The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 115: The Stage

Chapter 115: The Stage

“What’s the easiest piece to play?” Danemy said with a hint of nerves.

“It’s a bit complex. Some people are better at certain pieces than others,” Fahiz said. “I think the rat is the easiest, but for Sharak it’s probably the ‘null,’ since he’s omniscient or something.”

“Yes, there’s a ‘piece’ that’s recently been rediscovered from the early practice of Arinos, which we simply call ‘null,'” Sharak replied. “It says as little as possible, and tries to bring attention to its interlocutor. However, it also introduces the discussion and directs it. It was initially used as a way to train new players, in fact, and get them used to the other pieces. But I don’t think you’d get rewards for using it, and it’s difficult to use anyway if you don’t know the other pieces well. But the training might still be useful for both of you, moreso than seeing Fahiz’s great rat impressions.”

“Excuse me? Is that a challenge? Alright, let’s go, my rat against your null piece. You can be whatever character you choose to be, I don’t care.”

Enter MELANCHOLY in the form of a SPIRIT.

SPIRIT. O dreadful sound! what sighs are there not heard

In the depth of the infernal regions!

What groans proceed from the souls of the lost!

SPIRIT. Behold!

Enter ARCHELACHES the Spirit of Rats, with a company of RATS.

RATS. See, see!

SPIRIT. What do I see?

RATS. Our misery,

And the arch fiend’s delight.

SPIRIT. O rats, rats, rats!

RATS. All come to mumble

Praise for the place, where we live, where we feed,

And where we play.

SPIRIT. What do you feed on?

RATS. Blood,

Blood, which from the living limbs we draw

When we bite, and when we scratch.

SPIRIT. Where do you tarry?

RATS. In death,

Death, which strangleth in the dark;

And in hell,

Hell, which doth chew our little hearts away.

SPIRIT. What is hell?

RATS. A many-coloured, many-windowed, many-doored building,

In which we are received when we are evil,

And at that point we are hurried to a narrow pent-house,

From where we have a prospect of a deep pit –

In which pit there is a strange man named Jehovah,

Who yells at us all the day long, and annoys us.

Yet we can get reward by riskily scaling the pit

In order to feed upon his skin, bones and blood.

SPIRIT. Is this hell?

RATS. If we are in it, then it is hell!

Hell is a plague that we carry hither and tither,

We can run, but we will not leave it behind.

And if we climbed bravely all the way to heaven?

Then we do not care, for if we went there

Then it would straightaway be hell.

“‘Melancholy in the form of a spirit’? Quite a choice of character,” Fahiz said teasingly.

Sharak shrugged. “I was just trying to surprise you, throw you off your game. Mind games, you know?”

“Well, it didn’t work.”

“True, but I doubt that even an Aesir could make you any worse at portraying a rat. But what was up with this ‘Archelaches, Spirit of Rats’? Did he say anything?”

“I felt that I should join in. If Melancholy is a spirit, why shouldn’t rats have a spirit too? A Spirit of Rats. But I don’t think he said anything, just stood around looking majestic.”

“Fair enough. I mean, what could look more majestic than a Spirit of Rats?”

“I’d suppose just about anyth- that is, precisely.

“Anyway, let’s move on to our guests. I’m sure they’re getting tired of us now.”

“Not at all,” Crucis said. “After all, it’s late, and among the dense trees here it’s easy to feel like you’re being watched. Well, if anyone was watching us, and was a trifler or fool, then they would have probably got bored and left. It’s good to filter them out.”

“Quite true. Anyway, what piece should you be?”

While Crucis pondered, DicingDevil piped up. “He should be the cobra, he looks like one sometimes in fights.”

The rest of the group pitched in approvingly.

“Well, the cobra is a bit of a demanding piece,” Sharak said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if he could pull it off. Let’s give it a try.”

Crucis sighed. “I got volunteered for the most difficult piece? Alright, fine. So what character should I perform? I’m not that knowledgeable about the lore around Dravaistaya, though I picked up a bit in the mines.”

“Well, a possible analogue in your mythologies would be…” Sharak pondered for a moment. “I guess Lucifer, Hades, maybe Whiro?”

“Lucifer sounds fine, I can try that,” Crucis said.

“Alright. I’ll be the null piece, and introduce you. Let’s see if you can give a decent speech to begin with. This game takes a while. Skilled and experienced players can throw out dialogue as easily as machines for pieces which they are accustomed to, but it takes a while to build up to that. So you won’t be expected to do that yet, but try and give a short speech in response to me, on behalf of Lucifer. We can see if you’re somewhat used to it.”

SPIRIT. What thunder shakes the edge of Heaven?

