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Fury of Winter and the Rite of Sverri the Small
With the transgression of the cycle of seasons by Haremarch, a reaction manifested from the Winter Court.
The Arch-fey of that court, named Eg-iln-ribs-soto-eg, stirred from their more usual pastoral past times a number of its most energetic courtiers. These fey-touched beings belonged to its Court by virtue of pacts and bargains with mankind. Names such as Moreau and Goldcrest tell of these exchanges, nobles and gentlemen who gave of their children to the Fey for causes and reasons now lost to us.
Besides, the Winter Court's princeps had long nursed a vengeance against the walled city in the outer ring; some manner of betrayal or slight or cunning reversal on a pact it had suffered some generations ago. The precise nature of that slight is still hidden from your historian, though she believes it is knowable. A matter of insight and observation, though the Fey rarely deign to explain more than necessary for their own ends. That Winter follows the cursed House of Ghyl or that its snowy influence bedecks those rings marked by the King's ire perhaps some indication.
Whatever the totality of motives is, recent transgressions by Haremarch, ancient scores left unsettled or others, the outcome is known to your historian. A rite was devised by Soto-eg. Its purpose was to generate among mankind strong emotions of despair, humiliation, anger. The Fey crave and make use of such passions and feelings to craft their glamours. It is also the case that the most practiced and powerful Fey design such spells to cause and strengthen on the very feelings and passions they inspire in man.
And so these courtiers were dispatched to affect this new rite that would cause in mankind a great wave of grim and dire emotions: the rite was to humiliate a champion from each of the Great Houses of the Ward. The courtiers were quick to fan out and make allies and smaller pacts of all kinds to affect their ends. Aatish Aldebrand for example had some manner of understanding with the courtiers. Sverri the Small would enter into their service. Jett Moreau himself approached your historian with an offer, during her troubles with Manfred Japes and the massacre of her Lady Oldflowers and huscarls. The first House to suffer was Lyon's recently returned banner. A formidable woman named Carmine fell to some ambush laid by the Courtiers and her head was removed, as the rite describes. Though it was at some cost to their own number, shortly after a pair of courtiers involved in this ambush were killed by Quick-footed Mebril and other Moonspear bannermen.
The Courtiers meanwhile proceeded with their charge; one such courtier for example tried to overcome Ser Adrian Velstra in a duel, though was unsuccessful. However, the courtiers used any means, and enlisting the aide of Sverri the Small turned out to be their most fruitful and productive in the long run. Eg-iln-ribs-soto-eg was able to use Sverri's dedication to his awoken patron god, Gnipir, and his religiously inspired pre-disposition towards longing for snowy apocalypses to form a powerful pact. Indeed, Oliver Merryweather, and later your own historian witnessed Sverri entering into the sanctum of Soto-eg in the Weald, having been marked by his favor. It is said that the pass-words at the time were "Fimbulvetr is anon," or at least that was the phrase Pavlina had seized from his memory later.
Of Sverri's life and works, much more could and has been said - the fateful choice to place the Augury of Arrenhius with Vivian. Her subsequent death, his bargain with Ishmenka Blacksmile to see her, and other augurs' memories restored in own mind and body, his then connection to the Mists though not entirely unrelated, are also not the subject of this account. What is important however is that he was a patient and diligent lieutenant of the Court, and cleverly used his oversized reputation as Augur to maneuver the Houses to accomplish his goals. For example, he led a rather mighty coalition of Houses into the Court of Summer and there did some violence to the Lord of Knots, the Arch-fey of Summer, and counted-coup against the Seat of Summer with an icy spell.
He also bid his time. And it so came he was in position to capitalize on the humiliation in Glitt Hall and subsequent assassination on the streets of Manfred Japes of Orza by Merryweather and the sturdy pair of Belmore bravos. Brie Cesme, once a servant of Oldflowers but now an Orzan had revealed that Manfred had entered into a rather elaborate contract with a powerful Devil. In that confusion and aftermath of that civil strife and death of a knight, Sverri cut off Manfred's head. It is also known that Sardistan, the Vizier of Senuspur has his head staked in the Winter Court sanctum. This historian had at times seen Manfred with that grim trophy, so I assume it was at the same point Sverri also took that part of the offering for Soto-eg's rite from the slain Manfred.
Some time later, in a not entirely dissimilar manner as in the case of Orza's humiliation, Ser Adrian of Velstra was captured by the warlord Hrorgjar during an action in the steadings of that campaign, and the knight's form was changed by the powerful witchstones the warlord had gathered. Sverri positioned himself as an envoy to treat with the woe-formed, and sue for the return of Adrian or his death. Sverri took the humiliated son of Norbert's head.
And so it came to pass that four of the five components of the rite were gathered and given to Winter's Court. The fifth, the humiliation of Glitt, however would prove to be Sverri's undoing. Sverri had invited Kinsley Greylocke and Pavlina, the tutor of Lady Belmore, into the Le Bleak estate. Sverri had abandoned his well appointed rooms in the Velstra Velvet shortly after his maneuver against the Lord of Knots - perhaps it no longer served his aims after that attack, or perhaps he wished to better obscure his intentions from the Velstrans. Whatever the exact causes or means, Le Bleak had died and mysteriously named Sverri his inheritor, and so Sverri had use of the small estate in the Gatelands for his occupation.
It was at this meeting that his many ambitions, pacts and obligations came to head. I have heard it reported by the Skratti that he gave the choice of what to do to Kinsley - complete the rite by offering herself freely, or instead kill him and pass the mantle of Augur to Pavlina. Or perhaps he simply tried to complete the rite and was overcome by the pair of women. The outcome is certain however, Kinsley and Pavlina slayed Sverri and your historian witnessed his body carried out of the estate and buried outside in the garden, under the Royal Favor flowers still blooming in the frost.
And so the rite of Winter was for a time left incomplete. The courtiers roused for the mission had either been killed, Goldcrest for example was delivered to Ojo, or disappeared. Their agents and allies for the time being fell and overcome. Pavlina meanwhile was given to a great confusion, as the sudden transference of the Augurs' memories was a great burden on her mind. Eventually, your historian witnessed her companions, Sorcha the Goat, Earc the Fair, Albert the Best Soul, and her fellow Druids, beloved brothers and sister, Taban who Goes Unseen, Jacho Bunts Alder Kars Cybel Lukeson, and Moonsent Brie Cesme, cross the great desert and pass the gates of Baz'eel towards the Last Keep. They reached the Keep, and whatever they found there, it granted them the means to see Pavlina's mind restored. At once she was made clear and comprehensible again after a flash of a mist sent vision. Immediately upon this miracle, Pavlina heralded that the Winter which grown in power since the rite's commencement would wane, and spring would soon arrive. The Skratti that Sverri had gathered who yet remained re-dedicated themselves to her augury and purpose.
Topic: Book of Metamorphoses (Read 327 times)
