Auraya

Mage or magus, magi or mages?

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on work in progress: The dull detailing of days, weeks, months, and years in Tellurin.

As promised, here is my theory of magic in Tellurin.  It actually starts about thirty years ago with me in confirmation class …

You may think confirmation a strange place for this, but I started theorizing things that had nothing to do with Christianity.  And you know what?  I was indulged, even encouraged by my instructors, two wonderful, open-minded people.  Shout of gratitude going out to Rick Shore and Marg Flath!  For them, it was healthy to question, explore the questions, and come to your own conclusions.

One of the things I theorized about was the nature of energy, consciousness, the soul, what might be termed miracles, and what might happen after we die … to me it was all connected.

In science (incidentally one of my confirmation instructors was also my grade 9 and 10 science teacher) we were learning that matter and energy were the same thing.  We learned about the laws of thermodynamics, including: energy can never be created or destroyed, but only changes form.

So to me, it wasn’t that far a leap to think that if we, humans, were made of matter (therefore energy) that thought, the soul, and all the wonderful things that made each of us uniquely ourselves was a kind of energy.  It couldn’t be destroyed when we died, it could only change forms.

So how does this relate to Tellurin magic?  Well really this species of thought contributed to both the magic and religious systems of my world, but here’s what I drew from my theorizing about magic: it could exist, just like any other kind of energy.  It would all be a matter of trial and error to figure it out.  It would be a kind of scientific experiment …

You may remember from my post about the cosmology of Tellurin that my interpretation of the big bang was that something within the homogeneous whatever that existed before the universe (I called it the One) recognized its independence.  In that moment, everything else within the One had to become distinct.  Boom!

But in my universe, not all kinds of energy are distributed equally.  The thing that recognized its independence (what became Auraya) carried more than its fair share of a specific kind of energy, and Tellurin, the planet, bore an equivalent amount.  That’s why the world has its own spirit and consciousness.

So Tellurin is a magic-rich world, and potentially any of the beings living on or in Tellurin can access that energy if they have the talent.  Talents are another group of senses that allow their possessors to recognise source and influence or manipulate it in specific ways.

Aside from Auraya, Tellurin, and the other gods of the world, everything holds its own share of the source of all things, or, simply the source.  In the people of Tellurin, this energy is bound to the spirit or soul.  It’s part of what makes them what they are.

When the primitive Tellurin first discovered their talents and their ability to manipulate the source, they called themselves sourcerors.  They learned in communities, experimenting with their various talents and expressions of source, categorizing and naming them as they went.

Along came a man named Halthyon Morrhynd.  He was actually an eleph from Elphindar, crossed over into Tellurin through one of the Ways Between the Worlds.  Incidentally, these Ways are just another expression of the source in Tellurin, a natural phenomenon.   If worm-holes could exist and function in a stable manner without affecting the matter and energy around them, that’s what the Ways would be.

Halthyon, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, is a bit of a megalomaniac.  In Elphindar, he’d tried to stage a coup against the anathas, or council of elders, and institute a kind of magocracy.  The eleph called source in their world the kaides esse, or the powers that be.  Sourcerors were called kaidin.

The result of Halthyon’s attempt to wrest power from the anathas was that he failed and was ostracized, or made shuriah.  The eleph were the only people in Elphindar.  Ostracism was generally a death-sentence.  Elphindar has no gods either, only the kaides esse, and those in significantly lower amounts than source in Tellurin.

Elphindar would not satisfy Halthyon’s ambitions, but once he found the Way and made it through to Tellurin, Halthyon saw this new world as a paradise.  He instantly made the connection between the source of all things, the kaides esse, and the gods of the new world.  He understood that if he could find a way to contain enough source within him, that he could transcend mortality and become a god himself.

The source existing in the things around him wouldn’t do.  He’d have to expend nearly as much source in the destruction of inanimate objects as he would receive from said destruction.  The gain would be negligible.  The people though, them he could use.

So he found the fledgling sourcerors of Tellurin and taught them.  In time, they “grew ripe” and he was able to “harvest” them by killing them and stealing the source carried with their souls.  The way to do this, was to call the deceased sourceror by name, and thus summon his soul.

Sourcerors began to take source-names, secret names to prevent Halthyon from learning the name that could call their soul and source to him, but Halthyon was skilled at telepathy, and could discover their secrets.

As he waited for some of them to ripen, other sourcerors grew powerful in their own rights, learned what he was doing to their fellows, and mimicked the practice to accrue their own stores of source.

The brothers Kane and Jareth were two of these surprising sourcerors.  Kane was as obsessed with gaining power as Halthyon, but he was also concerned that Halthyon would murder him before he could get very far, so he started to develop defences, the chief of them being binding.

His early experiments were with animals.  He bound his soul and source to a creature, and if he was killed, so the theory went, his soul and source would remain safe in the beast.  These he called familiars.  Kane was a good scientist, and decided to test his theory after sharing it with some of his fellow sourcerors.

