"Now a single story remains," Odu says as midnight comes and the Crimson Herald burns its way into the deepest darkness of the horizon. "What shall it be, child? It is, after all, a story about your people. Should I tell the tale of your ancestors' great achievements and triumphs? Should I terrorize you with the accounts of your race's worst villains? Or should I lay before you the narrow path, the line in-between that so many Yaka have trod upon?"
You muse for a while, recalling what you've heard so far, the stories that happened and were retold under the comet's blazing path. A bloodless hunt for honor. A heretical salvation from the end of all things. A renegade queening and the promise of freedom. In each tale, the impossible occurs, and the people at the center of the narrative are changed forever. The Crimson Herald favors those who embrace this transformation; it presides over their most important journey and anoints them with bleeding light. So it is, so it has been, and so it will be. At last, the answer comes to you.
"Tell me a story that has not yet been told."
The storyteller smiles and claps together her four arms.
"You ask for me to tell the future, child," she says with a knowing chuckle. "That which has not yet been told is that which has not yet happened, for a story exists even if there is no one to listen to it. The world itself is our witness, our chronicler and our storyteller. You ask, then, for something to which even Shimreth and Taá have never attested. That, little one, is the domain of the untold and the unwritten, where no prophecy holds power and even certainties collapse."
She holds aloft the conch shell, letting its surface ripple with the frantic dance of the fire below and the cold luminescence of the comet above. The Caravan and the city slumber, and in the stillness of the desert night only the crackling of the embers breaks the silence. Enraptured, you barely register Odu's mandibles moving as she whispers upon the conch shell, her voice so low that all you can hear are the susurrations of the fire. Only when she presses the conch against your ear do you understand her words like muffled echoes of roaring waves.
"A story not yet written is a fertile nothingness. A tale not yet told is the plaything of its characters. In the absence of a narrator, the future is a foreign land. Do you dare tread on it?"
The storm within Sulek is getting worse even as the one outside starts to abate. Still the waves rock the ship with fury, the wind screaming threats of an icy doom under the crushing pressure of the depths, the entire sea an open maw that seeks to swallow the vessel whole. At his back, he sees the storm clouds slowly receding, light slowly starting to peer through their blackness, lending the crew hope that they will soon be at safe harbor, that the worst has come and gone. Sulek does not hope, however; for him, the clearing sky means that his destination is within arm's reach, and he is not at all enthusiastic about getting there. In fact, he dreads disembarking on that beach, gazing at the ruins of the past, and facing what he knows should have been left to oblivion. He almost wishes that the storm had sank the ship, drowned him in the ocean's frigid embrace and freed him from the burden he allowed himself to carry: to bring them all to this old wound, to lead them in witnessing the aftermath of the world's end.
He could have said no. He could have told them off and returned to his drink, cursing them under his breath while numbing the memories of pain and sorrow that their imprudent request had reawakened. Go find someone else. I will not return to that cursed place. Now get lost. Ah, if only he had found it in himself to be a coward, to tuck his tail between his legs and flatten his ears against his skull. Then he would not be here, aboard this ship full of gawking fools whose thirst for discovery outweighs their common sense. "Wanderers," they call themselves – seekers of things unknown, hidden or lost. Sulek scoffed with contempt even as he took their coin and agreed to accompany them here. "I saw it happen," he told them. "I was there when the screaming started, and I crawled out from the pile of corpses when it died down. What exactly do you hope to find amidst that perdition? What is there for you in that ashen grave?"
A sudden wave strikes the ship, stronger and more vicious than any that have come before. His back smashes into the rails, his lungs emptying in one violent exhalation and leaving him gasping for air before another wave finishes the job, the sheer force of it lifting him off his feet and sending him spiraling overboard. In the end, Sulek thinks as the water swallows him, as his drenched fur drags him deeper into the darkness below, I might just get my wish.
