BECMI Chapter 310 – Breaking Faith with an Immortal
I had just Bound an Immortal. The elves below just stared up at me, agog with disbelief.
Disbelief, and the threads of something more.
Gaebrel was Bound. By a Shaden elf!
I went on as if not interrupted. “Elder Sisters and Brothers, the device that Gaebrel is having you build in the lowest levels of the Pyramid is a copy of the fusion power core that detonated in the Crimson Cataclysm three thousand years ago, an event that chased our last attempt to resettle the surface from it and caused an Ice Age lasting a thousand years.
“It is not complete, because you do not know what or why you are making such a thing, and so it is akin to you telling a child how to make a set of masterwork elven plate, when they barely know how to hold a hammer.
“Why Gaebrel is having such a thing made here, in the heart of Shaden civilization, where the explosion that will certainly result from it being used will slaughter the greatest number of our own, I do not know. He could have made such a device in no time at all in His home plane, but insisted on having our own do it.
“Master Gaebrel, you will either remove the device from the Pyramid here, or I call upon all my kin in the Sternvult to see that it is destroyed. There will be no Crimson Cataclysm here.”My voice was razored iron dripping bloody Truth for all to appreciate.
All eyes turned on the High Priestess, who looked equally appalled at finding out what they were building in such secrecy. She turned imploring eyes to the shining figure trapped in the floating Skull, the look on her face that of someone whose faith was shaken to the very core.
The sigh that escaped the trapped figure was broadcast to every Shaden who could see it. “Very well. I will remove the proto-Nucleus.”
No attempt to deny it, that would have been fruitless. It was still a blow to the Shaden who were hoping that Truth could be mistaken!
“Elders of the Shaden. The tenets of Gaebrel say that you must make way for the younger generations when you reach eight centuries. Where you go is up to you, only that it must be away from the Shaden.
“I extend an open invitation that you may come to my realm of Eistree and live the rest of your days there under sun, moon, and stars. King Lymeril has extended a similar invitation from Sidheduiche, and Princess Brittabelle of Erewan has offfered the same courtesy. Come to the light, and live out your twilight days in the endless lands under the sun, just as our ancestors did.”
I swept my eyes over the throngs below. “For those of you who do not wish to have your children bear the cost of the Radiance, you cannot escape it in this lifetime. The Radiance is all around us, it permeates you, and your children bear the risk, as do mine.
“If your children are born there, and your grandchildren are conceived and born on the surface, however, that risk will be gone. Thus, we prefer the first immigrants to be families, that your grandchildren may grow up without this risk hanging over them.”
I could almost feel the resolve crystallizing among the Shaden that they had to get out of the Underdark now, that the horrors of having a child mutated by the Radiance never have to happen to them again!
“Lastly, I bring a warning. The Immortal Tzentotl, the one who corrupted the city of Idhemong and turned our ancient kin away from Gaebrel, is again active and scheming against our people.
“King Ershultaen is using one of these nihilist murderers as an advisor. Idhemong has been raised from the depths, and our elders, feeling abandoned by Gaebrel, have converged on the ancient City of Madness and are being wooed to the service of Tzentotl. Lastly, the tribes which fell to Him, who have been engaged in nigh-constant warfare with Hollow World humans who also follow Him, have turned some of their attention back to us, the supposed weak who did not dare to follow Him, and they are attempting to infiltrate our society and corrupt the children through bent truths that Gaebrel has not addressed of us. They call themselves the Schatten, and they come with no remorse, no empathy, fanatic belief in their Patron, and no scruples on how they will see us die.
“The Tainted words this being has spoken, the dreams He has sent forth, are much of why King Ershultaen sought to conquer Sidheduiche, instead of opening friendly diplomatic relations with them, for Tzentotl glories in war, sacrifice, and corruption. Gaebrel’s tenets are based on highest devotion to our people, and you are ill-prepared for the lies and whispers of this being, much as the Sidhe were not prepared for deception and treachery on the part of the Shaden. Is it not the lies within that lead to the greatest betrayals, after all?…”
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Their bitter expressions assured me they were appreciating the irony of that all too much right now. My investigations into the Shaden and those sent as infiltrators had also borne some nasty fruit. Unlike them, I’d inherited a lot of practice with diplomacy and intrigue, and was aware of the instruments of such things.
The Shaden were basically xenophobic and had no friends down here, completely self-reliant, them against the world. An assault on ‘them’, internal struggles, literally did not happen… but nor did friendly relations with those outside.
Part of it was Gaebrel’s tenets, as He didn’t want outside forces messing with His servants and spoiling His plans. But His plans had some massive gaping holes and were built on some colossal lies.
