18.5 Nothing but Knowledge

General Summary

Day 225

My small group disperses amongst the survivors of Afan for the day, making sure everyone is comfortable and well. Torrick keeps mostly to himself, grappling with the knowledge that his brother might not have been saveable regardless of his death.   I spend the day inside the cave feeling out the magic and deciphering the Osyr runes inscribed on the walls. It’s clear that the magic here existed long before the Empress - it’s just another place of unique power that she was able to capture and use.   The binding magic here is powerful but not the same as the magic at Council Rock. The power here ties people to a binding even beyond death. One could be bound to another such that even death wouldn’t destroy them entirely if their person didn’t allow it. You could also be bound, unwavering, to a mission or cause. The magic here would bestow a compulsion and allow the individual to exceed their natural life in order to achieve it.   Just a few moons ago I had told Magdalena I didn’t want to know the secrets of becoming Undying yet. With this magic before me, I wonder if there are other ways with lighter costs. Or if, truly, the best way to serve a people is to persist through many eras as an undying source of guidance, knowledge, and history. Kadia has been such a valuable part of our family and she swore herself to a half-life thousands of years ago. In her and in every stone guardian we come across I see myself. We might not make fast friends of all these races in even three or four more centuries, and what then? Who will I be when I am Caravel’s age and all my elders have already left? Will I still be responsible for all of this?   More likely I’ll be able to pass it to Bran and Hella. Every mission worth committing to is also worth releasing when it’s time. Nothing robust rests on the shoulders of one person.   The largest inscriptions here are those for binding an entire race. Specifically I see the rite that the Empress would have used in binding the elves. It’s a clever use of blood magic - traversing up and down a bloodline to capture the oaths of everyone who shares it. You could use it to bind a family (or curse them, I imagine) if you had only one individual to work it on. If you had an entire city, I imagine you could swear an entire race. Something of a brute force method, I think, but no less impressive for it. Anyone not sharing in the original bloodline would quickly join it through their offspring and it wouldn’t take long to cover an entire race. But still, there have been rumours of unbound elves here just as there are uncollared dwarves in the Valley.   Missing from the runes on the wall are the magicks that bestow a gift upon those bound to the Empress. The Voice of the Ventarri, the shadow-stepping of the elves, and the gifts of the Carthians are not here. They must have been separate fragments that the Empress wove together.   I sit and think for a while about the ethics here. In part, what it means to bind a race and who has that authority. And once a race is so dispersed and fragmented amongst itself, as humans are now, how can anyone know what is best for them? I had thought that elves had long had a unified racial view, as do the fae and trolls, and perhaps dwarves at a time when they had clan leaders who sold their race in bondage.   Here I have been offering oaths to humans as individuals and I know it doesn’t span their bloodline. I wonder if there will ever be a time when it feels appropriate to allow that span to flow. And the dwarves? Who gets to decide what is best for them? If we uncollar the Ventarri do we also strip them of the Voice? Questions too large to ponder at the moment. Much easier to focus on a more immediate question: Is this knowledge that should be readily accessible to anyone who wanders into this canyon?   This is not a question I’d be pondering if it weren’t for Drakken. He and Amytri are the only wizards I know of who might be able to decipher these runes in an ancient language. He is the only person I know of who might be interested in binding an entire race.   I call for Bran’s assistance and explain the intricacies of all the runes. It’s the sort of thing that an exceptionally talented wizard could derive from first principles over decades, the way the Empress must have, but the writing on the walls gives up its secrets easily if one knows the language.   His eyes glow, even though I haven’t asked a question. There is an inevitable importance here, but he can’t see who will make it important. The magic here is begging to forge something different from what it has previously made. It might be a weapon, or it might not. It will be the Breaker of Chains and so the runes will have nothing to do with it. It is a breaker, not a binder. So I will leave the runes here, though I transcribe them all into my journal as well. If it took the Empress decades to formulate it then perhaps I will be able to come up with its inverse in less time, using her work as a foundation.   Leaving behind wizardly things, Bran brings me to meet a people he has been tending to. The Kiriti - vulpine people with reddish fur and bushy tails. He quietly tells me that they think they are all that’s left of their race. Krosht took them from their village of a few hundred and only a dozen of them now remain. I speak with Rhyna, who is seemingly their leader. She seems a bit older, perhaps more delicate than the others but a lean dozen individuals is hardly basis for a comparison. She speaks gently and with different structure to other races that I’ve met, referring to her companions as ‘kind and gentle ones’ and herself as ‘this unworthy one’. It’s hard to contain the urge to correct this description, though I realize it must be cultural. She tells me that these people do not fight, and so must be protected. She says that Bran has told her that I am great and powerful and that I find places for people. And she asks me the price for finding her people a place, promising to pay it no matter what.   It seems I am sending everyone to Dreamfall these days, and I tell her there is no price for this beyond continuing to treat others with kindness. Her ears perk up a little and she seems cautiously pleased. And then asks if my people, too, dance and make music of the wind. The whole lot of them perk up when I tell them yes. I think they’ll get along well with Caravel once he’s better.   Bran and I leave them to themselves and continue onwards together to plan our next moves. Many people here have homes to return to and are strong enough to make the journey and carry their wounded with them. Others, like the Kiriti, will likely travel towards the Armed Nation and then onwards to Dreamfall or wherever suits them best. I hope that Torrick and Puddle will be able to guide everyone and manage Caravel, with Alrudian and Crag’s help.   But Bran proposes another idea - he could stay here to manage the journey to the Armed Nation. He could organize those going onwards to Dreamfall and ensure everyone’s safety. Caravel, Alrudian, and Zidi are fresh through the Barrier and will need guidance. These lost people will need strength to lean on as well. If it weren’t for our prior mission it is something I would do myself. But this is why we have family, and why we have bonds that traverse such great distances. It would all probably be fine without Bran’s presence...but it will be so much better for them if he stays.   These humans grow up so fast. I lean on him perhaps for the last time for the next few weeks. And I reassure him that it’s the right thing to do when he sheepishly says he feels like he’s creating an excuse to stand on his own for a bit. He’s ready, and I’m glad he knows it. I can spare a few weeks for the promise of a few centuries, I tell him. “The whole of my life,” he responds.