Teller of Fate
Second Movement: The Last Templar
Chapter Twelve
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The Dark Man had been broader and much taller. After pondering if it would be worth the trouble of altering the former’s clothes to fit, a disdainfully pedestrian use of his talents, Nameless chose to risk detection by using his magick to simply change the ones he wore.
He ended up with a charcoal grey suit, black tie, and pale blue shirt. After a moment’s thought, Nameless decided to skip the loafers and wear tough hiking boots. It spoiled the look, but not overly.
He wouldn’t need anything he couldn’t make for himself, but magick left a signature that some could read, and he wanted to be discreet. Therefore, he took a small selection of items, including credit chips, that might come in handy.
Scorn was one of the most Portal rich planets in this constellation, but only one of them could lead to Glyph.
The Portal he wanted was in the lobby of the Trade Center building. Scorn’s ruling-class merchants had a profitable relationship with the Merchants Guild on Glyph.
Looking quite well-to-do, Nameless, using the slightly updated credentials of his former host, strolled past security and through the Portal.
As the humming violet vortex of the Portal closed behind him, Nameless felt paralysis and a deep-water chill envelope his body.
Something, some being, was invading his body. Avoiding an emotional reaction, he used the connection to probe it. It called itself a ‘Garda’, and was one of legions of such entities who protected the City Glyph against undesirables. So, this was a screening of sorts. Nameless was surprised to recognize what it was, and where it had to have come from. The Hermetists had grown bold after the Templars had died off.
The Garda lingered a few seconds and then was gone. No alarms were raised.
Stepping out of the small cylindrical room, Nameless determined to add it to the list of pointed questions he would have about this city, when he met the Hermetists.
He was standing in a magnificent hall of dark red marble. It was round and about twenty yards across, punctured at regular intervals with pointed arched doorways. Ever larger concentric circles of stone—mezzanines—ascended to a ceiling that seemed one massive white light. There were no shadows. Before Nameless was an elegant lancet arched entrance out to the city. He headed that way.
The sky. The incredible sky…
He just stared at it for he didn’t know how long. It had been a long time since he’d seen Nonspace and had forgotten how arresting the view was.
Today, the spheres were far away and mostly shading to yellow with strange grey mottling.
A river of balls closer to were reddish amber flecked black and gold.
As he watched, a crack opened slowly in the mass and deep blue spheres could be seen forming a kind of tunnel that twisted and contorted.
Nameless realized he’d been standing too long when someone jostled him. He looked down to see the annoyed face of a merchant who nevertheless said, “Your pardon, citizen,” before hurrying on down the wide steps that fronted the citadel of the Merchants.
Trying to keep his eyes on where he was going, Nameless followed.
A decent view of the city was blocked by the taller buildings near the Merchants’ Citadel.
Most everything in this quarter was devoted to commerce but sprinkled among them were a selection of residential buildings.
Glyph had a permanent population of over four million, though Nameless had read claims of much higher numbers.
As he descended the ridiculously twisty streets, he occasionally caught glimpses of the city below. The cluttered cityscape was a forest of colourful structures, diminishing in height as the land descended. It was a delightful mess.
The cobbles of the streets changed material from district to district.
Nameless was surprised to see streetlights but knew Nonspace could be quite dark. Artificial illumination would then be necessary.
About a quarter of the way down, the Templar encountered the river Lethe, winding its way from springs under the Merchants Guild Citadel. It would eventually disappear under the Plaza of Dying Suns at the center of the city.
He crossed the river over a steeply arched bridge of green stone.
Nameless met the same river five more times before getting to the Plaza. He heard a loud babble of voices long before he got there.
When he finally passed through a pointed arch defining a break in a low wall skirting the square, he saw why.
All around him everything sloped up. The farther one went the taller the buildings and the higher the ground. The City Glyph was a large parabolic bowl with the Plaza of Dying Suns centered at its lowest point. The whole city was an acoustical amphitheater. If he shouted, Nameless was sure anyone on the wall girding the city would hear it clearly.
There were only about fifty people wandering through the plaza, talking softly. Their voices had seemed so loud before. Here in the plaza, the speech hit his ears much less forcefully.
