From alt.pub.dragons-inn Sun Jan 23 11:47:39 1994 Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!olivea!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!usenet.mcs.kent.edu!news.ysu.edu!malgudi.oar.net!sun!vax.cns.muskingum.edu!hsexauer From: hsexauer@vax.cns.muskingum.edu (Rapunzel) Subject: [Legacy] Revelations... Message-ID: <1994Jan21.165405.1@vax.cns.muskingum.edu> Lines: 329 Sender: root@sun.cns.muskingum.edu (Operator) Organization: Muskingum College Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 21:54:05 GMT [ADMIN] Oops. Did I forget last time? Shows what color my hair is. Thread name is Legacy of Lyorn. Aleric didn't think he'd ever seen anyone as old as this man appeared to be. He was at present sitting before the decrepit old man watching him poke the fire into greater flames. Upon entering the little hut he had been beckoned to the hearth by what at first had looked like a twisted staff. Closer inspection revealed the staff was actually the arm of the oldster. His limbs were twisted with age, skin stretched tightly across ropy tendons and bones. What little hair remained on his head tangled in wispy strands around his ears and neck, and the scraggly beard that clung tenaciously to his chin looked like it had been partially hacked off with a dull knife. "I suppose," the antiquity began in a cracked voice, "that since I brought you here the least I could do would be to extend my hospitality." He continued mumbling to himself while he rumaged through several piles producing a pot and assorted weathered vegetables. "If I may ask, er... sir," Aleric began. "No question, no questions!" the old man protested. He waved his arm at Aleric in a sharp gesture. "When I am ready to talk, I will ask the questions and you will tell me answers." He subsided again and turned his attention back to the stew he prepared. Once it was hung over the fire to simmer, the old man cast a speculative eye at his guest. "It has come at last to you has it?" Aleric looked slightly alarmed when a strange gargling sound came from the man's throat. He had just realized the sound for the man's laughter when the ancient human pulled himself nose to nose with the young Lyorn. One bony finger prodded Aleric's chest and the old man's fetid breath assailed his nose. "You've the look of the old line, you do. If I'd doubt before there's none now that I look at you. "You've the height and structure of the old blood. And look at that coloring! Head crowned by beaten gold it is..." Still an inch from the young man's face, the old man peered into Aleric's widened eyes. The Lyorn had the feeling he was staring straight through them into his soul, his whole being. "Surprised, eh? Your eyes are what give you away. They always have. I've had centuries of experience reading such as yours!" he crowed. The man pulled away suddenly and whirled back to the fire. "Don't worry about your friends. They will not miss you, I took care of that!" he added, ignoring Aleric's alarmed reaction. "They see what they want to see, one who looks like you and will act like you until I have no further need of your services." "If you wanted..." Aleric tried to break in, but the gnarled form waved him silent again. Surely there was a more conventional way to obtain his help without spiriting him away in the night or deceiving his companions. "Want to know how I found you? The instant you crossed the sea and neared this land with Xel'ha in your possession I knew the time had come for the prophecy to be fulfilled. In ages past I crafted your fine blade myself and gifted it to your tribe. The Lyorn were a strong and proud race, but no match for the forces they faced. For all their fighting prowess and wisdom, they had no way to combat the enemy they couldn't face. And so in my effort to aid the clans I was ensnared and doomed to serve until one of the blood feed me by defeating the evil. Thus did I know you were to be my salvation." The ancient man fell silent while he tended his fire. Aleric had very little idea what he was talking about, but the man had named his sword as though quite familiar with it. Aleric knew he had never met the man before and he certainly hadn't had time to tell him anything about either himself or his sword. His family, the few members there were, had lived in the farmlands just south of Generica for generations. Although he did remember vaguely his great'grandparents' tales of a time long past when they came from another place far distant. Always at the end of the tale his great grandmother would say three short lines in a foreign dialect. They had fascinated him as a child. Aleric and his younger brother Jaerodyn had amused themselves by begging their grandmother to teach them the lyrical words. "Shekiren il Lyornae progeiz uran, Os dan flujae Nilsangehir wen Xel'ha Chisun ray e botu jeiron," Aleric breathed, barely aware of speaking aloud. The effect on his host, however, was electric. The sunken eyes locked with Aleric's very blue ones. He repeated the phrases and spoke at length in the same musical tongue. "You are the one, I have no doubt. Do you even understand what you said?" "No. My brother and I learned them as children. Just pieces from our cradle stories," Aleric protested. "Much more! Much more, youngling. It's the first part of the prophecy in your own