The Astri Pact

Yellow flame did not burn as bright as Sesarin Grand Patriarch's eyes as he stabbed his finger with the tip of his dagger. Too hard; blood flowed down instead of dripping onto the crisp cream-colored sheet of parareed paper, blotting out his signature. He shoved his hand over the second sheet, splattering it and the ruby tablecloth, then straightened and imperiously held his hand to a servant, who wrapped a pristine cloth around the cut.
"The Pact is sealed. Will you bestow the Gift now?" Pleasure lit his face, a malicious rather than eager expression.
The black-cloaked figure cocked their head. "If you like."
Sesarin's counselors glanced at each other, frowning as a raspy laugh escaped the figure's transparent lips. They raised a thin, ghostly hand and settled their fingertips upon Sesarin's brow.
The Astri gasped and fell, convulsing. His counselors shouted and lunged at the figure but they, too, fell, quaking, eyes rolled back, senseless.
The black-cloaked figure winced as they picked up their copy of the signature page, and waved their hand across the sheet to dry the liquid with a bit of Touch. The bright red darkened to black, and they rolled the page into a scroll, tied two blood-red ribbons on either side, and held it in their upturned palms. A swirl of grey mist encompassed it and it disappeared.
The figure looked at the Grand Patriarch and smiled before picking up one of two glass containers filled with neatly written pages. "Blood of the Evenacht completes the Pact." A flash of grey light enveloped them, and they disappeared.

--from Death's Solution, by Acolyte Rivonis of the Forest Temple

Research:

The Evenacht Pact

by our informative hero,
Lorgan the Expositor

In this Research Document:

all images by Shade Melodique
unless otherwise stated

The Astri Pact

The most contentious document in the Evenacht is the Astri Pact. Only the Astri refer to it by its official name, the Evenacht Pact; most evening land residents call it the Astri Pact, though the Pact with Death, the Blood Document, or the Betrayal Papers are not uncommon.
The Astri Pact is the most mysterious document in the Evenacht as well, for other than a handful of Astri, the syimlins of Death and their chosen acolytes, no one has beheld it.

The Document

We know the description of the physical document because Sesarin bragged about how he cunningly used it to obtain immortality, before it became uncouth for him to do so. First, it was written on parareed paper. No surprise there; parareed pulp absorbs preservation magic far better than other materials, so scholars and scribes in the Evenacht use sheets pressed from it to create important documents that need a long shelf-life.
Sesarin demanded the scribes use mojin fruit ink for the text. The Astri, like many traders at the time, used the ink to cement deals with their trading partners because a specific accountability spell infuses the liquid. If one broke the deal, the other party could trigger the ink spell, and a variety of terrible things, including death, would ensue. (author's note; you might think this would lead to a lot of mischief, but an integral part of the spell includes ramifications for both parties involved if the deal breaks, so it isn't just the offender who gets hurt.)
Sesarin's blood was part of the oath Death demanded, though why they needed it is anyone's guess. Rumors swirl that the blood binds Sesarin to the document through a Death-spell, and if he breaks the agreement, the results will be catastrophic for him, probably all Astri, and even the Evenacht as a whole.
Details of the document are a guarded secret that no Astri has ever divulged. It's unfathomable that so many millennia have progressed and no one has breathed a word, which means there is some spell attached to it that prevents them from speaking about it. Whether that is a Sesarin or a Death addition is unknown.

Until the Pact, all official documents were written on continuous, uncut scrolls, leading to some interesting ways of getting all the words onto the sheet. Death, finding the length tedious, demanded the Pact be cut into pages and sections properly marked. This is the first known instance of paper sheets in the Evenacht.

Was Sesarin eager? ...yes.

At the time of the Pact, the Evenacht was known to elite Faeyim magic users, though few visited the cloudy lands. Reaching them took a special transportation spell and expensive stabilization components which failed often and led to some rather nasty demises. The risks rarely outweighed the benefits.
Syimlin, however, could traverse back and forth with ease. Why? That's still unknown to all but the syimlin.

The Problem

Thousands of years previous, the syimlin of Death had a problem on their hands; ghosts roamed the continent of Faeyim (modern Talis), causing all sorts of mischief and mayhem. Their divine charge precluded sending the lot to the Final Death, so they needed another solution that protected the living from the dead souls.
Why Death decided to use the Evenacht as a ghostly home will remain a mystery for eternity. They did not write down their thoughts on the matter, and if they intimated them to another, that being either no longer exists or keeps the secrets close. What is known is that they approached the Astri with a plan.

Other Astri Patriarchs and Matriarchs burned with fury Sesarin made them hostage to a syimlin's oath. They expected a quick demise; Sesarin was not known for keeping his word in beneficial ways. They're still around, though.

The Solution

The Astri were a merchant-heavy evaki people from what is now the eastern plains of Mendercane, on Fading Light. They held enormous influence on the three Evenacht continents due to the long reach of their trade empire, and the Patriarchs/Matriarchs and Grand Patriarchs/Matriarchs enjoyed a status akin to royalty.
Their prestige and wealth were not enough for High Patriarch Sesarin. He sought more ways to grow his money, business, and influence, and not all were wholesome or prudent. His counselors advised caution, but he ignored their words.
He was ripe for Death to pluck.
Death's words were sweet, and promised Sesarin what he most wanted; immortality. Sesarin felt, as the wealthiest, most influential Grand Patriarch of the Astri, he deserved that boon. In return, he simply needed to sign a sheet of paper that said ghosts could call the evening lands their afterlife home.
He could not sign fast enough. Myth claims only a yilsemma passed while they hammered out the details. When ready, Sesarin signed the Pact declaring the Evenacht would open its arms to ghostly inhabitants for eternity. He dribbled blood onto the page to bind his words to the agreement, and in return, Death would grant the Astri immortality by way of the Gift of Life.

