SERVANT (2022)

Sahal rattled the marbles in his small fist before scattering them to the floor of the hall. They rolled and knocked with pleasing sounds, catching the hues of a bright morning amid their lengthening shadows. A boy of similar age, bent on his knees beside Sahal, examined the twisted hourglass pattern of one marble slowing to a stop along a tile groove. He passed it between his hands for a moment as a sharp grin peeled across his soft face.

"Sahal," he snapped, "watch."

"But Master,” winced Sahal, “it will be lost!”, but the marble was already spiralling into the air. The boys watched it fly and strike a sunlit pane with a threatening clang. Sahal cringed as Master, overcome by a pale frenzy, took aim at another glowing window when, contorting as if lightning struck just overhead, his arm froze above him. The talon hold of the hand on his wrist was familiar. The brilliant figure titanic at his side had been with him all day, and indeed for longer than he could remember. He was in every corner of every day, of every year, rising to life at the strangest moments to apprehend him and steal away his joy. Master had grown to loathe his ceaseless watch. But never had the two spoken together, for Eonren of the diadem-crowned seemed ageless, and he was sworn to life-long silence. The golden paint adorning his noble face, not unlike the pattern of a tiger, was as bright as his lengthy spear, and the cloak about him shimmered like a moonlit pool. Sahal rocked back and forth on his feet in the bleak silence, pulling at his oversized pearl robe. Master let out a petulant grunt, leant his full weight to the floor, struggling to free himself from the steely hand, but it was as though he pulled at the reins of a stubborn horse, his feet slipping as though he tread ice with every heave. He tried to yell, but his frustration caught in his throat. He spun in protest and glanced old white eyes obscured by long, greying hair. Those eyes of the Theishar had penetrated quickly into Master’s dreams, their dim, milky light, Master thought, were far more unsettling than true white. Reflections of the world could still be seen if looked for carefully, but Master seldom had the courage to search.

          "Sahal," whispered Master, tears welling, "come now." But Sahal did not move, and Master’s thrashing slowed to an awkward sway. He felt a burning in his face and a lump growing in his throat, and he did all he could to stop from crying. Suddenly, the moment released its breath. Master dragged his feet towards Sahal, tending his bruised wrist while Eonren returned to his black pillar as silently as he came.

In his time with Master, never had Eonren been quick to anger. Never had he been seen to frown, only to fix with a silent stare. In his movement there was a sense pride, the weight of solemn duty, of a charge that demanded a clear head free from feeling. The majesty of Aethurion was upon him, as was the presence of He who dwelt within, and his mind was bent ever towards Master and those the boy chose as company.

          The boys returned the marbles to their satin pouches and sat close and silent, save the listless, wayward tapping of Masters heel against the floor. Faint bells were ringing far below. Time was passing slowly. Sahal gave Master quick looks, watching for some sign of regret, but his gold head was fixed on the clerestory and the distant clouds. Sahal knew better than to expect an apology. Theirs was a tenuous bond and Master was strange and cruel to all he encountered. Some nights he would wake and walk alone, save for Eonren at his back, into quiet, forgotten towers and secret temples, speaking aloud to himself or to things unseen. He scared Sahal. Once only did he question Master, asking sheepishly to whom or to what he spoke, but Master jumped like a rat and spat at him, running him away through a black night to a great lighted-house. There, Sahal leant exhausted against the carven doors, hoping desperately to enter, to stumble through the thick veil of the Solthari, find his mother and father and beg to leave Aethurion. But he stood unmoving, small against even the least of the designs of the arched door. The thrumming against the white walls reminded him that the cowled ones with their hallowed tomes were to be feared, and his mother and father were devout.

Sahal sat motionless, his stomach twisted in Master’s company. He wished he could slip away into some hidden crevice, or else be swallowed up by the tapestries of The West, of Aethurion, City of Cities, under Shaldokos only. His toes were curling, ready to flee, but suddenly Master turned to him, freezing his blood. There was a strangeness in Master’s eyes as the golden spear of Eonren knocked thrice between them, ringing out as the boys dragged themselves from the floor. Sahal looked around wearily with shaking legs and percieved the shape of woman approaching from the far end of the hall. Eonren had already started in her direction and soon the boys were following at a distance, for Eonren’s cloak was long and terrible. The boys watched their tiny frames appear then reappear as they passed tiers of oval mirrors, gilded with stars and the likenesses of sire’s old, many suspended as high as the cieling. They could see the hooded woman clearly now. Grand colours hung from her boney limbs, her eyes at first faint like the flames atop the great towers, now bright as candlelight. Suddenly the tiger-spear was raised, the woman slid forward like a phantom, placed the palms of her hands to her eyes and bowed her head low. The boys halted, tipping forward in their fright. Master clutched his marble pouch tightly as she dropped to her knees with outstretched arms, casting a spider shadow before her. He watched her carefully, muttering strange words under his breath.

