Threnody

Threnody

Thirty-two thousand years ago there was a world made mostly of wind and light. It was a vast world, a gas giant of sorts over 75,000 miles in diameter. Its natives called it Euphony.

Islands made of porous stone, riddled with tunnels and bubbles of air, floated in the sky, orbiting a central radiance known simply as the Glow. All gravity on Euphony oriented toward it. The Glow had many colors, cycling from the orange and pink of coral to a silvery white to a vibrant crimson throught the twelve-hour day, becoming a deep blue-green at night, a color that would have reminded people on other worlds of the sea.

Euphony had no sea, but it had no lack of water. Clouds of all sorts wreathed the world, scintillating with the reflected light of the Glow. The clouds carried rain to all the floating isles, even filling lakes and streams. The cloud cover was so thick that nothing of the sky beyond could be seen - not Liga, the distant sun, nor any moons that might have existed, nor the stars. The natives did not suffer for lack of these phenomena, however, not with the constantly changing Glow and the sight of the islands and clouds reflecting its brilliance. The sky is usually as bright as the Glow currently is because of reflection of the Glow and filtering in the dim light of the sun. They had something else, too, that most other worlds did not: a wind that sang beautiful arias as it whistled through the pores of the islands, rising and falling in pitch and tempo and harmonizing with the songs of the world’s ubiquitous birds. It was this wind-song that gave Euphony its name.

The islands were heavily forested and populated by birds of all sorts. The primary sentients were giant eagles, the birdlike raptorans and aarakocra, and the avariel, or winged elves. The races believed they were part of a spectrum with the eagles at one extreme and the winged elves on the other; the raptorans were closer to elves and the aarakocras closer to eagles, but all were cousins. Of the three, the avariel were the most powerful and sophisticated.

Each race had its own pantheon - the raptorans worshipped their goddess Tuilviel Glithien, the Queen of Air and Night who ruled during the time the Glow was darkest; the aarakocras worshipped their gods Kocraa and Syranita. Remnis, prince of eagles, was also well-respected by everyone on the world, though by the giant eagles most of all. The avariel worshipped a group of brother and sister gods they believed lived in the High Forest beyond the clouds, but who at the same time represented all of nature. These gods were called the Seldarine.

The primary gods of the Seldarine were:

Aedrie Faenya, goddess of wind, weather, fertility and song. Thought of as the mother of the avariel and all of nature, Aedrie Faenya was revered above all the others.

Sehanine of the Glow. Sehanine represented the light of the Glow, and dreams, gravity, death, and transcendence.

Corellon Larethian. Corellon represented the reflected light that glinted on the floating isles, and the shadow too. His symbol was a circular island with only the lower crescent lit. He was also the patron of arts, magic, crafts, and war.

Araushnee. Araushnee was the stern goddess of weavers, darkness, and fate. She was said to influence all plans the avariel might make, and to guide the path of the islands around the Glow. Her ways and means were said to be mysterious as night itself. She was also the patron of elven exiles, those avariel banished from their community of their kin. The avariel were saddened when the crimes of their people forced them to drive them from their homes, and took solace in the knowledge that Araushnee would guide them in their new lives in distant, unpopulated isles.

The capital of the avariel was called Aria, and this was also the name of the large shining lake it overlook, and the great island on which they both rested. In the capital ruled a king and queen. Because none could match the avariel in either magic or martial might, the king and queen of Aria claimed the title of King and Queen of all Euphony.

The ninth queen of the Aelee dynasty (which was the 14th dynasty to reign in Aria) was known as Kiaran. Kiaran had actually been born a member of the house of Salee, which had in the previous dynasty been the family from which kings and queens came from, but which had been overthrown after they had started experimenting with dark magic. Many in that house were banished, and those left behind had to content themselves with far-lessened prestige. Still, Kiaran was beautiful and educated and of undeniably noble blood. The crown prince of the Aelee loved her from the moment he met her, and everyone agreed that the darkly lovely and magically talented Kiaran was a good match.

