Post by nascent on Jan 24, 2009 17:26:49 GMT -5
(Please feel free to comment and critique this short work. This is something I originally wrote about two years back after taking a {very boring} Music Appreciation course at my local community college. It was largely inspired by the idea "Hey, what if someone made a musical instrument that worked as a powerful magical artifact?". Thus, the following short work of fiction was crafted. Enjoy!)
Harps, as we know them, are among the oldest family of instruments in music; throughout human history the harp has evolved itself from the earliest of string instruments into one of the most gracefully beautiful harmonic devices known to man... and not merely humanity, either. Fascinatingly, a vast majority of civilized cultures in the multiverse have developed instruments of striking resemblance to the harp (this can, perhaps, be accounted for by the harp-design’s simple and highly effective approach to string-based music), and thus its influence is not only multi-cultural but cross-dimensional. One of the races which held music of the harp in high regard was the Neviim, a race of beings whose nigh-utopian society was toppled by a lust for unbound magical power. This tale takes place at the peak of their society’s golden age, a time of great learning and research on the eve of their people’s descent into oblivion.
-------------------------------------------
A young girl was born into a family of prominent Neviim mages, Jy’Kelrea by name. She grew up with the expectations of her family weighing upon her, knowing she was expected to become a skilled magic user and carry on her family’s craft... however, her heart simply was not in it. She could not bring herself to master meditation, for when she tried to still her mind she inevitably found it wandering to a song; her aptitude with the languages of lore was flimsy at best, for she found the sound of the words to be harsh, difficult to memorize, and often unpleasant to her. Yet, not wanting to fail her family, she strove for several years with only minimal progress, and in the end her skills were third-rate at best. Her mother took her failure particularly hard, accusing her daughter of having her head in the clouds and being lazy about her lessons, which was far from true.
One day at a large festive gathering, one of Jy’Kelrea’s cousins fell ill due to an undercooked meal and spent the rest of the day sick in bed; this cousin, a daughter of Jy’Kelrea’s uncle Hner’Sevald, had been preparing a small musical recital, with a few other family members, for the festivities in which she was to play the Selah (pronounced “say”-“la”), a Neviim harp similar in design to a small Celtic harp (Clarsach). Jy’Kelrea, feeling awkward and shunned by some of her family members, was more than willing to spend her time at her cousin’s bedside acting as a nurse. When it became apparent that the cousin would not be well in time for the performance, the young girl asked Jy’Kelrea to take her place.
Jy’Kelrea loved music. She loved listening to it... but her studies had kept her far too busy, so she had never had the chance to learn an instrument. Fortunately, Hner’Sevald managed to push the performance back a few hours and proceeded to give Jy’Kelrea some quick lessons in playing the Selah; he was a renowned master of the instrument, as well as famous for crafting the highest quality and most ornately elaborate Selahs on the Neviim world. To his utter astonishment, Jy’Kelrea learned how to play the Selah in almost no time at all and had memorized the music she was to play well before the performance time. It was like she was born to play the Selah; the music seemed to pour forth from her fingertips with a brilliance of tone and stunning quality of emotion in its sound that left her audience dumbstruck with awe and her fellow performers swearing they’d never heard anything like it.
But in spite of its beauty, the music left Jy’Kelrea’s mother absolutely irate. The woman, with all the cold bitterness she could muster, interrupted barely a moment after the song ended and publicly accused her daughter of secretly pursuing music lessons while pretending to be studying magic; not only did she refuse to be dissuaded, but implicated Hner’Sevald in her daughter’s utter failure as a mage, for who else would she have gone to for secret music tutoring? The baseless accusations swiftly grew into dissent among the family members, with some agreeing with Jy’Kelrea’s mother, some (particularly those who’d seen how hard Jy’Kelrea had studied) disagreeing entirely, while certain others saw little or no just cause for the mother’s discontent with Jy’Kelrea’s pursuing music. It didn’t take long before news of the “scandal” was leaked beyond the family, becoming a topic of much debate and disparity. All the while, Jy’Kelrea and Hner’Sevald were caught in the middle of the maelstrom, denying all accusations to countless multitudes of deaf ears.
