That self-imposed cell not pitch, though,
as miniscule cracks along the wooden stall
revealed bright grey sky, and
through these cracks drifted the flowing stream
of market conversation that ran long
the wooden walls of his drunken repose.
Revealed by light now, his form clearer now:
tall, long, and built like a wildcat and his
muscles pulsing in uneasy dream.
His skin, dark as a nut, though
darker still still, from filth.
His hair, dread, once clean, but now
poorly-cared, o how unlike before his fall!
His dreadlocks, oiled, and beaded, not
ratted and muddy, as tainted as he
deemed his soul be. Yet, his own soul he
saw wrongly, for only the gods (and poets)
truly judge the character of men.
Prostrate, he lay, when the door of the swines’ stall
then swung open at the will of an inn-keep,
angry and tired, who doused our hero
with cold and brackish water.
“Thou be’est he?” the inkeep said in pity,
but more disgust than compassion.
Kalon pulled himself, muddy, wet, and hungover
upright: “Aye, I be’est he. Fallen,
a traitor, and weak,” so spoke our hero.
“Know not of traitors I do, but thou be’est the man
who owes me money for drink, and now for
board as you’ve slept among my worst swine.
I do not doubt you avaricious, but beyond that vice I care not.”
So spoke the inn-keep. Our hero, in stupor,
put his palm upon his head which ached
as if among struck by a hundred-thousand
blades, and in shame, familiar to him at this
point, spoke that he had no money. For this,
he was beaten, and thrown alone to the cobbled
streets of busy winter, eternal, covered as much
in ash and soot as ice, for it was not like winter
known to us, however. An entire year and ten days
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
ash and snow manifested by defeat infested
the plains, the mountains, and seas. Of food
the most common: rat, and insect. Those men
not consumed by the assaults of that wicked
triumvirate, scarcely could breath without
cough or wheeze, and those things only dismissed
by the relief of uncommon victories: water
untainted, sunlight brief, and days where those
damnable titans relented their cruelty. Those days,
however, fewest, in the heart of that long
and terrible winter; those fiends, regardless time,
tireless wracked what refuge for man remained.
Unrested and ill from vice, low our hero
wandered the brumal streets, each aimless step
further in grief and woe, and with the wafting smells
of cooked insect and roasted vermin, his temper
further roiled in disgust and anger
at his world, humankind, his grief, and his lowness.
“Human? Nay, worse than vermin we be,
lower too, for vermin eat not of vermin,
and their life more fruitful than the maggots
of bad bread and rotten stews. Once.
Aye. Once, man great, we were.
Our lives happy and healthy and sunny,
not defunct by bleak hibernal skies
and the rubble of demon’s wrath.
What damnable gods left us to this fate?
Those who trusted man stronger than demons.
Those who lied, and of human grief they cared not.
Our faith misplaced, and us overzealous progeny
of prophecy, if lies and rhymes be prophecies.
It is them to blame for our fall.”
So spoke the hero of tales of prowess,
him of unsurpassed strength and bravery
and zeal. Even Kalon in those times
of unending winter and titan’s fury
was faithless.
The four divine easy for man to serve in happiness,
but even man‘s most zealous warriors
are tested by apocalyptic grief. Kalon,
although now legend, man then he was, and
legends do not come from birth, but from
action and change.
Pitiable, further to grief he wandered when,
among corpsen ash and streets of
hibernal decay, didst hear one small victory
against our bleak sorrow.