The Thousand Stories by herenortherenearnorfar

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Thetime and the Man Who Made Mountains

A little late but hopefully still acceptable. This one would be set around... 1734 SA? Give or take a few years. Also, I cannot stress how much death is in this one, and how terrible it is to be living in this atmosphere. The coping mechanisms are bad and the state oppression prevalent.

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It was tempting to say that luxury had made her soft, but Cytise had never known anything but luxury in one form or another. Admittedly, the bare stone walls of the great Tower weren’t as rich as the painted wood and plaster of her family home, and the tidy military tents arranged for this expedition into the countryside of Nurn were a far cry from even Lugbúrz’s amenities. There were always cushions, to soften the hard earth, however, always a layer of feathers and linen between her and the ground. 

In the stone hut there was nothing but the hard-packed soil and a few blankets made of a rough wool that was too hot for the muggy spring night. Her host did have a raised bed, made of wooden staves and slats. It was far to skinny for the both of them, so they’d opted instead to spread Cytise’s white cotton wrap out on the ground and lie on that. Hard and uncomfortable as the earth was, it became almost tolerable thanks to the woman in her arms. Almost— Cytise’s old bones still protested the treatment and her joints ached. 

Oh, but she was beautiful, the priestess of this village. So many of the people within the mountain bounds of the Dark Land were. It was a result of the orc admixture. It had always struck her as strange. The child of an orc and a human was exactly what you would expect, exactly what Cytise had expected, but given a few generations the uneven bones and mottled corpse skin seemed to disappear. What was left were traces of unearthly beauty, and an odd tendency towards sharp teeth and ears. 

Achaimene, her friend and companion, had explained it as a sort of delayed justice. It was only fair that the orcs, who had been so horribly warped from the humans they once were, should be allowed beautiful descendants. 

That didn’t explain why the orcs themselves were still left cursed, though it had been many centuries since they were freed from their cold tormentors. Cytise tried not to think about it too much. After so long waiting on the great Tower she’d learned what matters weren’t even worth considering. 

Unlike many of her fellow villagers, the woman dozing fitfully with her head on Cytise’s shoulder wasn’t supernaturally lovely, did not have eyes that drank in light and eye teeth that gleamed. She was just… fresh. Frighteningly young looking for the half a century she said she had, in a way that reminded Cytise unnervingly of the a'ëleqleqara . Dewy cheeked with soft dark hair and a cutting, daring tongue. Thetime.

It did not do to think about that tongue. Things had been said that perhaps should not have been said, and Cytise had tried to drown them in the sensation of kisses, of calloused hands. 

She wasn’t sure what she had been looking for when she introduced herself to the elusive wise woman. A conversation, maybe. It just got so terribly dull, going to all these little farming villages, putting the fear of the lord back in them. Certainly it was better than military drills and slow, steady diplomacy of the tower— the countryside was lovely and the people kind (though awed). 

The All-Seeing liked to keep order within his realm, and so things were perfectly orderly. Every village put on the same show, all the people gathered to listen. In the middle of the adoring faces had been Thetime, blank as a board. So when the Brilliant One had gone off to speak with the district supervisor, and the words had given way to choreographed entertainment, Cytise had made her excuses and caught up with the woman a street away from the town square. 

Hospitable to the end, Thetime had invited her home. It was a little cottage, amid the straight rows of olive trees, much older than the well planned village. Unauthorized, Cytise had thought, and then forgot, because it didn’t do to get a new friend in trouble. There had been courtesies, and gentle sparring, much discussion of their god’s procession through Nurn and of the state of the people. 

“As you might know, we aren’t allowed wise women anymore,” Thetime had commented, neck straight and proud. “Such bold choices in governance by your king.”

“Bold choices bear bold results,” Cytise had replied, her heart in her throat, and then Thetime had leaned in and kissed her. 

Maybe they were both trying to cover something up. 

It was only late afternoon now. The deep golden sun had moved out of the doorway, leaving them in shadow and the pretense of a nap in the light was gone. Cytise would need to leave soon. No one kept too close an eye on her, she was just one woman of little importance, but it was hard to go missing when you marched under the standard of the Eye. At nightfall there would be questions. 

When she glanced away from the doorway and back down to Thetime, she found that she was not sleeping anymore. Though her breathing was still slow and steady she was looking up at Cytise through her lashes; watching, considering. 

