Prelude
A mother’s gentle whisper will calm the child to rest
A soldier’s back against his brother will make the man feel blessed
The solace of a lover can be found in sweet caress
But silence brings the black glove, and a blade within your chest.
The commodore lay trembling, breath uneven, heavy, like machinery with skipping gears. His toes twitched slightly, eyes growing glossy and vacant. His quivering fingers gripped the cloak of a teary-eyed woman, singing gently as he prepared to pass from this world. Her auburn hair drifted across her face with beautiful abandon. She shared his gaze, never wandering, never forsaking the song… the message it delivered. She was never meant to live this life… but she would see this to its end.
Where shadows cling round corners they will hide
And linger for the chance at grand requite
With cloak and blade, they will evade
Paultine’s tongue, always the thirsty knife.
With force and faith
Mier Tanifel will lead us to the light.
Her left hand found rest upon his cheek as life shook from his body. Her tears fell, only to gain repose upon the handle of the pewter dagger buried deep within his neck. Blood sputtered up from between his drawn lips, spilling over his grimace and down his chin. She noted his hard but handsome features, apart from meandering, blood-stained teeth. His large, strong hands rose from the filthy cobblestones. Stones still covered in the ashfall of the burning safe-houses not a half mile away.
His fingers wrapped round hers and he croaked out only three hoarse and slowly formed words.
“ You… will… fail.”
She smiled a sad smile and took one of her blood-painted hands away and wiped her tears from her cheeks, leaving long streaks of crimson across her face.
“I’m sure I will. But the glove will not. And this day I fail only my Mier Tanifel.” Scarlet bowed her head and drew an invisible line from her right ear to her lips and down to her heart and whispered a short and gentle prayer. She quickly returned to the man’s gaze. The city of Ayur was burning. This man was just kindling for the coming war.
The commodore’s eyes seemed cloudy, his focus drifting. She kissed his cheek and wished him well. Her glassy eyes welled as his head lifelessly rolled to one side. She tugged her cloak forward even more, obscuring her face. She welcomed the shadow and anonymity it provided. Scarlet pulled the blade from the now empty flesh and rose. She paused, closing her eyes, feeling her blood warm, and extending her senses like great wings in all directions. She let the “daun” claim her.
It was then she heard the withdrawn breathing coming from her left, the nearby alley. She turned only her head to see the sliver of face belonging to what looked to be a frail and terrified young boy. It looked to be another filthy whore’s son. Their population had grown much in the Paultine Empire. She could feel him now. His pulse. His wild and attentive eyes. The growing dread that he might wet himself with fear. The feeling he should run, as fast as he could. The dawning realization that she was looking straight at him… straight into him. She felt secrets he did not wish unearthed… secrets that felt somehow familiar to her. He withdrew. Not only that, he had violently shoved Scarlet from his mind. Only a handful had ever done such a thing. Who was this discarded child?
The boy’s senses flooded back in. His eyes seemed to widen to the size of dinner plates beneath his frayed, loosely fitting knit cap. The filth of the street underfoot squealed as he turned and ran, dust trailing his escape.
Wisps of shadow crept from Scarlet’s cloak, spreading like ink in water. She crouched, drawing the wind around her. Her sinews drew tight, fists clenched, and leaning forward she burst skyward, enrobed in living darkness. She propelled herself towards the rooftops above the alley, trailing tendrils behind her as she watched the child sprint away. She felt the boy’s rapid pulse within her like a rhythm building above her own heartbeat. Her trajectory wavered only as the boy changed course, leaving behind her a stream of black like dissipating feathers.
Callum looked to the sky between strained breaths to see a cloud of angry smoke chasing him through the streets, locks of auburn hair flying wildly between the wisps of shadow. He knew from many shameless nights in Ayur that this hour would leave all but temple doors locked to him, and the temple was one place he could never return, regardless of circumstance. Not that he had any interest, Callum had been setting fires to the temples throughout the city one by one in retribution for the deaths of his mother, his mentor, and his only friend. His master had always remained true to the tales before the whims of any demi-god. Names like Paultine and Mier Tanifel meant little to those who upheld the honor of the True Song. He could not return to his hidden home. No one could know where he slept. No one could learn of what he kept there. His last treasured possessions.
