Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
Trysday 4th of Hearthlight, 572 After Foundation
GREY
> Port D'Erbor
The house is dark and silent; the spire of a church two streets over is cast through the window, keeping off what weak Winter sunlight might find its way in. Outside the sounds of the mob are muffled but not gone. Not over. They seem to move away and then return, never entirely leaving your awareness. Like a dream that hasn't quite had time to fade from memory.
Soft creaks of settling boards sound closer, more real. The drip of water from somewhere just out of sight. In the guttering candlelight you can see only rafters, vague shapes of hanging clothes, furniture, the end table where a basin of water had sat when Ellen tended your burning fever. The shadows, rich and dark like velvet. They seem to throb and shift before your gaze.
And Ellen's doll, sat on a dresser, watching you with empty eyes.
You smell only blood. Yours, you're sure. As your skin seems to burn and your eyes weep, you feel something in your chest - a sloughing sensation, ineffably wrong. The coughing follows and your vision goes black as you hack and convulse, until your throat burns along with everything else. Blood flecks your chest, along with shreds of flesh that you will not permit yourself to identify. You must have thrashed the cover away.
The certainty of your impending death washes over you like a brief and blessedly cool wind.
BONE
The end is nearly here, thought Viktor. I fear it, though I shouldn’t. I have nothing to carry on for. No one to carry on with.
Still, to die here like this... Alone. Forsaken. I’ve made mistakes, behaved shamefully, but I’ve done nothing to merit such a pitiful fate.
So what does that prove? That a decent life doesn’t entitle a man to a decent death. With a pained effort Viktor wiped his rheumy eyes with the back of his hand. When his vision eventually cleared he searched for and found Ellen’s doll perched on a nearby dresser. Maybe decency is only intended for children?
Resolve. Cunning. Ferocity. These are the only virtues for men. And if that’s true — and I now believe it is — then I have never truly been a man. God forgive me; I was ignorant.
What tragic irony: I only learn how to live when I’m out of time.
GREY
"Don't cry."
If you had the energy, you'd imagine you'd start at the voice.
"Don't be sad yet," the voice continues. A girl's voice. Ellen?
...No. But so close, if she'd had a little sister, you'd believe she would sound like this. So young, sunny, the hint of a lisp.
As you focus you realize it's the doll; the head suddently tilted to meet your eyes, the mouth impossibly curved into a guileless smile.
BONE
Viktor squeezed his aching eyes shut and then blinked rapidly. A fleeting hallucination, he thought. A fever dream. Ellen’s doll, which he had been gazing at, had just moved by its own volition. Its soft pink, normally relaxed mouth had suddenly smiled — at him.
Worse, it had spoken to him.
When Viktor looked back at the doll, he discovered its expression was still wrong. So, thought Viktor, I am firmly in the grip of madness. He accepted this without resistance; he no longer had the strength for resistance. Besides, what was one more indignity to suffer before his end?
I’ll even play along, he thought.
“And why should I not feel sad?” His voice a strained whisper. “If I shed tears before you, rest assured that I’ve earned them. I’ve earned little in life, but I’ve earned those.”
“But then agai—“ Viktor was interrupted by a fit of violent coughing, after which he cleared his throat. “But then again, what’s the point of arguing 'earned' in this despicable world? Let the devil take it.”
GREY
There is silence, broken by the doll's sudden giggle - a light and airy sound, pure joy wholly at odds with the moment.
You realize that though the room remains dark, the shadow through the window is now a bright shaft of silvery light. Moonlight? Did you pass into sleep without noticing? There is an eerie quietude hanging over you, over the whole world, when the laughter subsides.
"We should go outside," the doll says. "They want to see you."
Sweat, gritting his teeth, Viktor hauls himself to his feet. Out of the bed with unsteady legs, the room seems to sway and the darkness pulses like a breathing thing. As he stumbles to the door, half-dragging his feet, the doll squeaks in protest.
"Don't forget me! You have to bring me! Don't leave me alone."
There is indignation in her voice, yes, but it seems intended only to mask a desperate undercurrent of misery.
