The Shining Wyrm

Jewel had read many books on the heavens, she had held council with her Priest Leo for two years now. Both during her journey to Magarska and after the War with Murad.

She was no longer completely naive to the nature of the heavens as she had been during her marriage.

So when a sparse smattering of divine contact brushed through everyone in the room like a cloud of arrow heads cutting into the world upon the Pantheon Priest’s ‘invocation’ and everyone started reacting to things that as far as she could tell were not there Jewel was merely disappointed.

“I beg your pardon Countess, but do not insult the Goddess Persephone with your lies and arrogance.”

High Priest Evaristus turned with a controlled and careful motion, the other two priests kept their faces still as they stared up at nothing in the middle of the ritual’s circle. She had seen plenty of faux flame move among them before the ‘arrival’, a truly impressive working of divine cuts and machinations had unfolded from all the diviners present.

But compared to the invocation on her wedding that had summoned the sky itself down and burned with the radiant if fuzzy impression of a goddess herself in the night Jewel was deeply unimpressed.

She huffed and spoke with just the faintest spark of her will. Not enough to even light a grain of sand with her flame but more than enough for the flimsy smattering of divine touches in the room hanging off of everyone like cobwebs.

“The only arrogance here is yours High Priest, this invocation is a farce, I have witnessed the heavens descend as a goddess from the night sky, there is nothing here of them but echoes.”

And with her words the flimsy threads of divine contact on the world were brushed away, their marks still lingering in the world like slowly fading scars, but the active cutting ceased.

Everyone jolted at that, Mathias, Paul even Leo although his reaction was the most muted. Well excluding Peter Bulchava, but his reaction was one of excitement and open glee.

The High Priests looked the most disturbed.

Evaristus in Particular looked absolutely furious, his face briefly flushing a deep red before he managed to master himself. The flush to his cheeks failing to fade even as his expression calmed towards what she was learning was one of the most basic of diviner disciplines.

To master one’s heart and hold it still in the eyes of the divine you mastered your face.

She could hear in their chests the way that this was working better for some of the Pantheon’s Diviners than others.

Before Jewel or anyone else could find their voice the presence of the heavens in the room rose up with a furious intensity. Where before it had been a scattered hatching of cuts it descended upon the room like a tangle of edges, a knotted thing of sharp contact cleaving through the air in a dervish, reaching for the priests of the Pantheon, its passing causing all of them to brace themselves with sudden tension.

Before that presence could reach Paul, Leo or Mathias however Jewel spoke.

“Hold your touch there Gods of the Heavens.”

She couldn't see which one it might even be, without the mortal eyes of her spawn in the room all she had was the clouded impression of divine presence, one of the priests that had assisted the High Priests gasped at whatever it was that they saw the God or Goddess do.

In this she also had practice, as Gem and now the Twins Jewel had to learn to act on things she could not see or feel, to guess what the sorcery laid into her fingers, throat and body were tracing and becoming, whether it was shaping correctly.

Evaristus still tinged in the face with his barely controlled fury turned back to the tangle of divine presence that Jewel felt was close enough to her experiences to qualify as a ‘proper’ divine manifestation.

“Persephone, I plead with you mercy and pardons for the filthy wyrm’s trans-”

Jewel held her posture, keeping the serene grace she had practiced all her life, apparently waiting patiently as whatever what presumably was ‘Persephone’ said to this priest about Jewel wiping away the smoke and illusion that had transpired before.

“I, of course, a thousand pardons to you Queen of the Underworld, I-”

There was more presence, cutting, slicing, shifting divinity over the man, It looked intense, there was a tension rising in the hearts of all the other diviners. She listened to Leo’s heartbeat and breathing to judge the moment her intervention was called for.

“I still cannot hear you Persephone, although I acknowledge your presence now. Thank you for joining us.”

The presence stilled, the places that it touched the world still stood out sharply, edges tense with potential. But the motion, the changing of the world, had ended.

Then coming together with a grating tone, like metal bending and groaning the touches of the divine moved, clashed, broke the air between them. Fashioned a voice crude and rough enough.

“wYrM SpEaKs?”

Beside Mathias Erhard hummed thoughtfully at the act.

“Y-yes Persephone, did you not-”

The touch of the stars struck into Evaristus’ head like a Gryphon Arrow, the man jolting with the blow and then tensing so hard that his back arched, the other two priests of the Zodiac Council took smooth and practiced steps back and away from him, muttering whispers and prayers under their breath. All but a few Diviners in the rest of the group were doing the same, the stragglers taking a few glances to fall into action with their fellows.

