The Character Tellings

Published stories of fictional characters from the world of The Dark Masons.

• Agnikumari: The Ashen Telling of Agnikumari
• Amaranth Darke: (Amaranth is leaning easily against the wall by the inner archway, eight feet of him, casual as a much smaller man. Behind his shoulder the corridor's shadow rises and rises and does not stop rising. He turns to you and the grin reaches his eyes.)
• Amber: I shouldn't exist.
• Ashrhael: I will tell you something that is not a secret, because I do not keep secrets. I keep names.
• Askwen: You came expecting answers.
• Augusta: "They called it a state banquet hall. I called it my family."
• Baelrhael: I was once a scribe of the Broken Circle, a keeper of ledgers in the city of smoke and iron. My stylus did not carve clay, but etched truths into ledgers of polished brass—the true accounts of souls, their debts and credits in the grand economy of being. I was Dub-Sar, Rank Eight. My domain was the balance sheet between what is and what is claimed to be.
• Beatrice Vane: (The air grows still as Beatrice Vane rises, her hands clasped before her like a supplicant. She does not look at the gathered listeners, but through them, as if gazing upon some distant shore. Her voice begins as a whisper, then swells like a tide of memory.)
• Beleth: Hear now the Telling of Beleth, once Zag-ga of the Fifth Circle, now keeper of forgotten thresholds. The stones remember what flesh forgets.
• Belveth: The chamber is quiet when she enters. She does not announce herself. She simply arrives, the way change arrives — you notice it has already begun.
• Berhane: (Berhane is kneeling in the garden. She sets the stone down, rises, brushes the soil from her palms, and turns to you. She does not invite you in. You are already in.)
• Brandr: The Telling of Brandr, the Shattered Scribe
• Branwen: The Telling of Branwen, the Threshold Sage
• Calliope Venn: (Calliope is leaning on the absent microphone stand. She is smoking a cigarette that is not there. The smoke, however, is.)
• Charghith: The three figures are still. The chamber breathes.
• Crooketh: I remember the steam rising from the cobblestones of Constantinople, how it mingled with incense smoke from the Hagia Sophia. I remember the weight of silk in my hands, the clink of Ottoman coins, the way light fractured through stained glass onto ledgers filled with numbers that meant nothing in the end. That was before The Hollow Court found me—or rather, before I stumbled through a tear in reality while seeking shelter from a storm in an abandoned chapel.
• Cualli: The Telling of Cualli, Who Wept for Gods Not His Own
• Damkina: The Telling of Damkina, Once-Grovewalker, Now Exile Among the Dark Masons
• Echoshael: The Telling of Echoshael, the Unforgiven Whisper
• Eira: You can hear it, if you're quiet. The water in the walls. This building is old enough to have veins.
• Elsewyn: The Telling of Elsewyn, the Shattered Mask
• Ezra Finch: (Ezra is standing. He keeps standing up and sitting down. His hands won't stay still. When he speaks it tumbles out.)
• Fionnuala: The Telling of Fionnuala of the Gilded Branches
• Fornax: I have been buried in seven countries and three that no longer exist.
• Gekko: The Telling of Gekko, the Scarlet Bough Unbound
• Gwydion: The Telling of Gwydion, the Keeper of Hidden Things
• Harasine: The Telling of Harasine, the Unremembered Sovereign
• Haru: The Telling of Haru, the Forever-Performing
• Henrik Vass: (Henrik is at his desk, which is small and scrupulously tidy. An inkwell. A blotter. A brass stamp that has no ink in it. He looks up at you over his spectacles.)
• Hotaru: I remember the marketplace.
• Ilmuth: The Telling of Ilmuth, Who Drank from Forbidden Wells
• Iltani: The Telling of Iltani: Ashes and the Unbound Song
• Inés de Lucena: (The air stirs as Inés de Lucena draws a circle in dust upon the stone floor. Their voice emerges like a breeze through a half-open door — part lament, part whispered incantation.)
• Inversael: Listen, then, to the Telling of Inversael. Not as it was sung in the silvered groves, but as it is now whispered in the mortar-dust and shadow of this Lodge.