Grunting, he scoops the doll into his arms and tries again to leave. Winces as his lungs burn and stray splinters prick his feet, pauses to hack more blood and lung lining onto the boards, until he finally makes it to the cool cobbles outside.
And he realizes he is no longer home.
To be sure, streets familiar in the daylight can be strangers in the dark, but this place is wrong.
The building opposite isn't made of the plaster and wood found across the city; stone blocks the size of a man, finely cut, form a crude dwelling.
Left of that something resembling a shop front is build from bricks so small a child could have made them yet built for grown men.
And strangest, to the right, is a huge and grim structure that seems like the stone was poured and allowed to dry.
All is still as the grave, not a sound but for a faint creaking like a iron gate in the wind.
Instinctively he looks up; an eclipse hangs in the empty sky. Yet it seems as if the light is impeded by something other than the moon - no, the light is more like moonlight, and Viktor can faintly perceive towers and walls in the form of the thing blocking it. A vast and opulent palace, so immense, impossibly hovering in the air.
BONE
Bile inched up Viktor’s throat while he attempted to makes sense of his impossible surroundings. This is no mere hallucination, he thought. I’m actually here, standing, suffering. But where is here?
He was clutching something — Ellen’s doll. Viktor stared down at it dumbly for a moment before lifting his cadaverous face towards the uncanny sky. I think I understand; I’ve past on. He then mustered the courage to look directly at the palace looming far above him. This proved a poor choice.
A feeling of dread suddenly snatched hold of Viktor so monstrously he nearly screamed. He recoiled and shut his eyes and tried his damndest to recover from the onslaught of terror.
He squeezed the doll until his knuckles turned white. Sweat sprung out across his fevered flesh.
"What now?"
GREY
"Look, look!" the doll cries, excited. When you open your eyes, you swear for a moment one tiny arm is outstretched, pointing to your left. But no, the doll remains a doll. Which speaks.
You turn your gaze as bidden; the road descends after a few feet, so this vast unreal city unfolds before you. Architecture clashing in a frozen riot of styles, many of which you have never seen or heard of, many which seem as if they cannot possibly support their own elaborate designs.
And there, on the horizon, looming over all of it - a great tower or steeple, rising into the blank sky for miles. You think you see staircases, and windows, and balconies feathering the immense exterior but you blink and it seems utterly smooth. You blink again and see a wholly different configuration of crenellations and garrets. It's falling, slowly collapsing under its own weight. It draws the eye like a lodestone and you realize no matter where you look, it's always there at the edge of your vision. Always falling, but never fallen.
The doll giggles.
"They like you," she says. "They want to help. They'll heal you, if you ask."
BONE
Heal me? A mere moment ago Viktor had drawn the formidable conclusion that he was dead. But he must have erred, for the dead cannot be healed, only resurrected.
Yes, he thought as he collapsed to his knees, I’m still alive. I know this because I’m in too wretched a condition to be anything other than alive. I haven’t even the strength to crawl back to bed.
Viktor released the doll he had been carrying and brought his hands before him for inspection. They were skeletal, their flesh almost translucent, and they ached cruelly just like every other part of his body. His ghastly appearance, along with his quickly evaporating vitality, warned that he would die here, on this very spot inside this surreal realm, or...
He peeked at the Tower splitting the horizon and was immediately transfixed by it. It was an immensely daunting, incomprehensible structure which radiated a soul-trembling power. It would restore Viktor, but not for free. Somehow the dollmaker understood that. The Tower did not offer a favor; it offered a bargain.
Like a sail untied from its mast, Viktor toppled onto his side while blood trickled from his nostrils, yet he never took his eyes off the Tower. "I accept," he eventually whispered. "I wish to live."
Tears welled in his bloodshot eyes and in response he shut them. But inexplicably, as clearly as if he stood helplessly before it, he could still see the Falling Tower.
GREY
You feel the dark earth turn beneath your feet; a powerful vertigo. The Tower is the axis and all spins about it.
You sit up suddenly, in the bed you had thought you'd left. You feel like a new man, rested and vital. Grey dawnlight filters through the window.