“pRiEsT WiLl LiStEn!”

The voice groaned and shrieked unevenly, like breaking metal then mortal tone. There was another jolt in the body, Evaristus’s heart began to thunder in panic and then fell to barely a murmur, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep. The presence of his flesh in the world growing lethargic and muted under so much divine touch.

“pRiEsT WILL hEar?Listen, know, sound, word, voice.”

With every word the grating nature of the voice changed, tones coming closer together, volume changing, becoming less a thing of groaning metal and piercing whistles. Forming in Jewel’s ear closer and closer to something like speech.

By the time it spoke the last word the voice was a woman, with a strange rattle in her throat. A breath to her tone that reminded Jewel uncomfortably of Muriel’s last days. With every utterance the body with its head pierced by the thickest torrent of divine contact writhed.

“Good”

Evaristus gasped, the world of his flesh jolting to wakefulness as most of the divine presence in his head slipped free. Heart rising to a thundering pace even as his eyes look up to the wrenching, twisting thing.

“Persephone, this was not the compact!”

The presence, which filled a space that was vaguely shaped like both a woman and a tree shifted, Jewel imagined perhaps it might even be said to turn. Edges of cutting divinity slicing through the air.

“Wyrm of world, made compact? Contract? Mission? Request? Exchange?”

Its form swayed, almost as if it peered out into the room, the vague idea of a gaze swept past Jewel to the left and right, it gave the distinct impression of a beast trying to catch a scent.

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The wyrm stared at the thing, then spoke slowly, dragging the words from her throat, forced to repeat what she had never wanted, but now must. Her words felt quiet and timid against the volume of the one made by the goddess.

“I want to speak to my father.”

The presence shifted, loomed, turned back over to Evaristus, to the other high priests.

“Where? What? How? Who?”

The lines of divine contact in the man suddenly thickened, grew, his body began to flex, seize, like a glove being fitted and tested. Fingers splaying, eyes rolling. His flesh and heart stuttering to a brief halt in its addition to the voice of the world.

Then it withdrew its presence from his head again, leaving him shuddering, gasping for breath and heart thundering in panic. The seeking presence, like a facing, like the snout on a dog began seeking the air around her again, vaguely in her direction before jerking to point directly at Paul.

Sliding forward towards him-

“I said Hold!”

Once again Jewel commanded and the presence, the thing which had been named Persephone by the high priests, froze.

Slowly it drew back, the only sound Evaristus’ gasping and retching coughs as the old man struggled to compose himself. Alone in making any noise now before the cutting, shifting presence of the Goddess he had summoned.

The two other high priests well back from him, moved their lips in silent prayers, surrounded now by divine presences of their own. The other diviners in the circle call on similar, but simpler forms to shroud themselves in.

Finally, slowly, the Goddess’ wavered, spun, twisted a seeking tendril of divine edges into the air in sweeping arcs before settling, pointed at last at Jewel. Although it was slightly off from her face despite holding her head high and prominently.

“Where is the Father?”

The Goddess asked, almost pleading with not unlike the tone of a confused child.

Jewel could feel the hearts of all the diviners present, she could hear Leo’s deep breath as he held tightly to his calm. She did not look but the world in one of the other High Priest’s blood was definitely making him flush with anger.

The Shining Wyrm of Viznove took in a breath, the motion seeming to draw the attention of that almost birdlike point closer to pointing directly at her face.

“He’s dead, We’ve called you here to bring him forth so I may speak to him.”

The divine presence stilled, a presence of divinity began to form in the air over the High King Mathias and Jewel rumbled.

“Without touching them. No tricks, no lies, Bring me my father!”

There was a stillness in the air, Evaristus finally got control of his breathing.

Then with a shifting of divinity in the air before Jewel light began to shine. It started with just the vagueness of a man, almost like it was made of glass. But then the color changed, the skin took on hues, clothing, details, textures.

The churning force of divine miracles was thicker in that one place than anywhere else.

It looked up at Jewel, and she looked down on it. A face more like a smudge of a painting of the man that she remembered.

“Hello I am Jonathan the Third of House Rochford, Once Baron of Rochford, Father of Alexander the Second of House Rochford. Hello Daughter.”

The lips parted and a voice spoke and it was lacking in the subtle sounds of him, it was like him but indistinct and there were hints of the man’s voice that sounded like the Goddess.