The Changes

The aftermath was severe.
Neither the Astri nor Death told the native Evenacht living about the deal. The various beings only found out when ghosts began to pour into their living spaces, taking land, supplies, and more, talking about the promise of the Evenacht.
The reaction of the living to the first encounters was swift and furious. They attempted to drive the ghosts back to Faeyim, but found that they could not harm their essences in any significant way. This led to the rise of spiritesti, who could interact with ghosts through magic (and this is still the case. Mundane umbrareign can't interact with ghosts employing Ether Form). But even they could not battle the numbers of ghosts they needed to confront to clear the Evenacht of Faeyim presence.
The ghosts also resented what had happened. They had left their familiar home of Faeyim due to a promise that no longer seemed a promise, but a lie. As traveling between two domains was difficult without Death's help, they were stuck in a place they no longer wanted to occupy. Death's response was to remind them they could enjoy the Final Death if they disliked their new home so much.
Word eventually reached leaders about Sesarin's Pact because he bragged about it, and peoples who never had cause to interact with one another came together in a bid to rid the Evenact of the Astri. Every attempt failed. Huge armies became sick with debilitating diseases before they could storm Sesarin's Mendercane stronghold, with no soldier able to stand until they slunk back home. Assassins disappeared. Cutting off the trade with the Astri destroyed cities, towns and regions, because their trade empire was so integral to the workings of the Evenacht in general. Several previous agreement holders tried to break their deals, hoping to kill their now-enemy, and faced the consequences while the Astri escaped unscathed.

Evenacht's native deities saw threat in the influx of ghosts who worshipped outsider divines. The historical evidence is scant, but it appears several banded together to drive the spirits and their syimlin out of the Evenacht. Their luck was as sour as the mortals' who prayed to them, and several hundred disappeared around this time. Did they give up and cede the evening lands to the syimlin, or did the Pact affect them as much as it affected their followers and they perished?
The Evenacht umbrareign eventually realized they had to live with the ghosts. Resentment lingers to this day, causing conflicts throughout the three continents. And they have good reason to resent. For instance, without ghosts, there would be no giant lakes that dam up water and ryiam, preventing the living from using these vital resources.
Not to say good things haven't come from the forced integration, such as the sharing of magic scholarship, which has led to astounding advances in healing, or the introduction of travel wagons, which has made travel faster to distant places, but that is minute gain compared to the terrible acts that are an unstable base. Whether good or bad, the Pact has had a profound effect on the Evenacht, and there is no sign that will ever change.
One document holds us all hostage.

Questions

Questions abound about the document and the signatories, with few concrete answers.

• Why did Death choose the Evenacht? Why not find a way to let Faeyim ghosts remain on Faeyim?
  
  It may be because the Evenacht, in a sense, occupies the same space as the continent of Faeyim/Talis, just in a different dimensional domain (OK, the scholar in me winces, but unless you understand the intricacies of Void magic, this is the best description I can offer). This keeps the dead separate from the living they knew, but inhabiting the same space.
  We also know other Sensour Death deities were forming lands of the dead in these adjacent spaces, so they might have just followed precedent.
• Why was a Pact needed in the first place?
  
  Speculation abounds about this one. It could be, this allowed Death to mark their territory and keep other Sensour death deities out, while giving them a hammer to use against the native pantheons.

• What else did Sesarin and the Astri get from the deal?
  
  There are rumors that the deal encompassed more than the Gift of Life, though that is the most infamous aspect of the agreement. Well, that, and the purported blood-drinking to maintain immortality, though no Astri has ever admitted to it.
  Supposedly Death agreed to give the Astri a greater command of magic than their fellow evaki, though how they accomplished it is a mystery. Interestingly enough, even if they gained a syimlin's worth of power, no Astri has placed themselves as a divine, including Sesarin. Was this prohibition part of the Pact?
  Another suspected part of the Pact is the Astri's continued influence in the Evenacht. They did not fall when the other umbrareign rose against them, and Sesarin has never been challenged in a serious manner. All rivals and enemies either fall to bad luck, or their influence dwindles to nothing.

• How is the Pact still functional, since the original Death who made it no longer exists?
  
  I suppose they may have retired, and their continued presence somewhere keeps the Pact intact, but it may be, the agreement was between the office of Death rather than the individual syimlin. In the Evenacht, these kinds of agreements are common between entities like governments. It may be, the agreement is between the Astri and the office of Death, rather than between Sesarin and a specific syimlin.
• What kind of spell binds future Deaths to a past one's will?
  
  This, perhaps, frightens both Evenacht and Talin deities alike. What kind of agreement holds a divine accountable for another's distant-past actions? It's no secret Erse Parr is not enthralled with the current way things are done, but it may be, there is nothing she can do to change it without breaking the Pact and causing terrible harm to innocents.