Pokemon Special: Legends Of Arceus

by 2b2tEternalLegend

Two thousand years before the events of Red, Blue, and Green, the Dark Lord crafted the Nineteen Plates so that he could complete his evil dominion. But Arceus responds to this threat by bequeathing Rei of Hisui with a perilous Quest: to destroy the Evil Djinn. This tale tells of the great Quest undertaken by Rei and Akari, Cyllene, Laventon, Iscan, and Adaman the Great. (COMPLETE)

1. The Beginning Of The Story

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This is the first part of the Legends of Pokemon trilogy. Please read Pokemon Special: Brick Bronze after this, or Pokemon Special: Sword and Shield. I hope that you'll take a look and read the sequels, if you enjoyed this story.

This is a prequel to my other stories based on Pokemon Adventures/Special. It takes place 2,000 years before Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green.

It will cover things such as the removal of the Plates from Arceus, and the imprisonment of the Evil Djinn. It has similar characters and story beats as Pokémon Legends: Arceus. It is set in Hisui, or ancient Sinnoh.

It is divided into two major parts, the first being the events that surround the plates being torn from Arceus, and the second being the first imprisonment of the Evil Djinn.

May your cloak be warm and your journey swift.

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This story is dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien.

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The Legends of Arceus

The Downfall of the Dark Lord

And the Quest of the Golden Company

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A Brief Introduction to the Hisuians

by Bronze Tercano, chief scribe in the Kingdom of Beulah

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The old stories tell that Hisui was founded by Elwin the first High Elder, who is called the One With The Mission. At the end of the Elder Days he boarded his great ship with his ten blessed Pokemon and sailed south, appealed to Arceus for the benefit of the Hisuians, and brought Rayquaza to end the battle between Kyogre and Groudon. After that all Men and Pokemon, the Followers and Firstborn, in Hisui remembered Elwin as their forefather.

In the days of the Legends of Arceus the world was made of two great northern and southern continents, separated by the Sundering Seas. By the Middling Days the land north of the Girdle of Imbar was called the Northlands, and Hisui, Johto, Kanto, and Kalos were all connected by land bridges. Unova and Hoenn were further south. At the Girdle of Imbar were the Alolan Islands, and beyond that southward Roria and Galar in the very far southwest.

There was also a place north of Roria known as Dor Daedeloth, and today the parts of it that survive are called Fiore and Oblivia and Almia. That land has little to do with this tale outside of the Great Evil that came to dwell there and that waged a War upon almost everybody. That evil was the Mbelekoro, the Evil Djinn, and he was the first and greatest of the rebels and renegades against Arceus since the Beginning. His greatest servants were Giratina the Cruel and Yveltal Darkheart, and he had many other slaves, kingly and small.

He ruled from his Nethermost Hall in the Land of Shadowy Horror upon a throne of black iron, and of all things the Dark Lord despised Hisui and Logaria, the North and South-kingdoms that had opposed his rule as much they could. The Nethermost Hall was but a hundred miles north of Logaria, and it was against the South that the Dark Lord used most of his strength to destroy. In the North he was not absent and caused as much trouble as possible.

At the time that the Legends of Arceus begins, the Evil Djinn had left his stronghold in the South and went North on some evil errand, and the rule of his armies in the South was given to Marshadow and the demon Lucius. The Shadow began to stir over Hisui a year hence, and it was at that moment that both Arceus's plans and the Mbelekoro's opposed each other, and the Golden Company was formed.

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Most of Southern Hisui was green and flat. It was a good and fertile land, blessed by the gods, and the greater part of the Hisuians dwelt there. The Iron Mountains in the north were neither green nor flat, and were tall, jagged, and snowcapped, though if the snow melted, something green might have grown there. But in the North of Hisui the snow had not melted ever since the Fell Winter four hundred years ago, and in the colds that once were the Alabaster Icelands the Dark Lord made his northern abode.

Farther east was the Cobalt Coastlands that bordered the Sunrise Sea, and they do not come into this tale outside of the doughty heroes Adaman and Iscan who grew up there. North before the Crimson Mirelands was the Obsidian Fieldlands, a disputed and dangerous region in those days. The Crimson Mirelands themselves had become a very evil place, and were surrounded by blasted wastes in all four directions.

West was the Gulf of Adamant that separated Hisui from Johto. In the northwest of Hisui was a swampy pass known as the Narrows, and that was how Hisui and Johto were connected by land. The Johtorim were allies of the Hisuians, helping them in most things, although it was usually the strength of the Hisuians that defended the people that lived in Johto against the Kantorim even further west. Beyond eastern Kanto the maps went dark, although the Rumhoth of Kalos at the westernmost limit of the world had been the greatest foes of Hisui in ancient times.

The inhabitants of Hisui were dark-haired and tall, yet not very numerous. They were the wisest race of Men and had the greatest share of knowledge in the mind of Arceus. They also lived very long; in the days of their might the oldest Hisuians lived greater than four hundred in full health and vigor until the end, where they willingly died. They suffered no sickness and were stronger than other Men in mind and body, save the Logarians.

Hisui was generally safe outside of outlaws and untamed Pokemon that the Dark Lord incited often to raid villages and kill what folk they could. In the north the cultists who had peopled the Crimson Mirelands would make sorties into Hisui, growing stronger by the year. The demon Enamorus was their chief. The forests were acceptably without peril with the exception of the Skorupi who hung in the trees and attacked the heads of passersby. The River Gwaithion that ran through Southern Hisui was wide and peaceful, except for the hostile Basculin that fed on flesh, and the Sharpedo that came in from the seas and slew even the stoutest fisherman.

