Flame of Night, Flame of Mind
The tale of the Pale Flame is one of the oldest Myths from the Ardus Country. The myth involves the Arden adventurer Kiravelof (Kirav) and her journey to the Mountain Ovrag, to its pinnicle where burns a white fire known as the Pale Flame. The journey has many stops, but three are focused on, as they are the key components of the Vissicaran Way as the people of this country know it.
She seeks the Pale Flame atop the mountain, and its light above her is always visible, the goal always in sight, so that she can atone for the murder of her brother, Nerav. He hated their mother, and after he and their mother fought, he destroyed their family's heirloom blade, and so Kirav exiles herself until she can atone, taking the handle of the weapon and its shards with her, deigning not to return unless the blade was remade. The blade was reforged at the Pale Flame, but was stained red by Nerav's blood.
She brought the blade home, having realized her mistake in whose life to take, and slew her mother.
The story involves Bassyrikin in a surprisingly austere, respectable, and wisened, if standoffish fashion, which is rather rare for most myths. They are described as guardians and caretakers for the Pale Flame.
The Pale Flame in Full
Kiravelof, or Kirav, as the people of Ardus combine first and last names, had been living a life without direction beyond her training as a Sarudeth, elite warrior class for the families of Ardus.
Her mother Tkera, a Sarudeth Master, was especially brutal to her and her sisters, to train them for their lives as warriors for the family, and for the Ardus Country's Viscount, of whom the Elof family was extremely loyal and close to, for having raised so many famous Ardus warriors. Nearly daily, the sisters received beatings, while her brother watched in horror, enjoying a much softer life. Kirav and her sisters did not enjoy their treatment, though they did consider their lives honorable and meaningful, if limited by the happenstance of their birth. They would become Sarudeth, and it was as simple as that. But her brother never liked watching this. He would return home from his tutoring to see his sisters with hours left of their brutal training, and when he would speak with them, he was always discomforted by their treatment by their mother, and so he resented her. His sisters would not speak against her, especially not with other family present, and so he grew frustrated with them, growing bold against his mother in their defense.
One day, in a fit of anger, Nerav and Tkera argued loudly after she had struck Kirav before him. She, however, would show no such brutality to Nerav normally, but when he drew a weapon against her, she was so surprised by the act, that by the time she could respond, he had struck her hand, dismembering her sword arm. In an instinctual defense of her mother, Kirav killed her brother.
Mourning his death, Kirav could look at neither her mother or sisters, who raged against one another, broken at the loss of their dear brother, and fled the country in search of atonement. She knew only the Vissicaran Way, but was lost to the Way, unable to come to terms with her murder. Their family was destroyed, and though she loved them all, she could not stay.
She left the Bronze Incarcera in search of a the Way she had lost, to know what to do with herself, and with her family. Eventually, in the black of a starless night, she saw the peak of the Ovrag Mountain, a Pale Flame that burned like a faint star in the distance. She followed the light. Day after day, night after night, guided by the blaze that burned in a light like no other. She came to a bridge of tarnished copper, both sides with a great ringway, but as she crossed, the ways before and behind her suddenly upon them had two identical monsters. She stood, swinging on the metal bridge, as the things looked upon her.
They were the Twvera, Mythraleviatha with feathers of stone, three legs that end in raven talons, a lobster's tail, and the face of a spider. They spoke in unison to her, and as she looked between the two, it seemed that both ways lead to the Ovrag, to the Pale Flame that she had followed. Creatures of the Sarrish Way, a feared and mysterious way to Kirav, she was warry of their tricks, but they spoke on.
"You find yourself in a crossroad, a path leading to the Way you desire, and another Way to your demise. We are hungry, indeed, and we have need of your sustenance, but we are bound by Laws ancient. You must answer us an answer known to you, lest we each take a half of you to devour. We ask this; before you lies two paths, two futures, and two Ways. They both have one thing in common, that is neither here, nor there. This thing goes forward, never back, and though it does so certainly, it bears much uncertainty. It will go on without you but not you without it, and brings both morning's dawn and twilight's dusk. Mountains and kings fight it, and only experience alights it. What is it?"
