T A C: Session 06 -- 'The Greater Grey' Report

General Summary

The gangplank was no longer guarded thanks to the need for those fiends, who had stood on it, to form an honour guard for their queen. As the fiends moved off, the undergrowth surrendered its captive to the open area before the Syrene’s Song. The assassin moved purposefully away from his hiding place and up the gangplank. Once on deck he moved with the benefit of his knowledge of the flagship to the captain’s quarters. He was well aware that the queen had taken those rooms for herself. He picked the lock on the door and entered. The main room had many-paned windows running down both sides of the room. Between every other set of windows, floor length draperies hung pooling on the floor. A large captain’s table stood at the far end of the room. A low backed chair sat behind it and facing two similar chairs on the side closest to the assassin at the entrance. Several tall cabinets stood independent of the walls. Their legs were attached to the floor permanently. The cabinets held a selection of books, charts, navigational instruments, strangely shaped shells, bottles both large and small, bags of oilskin, several floats and more bedsides. Behind all this, on the far wall, a single door was closed. Grey knew that a bed chamber was beyond it. It was to the far door that he went. Inside the next room he didn’t hide. He simply awaited the arrival of the Queen of the Courts of Chaos. He spent the time closely examining the personal items the queen had put on her dressing table. He noticed two platinum frames. These held images. One was of a young woman, beautiful although she wore a large turban and scarf that hid her hair and ears and portions of her neck. This detracted from her overall appearance in a way. The other image was a man of some twenty-eight years or so. His hair was burnished red. He like the young woman was dressed as a noble or even a noble royal. The assassin took the image of the young man and put it in a cloak pocket. He spent some time looking at her hairbrush, her hand mirror and the perfume bottles there. He took a strand of her hair from the brush. Others, more inclined to certain kinds of nefarious castings might have secreted the hair for a purpose most foul. Some might have kept it to prove where they had been. Another might have taken the strand to put among other takings, a kind of rogue’s gallery of accomplished thefts of small value but great importance. This assassin just looked at it for a time. It was the Colour and sensation of touching it that was important to him. A noise at the door drew his attentiveness from the strand of hair. It fell gently to the floor as he moved to the slightly open door that led to the main room.     Two women had entered the room. One had left before he had made it to the door. Alone in the room was the queen. She was adorned with the trapping of majesty. In her case this was more to promote ornamentation than power. Her headdress was an elaborate conjuration of material that spoke of sunsets across a boundless series of oceans, golden and haze-enhanced blues. Graceful curving arcs of metal swirled around the outside of her face. These served her as doting courtiers might, complimenting her fine features. There was little misdirection in the design. The queen needed no artful arrangement to disguise flaws in her countenance. Things hidden were promises of more not less. Across her body a mystic veil draped to conceal only what modesty demanded. In certain places, parts of her almost revealed themselves as immodesty contrived. To say that she was beauteous was to suggest that the universe was a good place for something to happen. Of all the wonder at her appearance, the most confronting was that she was born of Chaos. Such perfection is meant to be a thing of ordered creation. A culmination of many things all aligning into a state of harmony. Yet there were none – none living, none created, none drawn by a master of conjuring or summoned from planes distant, none of the veiled places -- who seeing Syrynx, Queen of Chaos, that would dare to say there was another more than she.             The assassin already knew this about Syrynx. He had seen her before. Not as often as he would have wished but surely enough to be less affected by her appearance than one seeing her for a first time. She did not notice him, even as he widened the space between the door and its frame. He could have attempted to move closer. She might not hear him, as his ability at coming upon someone from behind was well advanced. He did not broker a change in his position. He had to watch her as she continued to be unaware of him. He noted the many whorls of castelight that moved across her shoulders. Like animated tattoos, these abstractions painted Chaos along her skin. She wrote on to a parchment, thoughts that she needed to make certain she did not forget. Impressions of the other three potential rulers of a unified Chaos. The marks she made on the parchment came from her quill but only partially out of the bottle of gleaming ink that sat alongside the writing. The majority of the ‘script’ descended her arm, the swirling castelight flowed down her arm and hand, seemingly sliding from her index finger to join with the ink from the quill and on to the page. On the page, the strangely impenetrable curving lines continued to move much like a gathering of illuminated serpents on a rug. The assassin might have stood there for a time. Syrynx gradually realised that someone stood behind her. She did not leap to her feet or react nervously at her quarters being invaded. She glanced over her shoulder at the assassin and said, “Come, stand before me, man. I am not fond of men who stand astride my threshold without invitation.”     