The Second Sorrow of the Platinum Dragon

In his great mercy, the Platinum Dragon conceived of the plane of imprisonment. In his great wisdom, he crafted the Tarterian Depths. In his great honour, he sought the aid of the Allhammer to forge from adamantine a gleaming triumvirate: the gates, the shackles, and the authority of the warden. The Platinum Dragon watched, and poured his essence into the three, so that they were joined to him and part of him.

All three the Allhammer wrought, though he had shorter time to forge the last, for the first of the Platinum Dragon’s great foes was defeated, and needed a prison. The foe, whose name since was lost or hidden, was placed inside the prison even as the Allhammer polished the authority. At this moment, the Cloaked Serpent approached, and asked if the kin of the Platinum Dragon and the Allhammer might also use the Tarterian Depths for their own foes.

And so the kin met, and so the kin made a pact: that all of the kin may use the Tarterian Depths, and that none of the kin would interfere with the prisoners of the others. Mayhaps the Cloaked Serpent schemed it that way, and mayhaps not, for either way the discussion caused the Allhammer to forget the weakness of the authority, and the flaw departed from his mind as the kin waged that almighty war at the dawn of the cosmos.

The ages marched onward, and the kin found less and less need for the Tarterian Depths, though the Platinum Dragon thought often of the pact they had made, and how he wished the Cloaked Serpent had no prisoners there. Eventually, he too turned his mind from the gaol. When he did, the influence of the first great foe began to spread, corrupting and corroding the Tarterian Depths. It rusted the might of the gates. It rusted the strength of the shackles. It rusted the purity of the authority.

The warden of the Tarterian Depths soon lost control of their mind. They had learnt of the flaw in the authority that they wielded, and their madness drove them to betray the Platinum Dragon. Whispers spread through Baator, reaching the ears of the kytons – if any of their number could control the authority, they could unlock the shackles and open the gates.

For this dishonour, the Platinum Dragon cast down the warden and hid the authority away, though he knew that this would not dissuade the kytons from seeking it. The Platinum Dragon looked and saw what had become of the Tarterian Depths, and saw how it had been twisted by the power of the first great foe. In anguish, he gave his creation a new name:

Carceri, the Red Prison.

A Yew Leaf

Above her, clouds took on the forms of crashing waves and cutting rocks trying to sink a ship, the moon, as it sailed through the sky. The wind tugged at her cloak and tried its best to force her own hair into her eyes, her nose, her mouth. For a moment, as her metal boot sunk deeper into a puddle than expected, she wished she hadn’t agreed to attend, but quickly forced that thought away.

Lady Fate wants this, she reminded herself, tracing her mistress’ three wavy lines across her breastplate.

Soon, as the wind started to call its colleague, the rain, to drive into her face, she was at the door to the Duke’s hall. She raised her polished gauntlet to knock, just as the door was opened by the Duke’s son, who promptly took the opportunity to look her up and down. For Fate’s sake, I’m in plate mail, you can’t see a thing! she wanted to scream into the man’s face.

Instead: “Your Grace. The Lady saw fit to encourage me to join your gathering tonight, let’s not dally at the entrance.” She gave a smile engineered to be polite in the extreme, so polite that it almost looped back around to rude. Almost.

“Then please come in, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” replied the scruffy youth, his words doing little to hide the stains on his lace cuffs. “And in your formal attire no less, we are honoured.” He opened the door wider, and the heat of the room washed over her, a heat that came purely from men eating and arguing and drinking and laughing. She noticed that the lordling had let her past, but clearly out of a desire to assess her from behind rather than to be courteous. If I wasn’t here on business he’d be staring at my sword point… Again, she squashed the thought.

It didn’t take long for the Duke to notice her. After a slurred introduction from His Grace to the brazier-lit room and cheers from the assorted guests, she was seated beside him and left to assess the quality of the food in front of her. After chewing a couple of times she decided that the lamb was passable, though the green sauce was not.

She frowned. The Duke said it would be redcurrant sauce… In panic, she sprayed her last mouthful of food out across the table, to some surprised applause from her right. She grabbed the carafe of water and rinsed her mouth as thoroughly as possible.

Hurriedly, she pulled a yew leaf from the pouch at her belt, and chanted a prayer to Lady Fate, beseeching her to twist the weave that she might see the unseen. After a few seconds, feeling the usual lurch in possibilities, she brushed the yew leaf across her eyes, and her perception of the world shifted.

