MEMORIA ENNEALOGYOS

Shadow,

It’s been three nights since I’ve been able to send my reply. My zeppelin has only just made it back to Zoter’s Wall. I’d been detained up north at the capital for the duration of the Sabbath Night, as my helmsmen decided we couldn’t risk the storms in the darkness without risk of disaster.

We’d barely had time to depart before the moons had all gone dark, ushering in the dreadful Sabbath. I’d been reading by the fireside in my bed chamber atop the tower, weary of the attention I’d spent directing the monastery’s preparations for the moonsless night to come. A rustling had caught my attention, and I turned to wafting curtains, where something stood just beyond the open balcony doors.

A Subtle Man had arrived from the north. Whether he carried a message or the dagger for me, I couldn’t immediately discern. I don’t have to tell you, the man-shaped void on the balcony frightened me to my feet at once. I may be beyond my training years, but I am still a monk of the Wall. The silver shaft of my spear was standing at my bedside, far from my reach. I didn’t move, knowing the inky skulker on the balcony could intercept and silence me before I reached it. Nor would I be able to yell for spearmen stationed outside my door. They move with astonishing speed.

But the shadow was not an assassin this time. He’d come with a message. I waited breathless as he stood on the balcony, a black shape cut from the starry night behind him.

He said,

“Honored Patriarch Iyanus, your great wife calls you to the Ziggurat for the Jubilee. The comet’s arrival is imminent. The bells of Metagerion are ringing out. But there is another arrival…”

I rounded my chair then, practically jumping toward the balcony. I yelled to the phantom, demanding he explain what he meant. Yet by the time I’d reached the doors, flinging away the curtains from my body, the phantom had melted away and gone.

I crossed the room and flung open my chamber doors. The new First Spear, Makelm, was there standing among his monks. I took them by surprise. Neither Makelm nor the other monks heard anything of the disturbance. I do not discount their training. The Subtle Men were only seen and heard when they wished to be. Or on instruction of their mistress, the Highmother.

I relayed the urgent summons to Makelm, and soon the men were running down the tower’s stairs to the monastery below. By the time I’d crossed the bridge of the tower and stood at the Gate of Ninefold Harmony, all ninety-nine monks of the Wall had been roused and were preparing the zeppelin for departure.

From the gate I saw a vista of the diminished moons, sunken into the misty sea and half obscured by the rising sabbath storms. Little Karillia and Belephon had already gone dark, their discs like empty holes in the sky. Only giant Hespyreus had shine left–a scarce sliver of crescent that would quickly wane. The sea was already so dark by then. The stars, though dense, offered little light for our journey.

Below the moons, storms were already spinning up in the mists. Electricity coursed in the bottomless depths, great arcs that bounded in the currents. I began to feel a dread that stayed with me throughout the night. Travel during the sabbath is never wise, you know that. But I could not disobey this summon to the Ziggurat. Not on this night. Not from the Highmother. Her Subtle Man had announced the comet’s arrival. It had caught out astrologers here at the Wall unawares–we’d seen no indication of its return. But the Ziggurat was never wrong.

And the shadow messenger had said, there was another arrival.

I have told you of my regrets of the past. Of my weakness when it comes to Aestrigha. She is not easy to deny. I am but the age of a father, much younger than the other Patriarchs. I can see why her devil-eyes fell upon me. Those eyes scare me, though I have never seen them myself–thank the Ninegod. But I have seen them unfettered, and the devastation they can inflict upon the flesh of a man. To twist. To rip. To warp.

Another Arrival, it still rings through my mind.

She has more at her disposal though than just her eyes. When she speaks, it is as though you have no choice but to hear her. To obey her. I fear those eyes, so I submitted to the voice. And what it told me to do–Ninegod, what have I done, Shadow?

I tell you now, she made me do it with her siren voice.  But I am a man, and a weak one at that when it comes to that wretched witch. I can only be adamant with myself that she used her voice upon me. That I couldn’t resist her. I cannot live with myself any other way.

I won’t be made the father of a demon. Yet I laid with a demoness.

I scanned the skies from the gate, looking for the comet’s arrival. Yet I saw no sign. So, I hurried back across the bridge into the tower to change from my bed clothes. I wore the least elaborate habit I could find. Saffrine in the color, red like the rose. Before departing, I passed into my private cloister and knelt before the silver Nonikon, offering my frantic prayers to the Ninegod.

Yet I knew no storm or darkness of the Sabbath Night would prevent me from reaching the north, so

When I’d made it back across the bridge, the zeppelin was hovering over the harbor, having been moored by the cliffs on the northside of the Monastery to shield it from the electrical storms. I made my way down the steps beyond the gate and entered the courtyard below. The First Spear awaited me, and we hurried to the harbor.

I boarded the Zeppelin, leaving the First Spear to govern the monastery in my absence. A detachment of nine men accompanied me, with the others disappearing up the monastery’s terraces, readying their spears for the devils and geists of the Sabbath Night to come. The zeppelin rose high above the isle and pointed north toward the holy city.

I awaited the comet’s arrival the entire journey there, yet there was only the endless mists of the Abyssus Abyssum around us. Yet it did not appear. The astrologers of the ziggurat would later time its apparition to the exact moment of the devil-boy’s birth–

I will write more later. But now I must think. And Drink. On the confirmation of my worst fear. My body is weary of traveling. My mind feels full of the sea’s poisonous mist. I will go sit by the fire and rest–I can hear you already scolding me.

‘Til the last nights pass,

IYANUS, P.

27th Jassuary, 9978 CY

PS – I know you will be eager to reply. But forego your judgment until I’ve told you the worst of it.

– Your friend, I.