The Raiselig Dossier: The Festival of Light Part 2
The Kingdom of Tyw stood tall and proud against the white hills. From atop the king’s tallest tower, the whole of the horizon was his to call his own. There were no other rulers who dared challenge his might, nor who chafed too harshly under his rule.
The people of Tyw were hearty and strong, and unified in their delight of the one thing that was their birthright; life itself.
They worshiped the sun, did the people of Tyw. They praised its warmth, and celebrated its light. Through toil their own flesh became warm, and so it was through action they found divinity. The giant lizards that sunned themselves and darted about, fueled by the heat, was evidence enough.
And when the sun vanished, and the snows came, the people of Tyw stood defiant.
They blew their Tublehorns, they banged their Sun-drums, they shouted and cried out in jubilant exultation. Dressed in bright yellow and green, they swung their staves with hanging lanterns and colored glass.
Unique to the winter festivals of Tyw were the white globes, carefully molded and shaped out of hardened wax. The candles were lit and set inside, glowing bright through the translucent spheres, as the wax gently melted and dripped into the snow. All across Tyw, hanging ropes sagged with the weight of melting wax and burning light. Puppets danced on strings, while paper masks were waved about, frightening ill-fortune away.
Sugared crisps and dried marbled meats were shared and chewed with great gusto, and when the lucky recipients of a two-rask piece pulled it from their mouth and raised it above their head, the surrounding revelers all cheered and redoubled their noisy efforts, summoning good luck for the child — and it was always a child, somehow.
In the center of town, or at the front of the parade, or sometimes on the steps of town-hall, was the Forgotten. A human made of straw, paper streamers covering its face. One of hundreds across Tyw, and every one a symbol of the same thing.
Thousands, millions, indeterminate numbers of those who were long since forgotten.
Their names no longer spoken, their memories long since faded. Their pains, their sufferings, their hopes, their successes, all forgotten. Known only by the all-seeing sun. In the burning eye did their faces still glimmer bright, and though the people of Tyw would never more know their names, nor their place in life, nor how they helped craft and create the world of today, their influence was still felt. Secretly, silently, among the many houses and towns of the kingdom.
Raiselig inspected one of the crisps. It was properly shaped with seven points, the sign of the sun. Hefting it with a single hand, Raiselig could tell there was no two-rask piece inside. Looking closer, Raiselig could see the fortune of the time flow around the crisp, not through, a hollow hole of portent. No fate. No future. No potential, save the brief calm that came from a satisfied tongue.
For a startling moment, terrifying in its novelty, Raiselig felt the urge to bite.
Quickly, Raiselig set the crisp down again, and made their way as quickly as they could across the crowded streets, dodging swinging lights and dancing puppets.
Shosushai met up with Raiselig at the central fountain, her hair already wet with the spray, her skin glistening with a cold sheen that would soon freeze to ice. “Well?” Raiselig asked.
Shosushai held up her papers like an offering. “They are almost perfect. I have looked carefully, and found almost nothing out of place.”
“What is wrong?”
“A few misplacements, easily rectified.” She pointed to the west. “A flower hung from the statue’s left hand, rather than resting in it. A flag hung with its bottom resting on the stoop, rather than just above. I fixed the Hollyhawk myself.”
“I saw,” Raiselig nodded. The wildflower bouquet, named after the Hollyhawk blossom from the high mountain passes, had looked quite well arranged when they had passed it by. “It is well placed.”
“A new tradition is forming,” Shosushai flipped a page and pointed with her pen. “A giver of treats and savory breads. They remember him from last year. He wears a felt hat that droops. They are happy to see him.”
“Local,” Raiselig said automatically. “You have the file?”
“Already stamped,” Shosushai produced the filing. It was immaculately written.
Raiselig flipped through page after page of noterized contract. The music, the food, the drink, the dance, it was all carefully itemized and organized. What they felt, how they thought, what their dreams of this day had been, compared with the memories they would share tomorrow, it was all there. Signed, sealed, completed.
Raiselig took a slow breath.
“It was free,” they said.