“You never even closed your eyes.”

Cytise felt compelled to put up some defense. “It’s hard to sleep.” 

“Spoiled. Must I give you opium tea and a story like you’re a child with a broken bone?” The accusation was lightly leveled, but there was still a greater, unspoken tension between them. 

“A story,” she seized on it desperately, “If you have one. I am something of a collector of them.”

She hadn’t intended to start gathering up silly tales of monsters and morals. It had simply happened. The great tower was home to many people from all over the world, mostly warriors and staid religious types. There was very little social scene, and most of the chances for conversation that did occur were dominated by dull recollections of archery contests and ancient wars. 

Even generals with nothing but rust in their silly old heads knew nursery stories, however. They took a certain pride in them too. No one believed the more fantastical ones, but it didn’t matter. These stories were theirs— their peoples’ memories— and they were all a very long way from home. 

“A story,” Thetime’s lips curled around the word, and Cytise saw a hint of the anger they had both sought to bury with enthusiastic camaraderie. “I know a story, and it isn’t one you would hear anywhere else. It’s about your great, admirable ruler, and how he tore this land apart.”

“ Thetime —” She should have known this was a bad idea, from the moment she saw her face, blank with fury written underneath. She should have known better than to get herself in trouble. She might have hoped Thetime would know better, but some people who had not experienced the Eye themselves didn’t fear him enough, and some people who were properly fearful still lashed out in strange ways when they felt trapped. 

“Long ago three great clans ruled a fertile lands above the desert, surrounding an inland sea—”

“Thetime!” Cytise pulled herself upright, yanking her arm out from where Thetime was leaning her weight on it. She didn’t bother to try to grab her wrap, dust stained from the dirt floor. “I’m leaving.”

Thetime bowed her head. “Very well. Go back to him.” She didn’t need insults, or even a voice full of spite, just that slight, disappointed hollowness to her voice. 

She had been so wonderful to talk to. 

Outside the doorway and around the corner, Cytise leaned against the wall and collected herself. There were herbs growing around the perimeter of the house, a condensed little garden that probably supplied the bundles of plant matter Cytise had seen hung up to dry from the ceiling inside. She’d counted herself something of an amateur botanist at home, a distinction earned after spending dozens of hours harassing the family cook as a child. The plants that grew in the north weren’t that different. She counted recognizable flowers until her stomach stopped churning and then began to walk out of the endless orchard, back to the town. It wasn’t dusk yet, no one should miss her. 

She was still within eyesight of Thetime’s cottage when she saw the regiment marching forward, Achaimene at its head. She froze, and he pressed his horse forward to meet her. He looked melancholy but that was a default state of being for him, and he brightened somewhat to see her though he was also blessedly confused. 

Good; if he didn’t expect her she couldn’t feel guilty. She wouldn’t have to wonder too much if this was her fault. 

“Nūrohti,” he said, softly enough that the men (at least they were men, not orcs) behind him couldn’t hear. “What are you doing here?”

“Talking to people. Are you here for her?” 

He knew she got along easily with strangers, that she had a soft heart even for treason. Unlike some of the others Cytise considered friends in this place, he also trusted her enough to not fuss about the matter. She wasn’t a military asset like most of the envoys sent to serve the Lord of the Light and Dark were, but she’d delivered a handful of diplomatic victories over the course of her years simply by being less pigheaded than some of the others and she was always good at keeping her thoughts in check, so the lord mostly left her alone.  

Achaimene had always been quietly clever at reading His desires. He’d never used it for to grasp for power, he was a gentle soul underneath it all, and because of this fundamental blandness of spirit and sharpness of mind he was given a number of assignments. It gave her cover and the outside pressure of work buoyed their friendship as much as any shared intellectual pursuits.

“Yes. The Lidless came out of his discussion with the district leader with quite a list of potential subversives. Will she be trouble?” Achaimene had started going grey long before her. Though they now had matching silver streaked hair she’d theorized for a while that it was the stress of serving as commander that had pushed him into venerability so young. It made sense, hurting others was stressful.

Cytise shut her eyes. “I don’t know.”

