18.6
Leo Haeborne did not know what to think.
He stared at the off white stone, as darkness flowed over its surface in a seeping wave, following through its convoluted whorls. From light to dark, it was obvious on the larger specimen how it moved, where the smaller had merely seemed to pulse near black to white. But he could see it move on this greater specimen.
He’d been vindicated, his position acknowledged by the highest of priests, the entirety of the realm of Cantor Reborn bent to action because of what he’d suspected in his heart for almost his entire life.
A Wyrm, Wizard and Archpriest had labored for years with their expertise, sorcery and the calling of miracles to see a wrong he had felt in his heart put right.
He’d been given one of Erhard’s Leuhtą-un. Larger than the one they had used to ‘keep’ the souls of the criminals. It was a weight that took two men to handle and move, an orb almost a foot across of porous stone, covered in ever finer and intricate whorls. Gently pulsing with a flow of a dull white gray to a near black shade. The color change rolled over it like a wave, for reasons that none could give an answer too.
Something to do with his Countess’ addition of the capacity for the ‘soul silver’ it had been made from to ‘dream’.
But why would that make pale stone seem to pulse between dark and light like such? Leo’s curiosity burned to know but he had no idea how to answer it. It made him feel ashamed, to want to know even more when he’d been gifted so much?
Well it was technically a gift to his Countess, but Leo was her priest and as a divine matter it was his responsibility to make use of it. The solution to all he had asked for, to all he could have dreamed of, now within his hands, assured and true peace for the dead.
Beyond the astounding cost in labor and materials to make the thing it took so little to use. A simple rite needed to be performed upon the one you wished to grant security for their soul.
The flow of the shifting darkness was curiously slower on this one than the first of the artifacts that had been made. What was the significance there?
The Archpriestess of Asherah’s involvement meant it invoked her goddess, that was interwoven into the Leuhtą-un absolutely, but he suspected if another Wizard fashioned their own version from dreaming Soul Silver the god could be changed to suit it.
Would it still move with such a rhythm of color and hue if another God was tied to its use?
Would that change the patterns that wound deep into the surface of the Leuhtą-un?
Leo felt his mind try to cling onto any of those details instead of the conundrum that had left him standing in contemplation in the space of his Countess’ manor house set aside for this shrine.
When he turned his attention from the artifact itself he found his eyes on the room itself.
Stone work freshly carved by the local mason family. A statue of Asherah herself engraved in relief into the wall behind the vast sphere, hands open in welcoming or exaltation, with the branches of her tree curling behind her.
The altar which held the precious, sorcerous, divine object hewn to resemble her robed lap. Its plinth etched into curving roots. As a diviner he could only marvel at what the Archpriestess had wrought with her deep understanding and connection to the Goddess.
Just a basic blessing invoking Asherah with the strange pulsing stone able to ‘witness’ it was all that was required.
And then anyone could go about their day with an assurance that all that was needed to secure their place in the wondrous dream of this artifact was that their corpse be brought back to the stone and their lifeless body be ‘witnessed’ by it again. Ideally within the same day as death, but Erhard had made noises about verifying those limits before he and the Arch Priestess returned to the Capital.
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Leo had read intently over the rite and offerings needed for the act, and he was humbled by its elegance.
An apprentice diviner could follow the instructions the Archpriestess had created for the ritual. The greater complexity of the dealings with the Goddess already arranged by the workings of the Leuhtą-un itself.
A masterful layering of safe guards, requirements and contingencies wrought into the whorls of the wizard’s sorcery somehow.
It was everything Leo had yearned to accomplish for most of his life!
All except the two limits, two terrible caveats on the greatest miracle devised by mankind.
The first and the most important for both him and his Countess. It could not be used to secure the already dead, even the recently dead, the rite and blessing had to be placed upon a living soul while they yet breathed, knew and could welcome Asherah’s embrace.
The second limit made the first even worse, there were limits to the capacity of the Leuhtą-un’s capacity.
Furthermore the artifact was made to not allow more to be secured to it then it could hold. A feature that the Archpriestess had insisted upon. Candidates who would then ideally have to be kept within a day’s travel to wherever the stone resided.
It meant that despite the bounty of wealth it represented in effort, sorcery and precious raw materials the Leuhtą-un yet failed to see the completion of the Project. The palm sized stone could only just barely contain the souls of three dead men, the one that had been gifted to the Countess could secure at most fifty souls or less.
It was a gift that was poisonous for how nearly perfect it was.
He stared at the faintly glowing surface, at the way it seemed to almost flee the darkness spreading over it, then emerge again from the other side, like hope returning, triumphant. The candles in the alcoves lit the shrine far better than it should, the white of the stone although flat and dull glowed greater and purer than that light which fell upon it.
It was obviously precious, even if you did not know what it could do.
Leo was no expert in trade or metal work but he’d never seen the sorcerous metal Erhard required to forge his ‘soul silver’. Furthermore the years it had taken the Court Wizard and Archpriestess to acquire as much as they had brought to Valasect spoke of its monumental expense. The amount they could procure given all of Cantor Reborn’s resources to be ‘finished’ by the Lady Jewel’s ensorcelment did not fill him with confidence.
Given only fifty souls could be secured in an orb a foot across? The Realm held far more living people than could fit even in the amount of Soul Silver that he’d seen carried away back to the Capital.
He took a heavy breath, the sound of it seeming to impede on the serenity of this place. Freshly made it might be, yet it already felt old and hallowed, steeped in divine presence.
The Court Priest of the Countess of Viznove had not found a settlement to his unrest.
Leo did not know what to think of the treasure that now was placed within the Manor’s shrine, held on that beautifully carved altar. A potential for fifty souls to be saved at the behest of his Countess. Out of the many many thousands in Viznove, at the cost of what was certainly many times more the artifact’s weight in silver or even gold?
He was supposed to be her advisor in matters of the divine, in the soul and spirit of herself and men.
Yet he could not even begin to imagine the weight of responsibility that his Countess was carrying with this. Leo expected she would insist on her Brother and his wife undergo the rite. Their souls secured for a life after death of beautiful and comforting dreams, Her mother and the Nurse Knight Smithson seemed certain choices as well.
Would Leo warrant this gift? Did he as her advisor even have the right to ask? Did he even want it? What about the Kitchen Master Dariusz? What of his family? Perhaps with some restraint the Lady Jewel could secure all the living in her household and family that she was close to. Kept their souls safe within the Leuhtą-un’s comfort.
But after that what of their children?
Or their children’s children?
There was not going to be room, and although there was a means to draw out the souls from the Leuhtą-un for a rebirth to free up their place, how was anyone to make the choice of who? Even if it was to form an unborn child Leo had read what the cost of that was.
Almost a whole life’s memories washed away before the revived saw their sixth winter.
He took a heavy sigh before turning away from the orb, he’d seen how it drew the eye of the Countess, more intently than any other treasure or object he’d ever seen her gaze upon. But he could not attribute it to what the texts said was draconic greed.
No, Leo knew better, she looked upon the Leuhtą-un for the same reason it drew his eye. It was a Fortune’s curse of a treasure. Providing so much they wished for while requiring the worst cost of all.
A judgement for who could be saved and those that must be lost.