Shosushai cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“Magic,” Raiselig closed their eyes. “Before the Settling, it was free. There were no contracts, no quills, no Scriveners save the clerks who could put your sounds to shapes…which was a magic of its own. Wizards conjured the elemental world through the fire in their bellies, the storms in their minds, the tides in their hearts. They saw how things were, and they asked, they begged, they commanded, they took and gave and knew that they were but a piece of it all.”
“How did it work?” Shosushai asked. Her voice was gentle, tinted with awe and amazement.
“How.” Raiselig sniffed. “You are asking the wrong question. A human question. How does it work? How do muscles bend? How do bones break? ‘How does it’ soon becomes ‘how do I,’ and then…” Raiselig shook their head. “The wrong question. Don’t ask, don’t try to control, don’t try to rule.”
“I don’t want to rule,” Shosushai squirmed under Raiselig’s firm proclamation.
“They did. They didn’t know it, but they did. They asked the questions, and found the answers, and wrote them all down. They chained the Magic in ink and book. Then came the circles, the councils, the boardrooms, the committees…‘we must build a world,’ they said, ‘because this one is not ours. It was not made for us, so we must either make our own, or change ourselves.’”
“And?”
Raiselig opened their eyes and looked down at their earstwhile companion. “They never change.” They heaved a sigh, and then began to walk though the dancing revels. “Magic used to be a raging storm that no one could control. It lived and breathed, as unkillable as any idea. Then they found a way to kill it.”
“Magic isn’t dead,” Shosushai protested. “Is it?”
Raiselig turned away. “You are perfectly skilled, Shosushai. You have the talent, the mindset, the skill, and the potential to be a great Scrivener. The only limit you have is your uncertainty. Fear anything you wish, but if you fear yourself, your touch will forever be a soft one.”
For a moment the only sound was the celebration surrounding them. Then, Raiselig felt a soft hand on their shoulder. “Thank you, Raiselig. I will heed your warning.”
For a thrilling and heartbreaking moment, Raiselig wondered if she had heard what they had meant. Then, she was gone, the sound of her cart rattling away into the dancing throng.
Raiselig turned and looked about at the people of Tyw. They were lost in madness, in the willful defiance of the world as it was. Though it was cold, they were warm. Though it was dark, they were bright. Though there was pain, they celebrated joyfully, bringing their hearts to their skin in a whirling promise that today, at least for tonight, it was okay to be happy. There would be no pain, no sorrow, no wasted moments or missed opportunites.
Ritual. Tradition. They had done it for years, centuries, since as far back as any of them could remember.
How easy it would have been. To join in.
Raiselig was not of Tyw. They had no place in the land of sinew and sweat. They felt no desire to clap and cheer and sing and dance and play. They were apart from it all. They were supposed to watch, and note, and correct when necessary to ensure the rituals well-kept.
They were not human. They had never been human. They had never wanted to be human.
To everyone and everything their place.
It was difficult to change. Impossible, sometimes. And yet how easy it was to perform the ritual, to say the right words, to move a hand the right way, to seem.
All around them, the flickering lights burned.
They burned.
Pan-Shuna, land of a thousand lakes, sleeper under the stars, and resplendent jewel of the west, marveled at the falling snows.
The ice crystals always glimmered in the night sky, when the moon was dark and the sun had faded, they twinkled and sparkled in the perfect black of nighttime. But every winter, the crystals shed their skins and let their shimmering jewels fall gently to the ground. It was a time of renewal, of change, of hope and of peace.
The town of Kiblhi hung their garlands across every house, each colored specially by the residents within. A strip of colored paper for each prayer whispered for the coming year. On this night, the fattest goose was slain, plucked, and cooked with fresh seasonings that made the most heartless grandfather’s mouth water.
The children were then sent to bed with promises that, if they slept fast, the snow-imps would come and bring sweets as thanks to those girls and boys who had minded their chores throughout the year. In the morning, children would awake at dawn and rush to the family shrine to see if they had met with the snow-imps standards. These days, they always did.
The most festively minded souls left their warm homes to wander the streets and sing hymns to the ice crystals glimmering above, and to the White Lady, she of mercy and grace, who guided the land of Pan-Shuna to prosperity and peace.
The town of Tihlko, Raiselig noticed, was the only village that did not keep to the practice of cup-lights. That is, the people of Tihlko did not bring a single cup with a single candle out to the front of their house and leave them upon the step through the night. If but a single candle still burned in the morning, it was said, the White Lady had shown her favor and promised good things for the town’s future.