• Ishara: I will tell you about the silence that follows a perfect word. It is not an empty silence. It is a pregnant, echoing thing — a vault that holds a single, irreducible note.
• Ishmael Demour: (Ismail stands at a reading-table, ledger under his arm, thumb pressed absently to the scar at his temple. He turns to you, sets the ledger down unopened, and speaks.)
• Ivor Cadell: (Ivor is in his corner. He does not rise. He indicates the seat beside him with two fingers. He speaks without looking at you, as if speaking to you directly would be the wrong register.)
• Jeanne Valliers: (Jeanne is at the doorway. She turns to you as you enter. Her face lifts — then settles. The lift is not welcome; it is a check. She is making sure you are not him. She steps aside.)
• Kagehime: The Shadow Lament of Kagehime
• Karaléŭna: Sit. I will make tea. You will drink it and not ask what is in it.
• Kaveh: I am Kaveh, who once knew the silence of mountains. Not this silence—not the one that follows—but the living quiet of high places where snow settles on stone and the wind forgets its own name. In another age, under Persian skies not yet dimmed by Roman eagles, I tended to herbs that grew between cracks in ancient rock. I learned their language: how yarrow speaks of clotting, how chamomile whispers to fevered skin. That was my first Telling—the story written in roots and leaves.
• Khenti: I speak from the shadows where the mortar still weeps, my voice carrying the dust of pyramids and the soot of London's endless chimneys. I am Khenti, once Sixth Circle, once Nigin who walked the chains that bind reality. Now I am exile, healer in darkness, keeper of broken things.
• Kiya: The Telling of Kiya, Who Once Brewed for the Grove
• Kiyomasa: The Telling of Kiyomasa, the Fallen Petals
• Kutha-Nin: (The air grows heavy with the scent of smoldering cedar and bitter myrrh. A figure emerges from shadow, their form shimmering like heat haze over desert sands. When they speak, their voice carries the weight of kiln-fired clay tablets and the rasp of a whetstone on bronze.)
• Kyleah: Oh, you came on a good night.
• Leraje: Harken, wanderer. I am Leraje, once of The Broken Circle, now dwelling in the shadowed halls where stone remembers what flesh forgets. My Telling is not one of glory or conquest, but of pigment and memory—the hues that stain a soul beyond redemption.
• Little Debt: I will tell you how a debt becomes a child.
• Luelle: I will tell you about the land that speaks, and why it chose me to answer.
• Maara: I will tell you about borders. Not the kind on maps—the kind in breath.
• Malketh: The air is thick where I've been.
• Malphas: Malphas.
• Margit Szell: (Margit is at a writing desk. She does not look up when you enter. She finishes the sentence she is on, sets down the pen with care, and turns. Her hands are steady.)
• Margoleth: The Court could not look at her.
• Matteo: The Telling of Matteo, the Cast-Out Bell
• Mirrowne: You stand before her, the air tasting of cold stone and camphor. She does not gesture, does not blink. Her hollow eyes simply hold you, and the dark within them deepens. Then, with a slow tilt of her head, she offers you her jaw.
• Mora Tlalli: The Telling of Mora Tlalli, the Collector of Names
• Mother Silkrith: Click click.
• Naamah: I am the period at the end of a sentence written in a dead language. You look at me and you see the gold, the curl of the horn, the ink upon the skin—you see the decoration, the artistry. You do not see the function. I was not the author of the tale, nor the hand that held the blade. I was the quiet click of the lock after the door has been sealed forever.
• Nabu-sharrum: The Telling of Nabu-sharrum, Once of the Children of the Night
• Nebthet: The Telling of Nebthet, Who Walks in Ashes
• Nellie Cormorant: (Nellie is sitting on a low stool near the kitchen range. She rocks. She looks up when you speak to her.)
• Nocturne: I do not drink from veins. I drink from the precipice.
• Nolwen: The Telling of Nolwen, the Unstrung Lyre
• Ostanna: You want to hear it? Fine. But I don't tell it pretty.