For a time, nothing happened. Master swayed from side to side. Then the woman stood and Eonren went to meet her. She spoke, but her voice was faint, and the boys could not hear. But they knew this woman was Theishar of exceeding status. Suddenly, Master smiled gently,

          “Wouldst thou go before me and make thyself known?”

          “Master?” croaked Sahal.

          “Wouldst thou?”

Master would often force strange requests, but never one that might interfere with the watcher. Sahal’s limbs felt like stone. His skin itched. There was a moments hesitation. But Sahal knew who of the three he feared most. With a buzzing in his ears he took small steps forward, his legs trembling as he approached Eonren’s mantle of shadow, and it was as though he was edging towards some great cavern. The bells that were ringing in the streets below seemed to quicken and chime in rhythm with his pounding heart. He ran a dry tongue over his lips as he searched for words to speak. Or maybe he might pull at the star cloak? Suddenly a rain of golden marbles descended upon the three.

          The mote-flecked air was rent asunder as Eonren raged, his spear drawn in a flash to strike, its needle point driving towards Sahal, whose terror uprooted him so that he turned to run, but he fell hard to the floor, barely managing to catch himself on his elbows. His robe twisted mercilessly around him as he crawled, his hands slapping hopelessly against the cold marble floor. The hall stretched out before him. Master was nowhere in sight. Eonren leapt past Sahal, his shadow eclipsing him like a hawk before the sun. Sahal watched as he darted between pillars and behind mirrors, then disappear into a joining hall with shocking speed. Sahal took a sharp, dragging breath. Suddenly he felt the Theishar’s presence behind pinning him to the floor and he dared not look back. His little head shook. She came up behind him like a rising tide, radiating a soundless malice.

Master bounded through one hall to the next, constantly glancing back for his pursuer. He swerved towards the top of a staircase and rounding the spiral steps prepared to see the crown of Eonren rising to meet him, but his little feet took him tapping down the brazen stairs unhindered. He emerged panting into The South-western Hall of The House of Apriath, large and lined with statues and many rows of pews Master could use to hide, but he kept on. He hadn’t the chance to catch a single thought, outrunning any regret surfacing from his stunt. He was enjoying the thrill of the chase, dancing around pillars like something fey. Being full grown, Eonren was quicker, and had greater knowledge of Eravasal, the hallowed, upper reaches of Aethurion where the Lords of the West dwelt. But Master was cunning and small, easily hidden in its labyrinths. He pressed on, turning corner after corner as sweat stung his eyes, trying his best to avoid the titan windows that would expose him to other halls. He saw distant figures and ducked out of sight, making grand, sweeping motions as if in play. There was no sign yet of Eonren, and Master had avoided all contact with passersby, but he knew better than think himself free. He renewed his pace, shaking his arms and legs like a dog shakes off water. He did not know where he was headed, only that his best chance of escape was to descend the house and by some means come to the courtyard which led away into the greater city. Images of Aethurion’s majesty seen from afar stirred his little heart as he sprinted. Master had never walked amongst the people before - he had never left the confines of Eravasal - but he resolved that today he would look them in the eyes.

He carried on for a short while, slowing as a feeling of unease crept upon him. The room to his left looked unfamiliar, so too did the room on his right. He stopped, realizing he was lost. Before him was a long, tenebrous hall of red, entered in through an antechamber with an immense icon at its entrance. He considered turning back, but the thought of Eonren pushed him on, a relic-scent hitting him as he passed under a fleet of ships lashed by storm. As he came into the hall, a great rose window of immaculate design revealed itself. So gigantic was the window that it flooded glowing shapes across the floor and about the walls, the source of the halls deep crimson, like the reflections of the world through an old bottle. Master stared in awe when he realized the walls were not walls, but shelves, carrying letters, books, works so densely packed he could scarcely recognize one from the other. This was a library, the greatest he had ever seen. He started for a corner, eyeing a golden book, then stopped suddenly stiff. To his right was an old, scraggly-bearded man on a ladder fixing a parchment of some kind to a wall. Then Master saw there were others on tall ladders too that he had not noticed before, each turned away from Master in their delicate work, all grey in the dizzying heights. Above them were strange black words that wrapped the entire hall. Master took them in with a blink, recognizing few of them.

Vantar mennahir Unatharyan tempar - At ala ophra Othceser II – At ala ophra Othceser III – At ala vasar Ilasandar - At ala vasar perrath Shalanon – At ala vasar perratha Lashaol

 The script took hold of Master, and he forgot himself for a time, so that when he returned to the old man on his ladder, he saw him staring down at him with eyes wide in disbelief, his wrinkled lips quivering. The two said nothing to each other, but a whimper escaped the old man and echoed off the walls. He trembled down the ladder, and clutching the lowest rung, waited for some sign of command. His arms shook uncontrollably as he reached out, but Master made no response, only watched. Then, just like the Theishar in the halls above, the old man bent wearily to his knees and started a slow crawl towards Master. As he drew near, Master went suddenly stiff, folding his arms and turning his head away with a scoff.

          “You are an old man,” he said, with strange matter-of-factness, “and you will die soon.” The old man looked up, nodding fervently in agreement, his arms barely holding his weight.

