4th day of Redleaf
                           Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,

   Today was hectic, to say the least of man's overwhelming ability to confound with so little as his own innate skill of complexity.  As a political serpent, Aris is cozy with itself in its city-state nest.  I despair of ever leaving and finding a place of rest and solitude to restore my battered psyche.  Perhaps you were under the greater moon when you called me a natural statesman, of blood and desire.  Such is not mine to decide.
   The council split its vote on the actions to limit smuggling from the southern kingdoms.  Apparently, before the thiefcatcher is contracted, the thieving hand wishes to withdraw from the purse its visiting.  Far be it for me to admit I know of any such in the council, but it is likely about five members of the High Circle are involved, including the Chairman.  Six hours of retrogress debating calls forth demons in the mind to play on the drunjo drums; not a healthy prospect, my friend, I recommend you stay to the blade I was the fool to dismiss so quickly.
   After the smuggling, a little civil disorder was a refreshing change as three hired thugs tried to jump me.  Did I mention Rekkon is acting as my bodyguard now?  Personally, I believe he delights in controlled mayhem for his own private bloodbath.  He is quite efficient (really, did you have to give him some points during the Cyric Campaign?  I find his fighting style most disturbing in its sheer brutality).  No idea the mind behind the assault, I didn't bother to ask Rekkon to attempt taking one for questioning (politics again).  Such is the world of intrigue when the failed attack is more remarkable than the whom behind it.
   Particularly more interesting is that they attacked me just outside the council chambers.  Even more so curious that the guards on duty, the Keystones I believe, were lax in their vigilance.  It seems that ever since Winterfrost, the Keystones have been on Fersiar's payroll.  For added mental links and chains, the hypocrite was one of those I suspect, may Iala forgive me, of having his hands in that metaphoric purse I mentioned earlier.  Would it be improper to assume Fersiar does not appreciate my calling for that metaphoric thiefcatcher?  I'm concluding too early to tell.
   Well, it is time I stopped for a bit.  I'll resume my earthly musing after the political infighting has died down to only the short knives of witticism and bitterness.
   Keep your head down.  What news of Fiphan I hear is only bloody anarchy, but no less dangerous than Aris politics.

                     Your Friend,

                     Astarrac, Adept of the Moon Circle
                     Apprentice Astrologer

P.S.   The great white eagles I mentioned before have nested; the clutch of eggs numbers three.

                                                             9th day of Redleaf
                                                             Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,
   Kindly and with great patience excuse my direct and potentially rude inquiry, but I beseech and implore you with all the vast reserves I have at my disposal, tell me what is Asiluna doing in Fiphan?
   On pause and reconsideration, my answer to that is more obvious, but like the mole exposed to the surface during its fiery zenith, I am blind to what she has imparted to me.  So Asolan is dying, patriarch of great years and mentor to heroes, and as surely as the hound to the horn, my sister heeded the call to succor.
  Assumptions are often the foundation upon which the dance of relationships transpire, and I prefer to know that my foundations are secure in bedrock, not sand.  Pray inform me, am I true in my telling?
   And speak freely of yourself as well, in particular to the ways, means, designs, and as spiders spin, snares you have in mind for my sister.
   You were there with me in the Cyric Campaign, you were witness to my po'tau, and I do know but ignorance to the myriad ways and times you have risked blade and blood for me and mine.  Yet on this affair, enlightenment I ask of you, humbly.
   There are other questions I have, the drunjo drums being especially loud.
   The presence of a N'luxian Goater is shades of pebbles tossed into the transquility of a painted image.  How came it, and what was its goal?
   (You may let on to Asiluna that I am indeed aware of the Goaters, though I am torn with much curiousity and a certain amount of dread.)
  The drums have stopped, and so council is now in session.  Hadxon, the Chief of the Keystones, is asking for me to step inside.
   I better depart.  Rekkon is eyeing Hadxon.  A bloodletting is imminent if I don't put pen down...
  Iala!
  Sorry, regards!

Astarrac

                                                               14th day of Redleaf
                                                               Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,
   I see my sister once again has graced the world with her presence and charm, and you happen to be moon-crossed to be in the same city as her.
   My condolences.
   I do not like flaunting the legacy in my veins or circumstances of my life before you, and neither do I approve of Asiluna doing so either.  If she insists on preening, would you be so kind as to carry out the familial obligation I cannot, and nor can my father it seems, and trim her feathers.
   Start by pointing out that while five minutes does indeed make her the elder, she would be remissed what five minutes cost her.
  The council is going back into session.  Rekkon is still here, and he has informed me that Hadxon will make a full recovery.
   I do believe he's thinking on breaking him again.
   Most distressing.
   I must go.

