100thlurker
03-08-2008, 10:06 PM
Authors Note: Please, cut this up and improve it. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
The rain was drumming down the roofs, beating at the rusting rooftops like a criminal shaking his cell door. The night was pitch black, or rather it would have been, without the wonder of the light bulb and the taming of electricity. As it stood, shadows reached out from hidden alcoves, creeping along the earth as flickering streetlights cast pitiful rays of light into the dark. Massive craters marked the shattered streets. The city’s golden spires were utterly gutted, despoiled and humbled. Dominating the city was what was once a magnificent palace. Its once glorious turrets were now mangled wrecks. The thing that had once been a hall of decadence and endless delights was now a trap of decay. The houses of the people were no better. Not a single window was left standing, and their graves created carpets of shattered glass. Containers lay dashed upon the floors, spilling rotten material onto the Earth. The sagging buildings frowned upon the streets, glaring with unfettered malice at everything that lived. A mangy, sickly dog padded down the street, holding a rotten arm in its mouth. Trash and litter lay all about. Doors were ripped on their hinges and thrown to the ground in humiliation, as if people had fled in such reckless panic that they could not even bother to open the portals. If any living soul lived here, none could tell. You could not walk through the city and escape the smell of rot and death. The city was a place of bitter despair, a pit in which Man relieved its memory of all things terrible and cruel.
From the gates of the palace Desolation smiled grimly.
Her skin seemed to be hug her bones, bugs crawled about her person, her flesh rotted in places, revealing organs and bones to the world to see. She raised skeletal arms, reveling in the stink of abandonment and death. The stink of death filled her nostrils, and the stench thrilled her senses. Smiling with cracked lips, she surveyed the dead city with half-lidded eyes. Suddenly she saw movement, and her eyes tracked the shape.
It was a man. Crawling on the gravel on all fours, dirt streaked with dried tears. His clothes were rags, hanging off his body like tents. He would have seemed to be yet another hopeless beggar would it not be for the filthy crown that graced his temple. It was once a king, a mighty king, one who stretched forth his hand and held entire worlds in his palm. Now he had been grievously reduced, a shadow of former glories, turned into a worm to struggle in the dust and die in anguish both physical and mental. His fingers clawed the Earth in desperation, as if he searched for a handhold to lift him from his endless nightmare. He looked up, saw Desolation watch him, and croaked a single word.
“Why?”
Desolation stood silently for a second that stretched into eternity. With agonizing slowness, she stirred, and the sound of dry joints grinding against each other could be heard. She moved languidly, lazy in her utter victory. Dead lips broke as they spread, and her voice was like sandstone rubbing against a cliff face.
“You were replaced by a better. One came along whose strength was far greater than yours. He defeated you, and then he spared you. Whether it was better for your happiness that your heart continues to beat could be…debatable.”
Bent with grief, the former king collapsed onto the Earth, his gaunt face pressed against the filthy street. Fresh tears fell from red eyes, and he whimpered like a whipped dog. His moaning turned into weeping, and his limbs stopped moving, at last exhausted of all the strength that remained in them, overwhelmed by a sickness of the spirit.
“All things fall in the end. In the end, all is dust, and everything becomes my kingdom in the end.”
“But why? Why turn this city into an abattoir, why turn it butchery of hope? Why turn it into a mockery of life? Why?”
Desolation’s eyes flickered with contempt.
“Why does the mother give birth? Why does the Sun rise every morning? Why do people erect new constructions? Why do the elderly die in their sleep? Why does the Sun set? Why does rust topple even the greatest towers? Ask yourself that before you grovel and moan and complain at my feet! I do the divine work of powers beyond your imagination, an avatar of endless majesty, the final step of the wheel before all things start again!
“If you will not answer why, than will you at least give me this comfort?” the ancient king gasped, “Will you not tell me what you have done? I see the result of your hand, but not what?”
Sneering, she said, “I’ve cast the glory of your line into the pit of despair, to utter ruination and destruction. That is what I have done.” She spread her arms wide, enfolding the entire city , “Only in your time, king Eldacar, has your city ever suffered such as this. Only in your time has the reach of your line been so cut. That is why I murdered this city, because you can no longer keep her safe.”
The king rasped something unintelligible.
“And since I have murdered this city, so will I murder her king, and make it his grave.”
