LORE STORIES 3: The Convocation - The Silent Vigil
By: Laochan
*** Author's Note: In an attempt to bring the lore to life, I have decided to write (hopefully a few) stories from the different eras in the rift timeline from the commoner's viewpoint. ***
Her head down and her eyes on the tray of tea she held out to the Sorcerer-king of the Catari tribe, Lira pretended not to hear the conversation of the table of kings. All day they had talked and argued and she alone had been allowed to serve then food and drinks. The guards stood at the door round the clock just as she stood in the shadows waiting for a gesture or cough to call her over for a request. Lira knew why she had been chosen for the job. She knew why the king thought her a safe choice.
When she was young, planar creatures had attacked her settlement and killed all their clansmen. She would have been among the dead had her mother not hid her under a pile rugs and told her to not make a sound. From that day forward, Lira had not made a sound. When the solders of the closest city found her days later among the dead and asked her what had happened, she did not make a sound. When she was brought before the Sorcerer-king and he demanded to know what had happened to her settlement, she did not make a sound. When the Vigil gods placed a protective Ward around all of Telara and everyone was rejoicing that the planes could no longer hurt them, she was silent. Even when the king took pity and invited her to be a servant in his court, she just nodded. And today, the sorcerer-king depended on that trait of character.
The king had taken a fondness to her quiet and judgment-free listening when he needed to talk something over with himself. Today, she served him and his equals, the sorcerer-kings of the other 13 tribes of the Eth. She had known this conversation was coming. All the important characters were about the table and each chimed in his feeling on the topic of "The Convocation." The Ward had freed all of Telara from the planes themselves, but not from the cults they had left here. The city states of the Eth were filled with dragon sympathizers and the Sorcerer-kings fought a silent war for control of their people. The Mkhai king called for more war machines like those of old instead of their modern framing and building machine counterparts: their sourcestones to fuel it all. The Khaliti clan thought it was a lack of enough of their finely crafted weapons some of which rivaled the dwarven crafter's work ...weapons which would cast down upon the cultist rays of light capable of burning through a man's skin. However, it was the Arkeen Sourcerer-king with his knowledge of life magic which had called the Catari king to cast the Convocation, a taboo and uncertain spell, and so the long discussions had continued.
Although Lira was not quite sure what the Convocation involved, she understood what they wanted to accomplish. They wished to become as powerful as gods...to ascend all other Eth. Only if they had more power then the machines and technology of the common Eth could they hope to control their city-states. Lira thought to herself of the creatures of the planes who had torn away all that was dear to her and the power which they had possessed. Perhaps with this Convocation they would be ready for any power the dread gods saw fit to throw at them through their cultists. On the other hand, she envisioned the sorcerer-kings becoming tyrants. Her thoughts were interrupted by a light cough and she hurried to the side of her King. He handed her a list of items which she could not read and bade her go to the local apothecary to collect them. She was to return that evening to help set up.
Lira roamed through the streets of the city. The bells and chimes rang in the tall towers and the machines whirled and moaned as they followed their masters down the streets carrying loads of silk from the looms and grain from the fields. Everything seemed to glitter in the sun, the roofs of the domed towers, the backs of the machines in the streets, and the glass of the large bridge which lead out of town and to the other cities of the Eth empire. She didn't much mind the world just as it was. Making her way towards the glass sky walk, she thought to herself what a world of gods might be like... of sorcerer-kings who could not be killed and who could kill others like it was nothing. Should they have such power? Was the fact they can made the sands turn up crops and tamed the dunes with them sky walks not enough? A low chime rang in the wind as she climbed the stairs to the glass bridge. The apothecary lived just on the other side of the bridge on the outskirts of the city. The hurried her steps, she did not wish to be late.
When she returned that evening, the room which had long been the King's private library looked nothing like itself. There were large vats of liquid which lined the walls and hoses which lead to a central platform which held a star-shaped machine. There were thirteen circles drawn on the floor and the Arkeen king kneeled on the floor putting the last of the runes down and then checking the power lines. The sorcerer-kings had not wasted any time. Her powdered herbs were added to the liquids and they started to bubble and change colors and again she move back to her spot in the shadows.
After hours of preparation, when the sun had long left the sky and threatened to rise once more, Lira nodded awake as the tank beside her began to bubble madly. The Kings did not notice her wake as they were already on their platforms chanting. Their hands held out and casting light into the star-shaped machine in the center, their energy lighting up the tubes and each of the tanks around her. She backed away to the wall as she watched the tears run down their faces. Why were they crying? Did it hurt? Were they sad? The room shook and the kings bodies glowed a greenish hue. She steadied herself once more as the ground shook and the wall behind her cracked. The kings chanted through it all. Lira stumbled to the floor as it seemed to give way beneath her. Was the building sinking? She heard a great shattering of glass outside and the screams. She ran from the room, whatever the Convocation was...it was not the world she wanted to see.
The kings did not know or even perceive what was happening to the world outside their room. The glass sky walks cracked and shattered and the towers fell onto their sleeping people. The buildings began to sink as the sand turned to quicksand. The spell was to make them more powerful then any Eth, but it was not in the way they had envisioned. They were not to gain any more power than they already possessed. Instead, the longer they cast the Convocation, the weaker the Eth people became. When at last the kings stopped, the machines of the Eth stood silent and all they could hear was the sobbing of their people.