Calm Weaver. Calm of the stone Weaver, to be precise. I cannot imagine a more ill-fitting name. I decided long ago that the man must somehow have drawn off of the energy of those around him; he made one tired just by watching his ceaseless movement. I once asked him about this incongruity (one must be familiar with the naming rituals of his people to truly understand how incredibly bizarre his name appears) and his reply has stuck with me even now, years and years past his death. He picked up a rock, held it up before my eyes, and said, “Not all stone is content to bide its time. I am the molten currents of Death’s Sea. I am that which spews forth in the eruption of volcanoes. I am the tremor beneath the ground that does not cease until entire cities are destroyed.”
He was tall for a human with brilliant red hair that never seemed to be quite the right length. He was a bit thinner I think than is normal for humans of that height and was prone to wearing shabby robes. He said that they were more comfortable that way. He didn’t walk so much as bounce. Nonetheless, there was something very much endearing about him. When he smiled courtiers swooned and when he shook your hand he did so with both of his. If he asked you how you were, he looked you in the eye with an intensity that spoke of true interest. I saw many a liar and trickster break under the intensity of that gaze.
Ah how I miss those days of adventure! A more unlikely group I doubt you’ll ever find. We had a representative from each of the name giver races: R’tal Tel’kath a skyraider, Freep a windling, Sansha Fweluingtha an elf, Banda Trethel’gar an ork, Vella Gemtracer a dwarf, Allan an obsidiman, Calm Weaver a human, and I Shechalla Twie a t’skrang. Calm gave us our name and our purpose; we were the Steel of the center Thread or the Steel Thread. More than anything Calm wanted to see a unified Barsaive. Not united under the sword – never that – but a mesh of separate peoples who, when we cross each others paths, come together to weave a more perfect pattern.
You may wonder at the prevalent symbolism of the thread; understand that Calm was born to a family of tapestry weavers and was a master weaver in his own right. It is rumored that the king of Throal has Calm’s masterwork hanging in the royal suite. Whether this is true or not, I know that Calm gifted the tapestry to the king and I’ll tell you this; the man must have been touched by the Passions when he crafted that piece, a finer tapestry I have not seen. Thousands of tiny, individual pictures that, when laid side by side and taken as a whole, form the landscape of Barsaive.
The Steel Thread traveled between countries and borders, we talked to simple farm folk and to great kings; more than a few journeys took us face to face with a certain great dragon. We hunted traitors, brigands, and thieves. We brought down tyrants. We opened kaers, we freed slaves. We delivered documents and treaties. In one instance we kidnapped a crown prince. We made many friends and many enemies. All boasting aside, I truly believe that Barsaive would be a different place were it not for the works of the Steel Thread. And not for the better.
This ended, of course, when Calm died. We were on a layover between missions when a letter from his wife, one Joy Miller, reached us. Allow me to pause here and mention the great and encompassing heart that this woman must have had; I have not the fortitude to share my husband with the world as she did hers. At the very least I would demand to journey with him. But she was needed at home and he was needed abroad. The letter described a new horror that had beset their kaer that was too strong for the adepts there to destroy. Calm left at once. We, of course, traveled with him and fought beside him in the years to come. Towards the end, we could see the way that the battle was turning and he refused to reform the group pattern with us. He ordered us to leave. We refused. In the end Calm used his not inconsiderable powers against us forcing us to leave. It was not long after that he and all his people died to the horror.
The Steel Thread was never reformed. Those of us that remained now form the Steel Fist and are dedicated to the destruction of all horrors on the face of Barsaive. In Calm’s name we do this. Better, perhaps, you may say, to continue his work but you must understand that the heart went out of us when Calm died. We all should have been at his side at the last but we were not. Perhaps, perhaps the tide of battle would have gone differently had we been there.
And now we sit in these perilous and confusing times. The relations between the nations of Barsaive are even more tenuous than before and now Thera has done the unspeakable. I cannot help but wonder, if Calm were alive, what would he do? Would he have seen this coming? Was there a way this could have been prevented? Surely there must be a way to avoid the inevitable but I, for myself, cannot see this ending in any way but with the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Barsavians.