          “Then you should die now, or are you afraid of Shaldokos?” The old man gasped as if he was freezing, left helpless on a mountaintop. He could not answer.

          “I have seen it. It is a scary place,” said Master rubbing his eye, watching the old man with indifference as he sunk into the floor.

“Their faces are gone, and when I touched them, my hand went right through. When you die, you will be afraid forever.” The old man looked up with glassy eyes. Shaking, he reached out for Master’s hand, but as he did, he saw Eonren bounding in his direction and hid himself under his arms. Master shot a look behind and in his panic darted deeper into the hall.

He went left for the nearest room, then right, and left again, cursing himself as he ran. The roads of Aethurion had opened to him and now they were shrinking away. Eonren was gaining ground, following closely behind. He could not shout, but his footfalls were deafening. Master hurried through a small bronze door, and Eonren passed it a second later. Then another, and another, into small winding corridors unvisited for many years.

A flight of stairs led Master onto a walkway bathed in the warm light of a dozen windows and balconies. He past them at speed and saw below each were small gardens, greener than he had ever known. The way was straight and narrow, and Master had nowhere to hide. He looked back, and saw Eonren, getting larger and larger as he closed the gap between them with ferocious speed. For the first time, Master saw rage in the eyes of his keeper.

“Begone at last!” wheezed Master, “Get away!”

He darted from wall to wall, weaving in and out of candelabra and toppling them clumsily to the floor. Eonren stepped over them with ease, so Master buried himself in the golden drapery that lined the hall, but it was heavy, and Master felt hands grabbing at him in the dark. He kicked and flailed as best he could, until somehow, he struggled free. The balcony. There was no other way. He rushed into the bowed platform, and blinded by the sun, gripped the white stone, and pulled himself up. Eonren charged in after him, his cloak billowing as he thrust his spear into the light. Approaching slowly, he motioned for Master to get down, who was balanced uneasily, his hands blistering on the stone wall where it met the balcony. Fear assailed him from every direction, and he shook like a hatchling as Eonren came in closer, his black gloves protesting his tightened grip. Master wavered, his feet barely finding purchase on the rounded balustrade. Eonren reached out, and Master slipped, and fell backwards out of sight.

Master writhed on his back atop a hedgerow, his robe catching as he flailed, his neck and back scratched raw in the fall. Twigs pierced his hands when he tried to lift himself up and he cried aloud as he rocked back and forth in pain to shake himself free until, at last, with an agonizing push, he tumbled to the sea-grey floor. He lay on his side, unable to move, the sound of running water lulling him to sleep.

          Faint images of Eonren giving chase coalesced into one terrifying scene, jolting Master awake. Sweat dripped down his pale face as he found his breath. How long he had slept he did not know, but it was still morning and the sun shone exceedingly bright. His view was obscured by the hedgerow that broke his fall, and many others like it, but he could see he had fallen into a garden, a small, secluded cloister, barely open to the sky. There were piled tomes all around and pools of shining water in every corner. When he held out his hands, bands of cerulean light danced on his fingers; his robe glistened like chainmail. He recalled his dream with a gasp, and with weak hands, pushed himself across the floor, sliding to the back wall, under the overhanging balcony. Cautiously he tested his joints and the bruise on his shoulder, when suddenly, he became aware of a scent, or lack thereof. The deep, unmistakable lingering of the night-flower, the Sacred Breath, was replaced by open air, and a fresh earthiness. Master felt a weight lift from him, but he did not understand why. He took a moment, examining the gentle aroma. It surprised him how easy his breaths were. The essence of the Solthari pervaded Aethurion, where it was treasured in abundance - in Eravasal most of all - but here, it was almost entirely undetectable. Since birth, Master was taught to inhale its potent fumes, or even to drink its dark liquid, in search of the divine waking dream. Within, he would make the wind his breath and atop a palace upon a shining seat, commune with far-distant beasts that skulked a bare horizon. When blackness engulfed him, he worshipped before a tempest of lidless eyes, ushering him with frightening voices beyond space and time. It was in this way that Master sought the answers he was bidden to find, like all others in the west.

