Jackal Among Snakes

Argrave reached out to touch Vasquer alongside Elenore and Orion, expecting to feel what she usually offered as greeting-a matriarchal love, far unlike anything else in its intensity. They had come here alone to deliver a brief message and have a slightly longer reunion chat, then return to check on the parliament. But instead of unending love, gray solemnity welled up into Argrave's being. He suspected his siblings received the same thing, for he felt their puzzlement with Vasquer as their nexus.

Before he could offer any of his own thoughts or memories, Vasquer gave one of her own. Lindon's visit. He found himself made superfluous as a messenger, and heard some fantastical details about this treaty of ages past-like the fact Lindon had no physical form, or that the Gilderwatchers were what maintained a universal language so that all might communicate with ease. This knowledge was extremely frightening to him-it meant that the Gilderwatchers quite literally influenced the minds of anyone and everyone, eliminating the development of separate dialects or independent languages.

Argrave expressed he felt useless as a messenger. Then, instead of bringing a message, Vasquer conveyed one to them.

Memories played at the corners of Argrave's mind, tinged with Vasquer's caution. She asked for his earnest attention, and requested he make no rash decisions. She bridged Elenore's and Orion's psyche to his own, and they both gave encouragemen to accept this vow. Argrave did. Then, with the eagerness of a stump, Vasquer allowed these memories to permeate Argrave's being.

Argrave saw the sky, but it wasn't blue with white clouds-instead, the colors had inverted. The white clouds had turned into mounds of black smoke, hissing and sparking with golden lightning, while the blue of the sky had taken on an eerie dark orange. The red moon had covered the suns in a total eclipse. It was familiar to Argrave both from his experience with Heroes of Berendar and from Erlebnis' vast databanks. This was the sky on Gerechtigkeit's advent, when his physical form was ravaging the world.

Argrave saw a putrid living miasma of maleficent darkness covering the landscape, and from it, golden bugeyes on stalks glistened like oil beads atop ever-grasping maws embodying hunger and thirst. It was Gerechtigkeit. Despite the calamity's awful presence, the bearer of this memory held the gaze of those eyes, then tried to break inside them, psychically projecting their mind forth.

The projected mental being pierced through those eyes, travelling along the nerves to reach the mind and soul. Within, Argrave felt the most malignant rage imaginable. Even though it was just a memory, he felt his whole body strain beneath the weight of the hostility. It was a storm of a thousand daggers, stabbing at his joints with the simplest abstraction of destruction.

Argrave almost wanted to pull his hand away from Vasquer to escape this scene, but held on vigorously as the bearer of this memory continued deeper into this storm of oblivion. It pressed and pressed, wading through a sandstorm in the harshest, most inhospitable desert imaginable. And past all of the rage, past the mindless being, the thoughts of the orchestrator bore themselves. The genesis of this pain.

Memories, attachments, knowledge, a life; they entered into sight, like brilliant gold that had sunken deep in the ocean of blood all about them. This core existence was fragmented, broken, repressed, and oppressed, but it was still the lodestone, the compass, by which this storm of malignance directed its terrible engine. The memories did not say much. They were too brief to represent a full life, but they said enough Argrave knew.

Gerechtigkeit was Griffin. He was Sophia's brother.

The moment Argrave made the connection, the bearer of this memory was forcefully seized by a hideous, wretched claw of consciousness. The memory-bearer wriggled, struggled, and attempted to free, and finally broke away out of the glistening golden eyes. But it had been a trap. Gerechtigkeit followed the probing mind back to its body.

Gerechtigkeit's malignant energy infused the psychic attacker, and Argrave felt unimaginable pain. The death was only a second yet Gerechtigkeit used sheer strength of mind and force of grudge to stretch the deed into an eternity. The original body of Lindon died for a million years before violently exploding along the whole length of his miles-long body.

The unusual manner of his death and his unique talent among Gilderwatchers to project his mind into another meant that Lindon lived, yet he was consigned to exist without a physical form. Despite this terrible fate, he was not abandoned in the world. Relying on the generosity of his kin to share their minds, he persisted, helping and strengthening them as best he could in the eternal struggle against mortals, gods, and Gerechtigkeit. In time, he became the god of minds, dreams, and consciousness. Argrave pulled his hand away from Vasquer. He could tell the memory had been muffled for his sake, yet the sheer experience had sent his whole body into a terror, sweating copiously and tremoring. Lindon had died there, yet the way he'd done so created a wholly unique existence in the world. Nevertheless, he had died. And Argrave had felt it.

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When he opened his eyes, his senses coming back to him, Elenore and Orion both had reeled away as he had. His sister leaned against Vasquer, while Orion laid on the floor looking at the heavens. Argrave sat on the mountain rocks, taking some time to gather himself. His thoughts finally came back to him.

