The Feast Hall, Kalirphanam
The novices gathered excitedly in the foyer, chatting amongst themselves and craning their necks to see when the masters would let them into the feast hall proper. This was one of the few nights they had not been sent to their dormitory after evening study, and there was an air of anticipation and general gaiety. Amhráil in particular was pleased: in the system of barter and favours that sufficed the novices for an economy, he had scored big. Evening entertainment, and with the famed storyteller Master Fireaxe!
There was a sudden hush as one of the Paladins broke off from the congregation around the main dining table and walked towards them. It was Skjel Nidersion, who had them for firearms training. He still wore his work-tunic, with his personal symbol emblazoned on the chest: a hooded man standing in front of a volcano, to represent that the Paladin was descended from a prophet...though it could have some other meaning. "Well, young novices," he said in a far more jovial tone than his usual barking commands at the firing range, "Master Tinenetuwar has prepared himself adequately, you may come in if you are ready to be quiet and not ask any questions until his story is done." The novices eagerly nodded their assent, and Master Nidersion smiled and waved them in.
Close to, Amhráil could see how his tutor had prepared. His battered nose was shining a glossy red, and his eyes twinkled in far merrier a way than normal. There was a smell of something alcoholic in the air, reminding him of Rugalá celebrations at home. Suddenly he felt a twinge of homesickness, thinking of his family home in Taras and the stories his father and his father's friends would tell when drink was on them. Stories of Carradu (which here they called Blackrock) where Eoin had been fostered to train much as Amhráil was being fostered now in the oldest of Treesian traditions. Stories of Attera to the far east, where Eoin had reached lofty rank before a dream of revelation brought him home to reclaim his family's throne. Stories of the battles against Tomas, who had usurped Amhráil's great-grandfather and namesake. Stories of days gone by and not returning. Amhráil remembered his father's face when he told those stories, when laughter and tears seemed to comingle into memory itself. Yes, his father had much the same way of preparing to tell a story as Niirus did. And this too, was a story of home. The youth mentally shook himself and sat down amongst the other novices on the floor, all looking expectantly at Niirus.
Niirus Tinenetuwar was seated on one of the great chairs that normally stood unoccupied on a raised dais but had been lifted down to the floor for the occasion. In his left hand was a mug that steamed in an inviting manner and was probably the source of the celebratory odour. In his right was a faded badge of cloth. When he saw that the novices were ready, he looked to his fellow Paladins who were all seated on the surrounding tables, and nodded. "This is the tale of Zirandorthel and how he gained the favour of the king of the Vurie, Jogri Temyyyutsion. But first, I must tell you a little of Zirandorthel himself, who he is and where he comes from..."
Just inside the M'Jiliad Gate, Shirekeep
"May Eiseamlar smile upon you, Zirandorthel," Cian Rhug'n Bhembriadh called out as his truck pulled away from the pavement and rejoined the traffic. The trucker then honked his horn beligerrently, "Look where you're going ya sod, can you not see this enormous truck I'm driving?!" Zirandorthel watched him forcefully drive his way into the lane of traffic and then around a corner, on the road to some warehouse on the outskirts no doubt. Zirandorthel hadn't thought to ask him what he was carrying, but then the man hadn't asked Zirandorthel what he was doing in Shirekeep either. Reciprocal incuriosity was a common factor amongst ex-patriate Treesians, who usually dabbled in some illicit enterprise or another.
Zirandorthel took his bearings, and set down the street, heading towards the Government Quarter. It was about half an hour's walk, which would give him time to compose his thoughts for the audience ahead. He hadn't gone far when he saw out of the corner of his eye a dishevelled man stop pretending to read his newspaper and begin to follow him. At the man's side was a dog, in a similar state of ragmuffinity. They walked briskly until they were level with Zirandorthel. They waited until the three of them were clear of other foot traffic before they spoke.
"Fancy seeing you here, my lord," the dog said in a tone of sarcastic respect, "We didn't think you'd be off that island for the next while, not with you having things so cushy. Did we, Cearbhaill?" "No indeed we didn't, Strike," rejoined the man disguised as a tramp, "in fact we're very curious as to what Lord Zirandorthel the Golden Darkness would be doing in Shirekeep in the dead of winter without the Embassy knowing about it first." "I think you mean the Treesian Cultural Exchange and Coffee House that happens to be located in the Embassy District, as surely there is no need for an ambassadorial presence for a nation which is defunct," Zirandorthel said, not turning to either one of the spies but keeping his peripheral vision on them.