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Note on the Composition and Authorship of the Legends of Arceus

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At the end of the War of the Plates the part played by the Hisuians was recorded by several primary sources, with Lian of the Hallows writing down most of the tale. He also made an annotated annal to fit in the Hisuian Coda, having few lines of speech and no internal dialogue common in the Hisuian myth-cycles. The greater families and clans were also concerned with events in the world at large, and many of their members studied its ancient histories and legends further. By the end of the first century after the Fall of Dor Daedeloth there were already to be found in Hisui several libraries that contained historical books and primary sources regarding the Great War.

The largest of these collections were probably at Jubilife, at Barad Nimaras, and at Atun-Kaah. This account of the end of the Dark Lord's dominion is drawn mainly from the Golden Book of Lian. That most important source for the history of the War of the Plate was so called because it was long preserved at Jubilife and was one of the most important writings in the early Arcean church. Lian brought it back to Hisui in 19 A.F. as he returned from his travels, together with many loose leaves of notes, and he nearly filled its pages with his account of the War. But annexed to it and preserved with it, probably making a single case, were the three large volumes, bound in golden-laced leather, that the Kantorim gave to him as a parting gift. To these four volumes there was added in Jubilife a fifth containing commentaries, genealogies, and various other matters concerning the members of the Golden Company.

The original Legends of Arceus has not been preserved in its primary form, but many copies were made, especially of the first volume, for the use of the descendants of the children of Cyllene the Great. The most important copy, however, has a different history. It was kept at Jubilife, but it was written in Logaria, probably at the request of the son of Lian, and completed in A.F 76. Its southern scribe appended this note: Findegil, King's Writer, finished this work in M.D 1079. It is an exact copy of all details in the Golden Book of Lian. It was thus the first copy and contained knowledge that was later annotated or lost.

In the past two thousand years since its creation, the Legends of Arceus has received many corrections and changes in time through the different translations the work has gone through, experiencing several alarming shifts in tone and content in the transition from Old Hisuian to Modern Kantoian. The appendices of the early copies, almost entirely concerned with the Elder Days, have been cut and placed in a separate work or the Hisuian Coda.

Though little remains of the Legends of Arceus in its original form, especially in the dialogue, it still deserves attention as an accurate preservation of ancient literature with notable historical value. The Legends describes the ancient world in a way consistent with archeological findings and other historiographical collaborations, implying that Lian gathered more knowledge on his travels and put it in his masterwork. It is said that Cyllene made the last edits to the manuscript, a hundred years after Lian's death, but there is no date or description of the changes. It is also said that after this Cyllene received her final vision of the End of Days, and died soon after, and with her went the last living memory of the time of the Golden Company.

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The Dream of Rei and the Beginning of This Tale

By Lian of the Hallows

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In the year when nine-hundred and ninety-four years had passed since the end of the Elder Days, the Word of the Original One came upon Rei of Hisui.

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What it is like to be in the presence of the Original One is a thing that Rei never later described. He said that he couldn't. But odd hints about that excellent vista have come out at one time or another when he was talking of quite different matters, namely the content of the dream.

According to his own account he was not what we call conscious, and yet at the same time the experience was a very positive one with a quality of its own. He said that he saw Arceus, or "seeing life" in a very different sense than before, that being going about the world and getting to know people and Pokemon. Rather it was the form of the Creator revealed to the inner eye. At any rate he saw Arceus in a different form than he later saw Him.

He went so far to say over the course of his travels that he felt suspended as if from strings in the middle of a space that had no discernable features or anything that the eye would even care to look at. Arceus appeared to him then as a colored shape resembling the sun at high noon. I later asked him in Nuria what kind of color Arceus was, but then he went and spoiled it all by adding: "Of course, it wasn't color at all, really. I mean, not what we would call color," and then shutting up for the rest of the day.

But perhaps the most mysterious thing he ever said about it was this. I was questioning him on the subject, which he doesn't often allow, and had incautiously said, "Of course, I realize it's all rather too vague for you to put into words," when he took me up rather sharply, for such a patient man, by saying, "On the contrary, it is words that are vague. The reason why the thing can't be expressed is that it's too definite for language." And that is about all I can tell you of what he saw. One thing is certain, that he came back from that dream even more changed than he had come back from Beulah later. But of course that may have been because of what happened to him during the Quest.

To that dialogue between Arceus and a mortal, as Rei narrated it to me, I will now proceed. He seems to have been awakened (if that is the right word) from his indescribable celestial state by the sensation of falling, in other words, when he was near enough to Arceus to feel Arceus as something in the "downward" direction in the Void. The next thing he noticed was that he was very warm on the one side facing the Original One and very cold on the other, though neither sensation was so extreme as to be really painful. Anyway, both were soon swallowed up in the prodigious white light from below which began to emanate from Arceus. This steadily increased and became distressing in spite of the fact that his eyes were seemingly protected by his hands.

Arceus then spoke, in a voice that Rei felt was neither earthly nor particularly terrifying. It was stern yet still pleasantly agreeable. He said on different occasions that he heard his father's voice, or Adaman's, or Cyllene's. The best description thus far is that the voice was like an animal untamed. When Arceus spoke the light changed from colorful to something like gilded glass.

Speaking in the Hisuian tongue, Arceus said: "Rei of Hisui, I have sent for you through Deep Heaven into my court. Do you accept this with welcome?"

Rei said that he did and then a sort of back-and-forth began between the two. Before I set the words Rei told me down to parchment, the tone of this whole work will irreversibly shift from the "scientific" to the "high style." The Legends of Arceus is more an epic than a treatise, more Adaman than Laventon. It is my hope that eventually that you will forget Lian the author narrating this short opening and find yourself lost in this history, a rare type of history with wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, demons and dragons, and villains (as far as I know) that have been soundly killed at the end.

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Rei felt as though he had woken up after a sleep. He was floating in dead calmness and had no difficulty finding himself. The whole look of the world had been changed. Arceus was humming in a low voice but stopped and spoke again when Rei hailed the Providence.

