"Never more lost, never more broken, never further back did the world-wheel spin than during the World-Burning Lords' reign of terror. Reduced to dregs, how embarrassing, by a single movement of thousands the millions of Keppel fervently fought against."
—Umakh, First-Vessel of the Radiant Hive
Hear ye, sufferers of false modernity, of Rrataradn rogue and a world filled by ruins. Of scattered islands struggling against the pale, of magic lost to ages and history rotted. Of once-regular tools exalted as relics, so primitive now is your magic. So primitive your planet-bound technology. Of the era of Lumin, who lives on now solely in the mass of Eumrakh's blood. Hear and behold, the great bloodstain on our past which took it all away. The moon you nearly reached, the power of the Court of Suns, the balance your world held between civilization and monstrosity. Three hundred and four hurlings of your wet rock around its Sun, seventy-three hundred orbits of the Jade Moon around your burning ground! This period of unfathomable and undue zealotry turning men to ash, salting earth with boiled seas!
The era of "heroes" that Annula Tyndur is thought to be is mostly artificial. All else simply could not make it through the mesh of lost text and oral tradition cut short by claw and flame. The Vermillion Wars, as they came to be called in time, were host to extraordinary circumstances, which brought the dormant inviolable spirit out of the "heroes" of the age. Great world-shakers were born in these circumstances, many of which are recorded here. The broad strokes of the omnicide were moved by many of the individuals chronicled in these pages, and you would do well to revere their names.
The Rain-Bringer who prevented the collapse of the Thunderclap Ridge, who slew the first Flameguard General. Remember her well as the great avenger of Kallatasis and defender of the first third of the Wars.
Foreword
I was his friend, back before this all started. I tried to stop him, really. I didn't know how far he would take it until it was already too late and Kallatasis had fallen. Thinking of him brings me only pain, knowing how much he stole from the world, how much his followers and successors steal even now. But I am weak in my battle-torn hoard of old wounds, and I am only one woman against an army so vast they can scorch the three continents at once. He was a traitor with conviction, I'll give him that. But my conviction was stronger.
He was one of the sun clan, odd-hued like many of them are. A beautiful shade of vermillion, one I cannot bear to look at anymore without tears starting behind my eyes. Halfway between Aureolin and Sechmas, the blinding rage and the power of destruction. My parents told me not to read for omens in this, though. Modernity removed the need for omens. In just a century, the heavens could become ours, they said. Seichmallt thought the same, that the magic of antiquity was to be demystified and harnessed soon. Needless to say, I would have sunk into a deep religiosity after his attacks if not for the way he used faith.
His name was of his faith, one called Tsanafaedd he took over for himself at the immature age of thirty. It was strange and sat poorly on the tongue. Seichmallt. And his family name, one he took as a signifier of the severance he committed against the world. Chwalu-Haul. I made fun of him for it a few times, but he always seemed to take it well. The pride he took in that ridiculous liturgical language turned battle-tongue later in life disgusted me. That tongue still used as a mark of pride beyond him. He succeeded absolutely in his martyrdom, and I cannot hope to resist the forces that still swell from it. He is a god of battle now, elevated by the faith of his weapons.
I beg of you, all you states still undecided after this hundred years, take up your arms, your staves, your machines. Fight this Red Army in my stead when I am gone. Do not let the ghost of one man destroy all you hold dear!
—Asarba the Rain-Bringer
306 AT - 2 years before the Vermillion Wars
It was an unusually hot summer day, even for the middle of Haelaidhe, the lythryd where the sun took up its throne and the Bofhan Annhi carried their ripest wine. Haerox blazed brightly, as if personally warring with the water evaporating off of Asarba's honey-amber scales. Though she yearned for refuge from this sun in the shade, its own light paled in comparison to that of the beaming smile of Seichmallt next to her.
It was a genuine smile, appreciation for the moment intertwining with a sense of innate peacefulness as he ate the candies they had brought from the inner city out to this place. Asarba had learned to read faces from him long ago, a part of his ascendancy training that he was eager to share with her despite the weaknesses in his masks that it allowed. This smile of Seichmallt's was a rare sight these days, ever since he'd taken over for the now-deceased deacon of the Draconic Flame. The faith took Seichmallt out of Seichmallt, Asarba thought. His expressions had become plastered-on mimicries of himself, often going so long with the performance and with such subtle hollowness in the radiance he expressed that she wondered if he remained under it at all.
Today, though, the little-god had dropped all his guards and worries, as if to say to Asarba "I am still me". Still, it had been years since she stopped practicing the inner probing, tracking anyone and everyone for motive and reactions, for minutiae so insignificant but so revealing... just how many layers down did Seichmallt's intention go?
Asarba let out a rattling sigh, conceding a loss to the terrible heat of the crowned empress sun. Seichmallt would never experience the discomfort she experienced here, a blessing of the great Flame he carried in his essence, his clan. But he would also never feel the authority she felt in the raging storms, in the overwhelming loudness of city crowds and concerts. He'd be fried or corrupted or worse if struck by the world's unimpeded lightning, something Asarba herself need never worry over. She needed a way to deal with the heat, though. Pouring water over herself wouldn't do much for long, and they didn't have much in the first place.
"Hey, Seich, can we find somewhere with shade? I'm dying from the heat."
He didn't look up, just shrugged and put the shiny buttery orb he was about to crunch on down into his lap. Incanting, he produced a brilliant vermillion flame from his hands and tossed it onto Asarba. It was cool, like an ocean breeze from out back at her home on the Chrysokayan coast. The memory in the bright sunlight, enveloped by the flames of her friend yet feeling nothing but the pleasant summer, brought her mind to a strange place. A sort of connection to Seichmallt that she hadn't felt in years, not since the last Flame-Bearer grew sickly, since a faith she didn't and couldn't follow took more of her companion's energy than her. It wasn't fair to either of them. It wasn't fair! It wasn't right that this brief respite from their lives was once or twice a year! Asarba started to feel the chill more than she could handle, and clicking her tongue, she resonated the flames off of her body.
"Thanks, I'd almost forgotten you could do that." She smiled weakly, still half-asleep in the bitter nostalgia for the time they'd both lost to the wheels of fate and piety. The two of them laughed a bit, but Asarba's rang with that twinge of trying to shake grim contemplation.
"Honestly, I might have forgotten too if I was you. The city's not open enough for us to really let loose, you know?" Seichmallt stretched his wings, unfurling those flaming feathers—kept just hot enough to scald the careless—out towards the beating summer sun. He sighed with the same despondence that Asarba had heard from him in the city, "If progress keeps up the whole world might become like that one day..." A billowing cloud covered the sun as he spoke, leaving his vermillion glow to influence their area and cast its own subtle shadows.
"With monsters like we have, though? Are you sure?" Asarba raised a brow at the sun dragon, who had slumped down backwards to watch the passing puffs of stormless water as they drifted past sun and ring alike. He raised an arm up and waggled it back and forth, giving his signature "dim-dim" of disapproval in Asarba's argument.
"We're out here all alone, aren't we? A priest and an accountant. No guarded caravan or anything. Dragons just needn't worry about monsters at all, since we're so powerful. And need I remind you how many cities there are with no dragons?" Seichmallt said, his voice somewhere between a fervent chant and a childish whining. He started counting on his fingers as he continued, eyes still locked to the clouds above. "There's about fifty million humans, let's say one out of every thousand is willing to abandon their pride and eclipse something. That's fifty thousand monsters, legendary beasts even, that can be used as material for a whole army of Ennean warriors. Take all those awakened abilities and the droves of adventurers throughout places making their living on quests, get them all to organize, and they could wipe monsters off the face of the planet for good. Without dragons helping, I mean." He sat up, looking into Asarba's eyes with a ferocity she hadn't seen in years. He was serious about this theory, despite its many holes.
"Seich, you can't feasibly organize the entire world towards that. Kallatasis can't even cooperate with the places down South to get a place for a launch site, and—"
"Not yet, they can't. They'll get someone on the moon eventually, or some other city will, and then it'll all turn around. 'We did it, guys! The heavens are ours!' and other rhetoric like that. It'll galvanize people towards more technology, more expansion, further and further into the places we know are draconic territory, and once they have a taste of worlds without monsters, they'll go and 'fix' Keppel too. No more quiet open wilds." The cloud uncovered the sun, making Seichmallt seem dimmer. His shoulders hung low, his wings limp enough that they dragged on the grass, the dry grass that would surely burn if he lost control for even a second.
But he'd never lost control, not since he was a hatchling supping on candlefire. Not once did his composure break beyond what he allowed. Not once did his fire rage a degree hotter than was deserved. Never. Never. He was perfect, unshakeable and flawless like the sixteen suns that weren't failures clinging to eternity by a lime-green thread.
Asarba's heart pounded against her ribs. Something was severely wrong here. She couldn't quite place it yet, a consequence of her neglecting her training—training that he had given her, that he was surely putting to more use than she was, training that made the whole world seem suspicious and antagonistic. Is that how Seichmallt felt all the time? Eyes shifting to catch the light in everyone else's, reading angles of hips and shoulders by the thousands to tell the story of a whole city—of a whole religion?
"I... I don't think that will happen. Really. It's... a little irrational. Alarmist, I'd say. Are you... are you sure you're not seeing the worst in people and exaggerating it?"
Seichmallt looked down at the ground, picked up his buttery candy and ate it. He was silent save for the crunching of the hard candy—a habit of his that signified something, but what exactly it was Asarba forgot. What was obvious was the fluctuating of his pupils, narrowing into slits periodically before slowly dilating back to normal, in time with his thoughts as he kept his maw full of desserts. After what felt like too long, he swallowed and exhaled in that world-weary way Asarba had heard from the higher-ups of the Tsanafaedd faith.
With the same pitch and vibrato to it, the same rise and fall with the "hhaa-aaahh", the same rumblings deep in his throat.
The same as them.
"I'm seeing the bigger picture, Asarba. It's in their nature to drag the worlds through workshop and smeltery. The Ninth proves that, even you should know. The era of dragons and spirits is going to end because we can't adapt. We can only diversify on occasions so rare that there's no pattern to them." The grass wavered around them like so many golden flames in the sunlight, a sea of impassable—at least for Asarba—citrine as if the sun had come to Keppel itself, separating them from each other by steps and from civilization by eternity. A harsh hot wind cut through the clearing, furthering the illusion. Asarba bit her lip and rebutted in the best way she could.
"That's conjecture. But more importantly, it's paranoia, my friend. You need to remember that you aren't an information bank. You're a person affected by everything you notice and hypothesize. Do you know how hollow you look sometimes? Do you recognize your own face in the mirror?" Never enough. Never precise enough, never understanding enough. The frustration almost shocked her into resolving to use the same dastardly techniques he did, to go through with the piercing eye of Cancrus and open the millionfold thoughts of the world to her gaze. She hoped only that he'd look enough through his preconceptions to see what she was unable to articulate.
"I'm sure I am affected," he said, not answering the question in an uncharacteristically obvious way, "But I am exceptional. The strategist thinks three layers deep and analyzes six, you recall. You think I'm overwhelmed by information and that I'm losing myself to the faith I keep, because you can't handle the eye for it yourself. That I have no refuge or support and that I'm spiraling into a narrative I hold sway over to cope with the secrets people can't hide well enough to keep from me. Is that right?" He paused, holding his snout higher. His feathers ruffled slightly, a twinge of impatience seeping out. "And you notice the shifts in how I hold myself and my feathers. I'm being obvious for you, Asarba, something out of character for me 'these days'. But that's only on the last layer you can observe."
"Don't take that tone with me, Seichmallt. You're not special for overanalyzing people. That talent you've worked so hard on will cut you more deeply than you look into others. So what if you can read me? It won't save you from your own collapse when you—" He cut her off again, an impatient habit he probably hardly noticed.
"I won't lose myself. I lament the future loss of the world with space travel, but who wouldn't if they saw it coming and didn't hate nature? I abhor crowds of ignorant people who think they can hide their paltry lives with a hesitant glare, but that's just because I can see through it so easily. Who wouldn't? I'm sure you do with your limited sight. But all of that is conditional and temporary. You don't try to hide anything, and that makes me very happy. Nature is all around us and there's no chance of anyone setting up here in the next twenty years, and that makes me happy. My faith will protect me when I am weak, and I will use it to protect my people when I am strong in it."
