[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey, Prologue: Initiation

I am Brylaneth, daughter of Eonor of the Haraborn. My mother was Enkaina daughter of Armatar. I will tell you the tale of how I became a woman. This is the secret that you must not share with any man.

The winter before my courses came, my mother died of a fever after a long sickness. The autumn of the year before that my father fell down one day in the cow byre and didn't wake again. My mother's mother Onella Owl-Eye and my mother's sister Senrina cared for me. It was during Sacred Time that the story I tell came to pass. In the days before my blood came I had strange visions and heard voices when no one was there. My grandmother and my aunt took me to a place where I would be separate from my brothers, uncles, and boy cousins. They bade me rest and do no household chores. My grandmother gave me a bitter black tea to drink. 

That night I had a troubling dream. I saw ghostly women wrapped in winding cloths like the dead. They came to me and told me to go with them. A procession of dead women took me to the Riddle, where the priestess Morganeth who was blinded by the Crimson Bat waited. It was that night I realized the younger woman who always assisted her was her eyes, even though Morganeth always seemed like she could see. 

The women stripped me of my clothes and washed me. I shivered, not so much of cold as fear. I had been told all my life that it was death to enter the Riddle. The women of our clan go there when they die. My mother went there, but I was still a girl then and could not carry her with the women. There are images of Babeester Gor on the walls by the entrance. After I was prepared, Morganeth said to me that I must go in. At first I thought she meant into the Riddle, but she touched me at my navel and said I must go into the center of my spirit self. But she meant I must go into the Riddle too.

They put a crown of flowers on my head and covered me with scented oils. Any other day I would have enjoyed that. But then they made me go inside. I heard strange noises and felt things brush against my bare skin. It felt like there was something watching me from the dark. Fear took hold of my heart and I ran without knowing where I was going.

Being afraid is tiring. After a while I stopped running and stumbled around in the darkness. Then I saw a dim light ahead. I realized that the Riddle was a spiral like the Air rune, that went downward into the earth with each turn. I came to the lower part and there was Morganeth again. She said, "Five souls stir within you. You must awaken them." She told me I must conquer each element by finding what he needed. I didn't understand what she meant then. She said I must do as the goddess did. 

Then I wasn't in the Riddle anymore, I was walking toward a tiny replica of our village, that was brighter and more colorful than in the ordinary world. The sky above was bright green. I saw many women of our clan who I knew were no longer in the living world, like my mother. They gave me honey cakes and spring water. I ate and I ate. I played games with them and sang songs. Then a stream appeared that wasn't there before. I followed it until I came to a great water, bigger than any water I'd ever seen before. I thought it must be the sea. There was a fountain by this great water, and a man came out of it. He was naked and very handsome, with skin the color of sky and water. I knew he was Zaramaka, the lord of the seas. 

There was a great mountain across the water, a perfect cone rising up. I wanted very much to go there. Zaramaka asked me what I desired and he told me he could take me there if I gave my body to him. I could see his desire. It was obvious. I knew from the lore my grandmother taught me that Ernalda gave him what he desired, and I remembered what Morganeth said. I gave myself to him. At that time I had never lain with a man before, though as children we sometimes played at it when our parents weren't too near. It was very pleasant. Afterward I knew my first soul had awoken and I had entered womanhood. 

Zaramaka took me across the waters in his arms. When we arrived I saw that there was a perfect golden dome on the top. My eyesight was sharper than it had ever been before. I could see a long way. I climbed up toward the golden dome. It was very hot there and Yelm's light was very bright. The soil was dried out and nothing grew on that hot mountain. I came to a lone man who was trying to plant seeds. He was very tall and thin and had flowers in his hair too. I knew he was Flamal. He said to me that nothing would grow here. I gave him some of my blood to nourish his seeds. This woke my second soul. I climbed up toward the golden dome with Flamal and now the mountainside was covered in green.

The sky turned blue as we reached the magnificent palace, and golden stars shone above us. Inside the palace everything was covered in gold and gems and there were white horses and griffons. I was taken to meet Yelm. He offered to make me his concubine. Orlanth was there too, but sometimes he would vanish and then return. Orlanth and Yelm held a dancing contest. They danced very differently. Yelm was formal and graceful. Orlanth danced like he was fighting. Yelm won the contest. After the dancing they had a contest of magic and Yelm won again. I saw that Eurmal the Trickster was there too. Orlanth and Yelm held a contest of music, Orlanth playing a bagpipe and Yelm playing a harp. Orlanth seemed to mock Yelm. The Storm Lord spoke to me, and I thought he was very handsome. 

Then Yelm shot Orlanth with an arrow. Orlanth took his enchanted iron blade and struck Yelm with it, and suddenly Yelm fell screaming into Hell, spraying golden blood as he fell. Now I was in a bedchamber which I knew was mine though it was nothing like my sleeping place at home. There were handmaids with me. Orlanth came, and Yelm's guards pursued him. We made an escape plan but I can't remember what it was or why we had to escape. There was a great loom in the chamber but it shrank until it was tiny and Orlanth gave it to someone. 

The palace descended into the Underworld. Seasons changed and it became a winter of despair and hunger like the years my mother told me of. I saw someone I recognized from our village and in this vision I had rejected him, though I hadn't done any such thing in the mortal world. Argan Argar came to me and told me I could escape by pretending to be dead. I was wrapped up in winding cloths. Orlanth looked on me and didn't believe I was dead. Someone else said I was dead, and then I couldn't move my limbs, as if I really had died. Then I was back at the mouth of the Riddle again, at the beginning of the ceremony. A cold and deathly voice spoke from the darkness. The voice told me to wake up. It was Ty Kora Tek. A voice said, "This is how it ends. The girl is dead." I felt my fourth soul awake. I felt despair that I was dead and then acceptance. Orlanth approached me and kissed me, the kiss of Life.

I stumbled through a golden doorway into an empty space and there I found Ernalda at a great loom surrounded by six handmaids. They wove life with the silk of an immense spider. Ernalda told me to come and claim my birthright. I saw myself heavy with child. My fifth soul woke and I found myself back in the Riddle. On the floor was a shape that grew into me, lying dead at my feet. A cold wind blew against my skin. A woman appeared. She told me her name was Yvarn and asked who I was. She said she was the wife of Heort. She explained to me the cycles of birth, death, rebirth, and the cycle of conception. The Brylaneth on the floor was the girl I had been. The Brylaneth who left the Riddle after that was a woman of the Haraborn of Black Stag Vale. 

Brylaneth's Journey Continues