He quickly shifted his weight, darting down another small alley, searching for refuge from the demon on his heels. He had been lured in by the song, so familiar it practically grabbed him by the heart strings and yanked.
Scarlet smiled to herself. He had walled her out. She slammed her daun against him again and again, yet he did not budge. She began to sing:
With each step you tell a tale
within the dust beneath your heels
Callum sped on, as the words dug into his heart. He knew this song, his curiosity adding weight to every step. He wanted to stop. He needed to know. In the end, his survival instinct only barely held out.
and every breath you may exhale
uncovers all you have concealed
He could feel his mind begin to drift backwards. He could recall his mother’s voice. Callum could nearly see her face before him, lit by flickering firelight.
Life is a force with a will all its own
And as time leads you on it erodes you
It may tear your skin, it may break your bones
But in trade tenfold it bestows truth
Callum halted… stopped dead. His eyes darted in short bursts to every direction, paused, and slammed shut. Scarlet found her footing on the alley floor nearly ten feet behind him. She remained still for a moment, in her shroud from threads of phantom dark, watching the stone-still boy. She could the terror mount within him, his pulse more rapid, his breathing ever wilder. His body shook fiercely… and stopped dead still. She thought him petrified. She could feel him panting, but still nothing more. After a few moments she eased her mind and began to withdraw the brambles of transparent shade and stepped towards the boy. She began to feel and hear a gentle hum in the air. Her eyes searched wildly for the source, frantically scouring every space within the alley with her daun, only to rest again on the boy. She now began to tremble with her own fear. Scarlet noticed now what she had not noticed before.
She drew her nine-gun and blade, holding it in reverse. A child, she thought. A scared child and I am ever trembling. I will end this now.
But she would not have the chance.
Spilling forth from what seemed to be the boy’s lips were tendrils of his own. They were vines of white, and gold, and burgundy, pouring from his mouth like a faucet. Coils of ethereal life covered the earth like a multi-colored fog, spreading hungrily through the street. The haze was a miasma of will and great power, keeping her daun from sensing him.
Scarlet’s lips began to peel back in a joyous smile. “Numen?!” she energetically whispered.
Callum turned to face her. His eyes glowing white and vacant, and the faint vapor began to pour from them as well.
Scarlet could feel doubt welling within her. “Oh dear God. No.” She whimpered this time. “This cannot be.”
When there was no response Scarlet sheathed both of her weapons, her fingers lingering on the pistol and blade, and crouching called forth her own dark haze again. She drifted slightly left, posed for battle. She was now the one blanketed with fear… with guilt.
The cold alley grew warm and warmer still. She could feel sweat begin to bead beneath her tightly held fingers.
She crouched low, pursed her lips and drew her muscles taught. She leapt, pushing her shadow as far as it could extend. It was near the apex of her arc that she felt her shadow stopped cold, and she passed through its edge to find the boy. He remained motionless.
The boys knit cap had fallen, revealing stark white hair.
“It cannot be...” she whispered.
She had passed into his own haze and had a single breath before she felt him penetrate her mind. This was something only Mier Tanifel had ever had the strength to do. He whispered her own words back to her, spoken in three voices. The voice of a child, the voice of Scarlet, which was her own voice, and the voice of a man she immediately knew to be his father. The voices found harmony easily, echoing moments from their lives.
“In trade tenfold it bestows truth”
She broke under her realization. She felt her mind nearly collapse under the weight of it.
“I thought I’d lost you…” Scarlet extended her hand, coming within a hair’s breadth. Tears streaming.