Asarba didn't say anything with words. She knew he knew what she thought. She turned around, leaned back and let him read her, a punishment of weak degree but one deserved nonetheless. Go ahead and use that sight of yours, I'm done communicating, she postured. She had doubts about just about everything he said now. Oblique references to exceptionalism, the fatalistic talks of an era ending. An era of dragons and spirits! What a pipe dream! Seichmallt pouted at her, having to put in the slightest effort to read her three-layer feints of body language. Though with how well they'd been acquainted, it may as well have been a disguise made of glass.
"Yes, I do believe I am a bit of a hypocrite. How can the writer of the dogma believe his own writing, you ask?" A pause, no response. "I'll stop cutting you off, fine."
Still nothing.
"Ok, I do believe it. Most of it. I write the things I believe to advertise them as the tenets of Tsanafaedd, and I work my own ways into it. Has to be subtle or nobody will respect me, but the core principles at least..." This time, he waited, determined to get Asarba to speak again. He shuffled closer to her, nudging her in her dense, muscular side. He put on an expression of levity, as if to signal "See? I'm all ok!". Asarba didn't believe it for a second.
She ate in silence for a while, Seichmallt clinging to her and dropping more and more layers of his guard. Asarba didn't know how she knew, but she registered that he was disrobing his personality, pulling her tighter as she munched on the Kallatasain pastries she'd bought for them with her gold. His warmth was beginning to get unbearable again, so she put a hand on his forehead and pushed him aside. Weak.
His body was so frail compared to hers, even compressed. She worried about Seichmallt's safety for an instant before remembering the fire. The flame the grass mimicked, that grew on the Emberthrace from the haunted lands to the far south. The fire that Seich could mold however he wished.
He playfully blasted her with cool flame yet again; she didn't even feel the need to dodge. Seichmallt Chwalu-haul wouldn't hurt her. He wasn't capable of it. Asarba retaliated with a flick, resonating the sound through him like a wind-chime until he let go of her arm and covered his ears from the noise. A half-second later, he spun up to a standing position and prodded her to get up with his tail. She obliged, sensing a bit of instinct kicking the two of them into gear. Some glint in his amber eyes that she hadn't seen for way too long. Perhaps he was seeing that same long-gone light in hers as well.
"Alright, you little red sparkler, I'll bite. But you're paying for yourself if you get roughed up." Asarba grinned, dropping into that loose footwork she had learned to navigate the crowded markets, swiftly and with prejudice. She was still irritated with Seichmallt, who still had that damn composure about him even though he was breaking. Slowly, slowly, but surely the cracks would show eventually. Three years at most and he'd have some sort of public breakdown. Asarba didn't think he even knew the flaws she saw. She only hoped he would still be left to heal after it inevitably broke him.
The two chased each other around like whelps for a long while, catching up and smacking each other with force that would shatter bones in any other race. Loose and clumsy footwork, running like uncoordinated children as they flitted around the gilded clearing and wrestled and laughed. Memories flashed between them each time they clashed, a last reminder of days long gone. Thirty years ago, when they first journeyed to Kallatasis, the city of machines and magic. The de-facto capital of the world, run strictly but with kindness.
Warm days. Shaded markets. Exotic goods sourced worldwide by the city's Logistics Guild of Adventurers. Food, oh the food. The light in their eyes as they tried it, the eagerness the scents gave them. But the loudness, the crowding, the pressure they felt from the buildings closing in on them like the maw of a leviathan. Asarba could handle it; she was built for it, you see? But Seichmallt hated it, and it soured their food.
They never ate in the city streets again.
Panting, Asarba relented, sitting back down by the basket of goods they had. Seichmallt joined her, clinging as a child might to their mother's skirts in an unfamiliar place. He laid down on his side, a renewed look of peace on his face. Not enough to heal the microfractures in his mind that he still wouldn't know about, but enough stress gone that they wouldn't worsen for a time. Just more time. Just a bit longer, that primeval request all life back to the gods had once asked.
"Ok, Asarba, I was mistaken. I see what you mean now. I'll take more breaks and off-days when I can. But I can't help steeping in my duties. They're lifelong unless something drastic changes in the world..." He looked wistfully into the distance. Did he want that something to change? Was he really desperate to be freed from Tsanafaedd?
Why say drastic instead of something like large? Asarba couldn't shake the thought. No, she wouldn't shake it. Something in there, in the perfectionism and the fatalism, in the imminent loss he saw in civilization, was an answer to a question she didn't know the name of yet.
Asarba filled her head with the memory of their game of chase, clearing her outside of deception.
"I'd be glad to join you, if it's not too much trouble."
"Naturally. You're the only friend I have in the entire world that isn't a subordinate."
The sun was hot for Haelaidhe. Omens are not be be followed, but it is an omen of broken promises and zealotry.
Omens are not to be followed.Omens are not to be followed.Omens are not to be followed.Omens are not to be followed.
Bovvilag 23, 304 AT - 4 lythryds before the Vermillion Wars Begin
Asarba didn't know how he did it. These stuffy, crowded halls, the architecture such a blatant functionalist mashing of old buildings and the succession of ownership of them. The dim lighting that would make his own flame drown out his vision unless he pulled it away from his eyes, the echoing of the murmuring from all these priests and acolytes. He'd always hated crowds, so how he managed in this place was beyond her. He'd always hated old and renovated things, much preferred the newly-made on nothing. Built on nothing, all Creation stands.
She hated the place for a different reason. The people seemed in too much of a daze to think properly, too awestruck by monuments to figures their people's ambassador had told her personally were fabrications. She saw elements of his design in the artwork, the storytelling, the way the people hung their snouts and decorated their horns. Her stomach almost lurched seeing so much of her best friend's manipulation here. He was never meant to take up such a diabolical role. He'll break from it. He can't handle it.
There were other people besides the usual dragons here, however. A group of human civilians seeking something very important sat at their designated bench, side-eyed by the acolytes who thought they were being subtle. They called their little tribe Cinduran, and their plea was held as the Cinduran Accord. They awaited the decision Seich and the other one would come up with, though it really would be just his. That Scarlet bastard was too much of a pushover when it came to matters not exclusively within the Tsannaf church.
Asarba seated herself next to the Cinduran humans, a barrier between them and the infernal dogmatics that avoided them. Your church is in a cosmopolitan melting pot, you dolts! How can you be so damned touchy about getting near them?! There was a pattern here too... Was this Seichmallt's doing or was it one of the pre-existing religious mores he had to work around? The human boy next to her, no older than twenty by his looks, became pinker than normal. His little foot-tapping and posture and where his gaze flitted around told Asarba everything. She held back a sigh. This was far from the first time humans got uncomfortable about her choice of outfit and form.
It was endearing, though. To face such a mundane thing in such a hall of anticipation. The priests filtered into the benches now, filling in hers at the very end, with half of it still empty and many more standing to the sides. The braziers on the walls were a natural addition for a faith so obsessed with fire.
They flashed vermillion. Three times, then staying as the door opened. Seichmallt and the other one—oh! Rhanyd! That was his name!—entered, striding in with all of their regalia adorned. An entrance meant to pose them as absolute authorities, gods even.
They stepped up the stairwell onto the stage, taking the position this once-theater had used for prime acoustic reverberation as their microphone. Technology seemed to be taboo in Tsanafaedd, though it hadn't been twelve years ago when Asarba last visited this deep into the headquarters.
"Cinduran tribe, I thank you for coming all this way. It must have been hard coming from that far South. As is our goodwill, the acolytes will personally supply you for your return trip." Seichmallt opened, his voice as buttery-smooth and cutting as undiluted Knaaros beer. He wore a grim smile, entirely constructed.
As was his habit in this temple.
All consistent, that no follower might guess he was different.
"Wear a helmet always when near a person, and they see you as the helmet only. They forget you have a face under it." One of Seichmallt's quotes he liked to throw around at their now semi-ochtly outings. His voice rang out again, now with a harsher vibrato to it and a trickle of something else. He intended to intimidate.
"You have been denied permission to become an Idyllfolk attuned to flame. Not just denied assistance, but permission entirely."
What?
"It is known that the Idylls become strange and foreign to civilization, and that they are the furthest thing from a pure representation of what they take on." His throat rumbled ever so slightly as he continued, shaking the whole room with its undulations. "To allow this Idyllism is to allow undue corruption to the Draconic Flame, and we disallow it under our fundamental creed. Should you disobey, you will be met with no mercy."
No mercy? Denied? The purity of the Flame? What?
Questions zipped through Asarba's head for several seconds before the outrage began. A protest from the Cinduran group, a retaliatory outcry from across the aisle. Argument started up and drowned out Asarba's analysis for a short while before the Scarlet Deacon shouted out, silencing everyone. Seichmallt cleared his throat and continued.
"You will still be accommodated on your way out, and we thank you for your interest in us. You may study our precepts as faith and faith alone. Recall your place, however, humans. This is not your temple."
Disgust in his voice, all too real but hiding something else. There was another fluctuation in it, and in the color of the fire in the braziers. Summoned disgust, distaste for everything the church framed as outsiders. Where did it originate, that he pulled it so convincingly?
What bothered her was the other emotion he just barely betrayed.
A fluttering of the heart, some form of excitement. But little crybaby Seich had never been one to enjoy conflict, even when he hardened his spirit for his ascendancy. He had always taken policy to avoid it. Was he anticipating this Accord? Was it staged? How much was real?
"Seichmallt Chwalu-Haul, Solar Flame-Keeper of Tsannafaedd. I demand a private audience with you." Asarba let the thunder in her heart ring out. She needed him to know she was fine with fighting an army of priests right here, right now. That she would do nothing to hide her fury. That his composure and position were at risk if he didn't talk with her Right. Fucking. Now.
He let a flash of fear in his eyes that only she would see show. He would accept, but this subtlety said "Protocol must be followed". Asarba would have none of it. She glared him down, using her few inches of height on him to assert undue authority in the anteroom.
"Forgive me, Scarlet Flame-Keeper Rhanyd Cyntaf-Llosgi, but I must speak with my acquaintance here. Is it alright if we reschedule the post-consortium meetings for tonight?" He smiled with his eyes closed, a clear mask of being inconvenienced that did nothing to improve Asarba's mood. Rhanyd, that feeble old man, grunted his approval out before Asarba whirled Seichmallt into a side room.
She stared deep into his eyes after shutting the door, her dull rain-grey eyes as sharp as hail looking for the traces of him dropping his guard. The real ones, not whatever fake performance he would surely try first. And try he did. Predictable, but not in a way that she would register as suspicious.
"What do you want, Asarba? What has you so mad?"
"You know damn well why I am furious with you right now. I enter this temple I hate so much on your request because you want me there for a consortium, not a sermon. Which is unusual and interesting, so of course I would go. You know this. And what's the fucking thing you announce there? That a group of people who traveled thousands of miles to see you not only gets turned away, but they're forbidden to ever seek another source of help or do what they intended?"
"It is a necessary precaution. We can't turn them away just to let them do it anyway." His stupid face was still plastered with his sneaking. His veil of hidden intent.
"Tell me the godsdamned truth." She pushed him into a chair, looming over him with that brewing storm of a glare that told him she was unstable.
The air crackled between them. Seichmallt had no confidence about his face, clearly in no need to be reminded of his situation. Trapped in a building he couldn't scratch without harming his reputation a billionfold, with someone all too eager to do the smashing for him, whose physical strength outclassed his own far too much.
He sighed, conceding his game.
"You got me, you got me. I'm worried that this is going to cause an outrage regardless of what I do. But I need to be able to control and direct it, and having this forewarned will at least let me direct the response... and give them the ability to consider the consequences of it." He shifted uncomfortably, an emotion that could be from any number of sources. The fire in the room was still natural orange-white, not his flame. Hiding, always hiding.
"Tell me, O great and venerable Flame-Bearer, where did that hatred of the Cinduran people come from? That disdain for humanity. I can tell it was genuine."
Seichmallt took a second to think.
"You have no idea what you're talking about. It's a tenet of Tsanafaedd that dragons are the only pure holders of their element, and I had to play it up for the followers. Had to give that draconic authority a real impression." Dodging the question. "There's nothing to be said if it was too convincing even for you."
"Liar! Tell me what you really think!"
"You know very well about the Jógoþnor. Those things we can't say because it would change the situation too much for them to hold true anymore." The made-up word they had coined together in their studies. A clear attempt at pulling on nostalgia, but a failed one.
