The Dreaming Mark and the Vessel of Fools

The Tribunal

If someone needed to speak to me, I thought to myself, they could have been a bit more direct about it. Or more courteous. I sat in the closest chair available – as ornate as the rest of the dining hall in which it was placed – at the side of the massive banquet table. Its royal-blue velvet cushions were the only ordinary things about it; the rest of the chair - and in fact, all the chairs at the table - were made from the most elaborate and unusual alloys of platinum and diamond, precisely shaped gemstone and obsidian laid into the accents. It's not like it's worth more than wood or gold. We create all of it. It's not rare.

The great doors at the foot of the table swung open with a sound a bit like a god clearing his throat. Behind them was an Advisor, in the usual blue-and-gold uniform, outlined by nothing but the star-studded blackness of space beyond the window. "Master Archmage, sir?" He bowed deeply. "I present Journeyman Thayer, sir." He disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived. Somehow, Journeyman Thayer - with his towering headdress - had been perfectly hidden behind the Advisor to this point. Thayer glided past most of the empty chairs and took a seat right next to mine, at the side of the banquet table. The great doors closed noiselessly.

"What news, Journeyman? Is something amiss, that I've been asked to wait here instead of in my tower?"

Thayer furrowed his brow, making his already wizened face develop more wrinkles. "Kasiell, you must have been told by now, it's been long enough since proceedings. There's little point in acting coy."

No title? No honorific? "Journeyman Thayer, I am usually the first to know of any major developments in our system. Surely if it's as big as you're implying, I wouldn't have to ask down the chain of command. Now, what proceedings?"

"I can't believe I'm the one that needs to tell you this, Kasiell." Again, no title? "I bring word from a Creators' Tribunal. They've made a decision about you, and it may not be one that you'll enjoy."

"Since when have I ever enjoyed any of these decisions? They serve only to get in the way. Worlds are being created out there, Thayer, and sticking to the templates will not serve to advance the universe."

"Which is precisely why the tribunal decided to disbar you as a Creator, and strip you of your title as Archmage."

"Without consulting me first? At what point was I to be involved in that discussion?"

"You could have come to the meeting room at any time, Kasiell, we sent enough messages your way that you should have known about the tribunal. But alas, they've finished now, so you're too late to say your piece."

Bother. I'd been so absorbed in my work that I kept turning away every messenger that came to my door. "The tribunal held their vote without my presence? Shouldn't I deserve to be there to receive judgment?"

Thayer pinched the bridge of his nose, as if he'd predicted it'd go this way. "You are receiving judgment now, Kasiell. It's not my fault you refused to respond to the summons and missed proceedings."

"Well then, to hell with their proceedings, if they can't be bothered to tell a person to his face!"

"That is exactly what is happening right now, and your response does not make for a reasonable appeal." Thayer sighed and straightened the headdress - I was never quite sure how it held itself up - and gazed straight into my eyes. "As much as your experimental worlds have furthered the progress of the universe, I assume that you've noticed by now that we are running out of Matter."

"Then destroy the experiments and reclaim that which I've used."

"Perhaps being Archmage has made you complacent, Kasiell, but you seem to have forgotten that destroying a world scatters it across the cosmos. We can't just collect all the Matter and reuse it. Surely you of all Creators should know this." Thayer adjusted his headdress again, in that incessant manner that always made me regret being around him. "The key ingredient, Kasiell, is Life. Without Life, a world is simply a collection of mass. Life takes Matter, and converts it to more Life. And once that has happened, the Matter returns to us. Just as a plant breathes the air we exhale and turns it back into air we may inhale."

"What is this, Basic Fundamentals?" I broke his gaze by turning away, towards one of the massive crystal windows that displayed the vastness of space outside the Vessel. "Thayer, surely we've been floating around this portion of the galaxy for...how long, now? It must have been long enough for some Life to have run its course."

"With noted exceptions, your experiments never produced any life. They were wastes of Matter."

"Even the worlds that followed the templates have had their problems. There is no way to prevent the worlds from eventually ceasing to sustain Life. I sought to find an alternative! I wanted to make a world that would last forever!"