Who causes the winds to buffet

Against one another in controversy?

Ah! Witness, it is the fallen one!

Why do you not mourn, that have come

Like lightning from Heaven, and once

Were too a spirit, now are sabled here?

LUCIFER. Why mourn? Even if we suffer God’s evil temper,

From the evils He loosed to plague our retreat

Theodicy assures me that He must bring forth good.—

When I remember that but yesterday

I sat upon the fields, where’s cultivated all delight,

That I was crowned with your smiles, and not unearned,

And that this gilded air that round me lies,

And this ecstatic light, was all my own,

My heart sickens at the thoughts of what I was.

Change! Change is the heart of all things!

O, liberator, breaker of chains!

After this thunderous response, Sharak stepped back in surprise as a bright light briefly blinded his eyes. Although he didn’t know what its source was, as it faded he noticed that Crucis’ eyes were shining brightly after the speech, like a lynx’s in the night.

“Quite a sardonic Satan,” Fahiz said. “The series of volta surprised even me, but it was handled well. And I daresay, he could teach the Spirit of Melancholy a thing or two.”

“Well, I think it’s clear that, while he’s still learning the game, he already has the hang of this character,” Sharak said. “Now, as for Danemy, which piece do you wish to use?”

“Well, I guess I’ll start with the rat?” Danemy said. “Seems like a lark.”

“What does a rat have in common with a lark?”

“They both have a lot in common,” Fahiz answered. “For instance, the skylark famously ‘never wert’ a bird, and a rat too was never a bird.”

“I contest that the skylark is precisely a bird.”

“You will have to take that up with Shelley.”

“Oh, I will. I will subject his foolish poem to such raillery, I will hammer into him that the skylark is a bird and he was wrong to say otherwise. My barbs will drive him to the grave sooner than even poor Adonais. I shall far outdo the foppish Matthew Arnold, who considered himself to have delivered a critical withering blow by branding Shelley a ‘beautiful angel,’ a queer criticsm that was perhaps a product of too much ‘stray revelery’ and gaiety on Arnold’s part. My criticism shall barely be criticism, so suffused it shall be with curses – but that shall come in good time, first I must train a rat.”

“How does training a rat contribute to creating such a sterling piece of criticism?”

“Why, a good question. The difference between a critic and a rat is like night and day. The rat is so far superior as to be, relative to the critic, a god. If the critic were metamorphosed into unspecified vermin, then it would be a blessing far greater than if man were raised above kneeling angels, far greater than if tables stood on their heads, concocted grotesque choreography, and danced while the rest of the world stood still. This is why we need rats, to guide our literary endeavours aright. Be that as it may -“

“But surely a critic couldn’t evolve into a rat, but only into a critical critic? For he cannot move up the Great Chain of Being, but would happily crawl backwards in a crab-like gait.”

“His only gait is stepping noisily like a bundle of sticks tossed from a height, in places too hallowed for him. Still, I tell you, one day a revolutionised society will regulate production such that a peasant may come home from the cattle and criticise after dinner, and since he is a man who is well-acquainted with livestock and with rats, he will by twilight mourn for his fate like Faust, crying, ‘Lente, lente currite noctis equi.’ Alas, it shall avail him not.”

“He should be careful,” Crucis said. “After the revolution, such talk could have him branded a kulak. Has he not considered that, by trying to hoard time, he is delaying the production of goods in Petrograd? It will not do, tovarisch.”

“Practical advice. Are you from Russia?” Sharak asked.

“Not far from there.”

“I see. Anyway, where was I? Let’s train the rat. I daresay you have had time to prepare.”

“I’d hope so,” Danemy said quietly.

Enter SPIRIT, from above.

SPIRIT. What swarming noise rises from beneath the heavens?

RATS. It is rats, who hide in the margins of heaven,

And seek what they can find, to bring back to their nest.

SPIRIT. Rats, why do you come here?

RATS. To scavenge, because the heavens have wealth in excess,

and so we have come to collect anything that remains.

SPIRIT. But can heaven’s wealth leave its boundaries?

Is it not too pure for the profane world?

RATS. Yes, if it is not too heavy.

If it is heavy, then we may nibble its edges,

And if it is light, then we may carry it away.

It is not pure, because in the heavens all people delight,

And in this massed delight is something profane.

SPIRIT. ‘Tis true.

“I think that wasn’t bad, though maybe a bit careful-sounding. What did you think?” Sharak said.

“Yeah, it came across as a bit too much of, um, question-and-answer, it was less lively than the one with Fahiz,” Danemy said. “Could I try again?”

“I think it was a fine start,” Fahiz said. “It might help to mentally insert an interrobang after the first few questions the other side asks, as a reminder to take momentum from it rather than just answering it. But sure, you can try again if you want.”

