Teller of Fate
Second Movement: The Last Templar
Chapter Fifteen
Picture a tetrahedron balanced on one point, then tilted so that one of its edges is perpendicular to a flat surface, leaving another edge parallel to that same surface.
Join the corners of the parallel edge to the corners of two other similarly oriented tetrahedra.
Now add two more to the far corners of the new tetrahedra. Join the ends of the furthest tetrahedra, making sure the perpendicular edges are on the inside. Viewed from above, the shape looks like a five-pointed star inside a pentagon.
Now imagine each edge of each four-sided polyhedron is over a mile long.
This ring of four-sided pyramids was the shape of the archives of Azhure’en.
Like the Lodge above, the Archives were also infinite, passing round and round, world to world.
⁂
Only minutes after the trip began, the stairs Breen and Nameless descended slowed and stopped at the level of another short hallway. They passed along it until they came to a large square opening. Breen halted and took the Nameless One’s hand.
“Do as I do,” she said. They stepped together through the opening. Again, her guidance was superfluous, but welcome was her voice and her touch.
There was a moment of intense vertigo, as if Nameless were being spun forward. The scenery blurred.
When everything stopped moving, they were standing in the middle of a triangular hallway.
Stone, a multihued blue like everything else, made up the otherwise simple sloping walls. The gabled peak was a good eight yards overhead. If it weren’t for three Hermetists walking together on one of the sloping walls toward them, this would have been one of the less interesting parts of Azhure’en.
They noticed the pair, greeted Breen by name and gravely acknowledged Nameless. One of them had to step to one side to avoid bumping heads with her as he passed.
“I believe the Archivist is in his office at the moment,” Breen said. She headed off in the direction from which the three Hermetists had come. Nameless followed. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the hall.
The passage led to a corner of one of the tetrahedral pods. As the walls of the hall gradually curved away, the floor did, too.
Rather than walking along an increasingly steep gradient, the pair found themselves continuing upright, while the hall behind them slowly became a steeply angled shaft. Travel along this curve was dizzy making.
Turning back to the room itself wasn’t any different. A floor bulged gently upward resembling the very top of a large sphere and was covered with shelving, tables, and chairs. Several of the latter were occupied by Hermetists engaged in varying types of research.
Above them floated platforms containing more of the same and translucent walkways occupied by wandering Hermetists.
Some were upright, some upside down. The furniture and paths were generously spaced because others parallel to the other three ‘floors’ were interspersed among them.
How one got from one orientation to another had to be one of the better bits of engineering, though it was not in evidence from where Nameless stood.
The mess of walkways, shelving, tables, and people obscured the true volume of the space. The beginnings of the floor and the inward sloping walls to either side behind them were clearly visible but the far surface of the huge tetrahedron could not be discerned at all.
The pair headed in. Along the way, sets of crystal risers floating in the air led from one level to another. They walked and climbed for an hour before getting to the center of the maze, a large tetrahedral shape hovering at the center of the larger tetrahedron of this node of the archives.
Once directly beneath the bottom triangle, they were simply drawn up through the floor.
Another moment of severe disorientation followed. When his head stopped spinning, Nameless found that he and Breen were in a room that took up the whole interior.
It was a deeper blue than the rest of the Mother Lodge and lit from the external surfaces, allowing no shadows.
Sitting at a modest (for the space) desk was an old Hermetist. He was writing in a large book. He looked up and smiled.
“Elder Brother. I hadn’t thought to meet you before my time,” his voice was resonant and deep.
Standing upright, he was tall and straight-backed, showing none of the infirmity one might expect from one so old.
His hat lay on the desk, revealing a full head of silver hair that cascaded down his back. It shone even in the understated light.
His coat and trousers were white, his boots and hat black. The two uppermost buttons of his coat were red.
Turning to Breen, “Thank you, sister.” She nodded, gave Nameless a warm smile, and dropped through the floor.
“Abram is my name, Chief Archivist.” His face assumed a grimmer cast. “I can guess the reason for your visit.” Gesturing to the desk, “Will you sit with me?”
“Of course.” Nameless took a comfortable chair opposite the Hermetist at the desk.
“Drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Abram put the bottle of amber liquid away. The old Hermetist sat back in his chair. “We’ve noticed a change in her these past few years. We fear she’s losing.”
“It’s worse than that. She’s dying.”
Abram leaned forward over his desk, hands gripping the edge. “How can she be dying? It was my understanding that the Working would keep things in balance forever.”
Nameless sighed. “It was designed to, yes. Nevertheless, I’ve felt it.”
“When did it start?”
“I don’t know precisely. At least four centuries ago, UT. Maybe more.”
Abram seemed numb, now. Nameless knew why. The Archivist asked, “With respect, why is it you do not know, exactly? You were supposed to be monitoring your fellow Templar’s efforts and assisting if need be unless I read the histories wrong.”
“You’re not entirely wrong. I was only the material anchor in the Working. It was I who guaranteed her immortality by maintaining the circle within which the oath was sworn. All I had to do was not die. I…lost myself. It’s easy to do when you cannot die and have the power to be anyone.” He looked inward, not seeing anything around him. “Centuries become millennia. Life after life adds its load of memories, thoughts, and passions. One…forgets oneself.” Nameless looked up at the elderly seeming man.
The latter replied, “I would not have thought such a thing possible.”
“It isn’t possible to forget oneself entirely, not without help. My complete amnesia was the doing of another.”
“Someone interfered with you, and you couldn’t stop it?” Abram seemed stunned.
“Worse. I didn’t even know. I lived in complete ignorance of my true self for almost the entire time since the White God was imprisoned here. Then I was thrown back in time almost ninety-four thousand years. It was only after the violent death of my last avatar that I knew the sensation I had been feeling meant another person in pain. Recalling who I was took only a few hours. Imagine waking from a hundred-thousand-year coma.”
Abram nodded, a look of sympathy creasing his face. He said, “It doesn’t sound like very many could have hampered you in this way.”
“There are very few. One of the surviving Elder Gods. The Mir, perhaps. In the Elven Dark there live some Feral who might accomplish this.”
“Aren’t those in the Dark trapped there?”
Nameless felt his crooked smile. “The strongest of the Feral are not as securely caged as the Sages intended.”
“Speaking of, could the Seandaoine have done this?”
“If any remain, which I’m comfortably certain they do not.” He made the last word a query.
“No sign of any. I’d have to concur; they are all dead.”
Left unspoken was Nameless’s knowledge that one Seanduine—the one he had fathered—likely still lived. That she might be behind this, Nameless would not consider unless all other suspects were eliminated. He continued, “I doubt the Mir are involved. Their attitude toward us was more contempt than anything else. Until the Silver Templars ventured into Nonspace, I doubt they even knew we existed. Have they given you any grief?”
Abram shook his head. “We have made forays into Nonspace, but there’s no record of any reaction by the Mir.”
“This kind of attack isn’t their style, either.”
“Blunt force was their preferred method, so the histories say.”
“Indeed. I think we can eliminate them as suspects. A powerful Feral from the Dark could be responsible, but there’s no possibility of determining motive. Insane that whole Aion is.”
“I can’t see a sustained, focused effort for any length of time, either.”
“True.” Nameless, after a pause. “So, not a Feral, not the Seandaoine and not the Mir. That just leaves the Lord of Entropy, his Messenger, or the Yellow King.”
“Whoever it is, that one must have had a motive for freeing the White God. I can’t see eliminating the King in Yellow for the simple reason that he rarely has anything resembling a motive. If he was doing it, it would on a whim and for his own amusement.”
“Has he been active, lately?”
“Not for millennia, now. He seems content to manage his urban zoo.”
“Carcosa remains, then.”
“And getting bigger a steady rate.”
“That leaves the Wanderer and the Lord of Entropy. It must be the former.”
“Because the Idiot God doesn’t think.”
“That’s not entirely true. His mind is of a different order and it’s rarely seated in His body, anyway.”
“Had the Templars any insight into what He is?”
“Besides being one of the Trinity, we learned a great deal. What we know makes it unlikely in the extreme that He was involved.”
“How so?”
“All I will say is that He has a strong motive to maintain the status quo.”
“That just leaves the Wanderer in the Wastes. You must have suspected him, anyway.”