"You can't trust anyone but me on most things, you said it yourself. What would make you trust me on this? You can't leave me here in the dark after bringing me to such an event! Are you getting off on being an impenetrable maze of stratagems?" She raged, letting the echoes of the room do the work of intimidation for her. Despite it being quieter than the assembly hall, he recoiled from the noise. So it does bother him after all. His fire did not burn hotter.
Still mister perfect, even behind closed doors.
The furniture was too ornate for him, Asarba thought. This dimly lit study where the only light was faint candles hung from precarious ledges. This whole building was a sewn-together chimera and looked shabby even when it was garishly vain, even when its labyrinthine structure had places that people would take pictures of and hang up on their dream boards. None of it suited Seichmallt, to the point that it seemed antithetical to his very personhood. So why did he still come here, rule here, make decrees with alleged authority over the entire world and the whole damn human race?
"I can't tell you this no matter what, but one day it will be done being a secret and you will see. I do not dare to know what you will think of it. But know this, Asarba. I have seen the visions of the reddened stars, the rings of metal, the limit of hubris. It scares me more than anything you can do or say. But the only way I can share even that with you in full is for you to be part of the inner circle, where you cannot stray far and spill secrets." His posture reclaimed itself as he spoke, shifting upwards in his chair until he could confidently meet Asarba's gaze.
Fire in his eyes, pure ambition looking through her to some end two layers too deep for her to read. A goal, an ending.
"You would have to marry me, Asarba, and even then you would be a concubine at best. Kept at arm's distance until an infernal bride is worthy." He sounded fully neutral on it, well aware of her inevitable reaction. Asarba slapped him across the face, ringing the sound of it through his bones and fracturing his cheek. He never saw the blow, her motion too fast to follow.
"How dare you! Make me into a toy?! If you won't tell me your intent with the Cinduran Accord, I will find out on my own. I will not soil my position in life by chaining myself as any sort of partner to you and your schemes!" Seichmallt reeled in pain, the broken bone already swelling under his feathers. He tried to protest, rebut, anything, but speaking hurt his skull more. Asarba stormed out of the room, still unclear on Seichmallt's intent but sure of one thing: the bastard had a plan. What it entailed was hazy.
Inevitable conflict with Tsanafaedd.
Position that cannot be compromised.
Secret that will be revealed.
Superiority... Exceptionalism.
"One big performance for nothing, I'm sure. He's all damn talk."
Ludervinn 6, 304 AT - 14 days before the Vermillion Wars Begin
Hear hear, servants of Flame Draconic! Tsannafaedd calls you to action! By order of the Flame-Bearers, Scarlet Flame-Bearer Rhanyd Cyntaf-Llosgi and Solar Flame-Bearer Seichmallt Chwalu-Haul, the clergy and the acolytes alike will arrange a new face for the church! Hear and obey!
The Cinduran Decree, that no human may Idyll with the flame, has been broken! Seven turns of Jadethrone ago, the tribe was ordered as such, and it has been discovered that they disobey! In secret, they hide and change themselves. All those dedicated to the Flame's continued purity, all those who know the order of things, rise. Organize under the Flame-Bearers, fight for your cause! This disobedience was forewarned to the Cindurans, that they would meet no mercy from our church-turned-militia. The followers of the Flame will always follow through on our promises, so spare nothing!
This Red Army is under chain of command in accordance with the rankings of Tsannafaedd faithful, with Seichmallt Chwalu-Haul as chief militant, placed in sole rank as Flame General. Follow his name, his voice, his stratagems! Let humanity know they cannot defy the order Nature places us in!
—Tsannafaedd Official House of Decrees, "The Red Letter", infamous document sent in millions of copies around the world
Crinkle.
Rain fell harder than it did back in the Central regions. The Thunderclap Ridge was always rainy like this, always storming, but this time felt different. The heaters and dehumidifiers were not long for this world. They were no longer sources of comfort. They were of the enemy.
"DAMN YOU!!!"
Thunder ripped through the forested mountains. Asarba knew, she knew, she ALWAYS KNEW! Just some damn suspicion in her mind? NO! It was an omen, always a fucking omen! The lashing of the rain was as the lashing of her slitted eyes against that shredded piece of paper. Torn beneath her feet. Why send it to her at all? Why, why, why? Always more fucking questions than answers! I HATE YOU! SEICHMALLT!!!
The war would not have an official start date. At best it would be a targeted elimination of a group for something well within their rights. At best. A minor genocide, sure, not like that hadn't happened before. But that as the best case in Asarba's clockwork-whirring brain was a bad sign. Omens. More omens.
"No meaning in modernity, my honey-scaled ass." If that messenger was here still, that stupid ion Acolyte—what did their clan have to do with Flame anyway? Fucking moron!—Asarba would have fought them right here. This infuriating bastard in the place of her oldest friend had declared a world war.
How many followers were there in Tsannafaedd? Not just in Kallatasis, but in the whole world? Sixty thousand? More? A single dragon had terrifying power in the old ages, but not so when untrained in their art.
There will be plenty of training if this isn't a quick skirmish. Asarba grimaced, the sheets of rain outside her little hut—wooden, flammable—still matching the flicking of her tail. The best case... genocide of the Cinduran people, social outcasting of Tsannafaedd. They fail and dissipate slowly. The worst case...
"The Cindurans hide, or are said to be in hiding, and more and more is burned in pursuit of them. This Red Army gets authority to steamroll whoever Seichmallt wants so long as they can keep up the act." He was mad. This unsustainable strategy... What the hell was he doing keeping it secret? Didn't want to let on how FUCKING STUPID he was? How once it was over, no matter what happened, the people he didn't decide to off would retaliate and kill him?
What Keppelbound paradise is worth anything to him if he's not there to see it? But there was no way his oversight was this large. This obvious. The best he could come up with in four lythryds? No, he had this planned since he heard the Cinduran Accord.
I have to go to him. I need to find out before this gets so much worse.
"Hell of a day to not be a flight-capable clan..." Asarba exhaled, fog forming from her electrified breath.
A knock on the door. The next of many, not the first and certainly one that would not be the last. This tiny house of brittle stone would only be Seichmallt's domicile for so much longer. The gathering was at hand, and soon enough action could be taken. Still, how many more were left that directly reported to him? He wished he could send them off to Rhanyd.
"SEICHMALLT! YOU STRAWBERRY LIZARD BASTARD, I'LL PLUCK OUT YOUR DAMN FEATHERS!!! OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!" A shrill voice howled through his doors, his windows, unnaturally loud. He recognized it immediately. Who else could it even be but her? Asarba? How is she here, the letter was only sent yesterd—
The door exploded with a thunderclap. The night air was clear and temperate, but Seichmallt felt a chill down his spine, a rare occurrance for one of his Discipline. He didn't mind about the door, but the woman standing in it was his real problem. Ragged in breath, voice, and attire, she burst into the lightly-furnished room, brandishing her claws at him. He sidestepped her and let her crash. Clumsy, even for someone as untrained as her.
"You fucking cinderblock! How dare you plan something this horrible behind my back!" She screamed. Rage blinded her, and for a second she thought her eyes might turn the color of Seichmallt's flames. Flames he spat out, filling the room with cold and solid fire. It didn't quite crystallize like forge-flame, but it wrapped around Asarba and bound her to the wall. Crushing her with its pressure, Seichmallt approached, still clad in his damned preachers' clothes, all flowy and ornamental.
"I don't suppose we can talk?" He asked coyly. There was only such subtle signs of his deception now. Nothing left to deceive, Asarba supposed. But she was unwilling to cooperate. She inhaled, hoping to shatter this fire apart with a sonic explosion, but Seichmallt bound her snout before she could get it out, releasing the rest of her body.
"I'd be fine to leave you like that if you want to attack me so badly." Insolent. Cocky. Arrogant. A thousand descriptors flashed before her eyes, not that she could say them. She wanted him to drop dead. What she had theorized as she'd sprinted halfway across the continent... if it was true, he was far beyond the point of no return. Drakonarchy in his plans.
Tearing the fire off of her, she yelled out to him. "You bastard! Tell me fucking everything!"
"Something tells me you don't enjoy the prospect of a faith defending itself. Maybe you should consider my point of view for once?"
Asarba flared. He was mocking her. Mask off, eh? No, it was never fully off. He was still hiding shit from her. Laughing all the while on the inside, she bet.
"Don't FUCKING play with me. This was never about defending your contracts or whatever. YOU locked it into combat when you made that decree, and now you just have the excuse of keeping your word. You never intended it to be peaceful. Tell me, did the Cindurans actually start the Idyllfolk process, or are you making that up too?"
The air hung thick in the house. Seichmallt took a few seconds, a visible processing of the implications of what she just said, a little lag that proved why he premeditated his appearances so much. If anyone saw this, the illusion was gone, the gig of divinity spent.
"That's right, I knew I was locking us into a conflict. How I handle this determines the roles of much of the world for the next few centuries at the very least. And I intend to make these fools remember who is actually in charge. But you see me as the enemy? You're benefitting from this too!"
"You can't be serious. You, a single man, with authority over the whole world's processes? Unbelievable. You can't expect me to believe your feint of a motive to work on me. This is a doomed plan if it's true, and I'm not the only one to catch on to that." She felt the rage leaving her slowly as she spoke, replaced by pity for the twisted mind of this conniving fool.
A twitch at his left ear.
"You'd rather I let my people suffer the existence of blasphemers like them?"
"Depends. Are they real?"
Seichmallt's ear twitched again as he pulled his teeth into a manic grin. "Of course they're real, you idiot. Anyone would see through a shadowboxing war in an instant! I wouldn't have even started this if the Cindu—"
A blow to the head. He was toppled in an instant by Asarba's fist. She was fast, brimming with rage despite how fast and far she had run. The night air was getting colder. The lanterns in the house were out. Everything seemed to close in on this one space, which itself seemed endless.
"I told you don't FUCK with me! My answer is yes either way! You should know this, you scheming chicken-lizard! You don't have the right!"
Twitch. Twitch-twitch. Both his ears flitted around as he rose. Steady on his feet, not quite reeling the way he had last time.
"Who doesn't have the right? Dragons created human civilization, allowed all these races to flourish. Don't we have the right to ask for this one thing in return? To ask for our Disciplines to be kept pure?"
"That is pure fucking injustice right there. To take away lives for not conforming to your fringe faith? I can't think of anything less fair."
Twitch. The room grew hot suddenly. The flames on Seichmallt's head shifted from the neat fluff their texture usually remained to the wiry coils of solar inferno. His clothes had even begun to singe. Has he finally snapped? Finally?! A low growl rang out through the air, emanating from his core.
"You have... such a habit, you know. An obsession, even, with 'fairness'. You can call it justice, but you're just fucking whining about it, on and on and on and ON! What are we, children? 'He took my cake, it's not fair!' Suns above, Asarba, get your act together if you're going to oppose me. You can't build a new world on ideals of equivalence and fairness.
It's childish, which really makes me want to laugh. Because I know what you think of the things I do when fooling around with you. You think I'm acting immature? I'm only acting to match your stunted worldview! How stupid do you have to be to not see through that?!
I'm commanding an army of tens of thousands of grown adults, managing their morale and faith through the most important tribulation in most of their lives. I worked my whole life to get to this point. You are a good-for-nothing job drifter who only works handling clear-cut assets with no personal agency, and then you have the audacity to complain that my position is unfair? If you want to call yourself my enemy, if you want to dissolve what we have, then do it on even fucking ground, you impetulant whelp!!!"
Asarba felt her heart pounding, desperately clawing at a chance to fight him. He was fully gone now, wasn't he? This was not the Seichmallt she knew from even a year ago. No, he likely hadn't been for much longer. He'd probably been keeping up the facade of his personality for some reason. Putting on a worse act for his faithful solely to fool her. He had to be.
I HATE YOU!!!
Nothing she said would be of any use. Every argument she had, every word would fall deaf on his ears. Just what was he wearing all of those damned earrings for anyway, ornamenting such useless things? Appeals to his empathy would be useless; he clearly intended to burn an entire group at least. He had thrown out her whole concept of justice, that everyone should be treated to equal opportunity. He was a brick wall even though she was right.
He didn't care about being right.
Who knew what he fucking cared about?
It didn't change a damn thing. He was the enemy now, foe of the whole world yet to take his first step into darkness.