Before that, it was said her favor was only for the houses whose lights were still lit. The wheel turns.
But Tihlko had long since forsaken the cup-lights. The White Lady had grown young in their eyes, taken new form and new ritual. The people gathered by the great well, a hole wide enough to hold a horse, and deep enough for twenty men to stand on each other’s shoulders and still not reach the top. It was this well that watered the town, and in this well that a child had drowned some twenty years before. She protected the town, they said, a Child in White. In memorium, every child approached the well and tossed in a single coin.
She would watch over every child who dropped a coin into the well, they said.
But this year, Raiselig could tell, it was different. Each child closed their eyes tight, and wished upon the ice-crystals above. If they were good, perhaps the angelic child would grant their wish.
Raiselig watched as every child approached, and dropped their coin in the well.
It was a new covenant. A new contract would need to be signed. The child’s soul, if present, would need to be conscripted into service. The blessings of the White Lady would need corollaries and adjustments. What it meant to be a citizen of Tihlko would —
Raiselig stopped.
With the sudden movement of a startled faun, Raiselig walked forward out of the crowed and stood at the edge of the well, staring down into its murky depths. Those that saw them stand respecfully looked away. No one dared comment on the tall black-suited Scrivener as they knelt down, fingering the stone edge.
The dim dusk-light shone down through the water, barely reaching the glittering depths. Where the whispers of light reached, small glints of metal shimmered against the darkness. Tiny points of light twinkled and shone, each a wish and a promise, a hope and a dream for good fortune.
In the depths of water lie mysteries. The unknown. Mortals, in their pattern-seeking minds, sought like to connect with like. What was the future, after all, but a long dark tunnel, suffocating and cold? At the end lay another world that they could not enter, lest they drown. What else could they do but send gifts? A spare coin or offering of bread, they would throw them into the depths with a wish that when they found themselves in the waters of the future, they would find the fortune they had sent.
Kindness begets kindness, offerings beget offerings, they gave to themselves. They paid it forward. They sat in the darkness and hoped. They prayed — not to a God, but to the empty future.
They looked up as more children approached the well. They paid Raiselig no mind as they let tiny stars drop from their hands into the darkness, sinking, burning, flying…
With a stride that would wind a horse, Raiselig spun about and marched out of town. Their yellowwood cabinet creaked against their spine, the leather straps groaning at their pace.
They could amend the contract, of course. They could easily smooth everything out. The White Lady would continue to thrive as a symbol of protection and salvation, and in all her forms would be a sign of peace and benevolence. Her domain would stay winter. The solstice would be recognized. The pacts would hold. The Law would remain.
Or…
Or Raiselig could keep the contracts as they were. After all, it was not the Law that needed to change, necessarily. After all, what were cup-lights on a step of stone, that glinting coins in a well were not? They could argue the contract was paid in full. It had been, else these past twenty years would have —
Twenty years.
Raiselig’s pace began to slow. It was nothing to them, twenty years. They had been old when the eldest star had been young. They had watched the ebb and flow of continents, the back and forth of established Law, the birth and death of nations.
What was twenty years to them? What was twenty years to the Law? Yet it was enough for…what? A case of establishment through tradition? A counter-claim that because no fuss was raised, the law should be satisfied? Nullify how many years of signed jurisdiction because no one had paid attention?
Worse, what if someone had? What if another Scrivener — or two, or ten, or a hundred — had all come to the same conclusion Raiselig almost had? That an offer of glittering light could mean a coin, could mean a candle, could mean anything at all? That this change of the contract was close enough?
Raiselig stopped.
Down the road was Hik’vari, another town in another province in another kingdom on another continent. After Hik’vari was Kilnton, then Outcrop, then New Davonshirk, then Koum. A thousand towns, villages, cities, and hamlets; all with their own contracts, their own traditions, their own mores.
Raiselig began to walk again.
Not to Hik’vari, but somewhere else. They weren’t sure exactly where, or even why.
As they walked, they made a point to observe the land around them. They saw birds and animals, heard the wind through the grass, and watched the light play off running water. Rain and snow fell in their measures, and everything danced around them.
They wanted to enjoy it, but something was missing.