Azimuth, Mortainius, Malek, Ariel, Moebius, Anacrothe, Bane, Dejoule etc. © Silicon Knights, Eidos Interactive & Crystal Dynamics

Chapter Nine
The Circle

In a fine stupor the rat skittered drunkenly upon the floor, swaying from side to side in the after-effects of blood loss. Upon the floor droplets of blood bleached the stone, a fine-drawn out symbol, diminutive crimson, and though small, powerful enough to channel the amount of essence needed.

I sat back, my legs folded, adorned in the robes of my status, whilst distantly the bells of the Stronghold chimed the hour. Satisfaction claimed me. The rat stopped dead in its scuttling drunken pace, and turned its head to suddenly acknowledge me, whiskers twitching.

"It worked." A small smile of ambition parted my lips. As if in reply the rat rose to sit on its haunches and regarded me, its whiskers still twitching. I was overwhelmed with the feeling of accomplishment and an assortment of emotions that had so often kept their distance from me.

These emotions indeed were strange to me, strange and yet I relished the feelings I received. Each emotion I experienced so I kept the feeling close to me, feeling it for the first time, whether it be joy or a smile or even something I was much more familiar with, sadness. I understand that it is no surprise to say that when I was living under my father's roof accomplishment, achievement and pride, as well as other elements, were just some of the themes missing from our household.

Nevertheless, I will tell you quickly that I found in my early days that even accomplishment was a rare thing to find whilst living within the Stronghold. From my first days of living there I discovered that I was soon to be on my own a majority of the time, whilst every other Guardian attended to their duties. Of course I was used to being alone, but conflicting this thought was a desire that I wanted someone to watch over me. Perhaps those couple of days I had travelled with Mortanius had spoilt me. Yet if only there had been someone there to guide me in the right direction.

As a Guardian what was I meant to do? That was the main question I found racking my mind daily. There was no one to tutor me, and no other Guardian to turn to. I rarely saw Mortanius and my predecessor had been slaughtered a while ago. Once again I was Azimuth, Child of the Forgotten. I wondered whether I had been saved from the cruelty of my father or had simply been brought here as a punishment. Those days of loneliness made me quite desperate.

Forgotten is certainly how I felt when Ariel found me one morning. I stood where I had with Mortanius. Now however, I stood alone. The landscape seemed as meaningless as I felt, and the limitless bottom of the lake below only made me feel just as empty.

I could not help but feel that I had been brought here but for no purpose at all.
"You took me from my home, my town." I said, sensing Ariel approaching me from behind. I had heard her footfalls upon the stone floor long before her arrival, and deep down I had hoped that it was Mortanius. The hope had faded when I remembered that Mortanius very rarely made a sound when he was walking. Mortanius was as silent as well… Death…

"You tell me that I am a Guardian, and then you leave me." I gritted my teeth and realised for one of the first times how bitter I felt. Did I blame them for taking me from my home? In truth I was glad of my departure if only for an escape, but now had I been brought here to suffer nothing but a meaningless living? The thought was torturous. I could not go through life without meaning something. I would not be satisfied until I proved my father wrong, that he was wrong in saying that my existence was meaningless!

Balance remained silent.
"What am I am meant to do? You tell me that I am the Guardian of Dimension, but how can I be when I do not even know what to do?" That had been the longest sentence I had said so far whilst in their company. How agitated and how abandoned I felt.

When Ariel spoke she spoke words that where plain and simple. "I am not sure." And her words surprised me. I admit that I expected her to smile, laugh at how silly I had been and then point me in the right direction, the direction I was to take in being the Guardian of Dimension. Yet here was Balance, the 'Keeper of the Circle' admitting to me that she had no idea of what I was meant to do. The silence I allowed to consume me only highlighted my disbelief.

"But… You are a Guardian… Balance… Mortanius said you alone have control over us…" I had turned to face her now, my eyes focussing mercilessly upon the figure that was Balance. So suddenly the atmosphere around us had changed. I stood here at the edge of the landscape which also mirrored my own feelings. This edge, a pinnacle of abandonment and yet at the same time the edge of escapement.

Quickly Ariel raised her hands as if to beg for peace. "It is true, I have control." She paused for a moment. "Azimuth, none of us have been taught in what we must do. When we were brought here there was no one to show us the way. It has always been this way, even when Mortanius, Moebius and Malek were called to the Pillars." She begged for solace and calm as my gaze bore into her, a cruel gaze, a trait my father had bequeathed upon me.

