Between Darkness and Light Trilogy (18 page)

The greater one eventually joined with
lesser beings that had maintained their existence, and after many
experiments, gave birth to a being easily capable of surviving
without assistance. With that child and its eventual descendants,
the great one, by then known as the SeshHaud, created a dynasty,
easily controlling the lesser beings when necessary. During this
time the SeshHaud established a mental discipline that could be
used by her and others to greatly increase their chances of
surviving, by using it to strengthen their control over their
surroundings.

It came to be that the SeshHaud bore six
more children, each sired by a different lesser form, so that each
child was uniquely different from it's siblings. These children
slowly began to have children of their own and families eventually
formed, then the beginnings of society, the greater beings all
descendants of the first to reproduce, the SeshHaud. Discontent
eventually set in because all but the descendants of the eldest
child were completely and forever outside the inheriting line, and
so they formed their own Households, their own lives. After all, it
is better to reign over your own household than to forever be
subservient to the eldest child's descendants. They agreed to
forever forfeit the right to claim they were of the Royal
Family.

Generations passed. The Households that
split away from the Royal Household became known as dynasties, each
led by a Dominar chosen by whatever means was most meaningful to
that Dynasty. In order to avoid confusion and political
difficulties, the head of the Royal line took the title of Magni
Dominar. A few dynasties split yet further, forming Households that
were led simply by a Head of Household. Some Households split even
further, but the further their founding lineage was from the
SeshHaud, the less political power they possessed. A core Dynasty
of each of the original descendants always remained – for there was
great political strength in carrying the family name of one of the
SeshHaud children.

Many, many households formed that had no
recognized ties to the SeshHaud whatsoever. Beings that came into
existence within the holdings of other households. They did not,
for the most part, possess the strengths of the Dynasties and older
Households. Beings of all imaginable kinds also take and hold form,
but many fail to maintain permanency. In raw chaos, the state that
The All existed in except for the Abyss, strength truly lay in
numbers and/or mental superiority, for the only static matter that
existed was that which was constantly controlled by the minds of
those present.

SeshHaud's eighth child, yet another son,
was the first later descendant to cleave closely to his mother
instead of going out to establish a Dynasty or Household of his
own. As the throne had passed down several times from the eldest
son, he became effectively the only son of the SeshHaud, since all
others had renounced that right.

The ninth and last child of the SeshHaud, a
girl child, also clove closely to her mother, who then decided to
permanently take on male form, thus insuring that she/he would have
no more offspring, for no being could survive carrying his child.
She/he felt that there were enough of his/her direct blood, things
were becoming… difficult. Fortunately, with time the other lines
degraded, which made it easier to maintain control over them.

Almost no one!

(To this day, no one outside the Royal House
knows how the royal line is perpetuated, for they never marry or
have children with any of their concubines, who tend to be short
lived. Unlike all the other Houses, they do not become numerous.
They remain, however, individually so powerful that superior
numbers are not necessary. Occasionally, a child is presented to
the populace as the Primus Dominar, the heir. None of these
children ever show any traits that would identify the mother's
origins, and the line shows no degradation whatsoever.)

Throughout all this time, others tried to
develop mental disciplines that would grant them power over their
surroundings, but none succeed to the extent that the SeshHaud had.
As each of her children had matured sufficiently, she 'initiated'
them into the discipline by allowing them to join with her mind,
sharing the intimate experience of joining with The All, of making
it a part of oneself that, through sheer mental power, one could
then control. Fortunately none of her children were weak minded, or
the experience would have destroyed them. There was a price for
this joining, of course. She would always have a certain level of
control over their use of that power, if she so chose. And if
necessary, she could cause the chaos within their minds to consume
them. They knew this and accepted it as the price for true power,
even though they knew the implication, that they would never be
capable of challenging the SeshHaud's will. Never be capable of
challenging the inheriting line.

As time passed and more realized that only
through the SeshHaud could they achieve true power over Chaos,
she/he consented to take on students. Not only did this give more
power to the people, it also tied them closely to the Royal Family,
helping maintain control over the realm. That control was
increasingly difficult to sustain as her later children sought
greater power, but had no way of attaining it.

The Time of the Heretic:

A rather harsh interpretation, in my opinion

The lesser ancient being, whom the SeshHaud
referred to as Cailliach, had also taken advantage of her
teachings, but she was lazy, she did not care for the constant
vigilance required by the Way of Sesh. In her arrogance she
believed she could create things, machines and items of power to do
much of the work of reality control for her. Cailliach eventually
left the presence of all others, researching in solitude.

The calamity happened without any warning.
Far, far from the rim, in an area that could be described as the
center of existence, a point of absolute reality formed, and chaos
was torn asunder as waves of reality spread throughout The All.
This point of reality was diametrically opposed to all around it,
forcing it to catapult away from The All, while The All was cast in
the opposite direction and spread impossibly out, away from both
the origination of reality and from it's destination. Anything not
protected by extremely powerful minds was swept away as though it
never had been. Countless lives and worlds were lost; the
devastation was astounding.

The All was no more; only that area very
near the rim retained most of the qualities of The All, that being
that nothing but raw chaos existed without being directly
controlled by a powerful mind. It became known as the Rimall, and
the greatest share of it was, and remains controlled by the Royal
House. Beyond the Rim remained the Abyss, absolute nothingness,
while further in from the Rimall, varying degrees of reality
existed, yet in constant change. That area, immensely vast, became
known as Chaos. Throughout everything aside from the Abyss one
further change occurred, time could no longer be reversed. This
final, devastating alteration went entirely against the true nature
of Chas.

