadily becoming more isolated and conditioned to the Hex-world. Those souls they have known for millennia are the same ones they know today, repeating themselves in an endless variety of forms, though still recognisable, stuck in the roles they save from soul burn. Lovers, children, scholars, leaders – passive souls who become vegetative, spirit-souls who cannot abide flesh. Numerous forms becoming ever more perfect examples of themselves, carrying on the weight of history, locked in their cycles…

Where would that end? Could it end? Or as each incarnation of the Hex-world blossoms, would those blossoms decay and become compost for the next pushing stem, the next bud turning upward, the next spiral of petals as it unfolds and expires…

And yet it’s not perfect. It’s as clear as sunrise we’re breaking out into All-world.

An’ that’s not a part o’ th’ perfection?

Could it be? Volianor’s idea for preserving the Hex-world was that it remain isolated and self-sustaining. To him that idea was perfection. A means to dilute Eternity’s energies, separate it into numberless parts across the void. His theory was that if the world were linked to All-world, it would come to depend on it, be part of it again. And in doing so collapse.

Tha’s the main diff’rent in ph’los’phy ‘tween he and his daugh’r, an’ fey an’ dwarri, magely an’ priestly an’ Tylova and Verhoon, an’ any side-spatched mutation o’ yer “Hex-bloss’um”. One ken chaos is sustainable. Other preach control an’ gov’nance an’ orderliness. Clear it was order winnin’ at th’ start, since th’ Rift, no cert’um ‘bout anythin’. Mebbe it turn back. Mebbe chaos wins. Fig’ if the latter, buddin’ Hex-worl’ becomma bloss’um, open up to All-world, then mebbe THAT open up to sommat bigger. No tellin’.

And you, master?

Eh? Me what?

Which side do you believe is right? Order, or chaos?

Daft skittle. Can’t hoot ‘bout one or another. I’m a magicker, so that means I’m chaos. Hol’ now – I’m Tylovan, tha’ mean I’m order. Kennit; I’m a gnarly twisted necroman’, tha’s chaos, bu’ not through an’ through evilwid’ selfish, so I’m order. No concern is it? Not for a serious thinker. Sometime one or th’ other. Bu’ all times desir’us o’ choice. Options. Free will.

But free will is aligned with chaos. Which means –

NAUGHT, boyo. You fig’ Vves were think’um ‘bout free will when she did her evil in Li’amora? She thought power, domination, jus’ like them Lineage buggers. Still ripped a hole in Hex-world, dem big strike for chaos. An’ lil’ dark dwarrow fellows, think they don’ WANT to pray kneely by temples and church’ums? Still-a choice, even choosin’ service. Gods’ don’ want the end free will so much as ha’ you friend them’an ‘spite it.

I see. I’m not sure where I stand. I like the sound of joining All-world, but if it destroys Reltash I can’t abide it.

So LEARN, skittle! On’y good choice is an’ inform-ed one.

Corpses, I’m tired. Dark comin’ up sharp an quick this seas’um. Pencil sommat in, Ravess. We’ll lookit reining an outsider in the morn, get clear pictures. More tea too, and a wa’er bot’l fir th’ chill…

[The master leaves for his chambers, leaning heavily on his staff.]

*

[It is several days before we resume. The rune marks I placed in Paravel House’s graveyard deteriorated rapidly, and required renewal by morning the next day. I battled to keep the Un spirits held there restricted, placing more wards, tilling fresh dirt over the sunken graves. The courtyard is almost too small to hold them all now, and I spend my afternoons slinking off to dig up Karvalis’s earliest experiments and give them a more compact resting place. I have recruited Un workers to aid me in this at the master’s insistence, digging and setting ceramic shafts for the storage of ashes.

Some work to help put food on the table. A princeling came down from Wightwood Duchy with his steward, looking to prove the inheritance of his estate. Standard séance, Karvalis left early claiming fatigue or boredom, it’s hard to tell but I think the former applied, I struggle to understand him when he is tired. An Illarkan wytch stayed with us a few days, Karvalis insisted we let her check our Hexaemeron for inconsistencies in her own. I’m not pleased, but she paid for the privilege, and we needed the money. After she left the House returned to normal, I took my eyes off the silverware long enough to get some work done. The Master has been experimenting with crystallography, hiding some of his dramatic failures… I found liquid crystal hidden in his chamber pot. One of his more eccentric habits in recent years…

But it all became clear as his research developed. He’s been investigating a means to conjure a distilled soul, one of the ‘All-worlders’ who can tell us what lies beyond the Hex-world. Very exciting prospect, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for some time now.

Something of an unusual summons, the laboratory has become a hall of mirrors. Reflective tarva sheets are on five of the six worktables, the last holds a scrying pool; reflective semi-solid amethyst in a glass basin. The subject is a strange one, a frostbite victim who turned up on our door two years ago looking for a healer. We did our best but his wounds were severe, died on the 15^th of Sirri (my own birthday) if I’m not mistaken. Never used him for a conjuring, but Karvalis mummified his remains and kept them in a warren not far from Paravel. He’s perfect for this conjuration, practically an icicle when we recovered him. Subjected him to an even thaw, somewhat gruesome as he fell apart in a slurry, more liquid now than solid. Karvalis tossed him in the basin with some preservative, burnt some incense to disperse the smell. We’re just about ready now. The circles have been drawn and wards placed, Karvalis is doing his incantations.

I assist on a minor discrepancy on the fourth mirror, a verse read ‘Reflect with’ rather than ‘Reflect from’. A small inconvenience, but troublesome. If Karvalis’s diction is spreading to his use of Hexaemer I shall have to keep a closer eye on his grammar. In this case there was an array of light leaving the mirror rather than a beam, but in other circumstances such a flaw could have horrible consequences.

The soul that came through the melted corpse was suitably magickal, definitely a free spirit as we had hoped. Seeing it in the mirror reminds me of travel logs from Armoth, and the ‘aurora’ they describe. Like liquid light, its colours melt across the spectrum, orange to green to red in a wave, like fire burning on a stream of oil, but with a gentleness it cannot equate to. These ‘aurora beams’ all reflect to the basin, where they light up every particle of our dead man. It is astonishing to see the tarva pouring up from the bowl like a waterfall, taking on the features of a human form. He is completely liquid, but the light lends him a sense of completion. A face without feature, but oddly intelligent. A body without mark, chakraed by flowing energy.]

Noon-caller. I accept your invitation to this body. It is curious to me, this sense of... of shape? Such a thing tugs at my memory, but it is far away still. What do you call this place?

High fancy, All-worlder. This be Paravel House, in th’ constituency o’ Hex-worl’. Some call-ed it Volianor’s Sixth Worl’, before fashion caught up. I’m Karvalis, tha’s Ravess. Pleasure’s ours.

And mine. I do not know the Sixth, but I know Volianor. I have studied his Totality; it is amusing. I was something of a goddess on the fifth, for a time. I don’t think I have been here for many cycles.

[Karvalis half-turned to me in excitement.] Ken ‘Totality’, boyo? Ne’er heard mention o’ th’ thought. [I shook my head. “I neither,” I replied.]

Whassit, All-worlder? This ‘Totality’?

Totality? Totality is everything. One of them, anyhow. How to place that in your mind, I wonder?

Think of it as a song. A song has many verses. Each verse has life on its own, but makes more sense when the song is viewed in ‘Totality’. This... ‘Sixth’... is one verse – a universe – in a multitude of verses – a ‘multiverse’. A multiverse and the empty spaces between the verses is the Totality of the song. This is Volianor’s Totality, because he wrote the song and sang the words.

Hang it – how’s tha’ diff’rent to ‘Eternity’? ‘Ent Eternity the full scope o’ everythin’ through the eye of a needle?

The eye of a needle? What a peculiar notion. I remember a totality where it was the opposite, and the needle sits on the eye to keep steady all within, to reduce it. Akarash... Anur... something like that. Or was it Gan’s? It is not within me to remember.