Screaming, she rushed at him, producing thunderclaps that focused into shattering strikes within her palms. She had to stop him here. There was no telling what he would do now. What was his godsdamned plan? What required making an enemy of everyone and failing a crusade? Is that even the intent anymore?
She was flipped upside down before she could connect the blinding strike, hurled across the room with strength she didn't know Seichmallt had. Enveloped by that same wretched vermillion, she was scorched. Fire that burned seemed so foreign with him. So wrong. He turned to walk away, and Asarba planted a leg to pursue. But her strength was being sapped by the flame. Sleeping magic? Her vision blurred and shifted, doubling and halving in and out. Every step she tried to take was six of Seichmallt's own. Using the last of her strength before she fell, she cried out.
"SEICHMALLT CHWALU-HAUL!!! I swear I will never let you escape! I will chase you down! I will strike you and all of Tsanafaedd down! You will not get your paradise!!! I swear it!!!" She collapsed. He turned around ever so slightly. Twitch-twitch into the night, and it all went black.
Asarba awoke on the cold wood floor, the house trashed just the way she had left it. The night was not yet over, but she felt restless regardless. It was cold and dry, the scent of dust mixing with faint ash. Everything hurt, though more from the hundreds of miles ran than from the altercation. She steeled herself against it, the exertion of sitting up even too much to bear. She had to prepare someone, anyone, everyone for what was about to happen. She had to... but there was no time. No energy.
Who would even believe her anyway? The world was too fractured between little states and kingdoms, and none of them had the power to fend off an army. No, no. If they attacked a group and met resistance, their target might even expand to that whole city. Too much was at stake. Something big was about to happen. Something terrible.
A counteroffensive? Asarba didn't know anyone. Nobody would listen to a stranger when nothing had happened. Lives would be lost by the tens of thousands before anyone took action.
How much would Seichmallt get away with?
Ludervinn 12, 304 AT - First Day of the Vermillion Wars
Kallatasis, the capital of technology and magic, of economy and innovation, life and livelihood, glittered in the night. Sweet treats and gold coins were exchanged, mothers cradled their young children to show them the neon light shows across the buildings. Millions of gold worth of money was exchanged behind the scenes to determine what was displayed each hour on the screens, all for the hopes of making more of it back. The city was alive in every sense, from the lights to the streets to the workers in the pipes and on the roads, the generators and the parks.
It was the windup season to the harvest festival, candies being made and exchanged by the barrel in those big steaming factories that switched up their product season by season. How specific, how niche. The sprawling expanse of the Kallatasain urbanization went miles out and far too broad. How many hundreds of thousands of people were here, families and coworkers and lovers and friends and foes? The perfect hiding spot for those who knew their wrongdoings, for crime and lack of punishment.
Seichmallt was not alone on the top of the skyscraper. He was backed by his most trusted followers, those who would be useful down the line or if he was thwarted here. And a messenger, the ion boy Schreyfft. No matter the outcome, he was to tell the truth of the incident. No matter what happened, it didn't matter. The Red Army would do its job.
"Watch well. This will not get them all, and may well be one of many. But it will be a lesson, and it will strike fear into the humans and their spawn. They will give in and give up their traitors to us, or they will be next." Seichmallt commanded the air here, tipping over and falling into the street, his flames taking on the corona of release. His outfit was minimal today, built to let him move as he desired. And move he did.
Erupting from the streets was a bright spot of red, scarlet, vermillion, sparking against lightning to make blues and golds. A conflagration expanded, taking the first city block of many, engulfing it, kneading it into a scrap pile of molten metal and husked screams. With a thunderous crash, Seichmallt ascended once more, inhaling with all his might. He released the breath, hurling flames like his bead-string necklace out to the horizon, each sphere exploding with the force of a thousand brush-flames and with the pressure of an industrial flamethrower. The night sky, once dominated by the cool berry tones of Galaxios and the whites of stars, of the indigo of the Rings of Serenity and the mint-cyan moon, now blazed with the combined fury of Aureolin's hatred and Sechmas' blind exertions. The Flame General put a hand seal to his mouth and breathed again. The flames took on the aspect of lightning, arced and pierced buildings, drawn to the metallic batteries and generators that powered it.
Explosions. Screaming. The city's grid flickering in and out, backlit some instants by the failing streetlights and billboards and other seconds by the vermillion embers. Echoing collapse caused an uproar to drown out the gurgling blood, the snapping bones and searing flesh. Above it all was the six-winged god-to-be, a master of combat outdone only by his mastery of hiding it.
He had no alibi. The gathering weeded out the weak from the Red Army, and now all who remained understood the assignment. The wiping out of all who could oppose them, for the sake of the Draconic flame. Even they remained ignorant for now, of the true depth of the ambition he held.
Another impossible shockwave as he fell back into the fray, twirling with glee like the juvenile dancers had been just a few minutes ago, planning their harvest dance. Seichmallt drew the flames around him from the whole city, the one he had been crushing into rubble for the duration of his performance. Blood-red didn't quite suit the color of the sphere he gathered, extinguishing the chaos for but a brief moment as he compressed it to its absolute limit, to the point where the flame would warp and tear something deeper and more fundamental. All of his odhir, all of the emotions he poured into his fire, a final refinement of his technique that would allow no resistance nor further action. The vermillion flickered with paean sparks at its center.
Release.
In an instant, the sky darkened against the flame. Not even the rings were visible, drowned out by that pure light of decimation. A ring, then a dome, of the principle of consumption burst out, covering everything in a singular shock that blasphemed in the image of a sun, quenching the unanimous outcry in an instant. A truly divine attack, one that rent solid from gas from liquid and blended them into nothing, shredding the tiniest scraps of matter into more fuel for the conflagration.
And then, as the blinding red faded, only dust remained. Blasted by fire into nothing, the flights of Seichmallt's comrades descending into the still-wavering air. The sound of the eruption was heavenly, its heat enough to melt the pyreglass garments right off of the Flame General. As it should be. His form, in the effort to absolutely maximize the strength of that one burning sphere, had reverted to the truly draconic, no trace of bipedal flesh. His true form. As it should be. No trace of humanity infecting him.
The incident was recorded as it was seen. Kallatasis was there that night; by the morning not even a trace of civilization remained, save for pools of metal recombined into slag and the scorched crater where the city had been. Three hundred and fifty thousand lives lost in a sudden attack by one individual, and a message carved into the center of the ruin.
"All ye who harbor the Cinduran ilk, root them out or resign yourself to this."
I know the obliteration of Kallatasis was a stupid move on his part. The Red Army's first attack is a brazen show of glory that showcases overwhelming power. Whosoever believes this is to intimidate the world into giving up their Cinduran refugees is a fool. Any who know Seichmallt, their Flame General, should know this. He is not this foolish, this straightforward, this needlessly cruel. It all has a purpose in his mind, to divert attention to a distraction that makes you think you have the answer, and to have the next assumption the smarter ones make be merely a second diversion. I was unclear before, unable to know his methodology and ethos. But now I have at least a suspicion.
He made talk of being exceptional, apart from Nature but simultaneously its favorite, of the authority of dragons and the life-debt all other races allegedly have to us. He organized an army but made no organized motion or diplomacy. He simply attacked, indiscriminately showing off his malevolence by eradicating the single most valuable and populous city on the planet. Many old dragons were civilization builders. He is a civilization destroyer, and I am sure his army will only take awe in this. They will be an extension of his body. Expendable. Suicidally devoted.
If he attacks Criosis next, or failing that, Behuklaor, then my theory will be fact. I believe he intends to not stop at the Cinduran people, nor at all of humanity. I believe that Seichmallt Chwalu-Haul wishes to rid the whole world of every race but the dragons. This will come regardless of resistance. Do not allow his people to infiltrate you with diplomacy. Do not compromise yourselves in advance.
The world is fractured, and our hopes of advancing are grim to say the least. But if there is one front all us hundreds of nations across Keppel agree on, it is that we must survive. The Red Army is your foe, no matter your race or creed or nation or faith. They will not stop until Keppel is ash. And so we must fight, all of us together, quickly, quickly! Before it gets too dire to mount a defense, to launch a counter! Before their training finishes and the true reckoning of dragons makes itself known again!
I do not intend to inspire panic. You must steel yourself, gather your resolve, and swallow your pride. For the sake of any tomorrow, you must stand and fight. We all must.
The Flame-Bearer of the Sun, the Last Vessel of Tsanafaedd, and the first Flameguard General of the Red Army who slaughtered more people than any other being in history. Remember him well as the scourge of reality, the twisting of the need to save.
Foreword
I was nothing, and then I was everything. I tried so desperately to cling to that non-formed self that could just flow through the world instead of lapping up against its shores. I tried, I tried... I did everything I could have done. But when you've seen what I have, when you know how this story will always end, when you experience the Truth of the Bleeding Stars... anyone would have done the same. I can't say I enjoy the thought of omnicide in retrospect. But the heat of every moment gave me purpose against the Great Enemy. Against Optimization. Innovation. The Ninth.
I was nothing, and then I chose to go down this sun-scorned path. My enchantments will reign as curses long after my death, long into this grand Golden Age that will grow over the ashen ruins. I will not live to see a single day of it. In my efforts to save everything, I will lose everything in turn. My name, my form, my face, my legacy, my personhood. I cannot know when, but I know it will be so. And I cannot struggle against it, or I will be a lesser General and be destroyed by my efforts to preserve myself. I must become the architect of my death and legacy. I must become the ghost of my own haunting
I was nothing, but I will be a martyr. I will be the beginning, but not the end. Or perhaps the end, never left to live through the eon of monsters to see the new beginning. My death can be a tool, provided my heir can see the way I see. I was a person before I became a vessel, a role, a symbol, but I will die a symbol and be forgotten as a person. Left behind only in the echoes I impose on my tools.
I ponder death a lot. That which I cause, that which will be dealt to me. The obvious instinct is to reduce the death dealt on every side, and that force is generally considered noble. But this... greater good, this concept of the number of lives on a scale. It's childish. The Bleeding Stars will have uncountable lives. By the manner of fools, I am killing to prevent more life. I am wrong on every level that they can think on.
They are weighing morals wrong.
All lives, equally held against each other, is a concept only a hatchling would think is complete. All lives are not equal. The presence of certain clades prevents the true living of others. Survival is not life, not freedom, not an experience worth experiencing! Utilitarian HELL awaits beyond the moon landing! And when all chains are the same size, all limits enforced equally against all others, the ones enchained the tightest are us, the people who built the world's bounties for everyone else! Is it not injustice beyond injustice?
For dragons to live, I alone admitted that humans and their spawn cannot survive. Ten quadrillion people surviving in a darkened universe of red stars is not equal to one thousand living dragons under the Seventeen Suns. All lives held equal... nonsense, till all lives are equal. One race, the last and first inheritors of Creation.
—Seichmallt Chwalu-Haul
312 AT - 8 years before the Vermillion Wars
Fire. All things began with color, motion, diversity, but they all ended in fire. This was the thought that Seichmallt pondered often nowadays, traipsing up and down the busy, noisy streets of Kallatasis. He couldn't say that to the temple-goers, though. Calling for total annihilation, even subtly, didn't work well when mixed with their breed of faith and fervor. Sow, sow, sow, and never reap. Another glowing sign lost a letter, the same one that had been stolen or defaced six times since the noodle vendor had opened that place. It was a one-layer thought to turn "Shift Strings" to "Shi t Strings", and maybe a two-layer thought to plan how to steal the F. Toddlers would have better pattern recognition than that. Whelps, he reminded himself.
Seichmallt compartmentalized the noises into an integer, not processing most of them as anything besides an undifferentiated white fuzz. Raw, without meaning. He didn't particularly struggle to unpack the information, but today was a logistical meeting, and he needed to save some energy for the hours ahead. A lie, of course, that he could tell if one of three people who knew just how much he processed all the time called him out for not paying attention to an aggregated soup of transactions, demographics, and litter on his daily walk before work. Seichmallt didn't mind lying to himself. It was simply a three-layer thought that Asarba would barely be able to make out, and it helped to cut off unneeded self-analysis. Who really cared why he didn't listen to every word strangers he passed by said? What information would he be that desperate for? The answer: nothing.