There was no protest from the King’s mouth, for he died right there.
The rain was drumming down the roofs, beating at the rusting rooftops like a criminal shaking his cell door. The night was pitch black, or rather it would have been, without the wonder of the light bulb and the taming of electricity. As it stood, shadows reached out from hidden alcoves, creeping along the earth as flickering streetlights cast pitiful rays of light into the dark. Massive craters marked the shattered streets. The city’s golden spires were utterly gutted, despoiled and humbled. Dominating the city was what was once a magnificent palace. Its once glorious turrets were now mangled wrecks. The thing that had once been a hall of decadence and endless delights was now a trap of decay. The houses of the people were no better. Not a single window was left standing, and their graves created carpets of shattered glass. Containers lay dashed upon the floors, spilling rotten material onto the Earth. The sagging buildings frowned upon the streets, glaring with unfettered malice at everything that lived. A mangy, sickly dog padded down the street, holding a rotten arm in its mouth. Trash and litter lay all about. Doors were ripped on their hinges and thrown to the ground in humiliation, as if people had fled in such reckless panic that they could not even bother to open the portals. If any living soul lived here, none could tell. You could not walk through the city and escape the smell of rot and death. The city was a place of bitter despair, a pit in which Man relieved its memory of all things terrible and cruel.
From the gates of the palace Desolation smiled grimly.
Her skin seemed to be hug her bones, bugs crawled about her person, her flesh rotted in places, revealing organs and bones to the world to see. She raised skeletal arms, reveling in the stink of abandonment and death. The stink of death filled her nostrils, and the stench thrilled her senses. Smiling with cracked lips, she surveyed the dead city with half-lidded eyes. Suddenly she saw movement, and her eyes tracked the shape.
It was a man. Crawling on the gravel on all fours, dirt streaked with dried tears. His clothes were rags, hanging off his body like tents. He would have seemed to be yet another hopeless beggar would it not be for the filthy crown that graced his temple. It was once a king, a mighty king, one who stretched forth his hand and held entire worlds in his palm. Now he had been grievously reduced, a shadow of former glories, turned into a worm to struggle in the dust and die in anguish both physical and mental. His fingers clawed the Earth in desperation, as if he searched for a handhold to lift him from his endless nightmare. He looked up, saw Desolation watch him, and croaked a single word.
“Why?”
Desolation stood silently for a second that stretched into eternity. With agonizing slowness, she stirred, and the sound of dry joints grinding against each other could be heard. She moved languidly, lazy in her utter victory. Dead lips broke as they spread, and her voice was like sandstone rubbing against a cliff face.
“You were replaced by a better. One came along whose strength was far greater than yours. He defeated you, and then he spared you. Whether it was better for your happiness that your heart continues to beat could be…debatable.”
Bent with grief, the former king collapsed onto the Earth, his gaunt face pressed against the filthy street. Fresh tears fell from red eyes, and he whimpered like a whipped dog. His moaning turned into weeping, and his limbs stopped moving, at last exhausted of all the strength that remained in them, overwhelmed by a sickness of the spirit.
“All things fall in the end. In the end, all is dust, and everything becomes my kingdom in the end.”
“But why? Why turn this city into an abattoir, why turn it butchery of hope? Why turn it into a mockery of life? Why?”
Desolation’s eyes flickered with contempt.
“Why does the mother give birth? Why does the Sun rise every morning? Why do people erect new constructions? Why do the elderly die in their sleep? Why does the Sun set? Why does rust topple even the greatest towers? Ask yourself that before you grovel and moan and complain at my feet! I do the divine work of powers beyond your imagination, an avatar of endless majesty, the final step of the wheel before all things start again!
“If you will not answer why, than will you at least give me this comfort?” the ancient king gasped, “Will you not tell me what you have done? I see the result of your hand, but not what?”
Sneering, she said, “I’ve cast the glory of your line into the pit of despair, to utter ruination and destruction. That is what I have done.” She spread her arms wide, enfolding the entire city , “Only in your time, king Eldacar, has your city ever suffered such as this. Only in your time has the reach of your line been so cut. That is why I murdered this city, because you can no longer keep her safe.”
The king rasped something unintelligible.
“And since I have murdered this city, so will I murder her king, and make it his grave.”
There was no protest from the King’s mouth, for he died right there.