Master readied to stand when for a second he thought he saw something between two hedgerows in the corner opposite. It was so still and faded in the morning light he was not sure there was anything there at all. The motes of dust hanging in the whiteness made it hard to see, and the shifting rays stung his eyes when he looked too long. He blinked tight, leaning closer, focused between the hedgerows as if looking through a keyhole. Then just as Master was ready to turn away, resolving he was alone, his blood snapped cold. It was a man, hanging still as a dead thing. White-knuckled, Master shrunk behind a nearby vase. Had Eonren found him already, he asked himself. Barely summoning his courage, Master peered out from the vase and followed the man floating slowly like a sinking rock, his grey shape thin and stretched. Suddenly he emerged from the light, utterly naked, his body tight like carved wood. Crescent scars streaked his every limb, deliberate in their hideousness. There were words too on his flesh, but Master could not read them. His head was clean, with two stark blue eyes dominating an ashen face. He breathed deeply, walked slowly out of sight. Master kept low and repositioned himself around the vase. Appearing round its other side he saw the now man positioned before an intricate font of black marble, gazing lifelessly into its still water. Watching him turned the sun cold, and Master shivered in perplexity. At last, the man took up a knife from atop the font and soaked it, before running it steadily across his head from front to back, the predictable dripping of blood into the pool sent shivers down Master’s back. Before long, the man laid down the knife, spreading his ringed fingers across his head. Then, with a strange twist of his neck bowed under the water. He remained submerged, even as Master squirmed, and considered revealing himself, rushing out from hiding to help. But in an instant, water beat the ground as the man threw his head back like a chair leg snapping to the floor, and made the sound of wind through a valley, his whispering mouth wide towards the sky. He raised a clawed hand that shook as his voice grew, until it became not a whisper, but a deep, guttural drone. Master watched pensively, recognizing something of himself in the act. He was captivated. At last, the man returned to lifelessness as his lungs emptied, his spidery hand hanging in the air. Suddenly, he swung like a scythe for a doorless room blue in the shade.

Master shook himself into action and searched for an exit. He could see gates leading to other gardens, a staircase to the walkway above. Then, sequestered away, a half open door that looked like it led to a distant hall. Crouching low, he started in its direction, keeping tight to the hedges and fonts. But his progress was slow; his ankle sent waves of pain with every step, and he struggled to keep quiet as he limped. Biting through the pain, his pace quickened as he approached the door. Then, from the corner of his eye a shadow appeared, and he threw himself to the floor behind a knee-high wall. A wave of nausea washed over him as he held himself in his arms, the rustling of earth and parchment threatening to reveal him. Curled into a ball, he waited for grabbing hands to pull him up, but none came. Lifting his arms from in front of his face, he rolled cautiously from his side, so he faced the wall. He tilted his head up, saw the door still was open. Pushing up on his elbows, he saw the man returned in a black robe lined with gold. A white eye was upon his chest, and a curving, silver epaulet with two entwined tines adorned his right shoulder. He handled the tome he carried, turning the pages with raven black gloves tipped with auric claws. Master forced himself to stand, backing into the shadow of a hedgerow, his strength near giving out. With a careful eye on the man, he inched towards the door. Within arm’s reach, he saw the corner of a great window revealing the outside. He leapt, utterly exposed, his body twisting through the slant of the doors. He was free.

   Dusk fell upon Aethurion as dark clouds swept rain across the shattered sky. A storm threatened the heights of the western coast, and Sahal watched wary seagulls, hanging in the humid breeze, cast faded shadows across the sheer walls of grand houses burnt crimson by the disappearing sun. The sound of a thousand footfalls resounded as men, women and children filed across a dimly glowing bridge and under a towering alabaster archway. On both trunks of the archway countless human faces were carved, reaching up out of sight. At the base of the trunks, as if shouldering the weight of those above, were two young men. On the east side was a young boy with arms raised in fear, covering the lowermost face. On the west, his brother, a young man, attempting to reach across the gateway.

Leading the procession was Sahal’s mother and father, who kept a step before him, and he tried hopelessly to catch their faces between swaying banners as they passed through the archways deep shadow.

“Please,” whispered Sahal, pressing on his father’s back, attempting to keep his words from the others around him, “It was not me.” But there was no response. His father kept a stalwart march, but his mother shot a viper-look towards him, and he stumbled, disturbing a tall man and his pendulous flame, who looked down his nose then stepped aside. Sahal clumsily regained his footing but kept his head down, watching his bare feet navigate the stonework beneath him. He had been careful to cover every inch of them in gold without his mother’s help and compared his work to those around him.

As the host passed into the courtyard of Anonur, the ruling sanctum of The Lord of The Will in Aethurion, a song steadily arose lamenting a row of monuments that lined a pathway towards an immense cathedral. Sahal craned his head skyward in awe of its resplendent spires and towers almost lost in the staggering heights. Vaguely he recalled this place, having come to Anonur once as an infant, when it had left no impression. Now it looked to him like a place unfit for earth, with its gem-hewn terraces and countless golden doors like fiery portals in the last light of the sun, all rising like pines on a cragged hill.

Suddenly, he felt cold rain drops on his head and between his toes, and with a quick look to the west, saw the violet storm near Aethurion. He turned his attention to the statues passing him on both sides, their grandeur impressing him to commit their every detail to memory. First, he saw weeping Shalanon, his meager frame folding in despair. Perisias, his wife, held him in her arms. The deepening rain seemed to join the two in some strange way, making them one as it snaked its way down the dark stone. Soon, Perisias’ fierce countenance turned Sahal away and he saw crouched Heladros, thrusting his sword into the earth with both hands. The people’s song increased to a thunderous roar, and he winced at their fervor. Behind Heladros, on the same pedestal, mighty Shalashar unfurled a lengthy scroll on which were the names of those who witnessed the distant Battle of Loss. Sahal felt his breath quicken, and he jumped towards his mother and father, whose new stride soon outpaced him. He watched them take diverging paths as the road split in two around a final statue, obscured in the gloom before the doors of the cathedral. Sahal gave it only a cursory glance, for knew the figure was Lashaol, Envoy of Shaldokos, son of Shalanon and Perisias, covered with cloth so that even his face was hidden. He fixed on the bones that Lashaol cradled, until the fire from a passing torch blinded the night in a flash. In a blur of reds and yellows, Sahal saw the host halt their march. He heard the rattling of armor, then a voice.

