Memories
Twentieth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
For a moment you consider severing the connection with a spell, dispersing the magic of the staff and letting Bloodraven calm the wrathful voices of the Old Gods as he had done so many times before, but you do not follow the impulse. Through pain and peril they must see. They must know what their Great Enemy has wrought beyond the boundaries of the green-growing world, they must
know the price that all existence might pay,
will pay some day, if the Spheres are not righted. And so by all the strength of your mind and soul you will it so:
"See."
Not enough... not yet... not truly... they must
see. Into the very depths of the Greendream, a single fate twisting
syllable falls from your lips, and in that moment your will and Theirs is made manifest. The tainted earth beneath your feet quakes and groans as though in pain as the staff sinks deeper, alive again, twisting and turning in your hand as though it flows like a thread of light and fire across eternity.
A flock of ravens rises through the dead air, and through each set of eyes you see the desolation of Heaven, the dreadful void that breaks the sky. A thousand thousand voices scream in wrath, and in that wrath they are one.
From the depths of the dream a single voice rises, faint and unimaginably distant:
"We remember you, Ill-Wreaker, Singer of False Songs."
In that frozen instant an image flashes before your mind's eyes—a figure garbed in gleaming white, its face obscured by the swirling snow save for familiar piercing blue eyes—but it is not the figure itself that shocks you such that you almost drop the staff, but the feelings that accompanies it...
loss. Sorrow, for a time before Winter grew cold and hungry for the death of all things, you realize.
Then the anger comes crashing back, flowing from that single point of sorrow as the first trickle of water to form a mighty river.
"We will see you cast out!"
The web of anger fades, the voices break apart, but before the song of the voice passes from your mind you hear clearly within it a new melody of determination in which many are joined.
"A rather counter-intuitive way to calm them," Bloodraven says dryly, the tone making it obvious that he knew you had not anticipated the Old Gods' wrath, nor the manner of its change, but as they say in Braavos, 'success is its own best advocate'. You can feel Bloodraven's own dismay and horror at the sight you had revealed, but just as clearly you sense the ancient sorcerer does not wish to speak of it directly now.
Instead he turns to the practical, as much as the will of gods could be called something so mundane.
"The Old Gods are remarkably united in a desire to see a Heart Tree grown in this sundered realm, that they may make it live again in some small way and that their eyes should ever be upon the face of their eldest foe. Attempting to grow a sapling would be excessively perilous. This would be a time to transplant a full grown Heart Tree if ever there was one."
"How swiftly would such a thing have to be done?" you ask wearily as you catch your breath and motion to assure the others that you are fine.
"They are patient when it is needed of Them, knowing full well the dangers. Take as much time as you require." He pauses for a moment then adds,
"There are many who wish me to express their sorrow for causing you pain."
The Old Gods are being considerate. You cannot help it, you laugh, the sound bereft of any trace of bitterness, utterly alien in the sterile silence of the broken Heavens, but even here laughter is catching. Dany giggles first, then Lya laughs with Vee a few moments later. Even Ser Richard chuckles when you explain the cause. At last, even Yrael, Mereth, and Moran join, the latter showing mirth in a brief flicker of his light. You laugh at the sheer relief of still being able to do so.
The sky is still broken, the earth still cold and barren, but even once the moment passes, it is just a little easier to bear. Thus you conjure steeds spun of shadow for your group, save for Moran, Yrael, and Mereth who will lead the way. It is an odd feeling to use them again instead of taking the air under your own power, but the last thing you need is to send the defenders of Heaven's Shore into a panic upon seeing a dragon appear in the still sky.
Silence marks your journey through the realm of Broken Heaven, even the rush of air around you strangely muted. Below you drift past the ruins of old buildings, from grand palaces to small villages in which each house would still count as a manse in mortal lands, all connected by a set of roads whose clean order only truly becomes apparent from the air. But the buildings have all crumbled long ago, their roofs caving in and the walls worn away by no force that you could see. Around them lays the grayish sand of what must once have been a beach, and further inward the bleached, mottled brown of what once must have been lush fields and hills.