"When they were chosen they faced the same uncertainties that you do." She smiled and continued as my gaze began to fade with the revelation of the tale. "I have control in the way of Balance, constantly keeping everything equal. In all that Bane borrows from the land, in all that Anacrothe uses in his experimentations, so it must be replaced. That is how it has to work. I have control, but nothing more. I am sorry Azimuth but your Guardianship is something you will have to understand in your own time."

So it was. It seemed we were all brought to our Guardianship as pathetic wretches with not an ounce of understanding. So how was it we learnt? If there was no one to instruct us then how did we learn to become Guardians, to watch over the land?

"And how did you come to understand?"
"The Pillars, it was as if I was called."

Dearest Ariel, here she was again, drawn to talk about the Pillars. Her mind was always upon those awful monoliths of stone. Those pinnacles that we were unjustly bound to, tied to, shackled to, all to serve, and for what? How I despise them and all that they stand for. As a child I was naïve and willing to listen, open minded to what Ariel said about the Pillars, all false tales and all false talk. The feeble and weak creature Ariel was… what did it get her in the end? She could have been something more then what she was. In the end she died for what she loved and swore to Guard and protect. Yet they failed to protect her.

"Is that how I ended up here, did they call to me?"
"Do you not feel drawn to the Pillars?" Again Ariel paused. "Why Child of Glass, do you regret being here?"
The mention of 'Child of Glass' made me scowl, I recognised it to be the title that Moebius had given me upon our first meeting. Yet there was something more, the way she had said it as if a hidden annoyance was starting to show through. Did she sense my dislike of the Pillars? But then at that stage the dislike had been nothing strong. Perhaps she sensed something else entirely.

"Your father was unkind, but you must understand it was through fear…"
"My father did not fear me, he despised me." Only hatred graced my vocals as I nervously pushed my fringe over the disfigurement.

"You do not fit in with others, but you are not alone. Look around you, you are gifted Azimuth. Each of us are unlike the people of Nosgoth but that is not without reason." She indicated to my third eye, I knew this and in doing so I saw her nervously alter the veil she wore at the one side of her face. I understood what she meant, how each of us were marked in one-way or another all to indicate our Guardianship.

Mortanius was almost corpse like, 'cadaverous' was the word I used to describe him in the beginning, and this was because of his link to death. Ariel explained that his 'power' took its toll upon his body. All of us would eventually experience this, myself included. Anacrothe's skin over time would become scarred. Mortanius would eventually loose all grips with the world of the living. Dejoule would be consumed fully by the energy that lingered close to her. Even I, Azimuth would suffer.

We all had to sacrifice something for what was considered our 'gifts'. For every piece of quintessence that Mortanius used, for every time he called upon his power, then so life was drawn from him. This was what Balance was. In everything taken so something had to be given back. A sacrifice we made for the Pillars, for our powers and for Balance. Little did Ariel know is that she would be the one to make the greatest sacrifice of all.

I have always considered the Pillars to be almost 'Vampiric', for as I am bound to them so I feel like they drain me. For every part of quintessence I call upon so I know it takes a part of me as it does the others. And slowly I feel myself corroding away, and for what… a dying world?
A world that will die.
It is inevitable.

Ariel gestured with her hands and attempted to change the situation, having noticed that I was giving her a scrutinising gaze and glancing deeply upon the veil.
"Do you think Mortanius had an easy life?" she said blandly and with no emotion. Here stood the child I had met in the beginning, the being that in reality was just as cold as me.

"I can tell you that he did not. Imagine a child growing up as a Necromancer."
My senses alit themselves upon hearing the Necromancer's name. It was not hard to imagine what Ariel spoke of, for I already beheld in my mind the scenes that must have unwound around Mortanius' young life.

"What else do you know?" I enquired hoping to find peace in the stories of the other Guardians. I needed to know that I was not the only one suffering. For so long it had seemed I had been a part of the darkness.

"Not a lot of our elders, but I know briefly of the others."

Ariel walked past me and approached the edge of the small balcony. She glanced down below at the lake and sighed. The sound of water could be heard in the background and somewhere out there, where life continued as it always had, a Guard was speaking to that of another.