“Who cometh to the House of the Lord of the World?” The voice was old and worryingly severe, thought Sahal.

“The Eyes.” Sahal recognized his father’s voice.

“And who leadeth them? Speak thine purpose to the door.”

“Pentheil the First and Ancinian the Second, begetter of Sahal,” Pentheil held aloft a scroll. “Eravasal is summoned.”

Sahal’s sight returned. His mother and father stood together some distance away, their backs straight and black before a wizened man, whose countless adornments hung from him like shimmering fish scales. Knights of gold he saw beside them, encircling them as they did the host. Sahal, waist high to a knight who stopped near, saw only their flame hot on his cheek, and their iron hand upon their sword, sheathed like a den-lurking beast ready to strike. He shuddered to think what lay beneath that heavy suit, what kind of person could wear so perfectly such a terrifying guise.

The old man clasped a trinket dangling at his neck, then another by his chest. His fingers glinted, tapping at the stalk of his staff as he examined the scroll. Deep in thought, he looked to Pentheil and Ancinian, boring into them as if drawing out their very souls, but they returned his gaze firmly. At last, he reached for his circlet, releasing a small, bone-white knife inset at its center and handed it to Pentheil, who took it graciously in his hands. With the knife, he made two careful cuts underneath his right eye, reopening old wounds, and gave the knife to Ancinian as blood ran down his cheek. She lowered her hood, cutting herself in the same fashion as the old man cast a dead gaze over the congregation behind them, who stood utterly still like dry reeds. Sahal felt the old man’s gaze more than once before his mother returned the knife. The old man fixed the dagger back into his crown, then turned towards the cathedral with his staff raised, his fallen sleeves revealing hundreds of ringed bracelets.

“Tread darkly where the faceless dwell,” he declared, swirling his staff as the doors were heaved open by guarding knights, “You are watched.”

 Pentheil and Ancinian nodded, bowing low. They turned to face their host, felt the old man lingering at their backs.

“Bethink The Loss, lest ye be felled at the threshold!” warned Ancinian, her voice stern yet caring like a mother’s warning.

The silence of the night was filled again by footfalls as the host renewed their slow march. Sahal soon passed under the statue of The Messenger, and thought it seemed given new life in the strange, pale glow that issued from the cathedral. Emboldened by the light framing Lashaol as if he wore a cloak of starlight, Sahal tried finding the contours of his face so high from the ground but saw only thick folds of cloth before he was swept away with the crowd.

The host, led far into the cathedral by golden knights, held aloft candles, illuminating magnificent decorations stretched across vast walls like sailors landed on forgotten chalk-cliff shores. The blood and ink and stars of the halls, all the greatest arts of the West, recalled to Sahal the glory of his father’s fathers and the long dead heroes. He followed the host, keeping his mother and father in sight, who were striding like he had never seen before, though his attention caught on the strange things that crossed between all the wide, snow-white columbs. He saw piles of animal bones heaped in cages of bright iron that turned and twisted like a waterfall in storm. He saw silent, lonely men like black pines in the distance on the last steps of stairs that led nowhere, kneeling with their hands cupped before them or with their heads turned to the sky. But nothing stirred Sahal’s heart and made his face hot as the upright tombs ghostly in the moonlight at each corner of the hall where foreign people withered. He came close by one of these tombs and saw the eyes of a man, dark and hopeless behind a silver mask. He tried in some way to catch the man’s attention, though he did not know why, and thought it a certainty he would recoil if their eyes met, but the man moved not at all, simply stared at the ground with eyes half-open. Sahal went on, a bitter pang of sadness rising in him, of disappointment too, that the man did not look up to see him. And there was some faint sense of anger rising in him, though he forced it back down, wondering for a while why he was there and if his suffering was self-inflicted. Then something came burning into his mind. This was the very house of The Lord of Aethurion, so seldom seem, who he feared more than anything upon earth. The mere thought of him turned his soul to rot, so he kept his eyes low, lest he round a pillar and meet him and be removed from the world in a blinding flash.

At last, the host came to the doors of the nave, where two of Eonren’s order stood, and Sahal knew this by their white eyes and their shining diadems. Straight away he pushed through the crowd towards his mother and hugged her leg, for the fear that was building all day in him burst forth from his gushing heart. From her safety, he heard spears on the ground and the door open to a chant he did not understand. And when he saw behind the doors he drowned in his fear and could move no further. Then his father, seeing the people pass around his son collapsed on the floor, whispered to his wife to go ahead. He came to Sahal kneeling and put his strong hands on his shoulders, and Sahal, seeing his father’s face so close felt a warmth he had almost forgotten.

