Chapter 68 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Seventh Movement: What Came After

Chapter Sixty-Eight

* * *

Abram held the Gate Key, a two-foot length of black wood, inlaid with golden runes, before him in both hands, left over right, and intoned the spell.

The Inclino Gate opened with a loud boom.

He stepped back quickly as the gates swung inward.

The deep blue of Inclino’s midday flooded the pavement around him. A rugged plain of purple and vivid red vegetation drew the eye to the heaven scraping Mountains of Lunæ.

Along the top of that ridge, eleven miles above the plain, the winged inhabitants of this world made their homes.

The Archivist of Azhure’en turned his head and saw his old friend Dævara and her companion.

They exchanged greetings and well wishes. Hand in hand, the betrothed passed through the gate.

Abram turned away.

He had to wade through a throng of people that got larger the farther he went. Before the Hermetist was halfway to the Plaza another boom told of the opening of the Porta Gate. By time he’d joined the remaining Hermetists in the center of the Plaza around the statue, which was back in its proper place, the rivers had begun to flow. A moment later the air began to smell refreshed from the gate worlds. Only one duty left to perform.

As the Albedo and the Kokkinos began their preparations, the last Templars joined them.

Abram greeted the siblings warmly. “My friends!” He embraced each in turn. The female called Paris, the Warrior, as he thought of her, was dressed similarly to her brother now, in snug fitting black pants and flowing white silk shirt. The blades she had ever upon her were attached to her at the hip and were covered in metal scales—sheathes of a sort. Her silver hands were resting casually atop the sickled ends.

The male, Phæthon, said, “We’ll be taking our leave of the city soon, Abram. I thought you should know that my sister and I have restored the Spire. It is now quite impervious to tampering again.”

“We discovered that yesterday. I thought it must have been you who did it. On behalf of the Order of Hermes, I thank you.”

“We also have a request before we go.”

“Anything that is in our power to grant.”

“When the Garda return, I’d like them to lift their ban on the Miu. Their war is long over, and they have skills and native abilities that Glyph needs.”

Abram frowned. “I can but ask.” That the Templar knew the Hermetists could communicate with the Garda was mildly disturbing.

“You can do more than that, Younger Brother. I know what the Garda are—and who they answer to.”

“I should know better than to try to bluff a Templar,” Abram muttered. “I’ll tell the Kokkinos.”

To do that, he had to interrupt the preparations for summoning the Garda back. A brief whispered conversation with both remaining governors got the results requested.

Abram nodded to the two Templars who returned it and retreated to where the few remaining Myr and Admoio remained, preparing their own departure.

The summons went out and within moments and the air was full of unseen presences. The Hermetist could see their progress by the ripple of shock as each person was subjected to intense scrutiny by the expedient of temporary possession. He was especially gratified to see the Miu Erahndira, just visible on the Street as she headed to her native Porta, receive the scan, and subsequently not get thrown through the Porta Gate. The Miu were welcome again.

Most of his fellow Hermetists had left for Azhure’en the day before. Abram followed the last score of them as they headed for the Mages Guild and the entrance to the river Styx.

Twenty minutes later he was climbing into a long boat. The illusion that this bit of the Silvergrey Sea was a wide river on a world and not a relatively narrow one in a tunnel was remarkable. As he watched semi-tropical vegetation retreat into the distance, Abram marvelled again at the skill of those Hermetists who built the City Glyph so long ago.

He was first up the ladder and onto the deck of the three-masted clipper The Giordano Bruno. She was under sail in ten minutes and into the Silvergrey proper in under an hour.

When he was finally back in Azhure’en and headed for his quarters, the Archivist noted the strange, empty feeling of the place. Of course, it was so large that he couldn’t imagine it full, but still…

It was the absence of the White God, of course. As he drifted off to sleep, Abram wondered if the sensation he was feeling could actually be grief.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

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