The Graying
Final Tale of the Second Lichaf
Of the Life of Eudo the Wanderer
I felt it in my soul.
It pierced me like a butcher’s knife, boring through my very blood. I screamed and shook as thunder quaked; like lightning did my pain expand, fierce and jagged and multiplying. The judgment of my masters had been lain upon my flesh and mind. I felt it as the spell took force, my honor stripped, my magic lost, my lifeforce smashed and summarily discarded. The waves of the ocean, mighty as they seem, are yet splintered and dismissed by the unmoving crooked boulders of the shore. So it was with my spirit, crashing against the power of authority. I had been condemned.
In the instant of the breaking, I screamed into the storming sky. My eyes were wide, witnessing the dance of lightning. The rain was falling on my skin. My mouth was open, as though to drown in the heavy rain, and perish in that very moment. My heart was writhing in a wretched flame. I fell.
I fell through the air as the rain itself, twisting with the contours of the frenzied wind. I fell through the darkness of the outer world, stranger than the mask of death. I fell, in the view of my masters, teachers, friends, down, down into the depths of dereliction. Down to the horrors of rebellion. Down, I fell, down into the shadows of despair, no longer a sorcerer. No longer truly human.
And I crashed upon the ground. I shrieked, and writhed, and twisted in my pain. Every motion hurt me more, but every motion demanded another, as though the pain itself had become my new master. Now I was among the roots of the trees, out beyond the walls of the city. I had dreamed of leaving Morentoff, all those lonely years. Now, finally, I was outside, and I felt nothing but regret. My blood spilled into the rain, washing away as I watched, helplessly. There was mud in my throat; I tried to cough it away, and retched. Then, for some time, I lay still. I made no motion, no sound. And yet, I began to weep.
I wept as never before. Tears flowed from my eyes and stung against my wounds. I tried to think but could fathom no words. The rain tore at my hair, and my cloak became heavy. Countless voices echoed through my mind, full of derision and spite. All the years of my sorrowful existence were poured into my weeping, and I felt that I would weep forever. And still, my masters’ magic was incomplete.
The lightning, in its cruelty, gave me light so that I might see. My hands. My hands were turning gray. I recoiled with a cry of horror, but I could not flee from my own flesh! The grayness was growing, like a lichen or a moss, spreading at random but with inevitable conclusion. I felt it, like a chill, as it encased me in its deadly grip. I scratched in vain at the changing skin, feverishly trying to halt its progress, but the grayness continued unabated. It took my arms and legs, then my spine and ribcage, then it slithered up my throat, and across my face, and into the corners of my eyes, and into my weeping. I screamed again.
I must have risen to my feet, for I remember running, and tripping and falling and rising and running again, tearing through the wilderness without plan or reason. “Go away!”, I screamed, “AWAY!”. My own voice was foreign to me, like the voice of an animal, or a corpse. I collapsed into a feature of the ground. It was a riverbed, of the river which is diverted around the city, and runs through one bed or another unpredictably. The river came upon me with a great rush, and I was swept into it, drifting like some poor dead creature.
I felt the shame of dereliction.
And I felt it in my soul.
[…] Prologue […]
[…] when Eudo is banished and begins wandering. (Approx age 27, begins with “Prologue”, https://eudothewanderer.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/prologue/ ) There may or may not be more lichafs after the […]
[…] September 30, 2009 by sonicsuns This is commentary on Prologue […]
This was, unfortunately, the most angsty and boring post yet. However, I suppose it’s warranted for this event, and really speaks volumes about the quality of the other posts.
Hm. Angst is a tricky thing. On the one hand, hey, Eudo suffers some intense pain here, and I have to express that somehow. On the other hand, I may elicit reactions like yours. Not sure exactly what I should do.
This is a masterpiece. I do not exaggerate. It’s as if the works of all of my favourite authors have been combined into one. Well done.