“True. I was hoping the Hermetists had information that might point another way.”
“How much do you know about his past…indiscretions?”
“Enough.” The Nameless outlined what was known in his day.
Abram sighed. “There’s more, Elder Brother. None of it good.”
After listening in ever increasing shock to the atrocities committed by the servant of the Lord of Entropy, some of them done in the time of the Pleroma, unbeknownst to the Templars, Nameless felt increasingly disheartened. How to salvage this situation. The great goal of the Templars, interrupted and then stopped altogether by the White God seemed well and truly dead, now. Villains the Templars were seen as now and villains they would always be, he feared.
Abram concluded with a question. “Do you know of the deaths of worlds in the last century?”
The Templar nodded.
“Food for the White God. The Wanderer in the Wastes is stealing food from his master’s table. Why would he do that?”
“The stronger the White God gets—”
“The weaker your sister gets in fighting IT.”
“Eventually, Azhure’en will no longer be able to hold IT.”
“Why, though? Does he just want a return to what was before? Or is it something else?”
“I have a theory, but I must test it before revealing it. I will have a bearing on our strategy.”
“And in the meantime?”
The Templar continued his story. “I mentioned my last avatar. Unbeknownst to me, after I had been thrown back to three millennia after the end of the Templar War, I donned the form of a man obsessed with weapons; exotic ones that might damage IT and give my sister a chance to heal. I didn’t wonder, much less worry about why I was doing it, so tight was the hold the Wanderer had on my mind.” He sighed. “I fully became this ugly man who traded in atrocities with monsters. I stole, murdered, deceived, and raped. I came to myself only after I was murdered.” Here, Nameless laughed. “I was killed by someone I tried to steal a Syrat from.” He briefly considered confiding his relationship to the woman who he strongly suspected murdered him but thought better of it. If Abram knew a Seanduine was wandering the Thirty Aions it would likely distract him at a time when all his resources would be needed for the immediate threat. He laughed again. Hearing an edge of hysteria in it he clamped down on it. After a moment, Nameless was composed again. “I’ll take that drink now, if it’s still on offer.”
“Of course.” The Hermetist pulled open the drawer and pulled out a bottle and two cut-crystal glasses, pouring a generous measure in each. He slid one across the varnished wood.
Nameless took a large sip, taking time to enjoy the taste before swallowing. He smiled. “I’d forgotten the savour of this.” He lifted the glass. “Thank you.” He felt the fizzing effect of a fine spirit dissolving synapses. It improved his mood.
“So,” said Abram, “the last of the Ebon Templars is dying at the hands of the White God and I’m drinking with the last of the Golden Templars. We don’t yet know enough of the enemy’s plan to effectively thwart it. How do we stop the end of everything?”
“I have a thought or two on that. I was quite surprised upon awakening again, to find that in the time since the war a city had sprung up atop the Spire.”
“Oh, you noticed that did you?”
“I don’t suppose you know how it got there, do you?”
“I might have a couple of theories.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with blocking access to certain dangerous paths, would it?”
“I’ve frequently thought it excellently placed to do just that,” replied the Archivist, deadpan.
“I thought so.” Nameless decided to drop the subject. He had confirmed his guesses and that was enough. Besides, though he was loath to admit it, the Shining Empire was long dead and with it, any authority he might have had. Pause for another sip. “I think I can save the situation, but I’ll need some help.”
“Anything I can do, I will. I’m sure that goes for the entire Order .”
“I need a Syrat.”
Abram sat back again. “You did mention trying to steal one. Why would a Templar need a Syrat?”
“I know, I know. The Syrat is the one thing Templars won’t touch. There’s good reason for that, too. But in this instance, it will be necessary.”
“For what?”
“I need to find out why any of this happened, for one thing.”
“Couldn’t you just consult a Teller?”
“Not for this, no.”
“You don’t trust them.”
Nameless shrugged. “Can’t afford to.”
Abram sipped and looked thoughtfully at Nameless. “I foresee a number of problems. First, you’d have to become a Teller and that can’t happen quickly.”
“Not possible, anyway. I lack the Teller’s gift.”
“Right. Being able to Tell wouldn’t help you stop your sister dying, much less prevent the White God’s release—”
“I think we both know that’s not true.”
