Prologue

Too long ago to count in time, at the very beginning of life that pressed hand and foot and claw and hoof upon the lush surface of the earth, everything sang. Held tenderly to the bosom of Hicce, its maker, this world and all things in it grew and thrived. Life swelled and dipped like music, every tiny plant and creature a note in a beautiful symphony, ever-changing.

For this world to develop, what lived had also to die, to replenish and enrich and grow anew. So Hicce took her shadow and shaped it into a god like herself whom she dubbed Mox, and appointed him to be the keeper of the shadow of her world—the realm of the dead.

Mox adored Hicce, the radiant eternal artist, and took his duty from her happily. He shaped his domain to resemble hers, so those that crossed into it would be comfortable, and gave the departed souls the power to shape it to whatever they saw fit.

Together, they could gaze upon the world of the living, but lording over it, could never be a part of it. This distance broke Hicce’s heart, for she longed to be with the children of her creation, to feel the wonders of the world, aching to see and touch and tastes of life. The force of her weeping carved deep into the world, filling many vast oceans that cast the lands of the world apart from each other.

When she could no longer bear her terrible longing, she broke herself into endless pieces that fell to the world as snow, covering much of everything in the ice and cold of her loneliness. Even through such a long and bitter winter, the life on her creation survived, and when spring finally came again Hicce was a part of every part of what she had created, in the waves of the seas and the currents of the wind, the warmth of every fire and the shine of every stone, every root and leaf and whisper of magic. Though she could never be whole again, she was finally content to be a part of everything she had made.

Mox, left behind outside the world of the living and bound to his vocation in the realm of the dead, was devastated to lose the light of his existence, his creator, his love. His tears were too far away to reach the world from his post at the gates of realm of death, and so they floated away and spread across the sky, becoming the stars, twinkling every night to try and get Hicce’s attention. He could only watch over the two worlds, life and death, but could not touch either one.

He began to worry about Hicce’s creation, wanting to preserve her art and maintain the symphony she had started. To help maintain the balances of the world, Mox took a small part of himself and shaped it, as Hicce had done so long ago to create him, into a mortal form that could walk upon the world of the living and travel between to the realm of the dead. This piece he named Marbhcant, and tasked them with being the liaison between the living and the dead, his earthly hand among the living.

To do so, Marbhcant would live in a mortal body, afforded special abilities and able to return to that same body upon their death time and time again until that mortal vessel was worn out, and then Mox would place them in a new one. This arrangement was not without flaw, as Marbhcant could not retain the memory of themself and their purpose as a newborn mortal, and so they would have to relearn these things in each life when the time for it came. Further, as a mortal, they were vulnerable to all the things mortals were—pain, anger, grief, sympathy, violence, hate, love—all the wonts of the living.

Even still, Mox found great use for Marbhcant as the world shifted and shaped and reshaped itself, growing rich and cacophonous with the influences of growing magics, adapting ecosystems, maturing civilisations, and the influences of other gods and new powers.

Ages ere, close enough to count but too far to matter just how long, a strange old wizard toiled in his study. His name was lost, for no record had kept it, not even his own. When whispered about by those who saw his stone house on its great stilted legs of iron that would scuttle creaking through the wood, he was called The Wizard of the Walking House. By those who gave nasty names to things they feared, he was called Acid, and those sort warned their children never to get too close to him.

It was unclear of what stock he had come, or from where, or even what manner of creature he was, or had been before he was the wizard Acid. He looked something like a man toting a long white beard darkened with soot and grime from how it reached all the way down to his feet and swept along the ground with his layers of robes, but near every other feature told a differing story—short dark horns, a snake-like tail, piercing eyes of all-yellow framing slashed pupils.

Whatever he was, he had been so for longer than any living memory, the beginning of his tale lost to time.

Any who knew his name knew also his quest—he sought eternal life, striving beyond even the vulnerable immortality of the fae or the elementals. He wanted to find a way to escape death entirely, to slip beyond the distinction of mortal, idir-mortal, and immortal and live forevermore. Many had heard he sought the fountain of youth, using dangerous spell after enchantment after curse to prolong himself until he found it. This much was true, though the exact means were never known, as Acid was as secretive as he was strange, and those who entered his walking house seldom came back out again.

