Duet of Silence 

Chapter 4:    Duet of Silence 

"Starfall, I see a world of two. I hear the voices that are not mine. I see with eyes that are ours. I speak with a tongue that imbibes a language I do not understand. Which am I? For the hand pressed to the mirror is not mine." 

A consenting soul, one that understands what it is being asked. One that understands that it is part of the songs, that it has a choice, that it always had a choice. The one true gift the Quartet had given their children was that: the ability to choose what to do with their own spark. To rejoin the songs and continue the cycle of the symphony, to give it the encore it so craves. To rest and remain silent, its own song still, waiting. Or to be consumed by the Shadows to continue the existence of reality, and the horror that the universe is a mostly dead and empty place now. 

   "But I am trying to give another option. I do not ask lightly, but you could join my song. One where the souls of the lost, the living, and the future souls could take what was always promised to us." Rythia spoke to the Vestige writhing under her iron grip. She was hunting these Fallen, as the Family had taken to calling them, alone. It was at this point too that she wished to have her original spear back in her hands once more. 

   The spear that had helped her build a civilization, the Tuning Fork. She missed its weight in her hands; she missed that it could shift the same way she used to be able to do. But right now, she missed that it would amplify her power. This Vestige was a former Brownie, just like she was. A horror, its legs contorted, claws forever merged into its fingers. Its tail a poisonous barbed hook like a scorpion's. What made her sad, however, was the fact that it had a smooth skull without any way to hear the Great Mother's voice ever again. 

   She eyed the bloody holes in the side of its head where it desperately tried to make new ears for itself, only to leave the undead flesh unchanged and holes in its brain. The Vestige hissed back into her mind as she allowed it to speak, "Yes, if what you are offering me is a way to end my suffering peacefully, then yes. A thousand times yes! I would rather know that with what little power I can give, I can try to undo the misery I caused." 

   "You are not at fault; it was never your fault, Brother. You were forced to do things that we all were guilty of, were forced to do things that we never imagined were possible. It isn't your fault that your hands were not your own. I am just glad that I am able to give you some clarity of mind." She told the Vestige, as she watched it struggle with the commands given to him by the Shadows and the potent necromantic healing she was pouring into his soul. Tears streamed down his mouthless face. "I cannot undo the infection any more than I can rid myself of it, but I can offer you the chance to do something greater." 

   "Thank you, Mother Rythia." He hissed into her mind, "Yes, take what is left of my spark and give the future some hope."

He was silent while the threads of their power connected; our songs became one as his notes filled the rest of the chords. His eyes finally cleared for the first time in the gods knew how long, staring right through her as his body finally began to relax under her grip. "Mother?" 

While she was busy using his spark to write the new notes of her song, her eyes flicked to his. "Will you sing to me while I fall asleep?" Such a simple request nearly broke her. Pausing her ritual to pick through his memories to find something he loved. A simple lullaby in the back of his mind, a memory nearly forgotten. His actual mother used to sing to him when he was a child. Back when the Cradle was an altogether different world, their original home before their civilization had become what it was. A simple song filled the air around them; for his benefit, she also sang it directly into his mind. 

   Using the same necrotic magic, she made his mind perceive the song as if he still had ears to hear it with. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she picked up her ritual where she left off. Eroding away his spark to create the framework of a gateway to a sanctuary. The light began to fade from his eyes, heavy lids closing on their own. Still, she sang to him while his mind drifted into blackness. 

   The rest of his spark faded from the world as she worked the last few notes into place for the chord of the song. He took one final, shaking breath, smiling with his eyes. His body went still under her, lifeless. Already cool to the touch, his undead being having ceased the vast majority of its functions long, long ago. She sat back, putting her head in her hands. Trying to push out the fact that she needed these souls to build what she was building; trying to build it from her own soul would be too much of a giveaway. 

   Yet, the dirty feeling it left in her heart never went away. Like her hands would be forever stained from the vile act they were doing. "It isn't vile; they all consented to this." She told herself, "I've never forced someone to give up their spark, never will." Looking back up at the Brownie's corpse, it was already disintegrating. The Shadows' infection was the only thing that was keeping that vessel in one piece, long past the time when his bones should have been dust. 