"Bane has no known parents." Wistfully Ariel selected one of the other Guardians to talk about. I allowed her to speak of them at her own free will, eager to hear everyone's tale and yet holding myself back from being too inquisitive.

"He was found in woodland. He was alone. Yet it seemed nature had taken care of its Guardian."
Such a small piece of information, and it seemed that that was all she knew about the Druid.

"What about Dejoule?"
Ariel stopped looking at the water below and turned slowly to regard me. The emotion that radiated from her was a distinct one of sadness. Such a wretched weakness that she allowed to show.

"The daughter of a lord." she stated and in doing so I found myself thinking upon the Energist. Yes, she seemed to uphold herself in a noble manner, yet a noble who held such a secret.

"He sought the help of the Circle when he could no longer care for her. Her power became overpowering. There were some incidents…"
"Incidents?" I did not really have to ask; I already knew that this Guardian at such a young age had cost someone their life.

"At times Dejoule can drain the energy of others if anyone gets too close. Her father had to think of his title, Dejoule was endangering…"
"His position." I interrupted her and spoke bitterly once more, my eyes narrowed. It was a simple guess and it seemed that I guessed correctly though Ariel remained silent.

"It cannot have been easy for him, a lord of the land with a supposedly 'mad' daughter."
I winced at Ariel's spoken word, the word of madness. I cared for very little of anyone including Dejoule even at that point within my life. Nevertheless, it still made an essence of iciness run throughout me when I heard about how Dejoule's father had simply cast her aside for the sake of his title. The iciness came not from my annoyance at her father; it came from the thought itself. Strangely I understood her father's way of thinking. That was where the coldness had come from.

In turning away I asked "What about the Alchemist?"
"Anacrothe comes from a well educated family. If any of us have faired well from our pasts then it is he." She smiled at this and satisfied with the knowledge that conceivably I had learnt well from the stories in knowing that I suffered not alone, Ariel headed for the door. Nonetheless, my words, formed into a question she had hoped I would not ask, stopped her from walking any further.
"What about Ariel, what about Balance?"

Inside I smiled in acknowledgement at her silence. For once she could not speak. The silence suggested that she suffered, and her sufferance emitted throughout us all. What pain could she know? 'No tragedies', I thought. Did she even know of pain? How could one such as she experience such? There was not one part of a tragedy to tarnish her radiant smile, though her mysterious look that lay deep within her eyes told me differently. They say that your eyes are the windows to your soul.

She beckoned to me and I followed. Ariel would take me to a place that she hoped would answer my previous questions and make me forget about the one I had just asked.

After many a winding corridor we paused in front of large wooden doors, crafted from the finest wood. I stood observing them, admiring them and feeling as if we had walked to the ends of Nosgoth. The Stronghold had proved to be larger then I had ever suspected - its many wings split off into many sections and many rooms, each one of them hiding a dark secret I knew the Stronghold kept hidden.

I felt Ariel place one of her hands upon my shoulders and thrust the doors open with the other. Behind these magnificent doors was a vast room hoarding an unbelievable amount of knowledge. Ariel had spoke briefly saying a lot of knowledge was stored in this room, this library. She said I could find all the knowledge I could want here, providing I knew how to unlock it… I also knew a lot of lies where kept here. As my Guardianship continued I would also learn that there was some knowledge that not even this room possessed.

We entered and my mouth opened in awe. Around us and in front there were many, many books. There were books of all sizes, some lay opened upon tables, and others remained sat upon their shelves. Dust collecting on them suggested that they had not been picked up for many years.

Balance stood smiling, as if forgetting any moments before and watched my reaction. However, slowly her smile faded. I stood still and unmoving, unspeaking and deathly silent. Not the reaction she had hoped for, this I knew. To fully conclude our journey here, Ariel's motivation of bringing me to the library had been a useless one, for I could not read.

"I must leave you now Azimuth."
"What of Balance?" I asked forgetting the library for a moment.
"You may use the books to help you search for yourself."
"What of you?"
There was no reply.

The journey to the library only stood to highlight one major point of my life within the stronghold. It was when my desolate situation became clear. Ariel left me there that day. She left me to the embrace of silence and an absolute eternity of none understanding.

When Ariel returned she found me standing where she had left me, gazing longingly at the books. The day after a mentor was employed to tutor me in reading and writing, for as a Guardian one could not be illiterate, could one?