The sauce was poison. It contained some form of distilled wyvern venom. She scanned the room, searching. The alcohol was giving off signals, but it always did when her eyes were able to detect poison and disease – if that wasn’t proof the stuff was bad for you she didn’t know what was. The Duke had no trace of poison around his lips, thank Fate, but his son… Those stains on his cuffs were an exact match.

She narrowed her eyes. Why did it always have to be politics…

A Snake’s Tongue

Her hands danced across the strings of the lute. Its music coursed through her body as sweat began to bead on her brow. She was dimly aware that this was probably the best performance of her life, but that thought wasn’t for now. That thought could be processed later, when the lute was packed away and the night was over. Right now the notes were all that mattered, the melody and its counterpoint weaving around each other and entwining her, embracing her.

With a flourish, she plucked the final notes and grew still, drawing in a deep breath. For one perfect moment there was quiet; quiet created by the absence of her playing, quiet filled with the weight of what had come before it. These were the moments she cherished.

This was why she performed.

“Two more o’ them again”, slurred the elderly gentlemen at the bar, his cheeks red beneath his wrinkles, his voice cutting through her reverie. She glanced around at the handful of patrons in the dingy tavern, and not a one seemed to understand what had just transpired. She had been electric, but they had just continued muttering into their cups, playing dice, or – or passing out on the floor apparently.

She sighed. It was obvious that this place had seen better days. The walls were peeling, the carpet was a masterpiece in mysterious dark stains, and she wasn’t even on a stage, just standing in an area cleared of furniture. Her being here was clearly a desperate attempt by the owner to draw fresh faces in. That was fine by her, she’d even get a few silver out of it, but couldn’t anybody in here show some appreciation? She’d been playing for hours, her fingers were numb, and she’d gotten barely a glance all evening.

One greasy-haired man yawned over his tankard. And then belched, loudly.

With that, her mind was made up. Whatever trouble it might bring – again – she would have her audience, and they would enjoy her music. She reached into one of the pockets of her troubadour cloak, resting her fingers on a snake’s tongue and a bit of honeycomb, and cleared her throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” she declared. Nobody looked up. “Now for something very special, something I know you’ll all enjoy…” She paused, partly for effect, but mostly to focus on the song within, that ever-pulsing, ever-changing, ever-flowing piece of herself. Her contact with the tongue and honeycomb encouraged its soft thrumming to find the particular resonance she needed. She continued to speak, her words now laced with magic. “You’ll all actually listen to what I’m playing instead of treating me like dirt!”

For one awful second, nobody responded to her suggestion, and her stomach lurched with fear. Then, one by one, the patrons of the grimy place turned, their eyes fixed on her, their heads cocked to hear her better. She smiled her best smile, and strummed a simple chord. Then another. And another, faster this time. With the fourth she launched into a ditty about a fox and a demon, her audience listening with rapt attention.

An audience worth performing for.

A Piece of Cork

Waves lapped around her bare feet, their soft susurrus matching the rhythm of her breaths. The chill of the water was pleasant against her skin, and the salt’s odour lingered gently when the water receded. Bit by bit that strange dark speck just below the horizon grew, revealing itself as the ocean inched itself away from her.

She waited.

Soon the tide would be at its lowest, the only chance she’d have. Her fingers traced over the piece of cork in her hand, its texture a welcome and familiar roughness. She brought it to her nose and sniffed gently, knowing the sweet aroma was gone but smelling it anyway. Then, she planted her feet, firmly.

Uttering the syllables that heralded and enacted change, she moved the cork through the air fluidly yet precisely, a well-practised motion that she know would have the desired effect. After the barest of pauses, the magic of the land began to coalesce around the cork, began to draw out, began to take shape. If it were visible, she had no doubts that it would be beautiful, but she was content to simply feel the weave settle into her body instead, and not for the first time she wondered if she imagined it feeling stronger in her feet.

With a gratifying tingle, a cool wave slid beneath her, lifting her atop it. It carried her up the beach a short distance, and she rode it back down, stepping deftly onto the next wave, and continuing to walk forwards. Soon, the beach was behind her, and she picked up her pace. If she was going to reach that mysterious jutting object she’d need to be fast – water walk would only last an hour, and she wouldn’t be able to cast it again in a hurry.

So she ran. She laughed as the water’s rolling surface made her stomach lurch, and she grinned as her sense of connectedness with the ocean grew.

But when she drew near to her goal she frowned and grew uncertain, her footfalls faltering. Why was there a chunk of castle wall protruding at an angle from the seafloor below? How long had its broken stones been here to become so encrusted with barnacles?

And what was inside the battered wooden chest that nestled within the drowned masonry?