She could feel Callum tear, rendered by the costs of his power. He desperately tried to restrain himself. She felt a deep and shameful wound. The boy had no control. She was to blame. She knew what came now, they both did for the true song had hinted to her, but what’s more… Mier Tanifel had shown the world.
Her mind flooded with knowledge given to her from the boy’s own subconscious. It seemed immense. It was so much information, her mind grew leaden and could no longer control her body. She could not move. Her breaths grew ragged and untamed.
On that street, that still night, she spoke her last words in a choked and raspy voice.
“He must not know.” Her eyes widened. Her daun seemed to reach without limits as she learned all she could absorb in moments. She felt herself nearly consumed with sympathy for the child. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for this!”
Her lips fought to shape words against his iron-strong will.
She again looked at Callum. A tear fell from her eye, wide with strain. She blinked once and the white vapor violently poured into her mouth. She added her own shadow to it, pouring her own power into the gossamer wonder as it began to tear her spirit asunder. She began the motion she performed only moments earlier for the commodore, bowing her head and drawing an invisible line from her right ear to her lips, nearly to her heart… but she crumpled, inert, before finishing her final prayer. Her life was gone, her knowledge gone with her. Her last act had scarred over his wound. She must die, so that the world would not know. The boy must not know.
The white light left Callum’s eyes and he fell to his knees in the grime-laden alley way. Callum’s newly sunken face was a pale purplish blue. His eyes were lost for a few moments but soon came into focus upon the broken woman before him. Her heavily scarred face lay vacant. The boy’s eyes filled with the tears of a child whose innocence had been stripped from him in moments. This, the last and largest piece. He wept silently for several moments and then let out a scream ending in choking, nearly vomiting. He was hyper-ventilating. He was beyond control.
I had seen this behavior in wild animals. He was growing wild with pain. His feelings were destroying his mind from the inside. He was soon to be lost. I watched the boy’s emotions set to work, crumbling the foundations and racking him with guilt. He began to tear at his face and arms, wildly.
I had watched, bathed in obscurity from a shadowed doorway, undetected throughout all of this. Curiosity had propelled me into inaction. That and I was fairly certain whatever this boy had previously become, and eidolon, I would have had no influence over him. However, he was changed now. This child was desperate for relief.
Neither he, nor I, could endure this any longer..
It was then, in this boy’s misery, I sent my daun to him. I could not take away the events that had transpired. He had stolen her years, and gained all she had known in their final exchange. It was the most intimate way to take a life. To have such horrors happen to a child… I cannot fathom. This woman had done her best to build a makeshift shield, a scar, to hold this boy together, to protect herself. Maybe it would do.
I could merely use my daun to bring him temporary respite. To bring him rest. In the use of Daun, peace is something that can be given only to those starved of it, those most willing to accept it in any form. I hestitated, questioned myself, and in the end, acted upon compassion. Callum’s weeping slowly faded, and he dragged himself against a near wall and hung his head. Sleep took him almost instantly.
I watched, my mind heavy with pity.
I stepped from my safe-haven amongst the dark. At the time, I knew not what I had seen, but later I would acquire their memories. I would gain full perspective over their emotions throughout the last few moments and I would be chilled by it. Callum and I had more in common than I could have anticipated. Questions danced within my own mind. It is unfortunate I did not know then what I know now. How could I know that this moment was the genesis, shaping a new world? I could have saved myself so much trouble, should I have had the knowledge.
I watched, confused and withdrawn. I knew the ancient songs. I had heard them from choirs of Keepers, from nostalgic drunks, puritans, and those set in the old ways. The voices I had ceased in violence. The time of Csaba has passed. This era was shaped by the wake of a new God. This is what the world believed now. The world believed its last Gods had died nearly a decade ago, and before that, centuries. The empire was what remained in the crater of faith. I returned to the shadows, and attempted to sort through the scene in my mind. I carried only an inkling of the imminent horizon I was being lead towards. I would never have guessed it was this night, I, Paultine, again brought about the new world.