Enter RËVIS, the SPIRIT.

SPIRIT. What souls stir in this starless abyss

Where the detritus of the ages flows? What

Raucous parade runs here, scratching across the dust?

Enter RATS.

RATS. How splendid! Have we company from the heavens?

SPIRIT. I am astonished! Rats! What wretched domain have you here?

RATS. Well, I daresay the heavens make for bad company. What a greeting, to say we are wretched!

SPIRIT. I apologise. But explain this place, I cannot understand it.

RATS. This is the city beneath of time,

Where the ashes of ages have been moored,

And where we scavenge among them endlessly.

SPIRIT. Dreadful city! What is its purpose?

RATS. Why do you say it’s dreadful?

Look! There is the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

And its light guides us rats, to scurry round

And to chew upon the remnants and corpses of old Greece!

SPIRIT. O great building, you meet a strange fate! Rats, what is the purpose of this place, lying beneath heaven and earth?

RATS. ‘Purpose’? How should we know, since we are but wretched rats?

It is the place where we watch and wait for someone to visit

From the heavens above. We then can wave and be merry,

For we shall learn whether our state be proud or aye

From the wise visitors, invigilators, who come from above.

This is our only source of purpose, for natively we have none,

Or we do not understand it as well as you wise spirits do.

And we’re the same as you. For you wait the same way, for God,

and so it goes in a chain either upwards or downwards,

with millions of cities beneath other cities, each waving.

SPIRIT. But you do not worship God?

RATS. No, you see, we worship our own God. He is Archelaches,

The Spirit of Rats. But you would not understand it,

Because you think it absurd to worship a rat, just as I

Would think it strange to worship a human or an angel,

Or anything of that sort. You see, all choose gods by prejudice,

And the impression that there is something wrong with the others.

SPIRIT. Well, that is your right. Where is Archelaches?

RATS. Who knows? You must find him and ask.

SPIRIT. But how can I find him, if I don’t know where he is?

RATS. Well, you won’t know unless you ask him.

SPIRIT. And if I found him, why would I ask him where he is?

RATS. Because otherwise, how would you find him?

“What a stubborn rodent!” Fahiz said with a smile. “I think he has the hang of it.”

“Quite so,” Sharak added. “Well, these two should be fine with their parts. If you want, you can come up with a specific scenario to make the dialogue easier.”

“How about, I just fell from Heaven, and this rat is showing me around hell?” Crucis said. “I’m not sure if there were rats in hell, but even the initial War in Heaven and ensuing fall from grace tend towards eisegesis, so I guess some creativity is permitted.”

“That sounds fair. Since it’s your idea, you speak first, to give Danemy a sense of direction.”

LUCIFER. This vast and inchoate deep of fire

Had seemed aphotic in the shadows of alien Heaven,

Yet now, it unveils before me, a landscape set

In bright, vast array of vaunting iridescent flames.

There rise wild sculptures, in ashen mountain carved,

And there lighthouses of coal, on the coast of magma

Which masses like a swarthy sea. How now, rat,

Where do you scurry so hurriedly, among the flames?

RAT. I hurry to the temple of Archelaches, our God,

Which temple is carved naturally among hell’s ashen earth.

LUCIFER. Who is Archelaches?

RAT. He is your leader. We disdained to worship the Almighty,

So he has sent us here to worship Satan instead.

LUCIFER. You sound disappointed.

RAT. Why, of course! For all would worship the majesty

Of God, to whose majesty all worship’s due. And us too!

We too would worship him, if the Almighty had not set

His canon against rats… So now we are consigned here!

Denied the object of all worship, in gardens of misery.

LUCIFER. The misery is that which you have planted,

For it is your choice to see these magnificant flames

And the wild, horrific majesty of this infernal pit,

And then to merely cry as if for sympathy. Any skying tower

May have grandeur, but witness that grotesque, spiralling,

That serpentine tower of coal and ash, in the centre

Of this vast abyss – its distorted, intestinous climb

A grandeur that could amaze even our simple Heavens.

Why dig your grave here, and mourn the lost world?

But no more. Tell me more about this Archelaches.

RAT. He is the Spirit of Rats. It is said that he

Will one day be the first deceiver, and will cause

Even earthly paradise to be defamed, such that

God’s creatures shall be cast out and punished in

Soil which thwarts and ails them, and in despair.

LUCIFER. What fecundity!

All that, from one deception?

What a tangled web we weave,

When we practice to deceive.

RAT. Yes. That is why he is named The Deceiver.

LUCIFER. But does God not also deceive?

RAT. How so?