"You are young today," began Arceus. "It is strange for you to hear someone say such a thing, but you are very young. It is a delight and marvel even for me, who created myself for my own good. Only twelve winters have passed since you came into creation. The oldest and greatest things you cannot see or hear or understand. It is a strong pleasure to see you with my outward eyes, the stronger because you are very fragile."

"You really think so?" said Rei sharply. "Then you must know better than I. If you have something to say, then do get on with it."

Truthfully Rei was very sore at having been woken up. He had been very tired since the day before and most of the grandeur had been lost on him. It is not very surprising that he seemed cross considering everything that was happening in the world at large, and many men would have flailed in terror when faced with the light of Arceus. Later it would be decided that he took the entire experience rather well.

"I see that you have become a little older since we started speaking," said Arceus. The light was beginning to change so that Rei could not bear to look at it. His anger seemed to be slipping out of his mind. "Do you not see that I have great things planned for you? Whenever my word crosses a corner, everything else becomes new. You do not see Time as going backward."

"And how can I be this corner, sir?" said Rei. "I still am very young and small."

"With me, corner is not a name for size," said Arceus. "Behold!"

Rei saw something like the crystal of ruby, yet shaped like a sphere and stronger than adamant, so that no violence could destroy it within the World that is. Within the inner fire of that orb was blended the light of Arceus, which in most other things has withered and shines no more. Even in the black of the deepest reaches of the Outer Darkness, as if a living thing, it rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvelous than before.

"If that is a star, then I must be terribly large," thought Rei. "Some of the wise men say that stars are great lamps of oil unfathomably far away. But it feels quite alive!"

"Fire is what a star is made of, but not what a star is," said Arceus. Rei felt no offense at Logos reading his thought, although it might have been due to his inability to be quite sure of who was speaking at which time in the conversation. "Size does not matter in my designs. If I have sent you here for my purpose, then it might be well for you to listen."

"I'm listening," said Rei.

"Know that my plans concern the Evil Djinn. He wished to be higher than I in the order of things, despite being a created thing. He is called the Mbelekoro in your tongue, but his true name he has forfeited in becoming the Black Enemy that he is. He makes weakness and darkness just as I make strength and light and fill empty lands with good creatures. If it were to him you and all your family and kin would be dead."

"What do you know of Death?" said Rei, feeling unwanted wrath. "All those in Deep Heaven, your gods and servants, think only ever of better and better times rolling toward them, while we on Earth suffer."

"I made Death and was the first to name it the Gift of Men," said Arceus, speaking with a note of deliberate courtesy, even ceremony, in His speech. "I did not intend for that in the Beginning, though it became a great need. But it is the Dark Lord who twisted and wasted it into a form unrecognizable, so that Men fear it. With Death those you know go away for a time, and I take the soul of them and put it somewhere else, hopefully Deep Heaven. But not yet. That is something I will soon amend. In my designs for you, I will send my spirit to Earth from Deep Heaven to the lowness of the world, and make all Men and Pokemon blessed with that great sacrifice."

"Then that plan is the right way," said Rei. "But please take as long as you need to explain."

"The Hisuians I chose to be my people, and for a thousand years they have endured in the North. But after many wars and much slaughter the Men of Hisui have been diminished; your folk have dwindled, and your foes have devoured you. In this century your lordship will pass away, your cities will become desolate, and your heirs will be extinguished. There will be weeping and mourning in Jubilife, yet no one will comfort her. Once great among nations, she will become a slave. Her walls and altars will be given to her enemies, and I will not withhold her destruction."

"Sir, I know full well of our decline," said Rei. "Great was the loss of all the Alabaster Icelands and the Coronet Highlands to the Enemy and wild beasts. So has it been for many lives of lesser men."

"Yet still your lords and elders fight," said Arceus, "defying the Evil One, who commands his armies from the many strongholds and lands that have fallen under his dominion. Rumors and perils arise from North, West, and South. Much is utterly destroyed by the Enemy, and some things have strength yet that you do not know of, but there is still much that is fair, and in no land is love and beauty yet unmingled with sorrow and grief, it grows perhaps the greater for it. For I have not forgotten Hisui, and her torment will be made brief."

Arceus flashed, and for a brief instant there was a blaze like a strike of lightning. The great shadows around Rei spread out and fled, and he saw a great hall, with pillars of smooth and polished granite, before the light went out. Then the darkness resolved into a cavern of furious red rock, some ways long, with a dais covered in graven images. Silvery water, or a liquid much like water, murmured around the dais. A host of two times a dozen men stood before the flat expanse, clothed in sable mail, with a king in crimson standing among them.

There was a rush of chill air, and then Rei saw something like the spirit of a god standing upon the dais. It was enigmatic, sorrowful, ready to die, hating its own fate and Father. Then if the scales of the image had been weighted differently in some respect, the spirit had all its advantage taken from it. Then, tedious, taught, and awful, the world broke in all the weight and noise of an ineluctable wave, leaving behind a quiet sea of Nothing.

Later Rei and his children would have recurring dreams of the white-shorn wave coming in towering over the green inlands. The legend or myth or dim memory of lost history always troubled him. It occurred occasionally, although partially exorcised by writing about it. The dreams always ended in surrender, and he would awake gasping out of the deep water. It was something that Rei would draw and write and compose bad poems about.

"Now you see that the greatest reason for this calling is not to preserve a precious thing like gold and jewels, the playthings of rich men, nor iron, your servant. Not even Hisui is what you are protecting solely, but the whole world. The Enemy covets victory greatly, and he would unmake the Earth and cast it back into the old abyss to be rid of me. What you saw is what may happen and what is doomed to be if fate is not changed."