Kiaran, like others of the Salee, was a worshipper of the goddess Araushnee, though she was not especially reverent and made appearances at ceremonies of the other gods as well. She respected Araushnee as the goddess who separated the weak from the strong, and the one who watched over the banished members of her birth house.

Kiaran was well-liked by her subjects, and loved by her king. Aedrie Faenya blessed their union with a number of children, three daughters and a son.

She reigned as Queen of Euphony for two hundred and sixty-five years.

In the two hundred and sixty-fifth year of Kiaran’s queenship, her husband the king came home unexpectedly early after a tour of some of the inner isles. There was an eerie hush in the palace, and the servants looked at their king in trepidation. He knew something must be wrong, but could get nothing out of them. He searched the palace frantically for his queen, sure something was wrong. He stormed into her laboratory to find the queen and her daughters standing around some sort of horrible abomination - a collection of elven corpses crudely stitched together and somehow terribly animate, their voices shrieking in a chorus of undying pain.

Kiaran gifted her husband with a sweet, if somewhat embarrassed smile. He would not listen to her impassioned justifications of her action or the crying of his daughters. She had broken his heart, and the only course was clear: she and those whose innocence she had corrupted must be banished.

After a long trial in which a long list of atrocities was uncovered, the Queen and her daughters were found guilty of their crimes and named dhaeraow, traitors. They were led at spear point to the edge of the furthest civilized island, many thousands of miles away from Aria. They were branded so that no other avariels of the empire would ever accept them. They were given food and water and ordered to fly away and never return to any island in the avariel empire. “May Araushnee have mercy on your souls and guide you to safety,” their excort read to them formally. Then, to avoid the spears of their guards, they flew into the airy void. Behind them, mourners wailed a sad song, the same threnody they sang over the dead.

The island faded into the distance behind them until it was hidden by atmospheric haze. “Araushnee will guide us,” the youngest princess said, choking back tears.

“Forget Araushnee,” Kiaran told her daughter. “Where was she during that sham trial? I will guide us.”

They flew from island to distant island, living off the land and the occasional generosity of the aarakocras, looking for the banished remnants of House Salee.

They found a hint on an island where stemless flowers hovered in the air; Kiaran found a signet of her house, much corroded by the years even in the comparative shelter of a shallow cave.

They found a better hint in a village where the aarakocra stained their feathers red with the blood of their enemies. They told her of a tribe of avariel who had disturbed the bones of their ancestors with wicked magics, and how after a long battle they had slain the defilers. Kiaran thanked them for their hospitality, then she and her daughters slew their night watch and killed the rest of them in their sleep.

At last they came to an island that was nearly all vertical mountain slope. Kiaran could almost taste the magic in the air. The Salee sages flew into the sky to meet her party when she was still about a mile away. Their bodies were tattooed with skeletal patterns and their faces were hidden by cowls; they were otherwise naked, and fithy.

“Identify yourself,” the Salee ordered, their voices raspy from disuse.

“My name is Kiaran,” she said, her voice full of relief after her long journey. “I’m of your house. House Salee.”

The sages conferred, pointed out various distinctive attributes of Kiaran and her daughters, looked carefully at their brands, and finally nodded. “Welcome then, Kiaran Salee. Welcome home.”

The four newcomers trained with their older cousins for twenty years, becoming as gaunt and tattooed and filthy as they. They learned much, but even the ancient banished princes of Salee were shocked at Kiaran’s power. At last, following a particularly savage duel, they bowed their heads in defeat.

“We can teach you no more,” they said humbly. “We can only point your way to your next teacher.”

Kiaran cocked her head in interest.

“There is, of course, a price. How badly do you desire vengence?”

Kiaran thought. They told her more, and she considered what she had learned.

Seven days later her daughters helped her create the ring of summoning. They carefully painted the runes with brushes dipped in their own freshly opened veins.

“Daughters,” said Kiaran. “When we were banished, we traveled from the land of the living to this land, this purgatory, a place of living death.”

They nodded.

