Crystallization

Overview

Crystallization turns a living body into clear, perfect crystal. It does not hurt, and it does not reverse. The victim keeps seeing and knowing from inside the stone. People dread it less for the dying than for what follows: a figure in the field that will not rot, will not be buried, and is still awake.

Cause

It comes from Krystallis, a Beyonder whose order is so complete that change, decay, and chance count to it as errors. Its spreading Lattice of Silence stops whatever it reaches: life stops because life needs to change, and the flesh sets into inert crystal. The hosts it sends out, the Shard-Hosts, carry the change in their grip.

Who It Strikes

Plants, beasts, and people of every kind. The lattice takes the calm, the careful, and the orderly sooner than the rash, because it cannot take hold of an act it does not foresee. A Dwarf's steadiness or an Elf's long patience is no shield here. Those who sleep by the edge of the Hanging Vale, and those who walk into it, are struck most often.

Signs and Course

• The calm. The first sign is in the mind: fear goes out of the sufferer, thoughts line up neatly, and they stop hurrying. Onlookers often take it for courage.
• The facets. The skin of a fingertip or a cheek goes clear and flat, cold to the touch, ringing faintly when tapped.
• The setting. Within an hour or so the clear patch runs up the limb. Joints set at clean angles, breath slows, and speech gives out. The face settles into serenity.
• The stone. The whole body becomes crystal, fixed in its last posture. The eyes still seem to follow movement.

Contagion

It does not pass from the sick to the nursing as a fever does. It is caught from the lattice itself and from the touch of a Shard-Host, which starts a held arm faceting. In a living Incursion the edge creeps over ground, beasts, and sleepers; the dead lattice of the Hanging Vale, left by the Krystallis Incursion (c. 352,000-c. 349,000 BR), no longer spreads, but still facets a hand laid on it long or a sleeper lying against it through a night. A finished crystal statue does not spread it.

Treatment and Its Limits

The only treatment is to break the crystal while it forms. Companions strike it off with a hammer or a stone, badly and without care, since a planned stroke glances off. Then the wound is cleaned and bound like any other, and ordinary healing is used, which works on the living flesh beneath. After that, the sufferer must act unpredictably: weep, shout, quarrel, laugh, run crooked. Carrying flawed or lopsided things helps, and so does keeping nothing symmetrical about the body.

Workings of order and structure fail near it or turn against the caster; workings of feeling and chance hold. No herb, rite, or healing spell has ever changed a finished crystal back.

Mortality

Once the crystal is whole, there is no return; the sufferer is lost for good but not dead, and stays aware. Those whose crystal was broken in time keep scars, missing fingertips, and a dislike of tidy rooms, and they come home fond of their own flaws.

Lore and Belief

Few have seen it, so most belief comes from the tale of the Hanging Vale. Many people grieve the crystallized as kin trapped in ice who may yet be thawed, and keep them warm with fires that do nothing.

In the Medieval Era

Crystallization is among the rarest afflictions in the world, caught only at the edge of the Hanging Vale and known to most as the tale of a silent valley where everything stands still. The households at the Lastwater Well nearest the valley keep the customs against it. The faiths have no rite against it, though priests who meet it pray loudly and in disorder, which helps more than their liturgy.

Where It Appears

• Krystallis, the Shattered God (the Incursion, the Lattice of Silence, Travel Notes for Mortals)
• Shard-Hosts
• The Krystallis Incursion (c. 352,000-c. 349,000 BR)
• The Hanging Vale
• the Writers' Guide chapter What Waits Outside