"Ashes to ashes, Brother." She told him, "I'll see you on the shores beyond." Time seemed to move slowly as she sat there. Letting the memories wash over her, feeling the souls around her connected through her own song. The warm sun on her skin as she sang with her friends when she was young. Before she became what she was, before she was something more than just a Brownie. Before they even knew their goddess, before they knew anything about the Quartet, before they knew about the other races. 

   Smiling as she remembered when they would shift forms, loping through the vast forests of the Cradle. Felt the wind under her wings as they soared through the skies. Felt her tail curl around her lovers, felt the warmth of life. Yet there she was in the middle of a ruin filled with technology that would never work again. Looking around at the blank display screens, the dusty control panels, the cables and engines that ran the Citadel's everyday life. 

   Felt the cold metal floor beneath her, as the pile of dust that was her brother in faith shifted like a macabre reminder of time. Their bodies never meant that much to them; for the briefest moment she wondered what being a pile of dust would feel like, before remembering she had become much more banal things than that in her life. The body was just a vessel; to them, the mind and spark were always what the Brownie valued, not the form those two things resided in. So why did seeing him like this break her in a way that she didn't understand?

   "What sins did we commit to deserve this fate, Mother?" She asked the empty room, her voice echoing off the hard surfaces. Her voice holding just enough power as she struggled to keep her composure to make the displays flicker to life to return to black again. "What could we have possibly done to deserve to survive the fallout of your wrath?" 

   Engines tried to turn over as the power from her spark overflowed her vessel; displays flickered back on again, filled with nothing but warnings and errors. The dim room was awash in a dull blue glow as one by one they turned on, backlit by the spears of sunlight streaming through the rusted holes in the walls. This place was a control center, but with nothing for them to send signals and messages off to, error after error kept piling up on the screens. 

   Picking herself up off the ground, she pulled a small vial out from the pouch at her hip. With a quick movement, she filled it with the ashes of her brother, set on giving him the burial he deserved. Breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down, she had lived part of his life when she connected her soul to his. His memories swirling inside her skull, mixing with her own, the more she did this as she built her song, the more it felt like she was losing her own identity. 

   "Error: multiple system failures. Error: multiple system sensors offline. Error: multiple fail safes broken. Error: response systems offline." The list kept going as she flicked her eyes over the screen. Skimming the ever-growing list, she paused as one of them caught her attention. 

   "S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y:: protocol: active. System admin waiting response." The text was scrawling across the display as the admin was responding to the control center. "Admin: Kyri: What is happening? Is anyone there? Hello??" 

    Rythia felt her hair stand on end, Kyri. The architect of the trans-galactic communications system. The coder who had built the system that allowed the military to function. The programmer who had sung her song into the machines and data sets she created. A dear friend. Rythia's fingers danced across the keyboard, typing a reply. "Kyri, where are you? Do you still have signal with the Ashbringers? Are any of the other planets responding to beacons? Are there any other survivors out there?" 

   "... Please identify yourself..." 

   "Rythia, where are you? ID: Sonet"

   "Rythia? You are still alive? I'm sorry to say this, but I'm not exactly alive. Well, it's a long story. I'm alive in a sense, but not physically. My body is a fine rotten mess by now. I am in Station Cloud just outside the Citadel. I won't leave the data center; I won't leave it unprotected." A shock ran down her spine; Kyri was dead.

"Don't get that way, Ria. I can see you on the one operational camera in the center where you are. Don't feel bad for me; so long as S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y maintains even a small amount of functionality, I'll be here." Rythia swiveled her head until she spotted the thing hanging by a few wires; the red light blinked at her. "Yes, that one." 

   "I'm sorry, I tried to prevent all this." Rythia typed slowly. 

   "Don't blame yourself. We all had our part to play. I hope you aren't doing something drastic just because we lost. I still remember what you did when the Faeries were getting a bit out of hand. Still remember you taking on Anlyth in that fight. It makes me laugh thinking about it! We are both Brownies, Ria. My body never meant much to me; I'm now as immortal as you are. What's with the green skin? Where is your tail?" 

   "Did you ever get that voice transfer program operational?" Rythia typed out, the metallic clicks filling the silent room.