Unfortunately, the consciousness of the animal interfered with that of the bound sourceror, and the animal hadn’t the capacity to use source, and so quickly fell prey to the predatory sourceror.

His next experiments involved people who had no noticeable talent.  These he referred to as homunculi.  Sadly the same thing happened with them as did with the animals, and these too, he discarded as a failed experiment.

Then he started playing with constructs, which he called golems.  These experiments were never wholly successful.

In the meantime, Kane’s brother Jareth, whose primary talent was geomancy, or manipulating the earth element, conducted experiments of his own.  He decided that inanimate objects would make better subjects for binding.  There would be no consciousness to interfere with the bound sourceror’s, but this would necessitate having a partner who would be able to release and restore the sourceror after the death of his or her body.

Jareth’s experiment was much more successful than Kane’s and was widely adopted, even by Kane himself, but no solution was perfect.

Sourcerors like Halthyon and Kane, after killing another sourceror, would search out the partner, and torture them until they revealed the secret of unbinding their victim.  If the partner was stubborn enough, or faithful enough, to keep the secret, then they could simply be killed.  Although the murderer would never benefit from the source of their victims this way, their victim would forever remain trapped in whatever object they’d bound themselves to.

This is eventually what happened to Jareth.  Halthyon slew him in sourcerous combat and went in search of his partner.  Kane got to her first.  Laleina was not only Jareth’s binding partner, but they were also lovers, a relationship that Kane always envied.

Laleina wasn’t cooperative and would not divulge Jareth’s secrets.  Kane knew, to his regret, that he could not keep her alive.  Halthyon would eventually come calling and Kane wasn’t ready to face the eleph.  In a twisted bit of experimentation, Kane bound Laleina’s soul and source to one of his failed golems.  He’d noticed that metal tended to dampen the effect of source.

And so Laleina was trapped in the thing that would eventually become the Machine.

The sourcerous world continued along the same violent lines for centuries, but Auremon eventually decided that he couldn’t let things go on this way.

His idea was to voluntarily surrender his godhood, and his god’s share of source, to Tellurin, hoping that more source in the world would allow Tellurin to even the playing field among the sourcerors, and keep the power-hungry ones from victimizing the rest.

It didn’t work out as well as he thought.  Too close to one of the Ways Between the Worlds, he tore it open and half the population of Elphindar was sucked into Tellurin before the Way could be repaired by Auraya.  The sourcerors didn’t behave any differently, and Auremon had to concede his failure.

The only thing he could think to do, was to teach young sourcerors how to use their powers responsibly.  So he set himself up as a sage in a mountainous island off the western coast of the main continent.  Auraya created a great castle for him there, and eventually all sourcerors found their way to Auremsart.

Auremon taught ethics more than anything else.  It was the sourcerors themselves who thought that if they changed the names of things, that they could change the way people behaved more effectively.  So source became magick, sourcerors became magi, and they instituted a rigorous initiation process that would so instil Auremon’s ethical code into their students that there would be no risk of any of them becoming monsters.  They called their new discipline Agrothe, the followers of the code, in the old language of the land.

They policed themselves too, and started setting up schools of magick in other cities.  Business was booming.  And then Yllel came in disguise and killed his father.  Auremsart crumbled, became the Spire, and two kindly elementals from Elphindar resurrected Auremon and bound his spirit to the stone that was all that remained of his earthly home.

How the Agrothe functions in Tellurin at the time of the novel:

  • As soon as the prospect’s talent begins to manifest, training begins.  This can be anywhere between five and thirteen suns of age.  The prospect becomes an aspirant.
  • This period is one of intense theoretical and ethical training, highly structured, lasting thirteen suns. This phase of training does not guarantee initiation.  If evidence of cruelty or insanity is detected by the Master, the aspirant is taken to a mind-mage, and their talent crippled.
  • The aspirant is initiated.  This phase of the training introduces the initiate to their talent(s) in a gradual, disciplined fashion, and also lasts thirteen suns.
  • The initiate is apprenticed, gains some autonomy and is allowed to experiment in a limited fashion.
  • After thirteen more years, the apprentice could become a master in his or her own right.  If further training is deemed necessary, an interim period of guided practice could be instituted.  The mage operated independently, but under the watchful eye of their master.  This period could also last thirteen suns.
  • At any time, if the student decides, they can withdraw from training, once more having their talent crippled so that it cannot be used in an unauthorized or unethical fashion.
  • This is why most women, wanting a family and life outside of the Agrothe, never make it to initiation.

Aeldred sensed Ferathainn’s potential at the eleph ceremony of Shir’Authe, when she was only a day old and newly abandoned in Hartsgrove.  Her talent was prodigious and he began her training when she was four suns old.