She hung back after they dragged Thetime off (she was silent, her back stiff and her neck proud, and she did not look at Cytise). “I left something in there,” she told Achaimene, and darted into the cottage before he could object. She came out with her cotton shawl wrapped in a ball in her arms, and did not stay to watch as the remaining men began to pull the cottage down. 

 

“I think I would like that story now,” Cytise said, and knew it sounded cruel. 

Thetime laughed, and the sound was laboured. Her arms were twisted at a strange angle, the tightness of the ropes putting pressure on her chest. It must have been hard for her to breath, contorted so. “Oh, would you?”

Cytise nodded. The executions had just begun on the other side of camp, so there would be no prying at the door of her mind for a while. She had been let into this tent unquestioned; she had somehow earned the amity of an orc commander many years ago and that reputation traveled. 

Someone would be looking for her eventually, of course. Even a purposeless noble woman had to be accounted for. 

“Yes. I want to hear it so someone will remember.”

“Do you want to take my place next, fool?” Thetime hissed. 

“No. And I don’t think I will. I have some protection. My sister would miss me and she is very powerful in her own land.” They’d had a rebellion against the benevolent protection of the god-king when Cytise was quite young. Since they were so very far from the center of his power, it was generally considered best to avoid another one. 

Nurn was the pupil of his eye, and its people had no such shield. Their acts of insurrection were crushed quickly and cleanly. 

“Tell me,” Thetime asked, her eyes now did have that gleam without light, a hunger and a fury that only orcs and other constructs of magic could match, “Are you the reason I’m here?”

“No.” Cytise tried to meet her gaze and was mollified when Thetime started to cry.

There was no comfort she could render here. Not yet. 

Tears sliding down her soft, unsettlingly youthful cheeks, Thetime nodded. The mere motion appeared painful. 

“Very well. I might as well start from the beginning, then.” 

“Long ago three great houses of men lived in a fertile land above the desert, around a great inland sea . There were no mountains then to separate them from their western kin, only the foothills of the mountains of white marble, so they traded and travelled with ease. They never strayed too far from their home around the sea. It supported them and gave them life, and they built a great city on it.” Thetime’s face changed when she spoke. Her breathing grew less pained, the old story catching her up in its rhythm and keeping her trapped there. 

“Now the plains just to their north were a land even richer than they were. There was a single mountain there, made of fire long ago, but it was still and silent and covered in dense forests. It was a good place to farm, and many covetous men left their homes to find better fortune there. When, one day, word came of even more blessings laid upon that plain, no one was surprised.” 

A man had walked out of the mountain, they said, and he had brought many gifts and much wisdom. Many dismissed it as rumour, but soon the new powers gifted to that hungry land became apparent. They had sharper swords, traps that could catch a thousand fish, technology to see the stars and know the passing of the seasons. More and more, the children of landlocked sea left their homes and families to find the hidden knowledge of the north. And their elders grieved for they knew this would not end well. 

But what could they do? They had no leverage with which to demand the return of their bewitched people, and the coiling, clever words of the man from inside the mountain reached ever further.”

It was obvious who the man was, and yet… there was enough plausible deniability that Cytise thought she might even be able to write it down.

“Soon other, fouler creatures began to creep out of the north, flocking to his hand. They could not bear the sun or the sight of unbefouled men, and their faces were terrible to look at. But the thing that had crawled out of the fires of the mountain said they were allies, they were friends, that they had been hurt long ago and it wasn’t their fault they were such pitiful creatures. And the people of the plains believed him, though all others now turned their faces away and feared. 

The day came, in time, that the men of the plains and their new army of twisted nightworms turned their gaze on the city by the sea. They sent a demand for total surrender, for all land and holdings to be turned over to them.”

I mentioned there were three great houses in this land, didn’t I? One wanted to surrender immediately. The other two thought they could fight, so with majority control of the city they sent their cowardly brethren out to make their obeisances to their new masters. When they returned it was with an army more terrible than you could imagine—” Thetime stopped.

“Actually,” she said abruptly, “You probably could imagine. It’s more or less the same army you came along with. But most of the people I tell this story to haven’t seen more than 200 orcs at once, so,”

The first time she had crested a hill and seen the forces of the Hand laid out before her, Cytise had wanted to run scared. She knew what it was like to face real military power and know your insignificance, your inability to fight.