Jy’Kelrea’s mother eventually disowned her for her “betrayal”, so she moved in with her uncle who welcomed her with open arms. She continued to study and practice music in private, never playing publicly out of fear and shame. Although she learned to sing and play many instruments in her years with Hner’Sevald and his family, the Selah continued to be her greatest joy and the tool of her greatest skill. It seemed indeed that she was born to play it... a fact which pained the heart of her uncle to no end. It was cruel and unfair what had happened to her, simply because of her unusually strong talent, and he made no secret of the fact that he resented Jy’Kelrea’s mother for her heartless indigence and self-righteous acts against the blossoming musician. Even though Jy’Kelrea wanted nothing more than her mother’s approval and acceptance - and thusly begged Hner’Sevald not to blame mother for what had happened - the man could not. In time, he secretly became obsessed with the idea of humbling the woman utterly and completely as recompense for Jy’Kelrea’s sufferings.
He, along with his wife and children, would relish Jy’Kelrea’s nigh-supernaturally beautiful music on the Selah. When she would play among the gardens it seemed that the wind quieted down to listen, that the sunlight sparkled in the air and the whole of her surroundings became enchanted with song. At night, the sweet melodies of her voice and strings seemed to echo back from the star-scattered night sky as if the spirits of the celestial heavens had become her chorus and orchestra. She composed songs under her uncle’s tutelage, whom she grew to look upon as a father figure. And it was not surprising that, in time, he loved her as if she were his own daughter. The splendor and glory which inhabited her music, coupled with his fatherly love of her, only furthered his desire to see her mother brought low . . . but in time, that aspiration changed in perspective from one of revenge and humiliation to a goal of making Jy’Kelrea’s dreams come true, of wanting her to live the life she yearned for: playing music for all, with her mother’s approval. But how... how to make it happen . . . ?
Hner’Sevald eventually confided with an old friend on the matter: none other than Haim Mehral Jsn, a patriarch of the High Magic Counsel whose skills in magical forges and enchantment was second to none in their race’s entire history. After some discussion on Jy’Kelrea’s dilemma, the idea of forging a Selah capable of manipulating magic and weaving spells occurred to them. Now mind you, the very thought that music could be used as a language of magic was both exciting and difficult to them both; no one in the Neviim race had ever attempted such a thing, as their magic relied exclusively upon ancient words of power handed down from masters to their students from generation to generation; no “new” magic had been created since the Days of Lore. Yet the greatest masters of the art understood that it was, indeed, possible to generate and direct magical energy in other ways, but this fact was a tight-lipped confidence for only the elite few. It was thus that they agreed to work on the project only in secret, meeting at night in the basement of Hner’Sevald’s workshop to craft a bold and daring enchantment.
The frame of the instrument was created first: carved from the golden-hued wood of an ancient blessed tree, dyed the color of distant blue stars, and inscribed with delicate scroll-work and powerful runes of protection. Special custom fittings for the strings were then added and enchanted accordingly, for it was the strings which would reflect the harp’s true nature and intent. How such strings were made is a secret that has been utterly lost, perhaps forever... although it can be surmised that Haim and Hner’Sevald kept journals and records of their work, it is very likely that such materials were destroyed in the years after the harp’s completion - either on purpose or accidentally amid the firestorms of war. Nor has subsequent study of the strings themselves been able to reveal many clues about their physical properties; although there are certain minor indications that the original material was a metal weave or alloy of sorts, the power which flows through each one has transmogrified the strings to such a degree that one could believe them to be incarnations of the mystical spectrum itself. But I digress... what is known is that the Master Harp-maker and the Mythic Forger began with a single string, embodying a range on the magic continuum associated with Life, Healing, and Regeneration. An intelligent and prudent decision, no doubt, as they must have feared the consequences should their experimentation ever go awry. Some accounts say they worked on that first string for a year; others say two years, or three, even up to four. Regardless of the time involved, the end result was success: the string eventually worked, better than their wildest dreams could have hoped for. It would become the third shortest string on the harp, corresponding to the third-highest note. Twenty-three others would eventually be added, each spanning a portion of the rainbow-like spectrum of magical energies known to exist in the vast multiverse. The purest of negative energy ranges was held by the twenty-fourth string, which was blacker than starless night and deep like a bottomless abyss, and some have said that if you stare into its darkness too long you can see glimpses of pain and sufferings yet to come... even your own death. The three strings which followed it were darkened hues of purple, blue, and red (respectively, in sequence); the arrays of “dark” magics were their domain, linked to the base essences of every curse and spell of dark power outside of the enigmatic absolute blackness of the twenty-fourth. From the twentieth string to the fourth string expressed power from the elements, spanning the color range of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and eleven shades in-between them. The final three strings, being pale-blue, white, and a shimmering radiance in the likeness of light itself, epitomized the quintessences of White Magic, Holy Magic, and something yet purer beyond them, speculated to be the underlying foundational nature of the other two in much the same manner as the stygian 24th string is reflected dimly in the three that immediately follow it; Pure Positive and Pure Negative, Utter Light and Utter Darkness. That is, however, only speculation and guesswork, as no complete or even partial explanation of the harp’s design has been found to date.
