Clad in heavy robes, the three Scribes of Saint Zane went about their daily duties within their small rectory. Erith cleaned and organized books, while Onul and Sazir went about their studies. This had been their routine for the past several years, ever since they had volunteered to join the Scribes at Thane's insistence. Though far from the most exciting of ways of life, it gave them knowledge. And knowledge, as they had come to learn under Master Tarmid, was more valuable than gold.
How unfortunate, then, that knowledge, like gold, did not buy happiness. The madness that gripped Demongate was taking its toll on everyone, Scribes included. Though Master Tarmid had taught them many exercises to steel their wills, not even a dwarf is made of stone. To make matters worse, the Master had become more reticent as of late, less willing to share valuable information with them. They all knew something was getting to him, but couldn't really ask about it. He never opened up to them.
Lunchtime had come and gone. Usually, the Master spent most of the morning with them, but on this day he had been conspicuously absent. Fearing he had fallen prey to one of his famous research binges, Onul had gone to check on him in his office. He was quite awake, but looked and sounded like a dwarf twice his age. When she asked why he hadn't shown up, the Loremaster merely shrugged.
The Scribes were distracted from their work by the sound of the heavy mudstone door sliding on its hinges. They prepared to shoo the visitor away, until they saw who it was that had graced their rectory.
"Master Tarmid!" Onul was on him in an instant. Rith and Sazir sometimes commented that their colleague had a bit of a crush on the Loremaster. Nevermind that she was married. "How are you feeling?"
"Somewhat better, Onul," the tired dwarf replied. "I feel it is time to make up for a lost morning of lessons." Gingerly, Tarmid maneuvered himself into his high chair, facing his three students. "I believe today we had planned to look through thaumaturgy law?"
The Scribes exchanged glances amongst themselves. "Actually sir..."
"Yes?"
"We have a question, but we feel it's a bit... deep."
"I see." Tarmid remained impassive, though he truly had no idea what might be coming. "Ask away."
It took several moments of ponderous silence for Erith to speak up.
"How do you keep faith from wavering?"
If ever a question had caught Tarmid off guard, this was it.
"Well, that's not a simple one to answer," he said, at a loss for words for the first time in years. "Do you mean faith in yourself, or faith in the Gods?"
"Both," she replied, shrinking inward on herself. She seemed ashamed to have even asked.
"No need to hide yourself, Erith. It's a perfectly legitimate question."
The Scribes leaned in closer, expecting an answer. Tarmid adjusted himself on his seat. He had never felt so self-conscious before.
"Well, faith is no simple issue, to be sure. There are times when everything seems dark, and that we don't know what to do, and our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. Am I hitting home so far?"
The Scribes nodded. Tarmid somehow felt like he was teaching children.
"At times like those, when nothing seems right, is when we should truly focus and pray. A wavering faith is like a cracked bone. Leave it be, and the crack will widen and the bone break. But tend it, mend it, treat it well, and it will grow back stronger than ever before. be it faith in yourself, or others."
It was Sazir's turn to speak up. "Master Tarmid, may I confess something?"
"Certainly. I trust it's nothing serious?"
"Well..." She bit her lip. "I feel like praying is a waste of time. It's like I'm speaking to wall and hoping the wall will respond, but it never does. And no matter how I try, I just feel frustrated. What am I praying to? Do the saints even care about me? Do the gods? Why can't they show me if they care?"
"Now, Sazir, that's understandable," Tarmid replied, not at all liking where this was going. "But you must persist. There is an element of contemplation in our prayers. Even when you doubt that the gods listen, you can still use the opportunity to look inward."
"Can't I just meditate? At least I wouldn't feel like I'm wasting my breath."
"You aren't, Sazir. The gods and the saints are ever there for us. They watch and protect us."
"What makes you so certain?"
"Well, faith, I suppose."
Sazir's eyes fell to the floor. "Master Tarmid, you know about my daughters, correct?"
"I am," he said, with a note of sorrow. Both of Sazir's daughters had died infants, prey to goblins and disease. Tarmid said nothing more, letting Sazir resume at her own pace.
"When I found out that my little girl was sick, I prayed," she said, a tear peeking out the corner of one dazzling blue eye. "I prayed for three days, at her bedside. I did not eat or sleep or drink. I just prayed, and asked the doctors what could be done. They did their best, they said, but it wasn't enough."
Another heavy silence fell on the room as they waited for Sazir to bite back her tears.
"The gods didn't aid me, Master Tarmid. Not in my most desperate hour of need. Why would they help at any other time?"