The Hermetist’s face relaxed completely. Suddenly he looked as if he were extremely bored. “I don’t follow you.”
Nameless said, “Don’t bluff Abram. I’ve seen and experienced first-hand the power of a Teller to change what is using the Syrat. I know the Hermetists have tried to hide the fact, but you must know it’s not a very well-kept secret. Almost half the planets in the Thirty Aions have banned Tellers altogether because of that fear.”
“All right but consider this: you can’t take a Syrat from a Teller, it just isn’t possible—”
“I did.”
Abram looked like he was considering several responses, finally arriving at, “What happened?”
“I—the Dark Man, rather—used a simple spell to keep the cards from travelling too far from me. The girl I tried to take the Syrat from used it to make her own portal, twice mind you, to get away from me. The second one took her off-world. That great a distance the spell prevented. She left; the cards stayed.”
“You said, ‘girl’. How old?”
“Barely into adulthood, was my appraisal.”
“Not fully manifesting her gift, it seems.”
“That was my conclusion, as well. I didn’t actually break her bond to the cards, though. I realized this when she trapped me and claimed them back, killing my avatar in the process.”
“So, you did fail after all. It’s still remarkable you did as much as you did. Against an accomplished Teller in the fullness of their power, that spell would only have got you killed sooner.”
“A difference without a distinction. Stealing one is not an option, I agree.”
“Would a dead Syrat help?”
“No. I need a living one for the job.”
“You’ll have to get a Teller to give the cards to you. That’s just possible, but such an action would kill the Teller—”
“Unless the Teller could replace the deck with a new one.”
“The Teller would have to make it.”
“You don’t think it possible?”
“In theory, it is. But you must remember that it has been a long time since a new Syrat was made. It’s unlikely any living Teller knows how, anymore.”
“At least one does. A new Syrat has emerged.”
Abram sat back and stared before downing the rest of his drink. The Archivist grabbed the bottle and refilled his glass, topping up Nameless’s after the latter held his glass out. After they both took generous sips, “You are going to give me the details, right?”
The last of the Golden Templars smiled. “The Syrat I was trying to steal all those tens of thousands of years ago is not one of the twelve decks currently known. It was likely made in the years following the Templar War.”
“Could it not have been made before?”
“It’s just possible, but if so, it wasn’t made within the bounds of the Pleroma.”
“Unlikely.”
“Agreed.”
“So, the knowledge survived the war. I call that good news, though many would not. You are going to make a Syrat yourself?”
“It would take too long. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Abram smiled. “I have an idea on that. Have you heard of a book called the Incunabulum?”
Nameless shook his head.
“Its actual title is The Coronarian ‘The Book of the Crown’, and it’s one of the most dangerous artefacts known, reputed to contain detailed instructions for constructing a Syrat and on the art of the Teller.”
“I thought learning the art was passed on with the cards.”
“It is, just as the construction is supposed to be.”
“Wouldn’t there be a bit of a problem with committing that kind of information to paper?”
Abram nodded. “An enormous problem, in fact. That’s why the book is so dangerous.”
“It’s written in Kazhi.” A heavy sigh from the Templar as he briefly cupped his face with his palms. “The Miu and that damned archive again.”
Abram nodded.
“Of course. I’ve long suspected they brought that language to the Pleroma. In fact, they may have brought the Syrat as well.”
“You don’t think the Syrat you tried to get is that old, do you?”
“I don’t think so, no. I assume the Hermetists have tried to find Zaphyrym House.”
“Yes. Porta has been thoroughly scoured. So have a few other places where legend placed that library.”
“What of the Miu?”
“We have no reason to believe any living Miu has knowledge of their imperial past. The Templars did a thorough job ridding the Miu Empire refugees of anyone with conquering proclivities.”
“We’ve no time to consider this mystery. Where is this Incunabulum?”
“It was at Zaphyrym House but vanished from the archive long ago, stolen it appears. We first tracked it to Glyph, where it turned up just after the city was founded.”
“I sense purpose in that.”
Abram nodded agreement. “But what purpose? And whose?”
“How did it escape you?”
“Someone spirited away through a Portal; we don’t know where to.”