The main roads of Glyph, called the Street and the Avenue, ran perfectly straight, though sloping up, to four huge open gates. Through each one was a different world.
Here at the lowest point was the only place where the geography atop the Spire was completely apparent. The lowest buildings, large rambling homes mostly, lined the plaza itself.
As he entered, he saw another of Glyph’s famous landmarks: the large four-faced clock known as the Orloj.
It stood atop a red metal pole beside the exit from the Merchants Quarter. Nameless had to advance several paces into the Plaza before he could get a good look at it. The two faces visible from his vantage were identical. Each had…seventeen? No, eighteen hands of various lengths, seven separate dials, many counters, and other arcana of the clockmaker’s art.
Reading the date and time UT was easy; its other functions were less obvious. Natives, especially the well-travelled ones, likely knew and relied on all of them.
Nameless was reminded of another astronomical clock from an Oerth analogue he had visited once, the Prajni Orloj, designed by a skilled Alchemist whose name he could not recall. With the design and construction of it, that genius had produced a working Portal. Nameless wondered if he had been visited by the Fæ as well.
It was interesting, but not enough to slow him in his quest.
He would have expected to see market stalls of some sort and was surprised to find the plaza currently free of any structure except a decidedly weird sculpture in its center. He spent a few minutes trying to decide of it was beautiful or ugly and finally gave up.
He glanced at the sky, just for a moment, and noted that reddish purple spheres were coming in from behind one of the citadels—the Magsmen’s, he thought.
Nameless’s goal was in the Mages Quarter. He headed through the one opening into that quarter, using a minor cantrip to avoid reciting a silly little rhyme to make the gate open, and soon became lost.
His mental map was an exact copy of the one he’d memorized before he left, he was sure. That meant that the city itself had changed. It wasn’t supposed to do that. He recalled a single mention of changing streets in his research but had dismissed it. It was the same one that had claimed Glyph was more than three-dimensional and housed many, many more people than the official estimate.
Nameless wished he’d paid more attention to it.
Where a street was supposed to curve one way, it bent sharply the other. Where it was supposed to go straight for a hundred yards, it would terminate after thirty.
Eventually, hoping that the Portal itself wouldn’t have moved, Nameless decided to get to the coordinates shown on the map and ignore what the layout was supposed to be. It took a frustrating hour to get there.
At one point, a big blue wooden box blocked his path, filling a narrow alley. He had just recognized a pair of narrow doors on it when a light atop it began flashing and, with an awful screeching sound, it faded from sight.
He passed his hand through the spot where it had stood, felt no resistance, shrugged, and headed on his way.
Nameless was almost surprised that the building he was looking for was where it was supposed to be. The street name, Gygax Lane, was the same, too. The Portal Nameless sought was in this Inn, Dee’s Attic, three stories of pink stone. He had to get into the cellars to get to access the Portal itself.
All inns everywhere had the same look, he mused as he walked in. Bar against the back wall. Tables scattered over a rush strewn floor. Bulls-eye windows and low lighting. It even had toothsome serving wenches.
Low babble of voices, mugs of the local equivalent of ale, and the smoke of pipes filled with inhalable combustibles filled the rest of the space.
All that was missing was a musician or two.
The entrance to the cellars wouldn’t be accessible to the public. The kitchen was the most probable place to look. But how to get there was the problem. Going around back and begging was out of the question and wasn’t accessible, anyway. Forcing his way, using magick or not, would likely get him exiled from Glyph by the Garda.
That left bluffing his way through the front.
In the end, it turned out all he had to do was ask; well, that and offer the guy behind the bar a generous tip.
It seemed the Portal didn’t get used all that often, but Hermetists did pass through from time to time. The tip was just a little extra income for a family that could use the coin.
As he descended the rickety wooden steps to the cellars—another classic inn feature—Nameless reflected on the absence of an easier route from Glyph to Azhure’en.
He’d ask when he got the chance.
The inn had three cellars: one for vegetables; one for dry goods, and one for cold storage. Beyond the cold one, was a small door.
Shivering, Nameless went through it. The hall beyond was dark and short. He felt his way along until he reached the end. Wet feet, loud horns, and the spoken phrase, “Free Massage,” led to a burst of pink light. He stepped through the vortex.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, July 2026
© Gideon Jagged
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