During the catastrophe, the Royal family and
three of the Dynasties managed, through sheer mental superiority
and/or numbers, to maintain their holdings somewhat undamaged, so
that the reality waves merely pushed them away, far, far away from
the source of the destruction. The remaining three Dynasties were
not as successful, and managed to save only a portion of their
original holdings. These less fortunate Dynasties eventually lost
much of their status, becoming known instead as Greater Households.
Those Households that had split from Dynasties long ago and managed
to survive the catastrophe came to be known as Lesser
Households.

In time, as the waves of change died away,
Household status became decided by the amount of space each
Household held, regardless of how far removed from the SeshHaud the
founding member was, as long as the Household was indeed descended
from him. Each lesser household controlled between a single or a
few worlds, the Greater Houses controlled from a few to thousands
of worlds, while Dynasties controlled galaxies, or the equivalent
thereof. Because of the vast areas inhabited and the danger of
relying on technological devices, 'passages', paths of longstanding
although not particularly strong reality were created as a means of
traveling tremendous distances in very little time.

The Cailliach's rash act forced the Universe
into its current bi-polar state, and it is unlikely that she will
ever be forgiven for her transgression. Our two realms are in a
constant state of animosity, except for those times when there is
all-out war.

Which doesn't seem at all reasonable to me, after
all, there is now so much more space in both our realms. They
should be grateful.

~~~

Wow, who wrote this book? I'm fairly sure
the penned in comments are Cailli's, but the original text couldn't
have been written by one of Lumina. I close the book and let my
thoughts wander back to my previous encounters with those of Chaos.
Maude de Mithridia's instinctive hatred of us makes far more sense,
and as for Lydia… She hurt me terribly, but now that the pain is no
longer raw in my mind I find I cannot fault her for it. I was the
enemy, working with the beast that had tortured her, it only makes
sense that she would lash out at me. She had absolutely no reason
to believe I was any different from Lucian. I doubt that I could
have done anything differently to change the outcome, though I wish
I had been able to. That situation should never have come to
pass.

Enough of this, I should catch a short nap
and shower before William returns. I want to appear fresh and well
rested when I meet my first Chaos lord.

~~~

Before William joins me I ask a servant to
provide our breakfast in my rooms, so we can talk privately. I
quickly share with him what I read to save time.

“Wow, I doubt that book was written in
Lumina.”

“Almost my thought exactly, I think Cailli
sent it to me.”

“Why would she do that?”

“To help me understand Lydia's instantaneous
hatred for me, perhaps? I do understand it better now, I no longer
feel anger toward her. And you must admit, the books provided in
our libraries do not explain the Chaosian point of view at all. In
fact, I suspect the term Chaosian is not appropriate for all of
them – but it is the best I know of so far.”

“True, and I doubt that many here care about
any point of view aside from their own.”

There is a knock at the door, it's Joanna.
“My lady, I just wanted to remind you that court begins in fifteen
minutes.” She closes the door quietly.

William smiles impishly, “Gee, don't they
trust you to remember such an important event?”

“We have proven that we tend to lose track
of time when together.”

“Yea, I suppose so. At least they care
enough to try to keep you out of trouble.”

~~~

Court is called into session exactly on
time. Our visitor is introduced quite formally as Cas Darius ni
Uisnach , eldest surviving son of Dominar Cas Ultor of the Greater
House of Uisnach. So, he is a direct descendant of one of the
SeshHaud's children! He has a large barrel chest, wide strong
shoulders; very well built. His hair is dark and thick and it’s
easy to see that his chest is rather hairy as well – yet his beard
and mustache are carefully trimmed. In general he has more hair
than I’m used to seeing on a man, and yet it suites him. His eyes
are dark brown and his smile somewhat fixed. I can hardly blame him
for that, considering the circumstances. In all he’s rather
good-looking; I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t
it. His voice is even more interesting – it is deep and sonorous,
strong and very self-assured, and yet it sounds as though he
belongs elsewhere – as though the acoustics here aren't right for
him. Again, it makes sense. Of course, he would be a shape changer;
this may not be his true form. I look surreptitiously about the
room, I don't directly see Novanus, so it should be safe; I
listen
to our guest. He
sounds
very different from
anyone I've
listened
to before, I'm not sure what to search
for. I concentrate on truthfulness verses deception as I inspect
his form. I can't tell if this is his true form, but it
sounds
… not exactly well worn, and yet it doesn't seem as
though it is tremendously different from his most accustomed form.
That at least means it isn't something he had come up with as a
false face to present to us in particular. And, although he seems
emotionally uncomfortable, I sense he is also earnest.

A loud voice calls out, breaking through my
thoughts, “All rise for His Imperial Majesty Augustus, Emperor of
Lumina.”

Court is ended already? I whisper to
William, “That was quick.” He smiles and shakes his head.

“Not really, you just weren’t paying any
attention.”

I smile, “What?” He just shakes his
head.

At the reception William and I hang back and
watch the Chaos lord interact with our relatives. He seems
exceedingly polite to everyone he speaks to, but I can tell he
would rather get to the business of freeing his sister.

William suggests, “Why don’t you go talk to
him. Alone. You may seem like a breath of fresh air to the poor
man.” I almost refuse, but I have to admit I am curious. He can’t
have already learned of my part in all this, so he should have no
reason to hate me in particular. Yet.

I walk up and at first he gives me the
familiar friendly social smile, then it deepens. “Cas Darius, I
believe?”

“Yes, my lady, and you are?”

“Shi'ahn.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Shi'ahn.
You seem… different than the others.”