After a fitful sleep in the Tempest, Ravenna wakes up with a start. She finds herself standing in a small log cabin, cozy and rustic. The wooden walls and roof are sturdy and well-insulated, keeping out the cold and the wind. The cabin has a single room with herbs hanging from the rafters and a wood burning stove stands in the corner, radiating warmth and light. A metal pipe carries the smoke outside through a hole in the roof and a pile of chopped logs is stacked next to the stove, ready to be fed into the fire. The cabin smells of wood smoke, pine resin, and fresh air.
Pushed against one wall is a large straw-filled bed piled high with blankets. Underneath four old wrinkled men are sleeping soundly. Next to the fireplace are three ancient women in rocking chairs. One of them is sitting at a spinning wheel, easily spinning wool into thread that lands unkept in a basket. The second shawl-draped woman is pulling at the thread in the basket, eyeing the thread with a critical eye before passing the length along to the third woman who cuts it with bright silver scissors where it drops into yet another basket and disappears.
The three stop what they are doing and turn as one. “Welcome Ravenna. Have some tea?”
Ravenna is suddenly sitting in the circle around the stove on a rocking chair of her own, with a cup of tea in her hand.
“We are so glad you were able to make it to the monastery and finally reach out to us. We have been calling for such a long time.”
Listening to the four men snoring and groaning in their sleep, Ravenna has a realization. “You are the voices I hear in my head. You are the ones who have been making me crazy all these years!”
“Crazy?” says the first. “We did not make you crazy, no. Your actions are your own, despite what Licensa and Hilina would have you believe. But you have learned the language of knowledge and now you can speak to us and we can stop our shouting.” She stands up brushing bits of yarn from her apron. “I am Licensa and am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Licensa walks to the foot of the bed and looks down at the four snoring men. “To start in the middle of this tale, Kelemis was vaguely aware of us and through him, and others like him across Cignoria, we are able to find women with a specific talent for a specific task. There have been others and you are the most recent.”
“Yes,” says Ravenna bitterly, practically snarling. “I am his latest project.”
“And yet Kelemis loved you very much,” Licensa says stenly but not unkindly. “But the fate of the world is at stake.”
“What the hells do you mean by that?”
Silence falls in the room, broken only by the four snoring men. Licensa and Culcordia and Hilina go perfectly still while regarding Ravenna with kindly smiles.
“The fate of the world is at stake,” Licensa says again. She wraps her arms around herself and starts again.
“Do you know of the godsparks?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. We met a cat in the Mulpara mountains in an old temple and the cat spoke to us about the ‘Maybe Is’ and how its keeper took it into the void and has not returned.”
The three women look surprised at this, and for some reason them looking surprised is a surprise to Ravenna. “The chaos spark still exists? The Eidolon roams still?”
“The what?”
“The Eidolon. Wherever the chaos spark, thither the Eidolon. This is interesting. Interesting indeed.” She murmurs under her breath, “perhaps the Brothers were right all along.”
Ravenna gets frustrated, tired of being privy to half a conversation. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“No, but I can tell you what has:
“Millenea ago, the keepers of Death, Plague and Winter brought forth a creature from the Outside. It is a creature that has no reason to be here nor was expected to ever be here. This creature, Az, took form and slew the keepers and fled across Reality. It is clear that he somehow managed to summon more of his own kind and they have been multiplying across Cignoria.”
“What were these keepers trying to acoomplish by bringing Az here from… Outside?”
The sisters grow still once again, smiling their friendly smiles.
Ravenna waits and Licensa begins again, “Az is an abomination that is upsetting the order of Reality. Az’ presence and those of his ilk threaten the fabric of existence but we don’t know how.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one knows and no one can know until they know it.”
Ravenna gets frustrated, “Speak plainly!”
“We cannot!” says Hilina from her rocking chair.
“Why not?”
The sisters grow still once again, smiling their friendly smiles.
Hilina continues, “the best we know is that Kelemis had a theory that somehow for some reason Az has improsoned or destroyed the God of Knowledge and when this happened nothing more could be learned. Kelemis had a theory that Faylin, the Stern Teacher was being held in the lands you call Tothkubad. He had a theory that freeing her would free the ability to learn once again.”
Culcordia says, “Where those attempting singly failed, a group will succeed.”
Hilina says, “Succeed and we can say more.”
Licensa says, “Fail and the end of all things grows nearer.”
Licensa smiles her kindly smile. Ravenna blinks and when her eyes open she is staring into the darkness of her room in the Tempest.