Part 4

Even I had to admit that the Realm of Scryuune was an experience. There are no actual words that I could use to describe it even now. Thousands of libraries, information centers, and beautiful parks welcomed us. There were people of all skin-colors, cultures, religions, and nationalities here. The one thing that they had in common were the wrist-pouches they wore for their own stylized Pens, and the Books they carried under their arms. Knowledge had no discrimination here. Most of the buildings were beautiful as well, inscribed so thoroughly with layers of powerful Runes that they glowed brightly even at night.

It was quite the shock for me. Then again, the whole experience getting there was a shock. My Master took me to the Scrybinder district where she had me officially affiliated with the Guild. There was a slight problem when she said I was to have Apprentice-rank and I had to prove my skills to them. In the end, I was accepted although many wondered what sect I would eventually join.

For the most part, I studied under my Master and learned Words of power that would help me gain vengeance on those who had hurt me. It was all I could think about, drowning out even the pleasant sight of this place. Every time I went through a park, I thought of walking beside Victorie, of sharing the things I learned with her ... of just being with her. The pain didn't subside—it only worsened. My people back home had poisoned this moment for me. It was another thing I would make them pay for in all due time.

"Come with me," my Master told me one day as we left her chambers, "I am going to show you a secret."

We came to a wall, and my Master whispered her runes. The wall vanished and revealed a dark tunnel. We traveled down the tunnel and through many catacombs before we came to another chamber with a desk, and many dark-covered Books. My Master gestured around us. "This was a secret archive that belonged to a sect long-since dead called the Dark-wryters. It was here that they stored much of their knowledge—knowledge that will help your quest."

I couldn't help but be curious. "Where are they now?"

"Dead, I suppose," she replied. "They were originally made to stop the Chaoscrybes—some uncontrolled, possibly insane wryters. That was why I came for you back in your Realm, to make sure the pain in your head didn't drive you mad and make you into one of them. Let us just say that the Dark-wryters had ... questionable methods. The Guild exiled and killed many of them—threatened by their power. I found this place years ago through some old archives. After all, a Scrybinder cannot learn how to fix something if she doesn't know of the damages that are possible. You do promise not to tell anyone of this place?"

"Yes. If you keep your word."

She nodded, "Remember two things from this recent discovery, my Apprentice. Everything has two sides to it—a double meaning. You will learn here things are never what they seem—that even the most literal word can have another meaning entirely."

I drew in her cryptic words. "What are you trying to say?"

"When you go to take your vengeance, do not rush into it blindly," she replied. "Use this knowledge I have given you, and the power that I will give you to plan out what you want. I know you are hurt, but you must not let emotion cloud your judgment. Let emotion be an essence harnessed by form—the form of strategy and careful thought," my Master put a hand on my shoulder, "Assess your situation and your skills, then act. I ask you this because I want you to promise me something."

"What exactly?"

"That you return from this alive. Mistakes of this nature can be fatal. Sometimes vengeance can be one's only motive for living. And when it is gone ... what will you do then?"

There was no answer I could give her. I hadn't even given it a thought. What would there be after I did what I had to do?

"You have more potential that you realize. Do not waste it on a meaningless death," her eyes shone, and with gentle, spidery fingers she caressed my cheek, "I already lost one Apprentice, and I do not want to lose another."

"Understood," I was surprised at the intensity behind my Master's voice. "I will do as you say."

"That is all I ask." To this day, I have no real name for the force or emotion that motivated her actions that day.

From that moment on, I studied the forbidden lore there—and prepared.

I did explore Scryuune a bit more. Sometimes I would go for very long walks and reflect on my life, and what I had become. Other times I would do so in order to think of some new ideas for Words. It was one of the former days that I was walking, and I came across a strange sight.

There was an old man in white robes leaning on his wooden staff. He seemed to be waiting for me in the Scrybinder district. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was a Guardian—the highest form of Scrybinder and the equivalent of a Grandmaster. The only times I saw them were when they silently moved about the Scrybinder Archives—guarding them from others to see. I approached the old one.

"There is a great hatred within you, Apprentice," the old man stated, his ancient craggy visage was honest in its years. "A hatred strong enough to not even be placated by Scryuune's Runes of Guardianship. How fascinating ... and how sad," he ended off. I didn't sense even a hint of jibe in his last comment, however.