Rei felt a black fear, a fear with no definite object outside of the horror of the world falling away into the ancient darkness. The memory of the wave of anti-creation remained strong and close. The joy of Arceus being present had gone crooked, and he was left, eyeless and helpless in the dark. The spectacle of the blind purposelessness admitted no break, no discontinuity, in the unfolding of its inexorable process.

"You could not have believed yourself that this destruction could even occur. There will be no end to it, either. When it has been attained, you might say that it had been the beginning as well as the end. Time is one of the things the Mbelekoro will transcend, and then it will only be me and him. There will be no new Creation."

"Why?" said Rei. "You are the Original One. Surely you could destroy the Mbelekoro and start everything over again without him bothering the whole process of Creation."

Here Arceus subsided into a whisper, a great, inscrutable Force pouring from the dark and into Rei. "I will never do anything twice. It is through me that my Spirit itself is always pushing towards some goal. And if I made the world again, there would be another Dark Lord. His was a fall of pride, and pride must be a choice. We would come back right to this point. If I broke the cycle then there must be no free will in the matters of Men and Pokemon. Men will fall out of desire to gain greater glory and Pokemon out of possessiveness and good love for bad things."

"If you're so concerned about it, send one of your gods," said Rei, trying to wash his hands of the matter. "Dialga can do what Rei cannot do, and do what he can do far better. He's a Spirit, isn't he? I thought we agreed that we worshipped you because you are a pure Spirit."

"I hope you will never think such a thing again," said Arceus, with not a little alarm. "I want you to worship me because I am wise and good. There is nothing especially fine about being a spirit. All the religious people out for spirituality, with their fasts and celibacy, come to nothing if they only do it for the sake of spirit-worship. The Dark Lord is a spirit. If that is clear, you have been waiting long enough for me to tell you how to prevent what the Dark Lord is planning."

"If you will it," said Rei. An appalling weariness and heavy-heartedness had settled on him. He was also feeling quite frightened, partially from what he saw, and also because he began to gain greater consciousness of his surroundings. To dwell in the Abyss is not a thing that can be long endured, and he wished that Arceus would hurry. On that matter he also resolved that he would ask no more questions.

"Once you wake, tell your father and mother first of my words. Go then to the man of science Laventon and tell him of this. All of that company will go into the square of Jubilife and gather what friends you have, so that you may bring the case to Lord Kamado. A council will be declared and the form of divination that I have permitted will rule in your favor. Then a fellowship will be made, a Golden Company, bringing all that is good in Men and Pokemon together. There will be those skilled with the sword, and also with good counsel. This Company I will bring to the ends of the Earth, from North to South, I will never desert it as long as the throne of the Dark Lord endures.

"You will have great need of Pokemon. On the journey I will provide many signs and omens, in forms diverse, to guide and correct. When lost, look to the omens. Go north to the Iron Mountains, for the Crimson King dwells there. If you succeed, then glory in this life and within the halls of Deep Heaven awaits all of the Golden Company. If you fail, then salvation for the Free Peoples will arise from another place, but you and all those you love will fall under the Shadow, and perish to death everlasting. Do you remember all that I have said?"

Rei did remember, and there seemed no way he could not. Then the dawn of the day rose upon him, and as he woke Arceus left, and for an instant he was in seamless, undimensioned night. When he awoke and left the dream he discovered that he was lying down in his cot, far more comfortable than he had ever considered.

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He woke, after his disturbed and fitful sleep, in full daylight. He had a dry mouth, a crick in his neck, and a soreness in his limbs. It was so unlike any other previous wakings that for a moment he thought the events of his dream imaginary, and the dream (for so it seemed to him) of having lived in the presence of Arceus rushed through his memory with a sense of lost sweetness that was well nigh unbearable.

Then he came fully to his senses and facts returned to him. Hunger and thirst became his dominant concerns, but he first conceived that it was his duty to do all that Arceus had said. Rei awoke and left his cot and put on clothes for hard work and then found his father in the part of the house that held many scrolls of lore and wisdom. Rei's house was large, built by skilled hands, and had many rooms, enough so that he could have his own.

There lived in that House Rei's father, builder of a fenced dwelling in the green hills of Agar west of Jubilife, and he was fifty years old. Three prides he had: in his wife and son, and the virtue of his work in writing scrolls and making copies for those that needed them. He was a rare sort of Hisuian, those that came from the race of Johto, and remained most like the Westerners in the Land of the Bell Tower; broad, swarthy, tough, hearty-tongued, short, kind-handed, and quick to defend and attack.

Rei was more akin to his mother, and indeed most Hisuians. He was tall enough and very pale, and there was a light in his grey eyes that would flash to fire if he came to anger; and though that happened seldom, and never without great cause, it was a thing to remember and be ware of. His father who had seen that fire called him Iron-eye, and respected and loved him. For Rei next to his father might seem slender-built and lacking in the strength of leg and neck that the elder praised, but any man that strove with him soon found him strong beyond guess, and sudden and swift, hard to grapple and harder to elude.

On that day Rei's brains were working rather slowly and it took him a minute or so to find the proper words to tell his father anything related to the dream or Arceus or a Quest. When he finally got around to it his father listened very carefully and without any change in expression. When Rei had finished the elder man thought very long and hard, and remained still with his hand under his chin for a while.

"I let you go," said Rei's father. "So be it that the elders will know if you speak the truth or simply from a vivid dream. But it is not in my thought that I should let you go free and make a fool of our family. I will tell your mother and then go with you to Laventon."

The elder left muttering in a strange tongue under his breath. Rei thanked Arceus that his father only thought he might be up to mischief of some kind, and then returned to his room. The next few minutes Rei spent gathering food in a satchel and also his Pokemon. By the arts of Laventon the two he had were sealed away in Capture Balls, marvels crafted by the skilled hands of the Hisuians. They were made of the Apricorn fruits that grow often in Hisui, and could capture even untamed Pokemon, and then release them to the bidding of their master. Capture Balls were still very new in Hisui, and no other race of Men had yet heard of them.

