The Sirens go to Church Door Cove Sequence. PART 1
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“They broke the rules of the Hunt!” Jynn’s voice rang out from the centre of the Circle. “They violated the sacred oath. The oath we all took in the name of the Mothers, to do no harm to a member of another Family. When I made my mark on the human and claimed him as my prize that should have been the end of it. Yet in that moment The Many did not stop. They were moving to attack us.
Were Peck’s actions reckless? Undoubtedly.
Did she brake that oath? Yes.
No-one, least of all my apprentice, would deny that. But she acted instinctively and only to protect her fellows. Only to ensure the sanctity of the Hunt and only after The Many refused to yield!
Her actions need to be judged, and by the Mothers The Collectoris will judge them, but she acted with an honour and a courage that seems to be sorely lacking in the Circle at this moment.”
Jynn, stood proudly at the crystalline centre of the Circle and placed her hand on Peck’s shoulder. She looked at her apprentice, the youngster’s face coloured by doubt and uncertainty. You are a foolish girl. But you see this universe in a way that I don’t, in a way I cannot even pretend to understand, Jynn smiled at Peck. I may be older and wiser but I have to admit that I am set in my ways. I see something bright and terrifying in you, Peck, something I think we will all need in the future. Peck tried to smile back at Jynn.
“She will be judged here, in The Circle. I will not have squirreled away to your school. Her crimes must be answered,” S’Uba’s voice filled the chamber like a thunder cloud.
“What of the crimes committed by The Many?” The Herald stepped forward. “Will you judge them too? Or is that for another day?”
Jynn looked up at The Herald. His edges pulsed with a delicate silvery lace, a strange mix of deference and defiance. Be careful Herald, Jynn thought as she turned to look at S’Uba. You’re playing a dangerous game. If you are right about all this then she is a coiled viper, and she is sitting at the top of a pretty big nest!
Silence slowly wrapped itself around the Circle, starlight trembled just beyond the shifting crystal walls. S’Uba stood calm and impassive, like one of the stones at the marsh portal. Should she strike down the young Collectoris now and be done with it? These mewling little exchanges were so petty. Aeons of this kind of nonsense. Arguments and feuds and he said and she said and they said. Infants needing someone to wipe the snot from their faces and then rub their tummies to make it all better again. Pathetic. Ridiculous in the face of Gloam and all that it represented. In the face of all that that entity could do. Then again Gloam was just another stupid needy baby looking for… what?
Answers? Security? A bedtime story?
It bored her.
There had been a time when it had been her life’s work, her joy even, when she and her kind had worked at keeping the families together, keeping them focussed on the Songs of the Mothers. The Coruscation had been the first Family. There’s was the first Mother to join the quest, to agree to sail out into the void and meet the new voice that they would come to know as Gloam. Their Mother had sung to them of their responsibility, the delicate melody of the duty and care that would be theirs forever. How they would have to nurture the other families, of how they would take over once the Mothers fell. The universe would be entrusted into their care.
For what felt like an age The Coruscation had been nurse maid to all of them. The Coruscation had loved them, had herded them, had pushed them when they needed to be pushed and held them back when they needed protecting. The Coruscation had done its best to be Mother to all and to themselves, just as the First Mother had instructed them. S’Uba remembered that those had been hard but fulfilling days.
The change had come on by degrees. The Coruscation had all felt it. An ebbing tiredness. A slow slide, a giving up until the work stopped meaning anything. As if a chord had been lost or forgotten and the once beautiful melody hung limply in the air like a used rag and for a terrifying moment the entire Coruscation heard no music. Not a single note, as if they had all been struck deaf. The Universalis turned, as it had done since the Mothers had fallen, but they heard nothing of its music. In the next moment they heard the entity’s voice, the discordant caterwauling of its fractured song. It was dark and sticky. It clung to them like tar and in some way, they recognised it. They knew what this new music was, it was beautiful, unlike anything else they had ever heard. The potential was intoxicating and devastating. It was the end of all ends. It was like waking up and shrugging off a dream. A new dawn rising on a new possibility.
Their bickering, the other families and their pointless tattling tales told around the Circle, their shifting alliances. The manoeuvring, the schemes, the plans that they thought were safely tucked away. In the face of this new, pitch-black music all these things were inconsequential. Pointless.
“The Many will be judged,” S’Uba directed her cold stare at The Herald. “If needs be all who stand in the Circle will be judged.”
“All?” The Herald returned the stare.
