God Squire

Ch. 4: Yester

Blythia guided the wayward fool throughout the city of Grey Moss. He was a handsome and rugged fellow of reddish orange hair. His brow was furrowed in the way one's did when they'd spent their life in battle, but fought against a seemingly new contemplative expression he wasn't used too. Just the right kind of doubt she needed for her plans, though she'd rather a god didn't die in the call to action.

She'd heard of the warring pantheon of Yestermoor before, called the Duodenary, twelve frites of opposing concepts and ideals. Chaos versus order, conflict versus consistency, etcetera. Though she knew little of the specific divisions in Yestermoor's culture such as Chill's Squall in service to their Storm Mother. Was his patron deity the one who threw the brave into a void or one more nefarious?

After she was done laughing, but before she could answer his question further sirens blared from whence they came. Chill saw the moving signs glow red and a message read, "Miremoss is Dead. The End is here."

First thing they'd do was look at the outsiders. She saw two local officers at the end of the block notice and head toward them.

"Darn," Blythia frowned. "It was supposed to be a slow day."

"Supposed to be?" Chill asked. "How would you know?"

Blythia sighed, she had no time to explain the finer arts of time magic to the lad. She twisted the tip of her staff and slammed the gem into the ground.  Glowing silver smoke enveloped them.

"Find me at the Imperial keep," She said, hoping he wasn't as dumb as he looked.

"Where's that?"

She smirked knowingly. "See you earlier. Abraxas Heri!"

Then they disappeared.

The first Magician invented spelling, in both spell craft and the art of letters, because every word is a magic word. Though some are more so than others. Each syllable overused in time, wasting the magic away, stretching the power to far to have any true effect. So the stricter scholars of the arcane arts stick to the dead tongues. So, they dealt with Abraxas.

Abraxas, the god of lost languages, has a fowl's head, a human's upper body, and two large snakes for legs. Despite his unnerving appearance he's a really nice guy, though a bit of a stickler for the rules. Magic having no rules was a real bother for him.

So this deity invented grammar. Rules for words meant there were now rules to Magic. Context, syntax, and all the other ins and outs that both simplified and complicated the art. This also made Abraxas the first deity of Magic, chaining this once free power to concepts of morphology, phonology, and semantics.

He had many squabbles with the first magician over this, some loud debates and a handful of duels to the death, but in the end they came to an understanding.  Magic can be bound to words and rules as long as those words and rules can be made up, or even better, broken.

This divided magical society between the rule keepers and rule breakers, but the best Magicians did both. Blythia sadly was not one of the best magicians, powerful and competent sure, but she needed rules to her magic. Strange and fun rules sure, but this left her in the service of her rooster headed lord.

Which most of the time meant nothing, but occasionally Abraxas wanted a check in during moments of great import. So, when she cast this short distance time travel spell she had to make a pit stop in the throne room of Abraxas. Essentially a gargantuan library with a big comfy reading chair in the middle.

The god of Magic sat there, corrective lenses on, snakes slithering tightly around the chair's legs, enraptured in a large tome with the title "The Draconic Diaries: She Said What....?"

Blythia, surprised and concerned by this sudden summoning bowed and said. "Good morrow, my lord. How may I be of service?"

His fowl head popped up and smiled at Blythia, fondly remembering her. "Don't you mean good yester, my dear? You are traveling to the past now?"

"Only a short distance," She said. "I am headed to the Imperial Courts, to calm the rising tensions there in hopes to prevent another pointless war."

"Yes," He nodded. "I can tell this is a goal of yours my servant, but I sense trickery. Something of the first Magician's ilk. It concerns me. You have teleported another with you."

"A brave from Yestermoor, to aid in case of combat," She said, hoping her lord wouldn't pursue further."

"A warrior," Abraxas set his book aside. "A wise warrior?"

Blythia frowned. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Is he a smart lad, clever? Or is he what I fear him to be Blythia."

"He's not dumb," Her smile strained. "Naive to the greater machinations of the world, but he's no idiot."

Abraxas stood to a towering height and leered down at her. "Is he a Fool?"

Blythia frowned, thinking of all the ways she could lie or cheat or trick her way out of this, knowing that she couldn't. "Yes, lord Abraxas. He is a Fool."

The towering beast like god roared in anger and flipped his chair. Then took a breath, fixed it back up, sighed and sat. "You seek the Tower?"

"Yes," She said.

"Despite all I have taught you."

"Yes."

"Though this journey will likely destroy this boy and all involved?"

"Yes?"

"Knowing none have found the tower in a rhyme's age?"

She nodded, unable to speak, on the verge of tears.

"Knowing this won't bring your brother back."

"It might," She said.

"Perhaps if you trained in the ways of the first Magicisn," Abraxas sighed. "But you are my pupil through and through."

"There's a first time for everything," She said.

"Perhaps," Abraxas agreed. "But that comes after numerous failures."

She wanted to say something else, to thank the god for teaching her, for being the father she never had, but the spell was done and he could not keep her in his nest of knowledge any longer.

"Good luck, my daughter," Abraxas said and then the visage faded.

She was back in her own study in the imperial court of her empress. She had to but sit and prepare  for the fool to get here. Though she did wonder if she specified the right court.

"Mistress," Her pupil, Loid, opened the door. "You've returned?"

The young lad was the third heir to the Empress's throne. A child by most accounts but a clever sorcerer. Like most of his people he looked like a humanoid dog, a black labrador to be exact. He liked to smite things with lightning and was quite good at it. Most would find this talent disturbing, but Magicians were a strange sort.

"I have returned, my apprentice," She said. "Though my magicks have been tested. Abraxas knows my goal, a little at least."

"You said this could happen," He said. "Were you successful?"

"As successful as one can be in telling a joke," She smirked to her frowning student.

"My mother is expecting you," He said. "She's... concerned."

"Yes," Blythia nodded. "We best not keep the Empress waiting."