The Ever Lord: Jhod and the Immaculate Hall

For the thousands of citizens of the Empire of Ever and Always, the day ended the same way it had for over ten centuries.

In the tallest tower of the Palace of Ever and Always, there hung six bells. The pedigree and history of each was enough to fill whole volumes in the palaces archives, and they had a language all their own; ringing out not only the time, but important events throughout the long days of the Ever Empire. There was a ring for morning prayers, for midday mass, for the departure and arrival of the Ever Lord, and many more besides.

Now, the bells ring a warning, a caution to all that night had officially fallen on the First and greatest of the Five Worlds. The sound reached outwards, searching for every crack and corner, filling the ancient stone with its vibrations. It was said that the tolling of the Six Bells could reach across the Velvet. When the Six Bells rang, the whole Empire took notice.

At the bells’ reverberations, shadows which had for the better part of the evening crept across the stonework in a steady pace now filled the corners of the countless pathways and crosswalks that wound across the ground like eager snakes.

It was the first of two rings. The first was to alert the Empire that the second ring was soon to come. To many, it was the Empire’s way of stretching and yawning before blowing out the candle.

Of course, there was no yawning at the sound. Servants and valets scurried about like cockroaches throughout the Ever Palace, scrambling to finish their duties before their masters returned from theirs. Cooks put the finishing touches on small evening meals to send their Lords to bed. Small gatherings of old friends met over an ounce of fine herbal liquor. Prayers everywhere were whispered to small idols carved to the glory of the Ever Lord.

Behind drawn curtains, in hidden nooks and crannies, the nobility of the Ever Empire fulfilled their roles. They clasped arms, gave somber and knowing nods, they bared their teeth at each other in signs of friendship. Agreements had been struck this day, that would change the course of the Empire.

Of course, there was no changing the course of the Empire. Across the hundred worlds, the sigil of the Lord of Ever and Always hung high over every court, every throne, every shrine. His ineffable will guided the citizenry and nobility alike. Each did as they must, and the thousand Houses of the Ever Empire circled each other like duelists; ever watchful and ready.

But there was time enough for all that tomorrow. Now was the time to head back to the House Chambers that the Ever Palace had so dutifully provided. Here, the Emissaries from the thousand Houses slept, ate, and studied. Petitioners and politicians from across the Empire resided in relative peace and safety, in the hopes that their proximity to the Ever Lord might augur well for their House.

Even the Great Plaza, center of commerce, politics, recreation, romance, and intrigue — and, so said the rumors, the real center of power for the Empire — began to settle. Where merchants and diplomats spent hours tossing word and coin back and forth like arrows across a field, now silence began to fall. Final promises were quickly and unwisely made, while those with wisdom — or options — promised to consider what had been said and return with an answer on the morrow, or perhaps the next.

Along the edge of the Plaza, the minor merchants and petty sellers wrapped up what had not been sold, having wrung every coin possible out of their possible customers. They set their wares in crates or on carts and rushed back to their abodes before Eve’nbell rang.

It was Holy Writ that no man or woman was to work after Eve’nbell had been rung. At night, the law became one single charge: No one out and about save the Holy Doorsmin. Eve’nbell was a warning. A caution. ‘Be mindful,’ it said, ’lest you are not home and resting before the appointed time. The Ever Lord commands rest, and you would do well to not defy his will.’

The only exception to this holy law was the Doorsmin.

Inside the walls of the Ever Palce, there were no greater lieges than the Doorsmin after Eve’nbell had rung. Their full title (Ever Lord save us) was Exalted Guardsmin of the Doors and Thresholds, but pomposity had given way to expediency many generations ago, and now even the holiest priests of the Church called them Doorsmin.

They worked in pairs, sometimes in fours, and they switched out in shifts. Their devotion was tempered with a zeal unmatched in all the Five Worlds. The Doorsmin’s duty was a spear of steel in their heart. No more mere door-minders, the Doorsmin were the protectors of the peace and keepers of the law.

Alone of the Ever Palace guards, the Doorsmin were feared as much as held in awe. No other guards held sway over the palace grounds as they did. They were like wraiths, invisible through their ubiquity and watching the Ever Palace in the dark when shadows finally touched the blessed stones.