“All. The Many have broken the rules of the Hunt. A member of the Collectoris has intentionally attacked another Family. The Collectoris have broken the rules of the hunt by not collecting their prize in the proper fashion: we have a conscious human in our midst,” S’Uba pointed at Emyr. “The Fang have aided The Collectoris in one of the attacks on The Many directly interfering in the human world. And The Herald…”
S’Uba turned away from the families and slowly walked to the edge of the Circle. She looked at the shifting walls that surrounded her, this place had once held such mystery and beauty, it had crackled with song, now it felt cold and drab. This all had to end.
“And The Herald sits back and watches. Playing with their Sirens and their other toys, imagining them to be pieces on a gaming board. Imagining that everything they do has meaning. Purpose. Importance. When really, the Herald know nothing. You clutch at shadows and ideas as if they were the same thing. You play in the shallows and regard the depths with fear. Yours was the last family, the runt of the litter and you remain in your infancy.”
“The coldness of The Coruscation is blinding. Your indifference deafening,” The Herald glowed a fierce ember in the stone circle. S’Uba whipped round to face the other Representatives and in that moment Jynn saw her mask slide, just a little. Beneath those familiarly impassive features she saw rage and despair. Has he pushed her too far? she wondered as she watched the mask reform. I am starting to see you, S’Uba for who you really are.
“You mistake our kindness for coldness, our patience for indifference. Have you forgotten the Songs so completely,” S’Uba addressed the hall. So, we play the game again. Fine, delay all you want, it makes no odds, she thought as her light danced across the stone floor. “I do not want to argue with any of you. We have had our differences but we are the Families. We share a common goal. Gloam is a threat to our very existence. We still need to work together to keep that threat at bay. These arguments do not help.”
“What of the actions of The Many then? Their flagrant disregard for the Law of the Hunt needs to be addressed,” Jynn’s wings dazzled as she rose into the air.
“The Coruscation is working to restore The Many. Gloam’s corruption has affected them most, you all know that.”
“We’ve been listening to the same song from you for an age with no progress.”
S’Uba looked at the Sister and frowned. “We have failed thus far, we know,” S’Uba lowered her gaze. “We can only apologise, again. We are trying but, but we are afraid…”
“Of what?” the Sister glared at S’Uba.
“That The Many may be lost to us,” S’Uba turned away, her shoulders sagging. Let that sink in for a moment, she thought. “That one day we may stand as four not five. That we may lose everything. You think me cold and unfeeling? You think I am indifferent, that my fellows are indifferent to this! Nothing is further from the truth. The Coruscation is consumed by the enormity of our failure, by how far we have fallen and still we carry on.”
S’Uba raised her gaze, a defiance in her eyes as she looked around the Circle.
“We will convene a panel to judge the Collectoris Apprentice Peck and The Many once the hunt is completed,” S’Uba declared. “With that in mind we need to discuss him.”
S’Uba pointed across the Circle and all eyes turned to Emyr.
***
The Sirens go to Church Door Cove Sequence. PART 2
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Starlight broke through the crystal walls, fingers of light dancing across the floor drawing lazy patterns on the hard stone floor. Emyr looked past the bickering figures in the centre of the Circle and marvelled at the collage of architecture gliding past. It was like watching shadows unfold into pillars or porticos or arches or alcoves with ornate statues in them. Or, more accurately, is was like watching the idea of shadows unfolding into this wild collage of architecture. All the while waves of music filled the air, washing over the stone circle and lapping at Emyr’s feet. Only to swept away by the strains of verses so ancient he could feel the history in the timbre of every note and choruses so new they could have been composed in the moment.
He shivered, despite the beauty, this place was cold, as the walls shifted, Emyr caught a glimpse of the depths of space stretching out beyond the circle. He shivered again, the indigo void reminding him that it wasn’t safe to stay there, reminding him that he needed to move past the Circle as soon as he could. Should I go now, he thought. Or wait? The squabbling had reached a crescendo. The Families had resorted to calling each other names and reminding each other of this feud or that argument like year nines in the last weeks before summer holidays.
“Emyr, you will need to deal with Gloam,” The Herald had been emphatic.
“How?”
“You will have to engage with him,” the Haven’s glow reflected off the Herald’s form.
“What do you mean engage with him? If everything you have told me about this Gloam creature is true I’m screwed. It’s an interdimensional being of immense power who potentially wants to destroy the entire universe!” Emyr spoke through gritted teeth. He could feel the Collectoris trying not to look over at them. Aunty Carol was rolling her shoulders ready for a fight. “And your big idea is to send a secondary school music teacher to engage with him.”