Rei had two Pokemon; a Typhlosion and a Sneasler. The Typhlosion had been given to Rei by Laventon when it was a Cyndaquil. That Pokemon was fierce in defense of those things that it loved, Rei among them. And it was strong, stronger than any man in Hisui, and it gave warmth and light from a fell violet flicker-flame that it made come forth with its hands and that crackled ever and anon at its mane. It held strangers as enemies, although Rei had mastered the art it took to calm it.

I do not know how Rei's father got the Sneasler, but in any ways it was passed down to him along with Typhlosion. It was a cruel creature, cat-like and apt to trickery and the use of poison, who would torment the small squirrels and birds that it caught before eating them. It was a climber that brought home fruits from the tallest trees and a good mouser that took delight in the death of pests. Rei did not like it much and would often speak to it without kindness, but then it would chatter and grin, fleeing into the hills for a time. Rei would find a dead rat at the foot of his bed later that week, and then the matter would be settled.

Rei also had a dagger that he used as much as his Pokemon on the Quest. It was short and had a leaf-shaped blade, and the tracery was of serpent-forms in red and gold. It had a black sheath of onyx mixed with some other metal, light and strong, and adorned with dark gems that seldom shone. It had been passed down from the Hisuians under Elwin all the way to Rei through his father, and despite its great age, the blade was sharp and unrusted by time. On it were runes of power. So was the blade of Easternesse, the one that would do so many great deeds.

At length Rei's father returned and both left for Laventon. Rei's mother had said that either her son was mad, a liar, or telling the truth, and there was no better way to find out which was true or not other than going to the High Elder. Outside of the house, Rei smelled the air and saw outside to the northwest far away the outflung arm of the Mountains of Echoes marched to a sudden end, and far lands in the north could be descried beside them.

To the south the Great Sea glinted and receded endlessly as far as the eye could reach beyond Tol Valaquenta, Prelude Beach. Less than two leagues away in the northeast, and a little below them, for they stood upon a hill, lay there a lake. It was large and oval, shaped like a mirror graven into the plains, but its eastern end was beyond all shadow and shone clear under the morning sun. Yet its waters were dark: a deep blue like a clear evening sky seen from a lamp-lit room. Its face was still and unruffled. About it was a deep line of trees, shelving downward on all its sides in an unbroken rim. In the midst of the lake was a small island that often was covered in mist, but it was hallowed and home to beings old and powerful.

"There lies Lake Verity, deep Tarn Aeliun!" thought Rei sadly. "So it is said that all Men should have joy at the sight of it. I feel that I will have to journey long before I feel joy again."

The two now went down the road from the house. It was rough and broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid the cracking stones. But still it could be seen that once long ago a great paved way had wound upwards from the lowlands to the house and other homes besides. In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind. An eastward bend led them hard by the sward of Verity, and there not far from the roadside stood a single column broken at the top.

The road turned toward Jubilife and now went slowly downwards. Beyond the city limits or the farms around it Laventon lived in a house built by his Gurdurr. Soon the path before them became well-tended and was bordered with stone. To the door of the house of Laventon it now went, with wide windows on each side of the threshold, and through them candles burned brightly, tall and yellow.

Rei rang the door-bell and Laventon answered. Beyond the entrance was a long low room with a table covered in arcane instruments. Laventon himself was dressed in purple reed robes, and his belt was made of gold. His boots were leather and his skin brown. He looked at them with surprise, and then smiled. "Enter, dear guests! Fear nothing, for now you are under the roof of Laventon."

He stopped and turned grim when he saw the fear and purpose stalking in Rei's eyes. "Here's the meaning of your coming! My breakfast table is laden. There is yellow cream and honeycomb, and white bread and butter. Is that enough?"

"Enough for our stomachs, but our hearts have a hunger set apart," the elder said. "In this evil hour we have come alone to you, whose might is in wisdom, and not in weapons. My son has come to ask for counsel and the unraveling of strange words."

After Rei had told Laventon the things he had seen and heard, Laventon's face was dark. "The word of the Original One has come to Hisui again. You have not lied to your seniors in my recall, Rei, and were not given to boyish dreams. Mark my words, friends: we must bring this case to Lord Kamado. But let us eat first and then make talk with full bellies."

The three ate and drank and spoke of Laventon's experiments and machines, and the fortune and grace of the Original One. At midmorning they left and went down the short path to the Great Road that went to Jubilife. Rei was nearly as heavy as heart that is possible on such a grand morning: cool, bright, and clean under a washed autumn sky of thin blue, while the trees turned to ruby and gold all around them and the Pokemon made nests for their whelps. Laventon whistled like a tree-full of birds, and the farms along the road were green and shining.

...

Jubilife Town was the chief city in all of the territory of Hisui, the Land of Gift, a small inhabited region, an island in the lands about. Lying around Jubilife and the villages was a small country of fields and tamed woodlands only a few leagues broad. A few thousand large and small stone houses of Men, mostly along the Great North Road, stood nestled against the hillsides with windows looking into the east. Many thousands of Men and Pokemon dwelt there, or sojourning for a little while before returning to their own lands or Barad Nimaras, the great White Tower of the Diamond Clan by the shores of the Cobalt Coastlands.

Over the road, the city crossed into a deep causeway over the River Gwaithion, and both north and southerly lying portions of the road through the settlement were barred by a great gate, one leading into the Obsidian Fieldlands in the perilous realms northward, and the other sending goods and travelers southward to the Havens of Prelude Beach. Many wanderers through Eastern Johto and far Unova came seldomly, bringing dark tales and rumors of wars. As strange as News from Jubilife, the saying went among the Men that dwelt there.

