Robe

Chapter 36

The tale Dresden is about to embark on is elaborate, but the salient points are what Shah is after, thus we do not need to get into the detail. We will, eventually, I promise (unless you're not a fan of detail, in which case, feel free to skip said 'later details' when I write them). For now, let us take the summary of Dresden's tale instead as a taste of what is to come. Better still, the two boys have some distance to cover before they arrive at the 'Whitecrown Inn', so there is time.

According to the stories of old, the very first thing to exist in Creation was the Line, a partition from which God descended from His supreme abode (a mystical realm, Dresden explained, that sat above all Creation, and was also known as the Highest). The beginning of land itself, an actual, real place myriads of horizons Darkwards from the Hepstraad and known as the Dawnplains, was created by the first footstep of God. It was from this land that He began the journey of creation, weaving together the very ground beneath His feet and the sky above His head with each stride, as He followed the Line along its course. It was also in this primeval place that the first of the Artifacts – a bracelet made of red clay, used by God in his descension – was safeguarded. Dresden had only heard of this through the stories told him by teachers and by the Custodian, none of whom had set their eyes on the item. Moreover, the Dawnplains were very, very far away. The journey would take innumerable cycles, even if flying on the wings of a Line-catcher ("Tell me more about this creature later," Shah interjected, thinking: Sounds kinda cool!)

The second Artifact was the Teardrop, shed by God in both joy and mourning at the arrival of the first human, in a land that was now known as the Whitecrown Reach ("The inn we travel to is named after this land, Shah," Dresden said, then continued). It was said that God's joy stemmed from His regard of the new creature: the culmination of all His attributes manifested and embodied in one unified form. But His sadness, it was also said, stemmed from His foreknowledge of the vile acts this new creature would perform, in spite of its inherent capabilities. Light and Darkness, good and evil, encapsulated in a being that would embrace more of the latter than the former (by choice!), and cause tremendous harm to Creation. And for this, God cried a single tear, one that solidified into a transparent, colorless gemstone of tremendous magical potency.

This Artifact was hidden in an ice cave in the Aranspyre Highlands of the Reach, and while the Custodian told Dresden he had been to the frigid regions where these caves were located, he spent little time searching for it. The effort was known to be an exercise in futility, all but guaranteeing death. The existence of Teardrop was in no doubt, however. Its astounding (and sometimes terrifying) power radiated from the mountains of ice under which it was buried. All those in the vicinity of the mountains – man, woman, child, creature, even vegetation – were affected by its radiant aura.

("If we have a chance," Dresden said, "you may see specimens the Custodian brought with him from these lands. They reside in his garden."

Shah didn't comment on this. Instead, he re-iterated what Dresden had said: "So a colorless gemstone the size of a teardrop buried under ice," before continuing in his own language: "Well, yah, that would be a pain in the butt to find.")

Then came the third Artifact, the Robe of God, also known as the Ornament of the Hepstraad. God bestowed His Robe to the first human to declare allegiance to the Highest and become a follower of the Light. This human was a woman named Alrea, and in some versions of this story, she was more than just God's disciple; she was also His lover, and the children they bore would be the first among the Kings and Queens of the Hepstraad. Hep Duatab was the capital of the Hepstraad, and the Robe of God had remained in the hands of its rulers, the descendants of Alrea, since time immemorial. Lord Faramay was not a descendant of Alrea, no, but Queen Rylenia purportedly bore this lineage, her beauty an evident mark of her deified ancestry. And as Queen Rylenia was held to be a descendant of Alrea, she was thus, by proxy rather than fact, a descendant of God Himself.