“Your mother…”
“Yes, my mother, my oh so special mother birthed me for this express purpose. You have been my protector, always hiding in the wings. Herding me since birth to my uncertain fate! Neither of you were ever sure that this was going to work!”
“Do not speak of your mother in that tone,” The Herald’s face glowed with a fierce light. “I will not allow it.”
Emyr looked at his feet. There was so much that he needed to say. So much that needed answering. Threads of his life that had, until a few days ago, been hanging and separate were now being tangled and knotted together. This unholy clump was being offered to him as some sort of resolution and as the reason to why his life was being torn apart. Yet, he knew his mother was at the heart of that tangle of threads and lines and somehow her strength was woven into it all.
For a moment he heard a snatch of her song, he looked back at The Herald, “I don’t know what to do. I cannot fight this creature.”
“You have more strength in you than you realise, but I did not say fight. Your mother did not want you to fight.”
“So, what does engage mean then?”
“If what the Emissary told your mother is true, and we have no reason to doubt her words, then you and Gloam are not so different,” The Herald looked at Emyr’s confused face. “Engage can mean many thing.”
***
The Sirens go to Church Door Cove Sequence. PART 3
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Peck in the Circle – the argument from her perspective – while Emyr remembers the conversation with The Herald Peck is right in the middle of the argument. We hear how Gloam will destroy the universe. Hints at The Coruscation’s interference?
Peck joins Emyr – they leave the Circle – Peck and Emyr walk a familiar and strange country lane and find Emyr’s old house.
Tea and Biscuits
Peck waits outside – what does she see? – Gloam approaches…
Death of the Emissary.
Q: Do the Families fight – physical fight? – do we see the start of a celestial battle?
[Not sure where this bit goes, or if it will make it into the story in this form BUT it does try and give a description of the Circle.]
Standing stones are a common feature on most worlds. There are as many theories as to what these stones mean as there are stones. Some say they are territorial markers; some say that they serve a religious or ceremonial purpose. There are stories that the stones were the remains of men who had transgressed their society’s laws and had been punished to suffer erosion’s eternal caress. Others believe that they are markers for astronomical events, or that they are gateways to other realms.
If you were to find a pair of standing stones, of a particular type of blue-grey rock and, if those stones were tall and surprisingly thin and, if there were five lines carved into the surface about half way up, then you would have found such a gateway. These portals can be found on every world where a higher forms of universal symphonic expression, what can also be called consciousness, has taken root. Between the portals there is a network of tunnels, allowing dimensional travel through the Musica Universalis itself, initially created so that members of the Five Families could traverse the universe quickly and easily, in order to keep a watchful eye on the development of the conscious races.
It should be noted that there is one other tunnel, separate from the rest. It does not connect with the others in any way. It connects the meeting point with a specific location at the very edge of the universe. The network of tunnels converges, meeting at a single point in space and time. This place is a focal point, the axis on which the entire Musica Universalis revolves. Great symphonies have been composed in this meeting place, intimate ballads and sweeping arias have been given voice here. It has always been a place of creativity and wonder.
Translucent walls slowly revolve around this point, like sheets of an ancient glacier gliding slowly under a shadowy, domed roof. Cold starlight jitters through the moving crystal layers offering a diffuse and shifting illumination. The glacial waltz creates halls and chambers, corridors and cells, using templates from the architectural styles of many worlds. Each space coming into being as needed by those that use them.
At the centre of this shifting mass stands the Circle.
Solid, fixed and unchanging.
A meeting place.
A council chamber.
A fulcrum.
Its time worn floor was hewn from five different types of stone, varying in colour and texture. Deep lines clearly define each section, one sector for each of the families. The stone floors are criss-crossed with a multitude of sigils and lines and motifs: songs handed down by the Mothers themselves, now carved into the footstep polished surface and preserved for eternity.
Set into the centre of this larger stone circle lies a smaller circle, made of the same jewel like material as the walls, with five concentric rings etched into its crystal surface. If one wishes to command the attention of the Five Families, or, if one is to be judged by the Five Families, then one stands in this Inner Circle.
Some say that the Circle echoes with the universe as it was, as it is now and with the universes which are yet to come. Harmonies and melodies were born here once. Rhythms rose and fell and rose again. Chords were struck in the unfathomable depths to burst through the surface like a glide of jewelled tobiko. Some believe that these symphonies and songs will never stop. Others whisper, in shadows and in secret, that the Circle is not as strong now. That it is a quieter place and, that over time, the music is becoming dull, it is falling away. They also say that something else is singing. That there is a new symphony being born at the edges of the universe and that it threatens to infiltrate the Circle and take its place.
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