Chapter Text
FADE IN:
INT. UMAVI THELYSS INNER VAULT — THE LUCID BASTION
728 PD — All stories must start somewhere.
You were a child of twelve—an auspicious number, all glory to the Luxon!—when your mother first took you to meet the beacon.
By then you had already seen it once, from a distance, without her permission or her knowledge. Three years earlier, in 725 PD.
It happened like this:
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK — INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE UMAVI THELYSS VAULT (725 PD)
At age nine, near midnight on the eve of First Dawn—that holiest of holidays, observed every twelfth anniversary of the dark elves' ascent from the Underdark—you followed your brother Verin, age eight, who had snuck out of bed; tiptoed behind him through the hidden servants' passageways of the Lucid Bastion; and together you peered around a corner down the hall from your mother's vault. And you saw it.
Dusk Captain Quana Kryn was carrying it out into the hallway. She held it in front of her with ease: her arms at a perfect ninety-degree angle, grip steady on the brass handles, rapture on her face. All else was darkness. The beacon's light bled color into the grayscale hallway before you.
"Whoa," gasped Verin beside you, too loud in that cathedral quiet.
You clamped a hand over his mouth. The two of you would get in trouble if you were noticed. You were never a misbehaved child, but by that age it was already obvious to you that the most crucial part of doing what you shouldn't is to not get caught.
But—Verin was right. Whoa.
You had never seen light like the Luxon's light. Like quicksilver, if quicksilver had a pulse. If ghosts could bleed, their veins would be rivers of that light. It washed over the dark granite of the walls, submerging the hallway; and you imagined how it must pool within the beacon, its insides a cavern aglow with condensation. You imagined an aquifer of stars.
Ten Aurora Watch soldiers marched in full armor behind the Dusk Captain, matching her slow ceremonial steps. Your mother accompanied them, of course. The two Umavi and their retinue never once looked directly at the beacon, like you and Verin did; only at the path it lit ahead of them. Something about its guidance was tidal, pulling them forward and deeper into itself, never to let go.
Verin wanted to follow them, but you held him back. Too risky. You herded him back to bed.
Later you would learn that the Umavi were taking the beacon to the Vault of Light—where it would join its twin in Den Mirimm's care—and that they always did so ahead of the First Dawn festivities. At the time, that information was not yet of interest to you.
Your interest came later. And on that note, let us return to your second encounter. Your official introduction to the Luxon, at age twelve:
CUT TO:
INT. UMAVI THELYSS INNER VAULT (728 PD, CONT'D)
You stand in the heart of your mother's private vault. You blink, disoriented; your first-ever attunement with a Luxon beacon has just ended. The starlight that inundated your mind just moments ago fades away. Though you try to resist it, all too soon the physical world returns to your awareness: your mother's perennial smile on the other side of the beacon's pedestal, the Dusk Captain's gauntleted hands on your shoulders.
Your eyes sting. You have woken from a dream where you had wings, right when you thought you could fly forever.
"Umavi," you ask, "what was it I sensed in there?"
Your mother answers: "The Luxon's infinite wisdom, perfect and unknowable." And it is a good thing you have enough presence of mind left to think before you speak, because all you want to say is that she is wrong.
What you sensed was power. Possibility. Infinite and perfect, yes; but knowable, and very nearly within your grasp.
Your brief brush with it left you no doubt: if casting spells is the practice of asking reality the right questions, what you sensed within the beacon was the gift of every possible answer. So often in your arcane studies you were frustrated, even at that early age, by the nagging sensation that the material you were allowed to study only skimmed the surface of what wizardry could do. Now you were certain of it. And if you could only sink your mind into the beacon once more, you thought, the full depth of magic would at last be yours to learn.
That thought explains the course of your life after. This was the beginning of your obsession.
The beacon is so close you could touch it. Its quicksilver light shapes your mother's smile, and sets aglitter the dust motes swirling in the air. To enter this inner sanctum, she led you through the outer vault, where you peered with great fascination at the other ancient and valuable artifacts she has procured for the Dynasty over the centuries. Faced with the Luxon beacon now, you cannot remember a single one.
Wanting to touch the beacon, you lean forward—and the Dusk Captain's grip tightens on your shoulders: stop. She scolds you with a laugh, but you can tell that her denial is not up for debate. This is as close as she will allow you to get.
You meet your mother's eyes across the pedestal. Her smile is a fraction dimmer. Her gaze agrees with the firm presence behind you: no.
As the eldest child-by-blood of the Umavi Thelyss, exceptions have often been made for you; but, it seems, not this time. You can tell that pushing will not get you what you want. So you swallow your disappointment, and apologize to them both.
"No harm done," says the Dusk Captain, and her hands on your shoulders relax indulgently once more.
Here is the heart of the question. Even at that tender age, you understand the workings of the world well enough. Most denizens of the Dynasty, no matter how devout, will never see a Luxon beacon within their lifetime; meanwhile you, Essek Thelyss, are here in its holy presence simply because you asked. Because you are who you are. So the conclusion you take away is this: if you are not yet someone who can delve into the beacon to your heart's content, then you must simply become that person.