"I don't think we asked him to interpret just exactly what we meant, do you Cearbhaill?" growled Strike, the muscles under his faux-matted fur bunching treacherously, "We said the Embassy, and we mean the Embassy. Not that crowd of deserters, drinking mangocinos and singing folk songs in their deserted building. The real Embassy, and the real godsdamned Ambassador. Who would like to make your acquaintance before you deliver whatever it is your delivering to the Rothian government. Now, are you coming, or do Cearbhaill and I have to make you come with us?"
Zirandorthel looked at Cearbhaill, who seemed a man built to pound things into smaller pieces, and at Strike, who was showing his gleaming white fangs as he spoke. "Very well then, but I hope the 'Ambassador' doesn't detain me for long. I have a date."
The Feasthall, Kalirphanam
"You all know that there are traditions in every land to do with the winter solstice," Niirus said. "In Shireroth it is a time of prayer and thankfulness that your friends and family survived the year without being devoured by war or famine or less metaphorical dangers. In other countries it is a celebration of the end of the darkness of winter and the advent of the spring and the hope and joy which it brings. In Raikoth, the celebration is one of the partnership and symbiosis between Truth and Beauty themselves. Yes, it is simply an astronomical event, the planet's orbit of the sun means that the seasons change once more. But Beauty is the Queen of Night, and the stars are her people (even if the Treesians tell a different story). She reigns supreme in our night sky for winter, and we may gaze upon her people's glory. But every year she relinquishs that supremacy and Truth rewards the hard work of the farmers with new livestock and crops which can only be grown by the greatest ingenuity and knowledge in the far north.
"In Sidhal, the most northerly tiel of Raikoth, there is a local tradition, that of the Longest Night Parade. All the children of the area are woken in their sleep by an eerie piping, and a song which goes something like this."
Here Niirus motioned to two of the younger Paladins. One of them, tall and thin with a tangled mane of black hair, produced a fife with a fluorish and piped up a tune. The other, a slender and beautiful girl who Amhráil and the other novices had fallen in love with in their first day of training, began to sing a song just as Niirus had described:
Come out, all you girls and boys
Out of your beds now, make no noise
The parade is here down in the street
There's sights to see and food to eat
Wrap up warm now, don't catch a chill
It would hurt our hearts to see you ill
Oh, and worry not of father and mother
We'll not tell on one another!
As the girl sang it, her eyes opened wide, a devillish grin suffused her face, and her fingers curled into claws. She was obviously a born actress, and Amhráil began to wonder how she had ever ended up as a Paladin. When she had sung this verse twice, Niirus began his story once more.
"The children go down to the streets, in their heavy coats as the song suggests, and lo, before them would be a strange parade. People dressed in wonderful costumes of blues and whites with masks, and wearing stilts to give them exaggerated height. These costumed revellers would shower the children with cooked sweetmeats and small presents of miniature musical instruments. The lead reveller, whose stilts made them no less than twenty feet tall, would conduct a great dance, where the children would play their instruments and jig and reel with their hosts. Then, before the dawn, the lead reveller would sound an end to the festivities, and the Longest Night celebration would cease. The children would go back to their beds, thinking that their parents had been in costume for the whole night and had put on the celebration to give them a treat.
"In fact, something far different is true. Each year at Longest Night, those in Sidhal who have reached the age of 18 or over await the fall of darkness with a tinge of fear. For every year, when the children are put to sleep, there comes a knock on the door. Those who are older than 18 know to dress warmly for the night, and they all answer together. At the door is a being that children might take for an adult human in stilts wearing a costume. The adults know better, that it is one of the vurelin, the ice demons.
“The ice demons usher the adults of Sidhal out of the tiel and away to the north, where for a brief few hours they cross into the Ultimate North. There the vurelin’s servants give them nettle tea to drink until their masters return when dawn is about to arrive. For it is the ice demons themselves who host the children of Sidhal at the Longest Night parade, and it is none other than Jogri Temyyyutsion who conducts the great dance and directs his subjects in the revelries.
“And why should they do this, you are probably wondering. The ice demons are famous for few things that are nice or pleasant, and certainly they eschew cultured behaviour. Why celebrate the winter solstice, which represents for everyone else the death of winter? And why celebrate it with the humans of Sidhal, who fear and loathe them? The answer might surprise you…it is because they are joyous. Jogri Temyyyutsion is particularly joyous, because on the winter solstice every year his son is reborn. His son’s rebirth represents the promised return of winter, the season of the ice demon’s dominance over the kalirin, while during the spring, summer and autumn the bears have the upper hand in the eternal struggle. Of course these seasons are barely distinguishable in Oraikoth, but the ice demons mark them just the same.