Most aspirants only evidence one or two talents, the rest developing with age and experience.  Most full-fledged magi might have five talents at their disposal, but it will be the one or two that showed themselves first that will be the mage’s primary talents.

Ferathainn possesses aliopathy, or the ability to speak to the spirits of things, which in turn feeds into her talent at evocation and summoning.  She is uncommonly talented in mind magick, able to communicate through thought speech with those who do not share the talent, and can travel in spirit with ease.

Aspirants are not allowed to use their talents prior to initiation, but Aeldred does not want to lose Ferathainn as a student, so he allows the girl latitude.  Besides, mind-magick is not one of his stronger talents, and he cannot prevent her from doing what comes naturally to her.

He does not want to call one of his Agrothe brothers in for fear that Fer will be taken away from him.  Further, he fears reprimand for his unorthodox training methods.  For similar reasons, he has not prevented Ferathainn from becoming betrothed or married.  He feels that if anyone can balance a life of magick and domesticity, it will be Ferathiann.

He hasn’t explained much of this to Ferathainn.  He hasn’t even explained her talents to her.  In truth, he’s a little afraid of what she might become, and that his lenience may lead her to the forbidden ways of sourcery.

She will be the first Agrotha initiated in two hundred suns.  That’s too great a prize for Aeldred to resist.

Next week: Everything little thing she does is magick!

Have a great weekend everyone!

The cosmology and divine history of Tellurin, part 2

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: Yllel got his narsty on and killed his father!

With the death of Auremon, Yllel fled.  Almost at once, Auremon’s school, and indeed the entire island of Aurensart crumbled. Many of the initiates, apprentices, and magi died in the collapse.  What was left of Auremon’s school was a single spire of rock that rose from the water to the full height of the island.

Kaaria, an air elemental from Elphindar, and her sister Naia, rescued what was left of Auremon’s spirit and bound him into the spire that was all that remained of Auremsart. Without his god-share of power, though, Auremon was effectively trapped within the stone. He could communicate with no one but Kaaria and Naia.

Yllel returned to his preying on sourcerors and now magi as well.  He held the magi in particular contempt for his father’s sake.

Auraya, saddened enough at her mate’s sacrifice of his power, was now left bitter and bereft by his death.  She withdrew in earnest from the world, allowing Tryella to serve Tellurin in her stead.

The Kas’Khoudum, or book of light, that was started when Auraya, Auremon, and Tryella mingled freely with the people of Tellurin, was revised and added to.  Many of the feats described in its pages were Tryella’s but the goddess was more than happy to let her grieving mother take the credit for her good deeds.

In response, and out of a twisted need to outdo his mother, Yllel began to inspire the creation of his own holy book, the Rada’Khoudum, or book of darkness.  In its pages he put hideous secrets in the guise of rituals and ceremonies that seemed as if they honoured Auraya.  In truth, the spells he wove into those rituals would drain his mother of her power and bind her will to do terrible things.

When finished, Yllel was careful to see the precious book into the hands of the greatest spiritual leaders of the time.  The Kas’Khoudum, which Yllel encouraged to be seen as a pleasant book of fables, was supplanted by his liturgical masterpiece.  Unfortunately, neither Auraya nor Tryella were very interested in reading and neither of them discovered what deviousness Yllel had been up to.

Tryella investigated Auremon’s murder intensively, but none of the magi who survived the collapse of Auremon’s school could remember anything useful.  The only thing either Tryella or her mother knew for certain was that Auremon’s murderer had been one of his students.

Yllel had visited each of them briefly to offer his condolences, but did not join Tryella in her search.  Auraya retreated to the moon, but Tryella, something piqued by her brother’s behaviour, began to suspect Yllel of his treachery.

She had no proof, but it would only be a matter of time before she found it.

While Tryella didn’t find exactly what she sought, she soon learned how her brother spent his leisure time: hunting and killing the very magi their father helped to train.  She confronted him and Yllel told her that he was merely exacting revenge.  One of these was surely the creature who had killed a god.  Why should he not hunt and kill, even torture them?

Tryella went straight to Azuresahki, the blue realm of her mother.  Auraya listened with uncertainty to what Tryella told her and together they continued to observe Yllel from near and afar.

There was nothing in his choice of victim to indicate that he suspected any of these poor users of magick of Auremon’s murder.  Rather it seemed that he chose them for how much power they had.  Some managed to escape him through clever tricks they called binding, but though their power and soul might have been safe within an amulet or object, that often wasn’t enough to prevent Yllel from killing them for spite and trapping them within the object they had bound themselves to.

He didn’t attempt to break or destroy the artefact, but ensured that the object would remain lost to Tellurin forever, thus relegating the magi within to isolation, and eventual insanity.

This wanton killing and cruelty was enough to inspire Auraya to action.  Tryella still hadn’t shared her suspicions about Auremon’s murder yet, fearing her mother’s response, but held the secret as a trump card until a critical moment, or until she had proof.