   "You mean this?" Kyri's voice was staticky, intermittent, and tinny, but it was her voice coming through the display. A strange new icon flickered to life in the corner, an odd set of runes that Rythia hadn't seen before. But the novelty of it was short-lived as tears welled up in her eyes. 

   "You don't know how happy it makes me to hear your voice, Ky. I've gotten far too used to friends I've been finding being nothing but corpses or dust. Or having to kill them myself." Her eyes flicked to the pile of ash behind her. 

   "Well, I am dead. Well, at least my physical body is; things went and died on me when the Station was besieged after all the comms went dark." She laughed; Rythia could have kissed the woman if she was there for the amount of normal and unchanged her personality was. 

   Rythia told her everything that had happened, the battle at the citadel. Watching Mother fall, feeling the infection take her fully. What had happened to the Brownies, and her. The new Song she was writing and all the components involved in it. She had to backtrack quite a few times to explain that many of the people she was referring to now used new names after having their memories altered by Bhal. 

   Talking about Tylic made her smile; despite Kyri not having a body any longer, her smile was more than evident in the way she talked. She spoke about having to destroy the Dyson Sphere, the constant ashfall, the new flora and fauna that now inhabited the Cradle. She found it rather difficult to talk about seeing the endless darkness that Namix now was. After a profound moment of silence, they spoke about better things. Happier times, old memories. Which inevitably brought the conversation back to where it started. 

   "Well, that would explain why many of the stations are idle right now, not even responding to beacons. The last satellite I am still getting data from could barely see through the ash for decades." Kyri said distantly. 

   "Decades?" A strange feeling filled Rythia at that. 

   "Decades, yeah. From the moment the comms went dead, I'm assuming this is when Syn brought her divine song to the proverbial pyre of Namix, there were a few decades where nothing was registering. It wasn't until these last few years that signs of life started reappearing on the monitoring stations." A sinking feeling filled her stomach. 

   "But I've been conscious this whole time. From the moment I saw Bhal slit Vilorlith's throat, I've been awake." 

   "You said that all the survivors' memories had been altered. I'm immune to that kind of magic; the only thing that could interfere with me would have to manually manipulate the data held in the center in Station Cloud. How do you know that your memories were not also altered? You said you were allowed to remember, but the Shadows never said they didn't alter your memories." Her words hit Rythia like a ton of bricks. She was speechless; there were no words for the layers of thoughts running through her mind. 

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, you wouldn't have wanted to remember what was happening across the planet at the time. The continents are in the wrong position; there is a massive crater to the north where, I'm assuming, Syn fell. The readings from the few working monitors were filled with an unknown organic spread. Like the infection had taken on a life of its own and made the entire planet its body for a short period of time. I don't think I would have wanted to remember the amount of violence becoming part of an alien biosphere would entail." 

   Something clicked into place, pieces that started to make sense. The constant desire to hunt down rogue Vestiges, the disturbing howls that came from nowhere while they hunted. The seeming spread of new plant life without any seeds being sown. The odd immunity the Family seemed to have to most of the diseases they found on the bodies they hunted. "Were we used like white blood cells?" Rythia thought out loud. 

   "What an interesting analogy, quite possibly after what you've told me the Brownies are being made to do. Why they are giving you so much freedom in all this. I think it has far less to do with honoring your divinity. I think it has far more to do with the fact that you are like the marrow in the bone, Ria. Providing them with the power to make more things. Providing the Family the ability to grow, the Shadows to consolidate their power. Perhaps that is how the Shadows are viewing what they have on the Cradle. Like the infected, it is a body they must maintain, and treating it like something organic would explain their methodology."

   "Decades." The word fell from her mouth like the last leaf in a dying forest. Decades passed, and they didn't even realize it. Would they continue this while they bled her dry of her power? She thought it was strange how her spark was able to hold so much power; she had thought that they were tithing her every few weeks. But now? 

   "Do you need a moment, Ria?" Kyri asked hesitantly.

   She'd just have to come to terms with it later; there was no changing the past. She didn't want to think about the implications of that. "You said the continents moved." 

