unbound."
"Unbound and unconstrained. But becoming more numerous. They're
running from the ice, too."
"Which we expected. Right?"
"Yes, sir. But what hasn't been considered is the fact that the
things of the Night have always been more common along the edges of the
ice, where societies are more primitive. Out there some of the big
ones are still running loose. When the ice advances, and establishes
itself permanently in places like the high mountains, all the wildest
surviving free shades are pushed into tamer country."
Hecht nodded. No one talked about it much—yet—but that was a logical
and obvious development. "That's generally recognized. It's started
already."
"Yes, sir, it has. What I don't hear discussed is what that means
for the Night."
"Yes?" Talab might be headed where most people were afraid to go.
"When people get pressed together you get what we already have here
in Brothe. Worse poverty. More violence that's deadlier. More organized
criminal activity. More racism and prejudice. All because you have more
people trying to live off the same limited resources.
"The same thing happens with the things of the Night. Only they
start to combine into stronger entities. Not often willingly. They just
keep getting bigger and stronger if they can devour their own kind.
They get angrier, more hateful, and malicious. When they're strong
enough, and big enough, they turn into the Night things from old scary
stories."
"The ice will gift us with a new round of monster gods?"
"If it advances far enough. Possibly a crop as ugly as those who
cursed the earth before modern religions hammered their deities into a
more benign shape."
The God of the Pramans, the Chaldareans, the Devedians, and the
Dainshaukin enjoyed the same lineage. The Dainshaukin saw Him fierce
and psychotic and disinclined to be a nurturer or giver of rewards. He
was a punisher, the Punisher, the source of all misfortune, and would
happily do you in because He did not like your haircut.
Devedians had a better deal. Their vision of the Almighty visited
miseries only when they were earned. He could be appeased without a
human sacrifice.
"It isn't something we can do much about. Except keep our heads down
and hope… What?"
Titus Consent said, "You're forgetting the soultaken."
"I haven't forgotten. They…" Hecht noted what had to be a warning
glance from Talab to Consent, nearly invisible in its subtlety,
reminding him that his staff had other loyalties.
The soultaken had been men from another age conscripted by their
gods so they could open a pathway out of a northern sort of hell. The
dead heroes preserved there could then storm forth and destroy what
those gods feared most: the Godslayer. Someone who, by happenstance,
had learned that even the greatest of the Instrumentalities of the
Night could be rendered subject to the wrath of men.
Else Tage had slain a bogon, a baron of the Night, in Esther's Wood
in the Holy Lands, saving his war band from an attack initiated by a
source he never identified. Later, he and the Devedians of Brothe
destroyed one of the soultaken meant to silence him before knowledge he
did not know he possessed became general.
The All-Father god of the pre-Chaldarean north himself perished
trying to extinguish that knowledge. Prophecy fulfilled.
Piper Hecht remained largely unaware of the full implications of
what he had done. The Devedians were not unaware. Their Elders knew
who Piper Hecht used to be. They knew what he had done. They knew he
had won a fierce reputation amongst the Instrumentalities of the Night,
and that those forces would have exterminated him long since had they
been better able to distinguish one mortal from another.
The biggest had to use something like the soultaken to find an
individual.
Although a brilliant commander and leader, Piper Hecht, under
whatever name, sailed through life in near ignorance of what he really
was. He was feared by powers and people of which and whom he was
unaware or was
"Unbound and unconstrained. But becoming more numerous. They're
running from the ice, too."
"Which we expected. Right?"
"Yes, sir. But what hasn't been considered is the fact that the
things of the Night have always been more common along the edges of the
ice, where societies are more primitive. Out there some of the big
ones are still running loose. When the ice advances, and establishes
itself permanently in places like the high mountains, all the wildest
surviving free shades are pushed into tamer country."
Hecht nodded. No one talked about it much—yet—but that was a logical
and obvious development. "That's generally recognized. It's started
already."
"Yes, sir, it has. What I don't hear discussed is what that means
for the Night."
"Yes?" Talab might be headed where most people were afraid to go.
"When people get pressed together you get what we already have here
in Brothe. Worse poverty. More violence that's deadlier. More organized
criminal activity. More racism and prejudice. All because you have more
people trying to live off the same limited resources.
"The same thing happens with the things of the Night. Only they
start to combine into stronger entities. Not often willingly. They just
keep getting bigger and stronger if they can devour their own kind.
They get angrier, more hateful, and malicious. When they're strong
enough, and big enough, they turn into the Night things from old scary
stories."
"The ice will gift us with a new round of monster gods?"
"If it advances far enough. Possibly a crop as ugly as those who
cursed the earth before modern religions hammered their deities into a
more benign shape."
The God of the Pramans, the Chaldareans, the Devedians, and the
Dainshaukin enjoyed the same lineage. The Dainshaukin saw Him fierce
and psychotic and disinclined to be a nurturer or giver of rewards. He
was a punisher, the Punisher, the source of all misfortune, and would
happily do you in because He did not like your haircut.
Devedians had a better deal. Their vision of the Almighty visited
miseries only when they were earned. He could be appeased without a
human sacrifice.
"It isn't something we can do much about. Except keep our heads down
and hope… What?"
Titus Consent said, "You're forgetting the soultaken."
"I haven't forgotten. They…" Hecht noted what had to be a warning
glance from Talab to Consent, nearly invisible in its subtlety,
reminding him that his staff had other loyalties.
The soultaken had been men from another age conscripted by their
gods so they could open a pathway out of a northern sort of hell. The
dead heroes preserved there could then storm forth and destroy what
those gods feared most: the Godslayer. Someone who, by happenstance,
had learned that even the greatest of the Instrumentalities of the
Night could be rendered subject to the wrath of men.
Else Tage had slain a bogon, a baron of the Night, in Esther's Wood
in the Holy Lands, saving his war band from an attack initiated by a
source he never identified. Later, he and the Devedians of Brothe
destroyed one of the soultaken meant to silence him before knowledge he
did not know he possessed became general.
The All-Father god of the pre-Chaldarean north himself perished
trying to extinguish that knowledge. Prophecy fulfilled.
Piper Hecht remained largely unaware of the full implications of
what he had done. The Devedians were not unaware. Their Elders knew
who Piper Hecht used to be. They knew what he had done. They knew he
had won a fierce reputation amongst the Instrumentalities of the Night,
and that those forces would have exterminated him long since had they
been better able to distinguish one mortal from another.
The biggest had to use something like the soultaken to find an
individual.
Although a brilliant commander and leader, Piper Hecht, under
whatever name, sailed through life in near ignorance of what he really
was. He was feared by powers and people of which and whom he was
unaware or was
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