The power that surrounded the Guardian impressed me, bathing me in its centuries of wisdom and healing. Despite my afflicted soul, I could respect the years of healing and repair that the old Scrybinder put into everything. But I did not stand down. I looked him in the eyes and said, "I don't mean you harm. Even if I did, the city's Runes keep me from violence. As you said, I am merely an Apprentice, and you a Guardian. What would you have to fear from me?"

"I am not so sure of that," whether he meant myself of the effectiveness of the Runes, I will never know. "We fear nothing." There was no defiance or arrogance in his tone, just a calm serenity. "But as a Guardian, it pains me to see a Story such as yours in twain."

That was what Scrybinders did. They repaired the works of other Scrybes—correcting grammar and spelling errors that would otherwise neutralize the effectiveness of their creations, or cause contradictions with horrifying consequences. They also added onto one's wrytings, reinforcing their ideas and words, making them more powerful. But the Guardians took it one step further than their juniors. They saw everything in a much broader, and yet so much microcosmic sense.

Like the other Guild Grandmasters, they recognized everything as the Greater Story, but they also saw the Minor Stories in the forms of Realms and people, and how they interacted with each other to make a larger Plot. They also were able to see the flaws in everything, and could even correct potentially disastrous Errors and damage in the Greater Story before they could occur. While the more inexperienced Scrybinders repaired texts, and runes, the Guardians could almost influence Fate itself—the fate of Realms, and of individuals.

It was a pity that it didn't save them from their own destruction.

The old one seemed to be pondering something. Finally, he said, "Come with me, boy." I was somewhat startled. "Shouldn't my Master know?"

"She will know," answered the Guardian. "Perhaps there is something that you should see."

The old man began to walk back into the Guardian sanctum, his silver-zephyr cloak flapping behind his robed body silently. I stood there, knowing he wanted me to follow him, but I hesitated. The old man turned. "Are you coming, boy?"

It was not every day that one of the Guardians offered to show someone the inside of their domain, never mind a lowly Apprentice. And so, I followed him. He moved fast for an old man, reaching the sanctum gate before I. He raised his staff, and a rune glittered on its grainy surface, igniting a similar rune on the gate. It swung open and we went inside.

It was dark in those halls—the sheer age of them dwarfing even the Guardian that I followed. He nodded wordlessly to many fellow Guardians, and they let us pass toward another door—drifting silently away from us like white-shrouded specters.

The chamber we entered was vast—and darker than the halls we had passed. It felt as though I was walking on nothing—a sheer pit of nothing. And yet I didn't fall. As we were walking through the majestic gloom, we went past many objects suspended in midair—some of them recognizable like Pens, and Books, but there were strange statues and artifacts that were unfamiliar to me as well.

Finally, we approached a circle of seven Guardians. They formed an ivory ring around what appeared to be a large, red Book with golden threads that seemed faintly serpentine. As did the ones outside, the Guardians didn't say a word as we approached.

"This is a place very few see. We contain things here that could be very dangerous. Even the smallest trinket here could destroy a whole Realm," weighed by the enormity of his words, I nodded until he asked, "and did your Master teach you about Scrybal lore?"

"You mean the history of the Guild? Yes."

"That is only part of it," the Guardian looked at the hovering Book with its deep crimson cover,

"Many a millennia ago, before our Guild existed, the Realms were in primordial anarchy. Wryters did exist in those times, though. But they were different from those you see now.

"They were our ancestors, in some ways, learning how to find the Words that would correspond with the Greater Story. They were also power-mad," his cowl stared away from me. "These individuals were so consumed by their ability, they destroyed themselves and everyone around them. But the most powerful among them ... they dared something so terrible it would leave their mark on us forever. They proclaimed themselves gods ... and went as far as to act as such."

I recalled something then. "The seventh Scrybal Moral Obligatory Code—Scrybes shall neither deify themselves nor associate themselves with divinity."

"They were the reason we created that seventh rule, and it was with good reason that we did so. These individuals tampered with Creation at such a fundamental level that they lost themselves to the element that they sought. It was when they found what they were looking for that horrors beyond descriptions occurred. Some say that the Great Story itself was made from Chaos. And so we named them Chaoscrybes."

That name was definitely familiar. "They still exist today, don't they?"