Your own eyes are calculating all the while, looking for abodes that might still hold treasures to be unearthed, though even you have to admit that millennia of scavengers likely left nothing of value among the rubble. Ahead of you, the Outsiders are engrossed in a silent conversation, occasionally pointing this way and that, probably remembering places that they all knew at one point or other. Ser Richard, on the other hand, has no eyes for the ground, instead warily scanning the air around you for any threats. Luckily nothing shows itself, and your sister, Lya, and Vee all seem lost to their own contemplation of what they see below.
After a while, the landscape changes. Behind the rolling hills you see the outskirts of what once must have been a city greater than any that you saw before, greater even than Armun Kelisk and the Opaline Vault, easily dwarfing Braavos, Volantis, and King's Landing all together. Yet ruins they still are, row upon row of neatly-placed houses standing on carefully planned and angular roads, all broken and crumbled. Now though you see signs that it was not simply neglect and decay that did this. Deep gouges can be glimpsed in the roads, houses still bearing the soot of fire, and entire areas devastated by what must have been a titanic struggle between the mightiest of Heaven and Hell.
Even at the speed you move, it seems to take eternity to cross the husk of the city, but in fact it's likely still a mere hour that you need before the heart of the city comes into view. At one point, the ruined buildings simply stop and are replaced by a field of finely-ground rubble a good mile across. Thereafter rises a wall which clearly was not meant to stand there in the times of the Heaven that was, but was still made with greatest care and finest craftsmanship. Though the mortar in between the blocks of marble is black as pitch, most likely a deliberate choice of coloring.
Atop the walls glows golden light, shed by mage-lights, which banishes the gloom of the eternal twilight for the slightest bit. As you gaze on, you see the first true signs of habitation. Perpendicular to the row of lights that marks the wall encircling the former center of Heaven's Shore goes another row, this one a road. As you follow it with your eyes, you see the first clumps of light, then ever larger ones until the horizon is filled no longer by a reddish glow, but by a golden radiance. For the first time since coming here you feel as if you truly gaze upon Heaven as it was meant to be, however small and scarred this remnant might be.
"We should fly on. The gates are guarded well, and it is more likely for you to be challenged about your wardings." The voice of Moran tears you from your moment of fascination and you note that you are indeed rather close to the wall by now. You can't make out the shapes moving on them clearly, for you are too high up. However, that does not mean the reverse is true.
Beside you, Ser Richard seems to weigh the odds as he looks towards the grand gate in the wall. "Wouldn't they have a problem with us trying to bypass them?"
The Lantern Archon just bobs side to side, an odd approximation of a shake of the head that you still wonder about. Did they always do that, or had they learned the expression from Xor whom you saw first do so? But that was a matter for another time to ponder.
"No, for many inhabitants of Heaven's Shore can fly. They will send a group to check in on us, but that is not out of the ordinary. But they will be less thorough for it, as there are only so many eyes they can send to us while they all could stare and gawk while we stand at the gate."
You nod once and draw on the wisps of smoke that serve as your steed's reigns in order to adjust its course. It would likely look less suspicious if you flew along the road. "Then we move on, if that is your advice." As your eyes wander back to the horizon, you notice the expanse of sand start right after the city and rising from it a great fortress that is shaped like a star and large enough to be a small city in itself. It too has the look of marble mortared in pitch, though only in the upper parts. Most likely it was rebuilt at some point. "Where would you suggest we go and where should we avoid?" The question might be rather pertinent in a short while. Given the guards, and with Fiends all around, you would rather not stumble over their doorstep when landing.
And as if summoned, the guards come. "They are on the way," Ser Richard's calm voice sounds beside you as he points downward. From the wall rise a number of shapes, and after a brief moment you recognize them. A dozen
Magaavs make up the bulk of the force, their four decaying wings making up with strength what they lack in grace in the air. Among them flutter smaller shapes,
Zebubs if you are not mistaken, and roughly six of them at that. The lead, however, takes a far more familiar shape—that of an Erinyes, though this one bears wings that seem to be alight with flame.
