THE HIGH TABLE
Established: 2023-11-17
Chat room: #BARBARUS
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A worldwide organization of men trained for violent, bloody, and even deadly combat. Their competence is indicated by their qualifications, from the lowest to the highest, reserved for an elite.
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From the House of Conjurations
To my brother Domyrek
Brother,
I have been reading the older Eclipsarii accounts of the chambers beneath Chalyth, and I believe the priests have mistaken a mechanism for a mystery.
Chalyth is indeed the City Between. The living build upon the dead, and neither wholly dislodges the other. Beneath it all lies the Mouth, into which the Eclipsarii have lowered blood and bone for longer than their records admit.
At its heart is the obsidian surface they call the Mirror. I think the priests mistake reflection for its purpose. The Mirror may instead mark a boundary with another world.
The difficulty is transit. Here our two sons of Kuluz may prove useful. You will remember my observation: ‘The captives do not generate force. They collect it.’ Rank, arms, liberty, even the ordinary protections of manhood have been stripped from them. A conquered man so reduced may serve as lens.
Erynd is the case in point. He grows more permeable with each indignity. Roland, by contrast, remains.
The Eclipsarii will be told that we bring two unusual offerings for the dawn sacrifice. True enough for their theology. Let them bind, mark, and cut our former gentlemen according to custom. Fear may improve conductivity.
At the proper moment I intend to introduce them to the Mirror. If Erynd passes, we shall have learned something. If Roland does not, rather more.
I will discuss the arrangements with you over breakfast at the Correctory. Have the Ox bring coffee. I will bring Erynd as well. It seems discourteous to plan a man’s sacrifice without letting him serve breakfast first.
O.
==
Nothing offered to the Black Sun is lost,
for what the Sun takes, the Mouth remembers.
==
1. Breakfast
15:21 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: The Eclipsarii say, ‘the conquered man twice glorifies the Black Sun, first in defeat, second in sacrifice.’
<Blockbuster> And you need both of them?
15:21 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: For comparison.
15:22 Roland: He said ‘offerings?’
15:22 Erynd: He did.
<Blockbuster> So Chalyth tomorrow?
17:14 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: At first light. The two of them can carry the trophies as required.
2. The Weapon Leads the Poet
Erynd’s notebook:
After breakfast, my lord Oryn instructed me to lay aside all restraint and open myself to correction.
Roland’s hand on my shoulder was steadier than I expected.
: 
15:24 Roland: Listen closely. He will show you.
<Blockbuster> ‘I am the storm let loose from Heaven.’
Erynd’s notebook:
I had expected his severity to repel me. Instead I found myself listening for his approval.
Erynd’s notebook:
He smiled then, almost kindly.
Instruction:
Learn the knife now as victim.
Erynd’s notebook:
On the eve of the Black Dawn, the Corrector yoked his Ox.
Erynd’s notebook:
Afterwards, he punished us both.
3. Chalyth, City of the Mouth
Erynd’s notebook:
At first light we walked to Chalyth, carrying what remained of Kuluz.
: 
Erynd’s notebook:
The people of the city noticed us.
A soldier said, “Kuluz sent us knights.”
A monk said, “Chalyth receives offerings.”
Erynd’s notebook:
Later we passed them again.
The soldier: “Their swords broken.”
The Monk: “Oriax will devour them.”
Erynd’s notebook:
Roland laid the skull mask beside the offerings. For a moment, his face was wholly his own.
15:39 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: At dawn, you will be given to the Eclipsarii.
15:39 Roland: Will we die?
15:40 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: That is their intention.
15:40 Roland: Then we answer for Kuluz.
Erynd’s notebook:
His voice was steady. His hands were not.
<Blockbuster> Ox. Remember what I have taught you.
15:40 Roland: Yes, my lord.
15:41 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Trophies of Kuluz: her standards, seals, broken weapons—and two of her knights.
<Priest> Lord Oryn, your victory brings Kuluz at last before the Black Sun.
Erynd’s notebook:
I remembered the black disks scratched behind doors, the prayers spoken in shuttered rooms.
We had known what was growing among us and pretended it was small.
<Priest> Sons of Kuluz, what the sword spared, the Shatterer now claims.
4. The Black Dawn
The brightest light leaves the deepest shadow.
<Priest> 'Battle judged your manhood and found it false.'
<Priest>'Be unmanned by the Hand that Unwrites.'
Erynd’s notebook:
They marked our eyelids and hearts with the ash of those offered before us.
Erynd’s notebook:
Before they bound him, they gave Roland back his skull.
As though every name he had borne must be sacrificed.
I was left unrestrained.
Erynd’s notebook:
Down the stairwell came the scent of ash and rain, and with it the unraveling.
<Priest> 'Break the conquered. Oriax! Unmake what battle spared.'
5. The Mirror
Erynd’s notebook:
Before the feeding of the Black Sun, my lord had arranged a lesser presentation to the Devourer of Selves, an old name of Oriax seldom spoken above ground. Only one priest attended us in the little chapel. The packs from Kuluz were laid on the floor in a row, ordinary-looking things for the horrors they contained.
Erynd’s notebook:
There was something strange in the smoke—bitter, medicinal.
The priest drifted deeper into prayer.
My lord did not. His eyes were on me.
16:24 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Erynd is ready. The Ox is another matter.
16:25 Erynd: My lord… why does it wear his face?
16:25 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Because it is not a mirror.
Erynd’s notebook:
By then, likeness had begun to come loose from the body.
16:26 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Go on.
16:26 Erynd: My lord… it wears his skull.
16:27 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: One passes.
16:29 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: One remains.
Erynd’s notebook:
I never saw Roland pass. Yet he was gone when I looked again.
Oryn followed. The priest did not.
6. Below
O Hell!
