Arcana: Everway Family Legends Project

The Feast of Jackal

A Crookstaff Family Legend

by Geoff Grabowski

Editor's Note: I had the fortune to find this volume, The Jackal's Saga, during a visit to the Library of Willowhome several years ago. Not really a saga at all, but rather a collection of Crookstaff Family tales related to the Bloodless Emperor era of Everway's history, probably compiled by the scholar Snowfall Crystaleye during the period several centuries ago when he was acting as a tutor to the Crookstaffs. The tale presented below prefaces the collection, and may be Snowfall's own imitation of the oral style to establish an overview of the history with an "aura of historicity," or may be an actual transcription of a story. I continue to translate Snowfall's works, and will present further of these stories as I complete acceptable translation from Written Weak Claecuun to Library Script Tongue.

Our family has existed in the City of Everway, City of the Thousand Legends, since the days of the Most Wise Emperor Aries Farwander. We have seen the Coming of the Bronze Men, the Rule of the Bloodless King, the rise of the Seventh Shadow and its inevitable downfall. We are not as old as our city, for what can be older than Everway, but we are old enough, for we were already ancient when we came to the City of the Thousand Dynasties.

In the days before the Slaying of the One-Voiced Host lived one of our family's greatest heroes, Jackal Crookstaff, called Almaria, or "sharp-witted" in the Weak Claecuun tongue.

Jackal was wizard-cunning in her ways, and quick to study, and soon her nature found her powerful but alien to the slow and thoughtful ways of our most ancient heritage. She became a Walker of the Spheres, and did many deeds of glory among the Thousand Worlds. She was old of years, but young of face, and often would she return to the city of her youth to aid her family and visit those of her line.

She brought great glory on our line and saved us from disgrace during the Reign of the Bloodless Emperor. When the Ivory King seized control away from those who made him, it was Jackal who went out among the Spheres to find the way to save the people of our City from the Deathless Monarch.

Jackal spent seven years among the Spheres, searching for a way to free the Everwayan people from the tyrant that their folly had created. She traveled to the Sage of the Willow Mountain and gave battle to the Seven Gryphons of the Mountain for the knowledge of the Horn of Ages. It was Jackal who tricked the Gryphons with the flesh of the Immortal Sage, and who gathered together the Argosy of Chamber Exiles to war for the Horn.

When she brought the Army of the Heroes' Shades to Everway, it was Jackal who used the sword Sacnoth to destroy the Bloodless Emperor, though she herself was slain in the battle. Because of her heroism and her service to the city, our family was not cast out among the Spheres as the other Lines who helped in the building of the Ivory Monarch were. It is because of this that we celebrate the Feast of Jackal in her honor, and why no member of our family can wear ornaments of ivory or bone upon their person, lest her spirit think our family has fallen back to old conceits and bring down curses on our heads.

The Feast of Jackal copyright © 2000 Geoffrey Grabowski, used with permission.