They kept watch over nobility from all across the Empire, from a thousand kingdoms spread across the Five Worlds, as they slept. They watched over the slumbering form of the Ever Lord himself. Across the entire Ever Empire, there were none trusted with a more important duty.

In their hands, the pikes they held were blessed especially by the High Priestess of the Ever Church. Weapons from the ancient world, there were warlords who would pay any price to own a single one. The light from their tips could decimate armies, it was said, and a force of soldiers wielding such weapons was unstoppable. Only those personally chosen by the Ever Lord could ever hope to touch one.

They were the blessed ones who alone had such an honor that the law of Eve’nbell did not touch them.

And yet, in neither the first nor last of countless absurdities that had been his life for almost a hundred years, it was enacting his Ever Lord’s will that saw Jhod First Among Trusted defying this holy curfew, walking across the Palace grounds towards the Immaculate Hall.

His footsteps echoed too loud in his ears. They echoed as he walked down the Passage of Emminent Victory before he turned left down the Walk of Fortune. They reverberated in his skull as he slipped across to the Hall of Heroes via the short Resplendent Junction, and they were only slightly muffled by the well-trod and now nearly thread-bare rug that covered the middle of the Golden Road to Heaven. His footsteps rang like bells as he clattered down the Great Passage of the Noble Heart, until he turned down the Hallway.

Just ’the Hallway.’ There were thousands of hallways in the Palace of Ever and Always, from the Hallway of Seven Corners to the Hallway of Divine Pronoucement. Names. Nothing but names. The Sitting Room of Haphesh Mo’Darf. The Annointed Balcony of Ivy and Teak. The pillars, the plinths, the arches…there wasn’t a marble stone or silver filligre that didn’t have some title, some epic tale in honor of the Empire of Ever and Always. Even the doorhandles had a history worth ten of any backwoods palace.

Save ’the Hallway.’ It had no other name. It needed no other name. There was only one hallway worth the title. It was as wide as a river and as long as a road. It crossed all the way from the Holy Gate of Ro’tuhn to the Flowering Relief of the Pillars’ Erection. (by His blood, the names!) Towering statues of the great nobles, kings, queens, and other notables lined the hallway at regular intervals, carefully and mathematically aligned by the Empire of Ever and Always’s Geometricians.

Tapestries as large as hallways — at least, the more modest and common hallways of your average palace — hung at the apex of the curved ceiling, tied back and shaped to follow the walls as they fell towards the smooth floor. They held tableaus of ancient histories and prophesies long since come to pass.

But there was not a single speck of dust nor strand of cobweb that drifted in the air. The shafts of light that shone from the purple glowstone were as still as ice. Nothing flickered or danced as Jhod strode past, save his shadow passing over the countless vases, recessed strips of garden, and polished cylindrical columns.

The echoes of Jhod’s feet were like gun-shots, setting his heart beating faster as he quickened his pace. At his side, his leather pouch slapped his leg like an irritant rider, spurring its mount onward. The sooner the deed was done, the better.

At last, Jhod reached the giant doors of the Immaculate Hall. Another of the blessed rooms that filled the Palace, the Immaculate Hall had one use, and one use only. It was a place for private audiences with the Lord of Ever and Always may his immaculate self be forever blessed.

In front of the giant doors stood two Doorsmin. Jhod could see their muscles twitch when their eyes lit on him. For a moment he wondered if they would keep to their vows, but their tension eased as they saw his face. There was no mistaking Jhod, First Among the Trusted; they could no more arrest him than they could arrest the Ever Lord Himself.

Now came the hard part. “You are dismissed for the evening,” Jhod said as he drew nearer. “Return to your rooms.”

The two Doorsmin blinked with clear uncertainty. The laws of the Ever Lord were inviolable, but if anyone could be speak with the full weight of the Ever Lord’s will, it was the First Among Trusted. All the same, to leave a door of the Ever Palace unguarded was unthinkable.

Jhod crossed his arms. “You have served the Ever Lord well. Now, serve Him further by returning to your rooms, and tell no one of this.”

The Doorsmin shared another glance. Jhod’s heart sank as one of the Doorsmin, an older woman, fired off a slow but steady salute before turning and walking away. The second Doorsmin, a young Imwii lad, immediately saluted and followed his elder. In his gut, Jhod knew that it was the command of secrecy that spurred the two into action. The command of Jhod First Among Trusted was nothing compared to a promise of intrigue and suspicious backroom dealings.