Despite his continuation, time took its toll on the wizard, his body made frail by all he had sacrificed in his experiments and too weak to continue being his own test subject. His strength was waning, and he was growing desperate. He resolved to seek out the strongest mortal from shore to shore and to imbue their soul with indefinite life, heightening their strength and heartiness, and then planned to devour the imbued soul to gain its power.

He searched long, hosting tournament after tournament to discover the strongest mortal. When finally he found a champion, a warrior named Cathal and titled kempe for her belovedness, he stole her back to his walking house under the guise of celebration and immobilised her with a potion, then got to work.

The process was gruelling and agonising, but Cathalkempe’s strength sustained her. By the time the spell was finished, Cathalkempe’s had screamed her voice away and her breath barely stirred her broad chest, but she was still alive.

Delighted, Acid put his work immediately to the test and slayed Cathalkempe upon his work table with her own broadsword. She could manage only a whimper as blood sprang from the wound in her core and in a quick moment her body went still.

Acid’s delight turned to frustration and he did everything to revive her, but her body was dead and would never again stir. The wizard raged, scrapping all his efforts on the endeavour to focus on another experiment, considering the previous a bitter failure.

What Acid did not know, however, was that his spell had worked—in a way. Cathalkempe’s soul had been given strength enough to evade the reach of death when her body expired, outpacing the psychopomps that were to deliver her soul to the world of the dead, and taking up residence in a new infant mortal body to begin life anew.

Not all of the warrior Cathalkempe remained in this new life, however—the new body inherited her strength and endurance alongside her battle skill and agility, functioning as disposition and instinct. Her memories, however, were lost, and her personality, her manner, her inner world, became malleable, melting back down to liquid ore and reshaped by this new life. Even so, pieces lingered—a fierce spirit, a call to violence, a longing itch like no other, a longing for a past they could no longer remember, for a wrong done to them they could not right, for a purpose they did not know.

But, even more than for most, there was no choice but to live.

There is a creature that breathes in symmetry, that feeds on dissonance, and rejoices in repetition. This creature makes circular the arrangement of things, makes bedfellows of beginnings and endings. Sustained on these, it farms a garden of dovetails, ripples, renewals, parallels, round trips, refrains, reprises, encores. It puts the circles in tree trunks and the spirals in seashells, puts the inevitability in sleep and the curve on the planets, and keeps the seasons always stepping in each other’s footfalls and the sun and moon chasing after one another evermore. Drawing circles, sustaining cycles.

One might call this creature time, and another might name it divinity, another still happenstance, coincidence, serendipity, luck, magic. One might call it all these things and refuse to iron out the contradiction. One might sympathise with this beast, whatever its name—there is a humanity to the desire for order, for repetition, for eternity.

Perhaps it is a want for balance, when so much is beyond the control of the individual animal, when to live is to be at the mercy of countless chaoses. A messy, odd, shapeshifting, unknowable thing is living. Existence is vast and endless and does many things we cannot hope to understand, like making creatures that breathe symmetry and eat dissonance and not tell us its name.

One might call it harmony. One might call it blasphemy. One might dedicate their life to it with worship and prayer, seeking its grace. One might refuse its existence altogether, daunted by the very thought of something with so much power. When such a thing is nameless, it is really of very many names (a contradiction this creature finds particularly delicious).

In one time in one language, this creature was called Ciorcaliath—the Grey Circle. This name is as apt as any other, which is to say it will always fall short, but served the purpose of the people who used it well enough. The Grey Circle, while understood to present in many things, was usually only invoked in reference to the tying together of two people. This union was neither joyous nor harrowing, but like life itself, was both and much more.

The Grey Circle manifests this way when two people cross paths like opposing ocean currents, unyielding and irreconcilable, so different and so alike, overlapping. Like water, they push and spin and together they create a circle, like a whirlpool, and this ring binds them together like no other could. They cannot be untangled as long as the Circle continues, and the Circle dines well on their tangling and on its own continuation.

One might call this nature. One might call it fate. One might call it a leash, a cage, or certain doom.

It does not care what it is called. This is how the Circle moves.

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