“Do you know where the book is now?”
“Yes. We found it almost five centuries ago. It’s on an Oerth Analogue.”
“Not mine, I hope.”
Abram chuckled and shook his head.
“I’m afraid the Book won’t do,” Nameless said. “It will still take much too long to make and learn to use a Syrat. Using the Book itself is out of the question; I’ll need much more control than that. However, it could make an enticing bargaining chip for the right Teller.”
“So, you’re still determined to get one?”
Nameless nodded and held out his empty glass.
Abram poured more before saying, “You’ll still have to learn to Tell.”
“Not necessarily.” Nameless thought of his newly discovered daughter and of a bargain he might make for the loan of her Syrat. “I need to know from you who and where the Tellers are.”
Abram’s head cocked forward. He raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips. “That could cause many problems for me and for the Order in general.”
“In the unlikely event I’m questioned about the source of my knowledge, I’ll deny you had anything to do with its acquisition. I doubt my word will be questioned. Look, Younger Brother, I could get this information without your help. You’d just be saving me some time and trouble, that’s all.”
Abram sat back and sighed, “You’re right, of course. Very well. I’ll get the information for you. One moment.”
Looking into any corner of the four-faced room gave the momentary illusion that one was looking down an endless triangular hallway. Abram stood and headed for one of the corners and suddenly was walking down a triangular hallway.
This one had squares incised into the blue glass walls. The Archivist touched one about five yards along and a drawer sprang out. After leafing through the contents, he pulled out a slim folder and closed the drawer. Eight steps back and suddenly the corner was just a corner again. None of the walls or floor had moved during the entire process.
Nameless was impressed. That little trick was not original to Azhure’en. The races left behind had done quite well in the last hundred millennia.
Abram handed the blue folder to the Templar and sat down looking, for some reason, as if he were holding in a smile.
Nameless turned to the list written on white vellum. It contained the names of every Teller who had used one of the known Syrats going back to before the Fall of the Pleroma. The date at the top was the current one. “You like to keep up to date, don’t you?”
The other only nodded.
Then Nameless noted the third name down and knew the reason for the smile. Looking up, “You’re a Teller?” Not waiting for confirmation, “You wouldn’t, by chance be open to—”
“Of course not.” Now he grinned. “Try again.”
“There are no other Hermetists listed. Most of them are Æs Sidhe of the Convocation. And living in their Aions, too.”
“That shouldn’t be any trouble for you, though.”
“Hmm.” Nameless went on reading. “There’s a name missing here.”
“Don’t think so,” Abram sounded quite sure, in fact. “Oh, you mean the thirteenth. Well, I didn’t know of that until a few minutes ago.”
“The Teller who killed me would have to be dead by now, unless she travelled forward in time.” Being that she was a Seanduine, Nameless knew she must still live but decided to keep that information to himself.
“Sounds unlikely. Then again, you did it. Where did your death take place?” Abram asked.
“A world called Scorn.”
“Scorn? Hold on.” The Archivist began tapping and sliding his fingers along the surface of his desk. Shapes of pale light, mostly blue, appeared in the air in front of his face. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“Scorn is gone. It’s been gone, along with several constellations near it, almost since the time you left.”
“I know. It affected my plans to come see you.” Fear, an unfamiliar emotion, grabbed the Nameless One’s bowels. He had not given the ‘why’ of that destruction any serious thought until now.
“It looks a lot like what was usual during the last days of the Shining Empire—before the caging of the White God.”
“And in the last century such world endings have started up again.”
“In the last eight centuries, to be more precise with almost half the last hundred years.”
“If the death of Scorn was like the deaths before the White God was caged, it means our enemy has been working to undermine our efforts for a lot longer than eight hundred years.”
Abram only nodded.
⁂
The two continued their debate, discussing details of Nameless’s plan. The last Golden Templar would quest for a Syrat and for the Thirteenth Teller. He knew a key piece of that, of course. Intuition told him he would end up striking a bargain with her. It was agreed that he would remain in regular contact with Abram during his quest and, if successful, would enlist the cooperation of the Hermetists in his endeavour to end the threat posed by the results of the Silver Templars’ indiscretion so long ago.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved
