Seven Sorcerers(88)

The summit of the white mountain rose high above the ridges of the valley. Sunlight struck prismatic auras from its flawless skin. A great arch appeared in the western side of the edifice. Zyung emerged from this arch, leaving the hollow heart of the embryonic citadel. The Seraphim lingered about the pale immensity they had erected. The foundations of the new Holy Mountain completely smothered the grounds where Shar Dni had once spread its streets and gardens.

Zyung looked toward the top of the structure, which grew angular and flattened itself out at the zenith. Twelve snow-white towers sprouted sleek and graceful from its base. The Almighty spread his arms and ascended to float level with the summit. The symphony of sorcery reached its climax and fell into silence. The ring of High Seraphim paused and descended to the earth about the circumference of their creation.

Twin rays of starfire poured from Zyung’s eyes, washing across the western face of his temple-palace. When the light faded, the white stone had reshaped itself into a perfect likeness of his face. The deep sockets of the stone eyes burned with inextinguishable fires.

The mountain’s interior halls and chambers would be carved and sculpted to perfection over the next few days by the Lesser Seraphim under Lavanyia’s charge. They would plant gardens and orchards, growing them swiftly with clever earth-magic. The beauty of this new Holy Mountain would eventually rival or exceed that of the original in the Celestial City.

Yet none of these Lesser Ones knew that the first Holy Mountain would soon crumble beneath the wrath of the unleashed Old Breed. Sungui’s skin tingled in contemplation of such delicious blasphemy.

Now a mighty roar shook the valley–the cheering of the Manslayer legions upon the hills and the armada beyond the shore. This new Holy Mountain was not only the heart of Zyung’s Extended Empire. It was a testament to his peoples’ victory over their foes. A tribute to their loyalty and bravery. A memorial to all those who had given their lives to make it possible. Within its gleaming substance lay the bones of their brothers along with those of their enemies.

Sungui pondered the symbolism of this blending of bones. It evoked the Living Empire itself, which blended all cultures and nations into one monolithic shape.

It was tyranny and oppression given form, a monument to Zyung’s dominance.

Perhaps I will carve my own face on a mountain someday.

Someday soon.





14


The Gates of Uurz


The dream is one with the revolving world itself. We are currents of air gliding across stone and carving ancient patterns into the rock. We are the rock itself, born of heat and slowed to form and weight and density by time and forces unseen. We are the ocean and its waves, the storms tearing trees from the soil and the grass sprouting from mounds of black earth. We are the deep gorges and ice-crowned peaks, the parched and steaming deserts, the verdant fruits ripe with sunlight, the moldering bones of graveyards, and the living blood that courses through living things.

There is only the dream, which encircles and gives birth to the dreamer. We are motes in the great field of consciousness that is everywhere, all at once, rising and subsiding in an endless dance of creation and destruction. We are made from the light of stars and spread by the gusts of eternity.

Time and space are fleeting concepts in the greater dream, and we are their reflections, staring back at ourselves, often without recognizing our true nature.

We are patterns, like everything born of the great world-dream, spinning, churning, producing further patterns. Patterns within patterns.

This is wisdom. It is the light of the dream we inhabit.

This is peace. There are no distinctions here between what is and what has been and what will be. This is the All, and it is the center of existence.

And yet…

A glimmer of something separate intrudes on this panorama of boundless unity.

This is memory.

It floods into us like warm blood, pouring from a wound in the substance of the living world. Black talons rip at the dream, shredding it like supple flesh, bleeding awareness into our communal soul. Suddenly we remember…

I remember.

We are not one soul, but four.

This dream is not ours after all. It belongs to Udgrond. Its patterns spin across infinity, but we lose sight of them as we sink into those that are most familiar to us.

This is now.

Yes, we have awakened from Udgrond’s world-dream. Is it time?

The leaden weight of urgency falls upon me like the blow of a great hammer. How long has it been? Udgrond drew us into his dream and kept us there. But for how long?

My eyes open. I see a network of cracks and fissures like translucent veins. The crystalline quartz of our prison shatters. The great pillar in which Udgrond trapped our spirit-selves falls to pieces as our souls leave his world-dream. A fleeting vision of oneness, the dream has already left our minds.