Eight Arms and the Mask

I burst forth from my body in a flare of wings, flapping and spinning in circles around myself for a while. It has been too long since I have come here. I whistle and sing at my fetch, which settles herself on my body, brooding over it, ready to defend me against whatever threats may encroach on my little alcove of repose. She sings back, telling me that I am a fool. I am well aware, I tell her, after all, how long did it take for me to recognize you? We part, and I flap for altitude, grateful for the calm updrafts the Right Air gives a sanctuary to, allowing me to gain height over the world, leaving behind the flat land for the middle of the air, where the proper birds can gather. There are a great many of us today, flocking and forming parliaments and assemblies in the skies, declaiming and practicing our rhetoric. When I returned to the the deepest illusion, what we call the Middle World, freshly awoken and split, I will admit to being disappointed. I had, in many ways, started ...

After a decade of civil war and strife, where figure after figure emerged and attempted to claim dominion over Peloria, where at last in disgust Deneskerva and Jar-Eel attempted to raise up a prosthetic Red Emperor, the true Red Emperor returned. Previously, when the Red Emperor had died and suffered a lengthy absence, he had returned in a Carmanian Mask, Magnificus. This time, he returned in a Mask from the Provinces, from Tarsh, stalwart loyal Tarsh, conquered by Argrath and then delivered into the deathly grip of Mularik Ironeye, liberated by feuding between the two "heroes" over a toll, then delivered at last into the hand of Annstad of Dunstop, a lover of Jar-Eel and of Argrath, who managed to play both sides against one another and satisfy all parties. Phargentes the Younger, though, was said to be a member of the old Tarshite royal family, a son conceived by Moirades at the moment of his liberation from the world by Jar-Eel, and thus Phargentes was said to be Jar-...

I met this woman in Elz Ast at the dockyards, where she was explaining to wide-eyed soldiers how to survive in a land like Eol, as they prepared to sail up the White Sea for some expedition or another. Probably not a Kalikos one, I think.  She told me later, "What do I know about Eol? But those boys and girls feel safer, don't they?" I admired her ability to reconcile truth and lies, though not so bluntly, and she said, "Ah, I've been doing it for long enough." At that point I began taking notes. This is part of what I wrote down.  Within the cities, they say that Aether Primolt had four sons. That Dayzatar was a being of pure thought, that Lodril was a being of pure emotion, and that Yelm had to mediate between them, and so he ruled over both. And Arraz was his servant in this. They say that Lodril never forgot Yelm ruled over him, and that he had to sometimes fight his sons to get them to remember this. They say that Dayzatar never forgot Yelm'...

Once, the earth was dying. The god of hatred, fire spilling from his third eye, raised his club for the final blow on Ernalda, the earth's queen. The club he carried was the weapon called Death, which had already taken so many gods, and would now take another. And then soon, the universe. The god of hatred, if he thought of such things, minded it not. He hated the universe as much as he did anything else. The club did not fall. A woman sprung from Ernalda's dying body, and her hand closed on Zorak Zoran's wrist and broke it. Death fell from his hand as he howled, and the woman picked it up. The club shifted and writhed like a snake, and then it was an axe. Long-hafted, with a blade of black iron. She moved as if to raise it, and Zorak Zoran fled. He hated dying even more than anything. The woman then turned to her mother, lying broken, and prepared to weep. No tears came. Her mother slept. She was not dead. The woman called out, and summoned those attendants of Ernalda ...

The White Moon is a key part of the Lunar Way. Where the current Red Moon with the shadow that sweeps across Her face is the Mask of Natha, the White Moon will be the Mask of Zaytenera, the Seventh Mask of Sedenya, representing completion and fulfillment. The White Moon is thus an eschatological phenomenon in the popular Lunar Way- the White Moon of Peace. The current orthodoxy of the Empire holds that the Red Moon will turn White when the Lunar Way has been spread to every corner of Glorantha. The current orthodoxy also holds that the Lunar Way includes the Lunar Empire necessarily, and that the Empire will wither away only after the White Moon rises. There have been dissenters from this position ever since the Red Moon rose. The number of positions they take on the White Moon have been manifold, all of them agreeing at first only on one point- the current orthodoxy is in error. However, popular eschatological fervor has begun to grow in the Empire and in the Heartlands, not least...

This is a fairly intriguing bit of popular proselytizing for the White Moon Movement, in an effort to win converts within the Provinces. The irreverence of the author certainly helped keep it in circulation well outside the boundaries of the Fiscal Anarchists who promulgated the pamphlet.  Formal bans of politically suspicious material were often more honored in the breach than in the respecting, of course. Despite the best results of the Spoken Word and the Examiners, these ideas proved difficult to quarantine and contain. It is, however, a blessing that they preserved and maintained so much of this subversive literature. We would be much poorer today if not for their taxidermist instincts.  Preface It is with some trepidation that I record and bind the following document. Firstly, neither I nor any of the other scholars here can be assured that it is truly authoritative, as the means of publication used for this pamphlet are such that the number of errors, interpolation...