The doll is lying beside you.
> Port D'Erbor
The house is dark and silent; the spire of a church two streets over is cast through the window, keeping off what weak Winter sunlight might find its way in. Outside the sounds of the mob are muffled but not gone. Not over. They seem to move away and then return, never entirely leaving your awareness. Like a dream that hasn't quite had time to fade from memory.
Soft creaks of settling boards sound closer, more real. The drip of water from somewhere just out of sight. In the guttering candlelight you can see only rafters, vague shapes of hanging clothes, furniture, the end table where a basin of water had sat when Ellen tended your burning fever. The shadows, rich and dark like velvet. They seem to throb and shift before your gaze.
And Ellen's doll, sat on a dresser, watching you with empty eyes.
You smell only blood. Yours, you're sure. As your skin seems to burn and your eyes weep, you feel something in your chest - a sloughing sensation, ineffably wrong. The coughing follows and your vision goes black as you hack and convulse, until your throat burns along with everything else. Blood flecks your chest, along with shreds of flesh that you will not permit yourself to identify. You must have thrashed the cover away.
The certainty of your impending death washes over you like a brief and blessedly cool wind.
BONE
The end is nearly here, thought Viktor. I fear it, though I shouldn’t. I have nothing to carry on for. No one to carry on with.
Still, to die here like this... Alone. Forsaken. I’ve made mistakes, behaved shamefully, but I’ve done nothing to merit such a pitiful fate.
So what does that prove? That a decent life doesn’t entitle a man to a decent death. With a pained effort Viktor wiped his rheumy eyes with the back of his hand. When his vision eventually cleared he searched for and found Ellen’s doll perched on a nearby dresser. Maybe decency is only intended for children?
Resolve. Cunning. Ferocity. These are the only virtues for men. And if that’s true — and I now believe it is — then I have never truly been a man. God forgive me; I was ignorant.
What tragic irony: I only learn how to live when I’m out of time.
GREY
"Don't cry."
If you had the energy, you'd imagine you'd start at the voice.
"Don't be sad yet," the voice continues. A girl's voice. Ellen?
...No. But so close, if she'd had a little sister, you'd believe she would sound like this. So young, sunny, the hint of a lisp.
As you focus you realize it's the doll; the head suddently tilted to meet your eyes, the mouth impossibly curved into a guileless smile.
BONE
Viktor squeezed his aching eyes shut and then blinked rapidly. A fleeting hallucination, he thought. A fever dream. Ellen’s doll, which he had been gazing at, had just moved by its own volition. Its soft pink, normally relaxed mouth had suddenly smiled — at him.
Worse, it had spoken to him.
When Viktor looked back at the doll, he discovered its expression was still wrong. So, thought Viktor, I am firmly in the grip of madness. He accepted this without resistance; he no longer had the strength for resistance. Besides, what was one more indignity to suffer before his end?
I’ll even play along, he thought.
“And why should I not feel sad?” His voice a strained whisper. “If I shed tears before you, rest assured that I’ve earned them. I’ve earned little in life, but I’ve earned those.”
“But then agai—“ Viktor was interrupted by a fit of violent coughing, after which he cleared his throat. “But then again, what’s the point of arguing 'earned' in this despicable world? Let the devil take it.”
GREY
There is silence, broken by the doll's sudden giggle - a light and airy sound, pure joy wholly at odds with the moment.
You realize that though the room remains dark, the shadow through the window is now a bright shaft of silvery light. Moonlight? Did you pass into sleep without noticing? There is an eerie quietude hanging over you, over the whole world, when the laughter subsides.
"We should go outside," the doll says. "They want to see you."
Sweat, gritting his teeth, Viktor hauls himself to his feet. Out of the bed with unsteady legs, the room seems to sway and the darkness pulses like a breathing thing. As he stumbles to the door, half-dragging his feet, the doll squeaks in protest.
"Don't forget me! You have to bring me! Don't leave me alone."
There is indignation in her voice, yes, but it seems intended only to mask a desperate undercurrent of misery.