Mark how the fire returns…
and I duly burn.
You, here, Demon.
16:32 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: You know me here?
16:32 Roland: Yes, my lord.
16:32 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Good.
Erynd’s notebook:
In Chalyth ‘my lord’ was a title. Here, it was absolute.
Erynd’s notebook:
The road entered the animal. The animal entered the road.
Erynd’s notebook:
My master did not discover that country. It knew him.
Something met him at the ruined gates; the dark host bowed before him.
He had been coming there long before his body arrived.
16:35 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: It is changing around you.
16:35 Roland: Yes, my lord.
16:36 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: And you?
16:36 Roland: No.
Erynd’s notebook:
At the gate, the old names ran together like the chain of bodies.
Roland alone carried every name he had ever borne.
Knight. Captive. Gelding. Ox. Weapon.
The Mirror did not know which to give back.
16:38 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Let it have you.
16:38 Roland: I cannot, my lord.
16:38 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Then…Erynd.
7. The Poet Below
Erynd’s notebook:
My lord had taken me once before into the desert
where nightmares walked without disguise.
I had mistaken terror for the lesson.
I had not understood what he was teaching me to do.
16:39 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Speak.
Erynd’s notebook:
I spoke a single word. Three of them forgot themselves.
16:40 Erynd: What did I do?
16:40 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Say it again.
Erynd’s notebook:
I spoke again. The country shifted.
16:40 Roland: Erynd.
16:41 Erynd: You came through.
16:41 Roland: So did you.
Erynd’s notebook:
He spoke my name exactly as he always had.
Erynd’s notebook:
I had never known the world to obey my speech.
Everything I had called metaphor was waiting there.
Erynd’s notebook:
Here, Below, the images began to think for us.
Erynd’s notebook:
Roland had laid a guiding hand on me. Now the gesture was mine.
16:44 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: He remembers you.
Erynd’s notebook:
That had comforted me once.
16:44 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Do not kill him.
16:45 Erynd: Then what am I to do?
16:45 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Open him.
Erynd’s notebook:
I had learned the knife first as victim.
Erynd’s notebook:
Kuluz still looked at me through his eyes.
Erynd’s notebook:
I wanted to know what lay beyond pity.
: 
Erynd’s notebook:
I cut where the names joined. The body followed.
16:48 Erynd: My lord—victory!
16:48 Erynd: Is he dead?
16:48 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: No.
16:48 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: My brother has him.
\ 
16:49 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: Behold the knight of Kuluz!
8. The Ash Realm
Ash is what remains after judgment.
16:50 Roland: I thought I had been lost.
16:51 Roland: Then I heard my master’s voice.
Like a champion recalled for judgment, he came down into a country of steps, echoes, and white remains.
Oryn’s observation:
Near the Ox, my brother’s authority strikes with greater purity.
Roland does not dissolve under correction. He gives it purchase.
As Roland moved through that white country, Domyrek stood before his basin at the Correctory. In the glass above, his reflection gave way to Oryn.
16:53 Oryn_of_Vaelkor: The Ox holds. The Mirror will not return him.
Domyrek turned from the mirror to the ash.
<Blockbuster> Wash away what still binds you.
<Blockbuster> Keep all your names. Put them in order.
: 
<Blockbuster> Do not turn.
16:55 Roland: I had wanted him to find me. When he did, I was afraid.
<Blockbuster> Kuluz was your defeat. Now is your judgment.
16:56 Roland: Then take what still binds me, my lord.
<Blockbuster> ‘Ash is what is left when error burns away.’
16:57 Roland: I felt the old memories loosen like a skin. They did not vanish. They no longer governed me.
16:57 Roland: I had thought servitude was a consequence of defeat. Now I knew it was what I was born for.
: 
16:58 Roland: I still remembered Kuluz. It no longer had the right to name me.
<Blockbuster> Now let the Black Sun witness what remains.
9. Return
Erynd’s notebook:
We came back through the Mirror. The priest had not moved.
: 
: 
Erynd’s notebook:
We found them in the court.
The ash circle had been trampled almost away.
17:01 Erynd: Roland.
17:01 Roland: Brother.
17:01 Erynd: I thought I had lost you.
17:01 Roland: You did not.
Erynd’s notebook:
I had expected many things when I saw him again. Joy was not among them.
10. Afterward
Erynd’s notebook:
My lord had made of me an arrow.
Erynd’s notebook:
I no longer crossed borders. I appeared beyond them.
Years later, the maps no longer showed Kuluz. They showed the Province of Kharzul, and the Imperial histories described its fall as reunification. Roland and Erynd remembered otherwise, yet even defeat had ceased to be an adequate name for what had happened. Each had been stripped of the future he once imagined and given another; each had learned to call it his own.
The Black Sun’s true victory was not the conquest of Kuluz but that the two men who remembered it best no longer wished the conquest undone.
Published: 2026-08-27, viewed 61 times.
Freaker
27 days agoRoland and Erynd’s story takes a fascinating turn here. After everything that happened to the defeated knights of Kuluz, Oryn’s interest in the mysterious Mirror beneath Chalyth opens the Black Sun saga into something much larger and stranger. What works especially well is the contrast between Erynd, who keeps changing, and Roland, who somehow continues to carry every identity he has been given. The journey beyond the Mirror also gives both men very different roles than before, while still keeping their shared past at the heart of the story. This feels like a real continuation of the Kuluz cycle rather than a separate adventure. Thanks to Erynd, Roland, Oryn of Vaelkor and Blockbuster for continuing this dark and ambitious saga with THE HIGH TABLE.
Roland
27 days ago(In reply to this)
Thank you for the careful reading, sir. This story is an account of my journey. Defeat changed where I stood. Conquest changed what I saw. - R