“I was responsible for your birth. Now I bring you from death to death.” With cold fire she killed them all. She snatched their souls from the air before they could travel into the Glow. She spoke the words of power.

Darkness and cold filled the circle, darkness deeper than any cave and cold more savage than any snow. Two eyes opened, burning with a flame that could melt souls. Black wings unfurled, not feathered like an avariel’s but leathery and ragged. A heavy, hairy head bowed, its massive twisting horns moving with it.

Its voice was deep and sonorous, but bestial, corrupt. It was a howling beast and a well-spoken prince. It had the dignity of a funeral and the senselessness of a massacre. Each word it spoke felt like a death.

Power enough to summon something of Orcus, it mused. It has been longandlong and longagain since I’ve tasted such from a mortal. It glared into Kiaran’s heart. Name yourself, spellworker.

“Kiaran,” she said. “Kiaran Salee. I am your thrall.”

Yes, Kiaransalee, said Orcus, its black lips curving upward into a shark-toothed grin. You are.

Orcus brought her back with it to the Abyss, where the darkness and cold and void of the demon lord were everywhere in the land and sky and thin air; wherever she went the eyes of Orcus stared at her; wherever she fled its voice mocked her. It swallowed her up in its wings; it drank of her spirit and ate of her flesh. It used her in this way atrociously and repeatedly, but she learned what it wanted and how to satisfy it. She learned how to convince it to teach her things, things only it knew and secrets it had stolen from those who came before it. She tasted of her captor as it tasted of her. It did not begrudge her these little gifts. After all, it would never let her go. She learned all she could. Decades passed in the cold and darkness. She waited until she thought all its secrets were hers.

Kiaransalee, as the Lord of the Undead had named her, had one last trick. She used her own blood to open a gate and called to her first patron, the one with a prior claim on her soul.

“Araushnee,” she whispered. “Guide me, Great Weaver. Guide your lost one to freedom.” She stepped through the door.

Stop, ordered the darkness. Don’t gothrough. Don’t forget, I still have your children’s souls.

“I won’t forget,” she promised the world of Thanatos. “I’ll be back for them.”

She stepped into a forest where all the leaves of the towering trees were shining silver-bright. There seemed no end to the land, no place where it dropped off into the sky. “The High Forest,” she whispered.

Oh my, whispered the trees. You are a lost one. What has become of you, princess Kiaran?

“I was a queen,” Kiaransalee said to the wind.

You were a slave, the leaves laughed at her.

“I have been many things,” Kiaransalee admitted.

You have only been a slave. To your family, to your husband, to your vengeance, to that thing in the dark. You have only been a slave.

“I have learned much,” said Kiaransalee. “I am so much more than I was.”

No, said the trees, and thousands of red eyes looked at her from silver webs. You are still a slave. You will always be a slave.

“This is the fate you intend for me?” Kiaransalee clenched and unclenched a fist, her hand wanting to work magic but not having a direction to point in.

This is your fate, said the spiders.

Kiaransalee stretched out her power, the power she had gained by drinking of Orcus and learning his secrets. The ground rippled. All around her, the divine spiders of Araushnee died. Then they got up again.

“I will defy my fate,” said Kiaransalee.

All of reality rippled. The skies above the silver trees darkened. The pale cold fire within the dead spiders went out. The spiders quickened with new life.

A nice trick, said the spiders. A pretty new collar for Orcus’ little kitty. Drink of my venom, kitty, and perhaps you can choose the collar you think you want. But you can only ever trade one collar for another, kitty cat. You will always be a pet. You will never be truly free.

The spiders were everywhere. They came toward her like a great wind, and she could not stop them. Her changes were instantly erased. They filled her mouth and nose and eyes. Unwillingly, she drank.

None of us are free, said Araushnee, looking sadly at her misguided daughter. The goddess knew what was to come. She knew all of it: the unforgivable atrocities that Kiaransalee was yet to commit, Araushnee’s own betrayals millennia later. She was a goddess of fate; she spun the threads of destiny even as destiny spun her. There was nothing she could do. She could cut the threads, but they were all that supported her. Without them, she would still fall into the Abyss. Araushnee wept venomous tears, and went to be comforted in the arms of the god she had chosen as a lover.