Last, but far from least, is the place of the 25th string . . . and one of the harp’s greatest mysteries. No string inhabits this position... and yet more curious, the fittings for the 25th string seem to be of a strangely different design than the others. Several theories have evolved surrounding this enigma. The most simple-minded theory is that the original design included a 25th string but it was not completed before Haim Mehral Jsn was slain during the War of the Cosmic Magic Lords. While this may be true, it does not explain the oddly shaped fittings. Others speculate that Haim made some sort of breakthrough discovery in magic while researching and creating the other 24 strings, and that the fittings were added in unrealized hopes of incorporating his revelations into the harp. Some, on the other hand, wonder if perhaps the 25th string was created and completed, but separated from the harp in order to keep its power from becoming too great. There is even speculation that the fittings of the 25th string are an elaborate riddle of sorts.
After the harp’s creation, the tale of Jy’Kelrea and Hner’Sevald disappears from confirmed history and into the retellings of legend and of campfire tales. The exact ending is unknown, though it is doubtful that Jy’Kelrea ever played her uncle’s master-instrument or fulfilled her dreams --- doubtful, . . . but not impossible. Ten years after Hner’Sevald set to work on the harp that would later bear his namesake, a sect of Neviim Arch Mages succeeded in a terrible magic; using their new power as a threat, they demanded to be made rulers over all Neviim. A war of magic broke out, which the Ker'sanvenili sect - the so-called 'Cosmic Magic Lords' - won with ease... but no sooner had they subdued their enemies than they began to fight each other for dominance. Their power was such that it led to the end of Neviim civilization, subsequently destroying most of the written Neviim learnings and history records. Bits and pieces remain, many having been locked away in underground shelters or hidden in caves deep below the surface. The harp itself was eventually found in one such underground vault by a young shadowmage, along with a memo writ, presumably, by Hner’Sevald late in his life that sheds light on much of what has been unknown until now. The translated contents, of yet-unconfirmed authenticity, are as follows:
Hner’Sevald’s Key
~Or~
The Legend of the Matchless Harp
~Or~
The Legend of the Matchless Harp
Harps, as we know them, are among the oldest family of instruments in music; throughout human history the harp has evolved itself from the earliest of string instruments into one of the most gracefully beautiful harmonic devices known to man... and not merely humanity, either. Fascinatingly, a vast majority of civilized cultures in the multiverse have developed instruments of striking resemblance to the harp (this can, perhaps, be accounted for by the harp-design’s simple and highly effective approach to string-based music), and thus its influence is not only multi-cultural but cross-dimensional. One of the races which held music of the harp in high regard was the Neviim, a race of beings whose nigh-utopian society was toppled by a lust for unbound magical power. This tale takes place at the peak of their society’s golden age, a time of great learning and research on the eve of their people’s descent into oblivion.
-------------------------------------------
A young girl was born into a family of prominent Neviim mages, Jy’Kelrea by name. She grew up with the expectations of her family weighing upon her, knowing she was expected to become a skilled magic user and carry on her family’s craft... however, her heart simply was not in it. She could not bring herself to master meditation, for when she tried to still her mind she inevitably found it wandering to a song; her aptitude with the languages of lore was flimsy at best, for she found the sound of the words to be harsh, difficult to memorize, and often unpleasant to her. Yet, not wanting to fail her family, she strove for several years with only minimal progress, and in the end her skills were third-rate at best. Her mother took her failure particularly hard, accusing her daughter of having her head in the clouds and being lazy about her lessons, which was far from true.
One day at a large festive gathering, one of Jy’Kelrea’s cousins fell ill due to an undercooked meal and spent the rest of the day sick in bed; this cousin, a daughter of Jy’Kelrea’s uncle Hner’Sevald, had been preparing a small musical recital, with a few other family members, for the festivities in which she was to play the Selah (pronounced “say”-“la”), a Neviim harp similar in design to a small Celtic harp (Clarsach). Jy’Kelrea, feeling awkward and shunned by some of her family members, was more than willing to spend her time at her cousin’s bedside acting as a nurse. When it became apparent that the cousin would not be well in time for the performance, the young girl asked Jy’Kelrea to take her place.