Auraya first tried something like an intervention in the hope that Yllel was not lost to her entirely.  Her efforts were rebuffed. She tried again with the same results but was reluctant to give up hope.  Auraya couldn’t bear, after losing Auremon and the akhis before him, to lose another member of her family.

Eventually though, even she realized that tough love was more likely to get results.  Unfortunately, administering a godly spanking was more difficult than she could have imagined.  Tryella at her side, Auraya tried yet again to deliver her son a smack down that would put him in his place.

For his part, Yllel soon grew tired of his mother’s attempts to discipline him.  At first they might have been amusing, but now they were simply tedious.  Soon he no longer cared to hide his true feelings and motivations from them.  Soon he would have enough source that it wouldn’t matter.

Auraya had eventually to concede that Yllel was evil.  He killed for the joy of it as much as any other purpose.  He tortured her with her inability to discover Auremon’s murderer.  His attacks on Tryella were growing positively barbaric.

She had to face the fact that Yllel wanted to kill his sister, and that was something she could not allow.  Reluctant as she was to lose a child, even an evil one, Auraya began to up the stakes, pulling out all the tricks she had learned in her exceedingly long life.  Still every confrontation ended in defeat.  Yllel gloated, but though he seemed eager for the kill, he held back from it, as though he were testing them.  Or perhaps himself.

Something else would have to be done.

She got the idea from Auremon’s ill-advised release of power into the world.  In the process she knew he had torn open a Way Between the Worlds.  Auraya sought that place out and investigated it as a possible means to be rid of Yllel without having to kill her own child.

That Way would not be suitable, however.  There were still a great many people living in the world on the other side.  As Tryella continued her investigations and Yllel continued to test his newfound strength against her, Auraya sought out all the Ways Between the Worlds that existed in Tellurin.  One after another, they proved unsuitable. Until she found the one on the plains.

In the middle of the lush, grassy plains of eastern Tellurin. Auraya found a Way that seemed to lead nowhere at all.  There was literally nothing on the other side, no light, no sound, no air, and certainly no innocent people or creatures for Yllel to torture.  Now that Auraya had found her cage, she would have to figure out how to get the Way open wide enough to admit her son without sucking half of Tellurin in with it, and she would have to figure out how to close the Way afterward and make it impassable to Yllel.

She hadn’t thought so deeply about anything in a very long time.  Rarely had she had to think about how to accomplish something she desired at all.  Usually her desires simply manifested themselves.  This was something different.  Auraya was trying to change the very nature of something, a place, a void, into the ideal prison for her son.

Think of the void as a black hole … sort of.

Despite its apparent suitability, the void was its own place with its own purpose.  It did not want to be changed.  It had its own power and its own desire to use it.  In the end though, Auraya had more power and more desire, and a son she desperately did not want to kill.

When the void was subjugated and prepared, Auraya and Tryella found Yllel, engaged him in battle and lured him to the Way that led to the void.  The battle lasted sunspans in Tellurin time.

Great earthquakes shook the land.  The entire western coast of the world sheered off.  The mountains grew.  Volcanoes long dormant erupted into life.  The plains upon which the three gods fought became a desert.  The jungle became infested with random power, investing its creatures with strange abilities.  Vedranya changed from a season where few wished to travel to one in which shelter was an inescapable necessity.

This was the Tellurin Cataclysm.

In a few short suns, much of Tellurin civilization fell.  Many creatures died before they learned how to survive the newly changed Vedranya.

Finally, on the verge of exhaustion, Tryella and Auraya brought Yllel to the opening of the Way, but now Auraya had to focus her attention in opening the Way without tearing it so that it could be sealed again once Yllel was within.  That meant that the task of forcing Yllel into the void fell to Tryella alone.

She was unequal to it.  Yllel taunted her, as much as confessed to the murder of Auremon while his mother was otherwise occupied.  He was too confident by half and Tryella managed to make him stumble until he was caught in the well of the Way.

He realized his fight against the pull of the void was not going to be successful and relented, but not before reaching inside his sister and tearing her source and immortality from her, in one swift motion, killing her instantly.

Auraya wailed in despair.  First she lost the ahkis, then Auremon, now both children at once.  As she sealed the way to the void, Auraya heard Yllel say one final thing. “Don’t you want to know what I did to—”

And then he was shut away … Auraya thought forever.

Auraya was so depleted from her long battle and so wounded from her losses that she retreated again at once to the moon for solace.  Taking stock, she realized that she was now slowly dying, fading away.  She had poured out so much of her power during the battle with Yllel that the world had gotten hold of it and was slowly siphoning it away.  She could not stem the flow or find a way to reverse the process.  It would take centuries yet, perhaps even millennia for her to die completely, but it was a certainty now.

Kaaria and Naia, as they had with Auremon before, now resurected Tryella in the same manner.  The only vessel that could hold the former goddess was that of a giant sea eagle, or yrne.