native tongue," the old man explained. "In its entirety, and translated so you can understand, it is: The wounds to the Lyorn clans from the Sundered are grave, But in the hands of the Lastblood shall the fiery blade Purify the soul and heal the breach. In the heart of the sickened land lies the Sundered's Keep: Look to the Hall of Ages where the hunted's hope doth sleep. Therein may the Youngblood find the fate of each. When comes the dark mistress for whom the sword will cry, Seek then to win the talisman from neath the evil's eye-- With Lyorn blood alone to cleanse celestial blade benighted. And defeating the Sundered shall the Lastblood stand To rejoin the Youngblood in restoring the ancient clans By the power of the sacred blades united." Aleric considered the prophecy, it really had no special meaning to him, but judging from the ancient man's words, he should know it. "What's the significance of it?" Aleric asked perplexed. "I don't see what that has to do with me. Who are the Sundered, and what happened between them and the Lyorn?" The oldster sighed and settled his limbs more comfortably. "That is a question that will require some background. It's a lengthy tale, so you may as well eat while you listen." He scooped a generous amount of stew into a bowl and handed it to Aleric, pointing out a spoon to use. Aleric accepted the offerings and leaned back against the wall to listen. "It has more to do with you than you think, young Lyorn. In that range of mountains you see to the east is where your tribe lived in ages past. AS I said, the Lyorn were a strong and proud race. Prowess with weapons was much vaunted but together with the wisdom of when to use them. Quite tall they all were, as you are yourself. Fair of skin and hair for the most part. And in many, their eyes were not a definite color, for the shade would vary to reflect the mood. "Now in the tribe there were several clans. Each had its own chief, but all were governed more or less by the head of the chief clan. The seven great clans were composed of related families, and each had their specialties and little quirks. But the entire tribe was united under the old Dragon clan which had possession of the tribe's treasure. A very special sword called the celestial blade, or Xel'eman in the true language. I won't go into the history behind the blade itself right now. It is very long and complicated; suffice to say that the origins were lost in the mists of legend. But the key to this talisman was that it held all the combined power of the people. That's where their downfall was to come. "So Xel'eman, held by the Clan-Chief was the rallying symbol for the people. As long as it was present they would win their battles and live thier lives in the usual felicity associated with such things. Personally, I think they placed too much faith in the weapon and not enough in their own considerable skills. Anyway, so the Lyorn existed for a thousand years or so. Until about six hundred years ago when the Sundered, or Shekiren, gained control. "The daughter of the Clan-Chief, a beautiful woman named Euskaya, decided she wanted to find out the secret of Xel'eman and why it had the powers it did. She coveted the power of the blade. She was not satisfied with possessing it, she had to take control of it and have its powers for herself. So she began researching the mystic resources available but found no true answer. To be honest, she _did_ find the truth, because it was never hidden. But in her fervor, she overlooked it as trivial. You see, Xel'eman only pools the collective energy inherent in the Lyorn blood with the power of their belief and converts that into the great force which defeated the enemies. But the silly wench couldn't understand that in her ignorance. So she kept looking. "She finally decided it must be the work of a guiding spirit, and delved into the ethereal realm. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the tribe, she was careless and was deceived by a malevolent force. Her soul was infused by the evil, and Euskaya became the tool of the dark force. To shorten the tale: Euskaya had several followers whom she infected with the evil. This was how the Shekiren came to be. They are the corrupted Lyorns of the ancient tribe. Euskaya took possession of the blade from her father and set about bending the whole tribe to her domination. Now naturally, the very nature of the clans cried out against that, so unwilling to submit to her tyranny, they fought back. But they had little hope of success because she had the celestial blade. "I know this will sound very silly, but your ancestors could be silly people at times. In the struggle that followed, the Lyorn were decimated by their own powers for the simple reason they couldn't shake their faith in the celestial blade. So their best weapon was used against them. The battle did not go well, Euskaya and her servants tried to enslave the clans, and the clans would die to prevent that from happening. "At the time I was a friend to one of the clansmen. I was an aspiring warlock who fancied himself the equal of Euskaya! Ha! In the council of war, I pledged my support to the Lyorn tribe. In similar likeness to Xel'eman, I crafted another blade into which I put every protective spell I could think of. And then I did the most important and