In the liquid coldness, there is a memory of fire. He sees it happening again even though his eyes burn with oceanic salt, screams of terror and agonized yelps ringing in his ears over the sound of his own drowning. On the night when the heavens fell and set the land aflame, the first thing anyone saw was the comet, the Crimson Herald against the green glimmer of Shimreth. As it soared overhead, its tail burned brighter than ever before, its red possessed of an intensity unheard of in this age. Families gathered to witness the celestial spectacle, entranced and joyous at the triumphant aster as it continued its path across the firmament as it had done since time immemorial. Yet some of the elders whispered with concern, for the stars are seldom capricious or unpredictable, and any change in their behavior must surely be an omen.
Then, as they continued gazing at the heavens, silence – the pause between a deep inhalation and the noise of thunder, the dead quietude of imminent danger. Sulek remembers how his fur stood on edge, how his six limbs tensed as primal instinct clawed its way up from the deepest recesses of his brain and clamored for him to flee. But how can one flee from the unseen, from the unknown? He could not feel it coming, could not pinpoint from which direction it would strike, and he froze in place as terror overwhelmed him.
The first death comes is a silent one. The woman does not scream as it falls on her, latches onto her head, and begins drinking. Only when her body falls with a thud and the translucent, verminous, still-hungry thing flaps its leathery wings and turns its ugly head – nothing but an eyeless, jawless maw, an obscene orifice with rows and rows of teeth lining it all the way down its throat – do the screams start.
Another one falls atop the man right next to him; Sulek gawks in horror as the creature's gnarled innards pulse and tinge red as they fill up with blood. A pair of firm hands pull him from his morbid trance and then he's running, running towards the city's fortified walls, gasping as he narrowly avoids the creatures that continue dropping from the sky like blighted rain. Terrified screams from the victims and ravenous shrieks from the stellar abominations ring in his ears as he makes his way past the gate and collapses next to the other refugees, all of them desperately looking for loved ones – for friends and family – amidst the living.
A city guard rushes past him, followed by an entire squad, off to pull what survivors they can from the onslaught. They go out with weapons crafted from metal and bone, with what little armor may withstand the creature's hunger, and the hope that they will not lose more lives than they will rescue.
Something burns within Sulek now. He turns towards his own rescuer, his older brother, and lets out a howl of fear and fury. What is this perdition that has come to them? And why? Why now? Have they displeased the spirits and gods? Has Shimreth unleashed her fury for some great sin they have committed? Have these monsters come through the Red Door the heretic Spider wove in the salt flats? In the end, answers matters little; all he knows now is that he will not stand by and let the accursed feast go unchallenged. Sulek rushes to the armory and, before anyone can stop him, runs back outside.
And then, amidst the blood and the screams and the unending waves of monsters, he sees the unthinkable. He sees the accursed fire, the source of this desolation. He sees her–
His recollection ends with a sharp pain in his chest. His six limbs twitch instinctually as his body remembers what self-preservation means and tries to swim back to the surface. A few desperate strokes from his arms against the crushing pressure of water and he's almost out of air. Fear and acceptance of death wrestle each other, his lungs screaming out and his sight going dark again. Then, a mighty grip clasps his pelt and he takes a hard landing, retching and coughing out salt water, reckoning that he is still alive. Next to him, the Drifter motions for the others to give him space. He can see Ulak's mouth moving, but the words that come out are all unintelligible, and cold is seeping into his very core; the darkness asserts itself again, and the last thing he experiences is the sound of his own body going limp against the ship's deck.
Sulek awakens with a coat wrapped around him, his clothes hung out to dry in the sun. In the corner of his eye, he sees the coast, the blasted ruins not far away. He does not curse his luck, however; he is still dazed, confused and somewhat frightened from his brush with death, but he knows he'll live, and for now that is enough. At his side, the Drifter writes in his great tome; only when he notices that Sulek is awake does Ulak turn and offer him water to drink and some rations to eat.
"I am glad to see you are recovering," Ulak tells him. He simply nods and asks the only question in his mind. The Drifter answers as expected. "We arrived not one hour ago; we are waiting to disembark. Do you feel like you can walk?"
Sulek grunts and gets up with staggering steps, slowly regaining his footing. Yaka are as tough as the Desert where they have thrived for countless generations; he's not about to break that tradition. Once he's dressed and has had some more water to drink, he joins the Drifter and the others on a skiff, the crew waving them goodbye; they'll be back in a week to pick them up.