   A world map appeared on the display, one that she knew all too well. The continent that housed the Citadel, presumably where they were still on, seemed from her perspective unchanged. The sea to the east, the mountains to the west. The orbital platform to the east was still there, despite the Ashbringer crashing into it. "Isteria, our old home, I don't need to tell you that the Citadel is gone. It is now fused to the continent to the north, Hyri. The mountain range that separated the southern coast is gone, having been eroded to fill in the Tylesean sea. There is a new archipelago far to the east of Isteria that seems to have formed during that plate shifting." 

"Mysean is connected to Hyri with an isthmus of nothing but ash and sand; the Ilori Sea was nearly filled in. Palagea crashed into Hyri, forming a monstrous mountain range. I'm assuming they did that to try and control the ashfall spread in the upper atmosphere; it worked. A vast plain is now the dominant feature on the southern half of Hyri. Strange type of grasslands that I remember seeing on Grand Sol so long ago." 

   "They did all this in decades?" Rythia asked, skeptical of the timeframe. 

   "You are a god. You did just tell me they have been taking up to eighty-some odd percent of your spark at a time, by your best guess. I think you have forgotten, Ria, just what you are. You say they've been doing this frequently enough that it has become something of a ritual to the- what did you call the Family now?" 

   "Goblins," Rythia said flatly. 

   "Yes, that the Goblins have formed a ritual around it." 

   "What happened?" Rythia interjected, her thoughts bothering her far too much to keep them down. "What happened during that time? I think I remember, but I can't recall any actual details the more I think about it." 

   The silence that filled the ruin of the control center was deafening as she waited. An eternal moment passed before Kyri answered in a broken whisper. "It's best if you didn't know." 

   "I have survived thousands of years; eons have passed. I have seen horrors; I have seen blood and death. My hands are stained with the choices I had to make. Please, just tell me, Ky." 

   Another pause where all she could hear was her own heart drumming in her ears. "I can't. I can't tell you what it was like to watch the skies be consumed by darkness, the cries for help as all the comms slowly died out. The screams, the crying. I was locked in the Station, starved to death. I tried to mitigate the fallout, build something that maybe someone some day would find. Trapped in there with the rotting corpses of my team, it was better than fearing if they would rise again. The silence, I just can't, Ria." 

A sympathetic apology felt incredibly hollow at the moment, deciding instead just to keep her mouth shut. "I watched the world from inside there, heard it scream. Heard so many things howl and bellow as they were changed. It cracked, and formed again under black skies and crimson air. Ria, I don't want to talk about it." 

   "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked you to..."

   "It's fine. If you want to speak to me, you'd have to reawaken one of the control centers still in good enough condition to do so. Honestly, I have no idea how many of them there are anymore. This is a wonderful surprise to hear you again; whatever you did, it won't last long. If you can do it again," Rythia smiled sadly at her words. "I would love to hear you again."

   Rythia sat on top of the cliffs overlooking the village, watching as the small buildings were slowly swallowed by the sea year after year. Enjoying the smell of the cooking fires, baking bread and searing meats. The lively sound of the Family hauling in fish from a spire of rock jutting out into their little bay, watching as the little ones played in the shallow waters. Her acolytes wandering among them all, helping where they could, preaching her words to them. 

   It was calm as the sea breeze whipped past, hair billowing out behind her. She would have called it idyllic if it weren't for her mood. Her conversation with Kyri weighed heavily on her mind: "What did you go through, Ky? What did I go through?" She thought to herself. 

   Vague memories drifted through the map of her mind as if vast pieces of the sea were mysteries to her. The harder she tried, the more fuzzy they became as she pried at them. Humming the Songs to the air, her voice vibrated the nature of reality in a small sphere around where she sat. "All that change in such a short period of time... The Citadel was nearly gone, nothing but rusting ruins and buried chambers at this point. The metal we built them from shouldn't have been able to tarnish, so rusting away to this degree?" 

   Behind the Songs she sang her own creation, played in harmony. Anyone listening would have only noticed an odd lilt to it, but likely never would have heard that it was a completely different Song altogether. Plucking the strings of her own being, like a phantom harp, yet the notes were sharp and harsh. "What was I made to do for them? I can only recall some of it." 