Tarmid nearly tripped on his own tongue. "I'm afraid I have no good answer to that, Sazir. But I do know this: in the end, the burden of action falls to us."
"So why do we need the gods?" The tears came to Sazir like a winter storm. It wasn't just the loss of her children. It was the potential loss of her faith, the one thing that had kept her together for so many years. "If they don't do anything anyway, why would we pray to them in the first place?"
Tarmid tried to say something then, but he stumbled over his own tongue.
"Help me, Master Tarmid," Sazir sobbed. Her fellow scribes put comforting arms around her shoulders. She didn't seem to notice.
"I can't."
She looked up at him through teary eyes, a frightened little girl in a grown woman's body. Tarmid had never felt so useless in his life. "I don't have the answer this time, Sazir. I'm sorry. I truly wish I did, but I don't."
Silence visited them once again. In the end, after consoling Sazir to the best of his ability, Tarmid excused himself and went back to his duties as fortress manager. On the way out, he promised Sazir he would search for a better answer.
Tarmid wasn't sure he would find one. That conversation had pressed all his buttons, poked at every fresh wound with the tip of a sword.
Mind racing with trepidation, Tarmid walked the sprawling halls of Demongate like a dwarf late to his own funeral. His whole life, he had quested after the truth, diligent as any knight. But now that it was right around the corner, he was finally afraid. What if the truth wasn't to his liking? What if it turned his life on its head, left him without compass?
What if there was nothing left after he realized the truth?
No. He must press on. He had been lied to long enough. Probably his entire life, from the moment when he was four years old and shipped off to the Keep to learn the ways of the Scribes. He had worshiped criminals as if they were demigods. He had been fed falsehoods from a rotting spoon, and he had sucked them up greedily and asked for more. How could he tell others to keep faith at a time like this, when his own faith was faltering?
He had arrived. The door came open after three knocks. The lunatic known as the Fractal Dwarf stood within the bedroom, looking rather surprised.
"Hello Tarmid, how may I help you?"
Tarmid stared the dwarf dead in the eye. All of the usual warmth was gone from him. After a moment to calm himself down, the Loremaster finally trusted himself to speak.
"I know who you are."
The Fractal Entity raised an eyebrow, but invited him in. He offered Tarmid a seat, sat sideways in his own chair.
"Are you sure you know what you're saying, Loremaster?"
"Positive. Now tell me everything. About Steelhold. About thaumaturgy. The truth."
"What makes you so sure I'll speak truthfully?"
"I just know."
The Fractal Entity smiled, amused at some private joke that only he would ever understand.
Then he told Tarmid everything.
From beyond the stars, through the veil of eternity, a lone being stands watch. He gazes down into the mortal world, hands clasped behind his back, ancient brows furrowed in the promise of a scowl. He watches the mortal world below - if there is such a thing as below in this place - and monitors the pieces as they move about the board. He nudges one in the right direction. It complies without ever knowing it is being watched.
Another being joins the first, materializing through the endless expanse. It peers down through the aether, at the confused masses below, and sighs.
"You're pulling strings again."
"Aye," the watcher replies, not sparing his company so much as a glance.
"Doesn't it ever bother you that they would hate to know they are being moved about without their consent?"
"Once upon a time, it did," he replies, cold and distant. "But I was young then. I didn't understand the bitter truth of my calling."
"Which is?"
"Everyone and everything is a resource. Sympathy is poison. It would be like feeling sorry for a hammer after a long day at the forge."
"I see where you're coming from. Would that you were wrong about this."
"Perhaps I am. Perhaps we just don't know it yet."
Silence settles upon the watchers as they peer into mortal affairs. The elder watcher plucks at strings and wills. At times he is so subtle, even his companion does not notice. Below, a piece changes direction. It moves toward another with purpose. The pieces begin to communicate. One knows what is happening behind the scenes. The other can only guess.
"You've told him to seek out the truth."
"Not quite," replies the puppeteer. "I nudged him toward it. Showed him the road. He walked it of his own volition, in the end. Though we may have to take a more direct approach soon."
"Don't you fear that the truth will break him, rather than set him free?"
"I have contingencies in place should that happen."
"Right. I should have guessed." The watcher gazed down at the other pieces. The untouchable one, ever more distressed. The faltering one, upon which hinged so much. They would need contingencies, all right. They would need as many as they could get.
"You play a dangerous game, my friend," Jackal said, eyes ever on the mortals that would set the course of Existence.
"I know. But the Enemy is playing it too. This gives us the upper hand."
Jackal raised an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"
Rhaken's scowl deepened. His mouth twisted into what could have been a long lost relative of the grin.