Argrave had long harbored suspicions about Gerechtigkeit's identity. Between what he'd seen in Sandelabara and what he knew about Sophia's ability, there was plenty to stoke that hidden and uncertain flame. He hadn't expected to receive confirmation before judgment day, when they would take it upon themselves to try and end this cycle.

But he had learned. Griffin was not the raw material the Heralds had used to create Gerechtigkeit, nor an unwitting manifestation of his power while he slumbered somewhere, trapped, as his sister had been. Since the very first cycle of judgment to this one soon to come, it had been Griffin alone driving the beast. That young boy was the direction behind that terrible power. He returned here eternally for one reason alone-Sophia.

The reason why Gerechtigkeit descended on Berendar wasn't random chance. He came down near the closest entry to Sandelabara, which was ever-moving in its location buried dozens of miles beneath the surface of the earth. Sophia was both his anchor and his impetus. She was his freedom and his tether. Both of them were bound by the Heralds, somehow, in service of their objectives. Griffin knew that as fact, but not the how nor why of it.

Argrave rose to his feet, and Elenore and Orion looked up at him from their stupor.

"He's given us the context. Mind penetration, then noodle explosion." Argrave said to them. "Now that we're all stirred, he's going to ask something of us."

As Orion sat up, Elenore simply said, "Of course."

"Why the hell should I even listen?" Argrave asked. "Why the hell do I even want to know? What in hell is so important he gives the message to Vasquer to soften our response?"

"Anger won't serve you," Elenore reminded him.

Argrave tapped his foot against the ground, heeding her words and getting himself back under control. With heavy steps, he walked back to Vasquer. He placed his hand on her scales once again, a cynical air about him for what came next. All of this led back to Sophia at root.

When next he touched Vasquer, as expected, he saw Sophia. A young girl, eight years of age, in a green dress like Elenore favored. She had straight black hair and red eyes. Then the scene shifted away into something Argrave was familiar with. The volcano of Vysenn. Argrave saw his own mind laid bare, twice. Once when entering, once when exiting. Lindon offered incontrovertible proof that Sophia had changed him, and not insignificantly.

Now that fact was established, Vasquer showed him Lindon's message. Two paths lay before them-two branches, two universes of possibility. The first, Argrave travelled. Accepting Sophia as his family, guiding her abilities with a cautious hand, and coming to the confrontation against Gerechtigkeit armed with the knowledge the ancient calamity was her brother. The ending to it all was hazy, uncertain. They did not know if they could master her power, nor if Sophia would be up to the task.

Argrave felt fear and anger both for what path came next. All this talk of anchors, of how she'd changed him... he knew where it led. He'd heard it before. It had come from the Alchemist.

But things defied his expectations.

The alternate path did not end in Sophia's death. Argrave instead saw himself, carrying Sophia as she slept. Lindon awaited, looming proud with his body that had ceased to be. Argrave awoke Sophia, setting her down and pointing upward to the great snake. She expressed fear, at first, but with Argrave's urging went to greet Lindon.

After meeting, greeting, and speaking, Lindon and Sophia left together. Argrave did not follow. All his memories of her, both false and genuine, left with them. The silver serpent carried her down that long road atop its head, and together, they greeted the Gilderwatchers. She entered into their great writhing whirlpool of harmony and being, accepting their influence, their philosophy, their guidance. They showed the child as gently as could be done the millennia she had missed trapped in Sandelabara. At some point, Sophia joined into that great harmony. Welcomed as one of them, when the advent of judgment came, the Gilderwatchers rose as a single entity. There was certainty in their actions, their convictions, as they heralded Sophia. They stood against Gerechtigkeit having fully explored and mastered her power of creation. They executed it flawlessly in aid of an ending to the cycle of judgment, leaving the final blow to Argrave.

The battle against it grew hazy... but when it ended, all the Gilderwatchers surrounded Sophia. The world was peaceful, and Sophia its savior. Lindon craned forward out of them, and took away all of the terrible memories she had endured. Good King Norman disappeared totally and utterly, and Sophia regained the normal childhood she deserved.

Then, they shepherded Sophia outward. Argrave and Anneliese awaited her.

"Mommy!" Sophia greeted, running forth. "Daddy!"

And the two of them knelt, receiving Sophia with smiles on their face. They were family. In their minds, they always had been. Or perhaps they had adopted Sophia, as they truly had. However Argrave and Anneliese wished it to be, it could be. She could live normally, as their biological daughter. She could live with the knowledge she had been part of the battle against the cycle of

judgment.

With the power of creation, the world could be shaped as they wished. All that Lindon requested was to take Sophia as his ward. He wished Argrave to place her under the care of the Gilderwatchers.