The Dreaming Mark and the Vessel of Fools

From the Cloudbreaker's perspective

High Queen Jennet stepped forward from the cell door, towards the chained princess hanging from the dungeon wall. She looked as if she were barely any older than the King, but still, seemingly, it was the face of Lynia's grandmother, however wrong it looked when twisted into such anger. "Tell me everything he told you," she demanded sharply. "What's his secret?"

"Everything who told me? Whose secret?" The High Queen's question couldn't make sense to Lynia, no matter how much she rotated it in her mind. He? Which "he"?

"I know he's been talking to you! You've been carrying his damned memory with you ever since you left!" She thrust an arm, with some frustration, towards the ornate quarterstaff on the dungeon floor. Lynia knew it as the artifact weapon, Cloudbreaker; it containing any kind of "memory" was nothing her father had ever told her about.

"Are you talking about Father, or somebody in the caravan? I don't know what you're--"

"Don't act the fool! You're his own blood, however distant, I know you can access it. The device speaks in his voice, gives you visions. Maybe you've thought they're premonitions." She looked inhumanly angry, but the tone of her voice was the kind of growl not often used by royalty, least of all by the good High Queen of Caynea. "But I can tell you, the memory knows no more than you of what the future holds."

"What memory?"

"You are not the one asking questions, girl!" Jennet snatched the discarded Cloudbreaker from the ground and held its tip a mere inch from Lynia's jaw. "What has this device told you?"

"...." She could not manage to speak. Somehow, the questioning was offering Lynia more answers than she'd started with.

"Damnable wench!" The queen suddenly rammed the ornate staff forward. Lynia felt an impact of some kind, but not a physical one; an electrical, almost wind like pulse that pushed her against the dungeon wall. It still hurt, but it seemingly hurt Jennet more than her; the High Queen, as if struck by lightning, staggered backwards, dropping the Cloudbreaker in the process. She only managed to hold herself steady in a bent-over, half-crouched stance. "Hmph," she vented, "I should have known he'd protect it like that. No matter." With this, she staggered out through the cell door, slamming it shut.

The Cloudbreaker lay idle on top of the damp straw, not close enough to reach from Lynia's chains. But it wouldn't do me any good now, thought Lynia from her wall. It can't break these shackles. It can't pick the door open. She said it was some kind of memory, but perhaps to me, all this time, it's been nothing more than a big stick.

She wanted to cry, but before the tears could come, Lynia's vision began to fade, until all was darkness around her.

When Lynia was next aware of anything, she found herself in the atrium of a great palace, its gleaming, glass-like walls letting the daylight pass unevenly through. The atrium was even greater than that of her palace; a grand staircase ascended from its entrance, and seemed to branch off into uncountable directions, to a wealth of doors and hallways. What light came through the clusters of icicles on the domed ceiling was tinged a chilled shade of blue, highlighting the bitter frost at the edge of every stair, as little flurries of the snow from outside barely made it through the little slit windows on either side of the massive front gates.

A voice cackled from somewhere, bounding across every icy surface. "This piddling worm of a human wishes to know the God Emperor Kasiell!" The self styled God's laughter filled the frozen hall, and at once, Lynia saw the face of a man she had only ever heard of, never seen, descending the grand staircase at the center of the atrium.

"This worm wonders if the God Emperor remembers his face. Perhaps the last few centuries have dulled your memory, O Former Creator Archmage." A man standing in the oversized gateway gave in to the urge to grin. He barely raised his voice, but could still be heard distinctly despite the distance. The turquoise color of his hair and eyes, though, left no room for doubt. This was the hero, Gregor Caynea.

"Yours is a face that I wished to forget on purpose. What all-forsaken reason brings you here, then? Why does the new Archmage - the usurper himself - need to come down to MY planet? Come to brag? Maybe the Creators truly were better off without me?" Though she stood in the middle of the atrium, the God Emperor did not see Lynia.

"It's not that joyful of a tale, I'm afraid." Gregor, too, gave no acknowledgement that Lynia was there, as he approached the Emperor. "The Universe is in dire straits. Galaxies are collapsing. We cannot forestall the end of days without more Matter, and the only Planet left that can bear us any, is yours." What Gregor spoke of, Lynia could not understand. Matter? The Universe? Was Gregor not some anonymous hero, to Kasiell?

"Still playing with the building blocks of All Creation? I could have told you from the start, the Matter Crisis will never be solved by you and your yes-men. And you're not going to get my help, either. I'm more than happy to live out my last days here, unbothered, if you and the rest of the damned Vessel will be on your way." What was this Vessel? Why did they act like they had known each other?

"Please, Kasiell, you know I wouldn't come here if it weren't so vital."

"Of course you wouldn't! You were all too happy to banish me here in the first place, and for what crime? My failed experiments?"

"The experiments could have been forgiven. As could the dwindling supply of matter. But you were destroying worlds before they had a chance to mature!"

"A means to an end! I could have solved the Matter Crisis if you and the Journeymen trusted in my work, but no, you ousted me, exiled me!"

"As I recall, the tribunal recommended you stay aboard as an advisor if not for your little tantrum."

"Don't you try to change the narrative on me, usurper!" Kasiell slaps an arm on his icy throne. "The tribunal was nothing more than a kangaroo court, held without my presence. And then on the spot, you dump me into low orbit and leave me to crash into my own planet!"

"As ever, then, you choose to hold your grudge. So be it." Gregor retrieved a small rod from the tattered satchel at his hip. "The continued health of the universe cannot be guaranteed unless this planet lives its natural life span. The Vessel has been watching. You've been shortening it, by exterminating all who question you."

"And what of it?" boomed Kasiell. "I'm doing the universe a favor! You want your Matter so badly? I'm expediting it, especially for you!"

"Hastening the harvest by poisoning the crop!" Gregor shot back. He pressed the button on the rod, expanding it to full length, into a form that Lynia thought she recognized. "Your God Emperor act, subjugating and exploiting the Life of this planet to your ends, is destroying the people's will to Live, and compromising what Matter can be reclaimed. Just because the apple has fallen from the tree, does not make it good to eat."

"I don't give a damn about your metaphors! Quit trying to humiliate me, and kill me if you think you're able!" He thrust a bare hand downward, casting a shower of bright blue lights to the floor, with a compounding crackle.

Gregor jabbed the rod into the ground in front of him. "Fine, then. We're long past reason."

And from the heavens themselves, a pillar of burning light descended upon them. And in a single blinding flash...

...Lynia awoke again, the shackles biting into her wrists and ankles as she hung from the dungeon wall. The door to her cell was still shut and barred from the outside. At her feet, the damp straw, and the discarded staff that she had carried for her whole journey, that the High Queen had earlier tried to strike her with.

All she could do was think. What was all of that? The hero, King Gregor Caynea, and the ice demon God Emperor, Kasiell, had known each other? He was not just the champion of the downtrodden that the legends believed him to be? And what of Kasiell? Creator Archmage? Usurper?

From the corner of Lynia's eye, the fallen Cloudbreaker shifted a bit on the floor. She looked squarely at it and sighed a painful sigh. "I wish you could help me," she whispered.

There is only so much that can be done from here, a voice echoed in her mind - the same voice she had always heard at her most pivotal moments.

"I agree."

But perhaps, now is not the time to act, but to learn. And only then, will action hold meaning.

"What kind of meaning?"

Consider your lineage, progeny of Gregor Caynea. Consider what it means, in the light of what you have witnessed.

"Of creators and archmages? I still don't understand."

You have had similar visions in the past. From the other device. The truth of King Gregor, and of Emperor Kasiell, can now be assembled.

"But what could it mean for me?"

You shall know, when it is time.

"I have always heeded you when you've spoken. But I must know, who are you? From where does your wisdom come, and to what end?"

I am all that preceded you. I am Regent and Consort, Creator and Created, Father and Children, and Children's Children.

"And perhaps also deity?"

Only to a certain mindset.

"You've said you are a father, but to whom?"

To many along your line.

"I've always heard your voice as a woman's..."

Because I am one thing does not preclude me from being another. I need only be the sort of voice that you will heed, because it is of dire importance that you do.