"My game. My rules."
Tarmid stared into the wall of his bedroom. He didn't trust himself to sleep. He didn't trust himself to write down what he had just discovered. A million new lines of inquiry raced through his troubled mind. What he had learned was outlandish. Outright heretical, if you asked anyone in the Order. Yet it was the truth. All of it. He didn't know why he knew, but he did.
But the truth brought more questions than answers. Why had only this twisted mockery of the events of Steelhold survived the ages? Had Karius Durtis lied? That didn't seem likely, from the Fractal Entity's description. Somewhere along the timeline, the truth had been left by the wayside. Had it been done on purpose? Had someone thrown it by the wayside, like one would leave a moth-eaten shirt that is falling apart at the seams?
And what of thaumaturgy? What if it wasn't all demonic in nature? Then he had been persecuting innocent civilians. How many had died imprisoned for dabbling in the arcane, when they could have contributed to the improvement of all dwarvenkind with but a little supervision?
And what would he do with himself, now that he knew his life had been a lie?
Hours went by. Tarmid couldn't sleep. He considered getting his drink on, but felt too nauseous to keep anything down. So he lifted himself from the bed in the dead of night, donned his robe and shoes, and made his way topside. He walked through the cool night air of the surface, with nary a soul to disturb him. More than ever in his life, Tarmid felt alone.
Solitude was good. It would allow him to pray.
He entered the chapel and knelt in the center of the smooth floor, where the mudstone gave way to microcline and then to cobaltite, a serene shift in texture. Faint but brilliant moonlight filtered through the gemstone windows, casting colored shapes of gods and saints upon the pews. Before him were the stone statues of the Saints of Steelhold. Tarmid looked into their cold, dead eyes, unsure of what to think or feel.
Tarmid shut his eyes and began to pray. Not to the Saints, as many times before, but to Armok himself, the one true god of gods. He prayed for strength and guidance. He prayed for wisdom and courage. But above all else, he prayed because there was nothing else left in him.
"We hear you, Tarmid," whispered the still air of the chapel, in the rough voice of a dwarf in the twilight of his life. "Do not shut us out. We will show you the path, if only you will let us."
Tarmid snarled, rose to his feet. He ran to the doors, peered outside. He began to run around the chapel, chasing shadows, looking for the inconsiderate asshole who was messing with him.
"Show yourself, coward," he snapped. "How dare you try to mess with a dwarf's faith? Come out. I would know your face, that I may rearrange it later."
"You are the only dwarf there, Tarmid," the voice replied. It seemed to be coming from Tarmid's own skull. "No one is mocking you. Now, we must speak. Our time together is short, and there is much to be said."
Tarmid's heart hammered in his chest. He felt something prod at his mind, gentle but persistent. He noticed that he could hear the echo of his ragged breathing. But the voice had no such echo.
"Who are you?"
"A monster, Tarmid. A monster you now know well."
Tarmid's head turned toward one of the statues, forged of pure silver. It depicted an ancient dwarf, thick with muscle and clad in armor. His hands rested upon a massive morningstar as if it were a cane. Above the thick beard peered hard eyes, capped by a severe brow. Tarmid swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Saint... Rhaken?"
"Yes, Tarmid. Wicked though we may have been, Armok saw fit to take us under his wing for the ordeals to come."
"Ordeals?"
"Listen carefully. Time is short. Write nothing down, commit everything to memory. There is very little I can tell you, but it may change the fate of the world. Of many worlds."
Tarmid listened to every word. In the morning, they found him kneeling in the center of the floor, perfectly awake, eyes wide open. He took this opportunity to return to his duties. Before he even stopped for breakfast, he went to the rectory to visit his students.
They looked disheartened, shaken after what they had seen in their mentor on the previous day. Immediately they approached him, hesitant but curious, unsure of what to make of the exhausted, but serene dwarf before them.
Onul was the first to speak. "Master Tarmid? Are you feeling well?"
Tarmid smiled. "Better than I've felt in years, my dear. And I believe I have your answer now, Erith."
"Beg pardon, Master?"
"I know why we still pray to gods and saints." There was unwavering conviction in his voice, something he thought long gone.
There was a moment of fateful silence before Erith could muster the will to ask. "Why do we pray to them, Master Tarmid?"
"Because they listen." Three sets of eyes fell upon him, uncomprehending. "We may note be able to see the results of this, but they do listen."
He could see by their expressions that they had completed the sentence themselves.
The burden of action falls to us.
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Topic: Demongate: Wrapping up the Loose Ends. (Read 670455 times)