"Yes, although they are much scarcer these days, thank the Wryter. They are the reason we put Runes of Stabilization on those we encounter with the latent ability to wryte, like your Master put one on you. The headaches that they experience when their power develops can drive them mad and they scribble words they do not understand—mad scribbles. Long ago, there were those among us who wanted Chaoscrybes killed so that they would be of no threat to anyone. This led to their own downfall and would ... lead to much more pain among us."

"Why have you brought me here?"

"To see this," he walked up to the Book and touched it. It began to open. The other Guardians raised their rune-inscribed palms against it. And then I felt wonder ... wonder and horror all at the same instant. Images beyond description exploded through my mind—terrible things, beautiful things, wondrous manifestations that screamed in a violent joy beyond any human comprehension. They might have been images, but they were without definition ... perhaps they had been feelings ... or both. Whatever it was, there was fine, crystalline elegance to the explosions that I both visualized and felt.

I felt so alive—and so aware of my own insignificance beside this feat of primal Creation.

Then, just as suddenly, it stopped. The Book's blood-red cover slammed shut on its writhing orange pages. Whatever the Book had summoned up had been locked away from the physical world. But never again would it fade from my mind's eye. The old Guardian looked weary as he glanced at me from the depths of his hood. "That ... was the creation of a Chaoscrybe whose name and existence are unknown."

"What was it for?" I nearly gasped.

"It might have been a life-tomb," seeing that I didn't understand, he explained, "We all have them, in some way. Even you do. Life-tomes contain the personal history of a Scrybe and it also tells of what powerful knowledge he or she has discovered through the years of experimentation. The more potent the Runic vocabulary, the more potent the Scrybe, and the more powerful his life-tomb is. You, my friend, are only beginning yours in that notebook you carry under your arm."

"That might have been his life?"

"Or his mind or the ideas within it. Perhaps it became one and the same in the end," his eyes glimmered in sorrow. "We keep all such artifacts here under our care so that we can either try to repair them or better understand the forces of Chaos that we fight against. Some times ... we show them to others ..."

"W-why do you show this?" I tried with every inch of my being to make my knees stop shaking.

I knew then that when he spoke, the Guardian's words would forever be immortal to me. "To display both the depths of grandeur and madness that this work is capable of ... to serve as a reminder of what wonders can be wrought without any limitations upon raw emotion ... and as a warning to those who would pay the price ... a price much too high. It is the price of power. There is more we must show you."

Those words haunted me for a long time. But they were nothing ... nothing compared to the power of that Book. I read other things in the chamber, and found out more about the relationship between the late Dark-wryters and the Chaoscrybes. I knew that what I saw would burn in me.

Forever.

For a long time, I mulled over what the Guardians had made me privy to. I had some serious choices to make, and now, my mind was not as clouded by hatred. What I had seen in their Archives shook me to the very core. Victorie ... I was glad she hadn't lived to see what I had seen. I knew that I was dabbling in arts that were banned by the Guild, and that I stood at the proverbial edge of a pit. One step forward, or one step back?

I began to think that perhaps vengeance was not the answer I was looking for. Victorie would never have wanted me to waste my life to avenge her death. The Theocracy ... my father was not worth the effort to destroy. My goal had been a petty one; I was now a different person with a new start. I had a chance to start over, if only we could have together ... I still wasn't sure; my soul in turmoil.

Then one day, I came to my Master's lair. She looked distraught over something. "My Apprentice," my Master whispered. "There is something I must tell you. Now is time for your vengeance."

I nodded. I was about to tell her that I was unsure, that I would not act just yet. My Master still kept her back to me.

"There is one other thing," I was silent as I waited for her to say her mind. Something was wrong here. "Victorie ..."

"Yes?"

"She is alive."

I froze. "What?"

"When we left your Realm, they didn't kill her. My sources tell me that ... they took her, and have held her."

Something inside me twisted. All that time ... all that ...

"Take me there," I hissed. "Now."

She nodded and pointed to a corridor I had never been down. "There is a Warp Gate there that the oldest sect used for their work. It will take you to where you need to go."

So I plunged into the darkness, not knowing what anything was about anymore ... but, by the Word, I would find her. I summoned every shred of hope in my being—hoping that if she had borne a child, it had not been a son.