The chained one had given everything in him to the world, and creation flourished, but so flourished decay, ever-changing, never-ending life.
So he, who only had death left to him, gave death to the world.
And so came mortality, and so came meaning.
And so he became the hollow one, without his light and stolen night, and finally without his death.
Thus remained the chained lord, the hollow one, the exalted creator, chained, facing the great empty vast.
~ excerpt from the book of sephyr
Three tragedies
The perfection in the silence of death was broken by a priest choking on his blood.
And a knife scraped bones a bit too deep to be a quiet kill.
The child walked towards the altar of the death god with steps hungry and limping.
The temple of knives was strewn with the dead, and number 52 hobbled towards the main hall to kill the high priest.
One of the acolytes, still alive, was dragging himself out of the corridor, into the grand vestibule.
A shower of magelight sputtered into view and the crawling priest looked at the light for salvation.
All he found was an uneven rhythm of steps hounding him, limping with the great and terrible legacy of the temple.
The priest turned and croaked, "You child of ruin, you... you di..."
A knife to the heart.
52, called pyten in kushun, clutched the bloody knife and moved; he had a throat to slit and very little time.
When he entered the main hall, there was the altar on a plinth of a stone black and ancient.
A few alcoves held braziers and a dance of shadows was afoot.
But no high priest.
Gone and gone, with his blood red robes and his neck high and holy.
The child of ruin clutched the knife harder and closer to himself.
His feet made crescents of red on the dusty floor outside, and the pale stone stairs already saw a cascading line of blood.
Pyten walked and walked.
Walked out of the temple of knives, and the only home he knew was dust.
The beggars and marauders on the bridge shrunk away from him, and a company of night watchmen caught up.
He felt the fire in his head and chest.
He jumped in the river and was lost to the dark of it, to the cold of it.
---
Ira woke up to a tense air of dying winter, and a fussing chitter of birds about to move north.
She put a thin stew to simmer and went about cleaning the house and the shack that worked as an entrance and a vestibule.
There lay a withering cot and a withered man.
Her father rarely left the cot.
She passed him a bowl, and he hunched up slurping it without saying much.
Already accustomed to his absence, she moved about him, tidying him as much as she could.
Today she was to meet vanti, the sweet, sweet vanti, made of dreams.
Vanti, her younger brother.
She got ready as soon as she could.
By the time some heat seeped into the sunlight, she was already free from fussing over which dress was less dirty and her frugally used colours that she made at Summer's end with dried cherries and faunot leaves grinded together.
Lampi, the fisherman's boy, caught up to her and poked her bundle.
"Off to meet the prince? You look a tad too beutfool for that," he chuckled with his uneven teeth.
When he saw a frown creeping up at Ira's face, he swiftly wiped his hands on the back of his trousers.
"So why did you call me?" He asked with eagerness of a colt, his brown garbs mostly black now hung about him in layers and his black hair almost brown with dirt.
"Ready to come to my palace?"
The dirty gremlin had asked Ira's hand in marriage back when her father was still out and about and she didn't need to ask help for the fields.
When she started hailing the boys for help in particularly unexpected weather patterns, or for tilling, lampi showed up first.
Asked for her hand everytime.
Before the rains, or after a night of calamities, he showed up for thatching the roof.
But he also asked baker's daughter for marriage, and flooki's sister for which his face got an upgrade.
His nose all bent to match his teeth and tear scar on the left cheek.
When she asked about it on a rejection, he toothily said, "A fisherman never dips only one line and sinker."
Isn't he just a bad fisherman if no one's taken the bait yet?
She told him that she's about to meet vanti, and would need him to ferry her towards the city.
They took the barge, and passed through the river that meandered out from the middle of the city.
The river gate was bustling with night watchmen and the city guard.
"Has something happened," she thought.
She told the guard that they came from down south.
But the questions were endless today.
Lampi frowned and feared, but ira told them they came from norum and they had business with one of the trainees in administration board.
She even showed the purple token.
The guards looked at them strangely and let them pass.
Even the river was full of city guards poking around.
She tried asking a gentle looking one, but he just stared at her and gestured them to pass.
Did they loose something in the river?
"Well what do we care, don't tell if you don't wanna tell," said lampi with his baiting disdain.
But nothing.
They moved inward.
They left the barge when they reached the bridge.
Ira told him to wait by the river and joyous springs in her steps took her towards inner city.
She saw smoke, and a fire yet to go out.
She rushed towards it with unease.
She reached her destination and saw the scorched stone of the temple and the burned subsidiary buildings around it.
She asked around for her dreamy brother, but the smoke choked her voice out and drowned every answer in doom.
She even showed the token, but she found pity and impatience.
The world spun with her and she asked and screamed and begged.
A boy of dreams and promises was charred in ruins and no one cared.
The world shattered around her like glass and she was helpless rage and screams and blood.
---
Revolution had come.
Aritsa saw it in the thrum of the city and smiled at the morning sun.
She clutched a copy of "sorrowful nights of a blind man" close to her bosom and walked briskly towards the lower city.
The tragedy of howonell had stripped most of the nearby cities of their security.
Something about a fire at the temple of knives.
This could be it, the perfect time for the change.
Today was the final gathering and then the revolution would march to the high and lows of this city demanding its due.
As she walked with jittery excitement, a string of people were rushing towards the central area where city square was.
She decided to take the main road and see what the fuss was about, maybe it had already begun.
The city square was full, and the crowd was sprawled into the streets leading up to it, latched onto the walls and crouched on the fences.
She made some space into the awning of a baker's shop and hanged to the window sill.
Then she saw them, the revolutionaries, the thinkers all lined up for judgement that needed no trials.
The revolution had come and it was hung and executed without waiting for a sunrise or a sentence.
Kaeleen, the sweet and brooding boy, her love, her mentor, her guide was the one kicking and twitching on the noose right when she reached to see the spectacle, and a scream that changed nothing ripped through her.
The revolution had come and it was silenced with bribes and hangings because bread is tastier than words of valor.
A few armoured guards were slowly moving towards her, but she didn't care; she kept screaming and looking at the quiet boy of love and promises.
Just as the guards were about to reach her, a twang echoed and she disappeared.
When her lifeless eyes saw someone holding her by the shoulders, she was already at the edges of the city.
"You need to survive this, girl, and you need to come with me," the man said.
"Who... who are you?" she asked and looked around her, bewildered.
A pale smile, a sad thing, crept on the man's lips and he said, "You can call me singer."