The Lullaby of the Hush
This is the hymn the Choir of the Sanctum sang every night for two thousand years, as the Tidekin remember it and taught it to the Athenaeum. It has no ending. It never needed one, until the night it was stopped; and the Tidekin will not sing past the place where it was stopped, nor will they let it be written.
Sleep, old one, the tide is turning,
sleep, the lamps above are burning,
sleep beneath the weight of water,
hush, for Seren keeps her daughter.
Dream of kelp and dream of pearling,
dream the slow green currents curling,
dream no teeth and dream no hunger,
sleep, old one, a little longer.
What is fallen, let it settle,
what is splintered, sea will mend it,
what is waking, sing it under,
what is calling —
Varric’s Watch
A ballad of the Whisperwood March, sung in the taverns of Highcrest, most often by guilds on the night of their first clear of Ravenhold Keep.
The lord of the keep climbed his tower alone
when his hair had gone grey and his sons had grown,
and he called to the wind and the wind sent a bird,
and the bird was a woman, and she gave him her word.
“Hold it,” she said, “till the wood is still,
hold it in sickness and hold it in ill,
hold it through winter and hold it through death,
and I’ll keep your ravens and lend you my breath.”
Now the lord of the keep sits cold in his chair
and his heart has been still for a century there,
and the wood is not quiet, and the wood will not cease,
and the lord of the keep has never found peace.
So raise up your banners and climb to his hall,
and bring him to kneel, and bring him to fall,
for each time he falls the wood whispers less,
and one week, they say, he will rest.
The Lament for Hammerdeep
Sung by the dwarves of Stonegate on the anniversary of the Burning, slowly, in the old tongue, with hammers beaten on stone for the rhythm. This is a rendering, and loses much; chiefly, the dwarves say, the hammers.
Nine halls deep and the lamps all lit,
and the oath-stones tall in the heart of it,
and the forge below where the warm stone sang:
take heat, take heat, and the anvils rang.
Then fire came up from the root of the deep,
up through the halls where our children sleep,
and the stones all cracked and the oaths all broke,
and the king at his anvil turned to smoke.
He works there still in the forge’s red,
a king of ash with a crown of dead,
and the fires burn with no hand to feed,
and we do not know what he makes, or need.
One oath stands that was sworn in snow:
that a dwarf will go down where the dwarves won’t go,
and light the hearth with a clean flame then.
Take heat, take heat. Then home again.
The Saltmarrow Shanty
A capstan song of the Corsair Reaches, sung on Navy decks and Brethren decks alike, with the words of the third verse changed to suit.
Oh, we sailed out of Saltmarrow with powder and shot,
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
and a captain who swore that the storm would be not,
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
Oh, the Kraken came up and he looked at our deck,
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
and the bosun said, “Lads, I believe that’s a wreck,”
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
Oh, we’ll drink to the Brethren (the Admiral’s health),
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
and the man who comes home has a share of the wealth,
heave away, my bully boys, down to the Maw!
So it’s one for the pumps and it’s two for the guns,
and it’s three for the light on the Spire that runs
down, down under the green, where the dead captains go:
heave away, my bully boys. Don’t look below.
The Counting Song of Starfall
A rhyme the children of the gnomish families at Starfall chant while skipping. The scholars of the Athenaeum have pointed out that it is not, strictly speaking, a counting song, since it only ever counts down.
Count the lamps on the castle wall,
a thousand thousand, one and all.
One went out, and nobody cried,
count them again from the other side.
Count the moons that walk the night:
one is dark and one is bright.
One went in and didn’t come out,
count them again and leave one out.
Count the eyes that look at you,
none, and none, and one, and two.
Close your own and count to three:
now it can’t see you. Now you can’t see.
Proverbs of the Peoples
Gathered from the streets and halls of Highcrest, with their peoples of origin, where these could be agreed upon.
Take heat. Never take flame. (Dwarvish, from the first oath-stone.)
A dwarf who sneaks is a dwarf who lies. (Dwarvish.)
The trees will tell everyone. (Elvish: said of a secret about to be kept badly.)
Four thousand years is not so long. (Elvish: said, always, with a sigh.)
If it cannot be drawn, it cannot be trusted. (Gnomish.)
Out of the fire first, and argue after. (Gnomish.)
The drum answers; the sky does not. (Orcish.)
Slow on the beach, quick in the fight. (Troll.)
You have all the time in the world. Spend it on something. (Of the Unquiet.)
Wide doorways and honest wind. (Minotaur: a blessing.)
Everything has a price, and most things have two. (Goblin.)
Vesk knows the odds. (Goblin: said when anything at all goes wrong.)
Never steer for the green light. (Tidekin.)
Don’t say his name over deep water. (Tidekin.)
Stand where you are told. (Raiders’ saying, from Ravenhold.)
Bring a towel. (Raiders’ saying, from the Sunken Crypt.)
The week turns. (Said in Highcrest of any trouble, meaning it will pass, or come back.)
Every banner climbs; not every banner comes down again. (Said at guild funerals.)
Tavern Tales of the Wandering Beasts
There are great beasts that roam the wilds of Aetheria, belonging to no dungeon and keeping no lair, which turn up where they please and must be fought by whoever can be rallied. The Athenaeum has very little to say about them that it can prove. The taverns have a great deal to say that they cannot. What follows is the taverns’ account, set down without endorsement.
Kazzak the Kinda Doomed is a demon lord of great and terrible power who has sworn to conquer the realm one land at a time. He has conquered Whisperwood eleven times, the Ashfen nine, and the Stormreach once, very briefly, during a lull in the lightning. He then forgets which land he has conquered and starts again somewhere else. The Athenaeum has a theory that he fell through a hole in Seren’s wall a long time ago and landed on his head.
Azuregosh the Blue is an ancient dragon of the Stormreach heaths, very nearly as old as Ignaroth, and much more sensible: he has never let anyone bind him, never sat on a tower, and spends most of the year asleep in a hollow among the clouds. He wakes, it is said, only for guilds with bad timing.
Lord Kaz’rik of the Emerald Nap is a green dragon who fell asleep in the long grass of Whisperwood some centuries ago and has not entirely woken since. He dreams of wiping raids, and the dreams leak, and he snores in a wide circle. The trees say that he talks in his sleep, and that what he says is not repeatable.
Grumblegut the Everhungry is a hill-giant of Greenmeadow who ate a questgiver. The quest is still available, from inside him. Several guilds have accepted it.
Stormmaw, Eater of Patch Notes, is a thunder-wyrm of the Stormreach who was, the taverns say, made smaller twice by some power above the world, and took it personally. Nobody in the taverns can explain what this means, but everybody agrees that it is true, and that he is still very angry about it.
Big Brenda, Terror of the Shipping Lanes, is a sea serpent the length of a harbour who lives off the Saltwind Coast and has sunk three trade fleets and one very small yacht. The owner of the yacht has written to the Crown about it every year since. The Crown has replied, every year, that it is looking into the matter.
Glacius is an ice elemental of Frostspire the size of a keep, who means to thaw every spring and has not yet managed it. Sir Bonesworth is a giant of stitched-together skeletons who wanders the realm, still bitter about his funeral, which was, by every account, poorly attended.