dangerous part of the work. With the aid of my Lyorn friend, I stole into the Keep where Euskaya kept the celestial blade. In a powerful enchantment, I bound the two blades together and tried to transfer the soul of Xel'eman to the new talisman. Only I didn't quite get it correct. The new talisman took on the same characteristics as the celestial blade, but it did not drain it of power. It became an equal source of strenght but bound to the celestial blade at the primordial level. It was irrevocably paired to Xel'eman. "I then had to also bind it to the Lyorn blood of my friend to preserve its identity as a separate entity, otherwise Euskaya could have controlled it as well. And so Xel'ha was forged. It burned with the heat of the Lyorn blood, forever linked to the race and to my friend's clan i particular. For myself, I had been linked in the same way to the celestial blade and doomed to submit my strength to Euskaya's evil purpose. "As to the Lyorn people, they had been almost destroyed in the struggle. The power of Xel'ha was not strong enough with the people scattered. So Euskaya defeated the Lyorn tribe with their own talisman, forcing the survivors to flee lest they be singly hunted down and destroyed. "In desperation, the remaining members of the clans gathered one last time before scattering to the four winds. An augury was cast to determine the future course of events. We learned of the prophecy to restore the Lyorn and the coming of the new age. In one child of the Lyorn people would descend the heritage of the old tribe. This Lastblood of the people was instrumental in the grand design. But to aid the Lastblood, to a second child would come all the hope of the future generations of Lyorn. This was to be the Youngblood. The reasons for the duplicity were obscure, but I think it had something to do with the fact that there were now two swords of power where there had only been one. You'd have to ask to present duan for the exact reason. Only the star-eyed can understand all of it. "Anyway... between the two it says the Sundered line will be defeated, and the celestial blade recovered. Then the two representatives of the ages together with the two talismans will restore the Lyorn to their heritage. In order to preserve the bloods, the handful of clan families remaining fled to all parts of Nexus to await the coming of Nilsangehir, the Lastblood, and Chiyasangehir, the Youngblood." The old man coughed long, his throat parched by the long story. He reached for the wine jug on a nearby table. Taking a long draught, the wretched form slumped in exhaustion. Aleric sat transfixed by the remarkable tale of his heritage; the fire beside them dying to embers, long forgotten. "And you? You have been serving the Shekiren all this time?" Aleric asked incredulously. "Not serving, precisely. More like fueling," he corrected. "I have seen many horrors in six hundred years, but I never take active service in anything. Still linked to Xel'eman. So tired. But I can't die until released from the bond. And such a burden it is..." The old man trailed off, staring out the window at the evening stars. "In all this time the Shekiren must have gotten very strong," Aleric mused. "They could have spread far by now." "Not at all... You forget they are the corrupted Lyorns. Only a few are they," the man whispered conspiratorally. He beckoned Aleric to lean forward, then in a low voice continued, "Only as many as they started with. Euskaya and her ten followers. But they have changed over the centuries. The evil that feeds from their bodies has altered them. Little more than hollow shells of evil now. The followers don't even look precisely human any more. No one has seen Euskaya in over two hundred years, so who knows what she looks like now." The old warlock nodded to himself in satisfaction. Aleric sat pensively for a long time running through the information in his head. There were many very obvious blanks in the warlock's story. For one, Euskaya's part didn't fit in very well to the rest of the tale. There had to be more to the tale that the man wasn't saying. And exactly how did the Shekiren decimate the Lyorn tribe even with soem mystical weapon. There were only eleven of them for the gods' sakes against how many Lyorn? Plus the questions of Xel'ha. Wasn't it crafted specifically to defeat its counterpart? And why was it necessary to bind the blade to the blood of the people. What identity could possibly need conserving in a bit of forged steel? Over his shoulder Aleric reached for the hilt of the great blade. It pulled forth with a steely rasp. Balancing it on two palms, Aleric held Xel'ha up to the firelight to inspect it. AS familiar as he was with the sword, its craftmanship and design suddenly took on an alien aspect. The metal was a truly fine piece of steel with a feather sharp edge that never seemed to dull. The hilt and crosspiece were intricately wrought and etched with the image of flames twining around the inscription in a foreign tongue Aleric could only assume was ancient Lyornae. The steel hilt was embellished by a fine wash of bronze that brought the flames to life, making the sword seem to flicker in the changing firelight. Despite its immense size, it had no more weight to it than an ordinary blade. Although, Aleric had noticed in times past that