Thorne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thornsofmalkav) wrote2017-01-13 06:12 pm
thornsofmalkav) wrote2017-01-13 06:12 pm
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Chara's Speech to the Katadors (Slivers & Shards)
“My name,” she says, very conscious of how irrevocable this step will be and praying that if the worst is to come, that Thorne will use her Portori arts to spirit her away to safety, “is Chara Malides, of the House of Broken Stone. A century ago, you brought down the tyranny of my great-grandfather and I thank you for it.” She means it too. She wouldn’t have meant it a thirty-day ago, but she does now.
“My brother, Ghalib Malides, wanted to bring back the old Age of Shadows. He was wrong. I stand here before you because he was wrong. He thought that the only way we would survive to the future would be with him as Protector, with a legion of dreampushers and a new Overmind behind him. The Vale united under him and everything back to what it once had been.
“He was wrong.
“He was wrong,” she says. “And he died for his foolishness and malice. He burnt himself to the bone trying to bring back the poisoned past and his efforts summoned one of the small Nation-Eaters and it ate him. We can’t bring back the past. We shouldn’t.
“When the Portori came to Fallenheart, one of their men came to me. His name was Al-Quinn. He taught me the lost arts of the ancients, which we have forgotten but the Portori remember. He taught me better ways of agriculture and water purification, of the squiggling of words to create permanent physical records, and the way of thinking known as the scientific method. And these tools that he has given me, they are what will help us survive into the future. Not the old ways.
"The Portori have new ways for the Nectors to make batteries, ones that must be kept warm but will give the Magnators power that did not come from pushing. With their Word Squiggles we can preserve knowledge for the future in a way that needs no power as the Shade libraries of old did. We can build rich lives without an Overmind.
“We can make a new age of Science, not Shadows. A bright future for the babe I now carry and for you and all your children. A Vale united as equals so that we might all survive this dying world and make it new again.
“Hypatia is going to the High Tables, to see what other lost arts of our forefathers can be restored. I cannot go with her, but I believe, I know, that she is doing the right thing. That whatever she finds there will be able to help us, just as the Portori have.
“I know I have no right to ask you to follow my lead in this. I will still ask it of you, because I must. The knowledge that Al-Quinn and his friends among the Portori have given me is too precious, too important. Let me teach it to you. Help me spread it to every Spire that remains.
“Help me save us all.”
“My brother, Ghalib Malides, wanted to bring back the old Age of Shadows. He was wrong. I stand here before you because he was wrong. He thought that the only way we would survive to the future would be with him as Protector, with a legion of dreampushers and a new Overmind behind him. The Vale united under him and everything back to what it once had been.
“He was wrong.
“He was wrong,” she says. “And he died for his foolishness and malice. He burnt himself to the bone trying to bring back the poisoned past and his efforts summoned one of the small Nation-Eaters and it ate him. We can’t bring back the past. We shouldn’t.
“When the Portori came to Fallenheart, one of their men came to me. His name was Al-Quinn. He taught me the lost arts of the ancients, which we have forgotten but the Portori remember. He taught me better ways of agriculture and water purification, of the squiggling of words to create permanent physical records, and the way of thinking known as the scientific method. And these tools that he has given me, they are what will help us survive into the future. Not the old ways.
"The Portori have new ways for the Nectors to make batteries, ones that must be kept warm but will give the Magnators power that did not come from pushing. With their Word Squiggles we can preserve knowledge for the future in a way that needs no power as the Shade libraries of old did. We can build rich lives without an Overmind.
“We can make a new age of Science, not Shadows. A bright future for the babe I now carry and for you and all your children. A Vale united as equals so that we might all survive this dying world and make it new again.
“Hypatia is going to the High Tables, to see what other lost arts of our forefathers can be restored. I cannot go with her, but I believe, I know, that she is doing the right thing. That whatever she finds there will be able to help us, just as the Portori have.
“I know I have no right to ask you to follow my lead in this. I will still ask it of you, because I must. The knowledge that Al-Quinn and his friends among the Portori have given me is too precious, too important. Let me teach it to you. Help me spread it to every Spire that remains.
“Help me save us all.”