   Getting up from her place, she wandered out into the forest. It was still strange to her, yet this was only because she remembered what Isteria used to look like. These oak and birch forests were alien: the vines climbing the trunks and covering the floor, these cerulean forest flowers, strange. She missed the high top canopies of violet pitcher plants, the dark wood trees that rivaled the mountains. The endless seas of pink-tipped grasses that covered the old mushroom forests, the infinite litany of fruit and nut trees that thrived under the shade of the darkwoods. 

   The Family thrived in this world as they did in the old one; she was old enough to remember when the Family had first come into the world. The small wandering tribes that sang in the canopies, meeting another tribe was always a glorious affair. Where two Families became one for a time; as time went on, they built their cities in the branches. Miles away from the Village, she wandered. Living in the past and present, she was the only one to remember what was once here. 

   The sun sank behind the mountains as she walked, bright blue skies in a darkening forest. The sound of the lost spirits beginning to wake was nothing more than a dim awareness as her Song filled the woods. Easing their tortured souls back to sleep, "Soon, Children. Soon, you'll be able to rest." She sang to them; even as she said it, their howls began to die away. Each of their souls reached out to touch hers, reacting to her Song, each one an old memory awakening as they recognized her. 

   On the edge of a newly opened hole in the earth, gazing down at one of the control centers whose rusted roof had collapsed under the weight of the ash and earth above it, she noticed something hauntingly familiar. An odd bone-white tree had sprung up in the crags in the middle of the control center. It called to her like a siren's song. With a quick motion, she slid down the side of the hole until she was just around the trunk of the strange thing. 

   Reaching out and resting a hand against it, it felt familiar. On a whim, she hummed the same chord she used to use when she held the Tuning Fork. Her ancient treasure that Vilorlith had given her eons ago; she had never learned where the Great Mother had gotten it from, or if she had made it herself. The tree responded the same way, shifting one of its branches to fit into her hand, and snapping off at the base, forming a perfectly sized staff in her grip. 

   "No, it can't be." Her voice was distant with disbelief. "You can't be?" 

   Her other hand shot toward the trunk, humming a resonant frequency, looking for something in its roots. Shifting her voice to see deeper and deeper in the not-wood, life passed by her awareness. Concentrating, she finally found where a seed should have been; instead, she found something that brought a sad smile to her lips. Her old hairpin, one of the two that was the Tuning Fork. The other was held in the blasphemous hands of Bhal; the other, it would seem, was here. Having sprouted into this beauty. 

   She couldn't bring herself to retrieve it; having formed a bond with the tool over countless years, she knew it wasn't just a tool. While it wasn't alive in the conventional sense, it did have a certain humor to it. She wouldn't have called it a will, but it did have something similar. Now, after all this time, it would seem that it was something else entirely. Staring down at the staff in her hand, she felt that same calm assurance that she always felt when she carried it. 

   Holding the staff aloft, she sang her Song and felt its potency tenfold. Only now she felt the grains of the not-wood knit tighter as the magic surged through it. It felt so similar to what she knew the Tuning Fork would do that she laughed as the nostalgia filled her. "Hello again, old friend. You've changed, you know that? You seem more mature, brighter, more nuanced than I remember." With her words, she thought she felt the staff vibrate slightly. 

   Smiling, she planted the staff in the ground and shifted her Song to match the frequency of the Tuning Fork, casting an incredibly potent silencing spell around her. A null field where even the Shadows wouldn't be able to hear or see her. The notes of a new Chord to the Song began to play in the silent air around her; she began crafting a new verse to her soul-seeped Song. 

   A familiar presence touched her mind as she did so, one so steeped in nostalgia that she nearly lost focus. In the old days before the Shadows even had made themselves known, Vilorlith had come to her bearing a gift. At the time it was a seed, plain, devoid of any identifying characteristics. A simple, rough seed the size of a walnut. Rythia was told that it would grow with her, as her newly forged divine blood had been. Each of the Fledgling Lords was given a gift by their creator: Anlyth was given a small carving knife, Taneth was given a blank book, Y'vitol was given a stone. 

   Each was unique, offering different benefits the longer one held it. Rythia, her seed, had quickly made itself known that it could change shape the same way her own Brownie blood could. The Tuning Fork was given that name by the masses who had watched her grow with the tool, as her voice was amplified by it, her magic made manifold by what it could do. It made her voice as strong as the Great Mother's, but on its own? It was simply a durable material that resonated frequencies exceptionally well. 

   They had given it that name when she had begun using it as a spear that could actually harm the Shadows in a permanent way. The many scars across their bodies were potent memories of battles of a lost age. Yet, she had never personally given it a name; she only ever called it "friend". The effect of her song brought up the memories with an unbidden abandon, framing the song in a similar way she had listened to Syn once do. 

   That awareness, that brush of consciousness, that not quite sentience, "When did you grow up without me, friend?" She spoke as her other vocal cords picked carefully at the notes of the reality she was making. 

   No response, not in the conventional sense. Like a cat turning its eyes on you simply because you spoke to it, it made no movement to acknowledge you any further. She felt the Tuning Fork pay attention to her in the same way, a smile turning the corners of her mouth. "I never would have expected you to have your own children." Casting her eyes at the tree behind her, the staff now planted in the ground, the entirely separate spear in Bhal's hands came to mind. 

   An eye-roll; that would be an accurate sensation. Yet, Rythia laughed at it, breaking her concentration. The Null field around her fell apart as the joy at finding her friend again washed through her. Bittersweet was the air that filled her lungs; the illusion of the starry night sky graced her eyes. Though the Tuning Fork was incapable of speech, incapable of communicating except for the sensations Rythia thought she felt, she told her friend of the day. 

   Finding another Brownie, speaking with Kyri, watching the Family. She told it of the new Song she had been composing, her thoughts and feelings about the world she now lived. The entire time her friend was silent, listening as the staff vibrated in her lap at the sound of her voice. The not-wood resonated as much as it had ever when it was a more metallic material; Rythia was happy to know at least some things never changed. 

   Her friend brushed against her mind; an image of the ashes in her pouch flashed through it. "You're right, it's time I put this off long enough. I did make a promise with what he gave me." Rising to her feet, the staff seemed to bend to help lift her from her sitting position. Like a spring sapling helping the vines reach for the sunlight. 

   The grooves where her fingers rested formed as she gripped it, as if the staff had been hers for centuries. The care-worn surface practically hummed as she held it, turning back to the great tree behind her, a question came to mind. "Will you be alright leaving it behind?" 

   An entirely alien sensation didn't just brush her mind this time; it filled it. Countless hands held the staff in her hand, generations on generations of love and faith. As each passing life washed past her, there was an abrupt end where only a single hand felt like it rested where hers now sat. The phantom of a young girl looked at her, her bright purple eyes like the night sky, auburn hair braided down her back until it brushed the ground. 

   In the next moment, it vanished, the vision of the phantom woman and all. Rocking on her heels briefly before falling on her ass, the staff clattering away from her. "What was that?" Rythia asked, trying to process what she just felt. The corners of her vision blurred as the familiar landscape around her suddenly felt odd, distant, unusual. 

   For the briefest moment, she felt as if she was surrounded by an endless sea of still water, countless watchers watching what she did. As the moment passed, Rythia could have sworn something was still watching her, not hostile, but watching. Plucking the staff off the ground, a quick glance back at the white tree, she made her way back to the village. 

   After her brief disappearance, being subject to the concern of the Clan was a pleasant change, even after the strangeness of the last few hours. Countless worries about her safety and how she shouldn't be wandering around without the Raiders flashed by her. Being led into the community kitchens and fed did bring a warmth to her chest that she had missed. Lost in her own thoughts, she had missed what was asked of her, at least until her Acolyte asked again with the wave of the hand in front of her eyes. 

   "What? Yes, no, maybe later." She answered, figuring she would cover all her bases. 

   Issy laughed, "Why are you covered in ash, Mother?" Handing her a warm cup of something smelling sweet and sharp. 

   Putting the cup to her lips, it tasted like a weak spirit of apples and spices. "What is this?" 

   "Tyk has been calling it mulled cider. Says the apples have been mulling around long enough to make a good beer, added in some of the sweet bark off the birch trees to take the dryness away." Issy responded, her own cup meeting her lips. "Anyway, Mother, the ash? As well as that staff? I've never seen you with it before; it looks ancient." 

