Argrath, Come Back!

It began with Utter Darkness, the Silence, the Infinite.

Somewhere in the darkness, we could hear distant insects - or other things - chittering and clicking quietly. Annilla¹ whispered to us Mastakos; he dead. and A penny for the Old Guy. We knew the meaning of this: we were trapped, and the Old Guy - Old Goaty - was the name Sartarites often used to refer to Wakboth² in the Summons of Evil. Because we had no fears, Annilla wrapped herself around us and we felt cold and disconnected from life. In our heads, a disembodied voice rang out…

A small doll of Old Goaty appeared, dancing around us. It cackled madly, spitting hatred and destruction at the cosmos, until it grew with each obscene utterance into a vision of Wakboth the Devil towering over us.

Wakboth shrunk back to the glowing, dancing Old Goaty effigy. We heard a cry of pain, and against the flame-glow of the Old Goaty dancing in the distant dark we saw the figure of a man: a voyager by night, a traveller in black, a journeyer through dark places. We knew him, though he was much changed.

It was Argrath, hollow and thin, filthy with matted hair, covered in blood, and piss, and shit. His startling eyes were heterochromatic: one orange and one green.

He’s wore a kaftan-like open robe, almost like a bathrobe, made of rich royal fabrics: green and purple silks imported from far Kralorela, with panels embroidered in golden thread. The robe was of a Pavic royal pattern: which is to say, it was in a style first worn by the Dragonlords of the Empire of Wyrms Friends, the ancient founders and kings of Pavis.

Over his royal robe, he wore a cloak of raven feathers, the preferred garment of a Praxian shaman or Trickster when dealing with the Spirits of Darkness. Under the robe, he’s wore a stained and discoloured loincloth, and nothing else. All of his garments were soaking wet.

His belts and accessories were the finely-crafted horn, bone, and hair regalia of a Praxian shaman of the White Bull Society and the Bison Nation. He wore a necklace made from a True Dragon’s Teeth strung on a black leather thong. The weapon he bore sheathed on his right hip was his dragonbone sword, Wyrmfang.

He had one sandal on his right foot; his left foot was bare, calloused and bleeding from walking somewhere sharp, like a floor strewn with broken glass. His limbs had other cuts and bruises, dark and purplish. He had a wound just like Kallyr’s in his side.

He bore the Rune of Sartar above his heart. The Rune of Arkat was on his forehead: its three arrows point in different directions, but all three are united in the center of his forehead, above his third eye.

He mumbled and screamed and did not recognize us when we approached.

We tried to comfort and heal him.

Wakboth loomed over everything, screaming madness and chaos at us. We found ourselves at the Massacre of Boldhome, with Kallyr’s forces murdering Lunars right and left, and Lunars murdering Sartarites left and right. Aeson and Obrast knew this was all wrong, but Berrik couldn’t help but think Small chaos is all chaos.. Berrik broke a little more.

We turned to Argrath, to speak with him. We tried to remind him who he was. He replied to us with madness and verse.

We saw Argrath’s shamanic ordeal atop the Plateau of Statues. Three hundred miles east of Pavis, in the heart of the dead land, the cactus land, there are stone images and broken walls of buildings razed in Godtime. Argrath came there alone, before he was King of Pavis or the Prophet of the White Bull, before he had any dealings with Giants and Dragons, when he was just an assistant stickpicker turned shaman’s apprentice of the Bison Tribe.

He must have ridden his bison along the Flayed Serpent Path and up the ancient route named “No-Go” by the wise, avoiding the deadly Desiccation Bees and braving the dread Castle of the Boggles on the way up, enduring the dubious hospitality of Eurmal’s Disorderly Kin. Nobody knows what he suffered, or agreed to, to secure safe passage.

On a dry, rocky crag, a high place on the ragged edge of mile-high cliffs, before the vacant eyes and smiles of the dead gods - a heap of broken divine images where the sun beats down mercilessly – we saw young Argrath erect a framework from crossed staves propped against a prickly pear cactus.

He tied rawhide cords descending from the scaffold to bronze fish hooks, which he plunged into his pectoral muscles. He leaned forward, suspending himself from the frame in a gruelling ordeal and test of his physical endurance. Red blood spurted from the wounds – scars we could still see on him. And then, shuffling at first, he began to dance.

As he danced against his cruel piercings, around this Axis Mundi in the shape of a Death Rune, Argrath cried out in shamanic agony and ecstasy. We saw the apocalyptic visions of the White Bull’s coming Armageddon stampeding through his brain. His frame was wood and wire and his body was on fire, and gods were never far away.