He didn't wear the footwear that was trending amongst young dragons in Kallatasis these days, as he didn't really care either way for trends. The masses found joy in it, the companies who told them they wanted the products made their profits, and the city as a whole exported some vague notions of "culture" to outlying colonies. Or not colonies, officially, but everyone knew where the economy flowed from. Or they should have, at least. But every other puddle Seichmallt stepped in the shadow of made him slightly more aware of how much less careful that footwear would let him be.
Seichmallt began to turn back for the hobbled-together organization building, which truly he found hideous. His thoughts were intentionally sluggish; they were a much-deserved rest from the strain of managing so many hearts and souls.
Clambering back up were the twins, as they always did when the Flame-Bearer broke the catatonic obliviousness that reduced his mind to that of the masses. A whining child that wanted to stay with people, play with its friends, talk, talk, talk. And a brooding juvenile who saw fit to cut away all of that, to be better, separate, alone. They were both immature figments, leftovers from before the training had been complete. Seichmallt ignored them as he walked. Chwalu-Haul need not pay the fragments mind.
The temple was built into a temple form long ago, which had been repurposed as a shelter, a factory, a school, and now returned to a temple. One for a different faith now. A truer one.
Brick and stone and chiseled pumice melded horrendously.
It stemmed from an aesthetic sensibility of weakness, an admission of failure to live up to or outdo one's predecessors. An acknowledgement of their legacy as more important than one's own. A crippling inability to let go of the past to build a better future. But the administrative meeting hall, draped in carpets of most ornate reds and golds and blacks and lit by flickering lanterns, was beautiful enough to counteract it. Typical sacred chaos-design by the principles of the congregants. In a similar fashion to the clothes Seichmallt himself wore, the hall had been decorated by the Tsannaf faithful. His superior, Rhanyd Cyntaf-Llosgi of the Scarlet Flame, awaited him and the lower-ranked attendants. Seichmallt was early as always, but not quite early enough to outpace the skittish homebody who he served. The highest of all Flames, cowering under that facade of gentleness.
"Solar Flame-Keeper Seichmallt Hanfath, Chwalu-Haul to our followers. You have again taken the short road home. Hail, and speak your urgency." The chiding of the old man would have irritated the gloomy figment. Run away, show him who's boss! He could almost imagine it saying. A certain friend of his would have been too weak to resist such an urge.
"I could not make time enough among the congregants, Scarlet one. And I had long since spent myself among the outside seas." Formalities, an excuse. All over now. The Flame-Keepers were allowed to speak casually to one another past this exchange. Seichmallt could speak casually as necessary, though it utilized several more modalities to give the intended message. Muscle movements, intonation, pitch, vibrato. Speed of words, intentional stutters—not that any stutters of his could ever be accidental again. It needed an air of vulnerability to succeed. Not that vulnerability of his would be unintended and unguarded ever again.
"Seichmallt, are you aware of today's agenda?"
"Yes, Rhanyd. I am well aware of the crisis of our faith's slow decline. But if I may spe-"
"You are to hold opinions until the rest of our council arrives."
Seichmallt scowled. "Why ask then? Not quite convinced that I'm capable of recalling the important details?" He decided to press the lines a bit. Long-term, Rhanyd needed to be domesticated from this. His role as "superior" would not be useful if enforced in this solitude. A twist of the rhetorical knife. "If Tanddach's death is still weighing on you, I understand. Three years isn't enough to rebuild what you saw in her. But trust me, this placid face is hiding a lot of hard work and thoughts." Rhanyd squirmed a bit with the tone of voice and mention of the Solar predecessor. Good.
"...Well then, you must have... thoughts on it."
"More than thoughts, friend. I have some plans. Slow ones, but they could really turn things around for us." He grinned in the fifth way, performing the sneer of superiority to an audience who was not there. His trainers who could not reach his knowledge, and his apprentice-friend. Only they would see the show through the curtain, the inner display that hid his truer intent.
"Preposterous! Blasphemous in the greatest ways!"
The council of lower-downs was not enthusiastic about the plan, to say the least. Expected, predictable. Not easily countered on account of how simplistic their logic was. A sacrifice of credit that would have to be made to properly manage the faith. Two years' worth to rebuild if the old fools retained their influence. The one who spoke out first was clearly struggling at home and attaching himself too strongly to an idealized, static view of the church. Most of the rest? Sheep. No strong opinions amongst them, swayed by whatever argument they heard first. And of course the stubbornness that comes past two hundred thirty years was setting in with all of them. They could be won over with a show of power, but Tsanafaedd was not a graceless slaughterhouse. It would erode them to make such an animalistic display. Though it is truer to the draconic nature, however profane.
"Now now, I understand. It is a great suffering to see the doctrines change. But a revision can give a new perspective that appeals to... more pressing issues. The core values will all be preserved, I assure you."
The flames flickered. Someone was angry. This was one of the benefits of natural lighting. The subtle warping revealed more about the hearts of the infernal that even Seichmallt's regular tracking couldn't.
The aggrieved, an ash dragon—so far below him in primal authority—spat. "This is clearly a bid for power! You place yourself on a pedestal you cannot hope to fill!" Seichmallt signaled to Rhanyd to step in with a tail flick. This move would require organic stupidity to solve. High probability of failure, but higher of that failure being possible for him to defuse. Stabilize. Take control... perhaps the assailant wasn't entirely wrong. The future of Tsanafaedd would be best secured with himself at the top.
"I too dislike the idea of changing the doctrines, but look at our age, our numbers. Listen to the things people say. We are... going out of style, to put it in layman's words. If you wish to preserve their heart, then why cling to what may yet fail in a century?" Rhanyd spoke with elegance. He was surprisingly observant, too. Noted. "We needn't teach our children to forage for fruits or hunt animals, not since civilization became the norm. We must adapt to meet the needs of our followers. If us fossils cannot do that, then we must guide the hand of those who can."
The hall quieted to a murmur. Clearly three years of being the nigh-equal to the head of the faith had not earned Seichmallt enough respect from the geezers. They would need to be replaced quickly. As quickly as would not go noted.
320 AT - 16 years before the Vermillion Wars
Seichmallt walked down the less-busy street, as per usual. Hell awaited regardless, but it was a simple sort. Four layers, five layers. Look deeper everywhere. Suns, he wished he could turn it off, but the training had started to take even to this level. It was constant: the smells, the sights, the sounds, the colors and colors. The taste and temperature of the wind, the brushing of every fabric and hand against his clothes. Crowded. Loud.
Sometimes it would get too much. Ohhh, how horrid it always was. To have to keep composure in that state... every time he failed, Mother and Not-Mother would drill it into him for longer. Closing in on how he could still squirm, how he coped with the sheer density of it. Engulfing the expression with careful monitoring and checking. This time there was seven people wandering through the alley to the not-quite-main street the sun dragon wanted to take. Just sevenbakertwokidsrecentlydivorcedinfinancialtroublesincethebeginningoflastquarterdamnmotherofsixlostthreeofthemlastwinterdidn'tgrievethemasmuchasshethoughtpeoplenewlywealthyjewelerwhojustsignedacontractwiththebankthatletthemother'schildrenstarvewerebaker'sexwifewhoreallydidn'twanttotakecustodyofthekidsbecauseheraffairwasmoreimportanttoherthanhermarriageenoughgirlroughlytwelveyearsofagewhocaughthermotheranddidn'trealizewhatwasgoingontoboyroughlyfiveyearsofagewhorevealedthesecretabouttheaffaireventhoughhissistertoldhimnottoandcausedthedivorcenearlymusicianwhothinkshissongswillcausepoliticalchangedespitehavinganaudienceofseventeenbreak him. It had been lythryds since the processing had outpaced the understanding this badly. Nausea. Blood pressure, mental friction, eye irritation. More notes, more variables. The cascade was starting.
The signs were starting already internally, but externally nothing was changing. The muscle pressure struggled against his will. Step forward. Step forward. Tail counterbalance, closed-mouth smile. Drop eyelids by a third, cut visual processing and look more relaxed. Ohhh, the heresy! To refer to the self as a technical, mechanical thing. A soulmech would even be degraded. Just years of this left until these signs too were absorbed into the unconscious, into the muscle memory that puppeted his physical motion. More storage for observations.
Turning the corner, Seichmallt shut his eyes. Guising as a yawn, he took in the sounds as a probe. No lights yet. No processing all at once. Buffer. Stagger. Delay, delay. Gossip, words made to be made out even in loudness, words not meant to be eavesdropped on. Preferred slang, manner of speech, age, gender, foreigners. It passed in sixty-three rapid heartbeats, and then the Hanfath boy opened his eyes. Voice profiles starting to build were matched to faces, fashion and posture made backgrounds, and it was not as terrible despite the fifty-eight on this segment of road. The buildings were tall, imposing, flashing with electric signs even in the morning light because the clocks hadn't adjusted yet and the sun rose thirty-two minutes earlier and the time change would sign the time when the Bofhianni would come and the drunkards would crowd and-
Seichmallt stopped himself. Heart was going out of control, eyes felt pressurized as if bloodshot. His pupils wouldn't respond and narrow like he needed. His claws wouldn't flex when asked. The lights blazed and buzzed. The voices overlapped, and he heard every word but didn't process any of them, and the smells of storm-drain sewage and dirty wood-fires and electric coolant and unwashed PEASANTS and DAY OLD SEX and THINGS HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE ABLE TO KNOW—
He shut everything off. Broke line of sight, held his breath against the scents, looked to the road beneath him and dealt with the hearing alone. His head throbbed from the flood of information from just that sense. Too much, always too much. Today, even more so. Internal focus—focus meant nothing now, the training had gone beyond that narrowable scope—to diagnose. Blood pressure heightened, heart rate arrhythmic, temperature steady. Of course it was steady, he wasn't a damn hatchling.
All this every day to get to lessons.
Not-Mother was displeased, furious even that he had not contained himself perfectly, but she could not bring herself to transgress the bounds of physical violence today. For all his shortcomings, Seichmallt had not been visibly broken down, had kept some composure in the wide open world. But she admonished him for not being able to handle a mere side-street's worth of information, not having the strength to take in the whole of the world at once. As if she should do so herself, the failure. Not-Mother always projected like this because she had to raise Seichmallt, to teach him.
Because mentoring meant you failed to reach the heights needed of your skill.
Mother wasn't present today, presumably also sulking at something out of her control. Seichmallt thought the two of them might get some joy out of hearing how he wasn't able to rein himself in. Some sick game to watch him fail upwards, some schadenfreude catharsis to deal with their jealousy at how his role was to surpass them. Until he finally bent right and snapped into the mold cast for him.
"I can't process what I sense fast enough. I need training in that more. More layers of information is too much."
Not-Mother scoffed. "You're damn well old enough to handle this level of it. Why, by the time I was your age-"
"You'd already plateaued, and been put in for this regimen decades before I was conceived. But you never realized because your ego blinded you to the hollowness of your trainers' praises." The appropriate response, putting on some false reason for anger to color the genuine frustration as just. An answer to her ridiculous quiz. The fact it jabbed at her insecurities was proof of work, and possibly just a little bit satisfying.
"See? You have more than enough analytical skill. Use it!" Not-Mother chided. Seichmallt almost didn't want to say the answer; it was too obvious. What a patronizing quiz. Asarba, whom he taught second-hand, had more valuable insights. The child-mind he had learned to recognize wanted to go out and play, then.
"The familiar and the newly-experienced are oceans apart. It should be glaringly obvious which I am struggling with, and even more so now that I cast my facade aside to ask for help from a teacher I have surpassed." Seichmallt gritted his teeth like knives on whetstones with the last few words. An act still, at least partially. This room was familiar enough to be blasé. To not impede his thoughts and allow him full range of control.
He needed that control beyond it, though.
The room fell quiet. Not quiet enough, the ticking of the clocks and faint whir of the electric cooling still audible.
"You have the tools you need. What you're lacking in is time."
"I speak truthfully when I say that I do not have the tools I need. Shortcuts to patterns, models for information sorting, parallel process exercises, just anything but more layers of data to sort!"
"And if you cannot see what is required by the time the Solar Flame-Keeper dies? You know how quickly her health has been declining as of late." Not-Mother lilted a little, and for a second Seichmallt saw the grim envy she had for the Keeper, able to stay in power despite being older than this... Ascendancy Protocol.
But once she was gone, someone would have to prove their worth.
"Then it will be your fault for not balancing the curriculum right. I have my proof of learning prepared."
Not-Mother clicked her tongue. A lesson earned.
