Turpis, who the intervention of the higher deity had trapped in his familiar 'human' form, paced around the edge of the cavern, thumbing a string of beads through his fingers. He peered at the Senon who had cornered him, silhouetted by the light from the cavern's mouth. Like himself, the Senon was half-way to godhood, but unlike himself had been raised by the direct intervention of a deity rather than the fruit of his own labours. He ran his fingers across the cavern wall; heightened senses told him that the higher god had barred escape by teleportation within the confines of the cave. Still, he had the advantage of concealment and thanks to the page of the Codex he still carried, a few other tricks up his sleeve.
Turpis spoke, the currents of air in the cavern wafting and warping and giving the impression that he spoke from several different angles at once. It was a parlour trick, but he could not afford his voice to betray his position.
"Mercy? What mercy did your master have in mind, Thurasa? A swift death? Or perhaps a return to our glorious society, where you would have me be a slave?"
"There is no slavery amongst the Senon!" Thurasa called out, lifting the sword's tip from the ground and pacing forward cautiously into the darkness. "That is reserved for those of the kind whose form
you take, Turpise'Niaané."
"My name is Turpis," growled the hidden demiurge. He caught himself and switched back to a more jovial tone. "Still, I'm happy for you that you believe that. It is a pleasant fiction."
"The truth is no fiction," said Thurasa, swinging the sword low by the ground in search of hidden obstacles or traps.
"There you are mistaken, Thura. 'Truth' is the greatest of all fictions. I should know, I work with it on a daily basis. How do you know what the Truth is, Thura?"
"Thurasa," said the crusader calmly, though her eye twitched slightly at the name. "I know what the truth is because unlike you,
Turpise, I know the difference between right and wrong. Rotarn allows me to... see."
Thurasa'Seaané struck the floor of the cavern sharply with the tip of her sword, a brilliant white flame tinged with strokes of crimson running through the blade. Darkness fled before it and Thurasa brought the sword up and lunged, striking Turpis in the heart. She cursed sharply as the form splintered and cracked before her, pulling the sword away from the mirrored surface. Turning swiftly with her sword raised, she was greeted by a thousand images of the trickster ranging at her from every mirror-like facet of the cave.
"If Rotarn allows you to see," said the pacing image of the errant Senon, thumbing the beads in his hand, "then permit me to share a viewpoint. Who taught you what was right and what was wrong? Rotarn. Who gave us our powers and then chained us with the morality not to use them? Rotarn. Who kept you within His grasp and moulded you as He saw fit? Rotarn. Rotarn did not create this world, Thura, He merely stumbled upon it. He isn't of it, He wasn't born here. We
were." The form turned suddenly and took a few sidesteps, setting Thurasa on edge as she studied the mirrored reflections for clues to the traitor's presence.
"Do you even remember mortality?" Turpis asked suddenly. The question took Thurasa by surprise.
"Of course I do," she answered stiffly.
"What was it like?"
"I see no reason to tell you, deceiver."
"Humour me," said Turpis' image as it drew a circle on one of the walls with its finger. Thura looked around for the circle and found it marked with a darkened ring around the spot where she had shattered the cavern rock.
"I would rather not," she said, marking the spot as a point of reference.
"Then allow me to take a guess. You were special, not quite like the others. Apart from them, perhaps you thought above, though I'm sure you would never admit to such. You took to heart Rotarn's teachings very literally, strode through the world seeing it through the filters of right and wrong. How am I doing?"
Thurasa was silent, though her eye was twitching again. She lunged at an image of Turpis and it ducked to the side, her blade scraping real fabric for a moment before she lost track of the demiurge again.
"Lucky," muttered Turpis darkly before resuming his more casual tone. "Eventually the day came when Rotarn Himself noticed your drive. He branded you a 'Crusader', the first of your kind. No doubt He called you a shining light, a beacon to the world. Were you proud of that? Proud enough to forge your own weapon in celebration," he said, nodding towards Thurasa's sword.
"The Senon are far from closed-minded," said Thurasa, circling the cave in search of her mark.
"Oh, I know, we would hardly have spread across the world if we were not." Turpis' eyes hardened. "But
you are, Thurasa. You would have us all bend to your rules, to your right and wrong, whether we wished to or not. Don't try and tell me that 'sword', as you call it, is for defence alone. You seek out those you consider wrong and bring them to an end, without a care for their free will."
"They cared little for the free will of those they harmed," replied Thurasa harshly.
"That does not excuse you, though."
"What of those
you brought to their ends? I see your little collection there is growing." Turpis fingered the little string of beads absently.
"They were given a choice. Yes, certainly I trapped them, but their own weaknesses and 'vice' as you might call it led them there. My method preserved freedom, Thurasa. The freedom to take the consequences. Everyone should have free choice, Thurasa. Even you."
Thurasa turned and found Turpis, the
real Turpis, stood in front of her holding a mirrored circle of glass.
"Here is an enemy of more danger to you and your cause than I. I have no quarrel with your master if He makes no quarrel with me, but I take issue where the matter of free will is concerned."
Turpis, who the intervention of the higher deity had trapped in his familiar 'human' form, paced around the edge of the cavern, thumbing a string of beads through his fingers. He peered at the Senon who had cornered him, silhouetted by the light from the cavern's mouth. Like himself, the Senon was half-way to godhood, but unlike himself had been raised by the direct intervention of a deity rather than the fruit of his own labours. He ran his fingers across the cavern wall; heightened senses told him that the higher god had barred escape by teleportation within the confines of the cave. Still, he had the advantage of concealment and thanks to the page of the Codex he still carried, a few other tricks up his sleeve.
Turpis spoke, the currents of air in the cavern wafting and warping and giving the impression that he spoke from several different angles at once. It was a parlour trick, but he could not afford his voice to betray his position.