From within his prison, Yllel discovered that while he could not escape, his thoughts could, and a god’s thoughts are powerful. He found someone willing to help him escape, a sourceror named Kane.  Over the next two centuries, Yllel plotted, used his favrard soul-slaves to trick some of the other people of Tellurin, the okante, krean, blinsies, grunden, and bakath into binding their collective souls to him as the favrard had done.

Tryella and Auremon, meanwhile found themselves in a predicament. Due to the nature of their respective deaths and resurrections by Kaaria and Naia, they were invisible to all but each other and their saviours. They couldn’t even tell Auraya they were still alive.

The only talent that Tryella retained was that of prescience. That talent alerted her to Yllel’s scheming and she tried to find some way of stopping him. Even with Kaaria’s help, however, her efforts proved futile, until her visions revealed to her the face of a young girl. She could be the means of defeating Yllel. Together, Tryella and Kaaria set out in search of her.

Auraya, meanwhile, while still hidden on Azuresakhi, nonetheless felt the effects of Yllel’s machinations in the world.  She determined to raise a champion of her own, a man who would become the Kas’Hadden, or hammer of light, and her avatar on Tellurin. He would protect the world and end Yllel’s predations once and for all.

Like his sister, Yllel began to be haunted by dreams of a girl. She had power, a mere splinter of a god’s but more than most Tellurin could ever hope for. He knew that she could prove a complication to his plans.  She could kill Kane before the sourceror could free Yllel from the void.

She was such a tasty prize, though, that Yllel determined to enslave her to his will instead.  Only if that plan failed would he concede and kill her.

He also became aware of what his mother was trying to do to end his hopes of escape.  Even as he commanded Kane to set sail for Tellurin and begin the war that would eventually result in his freedom, Yllel began to manipulate his mother’s followers, the Faithful.  He’d make sure that the Kas’Hadden would never be made.

And this is the point at which the novel opens.

Next week: We’ll start on the earthly history of Tellurin.

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The cosmology and divine history of Tellurin, part 1

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: The supporting cast was introduced.

Once I had all my characters, I needed to think about the world they inhabited.  I went back to the beginning.  The very beginning of everything …

In the beginning, there was the One.  It was everything and everything was in it. The One simply was, and was in perfect harmony, until something within it recognized its independence, and in that moment, the One ceased to be and everything else came into existence (including time, hence the moment, the first).

Modern science would call this the big bang.

The-thing-that-recognized-its-independence wandered the universe, searching for something like itself.  Really, it was searching for the harmony of the One again, but it had destroyed the One, a crime of which it was ignorant, thus authoring its own loneliness and misery.

Having explored about three quarters of everything that existed, it was about to give up, when it finally found something else that felt like “home.”  It had discovered the disc of debris of a planet accreting itself into existence.

The two kindred spirits found names for each other: The-thing-that-recognized-its-independence became Auraya, and the planet, Tellurin.

Tellurin is the name of the world and its spirit, but it is also the name for the main continent of the world.  Originally, it was nothing but a large landmass, one of five on the planet.  Life was limited to plants, protozoa, bacteria, and insects.  The world was one rich in power, but it was latent and undirected.  When Auraya first chose the planet for her home, she explored it thoroughly.

Eventually, the mere exposure of the world to a sentient and powerful being like the goddess encouraged the development of innate intelligences.  The world responded to Auraya’s loneliness and became her first family.

One of the continents took on sentience and personality as brothers: Zaidesahki, Tahesahki, and Nuresahki.  The four remaining continents did not fully emerge into sentience, although the achieved consciousness.  They are called the watchers, because they did not speak or interact with anyone.  They simply bore witness to all that happened.  Similarly, the planet’s single blue, moon became conscious, though never sentient.  She was nonetheless given a name: Azuresahki and became a haven for Auraya.

The air and the water were their sisters: Freyesahki and Augesahki.  The deep fiery core of the earth was another brother, but more distant and less social than the others.  He was also more volatile and less kind that the others.  His name was Dwergesahki.

When Auraya left them to explore the rest of the universe, they felt abandoned.  The first life forms above the level of insect were the elementals.  Each of the sentient elements made its own creature, rich in source and of high intelligence: sylphs (air), undine (water), nomi (earth), and efts (fire).  Then came the animals, birds, and fish.

These arose due to the combined efforts of Zaidesahki with Freyesahki and Augesahki.

Tahesahki and Nuresahki became jealous and wanted to create something better.  Beastly races like blinsies, okante, krean, grunden, bakath, and the like arose from those efforts.

Without jealousy, but merely wishing to make companions for the creations of his brothers, Zaidesahki brought forth humans (Tellurin), and favrard.  Dwergesahki, less interested in all this wasteful creating than the others, asked for Zaidesahki’s assistance in creating the dwergen and dwergini.  Along the same lines as the subterranean folk, and for purely selfish reasons (much like Auraya), Zaidesahki and Augesahki joined forces again and created the anogeni, the hidden people, as special and secret companions for themselves.

