RESHAPING SILVER

[riorr 1780]

 

RESHAPING SILVER

 

A white tome of great age, opened once more. A modern saga for an ancient peoples.

 

 

 

“Do you see it as I do? The sun, yet to rise from beneath the horizon. The towers, their foundations in mind but not stone. This is it, Tiuthwyn - where we shall reshape our silver.” - Sohaer Kolvar Uradir

 

 

From the birch stern of the creaking caravel Dancing Debate did the dark-robed silhouette of Kolvar Uradir stare out into the distance. A century of humiliation at the hands of Haense, of Urguan, of their own people - and at the end of it, the loss of their capital, of their Silver Isle. A sick society fleeing like rats from their war-torn home, wreaked by the havoc of Azdrazi, Voidling incursions and Haeseni raiders. The distant shore, sandy and arid, was lit by the soft rays of the moon, the water below tar-black. His pondering was interrupted by the voice of a woman.

 

“There was no choice.” By the light of swinging lanterns, the sea-green eyes of the blonde seemed alight in their flame. Eager, almost. How could she not be, after the indignities they had suffered at the hands of lesser folk, at the hands of their own?

 

He laughed, shook his head. “There is always a choice, Visaj. Even our predecessors’ indecision, their self-mockeries. We allowed it to fester. Ne longer - that, now, is our choice.” No matter the truth to his words, they stung those that heard them in the quiet night. To most, thankfully, they were drowned out by the sound of waves beating the creaking hull of their hastily-built ship, of the flapping of the sails in the wind.

 

Once, Haelun’or had boasted quite the fleet - seven deep sea carracks, each mightier than the last, each sunk by foreign warfleets. The Sillumiran had refused to defend their docks even as sailors lept from their burning wrecks - How, they had asked, are authors to defeat knights? Once, the quill had been mighty enough in Haelunorian hands - forging alliances with the most ambitious of emperors, the wisest of philosophers. Ancient history, by the standards of the Valah. Not by that of the Motherland. The woman stepped back into the shadows, to take the helm from Korvec - a mason manning the helm worked well enough in the deep Southern Channel, where there were no shores to run aground upon and the harshest of tasks was reading a compass against a dim lantern and ensuring they stayed facing south. The next step in their journey, however, was through rivers, where reefs and rocks waited eager to halt them in the empty wilderness. Here, Korvec would take what little rest he could in the long hours before daybreak.

 

The journey would be a gamble - the Haelunorians, after all, were for all their talk of progress, beings of routine. Routines of debates, of drinking, of writing. Routines, too, that had been a different sort of progress - of insulting purposelessly the lessers, of haughtiness cast to empty air. They were debaters before they were warriors, authors before they were strategists, designers before they were siege engineers - and they should have known. To shake their ineptitudes, to cast aside the chaff that the wheat might make flour - none knew better than the newly minted Sohaer the difficulty of the task. Not a decade prior, Miravaris had chosen to prostrate before Uruk hordes rather than make such a decision. The world knew the result of that blunder. The silent column of Sillumiran standing behind Kaelan Aldin knew. The shivering debaters, authors, designers - they too knew.

 

Then it began. The keeling of the ship, the sliding of rope across its deck hard to the starboard side. Those that had never left the Silver Isle - they may have been forgiven in believing the caravel about to sink as it crossed upriver through the delta, took its first turn into the river. Silent still did the Sillumiran stand - Eledar’s dour eyes shadowed beneath his salt-dulled steel helmet. Kolvar glanced behind him, at the following, smaller sloop in the center of their line - where Councillor Maeyr’onn and, more importantly, the Maheral Calith likely rested beneath the deck. The Sohaer gripped the railing. He had grown seasick quite easily in his youth. Now, however, his pale face was not so in struggle, but in determination.

 

Then came the creaking, loud, ominous. His knuckles grew white - here was the difficulty charted out by Councillor Sullas, whom had scouted the lands ahead, whom they hoped would be waiting at the appointed place, his caravan to be a beacon in the night. Reefs scraped first the barnacles on the underside of the ship, then the lapis-flaked paint that marked below the waterline, then finally chipped away at the boards of the ship itself. The sound of calls belowdecks, of rapidly slamming hammers nailing repairs into place. 

 

Perhaps the gamble had not paid off - perhaps it had been a death sentence for those few that remained. Worse, they might survive, only to be fed on by the wolves and the buzzards. Would he be remembered for his stupidity, as they remembered so many before him? Or would he be remembered for bravery? The shuddering of the ship as it ground against another reef rang through his mind. If only he could be like their lesser cousins, taking Aenguls and spirits for Gods. There was time yet to place their fate in the hands of higher powers, those beings that so oft hurled meteors and doomsdays at the Descendants. Then, finally, the call of the lookout pierced the clamor. 

 

“Dead ahead!”

 

 

 

[Iverach 712]

"And so a new chapter begins for the Mali'thill." mused Kolvar Uradir

[SteppeNomad 1552]

"AY'HAELUN'OR! Our home and blessed land! May we all, truest sons and daughters, hold ourselves firm! As our walls erect once more, and the great ages never dim! For we remember the Fall of The High-Walled Cihi, upon that isle blessed. And always will we remember, the fiends who struck to take it, with no true need and no true heed! For we must hold to ourselves, unity and togetherness for this, our polis, our cihi!"

 

Valiant, the hero in his polished armor of bronze and silver looks out to those comfortable warm seas. "At least we stay close to the source. The Salt of our Labour"

[nerdy 203]

"Ay'maehr'sae hiylun'ehya!" Anara Elervathar would assert. 

[Lord_of_losers 950]

"I wonder if I'm banished from this city, too." Sarah Artenin, local banished woman, asks herself.

[_Sheylo_ 979]

Valazaer Calith, one of the well-known of the current rendition of Haelun'or lets out a thoughtful hum, "Mmmh, Maehr'sae Hiylun'ehya."