Storybook - Sabat's End
Written by the great and wonderful Reian Mage Feyos,
the most successful of apprentice of Great Mage Mashio.
Introduction
This book comes at the request of the High Sorcerer of Siel's Temple.
The story belongs to millenia past, and I would not revisit this tale at all if it were up to me. But my choices have influenced the very landscape of Sarpan. Perhaps my foolishness and shame will keep others from repeating my mistake.
Felicitas.
In the Canyon of the Dead, the Great Beast sleeps. They say that Aion's Time has made him one with the cliffs here, but from my outcrop, I can imagine his breath rippling along the great plates of his spine.
Is it treasonous that I still find him magnificent? That I wish him alive, despite knowing what I know?
I have said prayers and made offerings to the Lady in atonement for my past deeds. I will make them again to amend for these heretical musings, and again and again until the Aether takes me.
Our scouting expedition worked its way through the Steppes, avoiding the Jotun territory.
Even then, long before Kamar, during the middle years of the Millenium War, the Jotari Wastes were empty and attended only by history. But there were bands of Jotun camped in the desert, and we had lost many men to them already.
The Steppe funneled into a river-carved canyon, now cupping only a stream and sparse forest dressed in the pale green of the planting season.
A placid land, which would soon run thickly red.
Here, we were unwitting spectators at an execution. A company of Balaur, well-brassed, were headed north out of Tiamaranta with a prisoner in tow.
In attendance was the new Dragon Lord, the usurper. Our band was too great to hide, so both sides were pitched into battle.
I will not detail the fighting: I have never had the lust of blood, and time has marred my recollection. It is enough to say that the battle pitted Our Blessed Lady against the new Dragon Lord, and with her might, we carried the day.
When the dust had settled from the enemy's retreat, we were left with their prisoner: a great-winged Balaur, noble head adorned with horns like a Brax, elegant and strong.
The prisoner Sabat was large, though nowhere near the size he is now. I stood in awe of his aura of pride and power. I am certain I was not alone.
At Lady Siel's word he was bound to our company with all but his tongue lashed tight by her spells.
Why was Sabat not destroyed? Did Our Lady of Time open her third eye to what would come? Was then my path the choice of fate and not my own? Or do I seek absolution still, after so much time?
Sabat was left in my charge, a Mage of Siel's Spear and a fool.
I was a fool when I opened my ears and mind to him. A fool when I opened my heart, knowing well that the Balaur do not love and lust only for power and death.
Sabat, his voice rich with the grit and smoke of bellows past and future, spoke to me of his past.
Tiamat's uprising had planted a seed in Sabat's heart, which bloomed into remarkable strength and ambition. But the Dragon Lord, in his jealousy, foresaw the spark of rebellion in his captain.
We had stayed his execution with our presence, though certainly Siel's plans for this mighty creature would be no better.
The Lady Siel departed to return to the Empyrean Lords' battlefield, and our expedition was left to tend our small one in Sarpan.
Harried by Jotun and the nascent Humnaz tribe in this strange new land, our legion grew exhausted, far from home and reinforcements and with danger at every turn.
The Balaur were our direst threat. I saw many comrades impaled, gutted, ruined, their return to the Aether a passage marked with suffering and screams.
I was afraid. We all were.
Our hearts yielded to fate: we would die here.
But no, Sabat whispered to my mourning soul. It does not have to be.
Our strength had faltered, our Lady abandoned us, said he, voice rumbling like a storm.
But his power lay fallow as we hauled him across Sarpan like a prize.
He would give me a taste, if only I broke the bonds Siel had placed round his heart. A taste would be enough to survive the terrors of this battlefield.
I fled then, overwhelmed by his words and my desire to believe them.
I steeled myself, swore I would never speak to the vile creature again.
Part of me knew that my heart conspired against my better judgment. I was weak; I was young; I saw my own death pacing steady towards me.
I make excuses, even still. Forgive me, my Lady. I am still not worthy of your grace.
It was not long before the beat of Drakan boots sounded in the valley.
Our puny expedition watched doom spill through the Tiamaranta gate. They were legion, a hundred score.
As our forces clashed and my comrades fell, I felt my resolve wither.
I ran to Sabat, placed my hands upon the cool pebbled leather of his chest, felt with the edges of my mind the spell that bound his heart.
Reinforcements arrived late.
The Aether siege weapon and the members of the Reian Sorcerer Associate who came through the great Abyss Gate started firing at the enemies on the battlefield.
Ekios and my Master Mashios were among the reinforcements.
Ekios was relieved, saying that the Balaur would have captured Sarpan had it not been for me, and Master Mashios was crying when he said I had surpassed him as a sorcerer.
Sabat grew, and grew. Tiamat's distant bellowing only encouraged him.
When Sabat let go of me, I was nearly dead. He towered over the landscape like something beyond all nightmares.
Heedless of the raging battle below, Sabat and Tiamat clashed. The narrow valley crushed beneath their thrashing bodies.
Through my fading vision, I saw our Centurion smashed beneath Sabat's careless foot. Saw the betrayal I had served my legion, my race, my Lady.
That should have been the end of me, of all of us.
But Aion's will is beyond our ken.
The Lady Siel returned and blazed with light and fury at what had transpired in her absence.
Tiamat, wounded, fled the battlefield.
But Sabat held his massive head high, watched calmly and boldly as Our Lady sang the spell that turned him and the valley to stone.
It was only luck, only chance, that any of us survived.
I have often wished that I had died in place of the many Legionaries whose deaths weight my conscience.
But the Lady, in her blessed grace, forgave the unforgiveable. She commanded me to live, and I do so at her behest even now, even after the Aether has gathered her up.
Sabat stands frozen in his defiant pose, still staring down Tiamat's lands. Aion's Time moves on without him.
And I serve in silence in Siel's temple, and will continue to serve until Time swallows that, as well.
I have written this in penance, at my Master's command.
But I do not ask to be forgiven. I cannot even forgive myself.