Granted, it was intrigue and backroom dealings that brought Jhod to the Immaculate Hall so long after Eve’nbell, but there had been a time, centuries past, when the Doorsmin wouldn’t have budged without Divine Writs of Dispensation, or even assurance from the Ever Lord Himself that their holy duties were righteously suspended. How far the Empire had fallen already, he thought.

Jhod spent a moment to catch his breath. The doors seemed larger than he remembered, looming over him like giants with their arms folded, waiting for him to make his move; and it would be an unpleasant move indeed. The doors were twice as tall as the tallest soul and built of solid oak. They were carefully balanced on their hinges, making it possible for the doors to be opened by stout arms and strong backs, but the Doorsmin were practiced in the art; Jhod rarely pushed or pulled anything heavier than a pen.

Taking a deep breath, Jhod strode to the doors. Gripping the large iron handle of the left door, he heaved against the thick oak. The door opened smoothly, but slowly. Centuries upon centuries old, the aged wood was now harder and heavier than steel. Straining against the hinges, Jhod only stopped when there was a crack in the door thick enough to slip through. Pausing to catch his breath once more, he slipped into the Immaculate Hall, and pulled on the door to close it.

After a moment of straining, he decided to spare his sore back and leave the door open.

The Immaculate Hall was, in a word, immaculate. The giant stone table — a legend in its own right — sparkled black in the dim light that filtered in through the thin windows near the ceiling. The floor was freshly washed every morning, and the five giant fireplaces that dominated the side walls were swept clean and restocked with firewood every evening.

Jhod walked to the first fireplace and pulled the small box of fire-lighters down from the broad mantelpiece. In the span of a moment, the cold stones began to warm from the growing flames.

For a moment, Jhod wondered what the servants would think in the morning. Would they think the night servants had been lax in their duties, to leave one of the fireplaces empty of fresh wood and full of soot? Or would they assume their Ever Lord had held some night-business, a clandestine meeting with Nobles from across the five worlds? Or would they ignore the spent firewood and go about their duties as proscribed? Would they casually and carelessly assume that it was not their place?

In over a hundred years, Jhod had never once thought to even consider what the servants might have thought.

No, Jhod corrected himself, a hundred years exactly. It was here that his Lord of Ever and Always had spoken to him for the last time, given him his duties, and handed him a thin wooden letterbox; the same box he now slipped out of his robe and placed gently on the giant table. Next to it, he placed the Ever Lord’s seal and one of the Holy Candles that filled his chamber.

One hundred years. How thick with dust the room should have been. How full of ancient cobwebs, and the empty smells of time. But no, the Ever Empire had continued. Somehow it had continued working like a blessed machine.

In all the centuries Jhod had lived, the years serving his Ever Lord, through the countless trials and Baptisms, he had never once doubted. His faith had been as solid as the giant stone table, and as true as a lodestone. Never once had he wavered in over a thousand years.

And yet, The Empire of Ever and Always endured. Without the Ever Lord, it endured.

The past hundred years had been a kind of hell for Jhod. Desperately, he had sought absolution in excuses. Had it been his Ever Lord’s plan all along? To wind up the clock of the Empire only to let it run forever? But it wouldn’t run forever. It took less than a decade for the polished surface to crack, which served only to confuse Jhod’s faith even further.

Jhod shook his head free from such thoughts. Doubt didn’t matter, so long as he performed his duties. His Ever Lord had told him, expressly told him how he could best serve, and he had not mentioned Jhod’s faith. For a hundred years he had done his duties; Now was not the time to relent. Not now. Not when he was so close to the end of it!

One hundred years, almost over.

Jhod stared at the flames. Soon, he would be past the time his Ever Lord had told him of, and he would be in the dark void of uncertainty. He would know nothing of his Ever Lord’s plans, only of his own hopes. Then he would finally be free to enact his own plan…

But that would come later. Before then, he would meet with the Five. He would meet with each, alone, and give them a letter writ by the Ever Lord himself. He would make them swear the oath, and anoint them with the Holy Wax. He would press the Ever Lord’s seal into their brows, and so they would be chosen.

The weight of a hundred years settled heavily on Jhod’s shoulders as he sat down, waiting for the first of his guests to arrive.