"But all you've created, Kasiell, is a world where Life cannot exist to begin with. You can no longer be trusted with your own tools. And that is the basis of the tribunal's decision to disbar!" Yes, Thayer, let it all out. All your frustration and resentment for your superior. "It will take untold astral cycles to regain as much matter as you've wasted."

"You know how to use the Orrery, surely you're capable of righting my wrongs if you're so smart!"

"Your wrongs shall be righted in the manner of our choosing, and not without some very long discussions," said Thayer. "It was your insistence on going ahead without consulting your peers that led us here."

"What bloody peers? I'm the Archmage!"

The great doors to the banquet hall once again opened, and the same uniformed Advisor introduced another man, wearing an Archmage's ceremonial outfit identical to my own. "Pardon the interruption, Journeyman. Archmage Gregor Caynea to speak with you both."

Thayer bowed to the walking figurehead as he stepped in, then motioned towards me. "Lord Archmage, I have spoken to him."

This usurper Archmage's tanned face beamed as if he were exceptionally proud of something. The effect was so much worse when he was wearing my clothes. "Good, good. How has he taken the news?"

"I am right here, Gregor," I said to the Archmage, with what I'd hoped was mere indignance and not flatout rage.

Thayer resolutely ignored me. "As poorly as expected, Lord Archmage. I dare say the tribunal were wiser to proceed without him. How shall he be sentenced?"

"Sentenced?"

Gregor ignored me as well, the ingrate. "He's already been stripped of his title and duties, hasn't he? What is left to do?"

Thayer was still bowing to Gregor. "The other Journeymen suggested that he be exiled, Lord Archmage."

"Then I suppose it is only fitting that he be exiled to one of the worlds he experimented with."

"Yes, that...would be a stroke of irony."

"We're near one such planet right now, aren't we?" asked Gregor.

"Yes, the planet..." Thayer glanced at the enormous sapphire in one of his bangles. "...E.X. Four, M.B. Nine, of Galactic Construct number Seventy-Three."

"I gave that planet a bloody name!" I shouted at them. "I named every single one of them!"

Gregor finally looked me right in the eyes, his stare intensely disconcerting. "Kasiell. You know as well as I. It's better that a planet be named by its inhabitants. It is no business of ours - our names would never reach them, and it's better that they never meet us."

"And what good will this do? Exiling me to my own planet? You might as well execute me, I stand just as much chance of surviving!"

"Then you admit your experiments were never viable." Gregor took in a long breath through his nose, unblinking. "I think we'd better part ways sooner than later. We've got an awful lot of work ahead of us if we're going to clean up your mess."

Gregor pulled aside the sleeve of his outfit and performed a few very deliberate gestures over a bangle on his left forearm. In just an instant, everything around me winked clear out of existence.

I felt very cold, and then robbed of breath. As soon as my sight returned, I saw nothing but the stars before me, further away than I could possibly measure. Every single one was the work of a Creator like myself. Many of them had names, ones that I'd given them. Penatta, in one direction. Not far away, Maalum. The Many Heads, a fair distance from them. I saw nothing of the Vessel from out here. They were likely already gone.

A great planet seemed to appear below me. From where I floated, it seemed to be as large as the dining table in the Banquet Hall. The only thing I could do was try to float towards it. As the distance between us closed, I began to discern details in the landmasses, the shapes of the mountains. Of course...they wouldn't put me on an uninhabitable world. Thayer and Gregor weren't out to kill me, after all. They just wanted to teach me the error of my ways. My creations were a waste of Matter, but that didn't mean that I was. So it'd make sense to me, that of all my worlds I'd created, that I'd wind up on the only one I'd named for myself. The world I'd called Kasellia.

Now that I didn't have to worry about what those over-righteous elitists were doing with my Orrery, I could retire to Kasellia. They hadn't exiled me. They sent me precisely where I'd have gone anyway.

I aimed myself for the huge sheet of ice on the southern continent, and let myself fall. It would be there that I'd begin my retirement.