Syrynx might as well have called the assassin, “Slave” or “Minimal”. She said “man” with no less depreciation in her tone. The assassin had never intended to strike. He did as bid and moved to be before the queen. Once there, Syrynx looked most directly at him. She allowed a period of time for him to truly see her. She was almost surprised that he could meet her eyes. They were veiled in a way that spoke to anyone looking into them. They spoke of things barely perceived. In their murky, foggy depths one might apprehend a desire or a fear or a thing unrealised but important to the seer. It was an irony that her eyes were cloudy and not sharp and clear as they, showed so much within them. The assassin lowered his hood from his face. He hoped there might be something for her to notice as he did. The queen’s features did not change, not even imperceptibly. There was a change in her tone. A slight lifting of the disdain she had used as she said, “Not only a man, a Final Man. Tell me why are you here? Why have you brought yourself to my side?”     “I’d hoped it would be obvious.”     Syrynx looked straight through the assassin and spoke, “I have buried the Logresse. I am Queen of Chaos. Should I need to use power to know who or what you are?”     Instead of answering the unanswerable, the assassin produced an object that shone dull silver as he tossed it to the middle of the captain’s table. It was a symbol of the Lethal in the shape of a ‘V’.     Syrynx said, “A device of a portion of Humanity. They are renowned slayers, the best of assassins. Are you one of these Lethal then?”     “It was a gift from my father.”     “It is you. I had to let you show it. This is a risk to come before me as you are now composed… What you did… Your sacrifice and taking the existence of Deignghaul. This was most foolish.” Her words were spoken appropriately for a ruler -- her expression was not. It said that she was proud of his actions. Her actions were not regal either. She transformed her appearance of wondrous beauty into that of motherly care; eyes clear and piercing and full of composed care. Her lips parted to tell her son of things he needed to hear. Not comforting words but necessary words, if he were to be able to be near to her. Words needed to prompt him. Words that he should hear to understand what he was and what he might need to be. When he heard some of these things, he knew. He realised that she could not be anything but a queen but at that she might be reachable as she had not been ever before. This was almost as great a thing to the man as if she had praised him and held him to her as she had not, even when he had been without memory.      

    Afterward, the man said he needed to gain some replacements for the many things he had lost in his sacrifice. Syrynx told him that the sacrifice was done and that as long as things were replaced and not restored, all would be well. He then mentioned his intention to join to a Colour. His mother agreed this made sense. He already had learned to both of their casual amusement that the Colour and he were almost ordained to be together. He had already taken an alias that called to the Colour of his choice: Grey. It was also the Colour taken by the Lethal and they were the group of Final Men that were both assassins and founded by the queen’s husband and the assassin ‘Grey’s’, father.     There was talk of the mortal world of Miranse. Syrynx reiterated her plan to conquer this or lose the fight but that she would not leave the fight for any cause. She made it clear that he must be her vanguard as he could no longer stand beside her. The Profane would find that too odd, too unworthy. The saving grace of this is that as her vassal, he might occasionally be allowed to speak with her, if he merited such honour. There was much talk of Valetta and the importance of keeping himself apart from the Landing as the courtiers there would react negatively if they penetrated his guise of Humanity. His would be a part to play of arrangements. Making the world ready to receive its “Last Queen”. She would be the last regardless of result. There was much to consider for Grey in all this. Syrynx then told him that his plan to join a Colour -- to seek the Grey – could be made swiftly. He could stowaway aboard the ship. She would order it to return to the Greyplane, home of the Profane. He would need to act quickly but make away at their arrival and then find his place within the Grey. He saw this was a thing he had not planned for but welcomed nonetheless. She went to order the crew to make ready to sail. Grey went to the bedchamber and replaced the portrait he had taken with the medallion of the Lethal. The ‘Song’ departed the isle.

