Chapter 63 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Sixth Movement: The Fate of Stars

Chapter Sixty-Three

* * *

Abram recognized with a shudder what the sweet chime meant.

As he watched, the spheres turned silver and colour leeched out of the world, he reflexively began to look for evidence of the Templar’s sister caught in the White God’s gut. He noticed other Hermetists doing the same, though only briefly. Stopping the White God sucking the souls out of Glyph’s occupants would be their priority.

From his place in the largest circle almost directly opposite the Effor Gate, he saw the appearance and approach of the Wanderer. Abram knew what the noise and swaying of the Spire had meant, too. Someone had cracked open a Sphere and at least one other thing that had no place in this sub-Reality was loose.

As the Archivist watched the author of the impending cataclysm approach, Abram wondered why the Crawling Chaos was here at all.

The damage was done. Their plan had only a small chance of stopping one monster; another almost guaranteed that Glyph, and thereafter all the worlds of the Thirty Aions, would be forfeit. Gloating wasn’t an emotion which the Wanderer would indulge.

The Templar’s encounter with the Wanderer at the edge of the square disturbed Abram more than a little. If a being of the Templar’s age, wisdom, and power was agitated, everyone else should be terrified.

Then the Templar shouted his dire warning and ordered the Working to begin.

Once the seven flares had gone up, the Archivist tightly gripped the Syrat card he’d been given.

He looked at it again. It was, ‘The Transformer of Activity.’

Abram’s would be one of the first elements activated when the Working began, which should be any moment.

He glanced again at the Wanderer, standing stock still, rags fluttering in an absent wind.

Abram stood at the right end of the thirteen red Hermetists, almost exactly centered on the Street, behind Dævara.

The Wanderer seemed to be staring at the elf.

It began.

At a nod from the Templar, who was stationed outside the circle of seven, the Mercurius standing next to the Teller, raised her staff and shouted a single word, “Emeth!”

The sphere topping her rod blazed golden yellow, startling against the dead white smothering the city.

One of the seven surrounding the triangle of governors held her card out and up.

Orange light erupted from it, spilling down, and covering her. Out of this fountain grew another figure: a warrior in orange armour, a Vesica-shaped design with the Seal of the Syrat prominently enamelled on the chest plate. The figure sported white wings and was a dozen feet tall.

Abram and two other Hermetists, among the thirty-nine spaced equally around the edge of the Plaza, also held up cards.

Abram was showered in red lights. The others to his left and right disappeared in black and white showering lights, respectively.

To Abram’s left, a giant circlet crowned woman emerged once the black lights had faded. She bore a lamp of glowing black light. To his right, a circlet crowned, and bearded giant appeared holding a lamp blazing with white light.

Abram couldn’t see what he had become but knew his form would be a bald and beardless giant. From his new vantage almost twice his normal height, the Archivist could see the lamp he held shedding a brilliant red light.

Between the three of them, orange lines of light defined a triangle inscribed in the circle of thirty-nine.

From the Merchant’s Quarter behind and to Abram’s left, a sound like the clashing of symbols, musical and somewhat funny, preceded the irruption of a fat, towering column of orange light that rose beyond the range of sight into Nonspace.

Next, another of the circle of seven held up his card.

Out of a fountain of red sparks emerged another white winged warrior, red-armoured, this one holding aloft a glowing scarlet sword.

In the circle of thirty-nine, two Hermetists from each colour vanished in black, white, and red sparks.

There emerged two black-lamped Duchesses, white-lamped Dukes, and red, light bearing Praefators. A hexagram of red light overlay the orange triangle.

A sound like the bursting into flame of a large bonfire echoed over the city and from the top of the Mages Tower ahead and to Abram’s right and a similar column of light, the red of heart’s blood, joined the first as if helping to hold up the sky.

Another of the circle of seven became a giantess in flowing violet robes holding an ornate, glowing crystal goblet the colour of lilacs.

Six more giants appeared in the circle of thirty-nine and a violet hexagram overlay the red one and the orange triangle.

In front of him he heard the smash and rattling as of many chains being thrown and shaken.

A third column of purple light had ascended in the Street halfway to the Effor Gate.

Abram waited as the Working unwound itself. From his better vantage, he watched a frenetic battle to stop a Red God from entering Glyph.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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