Kirav thought for a moment, a long moment. She hung above the ravine, with two great beasts before her that would surely destroy her. The two ways before her remained identical. Both lead to the Ovrag Mountain, both to the Pale Flame, and indeed they had many things in common. But in them, the flame danced differently, the mountain had crumbled differently, and the grasses waved against different winds. She repeated the riddle to herself, over and over two herself, again and again, time after time, before she realized the answer was right before her.
"Time!" she answered. The beasts sighed their heavy, hungry sighs, and allowed her passage.
She went through the portals as the beast's illusions faded, and began her path up the Ovrag.
Eventually, she came to a great gate of bronze and copper, the only path up the mountain, to be sure. All other ways would result in death, for every other way had strong winds and rocky falls. Guarding this gate was a creature of malice and wisdom, greed and purpose. A Tasking Demon, of which she had known tales, for they were of the Bassyric. The creature was pale and rotund, sitting on a gnarled chair fashioned from an entire pine tree, contorted unnaturally. The creature bore a great axe of obsidian, and beckoned Kirav to it.
"To pass, girl, you must bring me the Olm of Ovrag alive. When it is in my hand, you will be free to go up Ovrag. If it is dead, I shall destroy you." The Demon open its palm, and waited.
And so she left, to ways of the mountain that did not go up. To leveled fields upon the mountain, and other crevices she could find, in search of the Olm. Indeed, rather soon, she had found the thing. It was small and slender, and slick as could be. The thing would move and duck and dash and squirm out of any trap Kariv made for it, and despite everything, she could not catch it. Even in her hands, it would slip out effortlessly. For one year, Kariv tried to catch it with no success. Until, one starless night, she had had enough. Fashioning a bow and arrow, Kariv struck the beast with with wood, pinning it to Virosia, to the mountain. She picked it up, and ran as fast as she could to the Demon, the Olm bleeding to death in her hands. She made it to the Demon, pulling the arrow from it as it was dropping into its waiting palm. The creature writhed one last time before dying in the Demon's hand.
He pulled aside and said, "You may pass," to Kariv.
She continued, ascending the Ovrag, step by step for three years of her life. Every day she looked up to that Pale Flame for guidance, for even in the night, it burned out the light of any other star in the sky. She strained every day against the mountain's paths, for it was a long and treacherous path, and she had to reach the Pale radiance.
Before she could reach the peak of the mountain, she found herself at a hotspring. The area was warm and pleasant, and many bountiful plants grew for her to pluck and eat. She could finally rest after a long, arduous time. Another monster, however, called this place home.
A light formed rainbows from the geysers and hot springs, but the light did not come from the sun. A creature of marble flesh bore plates of metal in gold shades, like armor that grew from it. It was broad and slow, like a statue that moved, and its face was much like the demonic, indeed, but porcelain and auric, gilded. In the place of its chest was a hollow ring, filled with a ball of pure sunlight.
Where it left shadows, the fertile ground died and the rich waters dried.
As it appraoched Kariv, the shadow she cast, too, caused whatever it was behind her to wither. It brought up its hand before its own light, and in the dark spotlight it directed, it seemed to draw out death with a shadow's brush. Kariv managed to avoid the shadow, rushing to the beast while tearing her cloak off, and throwing it to the light, snuffing the creature's light as she ran for the sun. Shadow was cast in all directions from the beast, and so its shadow engulfed itself, killing it. Her cloak blew away in the new, cold wind as the thing died, one side shadowed with death, the other gilded in a light of perfection.
She rushed, then, to the Pale Flame atop the mountain's peak. She ran for days, climbed for hours at a time, and only one week after the creature of light, she came to the brazier of white fire.
She cast her blade into the fire, the blade that had broken and drawn her ire to her brother, and then she put her hands in the fire, which was cool, not hot. The blood, she felt, left her hands, and bound itself to the blade, which became reforged in the fire. Its steel blade was forged new, crimson stained, and Kariv took it, leaving the Orvag. It took her five years to return home, and when she did, she met with her sisters, who had all aged into fine warriors of the Sarudeth. Her mother Tkera lived, and Kariv demanded a duel.
Her mother made argument that she had changed, that she had meditated on the loss of her son, and her daughter as well. She had come to peace with it, and had treated her other daughters much better in the last years. Her sisters admitted her mother was loving now, and was indeed a loved one. Kariv, however, demanded justice, and though she had made it home only by morning, she had murdered her mother by nightfall. A starless night, lit only by a Pale Flame.