Calm waves make for a calm landfall, and the expedition is soon treading on soft sand the color of gold. Up ahead is what they came for: the sun-bleached skeleton of what was once a great city – the proud Kathele of old. Once, this city-fortress was the farthest the Caravan would wander, a hub of culture and trade unmatched through the entirety of the known world. Now, it is nothing but a ruin that murmurs with the voices of ghosts, mourning itself as the sands slowly reclaim it.
Beyond the walls, facing the Desert with outstretched arms, a stone statue stands guard over the empty city, poised over a pedestal carved from the same monolithic slab that gave birth to it. Its shape is that of a Yaka, smiling triumphantly and warmly welcoming the Caravan from their long and weary journey through the sands. This is a another sad reminder of better days, when people other than morbid explorers flocked to Kathele, when the streets were full of sounds and colors, when life was peaceful and stories flourished. Now, there is no one left to call this place home; even the Caravan has no business here but to rest and use the ruins as a shelter, leaving as soon as they can to avoid disturbing what angry spirits may linger in the dust and darkness.
The Wanderers spread out and begin writing, recording, probing for remnants of magic that may tell them of what Sulek already knows, what he witnessed that night: the fall of Kathele, the exodus of its people and the end of all that was once good. He scoffs at them, but they are paying good money for this little trip, so he does what they hired him for: he points to the library, the seat of government, what is left of the hall of records, and every building that may still hold books and scrolls for them to satiate their curiosity. Many of them are gleeful for this chance to pick at the bones of what was once his life, to scavenge what little remains of his and many others' past, and for it he looks at them with scorn.
While they skitter about like carrion beetles, Sulek turns back to the statue. Three of its arms lie shattered in the ground, the sole remaining one holding aloft a conch shell towards the horizon. On the pedestal is an inscription of which only a few words are still readable. The characters that spelled out the Yaka's name are no more, vandalized into an unrecognizable scar the very night the city fell, but what remains is enough for anyone to know who this is: Hero of Kathele, the inscription proclaims.
"I have heard much about him," the Drifter says as he approaches, "and about his adventures. How many generations have passed since his time?"
"Too many," Sulek responds. "The time of heroes is long gone, and his actions are now but a myth."
"And yet, a myth may inspire someone else to pick up the struggle, to walk in the footsteps of heroes past. Is that not the power of stories?"
Sulek sighs, fingers tracing the word Hero on the pedestal. Yes, he knows the Drifter speaks truth. When he was a child, his parents told him and his brother Jarun the stories of the Hero of Kathele, the challenges he faced, the defeats he suffered and the triumphs he shared with all the peoples of the Desert. In their childish wonder, they wished to be as he was – to face the world and overcome whatever odds and dangers may come their way, to carve their own names in the pantheon of legends and be remembered for ages to come. That was the dream of their youth.
But then came that fateful night under the Crimson Herald, and the dream became a nightmare, for though they thought themselves heroes in the making, they fell as easily as everyone else to the jawless maws of the monsters from beyond the rings of Shimreth and their master. In the ash of the morning, they found only death and hopelessness.
"There is a story here," the Drifter continues, "that has not yet received an ending. The story of this city, of its inhabitants… of you, who witnessed it all."
"What more is there left to say?" Sulek frowns. "Kathele was ravaged, the survivors scattered to the winds, and all that remains now are lamentations."
"There is always something else to be told," Ulak insists. "One chapter ends, and another begins. Always.
"So what, then? I should tell my story – the story of this city's destruction – for you to record it? Should I reminisce on the blood and the screams and the dead so that others may share in the horror?"
Ulak the Drifter sits cross-legged before the statue of the Hero of Kathele and opens his Chronicle on a blank page, quill in hand.
"The reasons why you decide to tell a story are yours alone," the Drifter says. "The only thing I can assure you is that, if you do not claim your own story, the story will claim you. I write always, friend, and I care little for who the narrator is; even dust is a masterful storyteller when one knows how to listen. Today, however, the chance is yours to weave the words through which this city will be remembered. How does this chapter end, Sulek of Kathele? With renewed hope for things to come, or with deafening silence?"