Eventually, Tahesahki and Nuresahki became increasingly jealous of their brother, who seemed so contented with what he’d done.  Tahesahki lured the favrard away from Zaidesahki to his deserts.  Surprisingly, Zaidesahki let them go and made Tahesahki welcome as the favrard were much more suited to Tahesahki’s deserts than Zaidesahki’s lush forests and mountains.

The bitter brothers ignored and mistreated their own creations, creating miserable children.  In the end, they rose up against Zaidesahki, shattering him into seven pieces and killing him.  In the process, they sundered the great landmass that had once been their collective “body,” giving themselves wounds as mortal as their brother’s.

Augesahki, devastated by the death of her brother and lover, collected the seven shattered

Susan Boulet’s Isis and Osiris

pieces of Zaidesahki’s soul and encased them in the body of a Tellurin who willingly sacrificed himself for the purpose.  She sealed Zaidesahki in a stone sarcophagus at the bottom of a lake in the middle of the continent.  She withdrew to the sea and became silent. (Based in part on the myth of Isis and Osiris, and in part on Arthurian Legend.)

Freyesahki and Dwergesahki remained what they always were, flighty and stoic respectively, and nothing more was heard of any of the akhis.

Auraya returned to Tellurin to show off Auremon.  Having failed to find anyone else like herself in the entire universe, she clove herself in two, creating Auremon her other half and spouse/consort. (Derived from a tale of how the Celtic goddess Aine fell in love with her reflection in a magic mirror that showed her the masculine part of her, or animus, and subsequently brought him to life.)

She was greeted with the desolation of her first “children” and the chaos of a million different life forms all clamouring for help and guidance.  The watchers, as ever, were silent.

Auraya vowed never to leave her beloved Tellurin again.

Auraya and Auremon began immediately to help the denizens of Tellurin, Auraya from her new home in the blue moon and Auremon by walking among the people in their guise.  Soon it became a titanic task for even the two celestial beings.

They determined to create two of their own children, helpers in their task.  Tryella was much like her father, adventurous, playful, and interested in getting her hands dirty.  She too, like Auremon, walked among the people of Tellurin and helped them in the disguise of one of their own.

Yllel was more introverted.  He resented the time and attention that the denizens of Tellurin exacted from his family.  Attention he thought more befittingly belonged to him.  He only helped the people of Tellurin when forced to and while neither Auraya nor Auremon chastised him for his lack, the praise they lavished on Tryella for her efforts made Yllel feel all the more jealous.

He began to sabotage their efforts in subtle ways, but bored of that quickly.  His attention was then captured by the sourcerors.  These people had recognised in themselves the ability to access and manipulate the innate power in all things.  They called it the source and themselves sourcerors.  Yllel realized that these sourcerors had much to teach him.  After all, what was he but source?  How did the gods manipulate the world around them but through the use of source?

When they began to kill one another and steal each others’ source, Yllel learned the art.  When they developed binding as a way to protect themselves from one another, Yllel paid careful attention.  Soon the god willingly masqueraded as a Tellurin to kill sourcerors and take their source.  Then a truly devious idea occurred to him.  Soul and source could be bound to other objects and even people.  What would happen if he tricked someone, or several someones into binding their source to him while they still lived …  And so Yllel created the first and greatest of his soul contracts, that with the favrard.

The favrard still lived on Tahesahki in isolation from the main continent.  They were in the midst of a battle against the other denizens of Tahesahki: the krean.  The lower race, as even the krean fancied themselves, were numerous in the extreme.  Though short-lived, the krean possessed the ability to regenerate, or heal themselves (essentially trolls, but sea-faring as well as desert-dwelling). Sheer numbers were taking their toll on the valiant favrard and they faced extermination.  In their darkest hour, Yllel came to them, putting on his most beatific form and manner.  He easily tricked the favrard into signing over their source and souls to him while they still lived, to be his slaves in perpetuity.

Binding the living to him taught Yllel much.  He did not get to claim the favrard souls and source wholesale until they died, at his hands or at each other’s, but he could use their source to feed himself even while they lived, and their connection allowed him to possess them from time to time at his whim.  It was as though a piece of him resided in each of them.  He could eavesdrop on any of them, or all of them, at will.

He experimented freely, and sometimes fatally with the first.  He learned just how far he could push them, exactly what he could make them do.  He wasn’t satisfied though.  They were still frail and mortal.  To make them immortal, Yllel would have to sacrifice too much of himself in the process.  His intent was to gather source, not expend it.  So he used his connection with the favrard to alter them.  He made them tougher, stronger, and imbued each of them with the incredible healing ability of their enemies, the krean, so that they could heal from all but the most drastic of injuries.  They would never grow old or ill, but they could be killed.