“So each year in Sidhal the Longest Night parade takes place, the ice demons celebrate the birth of their king’s child with the children while the adults of Sidhal are hostage in King Jogri’s palace. Then in the morning the realms are divided once more, the parents and ice demons return to their home, and life goes on. So it has been for centuries. But one year, not so long ago, it was different.
“It was in this year that Zirandorthel and his brother had arrived in Raikoth. Zirandorthel quickly grew tired of his brother’s efforts to settle his young family, and decided to go wandering. He toured all of the tiels of the western coast of Raikoth, and soon heard tales of the Longest Night celebration, where the adults of the town dressed up for the amusement of the children. Interested by this local tradition, he journeyed north and ended up in Sidhal. He had hoped to arrive in the midst of the parade but a tricky river crossing had delayed him. He was a few hours late, and was wondering whether there would be anything to see except the litter festivities generally leave behind. But the spectacle he met was far different from what he had expected. The streets were clean, and deserted. And even from the outskirts of the tiel he could hear the wailing of children and a strange gnashing grinding noise.
“He proceeded to the centre of the town, and saw an uncommon sight. The ice demons were still there, in broad daylight, where the glamour cast by the stars could not hide that they were not costumed performers but real creatures, which alternately terrified and fascinated the children around them. The children who had not been to sleep, and who had learned that their parents were hostages from the one or two ice demons who would tell them anything. The ice demons seemed just as disconsolate as the children. They wished to return to Vurie, and yet they remained.
“As for the gnashing grinding noise, Zirandorthel followed that noise to the spiral tower at the centre of Sidhal. Inside was Jogri Temyyyutsion, who was gnashing and grinding his teeth in a pure rage. Zirandorthel beheld the king as few have ever seen him, for he hid himself now even from his own subjects. When he saw the golden-haired wandered, the king swiftly hid his face, but it was too late. Zirandorthel had already seen that the demon king was slowly melting, his features had already begun to lose their sharp edges. This did not perturb him very much, as we know Zirandorthel has seen many strange things in his time, and is himself a strange being. He simply said, ‘Jogri Temyyyutsion, I have heard tell of you. Why do you and your people interrupt the festival of the Longest Night, and where are all the parents of this town?’
“’A pox upon those elders,’ rasped Jogri through a tongue thick with snowmelt, ‘They have cursed themselves. As they have stolen my child, so I shall hold them from theirs!’ And though he did his best to cackle in an evil manner with this pronouncement, Zirandorthel though he could detect the slightest sob of desperation.
“Now the Golden Darkness (as he has been known for a long time now) was not always a kind or amiable soul…if indeed he is today. But he had learned from his brother’s good example perhaps, for at times he felt that it was enough to do a good deed for its own sake. Here was a tiel with its parents missing, its children crying, and its streets full of demons. Why not see what he could do to help? Of course there is also another theory, that Zirandorthel saw that if he did the king of the ice demons a service, it might yield rewards in the long run. Who knows what motivates such a man?
“In any case, Zirandorthel unslung his great axe Delnurning and bowed to Jogri Temyyyutsion, ‘I will do my best to aid the return of your child to your bosom, hallowed King of Vurie. Simply tell me where to begin.’
“The king of demons saw no reason not to tell this strange human what he desired to know: that the adults of Sidhal had finally succeeded in their plan to escape their catered prison in King Jogri’s palace and had stolen Jogri’s son, born only the previous night. They had then escaped the palace and now roamed in the Oraikoth, the Ultimate North, perilously close to the borders of the Kingdom of Kalirie, where the Bear-King would surely receive them and demand the ultimate surrender of the ice demon kingdom. In any case Jogri was powerless to stop them, as the kidnapping of his son had trapped him and his subjects in Raikoth.
“Having heard this, Zirandorthel nodded to himself (as is his wont) and left the spiral tower, striking for the north. King Jogri Temyyyutsion watched him go, tears of melting water leaking down his face.
“And that is all we have time for tonight,” announced Niirus, standing up from the padded chair. There were many groans, not only from the novices but from a few of the younger Paladins (and some not so young). “Now, now,” Niirus protested, holding up his hands, “I will finish tomorrow. Truth be told, I have had too much of Master Cebmion’s excellent sherry, and the land of dreams calls me as it must all of you! Goodnight, novices and Paladins all. May you rise in the morning with clear heads. We will meet here again tomorrow, and I will tell you of how Zirandorthel saved the son of Jogri Temyyyutsion!”