          “My son,” soothed Pentheil, “all is well.”

          “Father, I am scared,” said Sahal through tears, “There are so many.”

          “They are good people, Sahal, like you,” said Pentheil, lifting his son from the floor, “Each of us is burdened, son, some with loss fresher than others. But all hearts fear.”

“They do?” said Sahal, wiping away the tears from his cheeks.

          “Aye, ye know this and have not forgotten. Which of us has ever feared the most?” Then Sahal thought for a second.

          “On the mountain?” he said, and Pentheil nodded, pointing his son into the hall.

“Look upon the mirrors. They were fashioned by my father’s hands, and his father before him. Do not shrink away, Sahal. This is homely company.” After a moment, finding strength by his father’s side, Sahal looked wearily into the hall, beyond the backs of two-thousand heads and saw a platform of ravishing gold on which four white pillars made a box so high from the ground he imagined standing there would be like looking down from the roof of his house. Emerging from the walls were two sculptures, one at each side of the platform, the likes of which he had never seen. They were boys, or young men, he thought, of the same stupefying size as the platform, cast of the same dazzling gold. Their skin was smoothed all over so that their faces were flat and vacant, but their heads went up like the crowns of kings and pierced the darkness of the black roof. They both held mirrors before them, and those mirrors were among the grandest and most sacred treasures in the West, their size rivaling the largest windows of the cathedral as they reflected the host of Eravasal joining their fellows on the pews left for them. Then Sahal was overcome with shame, for anyone looking could see him in the mirrors through the open doors. So, he turned to Pentheil, saying at last:

“Father, it was not me.” At this, Pentheil’s face hardened again, his authority returned. But he saw his son’s golden feet and smiled.

“Say no more of this. But know The Eye speaks for Sahal.” Then they went together into the hall and sat down beside Ancinian.

The storm was wrathful now about Aethurion, and the rain fought with the stars as the black night pressed hard on the windows. Sahal felt the statues of the two crowned figures judge his every move, looking up at them when a sudden wellspring of courage bubbled up, and seeing their empty faces and trident-heads, nodded a little to himself as if to please them. His mother and father were close by, ruminating in their marked seats, occasionally greeting with raised hands the Theishar and Shalashar that sat nearby. Some were in full dress or armor, others in black or white robes, but all their faces were solemn as they took their seats with pride according to their status. Through the doors on the sides of the hall more men and women came, assuming places by the walls and pillars, or disappearing behind the platform. Sahal guessed these were the most important of people, perhaps from these very halls. All around were the greatest minds and powers of the West, in contemplating silence or muttering a final chant under their breath.

Sahal felt a rising sense of anticipation as he watched the hall fill, keeping an eye on the platform that all the while had remained empty. When there had been no new arrivals to the hall for some time, he looked over to his mother and father, who sat unmoving. Everything was still; even the rain had settled. The silence seemed wrong, thought Sahal. Suddenly a small door opened on his right, off in the distance near to the platform. Shalashar surrounded it, making it hard to see if anyone had entered through the door and Sahal resisted the urge to push himself up on the arms of his seat for a better view. He waited as the silence grew deeper, though he thought such a thing impossible. Then he saw the unmistakable diadems of the silence-sworn flashing through the gaps behind a wall of Shalashar armor. They held the two front beams of a palanquin, carrying Master who sat cross-legged on a white pillow. All in an instant the events of the day returned to Sahal and his urge to run was near unbearable though the silence remained.

Master was brought to a seat fashioned like a throne by the right wall that faced the platform, under a window close to the door from which he entered. The four that carried him, none of whom were Eonren, let Master down gently by the seat and took up positions around him. He wore a gown whose brilliance some considered a treasure of the West, far surpassing the light of all the jewels in the hall. His cloak, resting over his right shoulder, was golden, as was the crown on his blonde head. But his feet were unpainted, as they always were, his steps native to Shaldokos.

Suddenly, a black thorn of a man appeared on the house-high platform and the hall shook as Aethurion rose to meet him. He came to edge of the platform like an old lion before his pride, putting the fear of beasts into Sahal who stood shaking. The man was eyeless, painted from head-to-toe like the night sky, stars folding around his forearms up to his neck. He wore a white skirt alone that trailed from his waist far behind him, and the golden rings hooked into his dark skin held a glass mirror tight to his bare chest.

“Mourners!” the man called, his strange voice filling the hall like a comet breaking through heaven, “All ye grieved and grievous! Be upon your bellies, for the sky has opened, bright and burning!” Then the people bent their knees together and the purpose of the far-spaced pews became clear to Sahal. All the tall-helmed, banner bearing horsemen riding bright, blazing into the far corners of the world, all the lords and ladies of the grandest towers, all the noble spirits whom earthly things do not touch laid down upon their bellies like worms and felt the cold on their faces. As Sahal came to the floor, his stomach sick with dizziness, he looked over to Master, blank-faced and alone on his throne as the silence-sworn laid prostrate.