So it was I progressed in my studies with a new found desire and hunger to learn. I started with one tutor but within a couple of months I was under the guidance of two. It seemed that finally my calls had been answered, no longer completely alone. And I followed the guidance of two mentors, the mentor of this world, and that of not…

I continued to watch the rat with a mixture of interest as well as excitement. Four months I had been in Guardianship and this was the first time I had ever tried such a thing. I had wanted, so wanted to try before, but it was only now that it said I was ready.

A few nights earlier I had tried. I had sat upon the floor and listened intently to all instructions, to every part of the lesson. I was eager and excited of the prospect of what it said I had the power to do. Perhaps that was what went wrong; my eagerness pushed away my concentration. Whatever it was, nothing had happened that night and I had been very disappointed. In anger and exhaustion I had threatened to quit my Guardianship altogether. It had laughed at me and then explained that power did not 'blossom' overnight. But I was desperate, desperate to be something, to make use of myself.

Nights later I retried what I had been taught, and now I experienced for the first time, the feeling of success.

The rat skittered around in a circle for a few moments, a joyful pace of diligence, glancing at me and recognizing my accomplishment. Once again that feeling of self-pride ran through me. The praise I received from Them was wonderful; it gave me the feeling of power.

"Is it possible to go further? A rat is so small…" I smiled though it hurt. "…And unworthy of such, perhaps you could possess a much larger…" My words broke off as the door was opened and Anacrothe entered.

"Did you not hear the call?" The young Alchemist sounded aggravated.
'Do you not know how to knock?' I found myself thinking, and if rats could growl I am sure my vermin friend would have done so.

Anacrothe stood firmly in the doorway scowling at me. The Alchemist and myself have never been friends, not even in the beginning. I found that Anacrothe was always scowling at me no matter what I did. When he spoke to me I felt as if he was mocking me or looking down on me. He hated me and the feeling was quite neutral. As I grew I would find myself laughing at his hatred.

I glanced over at him standing in the doorway, arms folded. I had thrown one of my books over the drops of blood. The rat meanwhile, had darted into one of the folds of my garb.

"Call?"
"Council Azimuth, Council. Did Ariel not tell you?"
I bit my lip and recalled a distant memory, a day before where Ariel had briefly told me of a Council we would be having. Now I knew why I had listened intently to that distant chime of the bells, because that signalisation of the hour had meant something.

Anacrothe let out a weary sigh; ah the aggravation was derived from the fact that he had been sent to find me. I studied him as the light from the hallways cast his shadow upon my floor. No much the child then any of us, captivated in the body of a young Mortal, trapped in the body of a child. Yet he spoke as the rest of us did, like we were much older then our birthing age, though Anacrothe always sounded and always looked older then any of us, more then likely because of his experimentations.

He waited now, intolerantly continuing to scowl at me, his fingers tapping impatiently at the doorframe. His impatience, in some distant way, reminded me of my father. Swiftly I got to my feet, and ran my hands down my garb, straitening out the creases in my robes.

"Azimuth, the Circle waits for you." Those words finalized his relentless mind. If he found me annoying I wished that he would say so. Regardless of his thoughts though, Anacrothe remained silent, and so in following him we went to Council.

News developed of a young man who had the most marvellous mind, quick thinking as well as empathetic; and the boy had caught the Circles attention. If I had the emotion to care about others I knew I would have pitied him.

Moebius looked at Mortanius with a glint of satisfaction, a potent smile upon his lips. "The final Guardian." He gestured and stood before the table we all sat at.
"Right again Moebius." Ariel added with a smile. "Your knowledge of knowing is a true gift to the Circle, to the Pillars as well as to our Council. We applaud you."

I gazed at them all none passively, an expression of blankness clear on my face.

"Your words are kind my dear Ariel." the Time Streamer replied and deep inside I hoped we would not be subjected to another long moment of him blathering on. His voice I found quite intolerable. "But I am here to do Nosgoth's bidding," he continued. "I am here to serve the Pillars and the land."
The snake they say, always lies.

I found the Time Streamers knowledge, understanding and essence of what he called 'just knowing' more then disturbing. I did not like to think that someone was already ahead of me. I despised the thought that someone else understood a majority of what was going to happen and that I did not.

I glanced over at Mortanius who held an expression like myself, emotionless. In looking at him I attempted to figure out what he was thinking?

