I Have Proof

The following is excerpted from the last book of Oudi. Upon setting your eyes on these texts, you are forbidden to speak to your brother monks. Mark all heterodoxies or otherwise contradictions to Canon. You may not sleep or eat until your work is finished. You must not harm the texts or yourself while you read.

Once your work is done or you can no longer endure the texts, raise your hand. Krismoy will hand you a draught, which you must drink.

Upon completing a full moon of meditation, you may rejoin the temple after an examination by the abbot.

The Godhead is a fraud and I have proof. Artwork removed. Paragraph excerpted.

My name is Ens Oudi. I was born on the black steppes of Deathsea where they border Aryo. I am a magician. I must re-count to you all of this, else you labor one more moment as thrall to liars.

My family were all nomads. I was raised as a goat-herder. Foreigners misunderstand, ‘Deathsea’ sounds so forbidding, and although it was often barren, we knew our way around the dyed red stones well, To refer it by any other name was a crime. Of course.

So, it was some time after my eleventh year. My family built our yurts in a ravine because the winds were fierce that season. I spent may days pulling weeds and roots out from under rocks, and mother taught me to mix them into soups, and all this was good. Artwork removed.

That day, my brothers and I saw a Consonated army pass by. We had never seen such a riot of color, their banners, or so many men  at once that the ground seemed to shake. When they sighted us, many of their men came to camp in our ravine.

One of their priests went around with a guard of quarter-knights and gave simple tests to all the children. There was nothing mystical in this; they were memory games, tongue twisters, and then there were the simple checks; teeth, bones, eyes. I paid it no mind, only the evening after did they come to me and tell me that my parents had consented to my joining their cause. To this day, I have no idea if-

I rode with the army for many more moons. The priest taught me to read, how to say simple prayers, and gave me a window into the wider world. We were marching for justice, he said. There were wicked men to the south who would burn holy young boys like me at the stake or eat their flesh. I was too young to join any battle, and all I heard of their victory was in the celebrations from the massive camp.

It was then I learned the army was an enormous coalition, and after that day, all went their separate ways. All this seemed so momentous and worthy, you see, and I was kept so buy learning, there was no time to miss my old self. Artwork removed.

We were on the way to Yagdazid. Hewma temple, in fact, and I would spend many, any years there- passages excerpted -this is a book of magic and I have a spell to teach you. It was the first I ever learned, you see. When my teacher allowed me to touch his auzom medallion, I was astounded by its weight and how cold it was to the touch, and asked him about the nature of the engravings of exact, angular lines, this was the spell he taught me:

“The Gods are the artisans of the world, the Eumoi are their hands, our kings are their instruments and our lives are their works, forever, forever, forever.”

I said it many times over auzom. It does nothing. The words have no power.

Hewma temple was a dry, dusty place craved from sandstone. It stood all alone at the top of a mesa. Not so dissimilar form my home, although the sun was much harsher, but pilgrims would bring supplies often, so rarely did we want for food and water. Some simple asceticism was pushed on us; threadbare robes and the like, and then we began our first meditations; quite a feat for young boys. A fair few were expelled into the desert.

What was there to learn? Mnemonics, mostly, more powerless spells, and choir singing, too, but here and there we learned useful things, like the mixing of incenses and the handling of smith’s tools.

Over many years, I learned the path of the magician. I was a natural herbalist with a keen nose, and I became well-read in the names of Eumoi and the handling of ivory tools. I had become esteemed, and was apprenticed to my first master, Deygon. It was an enviable position Deygon was an understanding man and had no interest in rapping knuckles or sending apprentices to the stocks. It was through his eyes I first understood magic, and it was because of him that, after many years, I set eyes on auzom again. Artwork removed.

It was a simple work; a small ball, smaller than a fist, and separate from it was a trio of ivory legs that could be used to make it stand. Deygon would hold the ball out to the light and say his prayers. To my surprise, the glow of the auzom maintained itself indoors; indeed, his study was lit by them. Deygon was quite clear; “Consonated magic like ours is only possible through the auzom. It comes down from the highest heaven; the Gods want us to have it. Us mortals don’t have the magic in us, and that’s all by design. Power’s a heavy burden, it’s why we magicians train to be holy.”

It satisfied me at the time. Passage excerpted.

Perhaps Deygon’s explanation was a test; if it was, I passed, because not too long after he trusted me to begin learning to forge my own auzom. The principles are simple; our world is awash with invisible power. Dogma claims this power comes from the Gods, like heat from a coal, but I-

Auzom has a special permeability to this power; many cultures have different names for it. The designs we carve in capture and shape this power, like one mirror that reflects another.   