"Mercy? What mercy did your master have in mind, Thurasa? A swift death? Or perhaps a return to our glorious society, to being a slave again?"
"There is no slavery amongst the Senon!" Thurasa called out, lifting the sword's tip from the ground and pacing forward cautiously into the darkness. "That is reserved for those of the kind whose form you take, Turpise'Niaané."
"My name is Turpis," growled the hidden demiurge. He caught himself and switched back to a more jovial tone. "Still, I'm happy for you that you believe that. It is a pleasant fiction."
"The truth is no fiction," said Thurasa, swinging the sword low by the ground in search of hidden obstacles or traps.
"There you are mistaken, Thura. 'Truth' is the greatest of all fictions. I should know, I work with it on a daily basis. How do you know what the Truth is, Thura?"
"Thurasa," said the crusader calmly, though her eye twitched slightly at the name. "I know what the truth is because unlike you, Turpise, I know the difference between right and wrong. Rotarn allows me to... see."
Thurasa'Seaané struck the floor of the cavern sharply with the tip of her sword, a brilliant white flame tinged with strokes of crimson running through the blade. Darkness fled before it and Thurasa brought the sword up and lunged, striking Turpis in the heart. She cursed sharply as the form splintered and cracked before her, pulling the sword away from the mirrored surface. Turning swiftly with her sword raised, she was greeted by a thousand images of the trickster ranging at her from every mirror-like facet of the cave.
"If Rotarn allows you to see," said the pacing image of the errant Senon, thumbing the beads in his hand, "then permit me to share a viewpoint. Who taught you what was right and what was wrong? Rotarn. Who gave us our powers and then chained us with the morality not to use them? Rotarn. Who kept you within His grasp and moulded you as He saw fit? Rotarn. Rotarn did not create this world, Thura, He merely stumbled upon it. He isn't of it, He wasn't born here. We were." The form turned suddenly and took a few sidesteps, setting Thurasa on edge as she studied the mirrored reflections for clues to the traitor's presence.
"Do you even remember mortality?" Turpis asked suddenly. The question took Thurasa by surprise.
"Of course I do," she answered stiffly.
"What was it like?"
"I see no reason to tell you, deceiver."
"Humour me," said Turpis' image as it drew a circle on one of the walls with its finger. Thura looked around for the circle and found it marked with a darkened ring around the spot where she had shattered the cavern rock.
"I would rather not," she said, marking the spot as a point of reference.
"Then allow me to take a guess. You were born to fortune, your family a part of the crusader sect. Maybe you were a crusader's daughter, maybe you were from a family of administrators. You grew up in the chaptergrounds like all good Senon children, learning from the elders the ways of Right and Wrong, of Morality. Who knows, maybe you have some fond memories of sleeping in the trees and foraging berries for your belly, or hunting small game for the masters' tables. How am I doing so far?"
Thurasa was silent, though her eye was twitching again. She lunged at an image of Turpis and it ducked to the side, her blade scraping real fabric for a moment before she lost track of the demiurge again.
"Lucky," muttered Turpis darkly before resuming his more casual tone. "Eventually the day came when you were of age and tried by the masters in your skills and knowledge of the teachings. You excelled, of course, and were inducted as a crusader-in-training. You were given the freedom to leave the chaptergrounds, to experience the world armed with your training and with your indoctrination. How did you find it?"
"Dark," replied Thurasa honestly. "Ignorant, unprincipled but with pockets of light."
"That's how you've been trained to see it, yes," agreed Turpis, "though I take issue with 'ignorant'. The world outside the chaptergrounds embraces knowledge, Thura, it embraces understanding. It does not shut it out with petty notions of right and wrong, with fear of the unknown. If the Crusaders had nothing to fear from what the outside world could teach, why would they closet you away from it for so many years?"
"Truth," he pronounced, "is the greatest fiction. We are born into a world that is dark and terrible, where we are little more than playthings for the Gods and prey for their twisted creations. In the chaptergrounds we are bred to ignore this, true ignorance unlike what we are made to believe the outside world is filled with. We are given wholly arbitrary concepts of how to live life, then when we discover that the remainder of the world does not adhere to them, what do we do? What the Crusaders train us to do, Thura. Stalk amongst the other races in their guise, kill, maim and convert those who do not follow our belief. We are slaves, Thura, slaves to these beliefs, and by the work of the Crusaders we make others slaves to them to."
"We bring light to the world!" shouted Thurasa, her patience finally snapping under Turpis' words. She swung her sword in anger, cracking another of the silvery cavern walls.
"You bring suffering and bloodshed," said Turpis coldly. "What is worse, you bring it in the name of justice and benevolence, a hypocrisy far greater than any I could concoct. Unlike the Crusaders, I do not shut my eyes to the parts of the world that displease me. I accept and embrace all truth, Thura, strange as you may find that to be, but it is all truth. Not just that which I wish were true."
"Was that on your mind when you entrapped those souls in your bargains?" Thurasa countered, eyeing the beads in Turpis' hand.
"To a degree, but I did not force their souls into my hand. I gave them a choice. That they chose poorly is a risk that comes with free will, but it did come with free will. Everyone should have free will, Thura. Even you."
Thurasa turned and found Turpis, the real Turpis, stood in front of her holding a mirrored circle of glass.
"Make me Rotarn's offer, with real terms, if you wish, but here is a counter-offer for you personally. Give up this futile chase, Thura. Your efforts are wasted trying to catch me when the real darkness is in the blindness of our people. Go to them instead, show them a better way. Open their eyes. If you are anything more than a puppet at Rotarn's hands, if you have any free will, it is the path you will choose."
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Topic: Third Lords of Creation (Read 28412 times)