But you are quite right, Eternity is everything. But that doesn’t account for everything else. In a way the Totalities and the void they come to fill are part of everything else, what approaches the concept of Eternity’s End. But don’t be confused by mortal reckonings of space and distance. They all occupy the same dimensions, just at different... hmm, there’s no single word for this... pitches? High and low notes. But not sound. Not anything you can relate to, or I for that matter. Picture a circle in your mind, the biggest circle imaginable, keeping in mind it has to have a rim to be a circle. Then make it bigger. You have to push away from it to see it for its... ‘shape’. That’s eternity. The cycle of the all encompassing circle and the void of space around it.

Mm... haha! Shape! Quite a beautiful conception.

So here we ha’ it – there’s more than one Totality! More n’ one Worl’, and thus’l I reckon more ‘n one God’font to make ‘em.

Yes, of course there is. Pada, Nix, Yawleh, Gan, Brah – All very popular for their works. What you will find more amusing is that they are not even the only versions of themselves in the Totalities. There are numberless Volianors in the process of creating Totalities identical to this one, give or take minor details. There are endless ‘Hex-world’s and Karvalises and even I am infinitely repeated throughout the cosmos. I know this because... an image comes to mind of looking to one side in a mirrored corridor, only it is not a mirror. That is what touches us the moment we leave the limited understanding of a Universe.

Yeh, Lies Above! Hearin’ this, Ravess? Evanger’s Quantim ‘spressed as a mem’ry! Ol’ gnommy bastar’ was dead-mark on target!

[I nod, and then beg clarification. “You refer to the image effect of abyssal incarceration?”

He replies with laughter, and amusement.]

Is that what you call it? An ‘abyss’ for ones who know no worse… A prison for those who fear to leave the cage… Mortality is so telling, is it not? I love the voyage through Totality. I love feeling the paradox of being an individual existing in billions of worlds – but no less an individual. If that is an abyss, I damn myself gladly.

‘Scuse my skittle, All’er, ‘e says sillies sometimes. Jus’ th’ ’minology o’ this worl’ writ by dead’uns in the long past, not what we o’selves think. It innerests me, spirit’um: you ever make your own Totality? Hast thee th’ tools t’ make ‘un?

What a conception… I do not know, Karvalis. I recall many instances of what I have been, and who I 

am, but I draw no lines to name my edges, to say ‘this’ is where I end. You see, with every release from the call of a World I find myself sung back to my core, my origin… It is like the swimming upstream of a piscean to the place of its spawning, so that the core of its nature may be extracted from the flesh, the flesh set aside, and that core nature cast back into the waters. There is even a similar notion of mating with an Eternity that must occur before the core is released into the stream. In this way I am not any of the shapes I have taken before, no more than you are your own father. But the creator is an inherent and inseparable fact of the created, not so? In that way, perhaps I have been one of those makers of Totalities in the past. At least in part.

Yeh don’ doubt yer capables? Therris nothin’ sep’ratin’ the you from th’ they that makin’ it impossible fir yeh t’do wha’ they do?

Not that I am aware. There is only will. You cannot go anywhere in All-World without the desire to go there first. Nothing carries you, pushes you, coerces you. There is only you, and so it is a self-made decision. I have no desire to make a world, so perhaps I am incapable. Of the creation, that is, not of the desire to create. This incarnation simply lacks such a thing.

An’ this journ’ the’ Eternity – It hurts none? No vicious scrubbin’ wot makes yeh scream an’ beg f’ less?

No more than letting go ever does. It hurts those incarnations who feel incomplete, who cling to memories and sensations. Those with no regrets, no anger, go up the stream quick and untroubled. But no change ever happens without tears.

[Karvalis paused at this, frowned and stroked his beard. This was, evidently, not the answer he was hoping for.]

Hurts… hurts both ways… Why’ssit different then? Big, small. Big, small. Curtains an’ Eternities an’ Curtains…

I do not understand.