“We see you descend from the sky,” proclaimed the eyeless man, “Lashazul Shaldokos, fourteenth Lashatha of the Land of Mourners, son of Lashathiel! Show forth to the witnessers the unmatched splendor of the void and the shining city of vision! Teach us the want of those who sit with the Master of Death!”

These words came floating to Sahal like stones rippling across a still pond, each echoing syllable striking his exhausted muscles until he went limp on the floor. A dire sleep threatened to take him as a hideous chant came up through the ground. His cheeks became wet with tears when the Theishar beside him began convulsing with deadly phrases. Behind the Theishar’s spikey back, a Shalashar broad with battle rose slowly to his knees, his face drunk with fear. Sahal watched him, the rest of the world blurred and slipping away as the man begged for relief, pleading to be taken away from the place of gods. His calls were buried by the constant chant, but he wept harder and called louder and, forgetting the buckles of his straps pulled at his plate until his fingers were bloody. Before long he was trying to stand, getting up on one foot before slipping forward onto his heavy greaves. The Theishar took his arm and through the din and invited him into song. And when both were singing, and even Sahal whispered the words beneath his breath for comfort, the eyeless man turned like a spider for the frontmost pillar at the center of the platform and, removing its concealing shroud, revealed a man, woman and child struggling against bindings wrapped around the pillar. As the white cloth fell flapping to the floor, three of the silence-sworn came through the shadows of the wide platform, each going to the remaining pillars and throwing down their shrouds to reveal, as were on the first pillar, three foreign folks bound like vines around a tree. Then the chorus of song went so high it began to break and fall together as a crumbling roof echoes upon the floor below. This the eyeless man took as a sign to call the name Lashazul, and as the name rang out, the silence-sworn unsheathed their gleaming daggers and ended the lives upon the pillars.

In the silence that followed, Lashazul came rising from the stairs behind the platform. He came slowly between the bloody pillars like a ghostly thing obscured by night comes to the villages of man. Mirroring Lashazul’s steps by their earie sound, the eyeless man walked carefully backwards from him with a bow so low he was almost bent in half. With much room between them, Lashazul alone between the four pillars, the eyeless man turned to the empty pews, saying:

“Rise from the pitiful earth” and the people rose from the floor like newborns, all timid and afraid. Indeed, there were those that saw Lashazul and gasped like babes breathing their first breath. Sahal made no sign of shock or worry because the day had numbed him, and he looked to Master over the distance of standing people to see his head heaving in his hands. Sahal watched Master for some time, but when his head remained in his hands, he turned back to the platform and saw the eyeless man standing by Lashazul. This was the first time Sahal had seen his Lord, having only read of him in the golden scripts extolling his majesty, recounting his birth and his eventual return to Shaldokos. Sahal saw first Lashazul’s raven gloves formed to golden claws that caught the light from under his black robe. Then he saw the white eye on his chest and the epaulet of curving silver over his right shoulder. Lastly, he saw his golden mask, famed not only for its wearer, but the subtlety twisted shapes of its eyes and mouth that gave the mask no single mood.

The eyeless man inched closer still to Lashazul who stood facing the hall, but at last regarded him with a smooth turn of his head. At this, the eyeless man leant his ear for what came from Lashazul’s golden mask. When he had listened for some time, he bowed to Lashazul and returned to the edge of the platform, the mirror on his chest reflecting the solemn faces of the congregation.

“Languid have-nots!” said the eyeless man with a voice distinct from his own, “Ye hath returned to the scorpion its tail, and to the serpent its fangs! Rouse your sleeping fury! In the east a supplicator betrodden, versing the lore of loss, maketh war in my name. And as great my name, greater shall be my war.” These words echoed in the hall as the eyeless man returned to Lashazul. Sahal’s attention was on Master whose shoulders were heaving. But the silence-sworn remained in place around him, listening for what came next.

“The lordling’s eastern call alighteth the void!” said the eyeless man rising with every word, “He invokes the thrones of your sires and weeps for the mountain and is met with impudence and evil. Go with chariots to the slaying of flesh and it will be a boon to the forms beyond thy ken! In the name of my right father, bring to me Ulthandros of the east. This is my will.”

Lashazul came out from between the four pillars, silencing any response to his declaration of war. By now the rain was thrashing the windows. The eyeless man heard Lashazul once more in his turned ear, and his eyes went searching over the people and across the walls as he listened. When Lashaun’s golden mask faced the pews once again, the eyeless man went forward and beckoned Master to him.