I’d bared them, because He was an idiot. How He dealt with them was His problem, I’d given my people their options.
“This illusion will last until dawn on the lands above, reminding you of what we have always striven for.
“The surface is there. The Shaden may return at any time we wish… but we will not be alone if we do, we will not be isolated, there will not be miles of stone between us and those who wish to do us harm.
“You will be entering a new world, and as we became different from our ancestors while we endured in the deeps, so our children will be different from us once they are born under the open sky.
“I await to see what you will do, my cousins.”
And with that, my image in the illusion faded away, as did the dark Skull binding the Immortal Gaebrel’s Avatar… which He astutely vanished along with, not wanting to confront His emotionally-charged supporters right now.
If He was smart enough to realize that He was being infiltrated and attacked by an Entropic Immortal who was actually elven in origins and so understood His people better than He did, all well and good.
If not, He deserved it when whole segments of His population fell to the worship of the bastard, and would either be expunged or join the Schatten who had already converted to Him… and who also deserved to be expunged.
Briggs had distinct opinions about Tzentotl and His servants, and most of them ended as pancakes under a large Hammer. One of his ambitions was to return home and to see the suborned Tribes of the Jaguars and the Snakes either put down permanently or converted away from Tzentotl. But he also blamed Hiawatha, the father of the tribes, for doing next to nothing to help his people in regards to the fallen tribes, and had a terribly low opinion of the Immortal his people revered so much the entire nation was named after Him.
The slaughter he had unleashed upon the fallen tribes when he was merely eighteen had contained their numbers and aggression for many decades, allowing the neighboring tribes to grow strong enough to hold them back. But the Jaguar and Snakes were civilized tribes, with cities and agriculture, and the other tribes were still nomadic. Their ability to grow and sustain their population was likewise higher, and thus they could specialize their people as soldiers, whereas the other tribes were more egalitarian.
Well, he and Sama going home and fixing the problems there was part of their long-term plans.
I’d just completely upended Shaden elf society and might just have collapsed Gaebrel’s church. Pity Him.
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“You!”
Blocks of stone were carving themselves out of the ground steadily, at the rate of one per minute, then floating over to join the lines and squares of similar blocks already out and floating above the ground.
It was my third Pyramid arising, this one with a Domain designed to cover the hyn Shirelands of Loha. The crazy cold, driving wind, and falling snow didn’t bother me at all, and I was ritually and rhythmically bring up new blocks out of a small hill that wasn’t using all that stone, anyway.
I glanced over to see Senior Master Cerebral Engineer Gabriel Encheliff glaring at me. His hair was its normal uncontrolled pinkish friz now, standing on edge, his eyes a bit on the red side, and his skin tinged the green of his native people.
“Senior Engineer,” I greeted him evenly, continuing to work, eyeing his Federation-standard jumpsuit with an engineer’s workvest and apron, just like always. “Get your idiotic copy of the fusion core moved?”
His mouth worked for a moment at just how casually I was treating him. He was, after all, a mighty Immortal, venerated by my whole tribe for thousands of years, far away and above us all in power and viewpoint. He simply wasn’t used to be talked to this way. “Do I know you?” he finally asked, his green eyes narrowed.
“No, but I know you, so that balances things out.” He blinked in consternation. “You DID get your poor and explosive excuse for a science project out of the Sternvult?” I repeated, a bit more firmly this time.
“I...yes, I removed it,” he finally admitted sullenly, his attention shifting to the great blocks being carved by magic to a level of frankly incredible detail, so much so that he actually did a double-take when he realized just how precisely and carefully I was making the Runework. “It, they…” Distracted, it took him a minute to center his thoughts as a Rune-carved block twenty feet square floated off to join its fellows in slow, quiet precision, extending a long line of floating blocks in the air, waiting to complete so they could fuse to the other six lines of blocks already lined up.
“Then why are you bothering me when you’ve got mad zealots of the Bat-Serpent Tzentotl to chase down and see to the elimination of? Surely you don’t mind keeping the priests busy hunting true internal enemies of my people.”
He was trying to work himself into a fit of anger at me, but I was treating him so coolly, he was naturally wary… especially after I managed to Bind him like I had. “Do you know what you have cost me, Edgina daughter of Keffe?” he challenged me.
“Your lies, Master Engineer?” I replied with equal cutting calm. “Your laziness? Your haughty arrogance? Your sense of entitled superiority?” I worked at Shaping up another hovering Block there, while He tried to analyze what I was doing. Rune circuitry was a bit out of His comfort zone, however. “I think you can agree that from an insider’s view, those are wonderful things to be removed.”