308 AT - 4 years before the Vermillion Wars
It was obvious to anyone who looked at the history of it. The first mission beyond the atmosphere by those who could not survive without it was doomed to stagnate for at least a few decades. What were they even thinking, making craft "without need of draconic crew" to go to space? Ridiculous.
Not that Kallatasis had the proper airspace for a launch. Every micro-gravitational gradient needed to be correct to combat the pull of Keppel, and the equator was just about the only spot worth launching from. Beyond that, the trouble of the Rings of Serenity. Such odd angles needed to be taken to launch and not crash into them. The world wouldn't support such a thing for a while, especially without better ability to communicate across distance.
And then there was the issue of enchantments being banned. While they would theoretically make the process trivial, the presence of enchanters was "no guarantee" and therefore "an unreliable resource". What the press meant by that was that the tech-slavering anthrocrats working on Moonscraper wouldn't accept that they had other potential resources. Moonstride? Barely tolerated, so long as you could spin the use of a magic metal as science. Other magics? Laughed out of their offices. The Deep Arts would be nothing to them despite their overwhelming power. Ohhh, it was sliding into place. A curtain closing slowly enough for most to miss. Poking the skin of the stars to test the bleeding.
This amused Seichmallt in a twisted sort of sense that his late mentors would have liked to see in him. The humans, heralds of power more free and accessible than any draconic sort, now rejecting all of it in favor of only their manifest Discipline. "Ohhh, the Ninth, the newest and latest dragons! Millions of years since the Eighth, and now humans give back to the dragons they were raised by! How poetic!" Seichmallt could practically hear the philosophers of decades past drooling over their new compatriots. While now argued that even the Eighth, the shadow, was "caused" by the Canids, nobody seemed to get this much of a complex over them. Ironic that the chain-loving slavers now imposed such limits on themselves.
Seichmallt felt a bit of pity for his cousins across the Disciplines who had to deal with this patronizing idolization.
He opened the Speculative Digest, a news source on all the latest mad inventors and ideas that would likely never bear fruit. He often found that there were real gems of personalities and even ideas hidden away in this... freak show on paper. The goal of the publication was partially to make laughing stock out of the featured innovators.
A headline caught his eye, quite possibly the most inane idea related to the Moonscraper.
Moonscraper Launch Point Proposal: Off-World?
Anabeþ Tumecci >> Glausonn 30, [308 AT]
Þeoretician Þufir Emerett proposes a bold new form for ðe Moonscraper project, involving a launch point from ðe planet Glaumryvr. As ðe planet has only a quarter of Keppel's gravity, and no rings to speak of, ðe fuel requirements from launching off ðe elusive fifþ planet would be much lighter ðan on our home world. Ðe question ðen remains: How to get to Glaumryvr wiþout space travel? Our unlikely hero may have ðe answer.
"Rrataradn's Gates go all across ðe system, evidenced by spiritual activity picked up by our spectral observatories in ðe West. If we could somehow make ðe logistics for it, carrying ðe construction resources for Moonscraper to Glaumryvr and launching from ðere could prove an easier starting point for interplanetary travel. Research into navigating þrough ðe hidden realm will be necessary, but may prove fruitful in just a few decades."
Is ðis proposal able to solve ðe ever-present gravitational and debris problems with a Keppel-based launch, or will Emerett's ideas go down in history as anoðer dead end in science? And how does ðis account for the Vanishing Belt's own debris?
Suns, it was desperate. Shameless in how utterly poorly-researched and thought through it was. Kallatasain firms barely had the infrastructure to guard well-known paths on caravans to neighboring cities, let alone down to the equator where the launch would (eventually) be slated to happen. Dealing with just Keppel's own nature, it was infeasible. Going into and through Rrataradn, that all-swallowing spirit-spawning Otherside, was harder than keeping a crew of ten thousand alive long enough to smash a spacecraft into the Firmament at the opposite edge of Creation.
Seichmallt chuckled and sipped his tea, delighting in the density of it as the water struggled to not boil off all at once. Humanity would always have fools, no matter how far they advanced.
But they were advancing regardless.
The thought had crossed his mind many times in recent years, since Ascendancy had opened his perspective many years ago. Roads as fences, always always. Bridges bar the river-boats. The fabric of modesty and culture restricts the limbs. The vision...
Preparations would have to be taken at their own pace. Fifty years was much too long, but any less than thirty would seem unnatural. Unjust. Not that it would ever seem right to those who needed their wings clipped while they learned to behave. But it would need to be just to his people. Progress was a blinding goal, a direction towards addictive self-satisfaction rather than any achievable endpoint. It was gambling on a civilizational level. Just as self-destructive. He reminded himself of that every time he walked the main streets of the city. Eyes darting around, periphery adjusted, seeing the filth that once caused him to convulse and seize in its sheer density.
His temperature never rose, ánnfyre kept at just the point where human skin would register a burning sensation. A reminder that he was always capable of more, just allowing himself to be touched, to mingle, to coexist with these little existential threats. For now, he reminded himself. Much work had to be done. Another course correction once the next elder died off.
A segment estimating that an unmanned mission might take under ten years as proof of concept caught the corner of the vermillion sun's gaze.
320 AT - 16 years before the Vermillion Wars
Mother had talked Seichmallt down from attempting a Druidic trance with all the grace she could. She was always better than Not-Mother at convincing the boy, having spent most of her training with the eye focused on the rhetoric involved in every action and word. Still, she was two layers beneath Seichmallt's own probing ability, so her attempts to coyly hide what she really wanted from this. The trance would have been a crutch, a way out, a distraction. Made things more manageable by simply not managing as much.
The antithesis of Ascendancy.
No squirming against the tightening role would be productive. One does not build muscle by relaxing, after all. And so the goal was to desensitize without losing sensation. Seichmallt would have to overstimulate and overindulge himself in analysis, remaining stone-faced with his signature charming grin while boiling alive in his own thoughts and processes, until somehow he was able to manage the information and understand it real-time. So to test himself in hiding his agony and managing to stay stable, Seichmallt had 'graphed Asarba a message, asking to meet. Funny thing, this technology. Text sent through wires to print out somewhere else. And so without seeing each other's faces, the sun arranged a date—Asarba would kill him, try to at least, if she heard him joking like that—with his favorite bolt of thunder.
The dragoness stood at roughly his same height, though Seichmallt knew just how much larger she was than him without their compression. Her topless robes complemented the geometry she gave her form and her personal mobile sensibilities, though the mammalian zeitgeist of the age caused her to stand out in this same way. The way she held her weight, more than twice Seichmallt's own, showed no signs of anything hidden. Asarba probably didn't know that she could no longer hide anything fully, but the strategic requirements of Seichmallt's role demanded that this was a good advantage to have.
The two of them walked along the busy market streets, awash with colors and banner advertisements in paper and cloth and electric screens. The things that the corporations and small business wanted people to notice. The things Seichmallt was quickly re-learning how to glaze over and ignore, because their messaging was too distant to be "present" and necessary. Wrong, shouted Not-Mother's voice from the hindbrain's memory. Asarba had learned to ignore everything again, turn off her higher thought entirely. Run away from some of the teachings when they got too much for her.
A privilege the young Ascendant-in-waiting did not have.
A freedom he could not enjoy.
But what place does joy have in the greater plan? None. The curtains fell on that line of thinking, and the young sun used one of his three parallel streams of thought to imagine it folding into flatness as it was veiled.
Beside the advertising screens and banners and market stalls colorshuespatternsownershipimmigrantversuslocalbornsevengenerationsback there lay litter, juices from cooking oil and leftover rainwater and food waste. The ugly parts of the city seemed to pop out much more frequently as of late. They seemed more encompassing than the beauty of the architecture or the in-jokes whose context could be gleaned by watching the people recite them. And the smells, they never accommodated for noses more sensitive than humans KallatasispopulationroughlythirtysixpercenthumanremainderismostlyraceswithoutacutesenseslikethedragonsorCanids, an unfortunate fact the both of them simply had to bear.
It really was the people whose complexities broke him.
The approximate financial histories and backgrounds of everyone was plainly visible by their style, manner of walking, and who they subconsciously crowded toward or away from as they went down the road. Struggling to sort them all as he caught sight and scent of them, a strange sort of icy hunger clawed its way up from Seichmallt's spine. For a brief instant, he felt solar fire welling up in his throat.
"Dude, you alright?" A honeyed voice he recognized had apparently recognized his distress. His reflection in Asarba's storm-grey eyes showed no signs of slipping on the first or second layers of analysis. So she still practices this much after all. Well, it made sense. The suburbs were much less... stimulating than the central city. An achievement made possible only by grand heroes carving them out centuries ago. Carving out and enclosing, entrapping. "Developing" them.
"I'm just taking in the scenery a bit, nothing more." The lie necessary for the facade.
"You wanna get some desserts? I've been eyeing a place for a few." Her code for acknowledging it and a signal to go somewhere calmer. Seichmallt truthfully wished to stay, lose himself and fail here. Break down, be overwhelmed by information and just explode for a while. But he had never exploded before, never stepped fully out of line, out of justified response.
And a more mundane sort of hunger was making itself known in his stomach.
"You've been freaking me out a little bit lately, you know that?" Asarba prodded. "You're not acknowledging the details as much. You're stiff. You notice it?" The honey-amber dragoness sniped. In truth, Seichmallt did notice it. He knew why as well. Of course he knew why.
The vermillion sun snacked on the frozen dessert they had gotten together, kept cold by a flame of his meant to hover just below the freezing point of water. How to break it to her... Asarba was always a bit trickier to talk to when Seichmallt had something to hide. Somewhat more advanced thoughts and rhetoric were needed to deceive her.
"Yes, I do notice it. It's a consequence of my training being... unbalanced, as of late. Too much on widening input, not enough on managing it. But I'm trying to get better at it." Half-truths. He was seeking improvement, just through fractures of the frameworks he had built. Breakages to restructure from. Asarba grimaced.
"They're still making you do more of that? You're already the smartest guy I know, and I know you've gotten better than your trainers. What the hell are they looking for?"
Ascension. Perfection. Or failing that, a plateau I cannot climb beyond. He wasn't at liberty to tell her. Tongue firmly stilled against that information. It was already dubious to teach Asarba his ways.
The two of them chatted around the topic, never really getting to the heart of the issue. That heart being the blind faith in some goal the program had for him, under the reward of a very illustrious title called "Chwalu-Haul". Not provable. And here he was, not getting closer to it in the slightest. Maybe bit by bit he would. But maybe this rest was a necessary component of that. Analyze something closer to a peer. Suns, how the public seemed to be slipping below that level.
Maybe he needed to bend a little to see how to break properly.
331 AT - 27 years before the Vermillion Wars
Seichmallt Hanfath was chosen among his half-siblings to go to an important-sounding meeting with Mother. Something between the dozen of them had been seen in him, and even though he really wanted to go out coupon-hunting with his friends, the teenage dragon knew the weight behind one of Mother's church affairs. Nod and wave and bow and be formal, those were the instructions. The big ugly hall of concrete and pumice loomed as they walked down it. Attendants of some Tsannaf task-force lined the seats, and some important-looking ash dragon woman stood behind a plinth. There was a hidden microphone in the stand, an effect that would have worked on humans with their shallow ears. Why that was in a church hall where only dragons went was beyond him.
He was bored, but did his best not to let it show. Tail still, foot not bouncing, eye contact maintained. So on and so forth as they rambled about duty and holiness and "The Flame". Asarba and Slip would be exaggerating a snore at the attempt at a regal drawl, provided they were allowed to be here.
"Young Seichmallt Hanfath, eighth child and fifth son of □□□□□□□ Hanfath, you have been chosen as a candidate for a very important project five generations in the making. What have you gleaned about this role in your journey?" A role? A project? He'd never heard of such things. The twelve hatchlings from the same year with twelve unknown fathers had always just been there. Mother'd never pay them much mind, except when they were playing strategy games. There was no project important and stupid enough to give to a fourteen-year-old. Not unless it was just early announcement.
"Never heard anything of the sort. What, was it to keep it secret until you have a 'good candidate' to use?" No answer, just silent observation. Judgment. "Obviously it's long-term. But why are you so worried about disappointing the others? There's some benefit you want to keep under wraps and out of anyone else's control. And I guess it's for your religious agenda. That it?"