this last effect was only for his family. Others had tried to lift the blade in the pst but had been unable to wield its tremendous weight. "Alright. So how did I come into possession of Xel'ha? Or rather, my family I suppose," Aleric asked. "I would assume any number of the Lyorn could use it." The warlock nodded. "Use it, yes. As in an ordinary weapon. But it remained in the possession to the mystic woman, or duana, who cast the augury. Xel'ha had to remain safe to Nilsangehir. If Euskaya ever got hold of it our last hope would be gone." The old eyes glittered in the blackness before him. Aleric could only distinguish the lines of the warlock's face that were illuminated by the embers of the fire. As if suddenly noticing the darkness, the old warlock commanded Aleric to fetch some wood from the pile of tangled branches in the corner and build up the fire. Aleric did so and settle back to hear the rest of the old man's explanation. "Now the duana Rialeth knew she had to keep track of the lines descended from the survivors. So she began her travels during which she visited each newborn babe before the naming. She would attempt to foresee the child's future, and she would give the mothe one of the child's names. That name was never used or known to any but Rialeth and the mother and child. But a contraction was used to signify its presence." "But what did she do with Xel'ha?" Aleric interrupted. "Did she die and pass it on?" "Keep your mouth closed and you might find out," the wizard reproached sharply. He scowled fiercely. "There came a time when Rialeth became too old to travel much longer. She needed to find a successor. She she returned to one of the women whose child was named as a star-eyed. To that new child she entrusted Xel'ha and instructions for his new duty as a duan. And so she passed her duties to Melagro who continued the search for the Lastblood as the new duan. "Since the surviving Lyorn had been few, the task was not great ad actually was getting easier. In the absence of tribal unity the number of true blooded Lyorn was diminishing. When Melagro passed his charge on there were only four of the seven great clans remaining, the other three having died out entirely. So it was deemed best to leave Xel'ha in the care of one clan, and passed from father to son. That clan happened to be that of the Wolf. Yours, in fact, because it was linked to your Bloodline. "Oh yes, I have kept track of the sword's progress and that of the clans. One is on the verge of extinction, while the last member of another passed from the land only fifty years ago. The final two are reduced to only a few families." He reached for his pipe on the table and began packing it with shredded leaf. "However it happened, Xel'ha made its way to you. And though I don't even know your given name, I can see by the sword's reaction to you that you are the Lastblood." "What reaction? It looks the same it always has to me." "That's because that's all you've ever known it to be. Look at the way it flickers. And is it not warm to the touch? When I held it, it was cold," he replied knowingly. The warlock took a pair of tongs and lifted an ember from the hearth. After using it to light his pipe he dropped it back in the fire. Aleric noticed none of this because he was contemplating his sword. It did flicker slightly, but Aleric attributed that to the play of light from the fire. And yes, the sword did feel warm, but it was warm in the room. No real proof. He'd never really paid much attention to the details so he couldn't say for certain if they existed in the past. "Who are you?" Aleric asked slowly, glancing up at the dried form before him. "Not that it really matters who I am, but my name is Tevore. Or was a long time ago," he answered softly. "And your given name is...?" "Aleric n'hir Lyorn." "N'hir. You do know the full name don't you?" Aleric did not answer immediately. He knew it of course, but he wasn't sure he was ready to lend all credence to Tevore's history. The old man was leaning forward intently watching for a reaction. If Aleric were to admit it, his name would surely convince the old wizard beyond all recall and commit him to Tevore's goal. "Do you?" Tevore asked again, eyes glittering in the shadows of the overhanging brow. "Yes." "Say it. You must believe in it." "Nilsangehir." "Yes, Aleric, Lastblood of Lyorn." There was an exultant ring in the querulous old voice. "You are the hope of your people. Nilsangehir." Aleric closed his eyes. The sound of his hidden name addressing him for the first time resounded in his mind like a key fitting a lock. Nilsangehir. Lastblood. Unconsciously his hands, still balancing Xel'ha, closed over the blade. They were not cut, but a peculiar vibration shook the sword under his palms. The metal grew warmer under his touch. Aelric opened his eyes to see Xel'ha finally come alive with his birthright. A faint nimbus glowed amber around the blade and the engraved flames actually danced on the hilt. The glyphs the flames surrounded shone in sharp relief against the hilt. For good or ill, Aleric Lastblood of Lyorn was committed. -- Heather Sexauer Muskingum College hsexauer@muskingum.edu "If you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it; laugh it off; if you can't laugh it off, you probably deserve it." -- Russell Lynes