With deepest respect, your friend,

Astarrac

                                                               19th day of Redleaf
                                                               Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,
   Truly as white birch as my heart, I declare that we have been remiss.  How many years has it been since we took up arms together and formed the bonds of brotherhood?  Did I say, perchance, brotherhood?  My apologizes, for there were many brave women there who felt the stirring of patriotic duty and plunged themselves into battle, to sweat and cry, to bleed and die alongside us.
   Do you recall Norlan, Daeu, Rakkan, Tobias?
   I wept when Lia was killed.  She was a good friend, a sweet woman, a fond lover, and a valiant fighter.
   How long has it been since we toasted them, my friend?  The men and women in our lives who are no more but shades that hang over us, beckoning us with the sweet promises of the kiss of death.  No more to linger over petty politics and ruinish rebellion, nor shall our time be tormented by vicious villains or false family members.
   True we have been, ever since that day we met, never knowing that all too soon we would be called to hold true to our oaths and march off to fight the Cyrics.
   It was the path to statesmanship for me, I proclaimed with quiet thunder as my witness, but for you it was the only choice you had left in your life.  And yet, through despair and sorrow, the horror of seeing our friends butchered, or feeling the sickening resistance as our blades pierced brother and should-have-been-brother, I would have never traded it for anything, and neither would you.
   Serpents entwined as paths of destiny, we had no choices but to leave our lives and give thanks to Iala that we survived to continue our work.  We were citizens in the eyes of the Toren Confederacy, our sacrifices well known and sung, although the details of the massacres we witnessed to both sides were known only to us and those surgeons who risked themselves on the front lines.
   Funny how most bards tend to overlook the gore of war, though I must add my profound respect towards Peg Thistle for not being like most bards.
   How to describe the importance of tradition, in respecting even things as simple as observing the proper days, is a concept I fear lost to those who know nothing of what they have, for they have taken the shelter of those who have fallen before them for granted.
   Ignorance truly is the weapon of Umael, not racism or petty hatreds and jealousies.
   Which is why I'm trying to push for more funding for the University of Aris, and upon that note, I must again depart.  It seems some overly blessed individuals with an abundance of warmth and wind do eventually deplete themselves.  My motion is recognized next.

Your friend,

Astarrac

P.S.  Kindly inform my sister that I do cherish and care deeply about her, as is only proper to do among family members, but that I will not abide and condone certain behaviors, family or not.  And that, my friend, is why I remain in Aris to this day.

                                                               24th day of Redleaf
                                                               Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,
   Duties, duties, duties, the curse and blessing of the truly fortunate who understand the value of the civil servant, the one who puts the wishes of others before their own and recieves no reward but the false smiles and treacherous words of those who benefit.
   Fersiar championed the assault against my motion.  My closeness to the university is grounds for suspicion that gold is more precious than knowledge when it comes to the liberal application of tax expenditures, especially when my position is funded by the common people.  I did not defend it, but then, I am getting ahead of myself.
   I write this next part with a certain trepidation.  It seems that things are not as they seem among the High Council.  I fear Aristollia is... different.
   I was going back to the Council Hall a few days ago when one of the servants there approached, begging to speak to me.  Wondering what a servant would have to say to an adept, I stopped and bid him speak.  I do not recall what exactly was said, but the servant claimed that the archon wished to speak to me.  At the same time, he seemed to have more to say.
   "Why would Archon Aristollia wish to speak to me, my good person?  Why send one of her messages by flesh and blood?  Why not put her trust in her imp?"