Yllel continued to make his study of the sourcerors.  One in particular was different.  His name was Halthyon, and he wasn’t a Tellurin, dwergen, dwergini, or any other people that walked on or under the earth.  Halthyon refused to give up his secrets, however.

It wasn’t long before Auremon, also seeing the sourcerors and what they did, but not understanding it in the same way that Yllel did, sought to bring even more source into the world for the people to benefit from.  He believed that if there was more power, more people could learn to use it.  Or more people would be born with the innate ability to access and manipulate the power, and he hoped that it would give them the ability to protect themselves from the worst of the sourcerors who only lived to kill each other and subjugate those of lesser talent.  So he determined to forfeit his godhood and release his power into the world.

Noble sentiments, but things don’t always go as planned.

When he released his power into the world, Auremon inadvertently tore open a doorway he hadn’t even known existed.  Speckled throughout Tellurin, and every world for that matter, are Ways Between the Worlds.  Yllel’s mystery sourceror, Halthyon came through one of these from the world of Elphindar.

Now Auremon tore that Way wide open, pulling a good half of the population of eleph, and many of the other animals, elementals, and other denizens of the world in a cataclysmic maelstrom.  Many of those so pulled died in transit, but those who survived found themselves stranded in a strange place and inexplicably unable to cross back through the Way to Elphindar.

They established their own settlements and learned of Auremon’s terrible mistake when in the aftermath of the Rending, he came to them and tried to make amends.  Their collective fear and anger and shame caused the eleph to reject Auramon’s overtures as well as those of the Tellurin, dwergen, or anyone else who came to trade or make alliances.  They became solitary, wounded people, and for a long time, there was no hope in them.

The cataclysm was a blessing in disguise, however, though one they would not understand for many sunspans to come.  Elphindar was already a dying world.  Auremon’s mistake ushered it on its way more swiftly, but the ultimate decline of Elephinar was inevitable.

Auremon’s mistake did not yield the results he had hoped for either.  No more people than before were able to sense and manipulate power.  He wanted to discover the reason why, but without his own, he was little more than a Tellurin himself.

He researched for a while, found like-minded sourcerors who thought the cannibalistic ways of their fellows and their experiments a form of heresy.  Together these sourcerors, guided by Auremon, devised a new way of viewing the manipulation of power.

By changing the names of all things sourcerous, they hoped to divorce ensuing generations of magi (as they now called themselves) from much of what was evil in their practice.  Source became magick and those who manipulated it were called magi.  A structured apprenticeship bound in ceremony and ritual and true research grounded the craft and made it “safe.”

A young mage was initiated by one of his elders when his talent was detected.  After thirteen sunspans of continuous study, the mage would be made apprentice and his abilities “unlocked.”  In truth the ability was never locked to begin with, but the young mage would be so occupied with his training that he wouldn’t have time to realize that small lie.

Auremon set up a school on a small but mountainous island off the coast of the main continent and magi from all over Tellurin would report for training.  Yllel, in the meantime, had been working hard to fortify his store of source and became contemptuous of his father’s attempts to “dumb down” the art of sourcery.

There were still sourcerors in the world and more recognized their abilities all the time, but Auremon turned a blind eye to them, hoping, quite naively that if he just ignored them, they would go away.

Yllel disguised himself as a Tellurin again and approached his father’s school as an initiate.  He soon became a favoured student, completing all of his tasks competently and without complaint, but Yllel soon began to ask questions about sourcery and the sourcerous arts.

He was trying to expose the dullards his father was producing to the true art of which Agrothe magery was a pale imitation.  Eventually, Auremon invited Yllel to a private meeting.  As he was trying to enlighten what he thought was a simple student, Yllel took advantage of their seclusion and murdered his father.  There was no source left to take, and this left Yllel frustrated and empty.

To be continued …

Character Sketches Part 2: Eoghan MacDubghall

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

This is a continuation of my character sketches for my work in progress, Ascension, Book 1: Initiate of Stone.

Last week’s was: Character Sketches Part 1: Ferathainn Devlin

How Eoghan began …

Originally, when Ferathainn was named Rain, and went through half a dozen tumultuous life events, Eoghan was a nameless monk who found the blinded and wounded girl and nursed her to health again, weathering a toxic pregnancy and subsequent abortion in the process.  He fell in love with her, but she never saw him before he was called away by the goddess to become her champion/avatar.

Then I gave him the name of Arastian.  At that time, he was a grown man in his late twenties, and there were some cradle-robbing inferences that I wasn’t comfortable with.

Eventually, when I finally researched and chose Ferathainn’s name, I also decided on the Scottish version (or one of them in any case) of Ewen, child of the Yew.  I’m an unapologetic Celtophile!  (Especially after reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.)  He became a character younger than Ferathainn, and his love for her completely unknown to her, because she never regains consciousness while in his care.  I had to put a few more roadblocks in their way.