This is how it starts.
This is the story of you getting what you want.
#
No, that isn't quite right. It would be more accurate to say:
This is the story of everything you do, in order to get what you want.
The difference between the two statements is significant. But it does start here, like so:
#
BRIEF MONTAGE OF THE FOLLOWING CENTURY (728-828 PD)
You are a bright young man, hungry for knowledge, asking for books as tirelessly as other children may ask for fencing lessons or a pet moorbounder. In your early years, this insatiable curiosity of yours is seen as a positive trait. Your elders spare no expense to encourage it.
For decades on end, you study, and you study, and you study. Magic, first and foremost. You outgrow one tutor after another, and earn the highest score ever recorded in your exam of admission to the Marble Tomes Conservatory. First they call you gifted, then a prodigy. You graduate summa cum laude from their nine-year program six years later.
Along the way, you study people, too. You abhor politics, but as a new soul born into high prominence within a primary den, it is a necessary evil. You learn people as you previously learned the alchemy of volatile compounds: manipulating them always from a safe distance, paying great attention to the ways they mix with each other, so that you may achieve the reactions you seek.
Or, to borrow a different analogy: you learn that high society is a grand performance, and you can use its scripts to your advantage if you know the right lines to say. And, with a little practice, you do. You learn to think like a spy, and become a spymaster in time.
So a century passes: in a succession of achievements that you must believe are getting you closer to your goals. At the end of it all, you find yourself—here.
INT. UMAVI THELYSS OUTER VAULT — THE LUCID BASTION (828 PD)
You are a hundred and twelve years old—the youngest Shadowhand in history, one of the greatest dunamancers alive—and you are about to be escorted out of your mother's vault. Your allotted hour of beacon study is up.
This is the outer vault. A young-bodied orcish priest pulled the Thelyss beacon from the inner sanctum so that you could examine it here instead of in there, where—they said—only the Umavi are allowed to linger. You lingered there once, a century ago. So not only are you no closer now to the access you desire than you were as an undecorated child of twelve; you have in fact regressed. Now you have three Aurora Watch soldiers to either side of you, waiting to accompany you when you leave.
Peevishly, you remain where you are.
Your last examination of the beacon was four years ago, in 824. In 813 you got greedy, too eager to capitalize on the accolades for the publication of your third new spell, and formally petitioned the Bright Queen for permission to conduct a thorough study of the beacons' arcane potential. She said no. The high clerics' enduring outrage at your proposal has been a hindrance to your research ever since.
Now that your time here is up, the beacon must be returned to the inner vault. This close to it, in its undulating light, you can see the priest's hands shake with religious awe when they reach for the handles; like they barely dare touch it. You feel a bitter urge to offer help. How easy it would be: you could just take the beacon yourself, right now.
This is a dangerous idea. Watch it unfurl.
"Shadowhand Thelyss," says the soldier to your immediate left, the one with an officer's cape pinned to her shoulders. Your title and name said as a polite reminder: time to go.
Distantly, two parallel thoughts branch out in your mind.
One: that if you were to take the beacon, which is being shakily lifted off the pedestal as you watch, you would have to take out this officer first to ensure your escape.
Two: that when you weigh the gruesomeness of a half-dozen bodies crushed into pulp by a Gravity Sinkhole—and with it the loss of every privilege and connection you have within the Dynasty—against the chance to spend the rest of your days unraveling the arcana of this beacon, it seems a worthwhile trade. Alone in some remote hideaway, you would not depend on anyone's approval to research.
The officer clears her throat, as yet uncrushed; and belatedly, reeling from the appeal of that brief fantasy, you respond, "Ah, yes, let us go." You allow her soldiers to escort you out, and you do not commit high treason after all.
But you think about it, after the fact. Years pass, and the idea won't leave you. A beacon in your hands: yours, forever. You think about it at court, at home, while you're trancing, while you're bathing, while you're struggling to prove your theories with what little access you can get. You think about it and you think about it, and eventually you have to admit it is more than idle thinking. It is the seeds of a plan.
You are going to steal a Luxon beacon.
The only question now is: how.
#
INT. STUDY - SHADOWHAND THELYSS' TOWERS
832 PD — Nine months until the beacon's theft.
WE OPEN on an arcanely-lit, bookshelf-lined study. Behind the heavy vermaloc desk sits THE SHADOWHAND in his high-backed chair, reviewing a sheaf of handwritten NOTES.
The notes contain: a list of NAMES and OCCUPATIONS, some arcane arithmetic in near-illegible shorthand, and a timeline of preparations for the First Dawn festivities in nine months. The ink is still fresh in places; we see black stains unnoticed on his fingertips as he leafs through.
When he reaches the end of his reading he stands abruptly, gathering up the notes, and approaches the FIREPLACE.
SHADOWHAND
It will work. I can do it, alone.
I won't make mistakes.
He feeds the notes containing his PLAN to the FIREPLACE. The parchment curls and blackens in the flames, burning to ash like it never existed at all.