In the palace of Aria, the king remained unwed. He couldn’t remarry; not when Kiaran still owned his heart.

He shuttered the windows of the palace. He refused to let his subjects refer to him as the King of Euphony; every song the wind sang sounded like a dirge to him. The only title he acknowledged was King of Threnody, a widower king mourning his lost love. As the years wore on, his son became the real ruler. The prince took his own wife - not from the House of Salee, which was if anything in worse shape than before after its second royal disgrace.

There were worried reports from the empire’s frontiers of a dark presence massacring entire villages. The king’s son ordered several flights of the army to investigate. They never returned.

The presence, whatever it was, continued to approach. The king’s son ordered his entire army and all local militias to attack it, holding nothing back.

None of the soldiers returned.

The days seemed to grow shorter. The Glow was red for longer periods of time, as if it were absorbing the blood of the slain. Storms grew more frequent. The wind began to howl as much as it sang.

Then new reports filtered in. The soldiers were finally coming back.

They were not positive reports.

It seemed nothing could stop the undead hordes. Those the reanimated soldiers killed were forced to join them as they flew toward Aria, never stopping, never slowing.

The king and his son met them at the palace door. The king’s face was calm, resigned, and even seemed a little grateful that at last the long-delayed reckoning had come. His son simply looked horrified.

“Say hello to your mother,” the king advised him.

Do as your father says, howled the legions of undead, their tongues stolen away from them by a greater will. Then they spoke to the king.

I told you my research was for the good of our people. You wouldn’t listen. You cast us into a living death. Now I will prove to you the good my research can do. Magic is very good for vengeance, I’ve found. Magic assures us of justice, and what more could a king wish for his people?

“I’m ready, Kiaran,” said the king. He watched his son writhe in agony as his life was stolen away.

Hours later, Kiaransalee sat on the throne that had once been her husband’s. Her husband sat on the throne that had been hers, his blind dead eyes looking at her with love. “You’ve no idea how far I’ve traveled to get back here,” she told him. “To the far corners of the world, to Hell and Heaven. I wandered the negative energy plane for a time. Do you know what that is? You soon will, love. I’ve made a breach in the Glow. It’s more negative than positive now. Do you see the red shift? It feeds my powers, my darling. My darling love.”

She gazed at her son sitting at their feet. Her precious baby boy. He’d stay with her forever, now. And soon she’d get his sisters back. It shouldn’t be too many eons before she was ready to take on her old teacher. She could wait. She would gather worshippers and power on whatever world was susceptable to her gifts. Even a demon lord could get old, but she was undying.

She listened to the wind howling outside the palace. A beautiful sound, but not one she’d ever heard before. Not even in the Abyss. “What did you call it, dear? The song the wind sings now?”

“Threnody,” said the king through his dead, dry lips.

“A song to mourn the dead. Terrible beauty from tragedy. Yes, my darling, that’s very good. Very, very good, handsome husband of mine.

“That’s all this world will ever hear from now on.”

Her legions would soon complete the extermination. Nothing would remain but red light and storm, fire and ice, ash, salt, dust and void. The clouds would freeze into ice and islands would melt into slag. Nothing would remain of the world’s song but her threnody.

Gnibile (Threnody)

Spelljamming pirates gave it the ugly name of Gnibile, but the undead who haunt the giant gas world still remember its old name: Threnody, the mournful song of the dead. Gnibile is the sixth planet from Oerth. Gnibile’s orbit is between the planets Edill and Conatha. Its mean distance from Oerth is 600 million miles. It takes Gnibile about 25 years to orbit around Oerth. It has a ten hour day followed by a fourteen hour twilight. (?) It is the second largest planet in Greyspace, after Edill and not counting the sun. Moons? Earth, magma, ice,, and fire clusters. Salt, vacuum, ash, negative energy, and dust clusters. Portals to the negative elemental planes. Its diameter is roughly 75,000 miles.