Now he’s a postulant monk, not even tonsured (achieved by the painful process of plucking, which he dreads) and at risk of being turned out of the Monastery of Aurayene as any time, a particular cruelty in a world where the season that equates to winter is actually a deadly season of storms.  He becomes Auraya’s Kas’Hadden, her hammer of light in another cruel twist.

Eoghan’s brother Callum was to become Kas’Hadden before him, but Yllel, the villain of the novel, conspires to have him executed for heresy before this can happen.  Auraya conserves the remnants on Cal’s spirit at the Well of Souls and when Eoghan reaches her, she forges the Kas’Hadden from Eoghan, incorporating Cal’s qualities, and a few other choice bits.

The goddess has to subdue Eoghan because he has qualities that she does not want in her champion, namely his love for Ferathainn, and basically traps him inside the fleshy prison of her avatar.  So he’s repressed and imprisoned, and it’s painful.  That’s the kind of goddess Auraya can be …

Eoghan’s story line is much more dynamic than Ferathainn’s, an imbalance I am striving to address in my next revision.  He is one of my favourite characters, though.  He has to be: he’s Fer’s love interest 🙂

The Sketch:

Name: Eoghan MacDubghall

Nickname:  none but he becomes the Kas’Hadden

Birth date/place:  14 years ago, Aurayene

Character role:  Secondary protagonist

Age: 14 years

Race: Tellurin (Alban)

Eye colour:  hazel, later blue

Hair colour/style:  Strawberry blonde, wildly curly.  This doesn’t really change.

Build (height/weight):  5’ 4”, slight, not muscular.  When he becomes Kas’Hadden, 8’ + and extremely well-muscled, an Adonis.

Skin tone:  pale and freckled, later golden.

Style of dress:  robes, cassock.  As the Kas’Hadden, hardly anything 🙂

Characteristics/mannerisms: none

Personality traits:  Desperately afraid of everything.  Self effacing to the point of having little personality of his own.

Background:  Born eighteen years the junior of two brothers to a spiritually devout public servant and his wife, Eoghan was largely ignored by his father and never knew his mother who died shortly after giving birth to him.  His father saw Eoghan as the means of his beloved wife’s demise.  His older brother Callum was the favourite, the one on whom all their father’s hopes depended.  Initially Callum hated Eoghan as well, tried to smother the baby, but couldn’t go through with it.  Surprisingly, Eoghan was the means by which Callum was able to heal from the wound of his mother’s death.

Callum became a soldier at a young age and was quickly inducted into the Sanctori but when their father died, Callum took holy orders.  Eoghan came with him as a ward of the Faithful initially, and early signs pointed to him following his brother into the priesthood.  He proved a fair illuminator, but asked too many questions for the comfort of his teachers.

Eoghan has been alternately ignored and protected throughout his life.  He is incredibly naïve and Callum’s execution nearly destroys his faith, but the war coming so swiftly on the heels of Callum’s death, Eoghan has no time to internalize his loss.  Callum was more a father to Eoghan than their biological one.  Eoghan is lost in every sense when Auraya calls upon him.

Ferathainn represents his only chance to find himself and choose what he wants to do with his life.

Internal conflicts: He’s been so ignored/protected/controlled he has no idea who he is or what he wants to do with his life.  When Auraya turns him into the Kas’Hadden, Eoghan finally has the physical power and presence to support his growing internal convictions but is prevented from exercising it on his own behalf.

External conflicts:  Auraya wants to use Eoghan to defeat Yllel and bring her word back to the people of Tellurin.  Yllel wants to destroy him as one of the few beings who could oppose the god’s escape.

Auraya.  To keep the Kas’Hadden compliant, she suppresses Eoghan’s personality.

Ferathainn can’t return Eoghan’s love because of her trauma, besides, he belongs to Auraya and she demands his total devotion.

Dairragh doesn’t trust Eoghan and doesn’t believe in the Kas’Hadden.  He can’t deny how useful the behemoth can be in battle, but isn’t sure what to make of him.

Eoghan attempts to protect Ferathainn from Khaleal, though she proves not to need his protection.

What Eoghan might look like:

I don’t have a drawing of Eoghan.  Sadly, I’m not very good at drawing the male figure.  So pictures will have to do.

When the novel begins, Eoghan is fourteen and hasn’t really hit his first growth spurt yet.  He starts to grow a sparse ‘stache and a few chin hairs that might optimistically be called a beard.  He’s got this unruly bird’s nest of strawberry blonde curls and a plague of freckles.  He’s a skinny, book-fed boy.

Though the hair colour and freckles are absent, I thought of a young Matthew Gray Gubler as a suitable physical analogue.

When he becomes the Kas’Hadden, he’s more like Chris Hemsworth (ala Thor) but has the physical dimensions of the Hulk.

And that is Eoghan.

Next week: Dairragh.

Ta-ta for now, my writerly friends!