Thetime’s shoulders popped with a sickening sound as she shrugged, “Well, they put up a good fight for a little while, before some warriors began to fear for their safety, for the safety of their families. The second great house resolved to surrender as well. But the third, the third was not as willing to give in. They had seen the long fanged hunters who accompanied these newly forged men. They had watched as their neighbors dissolved into cruelty and ambition. They worried if they bowed now they would never have a chance to stand up again. There would be no surrender, they said, not as long as they had breath and hope.

The three houses were largely matched in strength but the second had just a slight advantage here. They had the element of deceit on their side. Shrewdly, they hid their disapproval and pretended to see the benefits of fighting on. Then, on the night of the 16th day of the siege, they opened the city gates and welcomes the mountain man and his servants in.” She said it very neutrally, little judgement or moral pontificating. Cytise knew men (mostly of the strong, capable sort) who would happily declaim about the treachery and trickery of cravens and women. Maybe it was as a woman, or as someone who grew at least one poison, that Thetime restrained herself. 

“For their swiftness of response, the mountain man gave the first house the rule of the land, under the greater jurisdiction of the plains and, of course, himself. The second house, he declared, would be rewarded with their lives. The third house…”

Her breathing was growing laboured again, whether from the strain of her position or the pain of the story, Cytise wasn’t sure. “He burnt the city to the ground, gathered up every last member of the third house, and marched southeast, past rivers and homes, to the very border of what I think is now called Khand. Then he had the first throat cut.”

Cytise couldn’t help her little gasp, and that only seemed to egg Thetime on. “They marched west in a perfectly straight line, leaving bodies behind them, and behind them, everywhere a corpse lay, a mountain grew. The earth shook as they passed, trade routes were cut, farmland ripped apart, and still they marched on, killing the last defenders of this land and making a cage to box the survivors in. When they reached a river mouth they turned sharply north, and continued on. More bodies, more mountains. The blood stained the earth and the very ground seemed to cry out for its lost children, for they had lived on this land a very long time. 

When they could see the mountain of fire south of them they turned again, making a third and final wall. The men of the plains, greedy and unable to see sense, did not realize they were also imprisoning themselves. They quickly learned how little their leader thought of them, for as the long army train headed east they began to run out of prisoners. So the mountain man turned to his general and said ‘bring me those who are still wounded, or who have injured themselves on the journey’. He must have known what would happen to them, how could he not? 

He had seen the spurts of blood every half a mile for the last month. But his mind was ensnared, and so he obeyed. It’s said that he did not even hold back his own son, who had fallen from his horse some weeks before. Or maybe he tried to but he just… couldn’t. It doesn’t matter, in the end. The mountains were made all the same, and the men of the plains did not try to revolt until several years later.”

“And what happened to them?” Cytise asked, for the sake of completeness. The plain of Gargarraz was mostly an army camp, as far as she knew, and most of its inhabitants were orcs. 

Thetime gave her a withering look. “What do you think? The earth rumbled, their mountain doused them in flame, and the man-eaters they took in as tools tore them apart. That is what I want you to remember, Cytise. This land, your god’s little fief, is built on our bones. Again and again he remakes it with our life blood. Is it any wonder I helped the others fight back?”

“No, it isn’t,” Cytise sighed. “I just wish you hadn’t.”

“I’m their wise woman,” Thetime’s tears had stopped but her cheeks were still streaked dirt and tracks of salt. “It’s my job to take care of them.”

They had been talking a very long time. Soon, someone would come for her. It was now or never. Cytise’s hand went to her waist and then to Thetime’s lips. And then she kissed her. 

It wasn’t preferable, but there had to be an explanation, there had to be a distraction. So Cytise focused on the leftover tear-taste pooling on those lips and tried to ignore the ball of pungent resin slipping into Thetime’s mouth, quickly ground between her teeth, swallowed down. She must have recognized it— it came from her house after all. 

“There is so much more I want to say,” Thetime said, “So many stories that could be forgotten.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” It was a terribly treasonous thing to say, but her tongue had always been quicker than her good sense. That was why she was stuck here, in this well-ordered land of fire and blood.

There was a long moment as Thetime pulled herself together. Then, perhaps reassured by the fact that her death would be… less painful than it could have been, she nodded. 

“Alright, you can go. I think I've said enough.”