Epigraph

Sing, Mother Fate, and through your holy melody describe
The tapestry you wove into infinity with care:
The one that tells the sordid tale of when it came to pass
That hallowed Faith, the son of Reason, clad in robes of white
Did banish his half-brother Death into a human girl
And all of the calamities resultant from that act
Both in Velandris, home of Gods, where skyward falls the rain
And also far below, in kingdoms built by mortal men
Forever cursed to lie beneath the shadow cast by Time.

Whose prayer was it in answer to that Faith threw down the glove?
'Twas that of she who reigns o'er Highwind Tower, Nelvicott,
To save her sickly son Prince William of the flowing hair
Whose illness went uncured by all the best of the apothecaries.
Queen Nelvicott did beg of Faith to banish ragged Death,
And Faith did not turn back upon her prayer.

Who ended up with bloody Death inside her curséd frame?
It was a woman from a plane called Earth named Olivia Chase,
Who never would have known the struggles of our wondrous world
Had not she tracked an icy sliver through its Æther gate
And been en-tasked upon a quest by Jax, the wily mage
To enter Reason's Realm, and with his council find a way
To kill Prince William of the flowing hair, now well-revived,
And thus bring peace back to this world dying without Death.

But to the North, in reaches far beyond the realms of men,
A growing threat is manifesting deep within the snow.
The Sliver Queen returns to wreak her havoc on the plane,
Reborn into an evolution heretofore unknown.
Without Death harboring the souls of all those come to die,
Who stands to stop the Sliver Queen from ravaging the world?
'Tis only our fair heroes: Jax, Olivia, and their friends,
Who find a world more in need than they could ever guess.

Book One

Olivia opened up her eyes to see the shining stars
In all their splendor. She had fallen asleep beneath their gaze
And did not feel the need to wipe the sleep 'way from her eyes
For she had been awoken midst the strangest little dream.

She tried her hardest to recall just what it'd been about,
But all that remained were fragments of a feeling of fear.
She looked around as squirrels do when noticing a dog
And for a moment thought she saw a movement in the fog.

But all her fear evaporated from her tired eyes
When she laid them on her sleeping lover lying at her side.
Briana was the girl's name. They'd dated for a year,
But lately their relationship had stopped feeling so clear.

They made the call to take this trip to fix their many troubles,
And keep their once-great love from ending up amidst the rubble.
Olivia, for her part, thought that it was going well;
Far better than the city which had been a living hell.

Olivia picked up the pipe she'd bought back in the city.
'Twas in a dragon's spiral form, and use had left it gritty.
She packed the bowl to rim with weed and set it all aflame,
And as the smoke entered her lungs, she realized its name.

"Jax!" she thought. "That ought to be the name of this fine bowl!"
She never named a piece until she smoked it, felt its soul.
She'd hesitated long deciding what its name should be,
But as soon as it came to her, she knew Bree would agree.

She leaned over Briana's mouth and blew in all the smoke,
Her favorite way to wake her; and promptly she awoke.
"You know I hate it when you do that," fair Briana cooed.
"Well then you'll have to take another hit to fix your mood!"

Briana sat up straight and took the pipe out of her hands.
"I found a name for it just now. It's Jax. Isn't that grand?"
"I like it!" said Briana as she inhaled the pot.
And so the two sat quietly, just as two stoners ought.

"We must have fallen fast asleep while still outside the tent."
Olivia only smiled in response. She loved the scent
Of woodlands mixed with weed. "Look at the stars," she said. Indeed,
They shone more brightly than before, and then got brighter still,
And as the lovers stared into the night, the stars instilled
A sense of peace within them.
And if the time could have stopped right there forever it'd've thrilled 'em.
But the eons condensed to the silence of the moment
And Olivia wondered what was left to experience.

But even moments that stretch out for eons come to an end sooner than since.
And so did fair Briana declare her intent to go back to the tent.
"But don't you want to stay out here? It's nice!" Olivia said.
"I think I smoked too much." Briana said. "I'm completely spent."

And if she'd said she would miss her she couldn't have lied.
But Olivia feared this woman when her sleep was denied.
"I'll see you in a minute?" the fair Briana cried.
"Just let me smoke another bowl!" Olivia replied.

It didn't take too long before her paranoia took hold.
She smoked far more than one more bowl as the night grew dark and cold.
And as she smoked she thought about impending nuclear war,
And all about how cockroaches will inherit the earth.

She ruminated in her gloom, as presently she thought:
"I finally have everything I want. I'm missing naught!
So why am I not happy yet?" She lingered in her pain.
And even as she sat there, she could start to feel the rain.
She took one final hit, but all that there was left was resin.
Finally, she put the bowl down and got back up to head in.