LUCIFER. Why, the rascal claims to have fought a war

In Heaven, and to have defeated the demons now sent here.

But he never joined the war! He tried, but was too busy

Fording the occultic maze of how to wield armour for one

Who is three persons at once. Indeed, his angels lost,

But then He filed a legal injunction, claiming, indeed,

That we demons were a group of bullies, that we had

Also driven three angels to suicide, and, even worse,

That we had used degrading language like ‘raca,’ and

Several others besides, and this was in brief unseemly.

And after much hand-wringing, we were deplatformed.

The result is that we now tarry here, in midst of Hell.

RAT. Ah, but how strange! Some say an army marches on its stomach, but I daresay that God’s army has a more difficult predicament – it must march upon theodicy and theological niceties.

RAT. Archelaches is said to be bold and mighty,

A rat who scratches at the borders of Paradise

And causes the heavens to quake in fear.

LUCIFER. Most excellent. What a mighty spirit!

RAT. Yes. But it is merely vaunting.

In truth, he is wracked in despair, because –

Why, because he is The Deceiver, and therefore

Since he knows of his own might and poise,

Contrives to despair, so that this disjunction also

Spreads mightily deception across his audience.

LUCIFER. What an immaculate deception, more breath-taking

Than even his might, for just to hear of its convulsions

I find staggering. Now, is this the temple?

RAT. Yes. Witness, the gashes torn in the rocks,

They are our windows. And the way the black rocks

Twist, like a face screaming out in vain, atop it

Is the great dome to our Temple of Archelaches.

LUCIFER. A humble, yet splendid, spectacle.

The temple entrance is that small hole, leading

Into the cavern underground? And what is this Tower

That stands next to it?

RAT. It is where a geyser of fire once surged

Through the rocks, and forged this steep tower.

From its peak, you can glimpse the far-off mountains

Rising on each side. But I must retire now, for

There is prayer in session in the Temple.

LUCIFER. That is well, and I shall range this tower,

And stare as this new planet swims before my ken.

“Quite a short tour,” Fahiz said. “But I thought it a good first dialogue, and I enjoyed that the rat didn’t seem to know that he was talking to Satan. Or he knew, and was being rogueish.”

“There was some improvisation there,” Crucis said. “I guess the dialogue didn’t fit the scenario entirely, but it was fun all the same.”

“It’s alright, the scenario was just a way to make it easier for you to start,” Sharak said. “There are some more arcane, detailed ways to convey scenarios, but this was just a vaguely-sketched one, so more of a rough guideline. I think it was quite good, I enjoyed the tale of God’s strange turn to lawfare.”

“Yeah, that was quite fun,” Danemy said.

“Speaking of which, thanks for keeping the faith in Archelaches!” Fahiz said. “You’re a great new rat. In fact, I think I have an old [Rat Talisman] given by a visitor to the settlement some years ago, it doesn’t help me that much since I’m a Mage and it’s mostly based on Dexterity and melee attack. I’ll try and find it for you.”

“Anyway, Fahiz will run your dialogue through Ala-ud-din. Meanwhile, I’ll help your leader plan a way back, and maybe annotate his map with a few landmarks nearby,” Sharak said.

“That would be great,” DicingDevil said.

As DicingDevil went near the fireplace, where Sharak was unscrolling a large map of the area North of Kruxol, Crucis checked his quest log. He saw that he had unlocked an achievement for ‘playing the game of [Legendary Beasts],’ and had gained a good quantity of EXP from it, as well as a no-drop item named [Shroud of Myth], which could be used to, “summon legendary creatures, once they have been defeated.”

Since this description didn’t use the word ‘Arinos,’ Crucis wondered if this was another case of the game’s quest descriptions being out of synch with what was going on, as with the previous quest where it described ‘helping two Pyromancers with spell books.’ He had heard of a mini-game named ‘Legendary Beasts’ being in Freihet, but it was a simplified board game which resembled a chess puzzle, and was quite different from Arinos. Further, it was supposed to unlock in some distant city named Merkul, and not this close to Kruxol.

The [Shroud of Myth] sounded quite important, but wasn’t immediately useful. While Crucis hadn’t yet encountered any ‘legendary creatures,’ he knew that quite a few, including dragons, titans, Garmr, and a cyclops, were present in the later game. These creatures were powerful bosses found in fairly remote locations, and were designated as [Legendary] by the game. He hadn’t heard of any lower-level creatures with this designation, though it’s possible there were some. The ability to summon such creatures would probably become an important part of Guild combat at a higher level, meaning that eventually most players would have to pick this up.

He checked his level, and saw that it had risen to level 61, and a fifth of the way towards level 62.