With this Moran slows down somewhat and you all follow suit, as if being chased by a swarm of Devils was the most normal thing. Here it probably was.
"They will take a moment to reach us, so let me tell you about the places that might interest you. The fortress that you see on what used to be shore is the Fortress of Eternal Vigil. It once was home to some of our finest, but now it serves as the headquarter for the fiendish Legion protecting Heaven's Shore. If you wish to petition them on some matter, you would have to go there, though I would advise against doing so lightly." The way he speaks it sounds more like he would not advise so at all, and indeed you have little desire to speak with Asmodeus' servants in their own stronghold.
"For matters more mercantile, there are two locations. The Taxation Office collects the tithes owed to Asmodeus for his protection and around it has sprung up a market of sorts where petitioners, angels, and devils sell themselves or each other for coin." Your face remains calm at the image these words conjure, but you need not to glance to your sister to know hers will show wrath worthy of a Fury. Even Heaven sports a slave market, as if the entire universe has conspired to run on collars and chains.
Moran speaks on, and from the order in which he did so you suspect he knew your reaction and wanted to distract you before anything rash could result.
"There is also the Court of Travelers where most visitors arrive at in Heaven and where most petitioners find themselves. You could buy an Anchor there to be able to arrive directly within the city, though the Devils will still accost you when you enter. Around this court you will find shops and artisans plying their trades, but also inns and other travelers."
"Are there also merchants who sell books? If we want to learn more about the history of Heaven since its sundering, I would wager at least one author penned something, even though it apparently never traveled as far as the Inner Spheres." You almost start to laugh as Lya speaks, especially at the indignant tone she takes towards the end. The notion that she could not find a proper book about the state of the Upper Planes seems to have offended her on some fundamental level, and you have little doubt that there will be one shortly after your return home.
"If it is knowledge you seek, I would advise to go to the Court of History. It was once a grand place of study and knowledge, and even if most of it lays in ruins, some of our number still strive to preserve and recover all that was lost there." He pauses for a moment, drawing your curiosity. Reading the tells of a ball of light with wings wrought from gold is difficult, even for you, but he seems apprehensive of telling you what he says next.
"There is also the Court of Stalwart Light where the reigning Lord of Heaven resides. Some say they occasionally take tomes from the Court of History for one reason or another. I know not the meaning of the rumors surrounding this palace, for I have always tended to the needs of the petitioners and not concerned myself with the trappings of rule."
Were this any other place and Moran a mortal, you would immediately think he suspects corruption and oppression to reside in this palace. Then again, whoever resides there does so at Asmodeus' leisure, so it might not be as incongruent a thought after all. But this is something to find out for yourself, not to trouble your guide about, and so you change the topic. "Where did you reside while you still lived in Heaven's Shore?"
At this the glow of the Archon seems to strengthen, probably the memory of good deeds done buoying his spirits.
"That would be the Court of Creeds where the temples of the gods still stand. They are not as grand as they used to be, and I can not say that I approve of all of those who made temples there, but it is a place of hope and comfort for the many people living around it." Then he hesitates again, sounding a bit sheepish even though the fondness for this place greatly outweighs his discomfort.
"I must advise you though that the priests and their followers might seem a bit... erratic to your eyes. I assure you they mean well, but the pressure of Broken Heaven makes them more fervent in their devotion."
And just like that, you have decidedly mixed feelings about this Court of Creeds. It's easy to see why the Lantern Archon would think fondly of a place of hope, but your desire to interact with zealots was never terribly great. Who knows to what heights they might have refined the art of self-righteousness in the face of these sundered lands?
For now, however, you will have to deal with quite another kind of unpleasant meeting. While you spoke, the Devils approached, now almost close enough to hail you.
What do you plan to do in Heaven's Shore?
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What do you say to the approaching guards?
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AN: Before you wonder, the trip took so long since you had to lower your pace for your winged compatriots. Also, going too fast might have startled the guards.