Jy’Kelrea loved music. She loved listening to it... but her studies had kept her far too busy, so she had never had the chance to learn an instrument. Fortunately, Hner’Sevald managed to push the performance back a few hours and proceeded to give Jy’Kelrea some quick lessons in playing the Selah; he was a renowned master of the instrument, as well as famous for crafting the highest quality and most ornately elaborate Selahs on the Neviim world. To his utter astonishment, Jy’Kelrea learned how to play the Selah in almost no time at all and had memorized the music she was to play well before the performance time. It was like she was born to play the Selah; the music seemed to pour forth from her fingertips with a brilliance of tone and stunning quality of emotion in its sound that left her audience dumbstruck with awe and her fellow performers swearing they’d never heard anything like it.
But in spite of its beauty, the music left Jy’Kelrea’s mother absolutely irate. The woman, with all the cold bitterness she could muster, interrupted barely a moment after the song ended and publicly accused her daughter of secretly pursuing music lessons while pretending to be studying magic; not only did she refuse to be dissuaded, but implicated Hner’Sevald in her daughter’s utter failure as a mage, for who else would she have gone to for secret music tutoring? The baseless accusations swiftly grew into dissent among the family members, with some agreeing with Jy’Kelrea’s mother, some (particularly those who’d seen how hard Jy’Kelrea had studied) disagreeing entirely, while certain others saw little or no just cause for the mother’s discontent with Jy’Kelrea’s pursuing music. It didn’t take long before news of the “scandal” was leaked beyond the family, becoming a topic of much debate and disparity. All the while, Jy’Kelrea and Hner’Sevald were caught in the middle of the maelstrom, denying all accusations to countless multitudes of deaf ears.
Jy’Kelrea’s mother eventually disowned her for her “betrayal”, so she moved in with her uncle who welcomed her with open arms. She continued to study and practice music in private, never playing publicly out of fear and shame. Although she learned to sing and play many instruments in her years with Hner’Sevald and his family, the Selah continued to be her greatest joy and the tool of her greatest skill. It seemed indeed that she was born to play it... a fact which pained the heart of her uncle to no end. It was cruel and unfair what had happened to her, simply because of her unusually strong talent, and he made no secret of the fact that he resented Jy’Kelrea’s mother for her heartless indigence and self-righteous acts against the blossoming musician. Even though Jy’Kelrea wanted nothing more than her mother’s approval and acceptance - and thusly begged Hner’Sevald not to blame mother for what had happened - the man could not. In time, he secretly became obsessed with the idea of humbling the woman utterly and completely as recompense for Jy’Kelrea’s sufferings.
He, along with his wife and children, would relish Jy’Kelrea’s nigh-supernaturally beautiful music on the Selah. When she would play among the gardens it seemed that the wind quieted down to listen, that the sunlight sparkled in the air and the whole of her surroundings became enchanted with song. At night, the sweet melodies of her voice and strings seemed to echo back from the star-scattered night sky as if the spirits of the celestial heavens had become her chorus and orchestra. She composed songs under her uncle’s tutelage, whom she grew to look upon as a father figure. And it was not surprising that, in time, he loved her as if she were his own daughter. The splendor and glory which inhabited her music, coupled with his fatherly love of her, only furthered his desire to see her mother brought low . . . but in time, that aspiration changed in perspective from one of revenge and humiliation to a goal of making Jy’Kelrea’s dreams come true, of wanting her to live the life she yearned for: playing music for all, with her mother’s approval. But how... how to make it happen . . . ?
Hner’Sevald eventually confided with an old friend on the matter: none other than Haim Mehral Jsn, a patriarch of the High Magic Counsel whose skills in magical forges and enchantment was second to none in their race’s entire history. After some discussion on Jy’Kelrea’s dilemma, the idea of forging a Selah capable of manipulating magic and weaving spells occurred to them. Now mind you, the very thought that music could be used as a language of magic was both exciting and difficult to them both; no one in the Neviim race had ever attempted such a thing, as their magic relied exclusively upon ancient words of power handed down from masters to their students from generation to generation; no “new” magic had been created since the Days of Lore. Yet the greatest masters of the art understood that it was, indeed, possible to generate and direct magical energy in other ways, but this fact was a tight-lipped confidence for only the elite few. It was thus that they agreed to work on the project only in secret, meeting at night in the basement of Hner’Sevald’s workshop to craft a bold and daring enchantment.