From here, on the Plateau of Statues, he could see the kingdoms and empires of Glorantha spread out before him, like a patchwork quilt of sovereignty. He felt a hot breath on his shoulder and the touch of a world that was older. It made grand promises to Argrath:

And in his agony, Agrath screamed: “Yes!”

We saw some ordeal that changed us, like Argrath. Aeson relived being wounded by Yezerum Storn⁵. Berrik returned to his mother’s death. Obrast relived the hard lessons he leaned on the streets of Pavis, that fame must be earned.

A silver mask fell at Berrik’s feet. He picked it up and placed it on his face.

He became one of the Lunar assassins sent to stop the Karandoli⁶ from summoning some great evil into the world. He had done this before in many places and never failed. Yet this time, something terrible happened. The Karandoli barbarians, burning a great effigy and screaming Wakboth! Wakboth! brought something powerful and terrible into the world. Within the ritual ring, a young boy, a stickpicker boy, a beaten and bullied boy named Argrath, was possessed by the thing from beyond. He - it - destroyed the Lunar assassins, ripping them into pieces, all eight of them.

Argrath saw the vision, too.

Wakboth loomed over us again. He tested our loyalties and tempted us to change them. We did not.

He bade us to scoop up a handful of worms at our feet, and with them become another Argrath, a better Argrath, and escape this place. We did not.

He offered us any weapon we wanted to defeat our enemies forever. We refused.

The Black Spear appeared at Aeson’s feet; he picked it up.

We saw young Argrath, crying, streaming blood and snot from his nose, as he ran limping from the Karandoli clan village to his secret place, where he found Elusu the Clown⁷ waiting for him.

The clown had always been watching out for Argrath. In a clan of outcasts, the fatherless son of a stick-picker takes a lot of beatings, especially when he has a high temper and always refuses to back down from the bigger boys. The older boys were crudely speculating about how his grandmother Arene, the Three-Horned Queen, had earned her nickname. Argrath snapped, and for his sense of honor he got badly beaten and he fled.

The clown’s face was painted white with black raccoon eyes, her arms and body are striped with black and white paints, and her lips were painted bright red. When she grinned, we could see that her teeth were numerous and sharp. She brought out Old Goaty, the boy’s much-loved straw doll, and made him speak to comfort the crying child.

Argrath sniffled and complained: he couldn’t bring himself to repeat what the older boys said.

The clown made Old Goaty whisper a secret in his ear. We overheard it.

Then the clown looked at us. She embraced Argrath, but her bright eyes fix on us, and her mouth opened wide in a shit-eating grin of cosmic hilarity. So many teeth.

Obrast tried to silence the clown with an illusion. But with a cackle turning into a caw, the clown released the boy, turned into a raven, and furiously, or hilariously, plucked Obrast’s tongue out of his mouth. Aeson gripped the Black Spear and the hawk feather the Kolating had given him back in Apple Lane and thrust at the raven god. The entire spear turned into a feather of sunlight, and shattered the raven into black feather-dust, and silence enveloped us again.

A golden crown clattered at our feet, the same crown from ancient Pavis that Belvani had been wearing at Harpoon. Aeson handed Argrath the Black Spear, and Argrath said he knew this spear, it was Colymar. Then Berrik placed the ancient crown on Argrath’s head - though it lifted from Berrik’s fingers and floated to Argrath’s brow on its own; Argrath recognized the crown and knew himself once again.

I was five full seasons in the womb of Yanioth. Before that I was no one. But now I am Argrath.

w New Pavis, Sea Season, 1627

We awoke to find ourselves under the care of Hector the Wise in the palace of New Pavis. At Harpoon, we had fallen into comas after killing the Blue Dragon. The Sun Domers carried us to Pavis so that we could be cared for and healed. Argrath had awakened from his drug-fueled topor at the same time, as well.

Belvani had escaped, vanished into the Praxian Wastelands. Argrath swore mighty and terrible oaths of vengeance upon him.

We spent weeks in the palace, healing and resting, spending time with King Argrath as he, too, rested and healed from his long ordeal. He saw that we were treated royally, as honored members of his court and friends. He taught us new and terrible magic to let loose in the coming war with the Empire, though it is incomplete and he hinted that a terrible price must be paid first before we can truly wield it. He gave us this, and much more.

As Argrath gained strength and returned to himself, his green-tinted left eye faded back to its normal (for Argrath) amber-orange.

When wyw Truth Week came, Argrath assembled his patchwork army of barbarians, nomads, pirates, and other things before the gates of New Pavis. With the Black Spear in his hand, he leapt onto his great white bison and lead us back to Sartar.

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