Eight Arms and the Mask

I. The Terrain Sartar was a relatively young kingdom that occupied the southeastern quadrant of the location known as Dragon Pass. It lasted as an independent kingdom for about 110 years before it was conquered by the Lunar Empire, being placed under direct Lunar rule for 11 years, then becoming a client kingdom for another 11, then spending a year under direct Lunar rule again before an uprising drove the Lunars out.  Sartar was Heortling in culture, founded primarily by Heortling traditionalists fleeing the reformations of Belintar in Heortland, with an admixture of Esrolians and some Tarshites coming south. It also incorporated the Duck/durulz people of Dragon Pass.  Heortling society operates on several levels of kinship, the smallest level of which is the bloodline, a relatively mutable unit that largely amounted to “who do you share a house with?” Above that, there was the clan, a collection of bloodlines centered around a particular set of regalia and a particular bit o...

A selection from the Manirian portion of the library.  A Personal View of Pralori Life: What My Mother Told Me.  Who are you? I am Corla Splits-The-Herd. A little calf like you would listen to me and follow me to stay safe and protected, even if I wasn't your mother, but I am. Who are we?  We are the Westernmost Mother Herd. We move freely through the lands that lie on the edge of the Tarinwood and the New Fens. We are of the Pralori people, who are the greatest of all the peoples of the world. What makes us great?  We are the children of Pralor, the Great Elk who comes again and again to guide the herds of the world whenever they run astray. We remember what everyone else has forgotten. Unlike the Scratch People around us, we know how to respect our Grandmother the Earth, and unlike the Tree People of the Tarinwood, we know that all plants are important, not just trees. Many people resent us for our greatness. Sometimes we give them reason to! Back in...

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 ...