The frame of the instrument was created first: carved from the golden-hued wood of an ancient blessed tree, dyed the color of distant blue stars, and inscribed with delicate scroll-work and powerful runes of protection. Special custom fittings for the strings were then added and enchanted accordingly, for it was the strings which would reflect the harp’s true nature and intent. How such strings were made is a secret that has been utterly lost, perhaps forever... although it can be surmised that Haim and Hner’Sevald kept journals and records of their work, it is very likely that such materials were destroyed in the years after the harp’s completion - either on purpose or accidentally amid the firestorms of war. Nor has subsequent study of the strings themselves been able to reveal many clues about their physical properties; although there are certain minor indications that the original material was a metal weave or alloy of sorts, the power which flows through each one has transmogrified the strings to such a degree that one could believe them to be incarnations of the mystical spectrum itself. But I digress... what is known is that the Master Harp-maker and the Mythic Forger began with a single string, embodying a range on the magic continuum associated with Life, Healing, and Regeneration. An intelligent and prudent decision, no doubt, as they must have feared the consequences should their experimentation ever go awry. Some accounts say they worked on that first string for a year; others say two years, or three, even up to four. Regardless of the time involved, the end result was success: the string eventually worked, better than their wildest dreams could have hoped for. It would become the third shortest string on the harp, corresponding to the third-highest note. Twenty-three others would eventually be added, each spanning a portion of the rainbow-like spectrum of magical energies known to exist in the vast multiverse. The purest of negative energy ranges was held by the twenty-fourth string, which was blacker than starless night and deep like a bottomless abyss, and some have said that if you stare into its darkness too long you can see glimpses of pain and sufferings yet to come... even your own death. The three strings which followed it were darkened hues of purple, blue, and red (respectively, in sequence); the arrays of “dark” magics were their domain, linked to the base essences of every curse and spell of dark power outside of the enigmatic absolute blackness of the twenty-fourth. From the twentieth string to the fourth string expressed power from the elements, spanning the color range of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and eleven shades in-between them. The final three strings, being pale-blue, white, and a shimmering radiance in the likeness of light itself, epitomized the quintessences of White Magic, Holy Magic, and something yet purer beyond them, speculated to be the underlying foundational nature of the other two in much the same manner as the stygian 24th string is reflected dimly in the three that immediately follow it; Pure Positive and Pure Negative, Utter Light and Utter Darkness. That is, however, only speculation and guesswork, as no complete or even partial explanation of the harp’s design has been found to date.
Last, but far from least, is the place of the 25th string . . . and one of the harp’s greatest mysteries. No string inhabits this position... and yet more curious, the fittings for the 25th string seem to be of a strangely different design than the others. Several theories have evolved surrounding this enigma. The most simple-minded theory is that the original design included a 25th string but it was not completed before Haim Mehral Jsn was slain during the War of the Cosmic Magic Lords. While this may be true, it does not explain the oddly shaped fittings. Others speculate that Haim made some sort of breakthrough discovery in magic while researching and creating the other 24 strings, and that the fittings were added in unrealized hopes of incorporating his revelations into the harp. Some, on the other hand, wonder if perhaps the 25th string was created and completed, but separated from the harp in order to keep its power from becoming too great. There is even speculation that the fittings of the 25th string are an elaborate riddle of sorts.
After the harp’s creation, the tale of Jy’Kelrea and Hner’Sevald disappears from confirmed history and into the retellings of legend and of campfire tales. The exact ending is unknown, though it is doubtful that Jy’Kelrea ever played her uncle’s master-instrument or fulfilled her dreams --- doubtful, . . . but not impossible. Ten years after Hner’Sevald set to work on the harp that would later bear his namesake, a sect of Neviim Arch Mages succeeded in a terrible magic; using their new power as a threat, they demanded to be made rulers over all Neviim. A war of magic broke out, which the Ker'sanvenili sect - the so-called 'Cosmic Magic Lords' - won with ease... but no sooner had they subdued their enemies than they began to fight each other for dominance. Their power was such that it led to the end of Neviim civilization, subsequently destroying most of the written Neviim learnings and history records. Bits and pieces remain, many having been locked away in underground shelters or hidden in caves deep below the surface. The harp itself was eventually found in one such underground vault by a young shadowmage, along with a memo writ, presumably, by Hner’Sevald late in his life that sheds light on much of what has been unknown until now. The translated contents, of yet-unconfirmed authenticity, are as follows:
I did post in shades of grey if anyone even remembers that lmao