  The servant looked down at his toes.  He was wretched, at a loss for words, but with a desparate need to speak.  I cajoled him a moment more, then he proclaimed that Aristollia did not know she wanted to speak to me.  I was taken aback, but the servant rushed on, explaining that Aristollia was not herself these days.  He spoke of his fears that the archon had become possessed, or had lost her sanity.
   "I am willing and hoping you are wrong, but I cannot take the chance.  Please, tell me where she is."
   So hearing, the servant, greatly relieved that I had aquiesced, lead on.
   I cannot say that I am comfortable with her current abode.  Ghosts would have preferred not to reside there and all manner of creatures which infest the towns must have long vanished.  It was the highest room of the black tower, a massive spiral structure that was as old and of dust as it was forbodding.  Nothing moved in that place save the servant and I, and nothing was heard but our footsteps, echoing as we climbed the stairs.  It seemed our very presence was an invasion and that something dire lie in wait high up above.  The air was thick and suffocating with the feel of spells long cast here and lingering, their essence decayed and trapped within this prison rather than freed to return to renew the world.  Every surface was coated with a black soot that saturated everything that touched it.  When I was quit of the place, I burned my boots for fear that something upon which I walked would have seeped into it, and then into me next.
   Do you recall the Hajest Garden?  I found out that the feeling of goodness which scents the air is caused by eons of good spells, carefully prepared and released with the utmost consideration.  The black tower of Aris was similar only that the spells that scented this air were more the smells of a corpse out in the cold winter dead for the fifth day.
   Then the servant opened the door for me, showing me the horrible interior.
   It was as black and dusty as the rest of the tower, as to be expected, but the inside of that room was far more vast than the outside of it, such that the effect was like stepping into empty starless space.  How, I do not know, by I have my theories.  Geomancy may well be more than the divination through the earth, but manipulation of spatial dimensions, and since Aristollia had studied geomancy, it is possible that she transcended the readings of Iala into workings of the universe.
   Despite the pallor to the room, a weak grey light could be seen, coming from an unknown place, giving forms and locations without details.  I stood before Aristollia, the founder of Aris, and yet I knew nothing of what she appeared.  She was high in the darkness, suspended comfortable it seemed on a web - did Aristollia keep etheral spiders? - and indiscernible.  I knew not how old she was, nor even if she was still human.
   The room was bare, but I felt as if the size of the place made it even more oppressive and stiffling than the stairs themselves had been.  The vastness pressed on me, made me claustrophobic.
   And she made no sound when I entered.  I was vaguely aware of the servant leaving, and felt something whisper, like a wind but there was no movement of air, just before.  Did she speak to the servant, unvoiced, just then?
   Then I saw an image.
   You were there, Ceryth.  At the Temple of Kojhor.  And there I was, looking at it again.  Seven years ago, she said, or at least, I think she said.
   Then I saw, or perhaps she showed me, the Eye of Kojhor.  The demon eye is still alive.  It was not destroyed as we thought.
   I cannot place what happened next into words, for I am unsure what happened next.  I was there, in the room with Aristollia and then it all becomes unclear.  Somehow, sometime, I left her room and returned to my own.  I was not there when the vote was cast, but I think it does not matter.
   Something horrible has happened, or maybe it had transpired long ago and only now we know of it.
   Seven years ago, Ceryth!  We had barely joined the military!  What were we thinking, to go into that temple?  It is no wonder we failed!
   When I came to Aris, I know not why Aristollia nominated me for the High Council.  I do not understand how Fersiar came to be the Chairman.  I do not understand what has happened to Aristollia, nor does the mystery of the Eye of Kojhor make any sense.
   But I know this.  If what has happened seven years ago has reached me in Aris, you are surely no safer in Fiphan.
   Watch your back.