The old ash woman subtly grinned, either because she was impressed or because he had been so wrong that it was funny. Seichmallt had no idea, but a pit formed in his gut. He'd already decided to leave the church when he was no longer under Mother's wing, but he distinctly felt that he hadn't made the right choices here.
"Yes, Madame □□□□□□□, your assessment seems to be correct. The boy does take after you enough to be viable." Traitors.
319 AT - 15 years before the Vermillion Wars
Not-Mother betrayed herself too much, Seichmallt thought. He wasn't breaking enough for her. And so to punish himself, because none of her own would be effective enough, and to make his teachers somewhat embarrassed, the young Ascendant-in-waiting decided to attend a popular nightclub. He was still young enough to be turned away if he wasn't convincing enough, and his unusual hue and permanent luminescence meant no ability to simply blend in.
Asarba would notice that he was acting up. Breaking himself on purpose. She'd intervene, but he didn't want to go alone. Someone needed to be there who would tattle if he truly lost it. And to get him out of there. So Slip, the wiry young Gayakhti who still looked fully human, was his go-to choice for a tag-along. He was reckless, unobservant, and fit right in at party spaces. Seichmallt hoped that Slip's presence would offer him some cover against the blatantly uncharacteristic visit.
His outfit was gaudy, flashy, informal and yet all too ornate. Perfect for standing out when he had no ability to truly pass by unnoticed. Slip wore some rather revealing garments, somehow oversized and under-modest at the same time. It was impressive to some degree. But what was more impressive was the club he had chosen. The Neon Hog, a big graceless bar and dancing site and musical venue all rolled into one. They didn't serve food themselves, but a smaller restaurant had bought out an area within the building to offer some.
Neon was correct. The lights from his flames balanced out the otherwise immense lack of warmth, colored tubes of electrified gas in azure and blue and indigo and mint. The theme for tonight's festivities (of which there were many, and always themed) seemed to be aquatic, filled with the pungent smells of sea salt and fish and kelp. How they'd managed to ship such fragrances halfway across the continent was unknown. Chalked up to "richest city in the world".
Someone bumped into Seichmallt, then into others opposite him as they recoiled from his flames. Hot enough to burn you.
But now he was hyper-aware of his body in the space, trying to avoid the packed crowds Slip led him through and the position of his tail and the wings he wasn't quite used to keeping compressed into his form and the protrusion of his snout. One thought rang above this awareness, unifying it.
This kind of place is not made for people like me. Good. It shouldn't be. The point was to break.
And so he opened his eyes and nostrils and ears bit by bit, dragged along as Slip struggled to truly haul his half-ton body around to a less(?) packed area. The music boomed, each beat resonating through Seichmallt's bones and flesh like a palm strike from a thunder dragon. It sounded hideously arrhythmic, and Seichmallt almost laughed at how his music taste had developed before the true song started.
Loud. Microphone squealing and piercing as the amplified instruments shredded the air. It hurt, and the pain of processing the waveforms of the sound and the bouncing crowd and the cheering and distant conversations he could barely even hear only echoed into the other senses. The colors seemed too bright, too cold and wrong and YES! YES! It began! The cascade of self-annihilation!
The odors began to pour in more strongly, fog turning on for effects as the expensive technical light arrays fired off. He could almost feel the power being poured through, and in calculating the wires needed for it he found himself breaking into a manic grin. O, how composure fell all at once.
Nothingness. Slip was distantly present in front of Seichmallt, slapping him to keep his attention. But there was no attention. The pain. Ohhhh, the terrible pain! Lights, colors, broken sounds and ears that felt about ready to pop off. The ribs resounding, the bones wrong from the compression, the temperature barely able to sustain itself at the tip of his tail, everything. It hurt, and Seichmallt wanted it to hurt more. He wanted it to destroy him.
No more Ascendancy. No more towards this summit. Finally, a release into endless tartarian Nadir. Finally, the death of the genius and the end of this sun-scorned worthless POWER GRAB OF A—
--- // -/ ---/-/-/// -/-//-- /-- --/ /-//- --
Something was different. The noise had stopped hurting as much, the lights had stopped being so blinding. The data flowed as though through a machine, heresy though it was to compare the two. Names, pitches, locations of birth and residence, emotions, dreams, layers and layers of feints all became clear like so much tinted glass.
But through the clarity shone something else, a colorless acid of separation, a barrier that could never be breached again. Removal, isolation in understanding. The pinnacle reached, the summit too narrow to share. And that acid burned, oh how it felt like scraping against cells and arteries and soulfiber lattices. An untenable and immalleable envy unlike any other, for the ignorant, the downtrodden, the struggle and the suns-given honesty that came with it. But it was too late, this discomfort traded out for the overwhelm he had been smothered by just moments before. And it burned hotter than the fury of Tsannahr, and it stung deeper than the venom of the Rektaleyn Serpent, and it froze over colder than the winds upon Gehk-Kerrek, colder than the all-encompassing bone-chill from Hjavvaraþ.
Out of training, instincts artificial pumped into him with beatings verbal and physical like so many hammers upon the anvil of Ascendancy, the numbness flowed in. Pins and needles blurred the border of the pain, made it seem smaller, dispersed, diffuse. In one heartbreaking instant, the Great Work was complete, and he saw what it meant to be Chwalu-Haul, to be not just of the name of the shattered sun, but to EMBODY it. Fractured, cast out into the heartless void beyond all others, eyes piercing deeper into minds than they saw into their own, uncovering secrets even these people had repressed.
People? Were they still people, so far beneath this level?
Or was he the one no longer a person, but just a role? A force?
The pressure in the throat and behind the eyes came not. No release was needed, so unfazed must the Ascended one be. And it burned. The summit had been reached.
317 AT - 13 years before the Vermillion Wars
Something was wrong in a subtle way that not even the great wizards and geniuses of the past would have known. It was behind sixteen panes of frosted black glass, cries reverberating and harmonizing to a barely audible hum at a frequency not audible to the conscious mind. To know the shape of the veil is to know that something is hidden.
Was it even being hidden? Was it just not discovered yet?
This training, self-imposed and for the purposes of heightening his own spectacle, his own ability to understand and merge with the other eight—Seichmallt grimaced—Flames was the cause of this instability. A Deep Art, however close to his own clan's gift, does not come without some tax or alteration, especially the immense weight enchantment held.
Ohhh, the enchantment that overlayed itself atop civilization now. There was something wrong, like that ancient puzzle of carts and boats in a river-bridge city. Boats overridden by bridges, carts entrapped by the river. Too thin for a ferry, too thick to raft. Ah, how contrived the scenario. But to force the thought it must have been.
The health of his soon-to-be predecessor was still in decline, and though she had not quite perished yet, her presence was greatly reduced. It would make for a spectacle when the young vermillion replacement burst through with a prodigious burn. But for now, he lived in a high-up apartment in a building purchased by the church six years ago. Still half-empty, dedicated to homeless followers or dedicated to reserve utilities like himself. A role carved into and chiseled out of him. The windows didn't show the streets below. Suns, he needed the information to be hidden. Despite the eight-layer stratagems, it was hard to not indulge in the stimulation of the below-world.
The buzzing of the grimy alleys and the screen-stocked market roads reeked of something burning, always. Smoke to a philosophical Flame not yet revealed, coming from all directions. Fire was never anything to fear, though. Not for him. Not for any of Tsanafaedd. Did the general public of Kallatasis know this burning? Could they smell it in the air, see it through the marketing? Missing pieces, locked pieces. A game that could never be won.
Seichmallt groaned and turned over, forcing himself to sleep. Something was very, very wrong, and no use was found in pretending it was from enchantment. He was learning like he used to, but not like he used to. Overwhelmed.
His mind was plotting the pieces to solve the unsolvable.
Omens were on Asarba's mind again today. The garden, as they called the clearing beyond city limits that they enjoyed spending time in, always had a pleasant level of repetitive detail. Fractal, as nature should be. Easy to compartmentalize or analyze at will. Not like people-puzzles. She'd told him once that his own hue was emblematic of a warrior's life, balancing between passionate fury and dispassionate violence. At the time, he hadn't known what she meant by it, but Seichmallt knew now that it was admiration, and a little twinge of fear.
She clearly believed in the signs that showed themselves. That's why she was so easy to teach, after all. Just give her more signs to look for. If only the program would recognize anyone but infernal dragons.
"...All I'm saying is, we shouldn't be obligated to be 'objective' or 'unbiased' in our reports. It's stupid. Corporate just wants product without any care as to who made it. Where's the fun in analysis anymore? In speculation?" Asarba meandered. Her voice was quite pleasantly melodic, and had that vibrato that gave her a natural sense of authority in any room. Even so, Seichmallt balked at the idea that some faceless, likely human higher-ups could order her to remove her own voice from anything. It's against civilization to simply assert power, he thought. But that was a double standard on their kind, wasn't it?
"Nothing I do and nothing my coworkers figure out about economic trends from our clients' situations matters. We're barely even being paid analyst bonuses for this work. How many people do you think they skipped out on hiring by doing this 'extra credit' initiative?"
"Probably as many as their remaining analysts told them they could get away with." Seichmallt smirked. It was funny, the creators of human civilization now subject to such abstract, petty things as financial speculation. The builders of such wealth, subject to new scarcities their ancestors would stare dumbfounded at.
"I could understand if they were like, struggling, but Gerrisca-Whelhs is a big place. Lots of people to reach out to. Competitive services. It's just greed, you know?" The light breeze pushed her mane of feathers—artificial, modified scales, meant to mimic something like his own flames or a human's hair—around like a gold cloud.
"So why not stop? Seems to me that would be the most direct protest you could do besides outright killing your superiors."
"Because I like doing the work. It's much cooler of a job than just accounting. Just sucks that it's ripping off someone else. Not fair to them, you feel me?"
Asarba never thought things through from an objective standpoint. Objectively, she didn't need the extra money. She was frugal enough, self-sufficient enough. She'd learned to siphon lightning from passing screens to reduce how much she ate. She just never thought that her playing with a different career just fueled the machine to eat dirtier sums for less.
Click. A piece into place.
So even out here, the Great Work decided to do its work behind him.
"So it isn't fair to your potential coworkers, but you'll take the work regardless as a hobby? What justice is that?"
"You know they wouldn't do anything if I didn't. They're 'too big to fail' already. Corporate pricks." She was so close to the obvious answer, but so far away. Frameworks masking as justice. Seichmallt smiled internally, secure as the only Ascendant. If she really wanted to, she could hurl a stone through the skull of every executive in the company and blow their corpses away beyond recognition. She could tear down every one of their offices uncontested.
She wouldn't. Locked into place by the chains tightening on the dragons more than any other race. The chains that Seichmallt... felt absent here. Civilization itself seemed to impose these... no, surely Kallatasis was exceptional in that regard.
But what happens when cities match its power in a hundred years?
Click.
Much like the original overwhelm into Ascendancy, this night stood as a trial. The riddle, the veil, the glass—thirteen panes now—must be broken. Something of a half-formed direction of research, innovation, technology, magitech. New fields and advancing ones. Those would hold the highest likelihood of useful information. Or if not useful, at least enlightening on the condition of the world in this strange and strained golden age of modernity. More data to fuel the analyst, quicker and deeper reasoning. Better strategy.
Seichmallt had checked out no fewer than twenty-seven books and an entire crate of archived newspapers from Kallatasis' southern library, a complete mess of dusty tomes and new freshly-bound volumes and decaying papers. Laid out around him in a pseudo-ritual circle, he read. Long and deep into the night he read. So much information from across the continent.
New runes discovered streamlining a logical operator chain. Voidstride stuff, typical advancement. Nothing of note.
Alchemists claim thirteen times to discover immortality, only to die of old age soon after. Nothing of note besides a new metal that lends itself well to wires. Already known to be making its way replacing the interface networks in the banks.
Economic inequality on the rise over the past few centuries; shift towards focus on inventors and entrepreneurs even out in the sticks. Snake oil and high-budget ad campaigns hand in hand. Click.
Below that, quality of life has net improvement for each economic bracket over the past two hundred years. Potential source bias, but data seemed inconspicuous. Noted.
New research into the Deep Stellar Art to try and advance communications technology deemed useless. Obvious. Ion dragons remain the only viable long-distance message system. Attempted replacement of a draconic career. Click.