Sahal watched Master’s every step up the platform’s fearful height, guided by two of Eonren’s order all the while crying and trying to turn back. But the silence-sworn were like a wind behind him, lifting him up the stairs to the top step. There, in the deep shadows of the two huge mirrors above, Master looked out from the rear of the platform, and it was like standing at a cliff edge at dusk. He saw the tops of the doors of the hall below, and dead center to their opening was Lashazul’s stark frame, unlit from behind. Master came slowly between the twelve dead bodies on the pillars, dragging his slumping body with every quaking step. Hesitantly he edged into the light like a stray dog before suspicious scraps, passing around the side of Lashazul in a wide arc, keeping such a distance between them that he scarcely avoided stepping off the edge of the platform. When Master had stopped some distance away, coming no closer and crying loudly, Lashazul turned his head in a crooked slant towards him. The hall watched in confusion from below.

“My son, Lashaol,” said the eyeless man through Master’s wailing, “What is your will?” But Lashaol, whose blasphemous name was Master to all but his father Lashazul, was distraught and could not speak. When he had cried for a minute longer, the eyeless man stirred, making him jump.

“Let there be war!” coughed a distraught Lashaol with a quick turn to the pews, “This is my will.” There was still no sound in the hall but from Lashaol when Lashazul, his father, turned away and left the platform.

Eonren was writing alone in his private chamber, the stormy lights from the half-open door behind him flashing over the pages on his high desk, when he heard the faint beat of footsteps. His quill stopped on the page as he listened, looking over his shoulder, trying to determine from which direction they came and in what direction they were going. They were approaching. Rising from his seat he reached for his spear upon the wall, taking it in two hands. He took a step towards the door when the slant of grey light grew into a shadow. A moment later the door was opening. Eonren readied himself to strike. But he returned his spear to his side when the monolith shape of Lashazul entered his chamber. Immediately Eonren got down on his knees, putting his hands out to lie onto his stomach, but Lashazul came forward to touch his shoulder, commanding him to stand.

Eonren had never feared Lashazul as others did, having sworn his life to him and promising his voice away at thirteen years old. And this he had never lamented, for Lashazul was his Lord forever and always, closest of all lives on earth to Lashaol, son of Shalanon, whom he would serve until his last day. Now, he was old and captain of the most sacred order, standing tall and proud before Lashazul and his golden mask. They faced each other for some time as the distant bells of Aethurion were ringing for war. As if expecting to receive it, Eonren placed his hands before him and took a flask of water from his Lord. He unfastened the cap. Clear and fresh water it was, from a spring high on the sacred mount. When Eonren looked again to Lashazul, a knife was in his black hand. Eonren slowed, frozen on the sheath of the curved blade and its simple hilt as his thoughts strayed into nothingness, the shapes of his youth floating before him. He had sworn his oath before Lashazul when his father presented to him his diadem. He closed his eyes and drank.

“I am a servant,” coughed Eonren with a cracked voice, “to the will of he who guards against the beast of old.” He swallowed hard, remembering his voice as he removed his cloak. He took the jewel from around his neck, laying it on his desk behind him, before lifting the diadem from his head and handing it to Lashazul for the knife. He unsheathed it, revealing a note hidden within. Unfurling the parchment, he began to read, but Lashazul turned and left him alone in the night.

Eonren’s head was shaved and painted gold, and he went naked through the quiet halls of Apriath into the early morning. He thought of his life in Aethurion and the places he had been in his youth. He recalled his old steed, riding in joy with his fellows to the wide, watery lands of the south. The old, uncharted north where the borders were thin. Lastly, he thought of the east, though that stubborn country, home to sleeping kings, had never left his mind.

The sun of a new day was rising as he turned into a corridor and saw the red library of Apriath. But now he entered the hall he had passed in his morning chase for Lashaol II. Before him were the quarters of the librarians with its small doors and candles. Eonren came into one of the rooms, finding an old man asleep in the shadows of his bed. Eonren unsheathed Lashazul’s kris knife, and fell upon the old man with speed, sinking the blade into his chest as he rasped his dying breath.

          Then Eonren came to the high places of Eravasal and the narrow corridors of the Theishar where he found Ancinian and Pentheil asleep in their bed. The bloody knife found their throats, though Pentheil fought valiantly with Eonren before his end, futilely calling down lightning from Shaldokos, his eyes hot with wrath and despair. Sahal heard their struggle and came running to see Eonren bent over his dead mother and father.

          “Lord, I beg you,” cried small Sahal as he stumbled backwards from Eonren, “The marbles. It was not me!” but he was struck down, falling to the floor with the knife in his back. Sahal died then, and the truth of the reason for his death he never knew.

          And so weary Eonren wandered the halls, at last finding Lashaol II, who was called Master, alone and weeping still, for the sight of his father in the bright morning garden haunted him. Eonren wept for his next deed, pressing the knife against Lashaol’s throat. And when Lashaol had died, at the request of his own father, Eonren put the knife to his own throat, as commanded, saying a prayer for himself that he might yet enter Shaldokos, the upper kingdom. And so, his oath to Lashazul was fullfilled, his last act as servant.

So died Master Lashaol, heir of Aethurion whose name was forbidden, though Lashazul claimed it in his pride. Not until the last days of Yaran did the East learn of Lashaol, as Aethurion knew not the truth of the scarred, human flesh of their Lord Lashazul who went riding not two months later to the open gates of Ulthandros.