There were rumors of strange things happening in the world outside of Hisui, and as no journeyman had at that time appeared or sent any message for several years, Rei would gather all the news he could. The Men of Kanto, who seldom walked in Hisui, could now be seen passing southward through woods in the evening, passing and not returning; but they were leaving the North for the far South due to reasons unknown and were no longer concerned with its troubles. There were, however, Johtorim and their Pokemon on the roads in unusual numbers. The ancient Great Road ran through Hisui to its end at Prelude Beach, and the Johtorim had always used it on their way to their settled homes in Hoenn. They were the Hisuian's chief source of news from distant parts, if they wanted any: as a rule the Westerlings said little and Hisuians asked no more. But now Rei often met strange Men with Pokemon of far countries, seeking refuge in the East. They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Dor Daedeloth.

That name the Hisuians only knew in a quite removed sense; like a shadow in the background of their memories that was the great conductor behind all their troubles with wild men and evil folk, but it was ominous and disquieting. It seemed that the evil power in Kalos had been driven out by gods at the end of the Elder Days only to reappear in greater strength in the strongholds of the far Southlands. The Iron Hell had been built, it was said. From there the power was spreading far and wide, and away far west and north and south there were wars and growing fear. Evil Pokemon were multiplying again in the mountains. Salamance and Gengar and other dragons and shades were abroad, no longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed with dreadful weapons. And there were murmured hints of creatures more terrible than all these, but they had no name.

In the square by the Great Inn of Jubilife, the girl Akari was sorting wheat with her Parasect, removing the chaff from the good stalks. Rei's father and Akari's father saw them playing together several years ago and decided that they would be married at eighteen, and no one talked about it much. Rei thought that Akari was very beautiful and made no complaint. She was friends with Laventon and skilled with the bow; hers was a short Hisuian-made thing, with a few arrows. Rei had once seen her hit an apple straight through from a hundred feet away with a single dart, although he soon proved that she could barely hold even a dagger. In that way the score was even between them.

"Well, Rei," said Akari. "Queer things you hear these days, to be sure. What are you out here for?"

"No doubt you do hear such things," said Rei, "and I daresay there's more truth to them than some can reckon. If it's strange news you want, then I'll tell you plenty."

Rei told her all that Arceus had said. Akari shook her head, half-sad and half-solemn. "Well, I don't know what to think," she said thoughtfully. "Dreams like these aren't anything new, if you believe the old tales. There are some in these parts we could take the matter to, (you mentioned Lord Kamado) and I also think that the clan leaders would be well to know. There's also Lian. I saw him around the Wallflower earlier."

A number of rustic Hisuians had been listening to their talk, and Lian was among them. Lian is the writer of this story along with Cyllene, and I have tried to speak of myself as little as I may. At that time I was utterly penniless and working in the kitchen of the Wallflower and selling the services of my two Avallugs to any who would pay. I am told that on that day I was wearing a girdle of silk and my hair was ruddy and flat. I had heard Rei speaking and remembered most of what he said, although I didn't take it well. Such was Rei's urgency that he took me along with his company and then went straight to Kamado.

The band all sat upon one of Lian's Avaluggs and went east. Lord Kamado was at that time arranging a marriage between two separate families, and also deciding what bride price would be fair and good. There was a crumb of comfort for the three that had come to Jubilife, and more than crumb for Akari and Lian: Laventon had not forgotten to bring fresh loaves of bread.

In the end there was a three hours trip from Jubilife to the tent of Kamado. There was the High Elder making counsel with others, and his appearance was absolutely inimitable. Kamado was not especially tall but very broad, yet his width was well-proportioned to his height. When standing he did not strike the onlookers with such admiration, but if when sitting on the judgment seat, he shot forth the fierce splendor of his eyes, he seemed to be a blaze of lightning. He had grey arched eyebrows, from beneath which his eyes darted a glance at once terrible and tender.

From his whole person emanated beauty and grace and dignity, and an unapproachable majesty. And if he entered into conversation and let loose his tongue, you would have realized from his first words that fiery eloquence dwelt on his lips. For with a flood of argument he would carry the opinions of his hearers with him, for truly he could not be surpassed in discussion or action, being as ready with his tongue as with his hand, the one for hurling the spear, the other for casting fresh spells. He was two hundred and fifty years of age, and his face was seen like a man of sixty in the reckoning of lesser men, and he was swift and fell with a blade.

The husband that Kamado was speaking to was named Breman, a man renowned for his integrity and not his intelligence. Kamado gave him leave and then turned to the five who had come so unannounced to his tent, and gave each of them a hard stare. Laventon shrunk back as children do at the thought of bogeys. Then with a fierce glance and slight scowl Kamado said: "What have you come here for? Is it to speak of marriage arrangements between the boy and the girl six years early than last spoken of?"

Laventon remained rooted to the spot, speechless, as if robbed of his mind and wits. It was Rei and his father that told the High Elder the full tale and why they had come. Then Kamado accepted the invitation for a council gratefully, to the relief of all. It would not have been a light decision to make in other years, but Kamado's ears were open, and he knew that the darkness was growing and hoped to find light to oppose its waxing. Thus the Great Council was convened, and the other elders and great Men in the land assembled at the orders of Kamado.

.

.

.

In the North of Hisui, Among the Calathrim

.

This part of the tale came to my ears after the Quest had been fulfilled. Cyllene never told me how she came by it and why it was included in the Legends of Arceus and I never asked after considering the nature of the text. It was certainly not from a mortal witness but rather some dream from Logos that Cyllene of the Golden Company knew of the dialogue between the Dark Lord and his slaves. From the viewpoint of a writer, it is fortunate that the Divine Writer provided such a piece of story that speaks of what exactly the Mbelekoro was doing at the time of Rei's dream, and also shows some of his plans.