The storm within Sulek still rages as he speaks, but he does not cower before thunder. He speaks so that Ulak may write, so that others may know what truly happened that night, so that he may embrace his own story – the story of his greatest failure. He speaks of the Crimson Herald and the monsters that descended from the heavens in its wake. He speaks of fear and bravery, of fighting the creatures and soaking the sands with their putrid blood. And then comes the part Sulek wishes to bury forever, the true reason why he is loath to return here: he speaks of the sorceress and the fire in her eyes.
Sulek saw her standing at the very epicenter of the carnage, blood spilling from her blackened mouth as she chanted spells so blasphemous that they did away at her own flesh. Her fur was shaven, the shriveled body beneath inscribed with glyphs that called upon the stars for a profane blessing. Her eyes were full of celestial fire, a deep red stolen from the comet itself. And as she continued chanting, as the creatures she had summoned fed on the wailing masses and the men-at-arms of Kathele tried in vain to save their city and their people, the asters began to fall upon the land.
Great bolts of cosmic debris rained on Kathele, striking down its towers and shattering its walls, crushing those who thought themselves safe in their halls of stone. Fires broke out, choking the city and its people in noxious black smoke, driving them out into the open where they became easy prey. The screams of the dying were a choir over which the sorceress' shrill chanting presided.
Sulek remembers how afraid he was, paralyzed at such a monstrous display of power. He gazed into the sorceress' fiery eyes and knew there was nothing he could do. At his feet, the monsters he had slain piled up, yet he felt weak, powerless, about to weep and grovel for mercy. How could he hope to stand against such might, against such inevitability? Here, amidst the falling asters and the shrieking monsters, there was only fear – there was only surrender.
Then, someone at his side threw a spear and pierced the sorceress in the left flank, causing her to cease her spell and scream in agony. Sulek felt the dread trance he had been under evaporating; he turned and saw Jarun – his older brother and rescuer for the second time that night – readying to strike again. There was no time for doubt. Sulek took another spear and, together with Jarun, lunged at the sorceress.
Sulek's spear pierced the foul Yaka through her abdomen, and Jarun's pierced her straight through the chest. The sorceress shrieked and cursed at them, foaming at the mouth as the power she had borrowed from the asters began tearing her from the inside out. Stray bolts of magic surged through her thrice-impaled body, shooting forth into the night, striking both Kathele and the sorceress' own monsters. In her death throes, cleaved asunder by her own arrogance and the terrible magic that raged within her, she exploded with the force of a collapsing star.
Sulek barely had time to react. He thought of running away from the blast, from the detonation of the Crimson Herald's fire as it returned to its rightful master, but there was no place safe now. Then he looked at Jarun, his sole blood in the entire world, and threw himself at him.
The world was bathed in painful light. It tore away stone from stone and rent flesh from bone. Wild shards of power crashed randomly against Kathele, felling buildings and people alike. The monsters, suddenly freed from the sorceress' murderous commands, tried fleeing back to the heavens and were engulfed in the inferno, their squeals joining the choir of the dying. The city burned, and five thousand souls burned with it.
When it was all over, Sulek emerged from the ashes, his fur singed and his shoulders heavy as he helped a limping Jarun. They wondered how they had managed to survive so close to the explosion, but they could not ponder for long as the smoke cleared and what was left of Kathele revealed itself in ashen light of dawn. There, slowly, some staggering and some crawling, the living dead paraded into sight.
There were so many of them: blind, mutilated, bleeding from unrecognizable orifices where their faces had once been. They stumbled onwards, trying to feel their way with charred stumps, with hands that had been burned down to the nerve, incapable of even screaming in agony or beg for help. Sulek and Jarun look on in horror, powerless to save them, to ease their pain. All they can do is whimper mutely, trying not to add their own broken voices to the sorrow of dying Kathele.
