...The Prophet seemed to shine above, but this was only an illusion.
He looked away and ahead.
The sun glared down at everything below. Sunlight flooded the desert, and rays peeked their way past the clouds. The animals hid in the shade and drank from puddles.
Thousands of footprints led toward the mountain. All remnants of the Prophet. David followed them. He winced as the heat beat on his back, blinked from the sand around his eyes. Below, the sun-baked mud cracked with every step and the scents of cooked clay filled his nose. Sweat dripped off him and onto the ground.
Lush forests full of animals once stood here. Blue rivers had run through these stones. But now, in its place, a dry, isolating, desert had buried paradise, with the ground crumbling beneath his feet, and heat streaming in the air and wavering in blurred lines. David used his crusted hands to push through the sandy winds and squinted to look at the sky. Yesterday's winds had stopped, as sand had swept through his hair and beard, and whirlwinds of yellow buried him in the sand. But the sun didn't hide behind cloudy layers. Instead, it shone in full view.
David strode past cliffs, approaching a village. Crowds surrounded it, following the same footprints as he did. They walked along with him.
All of them followed the Prophet, who owned armies of followers that marched behind him. They asked for cures, things they could hold, and to change them. They blessed him, they listened to him, they learned from him. Stronger horses, dogs for comfort, and pigs for food. The Prophet held the answer to all things.
He walked past the tawdry huts, leaning roofs, and low winds that breezed past him. He saw the highest pinnacles of humanity in brick houses that stood against the wind, people dined and laughed. He saw the highest falls of humanity in fallen homes and crawling half-dead people, who begged for food as they reached for him from below.
David walked to the middle of the village. He stood in the bricked square under the soft sun. Nobody was there. He heard nothing, but the sounds of twittering birds.
Something reached his nose. He curled his lips.
David held his nose, closed his eyes. He remembered it, the smell of a village far away.
The smell of death.
It continued into him, emptying him of his previous joy. He pulled the water out of his bag, drank the contents, and sat down in the middle of the village.
Ahead of him, he saw a pit. The smell of death... With bodies, thousands and thousands contained inside the jaws of the Abysm and buried near the Abyss, where the demons lay and tore at the joints and sinews of the dead. Salgon peered at them with ever-watching eyes, the Nalrath tore the corpses in half and collected their ears, and Salugren used venomous fangs that rotted the flesh.
But, he held no witness to those things. Bodies were burned without regret and shame. People revolted. People ran, screamed, escaped, and ignored those corpses. They escaped the Plague. They revolted against kings and conquerors, who sat on golden thrones. He held no witness to those things.
He had already traveled far away from them. Away from the dead, who stared with empty eyes, and away from the drunks who sang. Inside, he dreamt of worlds inside his mind. All dreams, he held close inside his memory.
Death and death to the millions.
What was the world with people who rotted away for years, collapsing from the plague?
There was no use for death in his world... Years passed quickly... People rotted away in his eyes...Unrelenting death, no use in the world, then no use for this world. There was death, and there was life. In the middle were the memories and the dreams. The truly great things that disappeared at the end until all were useless. All was useless! In the infinite plain of dreams, worlds, and people, he was the smallest thing. The minute detail. The piece of dirt. A death in millions.
He almost laughed, but seeing the village, he lamented and held his head in his hands. The sun thrummed, he heard it beat its fiery heart, with flames reaching out to him.
He had wasted away his boyhood, where he'd dreamt and felt joy that fleeted away. He had seen himself grow up until he had grown a beard. He had dreaded the days until he would grow tall and walk into life. He wished for moments of enjoyment and wonder. When he'd lived in a shack and eaten apples from a bowl... When he'd walked underneath those leafy trees... When he'd saw the clouds stretch out above him... When he'd ridden on a horse to the Laphanist churches and prayed with the Men Of Deer... When he'd slept on those rickety benches... When he'd hid underneath a bed, afraid of thunder...
He had wished for moments of eternal time. What was the use of life, of worry, of the world, when he would grow old? But, he didn't need to worry about that... The Prophet ahead would allow people to live eternally. The uselessness of life, he thought nothing about. Eternal life forever. Living as a child again. To live as a child again! He wished for a chance to see the world through new eyes, and finally enjoy the fresh path of a world anew.
He held everything in his hand. He held the solution to everything. With greatness emerging, with all things clicking into place, and nothing else.