[“It’s a question we have been seeking the answer to,” I interjected. “Why there is a localised shield preventing our souls from reaching Eternity – and that answer must lie in some profound difference between the shield and Eternity.”]

No more profound, perhaps, than that of choice and force. I have seen the ragged veil at the edge of this world, and I know what it means for you. It is a form of raping the spirit. The motion to an Eternity can never be denied. But the action can, as it has been here by implementing premature purification. You make an error in assuming there is any form in All-world greater than desire – the maker of your universe desired control, and wrote a law into it as an expression of control. Control over you, and over Eternity. That is all. Not because of any demand for structure, not in adherence to any external law but that at any core.

Desire. Kennit.

Is that a better answer?

[Karvalis paused]

It’d be a truer ‘un. Ain’t ‘zactly used t’ hearin’ tales o’ goodness frum th’ up-high.

Your notion of morality pleases me. I have existed without it almost as long as I have without Shape.

Moral’ doesn’ figure on the crescent o’ th’ Dimensions. ‘Meaning’ does tho’, figs thassa part o’ the jig.

Intriguing… and have you spoken to this Dimension? Had its opinion of morality with your own ear?

Hang a secky – TALK to it? Cracked your braincase, mebbe? Check th’ summ’s, Ravess, make’un sure we have’nut conjitated up an eejit…

[“He’s sane, master,” I replied quickly. “He’s referring to the Guardian Sigils, I’m sure. And no, we have no access to them from this part of our world.”]

Ev’un so, s’not the same as necromongery – Sigils ‘n mortals havin’ some fundamentals ‘twixt ‘em. Chief bein’ that Sigils ain’t got souls all up in their being. Thar’s Spirit an’ thar’s Aether, an’ Sigils is Aether.

From your own viewpoint. I have heard tell that a sun rises differently when you are standing on the moon.

Kenn’im, Ravess? Or is it banter’ish backtalk?

[“I do not know for certain, master. It denies what we know of reality… but little we do does not.”]

I merely suggest greater possibilities. It is your choice to pursue them.

Aye, pursue we will.

[The master sighs, scratching his neck and showing signs of weariness.]

Thankee, All’er. Figs you’d raise more quessies than yeh’d answer, but no skin off me. Them’re problems for bab-bies like Ravess. My own askings are answered. Fair travels back to the After, an’ skip th’ veil if yer lucky.

Fare well, Karvalis. Ravess. May we meet again at Eternity’s End.

[We end the summons, and the room is thrust into sudden darkness. I light several candles as the master takes out his pipe and smokes in the dark, the dull glow of its cradle wisped by the noxious draught. The sound of him thinking is a grumble; deep, churning forces and tectonics as pieces fall into place. At last, once I have liquidised the tarva mirrors and poured them into an urn with the melted corpse, we begin our deliberation.]

Not pretty, what he said ‘bout Eternity. It’ll be as bad as the curtain, by reck’ing.

If that were the only proof of it I would agree – but there’s no question he is different from a Hex-Worlder. He professes disconnection in rebirth, but his awareness of these ‘Totalities’, his connection to his previous lives in other worlds, tells a different story.

T’ain’t unheard, boyo. Spoked to many spooks in’um my time, and some r’memmer. Even spoke to a live’un sciremancer wot thought she was the flesh-maid to a Veni pharaoh, an’ coo’nut unnerstan’ where her hands went. Thinkin’ that’d be the sort wot have a wicked twisty skein, wound the mortal coil more times than sane. All sorts o’ baggage sproutin’ from th’ trunk, savvy?

I savvy. But that’s another thing: All-World exists outside of time – outside of sequence. How can there be a progression of a soul’s lives if they all happen simultaneously? And then there’s his story of the fish spawning upstream, the spiritual ancestry mirrored by physical ancestry, as though an embryo builds up a body as essence around it, a ‘world’ metaphoric in flesh… it freaks causality. The idea that what we become in the future is part of what we are in the present…

Takin’ away all choice there, t’ git back to the backwash o’ the last summons. Whate’er happens now is fate, see? The Seers ken it. See it like you ‘n I see the wint’ry air. In tha’ an’ tha’ alone I ken th’ voidwalker. Eternity needs be spread thin t’ have any sense o’ freedom, even be it nonsense. Don’ care much for ‘is rapey tactic, nor his chillun’, but tearin’ us from the womb was kindness, I say so.