"Back then, we felt as if it was all our fault," he says now to Ulak. "We killed the sorceress, yes, but so many others too. How many did we actually save? How many did we maim forever? I no longer blame myself for it, but sometimes I wonder who had it worse, the dead or the living who shambled onwards with their skin flayed and their souls broken."
He pauses and looks up, gazing longingly at the Hero. It is a good thing that he is made of stone, Sulek thinks; stone cannot cast down judgement, and it cannot voice shame.
"It took weeks to clear out the rubble and recover the bodies trapped underneath. I don't believe we ever accounted for everyone; a lot of them we found in pieces, and some we only ever found a couple of limbs or a big smudge of scorched blood. In the end, we just wanted to find them so we could have proper burials, so we could move on and leave this place behind."
"Why?" Ulak asks. "Why leave instead of rebuilding, instead of starting anew?"
"To start anew, one must let go of the past, and the past here is far too large – too heavy, too terrible – for any of us. Kathele is an old city, older than most places in the world. It has too much history, so much that it even now you Wanderers could pick its corpse clean and find more underneath it."
"You resent us," Ulak says. "You resent that we brought you here, to the site of the greatest tragedy you experienced. But is it not the way forward to face pain and overcome it? Can you truly let go if you do not once turn back to embrace what you loved and make peace with its loss?"
"Why do you care, Drifter?" Sulek asks. "Why do you care to hear these stories, the tale of a fallen city and a broken man?"
The Drifter closes his Chronicle and grasps at the ground, letting golden grains of sand slip between his six fingers.
"I record the happenings of my journeys as a way to preserve that which is finite, to immortalize the ephemeral and bestow it upon those who can never witness it. Knowledge is a precious thing – that is what we are here for, indeed – but what good is knowledge if it does not inspire, if it does not fill hearts with wonder, if it does not help others remember what once was and dream of what may one day be? In the future, this city may be claimed back by its people, by those who endure and hope for better things – by people like you, Sulek."
"I…" Sulek's voice drifts off as he envisions what that would be like: the streets of Kathele clear of rubble, its buildings restored and its people thriving. He imagines joyful voices chatting under clear skies, familiar hearts and faces greeting each other, stories shared in expectation of the Caravan as the red comet soars overhead. That was life before; could it be like that again?
"I know you wish for this as well," the Drifter continues, standing up and holding firm his Chronicle, "for though you shun this place and the memory of what happened here, this was – and still is – your home. You cannot deny that which binds you to it. How many more are there like you, lost and sorrowful, yet craving for a time when Kathele lives again?"
Sulek thinks of Jarun, who in dreams often mutters regret and longing, though he never admits it when asked by light of morning. He thinks of the displaced, the refugees, those who – like he and Jarun – had to cross the Sea of Renkún and find a new home in the land beyond, separated from their ancestral Kathele by more than salt and storm. Many have decided to bury the past, to continue their lives without ever looking back, but others have never made peace with their exile. How many of them would be willing to return, to rebuild and make out of the bones of tragedy a monument for their hope? If he sought them out, would they join him, or would they shun him as he has long shunned this deepest part of himself?
"You need not have an answer now," Ulak the Drifter says, slowly walking back to his fellow Wanderers, who explore the city with awe and reverence, "not for yourself, and certainly not for me. As I said before, the choice is yours alone. Whatever you decide, however, I will tell you this: look back, Sulek… so you can walk forward."
In the skies over the statue of the Hero of Kathele – still standing, still smiling in the face of desolation and uncertainty – the Crimson Herald marks the arrival of change. In its wake comes the Caravan, pilgrims of eternity, witnesses of fates uncountable. What they shall find here this time, they know not; that story is not yet written, and its protagonist is as unsure as the sands are capricious. There remains, however, hope that he will listen to his own heart and break the chains of fear and regret. Then, perhaps, he will gather those who dream like him, who wish to make of this life more than it is now, and in the cycles that follow he shall weave a story for them all: a story of joyful reunions, of triumphant return. In the end, maybe his story will inspire others, and they will follow in his footsteps, behold the world with wonder and reach out, helping others, leaving behind their own whispers, their own stories, their own tracks across the sand.
Onwards hopes the Crimson Herald, witness to us all.