   The memory of her friend giving her his soul was still too fresh in her mind to tell that tale quite yet. As for the staff, she felt that needed far more context than she felt was safe. Her Clan was still under the control of Bhal after all. She picked the vial of ash out of her pouch and held it reverently. "After this cup, I'd like the other Acolytes to meet me in the chapel." 

   "Another old friend?" Issy asked without a drop of decorum. 

   Draining the rest of her cup, she shoved the vessel back into Issy's hands. "Chapel." 

   The candlelight that danced off the walls and columns of Keystones made the shadows go wild as the wind howled outside the mouth of the cave. Soft harmonized prayers filled the warm halls of the chapel, her Acolytes in a circle around the altar, their skin painted in the symbols of the clan and the songs that filled their lives. This place, the rituals and culture she was building, was never meant to feel as if celebrating a life was meant to be mournful. "Spirit without its vessel, we sing for the Fallen." 

   Without Rythia even giving a command to the Family, they appeared on their own. Apparently, word had traveled quickly that their Mother had returned from the forest with the remains of someone she had known from the time before the Dawn. Everyone from the Raiders to the famille, to their Chief, had come to join the burial tonight. Their voices joined those of the Acolytes, while Rythia remained silent before the altar. "With eyes we see the life of the one who dreams; we will open the skies for you to see one last time." 

   The vial of ashes was set before her, a shawl wrapped around it, a bottle of something strong next to it. The quiet drumbeat kept tempo with the song, something they all knew, something they all felt without needing to be told it. An ancient thing from before they had become what they are now, something familiar to hold onto, a tradition Rythia refused to let die despite everything the Shadows had done. "We sing your life, we live it again, we live it for you, to remember the Fallen." 

   As the drums quieted down and the voices shifted into hymnal rhythm, Rythia took the bottle and vial in her hands. Like a sea parting before her, the crowd split as she walked to the mouth of the cave. The shawl around the vial waved in the sea-borne breeze; the symbols painted on her glowed softly in the old song. 

   The hand that set the bottle down next to the cliffside was not her own. The voices behind her were not her Clan; different songs and hymns filled the air. But the feeling, that sense of presence, that feeling of closeness grew stronger. "We remember the Fallen, those we have lost, those we have left, those who will come. Great Father, grant us yet another day." The vial was brought into her vision, younger hands, but those calluses were familiar. Years of a hard life, years of fighting, years lived. 

   "I may not have known you, but you are Family. You haven't been given the chance to see the stars in many years. Come sit with me." The hands that were not her own set the vial down next to her, poured herself a drink from a cup that was not there a moment ago. Rythia felt the sharp burn of the whiskey down her throat. The next moment an old song filled her ears, soft and lilting. An ancient thing, from a time before Vilorlith walked the earth with her children. 

   An older memory of a woman Rythia barely remembered singing that same song to her, being held in those arms, falling asleep in that safety and comfort. She lost herself in that song, didn't even notice the Brownie shifting between the fabric of the dreams she had made. As if the sky itself was given skin, the nameless spirit turned to the woman singing softly. Rythia's vision moved as the unknown singer met the Brownie's eyes. "Rest, enjoy this life again; you haven't been forgotten, Brother. Drink with me." 

   The spirit poured himself a drink, taking his time. "The last time I was awake, Rythia sang that song to me." 

   "Then you are old, Brother, indeed. What was she like? I've been trying to reach her, but I can't seem to find her. Her Keystone seems to have lost its magic." The woman's voice was different than her own, but it was kind. 

   "I suppose I am, Mother. What should I call you?" The spirit poured himself another round, shifting his eyes skyward, humming that soft song to himself in his own tenor. 

   "I am called Ilgor. My mother was Ysry, my father was Tek. Mother Kari raised me after they both died when I was young. I am the current Mother of the Clan. Brother, what is your name?" Ilgor asked, turning back to him. 

   "Turyn. I don't remember my parents; I lived too long, experienced too much. Died by merciful hands. Yours, if I remember right." 

   "Mine?" Both Rythia's and Ilgor's voices answered the spirit.

   Rythia was caught in strong hands, Tylic holding her up from the edge of the cliff, one foot half off. The ashes from the vial blew in the wind. "That was a sorrowful song, Mother. We would hate to see you get lost in it." Tylic pulled her into a tight embrace, dragging her away from the edge.