Above him, the world darkened and the sun began its descent. In his mind, he saw Protennessen shut its eyes and fall to sleep. David turned his head and looked at the mountain Pnoaphales.
A ring of clouds surrounded its peak. Then, the mountain radiated orange from the light of the sun. Deserts sank, and precarious cliffs balanced in his eyes.
Now, he walked. He'd followed the footprints for days. David wiped the sweat from his brow and adjusted his carrying pack. He pulled an oilskin from the bag. David gulped the contents down and continued along the path of footprints. He looked ahead.
The sun shimmered, going below the world, and he squinted. A squat tavern sat ahead. The roof tiles clacked against one another. He walked away from the place. The sounds of laughter and drink faded from his ears. The sun dipped beneath the world. He walked to a clearing on the street, set up his straw bed, and lay underneath the darkness.
Bronze keys jingling from the inn as the innkeeper led his guests into cramped rooms. Then into a room with a candle-wick holder; a broken cabinet leaned against the walls. Torn cloth hung from the ceiling; water leaked out of the walls. He saw each bright room, then they closed. He turned over on his straw bed. David closed his eyes and slept.
The next day, he woke in the morning sun, with dawn touching the cusp of the earth. He woke to people everywhere and clay jars and clay bricks, broken upon his feet. He stepped across and around them. He ignored the people, sometimes dragging carts, sometimes carrying sacks, and sometimes trying to laugh surrounded by it all. Nobody stood near the temples. The Prophet's abode lay empty, and as did Protennessen.
David walked on the path again. People strode ahead and behind him. Footprints shifted into bricks. The road continued along a forested expanse. David looked above at the sky. Thin clouds journeyed across blue. The sun's light faded into the dark forest. Colder than the desert and its wind. From the beating sun of the mesa, into the air of forests.
The trees seemed to scrape the sky. The forest smelled of pine, and he could hear a waterfall. Birds watched him from their perches, and they twittered with birdsong. Everywhere, people walked alongside him in ragged shapes, ragged clothes, ragged steps, with smog polluting the air.
As he continued, the road raised itself and steepened. The brick road went higher. It stretched upwards. Then the road stood in the sky and David looked down at what was below the road. He could see the treetops and the fog that ran halfway up the wall. No birds flew over the road now, and above him, only the sky lay. His legs stumbled and then strode forward. He inhaled the mountain air, and let it form into the fog before his lips. He went past the few people remaining on the road.
He clapped his hands together and received an echo that reverberated back to him. The view spread itself below him. Forest, then desert, then the Gate that surrounded Pnoaphales. Brick monoliths supported the walls. Below the Gates, brick crumbled, and time gnawed at the stone. Rambling vines crept along the sides, and green devoured rock. Each brick stacked against the other, preventing gaps, and no light streamed through.
Below them, flowers bloomed. They ran in rows that grew from the loose earth. All red and blooming. The smell of daisies and roses; the deep scents of flowers. He remembered a similar field. David had run through those fields without a beard; he ran through them without a creak; he ran through flowers and exclaimed delight into the sky; he ran on velvet across the rough; he ran with young legs. Young eyes, free of dust, he looked through.
Dust and grime crept around his eyes. A grey vignette covered them again. He shook his head, sighed, and walked with wooden joints along the wall.
Soon, the Abyss, and people decrying Laphanists and the Men Of Deer. But he saw them, he ignored them, and he continued. Not many reached the top, nor did they reach the bottom. Soldiers and generals climbed the cliffs and braved the whirling world above. None walked back. But he knew about the world above, and had journeyed before, when he'd been younger. Only now, he revisited his past with a beard.
He shivered in the cold. At any moment, the wind could blow him away, the rocks could push him down. Every joint in his body seemed to creak now.
As the seasons passed, as time scraped away at the bone, as death approached him...The Prophet had the answer. The Prophet had the answer... As he thinned, grew weary, and gasped out his last few breathes...
No, the Prophet had the answer. The Prophet had the answer.
David reached the clearings, where the sun shone upon his spotted head. Ahead of him, the road diverged into two ways. He walked to the second one, passing the tree with raised branches. Uprooted bushes, weeds, and other things, he encountered, as he followed the footprints. With that, a hill rushed down, and he looked upon a valley that lay below his feet. Underneath, the road wound into the further forest.
He turned away, walked back, passing the damaged trees and shriveled stumps. He walked onto the first path. Further footprints and wheel-tracks damaged the forest floor until mud mucked the grassy plains.
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