On my twentieth year, I began to work in the forge. It was there I learned not all auzom is hewsome enough for magic. I learned to break rocks that had fallen from the heavens, test and prove it, or even sift through dust with a perforated wooden pan. Then came the ivory tools; it was then I learned we had auzom tools too, but those were not for apprentices.

Next came learning; we had libraries of scrolls and tomes that detailed the patterns that might be caved; angles, depth, shape, consistency. All these things, I learned.

It was quite the test. I rose at dawn, my time divided between reading scripture in the dusty library, meditation under the sable sun, and then into the choking darkness of the forge. My first spell was exactly as master Deygon instructed; a flat, round amulet of Auzom run-off, fit only for the simplest geometries. Still, when left in the sunlight, it began to glow. It lit my study for many years.

Most of my peers never progressed beyond this level of understanding. It was by design. Understand that by virtue of being magicians in the territory of Aryo, we fell under the authority of the Aryo Eumoi, and for this reason, we were beholden to their religion; Kaloidan. We were incentivized to become monks; most of what we learned was transferable, the mixing of incense, medical knowledge, our studies and chants.

The idea never appealed, but the majority of my fellow students quickly abandoned the forge. Many traveled from our refuge to other temples in Yagdazid. Even Master Deygon was quick to wither away. We were all subservient to the abbot, and the abbot was the personal tutor to the few who could be called actual magicians. Of them, one, Deygon, oversaw the new initiates, and the others governed the study of history, the Gods, and the forge. Despite this, all deference was given to visiting clergy. Whether they were Kaloidan, or at the head of some Consonated army, mattered not at all. Whoever they were, they treated us like servants.

It wasn’t long before my study became independent. As a magician, one becomes keenly aware of human limitation. Almost all knowledge of magic is hard won and jealously guarded. I completed my first summoning before my twenty-fifth year. I learned the appropriate rituals, prepared the appropriate auzom dedication, and called forth a representative of Genhedd. I learned enough from them to prepare the beginnings of my own spellbook.

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My course of study was scheduled around the phases of the moon and the movements of the heavens. I spent most of my time appeasing the beings that would represent Genhedd. Later, I would summon Eumoi from outside my lands. Some were inverted. Some were personal audiences. Passages removed. 

None of this went unnoticed. The masters at my temple were not used to active intellects. They kept a close eye on me. There was a turning point, I think, when I conflated some geometries and patterns from Ulde Eumoi and used them to inform my understanding of spells that were already written within the temple. Properly engraved and weighted, auzom could be a fearsome weapon. That was my first taste of battle magic.

The process was simple once the auzom was prepared; first, a prayer was said. Whether or not to say it depends on your beliefs. The real working comes from the geometries; once exposed to sunlight, even the slight hint of light would enter the fine maze on the surface of the amulet, then expand outwards as fire; it will give off a sharp squeal, and then a curtain of sparks. Ten heartbeats, and then power wold surge outwards with a ferocity that could kill men and red apart their bodies in fire. The amulet, of course, would be destroyed too.

This taste of power lead me to obsession. I became proficient in forging these battle-magics, as well as their throwing and husbandry. Most of the fingers on my left hard were lost. Still, I persisted. It so happened that one of the realms of Agnos in Ulde had just undergone censure at the hands of the Consonance. The land’s name had been stricken from the Canon, and was to be referred to as the Land of Salt. War was on the horizon, and my new skills had use. I became a battle-mage.

I knew other spells. The warriors of the Consonance were only interested in destruction. Over my journey with their army, I became a master in my own right; I trained many apprentices and in return was supplied with as much auzom as I could use and more. By the time that the salt-landers were laid low, I had accomplished myself as a magician, and conducted more summons over the three years of that war than my entire life before hand. I, and later, my apprentices, would stand behind the men-at-arms and throw our talismans. These destruction spells would blow apart fortifications and formations, and the unearthly roar would dismay the enemy. We feared archers, but Quarter-knights would stick with us like mother hens and hold up their wide wicker shields to protect us.

As the war came to close, I began to dread the return to my temple. Aside from the steppe, it was all had I ever known. What would they do? Proclaim me a master? Expect me to train new initiates? I felt I had only just begun to disturb the surface of a deep lake, and at the bottom might be some answers as to the nature of mortals and Gods. How right I was.