    Grey swam atop the Sea of Chaos. Only his head protruded from the sea of his and all his kinds’ birth. He was a speck amidst an unending grey swathe of white-tipped stars. His mother’s flagship receded from him. He made it ashore. Smoothed grey stones, rounded by the action of the near-eternal Chaos sea, slid away from his boot soles. He moved in the only direction he could. This was to a path, close against the cliff-face it hung from. The path was little use for much more than a nesting place for shoreline birds but it had to be enough. Once he came to its end atop the Greyplane, he saw a view that made him stop. He stared at the place before him. He had seen it before but only in a vision. He turned and there as he knew there would be, stood Ipnacre.           The fiend who was somehow not a fiend of his long-ago vision. Grey finally comprehended some of the sight he had been given. Ipnacre was not a fiend because he hadn’t existed in the Second Realm. That was when the visions had shown their sights to Grey. Ipnacre had been but a possible thing, removed from Grey by not only distance but time and reality. Ipnacre greeted Grey as he had before. Spoke of how things were different now and yet unchanged in serious aspects. Grey said he had come to join to the Grey of Colour. Ipnacre nodded knowingly as that had been the destiny he had hinted at in that vanished time.     Behind Ipnacre stood his tower. Ipnacre said they should make their way to it. Once there, he indicated to Grey that there were many pathways to choose from but all led to Grey. It seemed to not matter but at the same time it seemed most vital to select a route through to Grey. Ipnacre entreated Grey to remember that what might have been was lost. Things were changed now that he was not of Chaos. As a Human, Ipnacre must fight against Grey’s desires. A resolution would see one or the other defeated. Ipnacre did not wish this any more than Grey did. There was no denying that they were now on sides that were opposed. Ipnacre and Grey left it at that: a resolve to delay this unhappy ending as long as could be managed and to indicate prior to this moment, what things were important to each other by way of a symbol, so that they might leave these things unharmed if possible.     Grey left Ipnacre to stride into the Greyness that led to the heart of the Colour. After some choices of route to take, Grey came to an upstairs section of a ruined, blasted building. The high gothic arches of the structure gave way to a similarly towering, set of dead trees. Beneath the trees a Saursan caster stood. He was politely distant but did name Grey, “Grey”, before Grey had revealed this. He motioned into the dead trees and told Grey that that was the way to Grey’s heart. Grey saw little reason to delay. He moved on.           After some time, the trees parted. At the centre clearing, a single uprooted tree lay on its side. Either end was hidden by a seething, Grey mist. While the mist came up only to just above his ankles, moving through it made him feel like he was some kind of gargantuan striding across an alien ocean. He strode toward the fallen tree. On the other side of the same tree, approaching him, stepped a human-sized figure. Perhaps slower of step but the other must have started before him, so that he was closer than Grey to the broken tree. The figure reached the tree first. Got over on to the same side that Grey approached and awaited Grey there. Grey could make out that the figure was a regal kind of figure, dressed in grey. His head was covered by a veil that revealed only that its wearer breathed out when he spoke. The veil was held to the figure’s head by a simple crown. Like the Saursan before, this ‘man’ knew Grey’s name. He spoke of a battle distantly related to this place and then wished Grey safe walking on to the heart of Grey. He indicated the direction lay in the same direction Grey had been going.             The forest disappeared on the other side, replaced by endlessly tall draperies of deep grey. Each of those draperies crossed by him, led to others. It was a gently swaying maze. When most would be unsure of where they had been, he saw a figure sat before him, lit by a single overhead source of light grey light. Grey knelt in front of the figure.             They spoke.     “Greetings, Grey… “All come to Grey… that is the uncertainty of their design. In this, they see that All impossibilities are possible.” The seated figure said.     “Do I address the Colour of Grey?”     “I am Grey.”     “I wish to join with you.”     “Then you are, Grey,”     “I would like to see myself empowered if possible.”     “You shall be whatever you feel is your required need. I would not tell you. Grey does not teach. You must know yourself. In knowing, Grey will be what you need.”     “I have lost much of what I was. I am skilled with death. I am able to kill.”     “This is your gift, Grey. This is not something you need to make more than it is. Grey should make something of what is lacking.”     “I do have a need… I am something of a maker of schemes. If I could gain some way to improve this ability…”     “Grey, this will be. You shall gain this connivance from me… Now that you have this, look upon your nemesis. This one is known as, the Grey Gifted. The larger one is his subordinate, the Magistratus. They will seek to destroy everything you make.”           “I think I understand.”     “You now have what you need.”     “Yes. I believe that is all for now.”     “It is… Now speak of where, of all places you wish to go next. Grey will wake you there.”     “Valetta.”     Grey stood just outside of Valetta.     Mist of the colour of the plane he had just departed spread out from where he stood to a distance of fifty feet. As he considered this, an orange pyramidal structure arose from the Grey mist and stopped rising only when it had advanced seven feet out of the fog. The pyramid’s side descended to reveal a pooling of water inside. Standing knee deep in the water was Cantriq, sister to the Queen of Chaos.     “The mist of our home hides our words. We need speak of things personal before it dissipates. Let us speak of your wife. Psythic, yes?”     “Yes. I had not dared to ask after her. I assume she is dead. If not dead, then I assumed that my mother might have asked her to marry again. There aren’t many of the Courts left. Arrangements would need to be made.”     “Your wife lives. It seems you would be surprised to learn that she has remained loyal to your memory, even in death.” Cantriq waited until Grey had come to terms with this news.     She continued, “She took a vow. The Vow of Ill-Limitation. This was a sacrifice to rival your own. She has lost her ability to seed change. She was held fast. Stuck.     In a small, personal way, Psythic altered her reality and that of those closest to her. Such a powerful act is most demanding. She has saved what she could from Deignghaul’s less than pleasant intentions for her offspring. He managed to kill your son… mad your daughter, who was his wife and mother of his children… Now you will feel even more glad that you spent your chaosblood as you did. For myself, I will hate you forever for making me witness that death. I watched you slay him and you die, you know. That’s how you were returned to your mother so readily. Psythic is no longer what she was. She has undone herself in a way that can not be restored. In doing so she has managed to save what little is left of your shared offspring. There is one…one of your three grandchildren still alive. Deignghaul would have struck him down if not for what she did. Saumryx lives despite his father murdering his siblings and mother. He lives despite his grandfather murdering his father. I do not know what this has done to Saumryx. He may well be formed into whatever he is by these events.   Let us talk of other things. Other families. Amber will need to be dealt with in the coming conflict. I would soirely love to fight among those Bariemn. You are like them now. Final men, all of you. Between you and Furius and the Amberites, a resolution will need to be made.”       “I have adopted Benedict.”     “Choke...”     “That is, we have an understanding.”     “That’s less affronting. I imagine Benedict might object to you being his father. Something will certainly need to be figured out. Is their interest in Spansis still?”     “They may not be as interested as they once were.”     “Remember that the four cities are in a contest that will see only one emerge as the Great City.”     “Yes,”     “I have been released upon the mortal world. To make ready for the Last Queen’s arrival. Syrynx will come and reside among the Races. This is her plan. Bold and dangerous. You and I will need to determine where the pitfalls of such a play of the game are. I trust you will prepare yourself for this.”     “I have some idea.”       “That’s good. Now we can head to the city.”       “There’s just one thing I need?”       Cantriq looked at Grey’s face. He kept it impassive. He hoped she would act from within herself…       “Oh alright! Come here.” Grey moved to hug her but she instead took his shoulders and placed a kiss on his forehead.       “Let’s see what Valetta holds for us in the way of sleeping arrangements. I don’t need sleep. You do… What’s it like anyway?”       Grey began to tell her but he struggled to describe the nature of sleep’s release as it was new to him. He continued to try to tell her, all the way down the hillside road that took them into Valetta’s centre.