Chapter 9: The White Fire Birthed In The Void

A dove of diamonds once lived in the sky, hovering with its grand and deadly wings flapping slowly. From its feathers came winds of such force to level empires, but Acanthis knew her strength, and kept herself back so that by the time her gale overtook us, only enough remained to lift the spores of dandelions. In my dreams I would see that sacred bird sickened, drained of the light shimmering within her diamond bones until a milk white corpse twitched intermittently in her place. A force of purpose emerged within me in the sword wound northwest of the Dolomite sanctum. It wasn't anything conscious, or even remotely human. It was animal mechanical, an algorithmic pulse in my groin that cursed me with the perverse knowledge that I was chosen. Say what you will of me now, in time you will see what I've seen.

And if you doubt my tale then walk in my steps and see the holocaust I so narrowly outran. See it by the light of the Sun now that by my hand the scar tissue over Tarthas is being peeled back. And know that Tarthas screamed when those first stones were knocked loose from its ceiling. Ah, Turk, how you prowl. Come down now and end it. Does he wait for me to finish my account, in case by some chance I missed a step and the pale glow in the sky is merely a stream of bile, and not the mercy of the Fates? If that be the case, study my words closely, and find the piece I overlooked. But I think I succeeded, and Turk hesitates because he doubts the nobility of his purpose. I do not. He has as good a reason to kill me as there could be, and I will only feign resistance to offer sport. Were I to go limp and let him cut the parasite from my spine then he would be invalidated. Better I pose as a resistor, so that he can limp back to Elvedon with pride. He deserves that much. He deserves to forgive himself for his cannibalism.

Forgive me this digression. I slip into solipsism when I'm away from the egg, and I've been writing on my seat atop the high wall.

There. I have risen and returned to the tower chamber where the mother holds her cadaverous vigil. She has gone soft now, spongy and porous. I fear touching her, as I'm not yet ready for her to float away as Asher did. Now that the egg has cracked open I need her. I need some promise of spring to shield me from winter's breath, or I might go and challenge Turk and be done with it. I have, after all, finished the tale for the most part, having begun in Haven, the port city where I would live and study the deeper myths, and learn to wield arms in earnest. But these early days will give much meaning to my story, and so I will do my best to resist the urge to tempt the prowling panther to pounce. I will write in this dark chamber where the faint light of the feathered serpent grows stronger every day, beaming in pale and cold from the hole in the tower's broken ceiling. The dead mother is fine company in these final days of mine. She still clutches her egg, though her child has fled and she is dead. Could there be a more apt witness to the dead things that will soon do battle in this dead city? Let her watch my lifeless fingers pen the birth of Albion's final renewal, while the dead man walking haunts my peripheral vision. Turk is my hourglass, and the tyfloch mother my surrogate heartbeat.

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