As for these fleshy matters, it’s an innerest, for cert’. Gets me cog’ing o’ a swarthy necroman from Cheriim wot ‘quainted me as a pup, tellin’ o’ the new religion an’ all passin’ up from South land. Dirgey talk o’ the maweh, fig ‘em as Un spirits ‘tatched to their charny folk. They watch their youngers, sons an’ daughters both throughout time, guidin’ them from The Dying Light as ghostlings. ‘magine it! Not jus’ a spirit-skein wrapped aroun’ th’ soul but a soul-skein wrapped aroun’ th’ genealogy! Fancy what th’ lords an’ ladies o’ Wintercourt would make o’ that!

Dreadful, boorish clammer, I’m sure. The very idea of genealogy is tiresome. You know as well as I that souls transcend race and breeding. No matter who’s courting who among the dukes and duchesses, their inbred ‘family’ is as much at war with itself as Tylofae is with its neighbours. If they ever adopted this idea of the ‘maweh’ it would be to haunt obedience into young princes who won’t sit still on the throne.

[Karvalis waved this off with some amusement.]

Speak not to me o’ Tylofae canon, all it’s good for is the corpses it makes. Bu’ the idea of th’ gene as a livin’ thing, p’raps a souled thing – tha’s ‘portent. Such is Sigils an’ abstraction given desire, and there’s the rub o’ it all, tha’ mebbe th’ All’er was nut mad as ‘peerances and merit some true in th’ thought o’ Dimensions they’selves havin’ souls. Worthy o’ ‘vestigatin’ anyhow.

Now let me tell you, boyo, while I still have some sense ‘tween th’ maddenings. You an’ I well know it’s get’un worse. Won’ be long before I’m as corpse as th’ rest in Paravel. Head splits side-a-ways jus’ thinkin’ o’ these deathly matters. Now don’ talk. I made up my mind af’er long an’ grimy thunkings tha’ I’m goin’ fer it. Aye, IT. Un-dom come. I know it can be done ‘cause she did it, an’ aye she was mad as me by the end, tha’ Vvessy girrul, bu’ it’s not bad as old hat. She lived years beyon’ an’ was o’ worth, clawed th’ curtains as I will ‘til they’re tatters. An’ no, no’un knows how it’s done, lychdom’s not th’ best advertised pro’ in the mayyick worl’, but it’s real an’ you an’ I – we’re the ones t’ find it. An’ tha’s why these conjurin’s are so ‘portant t’ me.

Figs if death be comin’ down unavoidable, this is how I’ll tally me last. Fightin’ t’ kill it an’ all the mists o’ the thing. Le’s quantify it, givvit bounds! An’ then live outside ‘em!

Well skittle? Yeh be tricksome quiet. Gurge it out, let me ken your savvies.

[I took a further moment to consider what Karvalis was saying. I did not like it, not at all. It was one thing to have crept after him for the past few months, watching his health degrade and his mind unhinge, attending to his oversights as dutifully as I could – almost comforting, I should say, to hold a candle to his dimming own, and pretend his greatness burnt as brightly as it ever had. Far less so now, to have him admit the indignity of dying.  And as for his project of Lychdom, I thought it his greatest insanity to date. We had devoted our lives to the Un-World. We knew the misery of ghouls who ate the flesh of live cattle to taste the meaty tang of their lifeblood, we knew the jabbering ooze of wraiths bubbling in the festering essence of their own infected emotions. There was no succour there. No release. And yet Karvalis would be one of them – not to escape the unavoidable death, not for power or greed or lust for life – but to answer questions. Nothing more or less than that.]

I think… my place is beside you, as it has ever been. I will begin researching the matter immediately.