[djo]

Holy cow, we almost fell off the front page!

Well, weep no more, for I give you...

Vanheim turn 45

In which Belletennares ponders duality, and Pherios looks the Lady in the eye.

Pherios

Pherios watches.

Thousands of bright sparks mill and churn before him. They are everywhere, surrounding him; they cover the face of the earth. He hears every voice, touches every life. They are warm. He reaches for one, hoping to drive the chill from his hands, but he stops: the warmth is not his to take. Nor has he any need of it. Instead, he draws close to the nearest and watches:

He sees a young girl give her favorite doll to her little brother, to console him after his dog dies. A decade later she is married, and a decade more, she is widowed. She is forty and leading her town's council; fifty and, her new vows fresh in her mind, blessing her townsfolk who fight the bloodthirsty invaders. She is threescore years old, and two years dead, still protectively patrolling her hamlet's streets. Fourscore, and she weeps as her line dies, when her last great-great-grandchild is killed by wolves. A year later she lays down her bones, swearing to sleep until the end of the world. She is eight score and seven when she answers the call to fight for Vanheim again, in Ferra.

There are hundreds of thousands of sparks. He sees them all. He knows them all. He need only ask--

I begin to wake.

"Easy, dear Pherios," she says. "Rest easy. Don't open your eyes. Listen to my words. Focus on my voice."

It's her. The Lady of the Tower, who had helped me find Galameteia. Her hand is covering my eyes, keeping them shut. Her soothing yet raspy voice rings clear in my ears, echoes in my mind, touching that place where recognition occurs...I know her.

"Everything has changed, Pherios. Listen. It will strike you like a sledge. But I am here, and I will help you. And remember this: you have already survived. The rest, take slowly."

"Whuhh--" I clear my throat. I try. Something's wrong.

"Shh! Don't try to speak. Whisper, first. Be calm. I'm here." She frees my eyes and takes my hand. I am feeling things. I am in bed. I feel her weight sitting on the edge. She is still speaking, filling my ears with reassurances. I open my eyes.

She smiles at me. I know the face. "You're..." I whisper. The words stick in my throat, pass reluctantly like a wagon over rocky ground. "But you're...am I...is this Valhalla?"

She laughs out loud. "You've a high opinion of yourself," my dead aunt Tilneia says. She rapidly becomes wistful. "Or perhaps not. Of the two of us, it is you who've earned it."

I am too confused to speak.

She leans closer to me. Her skin is pallid, her eyes, red. "We are not dead, Pherios."

And yet her hand is as cold as the ice on the window. So is mine.

"Neither," she continues, "are we any longer fully alive." She pulls her hair back and tilts her head to expose her neck. There is a thick bruise ringing her neck, ugly, old, purple and green. I try to cough. I can't. I have no air.

I panic.

I gasp, and my chest heaves. I can't catch my breath. My lungs are cold, and my ribs creak as I try to expand them. My arms and legs flail, but stiffly--they are cold, numb, lifeless, without circulation. I blink as my sight grows fuzzy. I can't form words.

And just as suddenly, I relax. I began to hear her voice again. "...to my words. Focus! Don't fight it! You're all right. Listen to me. Pay attention to my voice..." Tilneia smiles. "Good. You see? It's different. But you're going to be fine."

I bring my hand to my throat, feel the raw, torn flesh there. There is a broken mass where my larynx should be. I have no pulse.

I still can't see her clearly. "My eyes?"

"We do not breathe, nor do our hearts beat," she says. She wipes my eyes with a handkerchief. "But we do cry."

We do. She is, too. Our hearts aren't dead. I relax, and the next realization hits me.

"They hanged me."

She looks away. "I didn't know until it was too late. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get Vethru to let you go, but he won't. I don't know what his plans are."

"But you've been the lady of the tower for a long time. He didn't do this to you."

She shakes her head. "I chose this."

"Why?"

"You already know," Tilneia says. "It's everything new inside you. Everything you are now feeling but can't put into words. The vision and clarity with which you now see the world. The knowledge of the paths of life and death. The power. I foresaw that Vanheim would need me, and so I prepared myself. That is why I did it. I have never regretted it."

She sees that I'm overwhelmed, so she leaves me to rest, promising to come back tomorrow. In her eyes I see her plea, her hope that I accept the transformation that, to her, is as beautiful as the emergence of a butterfly from its cocoon.

Perhaps she is right. One bitter thought interferes with any appreciation of the moment I might have.

Vethru killed me.


Belletennares

I am over eight hundred years old. And although I have traveled widely, I have never made my home outside of Vanheim. Yet it was not until this month, when I came to Ferra, that Vanheim's true faces were revealed to me. Now, as I contemplate a simple order from Vethru, I realize that the path I tread is not singular but dual, and that, paradoxically, as a single traveler, it is impossible for me to walk only one of them.

