Prologue Part One: The Sun, The Desert, And The Other Discomforts
3012 of Avrakham
“For the love of suffering.” The man climbed over the remains of a fallen wall, now little more than a mess of bricks baking in the hot Mediterranean sun, barely able to make a step without falling; the bandage on his leg was inconspicuously blackened with dust and grime, and only small spots of bleeding red came through the improvised knot, original color of the cloth nearly impossible to tell. He grimaced, trying to keep his balance and hoping that there was no one, nothing nearby.
“For the renouncing of the pristine.” He was bald, black-skinned, with powerful arms, now thinned through hunger, looking like a mere shadow of a man more so than like a living being - a ghost in the netherworld between the land of the living and that of the dead. There was a scar running through his face, like a deep ravine cutting through the empty eye socket; the cut still seemed fresh, as if it only now began to heal.
“For the acceptance of fate.” His lips moved, uttering words in a language he himself barely understood. Then, a thought reared its head in the back of his mind, not even most of the acolytes did. They just spoke the words, the words that meant something, or nothing at all. His hand instinctively reached for the belt, where a darter still hung, moving along with its bearer, useless without aim. The man stumbled; the weapon almost mechanically slid into his hand as he fell upon the ground, the other hand trying to soften up the fall.
“Until the end of days.” He rolled, wincing at pain in the hurt leg as he did so, scanning the horizon for anything that looked like a target. The land was dead; the sky, a blazing blue high above. Scorched remains of some trees by the ruined wall. A dead vulture on the ground, half ripped to shreds by darters, some bloodied disk-shaped things still visible from the carcass. Another victim of accidental barrage of projectiles against anything that moves - or, that once moved, breathed in new life with every sunrise and exhaled the dusk as it set in.
“Pray not to deliverance, but to agony.” He squeezed his lips tight, gritting his teeth so that not a sound may escape. A vain thought, he philosophically pondered; his movement would have likely attracted anything that might have still survived here. But death ruled all, the blessed virgin bride of destruction spreading its wings of purest, most immaculate black all over, engulfing the sun.
“Pray not to peace, but to victory.” Black circles emerged in his vision, making him turn and twist around in a pitiful attempt at silence, hoping that it was a sign of the coming nightfall but knowing deep in his mind that it was merely the heat and the dehydration playing tricks on him. He tried to lift himself up, barely managing to do so, stumbling over the boulders, the ruins, sinking his feet into the sand.
“Against the defilers of the true way.” There was a wall, a tad taller than the others, with much damage to its ancient stones. What people walked these sands, whose hands built these monuments? How could he know if he was the next in line to die upon them?
“And into the blackest eternity.” He fell forward, his fingers touching the hot stone full of inscriptions whose nature no living man understood. The man rolled over, leaning back against the wall. How did he end up here? What brought him and the others to this land? Whose land was it? Sand slipped through his clinched fist; the darter was in his other hand, the only assurance of reality. The last assurance of reality.
“That shall consume all who deny its existence.” The man curled into a fetal ball, reaching his hands around his knees; the darter fell out of his hand and onto the ground. Where? How? Why? The questions mattered little, yet he fought back the encroaching unconsciousness, thinking just to stay awake, to stay alive, to live through the day and the night that came after to clean out the garbage of slaughter for the end of times to come. He closed his eyes, seeing nothing but the welcoming blackness, the sweet oblivion... And then, he remembered.
“Amen.”
3012 of Avrakham
“For the love of suffering.” The man climbed over the remains of a fallen wall, now little more than a mess of bricks baking in the hot Mediterranean sun, barely able to make a step without falling; the bandage on his leg was inconspicuously blackened with dust and grime, and only small spots of bleeding red came through the improvised knot, original color of the cloth nearly impossible to tell. He grimaced, trying to keep his balance and hoping that there was no one, nothing nearby.
“For the renouncing of the pristine.” He was bald, black-skinned, with powerful arms, now thinned through hunger, looking like a mere shadow of a man more so than like a living being - a ghost in the netherworld between the land of the living and that of the dead. There was a scar running through his face, like a deep ravine cutting through the empty eye socket; the cut still seemed fresh, as if it only now began to heal.
“For the acceptance of fate.” His lips moved, uttering words in a language he himself barely understood. Then, a thought reared its head in the back of his mind, not even most of the acolytes did. They just spoke the words, the words that meant something, or nothing at all. His hand instinctively reached for the belt, where a darter still hung, moving along with its bearer, useless without aim. The man stumbled; the weapon almost mechanically slid into his hand as he fell upon the ground, the other hand trying to soften up the fall.
“Until the end of days.” He rolled, wincing at pain in the hurt leg as he did so, scanning the horizon for anything that looked like a target. The land was dead; the sky, a blazing blue high above. Scorched remains of some trees by the ruined wall. A dead vulture on the ground, half ripped to shreds by darters, some bloodied disk-shaped things still visible from the carcass. Another victim of accidental barrage of projectiles against anything that moves - or, that once moved, breathed in new life with every sunrise and exhaled the dusk as it set in.
“Pray not to deliverance, but to agony.” He squeezed his lips tight, gritting his teeth so that not a sound may escape. A vain thought, he philosophically pondered; his movement would have likely attracted anything that might have still survived here. But death ruled all, the blessed virgin bride of destruction spreading its wings of purest, most immaculate black all over, engulfing the sun.
“Pray not to peace, but to victory.” Black circles emerged in his vision, making him turn and twist around in a pitiful attempt at silence, hoping that it was a sign of the coming nightfall but knowing deep in his mind that it was merely the heat and the dehydration playing tricks on him. He tried to lift himself up, barely managing to do so, stumbling over the boulders, the ruins, sinking his feet into the sand.
“Against the defilers of the true way.” There was a wall, a tad taller than the others, with much damage to its ancient stones. What people walked these sands, whose hands built these monuments? How could he know if he was the next in line to die upon them?
“And into the blackest eternity.” He fell forward, his fingers touching the hot stone full of inscriptions whose nature no living man understood. The man rolled over, leaning back against the wall. How did he end up here? What brought him and the others to this land? Whose land was it? Sand slipped through his clinched fist; the darter was in his other hand, the only assurance of reality. The last assurance of reality.
“That shall consume all who deny its existence.” The man curled into a fetal ball, reaching his hands around his knees; the darter fell out of his hand and onto the ground. Where? How? Why? The questions mattered little, yet he fought back the encroaching unconsciousness, thinking just to stay awake, to stay alive, to live through the day and the night that came after to clean out the garbage of slaughter for the end of times to come. He closed his eyes, seeing nothing but the welcoming blackness, the sweet oblivion... And then, he remembered.
“Amen.”
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