Ever Lord

There was an art to the game of Stratau.

Among the avid players, it was insulting to call it a game. Stratau Gurus said that you could study the art for a lifetime. The game itself was deceptively easy to learn. Pieces moved according to simple rules and tokens were exchanged for clear reasons. As the game progressed, however, the simple rules began to intersect and interact in incredibly intricate ways.

The Gurus could play games that lasted days. Onlookers could see a rout where the devoted saw an even match, and visa versa. A solid strategy required careful and painful judgments about what could be sacrificed and for what gain. One Game were never the same as the next, and each could last weeks or even months with innocuous moves at the beginning of the game deciding events at the end.

There were no Masters of Stratau; the closer one came to truly mastering the game the further true mastery seemed. Winning the game became secondary to far more important metrics. It became a dance, a creation between two minds, a conversation, a song.

It was Kasta Illibran’s favorite game.

The Hall of Record was like a honeycomb.

Kasta never called it a honeycomb, unlike many of his fellow Quill-servants, though he could certainly understand the parallels. The hundreds of ladders were sometimes occupied by four Quill-servants at a time, reaching out to remove or replace thick folders of paper or stacks of scrolls in their proper cubby-holes. The swish and hiss of robes brushing the smooth stone was like the soft hiss of a waterfall, while thin leather sandals eroded winding paths between the stairs and cabinets.

Everything was in the Hall of Record. Letters from centuries ago were hidden somewhere in the stacks, detailing the rise and fall of Houses long since lost. Collated data on harvest yeilds from across the Empire sat in thick drawers. Which holy relics had been passed to whom, during which wars, and their current precise location were collected in massive books that piled higher than than the tallest Knight.

All along the walls and in carefully positioned loci throughout the massive Hall, desks squatted like frogs while Quill-servants wrote reports, filled out forms, and collated information into thick-bound folders. Their lives were paper and ink, placed on their desks with reverence and marked with the same zeal. Letters and scrolls were passed back and forth, along a current that only the Librarian of Record truly understood.

The first thing Sir Kasta Illibran did when he woke up was wash his face and put on his makeup.

The second thing Sir Kasta Illibran did when he woke up was to kneel in front of the Iron Sigil of the Lord of Ever and Always, and say his prayers for morning service.

The third thing Sir Kasta Illibran did when he woke up was get dressed in the long red robe of the Quill-Servants, and slip his small emergency bag under his belt.

The fourth thing he did when he woke was eat a quick breakfast of roasted root and thin butter, and drink a quick glass of mull-mead. It was the same breakfast he had eaten for over a decade, and he barely tasted the bitter spices anymore.

The fifth thing he did was to pick up the travel-desk that rested on the broad silken cloth covered platform along the wall. Opening the top, he made sure the desk was prepared with five vials of ink, ten quills, and a small cloth-bound wrap of various Quill-servant tools. Once he was satisfied, he carefully adjusted the strap as he pulled it over his head, and settled the broad wooden plank against his stomach before tying off the rope around his back.

The sixth and final thing he did was open his door and unlock the tiny missive-box that hung on its center. Inside, the thick coil of paper that had been placed there during the night sat wrapped in ribbon and wax. Every morning, he pulled out the scroll and unrolled it to read the long list of names, addresses, times, and designations; his instructions for the day. He would then slip the scroll into his pocket, before walking through the Hall of Record and out into the Palace of Ever and Always.

Now, Kasta was ready to begin his daily duties.

In the Hall of Record, the lights burned low.

The Librarian’s many eyes darted around the shadows, searching for signs of movement. There were none. The Quill-servants had all returned to their cells, the doors shut tightly. It was only the Librarian now, with their pile of scrolls, books, papers, letters, documents, rolls of pens, and stacks of ink vials.

Completing their circuit, the eyes of the Librarian landed once more on the single letter that had occupied their thoughts for the whole evening. A single letter, written and sealed with a special mark; the one mark the Librarian held in any kind of esteem.

In the distance, the Darklin’ Hour rang. The Fiveworlders called it Eve’nbell. Such a silly name for the coming of darkness.

For the first time in…was it years? Certainly not. Months at least, but years? Well, it was possible, but still…when was the last time the Librarian had crawled out from behind their desk? What had they done? That’s right, they had been looking for a lost Quill-servant, to administer punishment for his — or was it hers? — laxity in their duties. They had found the poor thing huddled in a ditch on the outskirts of the inner Palace, pressed against the Palace Walls and begging for mercy. Poor thing.

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.

A Foreword by Lady Euphonia Winscort

This is the Eleventh volume of my dramatic retelling of the rise and fall of the Empire of Ever and Always, covering the first generation of the Era of Heiritance: the discovery of the Five Heirs and the events that resulted from their investiture.

I was enamored of the Empire of Ever and Always from a young age, specifically when first viewing “The Great Exodus” by the famous Uumphoun painter Koothoonu. Whether zey used three canvases because, as it is argued, zey were commanded by zer patron, or because zey could not capture the grandeur of the spectacle in one canvas alone, I do not care to speculate. What I can say is, as a young child, I was enraptured by both the size of the Imperial vessels depicted, and the remarkable scale of the enterprise.

I remember being fascinated by the prow of the lead ship. (Any who have seen the original painting in its place at the Garm Museum of Ancient Art will know which vessel I mean; Koothoonu’s masterful handling of color and shade make it perfectly clear which of the three largest ships is in the foreground) Whether Koothoonu painted a specific vessel or from memory is open to debate, but as a child I could not escape the horribly sad face of the foremost figurehead. Its gaze was steady, but offset, giving it the air of one who has seen everything they have ever cared about collapse into nothing, a face of unbearable sadness.

And so my Travel Guide to Places that Don’t Exist is completed.

Well, completed is probably not the right term. One of the positives surrounding a fake travel-guide like this is that you can always add a new place or attraction, slotting it in wherever you like.

Will I do that? Possibly. Not for a while though, because I have something…a bit larger in mind for my next project. How large? Well, let’s just say I’ve never posted a project as I was working on it. Thankfully, I’ve always had a backlog of stories that I’ve “finished,” so I’ve always been able to relax and put the time into writing without worrying about any self-imposed posting schedule.

That’s going to change a bit. This next project is…let’s be kind and just call it unfinished. A lot of work is going to go into it, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep a three-times-a-week posting schedule on this project alone…so I’m going to start only posting it once a week, on Saturdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be focused on posting/archiving old work, and any one-shot short stories I come up with.