Azurate's properties continue to be mysterious, but basic transmutation of starlight deemed possible source of energy. Stars no longer untapped potential, future use as fuel. Click. Click. Little suns, smaller than even Keppel. Click. Cli-Cli-C-ck--c--k-k-k-k--kk-kk--kkk--
A VISION. SOMETHING UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE. UNKNOWN TO ANY ART, UNTOUCHED EVEN BY THE SO-CALLED CLAIRVOYANTS OF THE ABYSSAL SIGHT. PURE KNOWLEDGE, A COLLECTION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SUBKNOWLEDGE, THE SUBCONSCIOUS MAKING ITSELF AWARE OF THE UNAWARE. HOW TRITE. HOW GLORIOUS. THE COLOR IS BLACKER THAN BLACK, THAT EVEN DARKNESS MAY PROJECT ITSELF ADDITIVE INTO THE MIND.
-//- I. T H E A S C E N T -//-
S E I C H M A L L T. DISEMBODIED, WATCHING AS YEARS PASSED IN SECONDS. THE SPRAWL OF MAGI, THE CONCRETE TIDES AS KALLATASIS, CITY OF HEROES, AWAKENED A RESONANT CHAIN IN THE OTHER MONOLITHS. THE POLILITH, THE THEATRICAL WAR AGAINST THE UNTAMED. FIRST THEY ANNIHILATED THE MONSTERS WHO THREATENED THEIR CHILDREN AND CROPS AND WALLS, AS CITY-DWELLERS ARE WONT TO DO. THEN, ADVANCING AS THEY HAD ADVANCED UP INTO THE HIGH-RISES AND DIGITAL DISPLAYS, THE CITIES PUSHED. SETTLEMENTS GUARDED BY NEW-TRAINED HEROES, BY NEW MECHANIZED INSTRUMENTS OF WAR. R U N E S ENCRUSTED ON EACH, WHEELS AND TREADS BENEATH THEM AS THEIR SOUL-FLAME B U R N E D. NATURE TRAMPLED IN FEAR, SUBURBS ESTABLISHED, NEW URBAN CENTERS CREEPING EVER OUTWARD.
A FLARE TO THE NORTH-NORTH-EAST SIGNALED, A PILLAR OF SMOKE AND CLOUD RISING BENEATH IT UP TO THE HEAVENS. A DEAFENING THUNDERCLAP THAT NEVER CEASED. THE MOON LEERED ABOVE. THE RINGS CREAKED. THE SKIES SHIFTED, BLACKENED, FADED.
S E I C H M A L L T. IMPRISONED IN H A E R O X, WATCHING THE SPRAWL. THE V E I L OF GLASS, THE SPIRITS OF THE FORGOTTEN, NOW TRAPPED EVER FURTHER IN THE OTHERSIDE AS THE GATES WERE BROKEN. THE MOON, TAKEN. G L A U M R Y V R, THE DRACONIC GARDEN, REACHED, LANDED ON, SETTLED.
WAR. DRAGON-SLAYERS. FOR A BRIEF CENTURY, 'TIL THE FIFTH CEDED. 'TIL CIVILIZATION STOOD ON THE ROCK. MONSTERLESS. CONQUERABLE. FRAGILE.
DRAGONS REPLACED BY GREAT TOWERING SPIRES OF METAL AND GLASS AND CRYSTAL, CARRYING OUT THEIR RITUALS ON A PLANETARY SCALE. NATURE MAINTAINED BY MECHANICAL MAGIC. BACKFLOW. MONSTER-SLAYING ON A SCALE NEVER SEEN. NATURE LIMITED TO F O O D AND L E I S U R E, LUXURY AND NECESSITY ONLY. K E P P E L CONQUERED IN TOTALITY, GREY AND BLACK AND WHITE AND S C R E E N S COVERING THE WHOLE OF THE WORLD'S LAND, SHINING THROUGH THE SHALLOW OCEANS. DRAGON-REPLACING SPIRES CONTROLLING THE CASCADE, PREVENTING THE WRATHFUL COLLAPSE OF NATURE. AZURATE ARRAYS IN SPACE, LIQUEFYING STARLIGHT AND SUNLIGHT INTO ENERGY, RAINING DOWN INTO DRAINS AND COLLECTORS AND LUMINOUS RIVERS FOR MORE MACHINES, MORE BUILDINGS, MORE POWER, MORE ECONOMY.
THEY TURNED O U T W A R D S.
-//- II. T H E F R O N T I E R -//-
GREAT AND TERRIBLE, SHIPS OF METAL AND RUNE AND BONE OF THE EARTH. FLARES OF MAGIC AND DISTORTION AND FLAME, PROPULSION BEYOND THE SUN OUT INTO THE REALMS OF THE OTHERS. TO E U M R A K H, TO G L A U R Y U Z, TO ALL THE OTHERS. TO THE CHROMATIC SUNS, THE DEATH-WHITE STARS, THE DARK ROGUE WORLDS BETWEEN THAT S E I C H M A L L T WAS ONLY FLEETINGLY AWARE OF. DESERTS SCOURED FOR A Z U R A T E. TAKEN. FLAME SANCTIFIED AS A TRANSMUTER OF STONE INTO THE GLASS THAT COULD SIPHON STARS.
EVERYWHERE THE CIVILIZATION WENT, RACES INTERMINGLING AND DYING AND BRANCHING, THE DRAGONS OF THE UNIVERSE FELL TO THE SAME FATE AS THE GLAUMYN ONES. A S S I M I L A T E, OR P E R I S H. THEIR OPTIONS LIMITED TO THOSE TWO, POSED AGAINST DRAGON-SLAYERS ARMED WITH ALLOYED METAL AND FELL MAGIC AND THE EXPONENTIAL ADVANCE OF THE N I N T H.
THE OLD WAS PAVED FOR THE NEW, WEAPONS CREATED TO CONQUER WHAT THE PEOPLE THOUGHT SHOULD HAVE BEEN UNCONQUERED BEFORE. WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EMPTY. R E G A L I O N AND THE Á T T A V I T A H R E I Ð WARRED, PLANETOIDS OVERTAKEN BY THE RAMPANT SPIRIT OF PROGRESS, THE SOLBORNE SPIRITS UNDER ETERNAL SIEGE AS RESOURCES.
A LESSER THINKER MIGHT SEE THIS VISION AS A VALIANT EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION. BUT IT WAS KNOWN, CIVILIZATION EXISTED IN EVERY CREVICE OF THE UNIVERSE ALREADY. THIS WAS A SLAUGHTER OF THE TRUEST ORDER, A KILLING OF THE PARENTS OF SOCIETY, THEIR WAYS DEEMED OBSOLETE.
-//- III. T H E E N C H A I N I N G -//-
S E I C H M A L L T STOOD TEN THOUSAND THOUSAND YEARS AHEAD, IN A DARK SPHERE OF THE F I R M A M E N T UNLIT BY THE SUNS. THE STARS WHIRLED AROUND SEVENTEEN DARK SPHERES, BLED OUT TO A CRIMSON COLOR PUNY IN DEPTH COMPARED TO S E C H M A S. BUT THAT SUN WAS GONE, ENCHAINED IN METAL FORGED OF SIX STARS, FAR ENOUGH TO HOLD AND DIRECT T S A N N A H R ' S FLAME. THE FINAL DIVINE FURY AND RETRIBUTION USED NOW AS A MERE TOOL TO CRAFT. BURNING THE SURFACES OF THE FEW REMAINING WORLDS, CAPTURED FROM BETWEEN THE SYSTEMS AND SENT TO BE SCORCHED INTO THE SAME RED GLASS.
S E I C H M A L L T SAW A STAR PASSING BY UP CLOSE, SURROUNDED BY WHIRRING METAL DEBRIS IN THE FORM OF FREE-FLYING CITIES EMINENT OF THE SHIPS FROM TEN MILLION YEARS PRIOR. IDENTICAL, ALL OF THEM. HOMOGENEOUS, UNCHANGING. THE RED STAR FLARED WITH ARTIFICIAL FIRE, POURING DOWN ON THE NOT-WORLDS UNTIL THEIR WARMTH REACHED THAT OF THE NOW-DEMOLISHED K E P P E L.
IN THE DARK CITIES WALKED A UNIFORM SUITE OF MANY RACES, BROUGHT TO THAT SAME BIPEDAL GAIT THAT HUMANS POPULARIZED. NOTHING VARIED, NOTHING CHANGED. A MILLION BILLION LIVES OF PLACID SELF-CONTENTMENT, FED RESOURCES LIKE CIRCUITS WITH NO HIGHER PURPOSE. MAGIC. THE NON-BODY OF S E I C H M A L L T SEARCHED FOR MAGIC, AND IT WAS NONE. ONLY THE SELF-REPLICABLE ENGINEERING OF THE GLASS CAGES, OF THE HABITATS, OF THE MOVERS OF THE LAST REMAINING PLANETS. WHEN THOSE WERE GONE, THE S U N F I R E WOULD BE ITSELF WORTHLESS, THE SUNS SEALED FOR NO REASON AGAINST THEIR MEANING. EXTINGUISHED, PERHAPS, IN PURSUIT OF MORE STARS TO BUILD. AND THEN WHAT?
THE ANSWER HAD BEEN CLEAR FROM THE BEGINNING. CARRYING CAPACITY REACHED, NEVER OVERSTEPPED, NEVER UNDERSTEPPED. NO CHANGE, NO FLUX, NO MAGIC. NO INDIVIDUAL. ONLY NUMBERS, IN A UNIVERSE OF PEACEFUL NOTHINGNESS. A WORTHLESS ENDEAVOR. THIS WAS THE GREAT GOAL OF CIVILIZATION? THIS WAS THE ENDPOINT OF THE GREAT EXPERIMENT? NO, IT COULDN'T BE.
-//- IV. T H E D E F I A N T -//-
S E I C H M A L L T, YOU WISHED TO KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN WITH NO INTERFERENCE, YES? YET NOW YOU CANNOT ACCEPT WHAT WILL BE. GO, CHILD OF THE SIGHT, ONE WHO CAN INTERFERE WHILE STILL ALIVE. CHANGE WHAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.
--FORESTALL THE SEALING OF R R A T A R A D N. NO CHANGE, MERELY DECADE FLUCTUATION.
--UNIFY DRACONIC ORDER IN OTHER SYSTEMS. MILITARIZE. NO CHANGE, MERELY GREATER CASUALTIES IN THE WARS.
--WISH THROUGH THE HIVE TO DESTROY A Z U R A T E. NO CHANGE, SUBSTITUTED.
--WISH TO DESTROY TECHNOLOGY. TOO VAGUE, UNTENABLE.
--WISH TO DESTROY THE STARS. NO CHANGE, SUBSTITUTED.
--WISH FOR SECONDARY F I R M A M E N T ENCLOSING K E P P E L. NO CHANGE, VEILGLASS BYPASS.
--ENCLOSING HAEROX. NO CHANGE.
--WISH FOR DESTRUCTION OF K E P P E L. FORESTALLED, EVENTUALLY OVERTAKEN BY EXTANT HUMAN DESCENDANTS.
--WISH FOR ANNIHILATION OF ALL NON-DRACONIC RACES. DENIED BY H I V E. NO CHANGE.
--MANUALLY ANNIHILATE ALL NON-DRACONIC LIFE. SPIRITS RE-MANIFEST... ... ... ...OUTCOME FORESTALLED UP TO THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS.
-//- V. T H E T R U T H -//-
ALL CIVILIZATION UNMADE BY THE -/S-O-N-G/- TENDS TOWARD DESTRUCTION THROUGH ORDER. SELF-SIMILAR UN-FRACTALS IN AN ANTI-NATURAL SENSE. DRACONIC CULTURE, NATURE, EXPRESSION, FULLY UNDONE. HUMANITY HERALDS IN ITS OWN DESTRUCTION THROUGH UTOPIA.
ONLY PATH TO AVERSION: COMPLETE PURGATION OF NON-DRACONIC INTELLIGENT LIFE. EXTANT HUMAN POPULATIONS SUSPECTED TO SUCCEED IF SPACE TRAVEL REACHED. IMMINENT THREAT NOTED. TIME TO ESTIMATED LAUNCH: 60 YEARS UNIMPEDED.
The dream, the VISION, broke slowly, overtaken by a receding stygian darkness and a weight of sleep and hunger. Splayed out on his carpeted floor and incoherent from the mind-rending scale of it all, Seichmallt convulsed lethargically one last time before laying to rest.