I arrived in Ferra in time to see the storming of the castle. I did not participate in the battle; my commanders assured me that our forces were a match to the task, and they were. When the gates were opened, we saw our enemies: a shadow tribune led the remnants of a spectral legion, and a half dozen necromancers led by a spectral mage sent wave after wave of longdead at us.

Our light infantry broke and fled almost immediately. I am sure we will find them in neighboring provinces, still drawing pay, still eating our supplies. Would that I could be rid of them. Our einhere, though, did not flee, and the single survivor of their unit I have assigned to my bodyguards.

Others fought bravely as well. Illioserios and Siteillius threw lightning, banished the dead with the priests, and summoned the forces of the air to fight for us. The Vans performed admirably, as always, and none of them were lost. But the day belonged to Lord Foul's wights. They held the center and forced the gate, and when we broke into the courtyard, they slaughtered the scores of dead in our path.

Yet perhaps the bravest soul, and the saddest loss that day was Private Blaze, our fire drake. He fought alongside the wights, and it cost him dearly. His kind is not meant for our cold climes, nor to associate with dead creatures who exude a chill aura. But neither I, nor his commanding officer, Sgt. Rock the cave drake, ever heard a single complaint from him. In this battle, though, it was his undoing. His fire incinerated many of the enemy before the cold overwhelmed him. The sergeant and I have decided not to recruit any more of his fiery people to our cause. But we will honor his memory.

Once the battle was over, we found great treasures in the citadel--vast supplies of magical gems, a school of necromancy, some students of which had refused to fight and now joined our side. The land, of course, is worthless; death pervades the air, the very essence of existence here, and were it as ephemeral as a foul odor on the wind, Vethru's message to me would be unnecessary. But Vanheim now has its northern outpost.

And within the outpost I read Vethru's orders: after the enemy is defeated, secure the fortress and drive the influence of Ermor from the northern provinces; use any means necessary.

In those words, I thought I perceived a shift in the universe, from light to dark, from isolated, manageable skirmishes to a vast, strange war. There have been signs. Not signs mystical, or divinatory, merely signs mundane. After Marignon invaded, the populace began to arise. The people of Birman Highs organized a volunteer militia, needing only experienced leadership. I would have sent my old adjunct Neinos, but sadly, he was besieged in the tower at Iron Range. I fear that he will not escape.

All manner of creatures now walk the streets of Vanheim. Before I left, I myself encountered a spectral mage, and saw great winged lizard people flying with the Valkyries. The dwarves speak of summoning the defenders of the earth to our cause. And everywhere one goes, from Venna to Vanheim to Ferra, there are the dead, our ancestors come to stand with the living to defend our nation yet again.

Vethru's message still lies on my desk. He knows that I know what he means by "any means necessary." And in contemplation of this order, and his faith in my presumed loyalty, that I would carry out an implied action that he knew I would be reluctant to perform, is when I was struck by my revelation.

I was wrong. The universe had not shifted. It has always been this way. This is what Vanheim is, death and blood. Light and dark. Not or. And. We are Vans on white horses, and we run with wolves. We are the proud Valkyries in shining armor, and we are berserkers dripping with our own blood. We use the magic of the air, and the magic of flesh and bone. Is the duality to be embraced, or rejected? The answer, I realized, was neither--it is to be recognized, for we are the duality. That is what Vanheim is. That is what Vanheim has always been, and that is what Vanheim will always be.

And so my paths cleared. One question I have been struggling with in my heart: is Vanheim both loyal and traitorous? For I have heard no news of my nephew. Vethru ignores my inquiries as to Pherios's fate, but I know his silence to mask some horrific plot whose motivation we had yet to uncover. How will this duality play out? Shall I choose family or nation? Kin or God? What was unthinkable has now become possible.

Vethru's orders, too, now posed no conflict, though I need not revel in its implementation. I called Illioserios to my office. Since the death of his daughter, who would have become my niece, he has shown no soul. He, too, knows the old rituals. He will understand what I order him to do. And he does not care. At least in that, I would spare Siteillius, who is younger and still unbroken by war, the task and its inherent horror.

I told him, "You will go to the village and find women too young to have known men. Tell them...tell them their participation is required in a religious ritual. Tell them it will drive the aura of death from this province. Then you will bring them to the temple."

I could not continue, but he nodded and said, "I will do what you ask."

I told myself it was for the good of Vanheim, and I did not lie. Gods walked the earth, and if ours was not strong, Vanheim would fall. I pulled my cloak tightly around me and walked to the temple to await Illioserios. And to sharpen the knives.