The Gatherings

There was Nial, useless as always, clutching his notebook and twitching in his sleep. I ignored him and began to Gather the others.

The Mourner - This one was already dead, and thus, un-Gatherable. She just looked at me. She wasn’t in a shrine trance and seemed to be unaffected by the burning incense. I told her I was going to push her over the edge, and she just shrugged. While I was in the process of pushing her over the edge, I could hear Torin Thanata in my mind desperately trying to command her to kill me. Hey, it was worth a try. When she was gone, I moved on quickly to the living pilgrims. The smoke from the incense burner was already beginning to affect me, and I needed to get the Gatherings over with before I fell into my own shrine trance.

The Wizard - The headmaster of the Great Academy, a product of centuries of selective breeding orchestrated by the Academy. No single one of his gifts was particularly apocalyptic, but the sum total of them numbered in the hundreds, more than any other human we knew of at the time. Most humans had zero. The average student at the Academy in those days had five gifts. But the secret breeding program had been increasing the number steadily from generation to generation for a select few (mostly faculty). His mother had been Headmaster for a time, and his father had been a high-ranking professor. If I could have gathered his daughter instead, I would have. But this isn’t bad at all, I thought, as I slit his throat with my bone knife. Interestingly, he never woke, just expired quietly; and although I could feel his presence inside me, I could sense that the shrine-induced dreams he had been having were in fact still happening. Did he have any idea his body had just died? I wondered. Perhaps not. I would have to explain matters to him later, when his shrine trance was over.

The Singer - Such a strange one. Madam Gwen Florence was rare (in those days) in that she had not been born with her gift. During the height of the South Sea Nations experiment, there used to be a lot of bureaucracy and red tape around the giving of gifts. (To be honest, there’s even more of that today.) It’s not like it was back when I was young. Back then you could play your cards face down whenever you wanted. How Gwen managed to convince that morl on the mountain to illegally give her such a powerful gift, I do not know. Perhaps I should investigate the matter after Gathering her, I thought, as I slit her throat. As I have mentioned, I know the morl who gifted her voice to her: No doubt my mother had her reasons. Though, knowing her, she just did it because she felt it would be entertaining, or because Gwen was a “pretty little thing” (as my mother was fond of calling a certain kind of human). I resolved to ask my mother about this very soon. Not yet, though, I told myself, as I felt my eyelids wanting to close, either from blood loss, or from the drugs in the air, or from the foul-smelling gasses that wafted upward from the molten core.

The Fool - Even our experts on gift-giving had some trouble explaining how Jonny (who had no known last name) had managed to acquire his gift. Indeed, there was considerable debate in my organization about what his gift even was, and whether he had A) a single very powerful gift or B) several gifts of lesser power. Either way, my own theory was that Jonny was proof that gifts could, over time, mutate within the human population. This was not a well-accepted theory in those days; my people do not like to accept things that prove that the Game is even more complex than we already believe it to be. It’s already difficult enough to keep track of the human magical ecosystem, without gifts mutating within that system. But in my opinion, it’s the only thing that explains how powerful Jonny became. I always felt he should have been given the title First of the Five, but I was overruled on the matter when the topic last came up. When I slit his throat, I did so with a kind smile. I always appreciated giving the gift of eternal life to my Shadow Mercenaries; and Jonny had done excellent work in stealing Asuana’s knives and, later, killing the brothers escorting the pilgrims. Without him, we may have arrived too late!

The Noble - Dear Human, if you are wondering why I wanted two necromancers in my deck, the simple answer is: for one thing, the necromancer I had wasn’t being very cooperative. So I had devised a simple solution: Gather the daughter. It’s an time-tested morlish tradition. Today, in the Shadow Guild, there are words etched above the cafeteria door: Love is a lever. I paused with the knife on her throat; the design of the dresses she had worn through the desert had left her with “lilly-white tan lines” that Nial had written not one but two poems about in his notebook. These poems were, however, so cringe-worthy that I did not include them in the book. (Dear Human, yes, you are most welcome.) I took a full thirty seconds to slit Lilly’s throat with my bone knife. I had once promised Torin Thanata that if he didn’t cooperate, I would kill his daughter slowly. Needless to say, he did not cooperate. I am not cruel or petty, but merely keep my promises. Honesty makes trust. I must say, though, Lilly Overlai was in such a deep shrine trance that she felt no more pain than if I had Gathered her quickly. Oh well, a morl keeps his word!

The Hunter - When it came to Asuana (as usual!) my carefully laid plans began to unravel. As I approached her body, I realized something was amiss. The first thing I noticed was that, unlike the other pilgrims, she was not twitching, nor was she muttering in her sleep. She was lying face down, one of the monastery-issued cloaks covering her body, her hood pulled up over her head. In fact, I wouldn’t even have known it was her if not for the process of elimination. She and Nial were the only ones left. Carefully, suspecting a trap, I turned her body over with my boot. She was already dead. Yes, Dear Human, I assure you this took me by as much surprise as I’m sure it is taking you. I repeat, though, in the place where Asuana should be, there was merely her corpse. I checked her pulse. Nothing. I drew the only conclusion that made sense at the time: she simply hadn’t survived the shrine trance. Just for good measure, though, I pushed her body over the edge of the bridge. (I’m no idiot.) Foolishly, I rejoiced, believing that I had finally rid myself of this strangely heroic human who opposed me. The first hint that I was wrong about this came just as she disappeared over the edge. I could have sworn I heard her laugh, but I chalked it up to the shrine trance that was rapidly taking me.

Nial - The “Hero” - At the rate I was losing consciousness, I didn’t have time to ponder the Asuana matter. I’ve nothing in particular to say about Nial, who should not even have been there. The only noteworthy thing about his Gathering was that I slit his throat quickly and with mild annoyance at the monk who had forced the promise out of me. Even as I was slitting, I was making plans to trade him away to an unsuspecting youngling. Yes, Dear Human, that’s how Nial’s life ended. I pocketed his notebook for later (the earliest manuscripts of this very book!)

With the Gatherings complete, I finally had a few seconds to take in the splendor of the shrine, the ancient carvings that towered over me, over the bodies, over the blood soaked bridge. The eyes of a stone panther looked down at me, and I could swear I saw it blink. Beside the stone panther, larger than most buildings, there was carved a man who looked uncannily like Nial. Beside him, I realized, there were other carvings that bore uncanny resemblances to the humans who lay strewn about me. “Did you foresee all of this?” I asked incredulously of the long-dead builders of the shrine, those mythological creators of humans and morls. The architects of the Game. The universe.