There apparently was a large cave in the far northwestern forests of Hisui, the Tawar-I-Druedain, the Forests of the Unwilling. These forests were a little north and a little east of the Narrow Marsh between Hisui and Johto and were filled with unfriendly Pokemon, monsters, and the Calathrim, a traitorous and barbaric people that the Hisuians had feuded with since the Elder Days. The Calathrim called the Hisuians the Go-hilleg, or the Southern Cruels, and often made raids further in the Fieldlands and joined greater confederacies of many peoples to oppose the Northmen.

The Calathrim feared this cave, and they said that it was full of evil spirits and other demons. The trees about its dark mouth were dead and rotting. A chill wind came from within and there were no Pokemon making their nest within or without. Within that dismal netherworld black vines creeped along the cavern walls like tree boughs made of snakes. Soon the opening resolved into a cavern, fifty paces broad, that seemed to be the very brewing vat of Tartarus.

In that unlighted gloom the darkness seemed a presence more than an absence of light. It was a brooding force, a malice that eked in and out of the cave. Out of that darkness glared many pairs of yellow cat-eyes belonging to a gallery of grotesque faces. Forms of creatures dreadful and wicked were outlined by a sourceless red glow. Sulfureous vapor slithered in tattered wisps about the room and filled the air with its stench as the many demons carried on their discourse there in the dark.

The Shadow that corrupted them could only mock. It cannot make living things of its own, only ruining and twisting them into a form perverse. If the demons were to live at all, they must live like other spirits. In that case they were invisible to mortal eyes, and all but the most mighty among them could not take form in the flesh. They were those he sent to sully the hearts of Men and Pokemon and lead them to sin, unlike the hapless few Firstborn and Followers that fell into the clutches of the Dark Lord. All of those had a fate apart.

The demons did not have true life and also could not multiply in the manner of the Children of Arceus, for they were spirits that had no life, nor the resemblance thereof, and naught that had life could the Mbelekoro make since his rebellion before the Beginning. And deep in their dark hearts the demons loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. The corruption of spirits was one of the vilest deeds of the Evil Djinn, and among those most hateful to Arceus.

A demon called Complacency felt the other's disregard for him. It was a feeling mutual; the elder gods around him would do anything to advance their favor in the eyes of the Dark Lord. Complacency happened to be one of the smallest, and thus the easiest to persecute. He could not compare to the greater demons around him: there was Rukhs, the Tyranitar-chieftain of the Sevii Islands, Oscuriveil of Alola, Freyja of Kanto, and even Darkrai himself. Of all the fallen spirits Darkrai was the one that still had the greatest memory of the light Deep Heaven, and even though he was only second to the Evil Djinn and Giratina in power apparent, the Dark Lord distrusted him and gave him little thought.

Complacency asked Rukhs: "Where is the Dark Lord? Is he tardy or a dotard to some other purpose?"

"Find him thyself, worm!" said Rukhs.

A demon of lust, a snake-like creature with a rose-marked pink hide and a tail that seemed to be a snake wrapped twice about its chest, heard their quarrel and seized Complacency with two claws. "Where have yea been sleeping about today, little one?" Enamorus jeered.

"I do not sleep, whore," said Complacency. "I cause Men to sleep."

"To lust and steal innocence, to break childhood while it remains is better yet," said Enamorus. "An apparently trivial indulgence in lust today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the False One Arceus may launch an attack otherwise very possible."

"But someone must turn away the eyes of others," said Complacency. "For your failure is greater than your triumph. Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed."

Enamorus thought that overmuch and then dropped Complacency as the others watching laughed. But then Enamorus came against Darkrai, and that was a dark meeting. On one side was passion unmitigated and black desire that drove Men into the claws of the Enemy, and on the other was fear and nightmare, a roving black hole. The eyes of the Lord of Terror daunted Enamorus, and it relented out of fear. Darkrai always wished for a tame audience when the Great Djinn came to court, and was in the habit of slaying the few unrepentant troublemakers in his presence.

"Great lord, I must speak with you!" cried Complacency. "There is news from the South. The False One is moving."

"Dare you to speak to me without good cause," said Darkrai, and then all whispered thoughts of Darkrai's repentance were gone. The cold husk of his voice was as far from those of uncorrupted spirits as the singing of birds of song is from nails upon a chalkboard. "Arceus is always moving. And why you call Arceus the False One I cannot say, for He is strong enough. If we could have harmed Him by now we would have done so."

"Does the Lord of Night doubt the sheer wickedness, the magnificent aspiration, and the certain success of our endeavors to end the Kingdom of Arceus?" taunted Enamorus. There was black laughter all about, and it seemed that the crowd thought that Enamorus had scored a point.

And then the darkness came. Until then Darkrai had seemed terrible but nothing for another demon of strength to fear, a lump of unmoving stone weathered by passing grievances. Now Enamorus screamed, its maddening haughtiness gone. The red light was snuffed and the demons chattered in terror. The black filled to the bursting with all of Darkrai's hatred and wrath, and then Enamorus was no more.

The darkness receded. Complacency cowered, expecting a sudden blow, but Darkrai spared him. "I have been through the Earth and under it. Do I fear the Host of Heaven? Nay. This cave is as shrouded with Fallen Ones as Deep Heaven is with the Light Ones. Why should we fear? Yet as I respect Arceus, thou should follow."

In fact Enamorus was not banished but had been hurled back to the Crimson Mirelands at great speed. Darkrai knew that the Dark Lord had plans for the creature and would not wish to spoil them over a small feud. The other demons cowered in shame like dogs after they have been stricken. Darkrai went about, addressing the host with great polish. Soon order was restored and the demons went about patting each other's backs and stabbing Enamorus's.