"So tell us, Moebius, where is the ninth Guardian?" It was Bane who asked this and now I turned to look at him. In this question being asked we were subjected mercilessly to a string of chuckles derived from Moebius. At this point I slouched in my chair and kicked one of the legs of the table. A glance off Death made me abruptly stop.

"Vasserbünde is where you will find our last Guardian. A young boy. The parents have called Mind, Nupraptor."

Ariel smiled. I knew that she had always been able to sense where the last Guardian could be found. However, perhaps she felt that it was not in her duty to say, and in doing so allowed her fellow Guardians to search those that were lost to the Circle. Perhaps the Pillars had always told her where we all were… Our Pillars calling out to us, their voices stretching across the many miles of Nosgoth's landscape, calling for the lost parts of themselves - feeling as incomplete as we did. If that was the case why had they not collected me earlier?

The council had long been ended and yet I still sat in my chair. I rested my hands on the table and bowed my head whilst my mind went over everything that had been said. The strands of thought lingered mostly on Moebius' words, Moebius' knowledge. I knew I had to be careful of the Time Streamer. I recognised that there was something hidden within him, perhaps a part of him that was not unlike myself. Nevertheless, a majority of the time I regarded him to be a foolish old man dealing with something that not even he could comprehend.

'Azimuth they have named the child. Wretched and despised by all, that is the Guardian of Dimension, that is the Child of Glass.' I wondered whether that is what Moebius had said to the others when they had learnt about my where it was I could be found. I could see it, all those scenes that unravelled, all those scenes that brought it up to the point of where Mortanius stood on my father's doorstep.

"I seek to speak with Azimuth, your daughter." The Guardian of Death had stated. He had not been asking for my father's permission to speak with me, he had been requesting. Mortanius had sounded polite in this, but I knew, as I hid in the shadows and watched this scene, that he could make demands, and they were not demands to be ignored.

My father had laughed cruelly. "What do you want with the wretch?" The child I was then, hid in the depths of the corner watching my father at the doorway and watching the stranger even more so. This strange figure, as if sensing my stare, suddenly looked past my father and returned my gaze. I had thought that I had been well hidden and yet been proven wrong. Not surprising that he had seen me really, for he seemed to be every much part of the shadows as I was in hiding in them.

"Do you know who I am?"
Father had not replied to that question and for the first time in my life I had seen him forced into silence. I remember thinking of how this figure was my rescue and that when he left I would fight with every part of strength left within me to go with him.

"Is this how all of us are found? A council is called Moebius speaks of what he knows and others set out to retrieve the 'lost' Guardian?"
"Yes." replied Ariel. She stood behind her chair gripping the back of it loosely with her hands. "How did you expect it to be?"
"But it was different for you?"
"Yes."

In that moment it became clear that now Ariel was ready to talk. I had always wondered whether I would hear Ariel's story or whether it would always remain hidden to me. Something seemed to have triggered her off in preparing herself to speak about it though. Maybe she just thought that now was the time.

The motion of her removing the veil was done in a clumsy moment. The moment seemed to move little by little with baited breath as slowly the veil slid away and dropped to the floor. So suddenly I was shown Balance's disfigurement.

I could not help but stare when the veil was removed. The first thoughts that came into my mind was how my father would have reacted if I had been a child with such a mark. Quite possibly I doubt I would have reached the age that I had. So many times I had been self-conscious of my own defacement and worrying about trying to cover it up… But this? How did one hide such a feature as this?

Ariel smiled but only one side of her face did so. The other side did not move at all. The right side of her face, the part that had been visible, was just as anyone else's was. The left side… was another story entirely.

The left side of her face was enough to make anyone stare with their mouths wide open, for there was no skin there. There was nothing but bone. Upon the left side Ariel's skull was showing. It was emotionless, harsh and cold. I noticed that on that one side of the face Ariel was paralysed and that all emotion she wanted to show had to be displayed upon the right where there was skin and muscle.

"This is Balance." Ariel declared breaking my stunned silence as well as my stare.

Ariel lifted her hand and touched the skin on the right side of her face. "Life." she stated, and then touching the bone on the left side she said "Death."

Now I understood why she had worn the veil.

"I am both, life and death… I am what is between the elements. I am what always makes sure that everything equals out. And it must always be that way, Azimuth, always…
…There must always be Balance…"