Grunting, he scoops the doll into his arms and tries again to leave. Winces as his lungs burn and stray splinters prick his feet, pauses to hack more blood and lung lining onto the boards, until he finally makes it to the cool cobbles outside.
And he realizes he is no longer home.
To be sure, streets familiar in the daylight can be strangers in the dark, but this place is wrong.
The building opposite isn't made of the plaster and wood found across the city; stone blocks the size of a man, finely cut, form a crude dwelling.
Left of that something resembling a shop front is build from bricks so small a child could have made them yet built for grown men.
And strangest, to the right, is a huge and grim structure that seems like the stone was poured and allowed to dry.
All is still as the grave, not a sound but for a faint creaking like a iron gate in the wind.
Instinctively he looks up; an eclipse hangs in the empty sky. Yet it seems as if the light is impeded by something other than the moon - no, the light is more like moonlight, and Viktor can faintly perceive towers and walls in the form of the thing blocking it. A vast and opulent palace, so immense, impossibly hovering in the air.
BONE
Bile inched up Viktor’s throat while he attempted to makes sense of his impossible surroundings. This is no mere hallucination, he thought. I’m actually here, standing, suffering. But where is here?
He was clutching something — Ellen’s doll. Viktor stared down at it dumbly for a moment before lifting his cadaverous face towards the uncanny sky. I think I understand; I’ve past on. He then mustered the courage to look directly at the palace looming far above him. This proved a poor choice.
A feeling of dread suddenly snatched hold of Viktor so monstrously he nearly screamed. He recoiled and shut his eyes and tried his damndest to recover from the onslaught of terror.
He squeezed the doll until his knuckles turned white. Sweat sprung out across his fevered flesh.
"What now?"
GREY
"Look, look!" the doll cries, excited. When you open your eyes, you swear for a moment one tiny arm is outstretched, pointing to your left. But no, the doll remains a doll. Which speaks.
You turn your gaze as bidden; the road descends after a few feet, so this vast unreal city unfolds before you. Architecture clashing in a frozen riot of styles, many of which you have never seen or heard of, many which seem as if they cannot possibly support their own elaborate designs.
And there, on the horizon, looming over all of it - a great tower or steeple, rising into the blank sky for miles. You think you see staircases, and windows, and balconies feathering the immense exterior but you blink and it seems utterly smooth. You blink again and see a wholly different configuration of crenellations and garrets. It's falling, slowly collapsing under its own weight. It draws the eye like a lodestone and you realize no matter where you look, it's always there at the edge of your vision. Always falling, but never fallen.
The doll giggles.
"They like you," she says. "They want to help. They'll heal you, if you ask."
BONE
Heal me? A mere moment ago Viktor had drawn the formidable conclusion that he was dead. But he must have erred, for the dead cannot be healed, only resurrected.
Yes, he thought as he collapsed to his knees, I’m still alive. I know this because I’m in too wretched a condition to be anything other than alive. I haven’t even the strength to crawl back to bed.
Viktor released the doll he had been carrying and brought his hands before him for inspection. They were skeletal, their flesh almost translucent, and they ached cruelly just like every other part of his body. His ghastly appearance, along with his quickly evaporating vitality, warned that he would die here, on this very spot inside this surreal realm, or...
He peeked at the Tower splitting the horizon and was immediately transfixed by it. It was an immensely daunting, incomprehensible structure which radiated a soul-trembling power. It would restore Viktor, but not for free. Somehow the dollmaker understood that. The Tower did not offer a favor; it offered a bargain.
Like a sail untied from its mast, Viktor toppled onto his side while blood trickled from his nostrils, yet he never took his eyes off the Tower. "I accept," he eventually whispered. "I wish to live."
Tears welled in his bloodshot eyes and in response he shut them. But inexplicably, as clearly as if he stood helplessly before it, he could still see the Falling Tower.
GREY
You feel the dark earth turn beneath your feet; a powerful vertigo. The Tower is the axis and all spins about it.
You sit up suddenly, in the bed you had thought you'd left. You feel like a new man, rested and vital. Grey dawnlight filters through the window.
The doll is lying beside you.
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