May This Letter Find You In Better Health Than You Normally Are,

Astarrac, Adept of the Moon Circle
Apprentice Astrologer

                                                               30th day of Redleaf
                                                               Year of the Great Boar

Dear Ceryth,
   By time have I been in observation over the giant white eagle nest.  There, through glass and steel pane, it appears, visible in even thunderous rain upon the roof of the Council Hall, its harsh shape discernible from my seat.  By time have I let float my senses and just absorb their majesty, their magnificence as they soar about, being a symbol of all I lack and want, if only for a moment of me and only a moment of them.
   What are their concerns, lacking any need for so much that they get by on so little?  A sturdy nest, a mate, some eggs primed to hatch, a good meal, robust health, and the freedom to take wing; are these not things that all people can understand and want in their own way and no more?  What is the need of politics and plots and intrigue, why bother with crime and revenge and strange unnatural things and thoughts and powers best left alone - and if they are best left alone, why don't people do so?
   The laws of the great white eagles are the same laws that Cryvad laid down when she commanded the winds and sang the fruits into blossom and the melody of the first kill.  Should they have troubles with their own family members, I would put faith that theirs would be of a nature quite a bit apart from that which we daily encounter.
   But the simple life is not our way, for we are drawn to our own destruction, flies to the web speckled with dew and honey.  The commoner, baseborn and oppressed, lacking any skill at the written word and having to trust those above or take a great risk, do eagerly lurch for power, some power, any power, to free themselves of the chains.  And those like myself, nobleborn and educated, when revolving our thoughts, either propogate the cycle and wish for an end, a chance to go back to something we never had and yet sorely miss.
   Ours, my friend, is a lot of... one moment, if you please.
   It seems that someone is attempting to scale the southern spire.  Poor choice of adventure, my friend, for those eagle are far from neighborly, and...
   Iala!
   That one has a claw-blade!
   No, wait, I take it back.  Clever, very clever, my friend.  You have turned your scaling hook into a weapon while keeping its original purpose.
   I will have to narrate slightly what just transpired.
   Under pretense of needing to relieve myself of the stiffling air in the Council Hall, I moved to open the large window.  Fersiar queried me as to my purpose and seemed annoyed at my reasoning.  How dare I not be slavenly rapt by every word he utters!
   But all the Council took note of the fine fellow who was both audacious and just a bit touched.  All put aside politics and plots to watch this fellow scale to either his certain doom or to desecration.  Talnod spoke first and condemned this individual, but we were all in agreement.  Even Fersiar seemed to believe this fool to be almost sacrilegious already.
   So I called out to our cunning adventurer, but the winds whipped my voice away to wasted effort.  The fool am I, for there are ways and means around this, as Llonwyontha smuggly pointed out.  Wind can carry away or carry forth, as she so demonstrated, and by a wave of her hand (might I say she is quite the spectacle, better on stage or a ring than in the council), we all could hear and be heard.
  "What goes forth," I called, in my normal manner, giving no ill-intent in my voice.  There was little I could do, as I lacked any means to physically affect our clever wall-mule, and even if I did, well, the less said of my attempts with the bow the better.  I am still only a passible swordsman.
   Onwards and upwards he ascended, either not hearing me or taking no notice.  Was my voice so akin to those denizens who flitter about the clouds and make their cities in its wispy contours?  Surely he did not imagine me as little more and no better than a figment of his mind, a wind with sentience, an oversized bug mockery of a human.
   I called again, and a few others added their voice, keeping mostly neutral, when she spoke.
   I do not wish to describe it, but the tale is nothing without a rendition of what sent chills down my spine.  I knew that voice, though it was not that it was familiar to my ears, as I swear I had never heard it before, but that it brought with it a feeling and a smell of frozen earth dug up to reveal frosted corpses, newly made.
   I knew not what words Aristollia even used, but the effect was enough to make us clap our hands to our ears.  Deaf not by the volume, but by the choice, by the wish to prevent ourselves from hearing something so grosteque, it would be akin to averting your eyes after seeing a grisly massacre, as if by looking elsewhere you might vainly attempt to remove or cover up the memory of things disturbing.
   The memory alone is enough to make me ill, I, a veteran of the Cyric Campaign, who had seen men bleed to death while their entrails escaped, or witnessed blows to the head so severe that the hapless unfortunately could only blankly stare as his brains slithered out of the hole, and yet remain still alive if only for a while longer.  I am an adept, as is every other member of the council, save Aristollia herself, but the words of the archon were as nothing we could ever image or stand.
   And yet what had stuck us in the Council Hall was but a weak echo.  It was to our now cursed fool who borne the full effect.  Despite the distance, more than an arrow's flight away, I could still see the look of horror on his face.
   All she did was speak.  She did not command him to do it, nor could I detect nor will I believe in anything else but the power of her voice, and neither can I believe that the suddenness and the severity of what she said was such that he was startled so and slipped.
   Walk my grave eleven times, no.
   He willingly, nay, eagerly, fell.
   I know not if his screams was some kind of tormented ecstasy or whether there was something that felt compelled to seek death rather than bear the thought of whatever it was that he heard, whatever it was that she brought.
   Should that I end my story here, it would be enough, but I have one bit more to add.
   We found no body.
   There was no mark that our fallen friend had ever landed, and yet not one of us questioned whether this was so.
   Council was adjourned early and we all departed, presumably to our respective chambers, though I would not be surprised if a few didn't seek distraction in pubs and in the homes of secret lovers.  I know only that I cannot recall the journey home and that I had a long and troubled night.

May You Fare More Well Than I,
Your Friend,

Astarrac

                                                               5th day of Festival
                                                               Year of the Great Boar

Ceryth,
   My desires to expand upon my life, blessed and cursed as it be, for your amusement is noticably wane and shall continue for moments uncounted for their being unknown.  The rest of the Council is similar touched, the events of several days ago echoing in our souls.  Llonwyontha seems to have lost her exuberance and even Fersiar is subdued and behaving.  Aristollia's presence, even in only memory and not in stillness and death of the air, clutches all of us and seems to be an unwanted guest that will not leave, trailing along silently and unseen.
   I said silently and unseen, but yet that is not all true of the senses, for there is something about us that makes most people avoid us.  It is not just I, for though I have many instances of people departing hurriedly from my presence once I arrive or pass through, but that I have witnessed similar reactions of unpleasantries.  Talnod and Dain no longer greet people as they move through the streets, as no one around seems to want to be around to greet.  Ondian admitted to having dogs growl and cats hiss at his presence, and Seria dissolved when she talked about having a group of children burst into tears and flee once she entered the room.
   Rekkon is the only one who tolerates my presence, but he seems on edge and a tad aggressive, even for him.  The Keystones avoid both of us ever since the "accident" involving Hadxon and the ox-cart.  It still sounds like self-defense, so I don't fret.
   I plan on going to the library and researching this.  Perhaps there are some answers to be had.  There is little enough business the Council accomplishes these days; my absence will be little more than a curiousity to them.
   I hear your sister is arriving anon.  No word or sign yet.

Your Friend,

Astarrac