Fury was building in her heart, this wasn't him, this was not even a bad facsimile. But she remembered the words, the steps of the ritual Leo had set down. She held her words back, constrained, fury broiling within.

“If you are my father, what is my name?”

The thing, the presence again filled with a lashing of divinity, every part of it a twisting of the world, every moment of its presence an alteration.

“... Jewel daughter of Lord Rochford.”

She had to remember the rite that Leo had set down, that the other temples said truly tested the gods and their invocations of the dead.

“What did you say the day you found me sleeping in the ovens?”

The smudged, not quite her father looking thing shifted then spoke.

“Ah, yes, I remember. You were so small, and the heat of the ovens was far too much for a child of your age. I said ‘This is no place for a girl with such fire in her heart.’ ”

Jewel cut off the words, her fury finally breaking free, her will and flame licking at her tongue so furious it could not even begin to form sorcery.

“Liar, Father was terrified when he found me he had been searching the fortress for hours, When he saw me sleeping in the oven he yelled for fear I had died and it startled me and had me fleeing further in! We only joked after mother calmed him down and coaxed me out and he had made sure I was whole and unharmed!”

The apparition smiled blankly.

“Ah yes of course, that is what happened. I’m sorry.”

And Jewel’s doubts fell into certainty, not even when he was acting as her vassal had her father ever spoken with that tone. That scraping, sniveling apologetic groveling.

She turned to the presence of the Goddess.

“That is not My Father, no more simulacrum, no more fakes, not one more lie, If you can bring him forth I want to speak to My Father.”

The divine contrivances that had made a mockery of her family vanished, the work holding it together gone leaving not even dust in its wake. The presence reached, brushed over the diviners around it. Reached right through the shields that she was pretty sure was meant to protect them from it.

Then it settled, all the cuts and edges stilling, leaving them almost invisible, like a twisted contorted cone of cuts in the air.

“Your father is not here.”

She snarled at that, of course he wasn't here that’s why they had called down a Goddess!

“I know that, we all know that! He’s Dead! That’s why we called you here! To bring forth the dead! As a goddess of the dead, queen of the underworld! You are supposed to keep the souls of the dead!”

The presence churned in the air, fresh cuts in the center of the room.

“Persephone Keeps the dead”

Jewel stared at the thing, had they summoned something else?

“Are you not Persephone?!”

The thing spoke again.

“Persephone was called”

Jewel felt the fury in her fire, threatening to overflow, she had subjected herself to the lies and broken promise of speaking to her father twice more than she ever wanted. First to see an old man twisted beyond all recognition and now to be stymied by empty air that sounded duller than any child.

“And are you Persephone?!”

The thing again went still.

“Persephone is here”

It was infuriating, blindingly so, Jewel felt the urge to burn the presence in the middle of Mathias’ feasting hall to nothing. But would that even work? She had broken the divinity of Magarska’s vows, could she do the same to those here?

“Where are the dead that Persephone, daughter of Summer, Queen of the Underworld keeps?”

Leo’s voice broke Jewel from her rising fury. The presence in the room shifted, began to reach for him and then was halted with only the slightest rumble from the Wyrm.

“The Dead Persephone keeps are here.”

Jewel blinked and looked around.

“Where?”

Another sudden lashing of divine contact struck, every diviner going rigid, then as one every single one of them, High Priest and lesser diviner alike reached up and placed their right palm upon their brow.

As one voice with the thing in the center of the room that was called Persephone they spoke.

“The Dead Persephone keeps are here.”

Jewel gawked as every diviner staggered and looked around in shock, the High Priests looking like they were ready to flee.

“Are... Are all the dead kept this way? Within the living?”

She didn't even need to growl to keep the divine presence out of Leo as he questioned it.

“No.”

Only the voice called from the air spoke this time, and every eye locked onto the space that Jewel could only see cutting of miracles.

“Where... where are they kept?”

Finally as she spoke those words the point of what Jewel was going to call the head of the goddess finally found its way to point directly at the wyrm’s face.

“Not Kept, Forgotten.”

Jewel stared, holding still face to face with divinity.

The whirling force in the center of the room gnashed and churned in the air at her silence before finally stilling one more time.

“There can be no compact, The Wyrm Father is not Here.”

And like a breath going out, all the divine presence in the room vanished, leaving only fading scars of its passing to dissolve from the air.