I had watched as a temple was erected; hundreds of fresh slaves dragged about granite blocks day and night, trees, which fascinated me, were cut down and fashioned into rollers. At the center, a pit was dug for the bodies. An army of priests and pilgrims brought a towering auzom vessel, and Evcharya was poured into the pit to sanctify the site, and all the corralled and manacled dead who had been collected over the war were dissolved within.

By this point, I was festooned with auzom. I was protected from arrows and the scathing heat. A sling-stone had taken my eye and been replaced with an Auzom orb that could see through night.  I had bandoliers of amulets and many woven necklaces of charms. I wore a straw visage of a towering horse’s head to properly honor Genheed, who I credited as my chief educator. The name of Oudi became well known. Artwork removed.

The night I learned of a new war, I felt immense relief. One lord marshal asked for me and my choir of apprentices by name. It was hardly so glorious, although glory was far from my concerns, but our opponent had called on some specific and intriguing heterodoxies. Passages removed.

Erha, and especially Danod, were awfully unclean places, and I found the jungles unbearably stifling. Our army stretched thin and traveled far and wide. I learned about the traditions of hungry-earth burial, which made the pursuit of these apparently rogue magicians very difficult. It was not my concern. I busied myself with more study. More forge-work. The acquisition of more auzom. I lost a fair few apprentices with this focus on my own power. How else was I to teach them?

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I resolved to burn down as much of the jungle as I could. I learned a lot about re-purposing slag and inscribing it to eke the bare minimum power from it. Some days I would oversee my apprentice as they tossed fire-spells into the green morass.

Investigations conducted by the army as part of their holy war determined the culprits were a sect of Bangaya. The Erha equivalent to our Kaloidan, dedicated to the Erha Eumoi, who I knew little of. Once tracked to their forested lair, most of the army had been drawn elsewhere. As it happened, these ex-bangayans had plenty of magicians of their own, although they preferred rough heaps of Auzom to my burnished discs and cylinders.

Well, once we magicians knew each other, the battle was joined, and few of the men-at-arms had the courage to interpose themselves as we lit the jungle aflame. Perhaps the abundance of food and drink combined with my newly indolent ways to slow me down. Suffice to say, I had met my match.

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From behind a hefty menhir wreathed in vines, I voiced an idle question about the nature of the enemy’s spells. To cut a very long, guarded conversation short, we made peace. It was the first time I had a sense that the magician’s fraternity transcended mortal boundaries, even ones drawn by war.

They had camped in the footprint of a giant, and had their own evcharya for the dissolution of the dead. The deep imprint impinged upon a network of tunnels and Om hives, who they had made peace with. I spent a year or two with them, and we shared all our spells.

Tree-riders, they were called. Their most precious rite was to summon the roots of Doursteyg, the great tree and oldest inverted Eumos.

These roots would lead anywhere and everywhere, and the enslaved tree was the chauffeur of the Gods, who would force it to grow hither and thither so they might move surreptitiously.

By this point, I had little hesitation in sharing my antipathy for the Gods. After I- Passages removed

-terrible firestorm. It was my most dreadful spell, and not one easily repeated without my apprentices who now, robbed of most of the faculties they had in life, were of little help. Still, the- passages removed

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I have rarely offered sacrifice. The Bangayans, however, had started me onto a new tradition. The lexicon they so revered allowed me to read fully what once had been- passage excerpted.

So in that fresh solitude, I made the choice that, in the moment of making it, was revealed to have been inevitable. The sea of flame was to be my grave. I even forged a letter to that effect from one of the Quarter-knight marshals and cast the rites that the Bangayans had shown me. It was- passages removed.

-the lowest realm, where the souls of- passages removed.

It was my first time in summoning an inverted Eumos. They revealed to me their ‘punishment names,’ the Kakomoi. I spike with the imprisoned daughter of- passage excerpted -the tortured- passage excerpted -who has been my most generous patron. They ask high prices, but offer no intermediaries.

Most often, I am shown the true nature of the highest heaven; it is a ruin, endlessly shattered and re-shaped by the Godhead. Even this title I use with disdain. All his power and knowledge, especially that of creation, is- passages removed.

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-will spell doom for the entirety of the mortal races. Only with- passages excerpted.

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-total annihilation.

What remains of the volume is lost. You may refer yourself to the Krismoy. Follow them from the chamber and follow all of their instructions. Do not attempt to speak with them; they have been deafened and blinded.

We await your return to the embrace of the holy ones with all due gratitude for your sacrifice and unshakeable faith that you will endure.