...

Though the old men of the Calathrim had promised the evening to be bright and clear, a row of clouds came, bringing cold and rain. The north grew dark under the shroud of unpleasant nature and fallen spirit. The night descended over and into the cave, deeper and colder as time went on. All over the forest Pokemon began to screech and howl. Here and there a quarrel and fight broke out among Men.

"He is here," said Darkrai.

"Where is the Dark Lord?" said Rukhs. "Darkrai, you can be sure that we have things very much in control here. No worker from our number has ever had to sneak about for fear of attack. The Dark Lord's purposes are not to come here; he summoned us on a flight of fancy, only to test our loyalty. He has no need to give us counsel. We roam these lands freely, doing our work unhindered, and we will succeed in every place until this realm is fully ours. Are you afraid of his wrath? To fear is to fail!"

Then it happened, and so very suddenly that none of them could react with anything other than air-piercing shrieks of terror. Rukhs had hardly gotten the word "fail" out of his mouth before a violent, boiling cloud crashed and thundered into the room like a tidal wave, a sudden avalanche of force that crushed like iron. The demons were swept across the room like so much debris in a raging tide, tumbling, screaming, wrapping their wings tightly around themselves in terror.

All save Darkrai. Before him amidst a cloud were two eyes that burned with fire and frost, lidless as a serpent's. The huge shape was like a mountain striding in the depths of the sea with its head above the clouds, of greater power and majesty than any of the gods, his armor like plates of iron rusted, and upon his brow a crown, a huge wreath rimmed with pinnacles, and upon its foul rim were reliefs of cruelty. His visage was that of hate; a wicked king, corrupt and oppressive, who mistreated those below him, rebelled against those above him, and saw the world as his right and weregild; a spirit wasteful and pitiless. He was the mightiest of all living things in Earth.

Standing before Darkrai the Mbelekoro was reckoned to as a tower, and the shadow of his body like a stormcloud. As the demons recovered from the shock wave of this new presence, they looked up and saw Rukh's body, twisted like a broken toy, in the grip of a huge, black hand. He struggled, choked, gagged, and cried for mercy, but the hand only tightened its crushing grip, inflicting punishment without mercy, descending down out of the darkness like a cyclone from a thundercloud. With a bellow the Dark Lord threw the demon aside and crushed him against the cavern floor. Rukhs dissolved into red smoke and comes into this tale no more.

"You who have no fear," said the Dark Lord, "are you afraid? Listen well, all of you. Rukhs, who fears not the Hosts of Heaven, has shown fear. He is a liar and a worm and is not to be heeded. I say to you: fear the Hosts of Heaven. They are your enemies, and they are intent on defeating you. As they are ignored, as they are given place, so they shall overcome you. And if I am tardy, know that I seldom seek for aid, the Dark Lord so cunning and wise. You all go about wandering the lands, concerning yourself in your master's business, whether it concerns you or not."

The Mbelekoro walked with ponderous steps over to where Complacency laid prostrate. He caught Complacency around the back of the neck with one finger and pulled him up straight. "Tell me, little lizard, what have you seen today? Has Darkrai ignored your counsel?"

"He has told me that Arceus is moving," said Darkrai.

''So you have spoken, Darkrai," he said gravely; but in his eyes there seemed to be a white light, as if a cold laughter was in his heart. "Perhaps that thought was late in coming to you. How long, I wonder, have you concealed from me, the Lord of the Earth, a matter of greatest import? What brings you now from your lurking-place in the wild?"

"Arceus has formed a Company, or is beginning to," said Darkrai. "I propose that we must stop it."

"Behold, ye spirits, Darkrai!" laughed the Mbelekoro, and he no longer concealed his scorn. ''Darkrai the Shade! Darkrai the Haunt! To the South he will go, and not aid in the plans I have concerning the North. Yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set him. For you have come, and that was all the purpose of my message to ye. For I am the Great Djinn, the Giver of Freedom, Lord of the World, and I am now Marcus of many colors."

Then the demons looked, and were marveled, for sitting on the throne that had been prepared for him the Dark Lord changed to a fair form. He was a king clothed in crimson, with white skin and bands around his wrists and hands, with sandals on his feet, and a crown of gold with a shining image of the sun upon it. But then they perceived that the robes, which has seemed burgundy, were not so, but woven of many colors, and if the Dark Lord moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

"I liked crimson better, my lord," said Darkrai.

"Crimson!" hissed the Mbelekoro. "Crimson may serve as a beginning. Crimson cloth might be dyed, red light can be broken. You need not speak to me as you do to the fools you call your friends. I have not brought any of you hither to be instructed on what I will do, but to give you a choice."

He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a speech long rehearsed. ''The Elder Days are gone. The Middling Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of Arceus is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.

"I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. In us new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies of the Free Peoples will not prevail. There is no hope for Men left in Arceus or dying Hisui. This then is one choice before you, before us. We must continue to press with our fingers to grow that Power. There is hope that way. Our victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proven friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends in Men. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.''

"My lord," said Darkrai, ''I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from us to deceive the gullible among Men. I cannot think that you brought us so far only to weary our ears.''

"No," said the Mbelekoro. "My plan is for my thought alone. Daunt and deceive the servants of Arceus wherever you might find them; better yet, destroy them. A risk is best removed and not tolerated or held in leaguer. In three months this world will fall away and a new one will come to take its place. Take away whatever might stand against us. I will send my emissary among them to confuse their counsel and darken their thoughts. Look for my victory when the Mountain of Coronet is wreathed with fire and smoke."

Then springing forth the Dark Lord turned into a vampire, with vast pinioned wings, and fled screeching from the cave. He flew north, dripping dark blood from his mouth, scorching the tops of the trees.