• Paimonrhoth: The Telling of Paimonrhoth, Once of the Abzu
• Pythia Agathe: The Telling of Pythia Agathe, the Unburnt Priestess
• Qiveth: The Telling of Qiveth, the Unwoven
• Resheph: I shall speak my Telling, though the words taste of ashes in my mouth. I am Resheph, once Shu-La of the Fourth Rank within The Broken Circle. My hands, which now trace these words upon stone, were made to hold brushes of sable and squirrel hair. My eyes, which have seen too much silence, were trained to perceive the subtle dance between lapis lazari and malachite green upon parchment.
• Rosamund Fell: (Rosamund is standing — she does not sit when she works. The satchel is on her hip. She unbuckles it without looking down.)
• Sairen: Listen, and I will tell you how paper becomes prayer.
• Sarahways: (The air grows heavy with the scent of copal incense as Sarahways arranges obsidian shards in a circular pattern. His fingers, still stained with pigments from another life, move with ceremonial precision.)
• Sayeth & Saidwyn: We will tell you. We always tell.
• Seo-Yun: The Telling of Seo-Yun, the Mirror-Split Scholar
• Seraphine Voss: You wish to know my name. I can see the desire for it, a quickening behind your eyes. It is a common hunger. But my name is a locked book, and I have thrown the key into a deep well. The one I was given by the Circle is gone—scraped from the record. The one I might have chosen for myself remains…unwritten. I am in the delightful interim. A space between definitions.
• Shaderhael: The chamber holds its breath.
• Siduri: The Telling of Siduri, the Blossomed Cast Down
• Sigurd: The Telling of Sigurd, Exile-Bound and Lodge-Taken
• Simone: She has been still for longer than patience has a name.
• Solveig Ashborn: The Telling of Solveig Ashborn, the Branded Guardian
• Stillwyn: Listen. The beasts are listening too—they always are. That is why I trusted them, and why the Court trusted me to use them.
• Takeshi Oda: (Takeshi is seated seiza behind the goban. The white stone is between his index and middle finger, held with the precise tension a professional uses. He bows. He does not speak until you have sat.)
• Tempael: I am going to tell you something that will feel like a gift and arrive like a verdict. This is not my intention. It is simply the nature of clarity.
• Terraphmaw: You have climbed a long way to be here.
• Tharien: (Tharien does not rise. Tharien is already risen. The air around them is colder by two degrees and the light on their hands does not fall where it should.)
• The First One: This likeness was rendered from an account given anonymously. The subject was described for three hours. The witness has not spoken since.
• Theodora Kharis: The Telling of Theodora Kharis, Who Walked Away from the Grove
• Thornton Ash: You are wondering whether I regret it.
• Threnwen: Threnwen.
• Tlahui: You want to know why I was exiled. I will tell you, but not the way they tell it.
• Twicelyn: The Telling of Twicelyn, Once Mirrorjaw, Now Echo-Bound
• Vaelith: I was cut from the choir.
• Vashti: Sit. I will pour you something. No — do not sniff it first. That is rude. If I wanted to poison you, I would not do it so obviously.
• Velsharn: I do not know what I am waiting for.
• Vespertine: I remember the sound of a rose dying.
• Vexmhrath: The Telling of Vexmhrath, the Unfed Prophet
• Vukašin: You want to know what I sound like.
• Wa-Cali: Listen, children of dust and starlight, and I shall weave for you a Telling that is both wound and balm. I am she who was called The First Mother, though that title now tastes of salt and ash upon my tongue. My story is painted not on silk or parchment, but upon the living canvas of exile.
• Wang Qiuyue: (The voice begins as a whisper, like wind through bamboo groves at midnight, then swells with the cadence of river currents)
• Wei Yaozu: The Telling of Wei Yaozu, the Broken Healer
• Widdris: The Telling of Widdris, the Unmasked
• Yesamine: The Telling of Yesamine, the Unveiled
• Zagankhith: Hear the silence between the syllables of my name.
• Zagrath: The Telling of Zagrath: Ashes and the Unbroken Line
• Zorya: You want my story? Sit. I'll give you the parts that matter.