But even as she turned to leave, she heard a voice behind her.
"Olivia" was all it said—the soundwave bounced off trees,
Echoing between them like a ping-pong ball in winter.
The breeze began to pick up speed
And make poor Olivia go weak in the knees.
"Who's there?!" was all she dared to say as white her lips they trembled.

"Oh, don't you recognize my voice? It's me, your old friend Jax!"
The bowl lay on the bench just as it had a moment 'fore,
But something in the way it glimmered struck her frightened eye.
Was that a glint of something glimpsing something in the sky?
It slowly metamorphosized, becoming as a dream,
And turned its neck of twisted glass as green its eyes they gleamed.

"I trust I have as much of your attention as I'll glean?
I'm Jax, and I appear to be a fragment of your dream.
I'm here to save your little life, for oh my dear it seems
You lie in such big trouble; if you knew, you'd only scream.
Bid follow Scraps, my icy pet, as down the hole he dives,
If ever you might hope to make it out of here alive."

Book Two

Desire trampled up Faith's tower, fury in her wake.
Verily, with every step, the stars themselves did quake.

She meteored straight through the doors that sealed off the sanctum
And swiftly smashed with grace and class the guards that filled the chamber.
But since good Faith was all wrapped up in solemn meditation,
Desire's knife was at his throat before he sensed the danger.

"What have you done with my brother, you twit?"
Desire's hot tongue was as sharp as her blade.
The latter pressed deeper down into Faith's neck,
As he, most unfettered, did calmly retort:

"So good now to see you, dear sister! My word!
How rude of me not to have offered you myrrh."
Desire, though thirsty, was far from impressed.
Did he mean to mock her by speaking his best?

"Don't slick that with me, you most worthless of slime!
No coward like you could be brother of mine.
I've said why I'm here. Now you say what you've done,
Or I swear by your laws you won't see the next sun."

But Faith only chuckled, his conviction secure:
Though she was far older, Desire could stir
Nothing up in his heart to let anger take hold,
And without that, she'd lose. So he kept his words cold:

"Without your brother here, my dear, I fear that that won't work.
His sickly scythe might slay me, 'haps, but never your dull dirk."
"I count on it!" Desire snapped. "The better yet to bleed you,
For pain enough to loose your words is all with which I need you."

"You know what I've done. Why bother to ask?
Death had to be stopped. I've finished my task.
You come here like some kind of snake in the grass?
My dear, have a seat. No need to be crass."

Desire was livid. Regardless, she smirked.
Young Faith was a thorn in her side since his birth.
Though Nature herself was a mother they shared,
Her father was Chaos, his Reason the fair.

Desire was everything Faith considered to be devoid of worth.
Faith stood for everything Desire spat at when she cursed.
So onward forever the two were ensnared
To fight for the claim to our hearts and souls paired

She brandished her knife and sliced off his earlobe.
The blood flowed down freely and sullied his robes.
She then kicked him brutally down to the floor
And spit on his tabard to settle the score.

Only then did she finally pull up a chair,
Sit down, sheathe her weapon, and flick back her hair.
"You'd better explain yourself quickly," she sneered,
"Or next time you'll lose more than th' lobe of your ear."

And if he had not been sustained by the sheer weight of his immense pride,
Unshakeable Faith, though bloodied and beaten,
May have failed to rise from the pile of blood on the floor.
But like a horse, after being forced to break into a gallop after already riding for several kilometers
Does continue its glorious charge for fear of its master's whip,
So did regal Faith, with a twisted grin full of smugness the likes of which children feel,
Their piñatas bursting—manage to maintain his dignity
Even while rising to his livid half-sister,
Blood from his ear wound still soaking his robes.

"If ever in your heart you felt that Death was to be cherished;
That somehow, in the scheme of things, we all were meant to perish;
That blood and gore would set the score to something less than garish;
And in its wake, give more than take by culling out my parish:
I'm here to say that to this day I've never seen the benefit
To pain and fear, to wounds and tears, to families all torn asunder.
And as your brother's banishment has brought about the end of it,
I hardly regret that I made the sun set on his eyes so devoid of life's wonder."

And as he spoke defiant, so his guards began to rise.
They moved to hold Desire back, but to their great surprise
Faith raised his hand. "I will not stand to see you any longer.
But I'll tell you what you came to hear from me as a matter of honor.
Your brother's soul could not be quelled completely—this you know.
To banish his power, like spores from a flower, his soul needed somewhere to go.
I put it in a human soul—which one was up to Fate.
But somewhere in a far-off plane, a spirit's filled with hate.
Your brother's soul is trapped within the body of another.
To find out which, you wretched witch, you'll have to ask Grandmother.
Now leave me be! I've told you what you came up here to ask,
And if you walk these halls again, those steps will be your last."

Desire grinned. And like a cat will let of a mouse
Just to keep the game afoot as it scurries through the house,
So did sly Desire thus depart from Faith's high quarters,
Her sights newly set on her grandmother's pedestal, west of Velandris's borders.