Post by exile on Apr 17, 2007 17:20:52 GMT -5
Most bashers haven’t an inkling that the Gatehouse’ mad Bleaker wing sits on a basement of sorts. Not even the Bleakers themselves for the most part. Sure the odd peery cutter has stumbled on to it over the years and forgotten in time. Perhaps even Lhar himself, who was wandering the forlorn halls of the Gatehouse since before he could walk.
But Hadrian knew.
He walked slowly along the narrow lane of shuttered cells. There was no point in rushing when there was no point in anything. Unhurried though he might be, every step fell with deliberation. Hadrian had a destination.
He was a comely man of Aasimar stock, with a commanding voice and handsome features. Hadrian possessed a frame that although neither particularly lithe nor muscular was sublimely sturdy and nobly proportioned. Raven black locks frame a visage almost achingly beautiful to behold. Lapis eyes gazed out from below a sorrow bent brow with a look of such fantastic mournfulness and fathomless compassion that ones heart broke in sympathy and bled in aguish to view them.
Borne carefully before him was a simple earthenware bowl from the almshouse kitchen. The roughened hands that gripped it were marked on the flesh between the forefinger and thumb with a pair of ravens, one on each. He wore a simple garment of leather and cloth, cobbled from shades of grey that rivaled the Dustmen’s robes for warmth.
Lamentations of the mad rose and fell from the chambers. He pressed onward down the hall. At the end of the wing a staircase spiraled up through the dim torch light into the ward above. Cautiously he stepped around it, for the footing was treacherous here in the shadows cast off by the sputtering brands. Set into the rear of the stone staircase, a low alcove choked with dust and cobwebs descended into darkness down narrow steps. It was not exactly hidden, but neither was it obvious, and the Bleakers were far from curious custodians.
A moment later and Hadrian was at the bottom, swallowed by the black. The interminable sound of water dropping from long forgotten pipes rang loud in his ears. He waited.
“Is that you, boy?” A dusty voice that spoke of a grave long unfilled rose out of the perpetual gloom.
“It is,” Hadrian replied, quietly marveling that the speaker yet lived. The man never spoke of himself, and Hadrian had been unable to ascertain a satisfactory identity thus far. Indeed, Hadrian was not entirely sure how the man managed to subsist on the days and oft times weeks that his duties kept him from the Gatehouse. Perhaps he starved. Perhaps he didn’t need the meager offerings Hadrian brought him at all.
“Brought me something, have you?” Hadrian could barely make out the contours of the hand stretching out to him weakly.
“I have,” he replied simply, offering up the watery stew. The bowl vanished into the darkness and there was silence. Hadrian turned to leave, but the voice halted him in his ascent.
“Boy” it said, “how did you learn?”
“How did I learn what?” he replied after a long moment, one foot still paused over the steep flight.
“How did you learn The Truth?” There was no mistaking what was intended by those words.
Hadrian exhaled sharply. He had come many times before today and never once had he been asked anything of himself, much less something like this. Curious, he turned to face the shadows and seated himself carefully on the narrow flight. For several minutes there was silence as he stared into the depths of his memories.
“I was born in Ysgard,” he offered at last, though his words were distant and distracted. “Born into the halls of the Einherjar. It matters little who my parents were, I barely knew them. What matters more is that I was different. I had sight. While the others were raised on the practice fields as soon as they could heft a blade, I was spirited away to the dark halls of the All Father.
“Beneath the stewardship of Odin’s clergy I learned the sacred mysteries and was taught how to search out more. I learned to wield magical energies as deftly as any blade, to forge them into weapons that could undo legions. I learned the art of War. And I learned these things well, I hungered for them, for I knew that my place in the planes was to stand before my kinsmen on the endless fields of battle and honor the gods with blood and victory. I knew this once, and I was a force of nature to be reckoned with in the strength of my conviction.”
The aasimar’s tone was edged now, and rose in both tempo and force as the next chapter of his story unfolded; echoing the battles that yet raged on in his thoughts.
“My unit was peerless. We smashed the enemy lines into flinders each day, earning the accolades of victory each night. The earth roiled and the sky rained fire before my rage. We were juggernauts, all, and the enemy feared us more than death. We grew heady in our success, pushing ever onwards, beyond the limits of reason and into the mouth of madness. In my hubris I began to range farther and farther from the safety of the phalanx, for I believed in my heart that I was immortal.”
“And I was right. But immortality, as I was to discover, was not a blessing. It was my unmaking. As I stormed across the fields of Ysgard I at last met my match. There was nothing glorious in this combat. I battled futilely against his might but I knew that there could be no victory that day as surely as there could be no retreat. His spear struck home, piercing my chest and crushing my lungs. I fell to my knees as I felt the life leach out of me. My blood ran cold, and I stared up at the dull grey sky. He knelt over me and closed my eyes. And there I died, alone amid the chaos.”
Hadrian was silent a long time after revealing this detail of his past. He had never felt so alone in a multiverse inhabited by so many, as he had that day. It had cut him to the core, wounding him in a manner so deep that even now he wondered if he could ever recover from it. The silence lay upon him like leaden weights, but at last he found the strength to continue.
“Like all deaths on Ysgard, mine was short lived. I awoke the next morning, mended but no longer complete. A doubt had wormed its way into my soul. A doubt that grew with each passing day, and each killing blow, and each dying breath. We fought for gods that could shape the very fabric of reality with a simple thought, but who desired nothing more than to watch our blood be spilled and commingle with that of the foe. We waged an eternal war for the sake of war alone. For you see, battles can not be decisive when the line is arbitrary.
“We pushed until we could push no more, and then they pushed until they could not either and then the land shifted beneath our very feet and all was for naught. I came to see that there were no victors and no vanquished, and beyond that, there were no foes at all. We were all blinded by the same veil, and I pitied them for the first time in my life.
“And thus I came into the halls of the All-Father once more. My spirit was broken and I was lost. And there I gazed upon him in his shrouded mysteries, and I felt his gaze upon me like an auger. You are embarking upon a journey, he spoke to me, and for an incredible moment I knew a fraction of his mind. And what’s more, I knew that he was right. For I was embarking on a journey; perhaps I had no corporeal destination ahead but my soul had long since departed Ysgard and I had to follow where it lead. I had to discover The Truth, as you so name it.
“For some the first step of the journey is the hardest to take. For me, it was the simplest. I had already taken it months and years before on the battlefield; I needed only to hear it put into words. There is no purpose, there is no destiny. There simply is, and that is all. Such is the Bleaker’s credo and I knew it the day I stepped into the Cage.”
Silence descended upon them both as they ruminated on their thoughts. The gloom was pierced only by the perpetual fall of water and the occasional wail of the mad. Hadrian began to wonder if his audience had left him to dwell on other things, but at long last came the gravelly response.
“Why do you tend to the Gatehouse, boy?”
“Why not?” Hadrian replied simply. He could feel the man’s smile in the shadows. Hadrian could have said any number of things. He could have said that after the first step came the realization that if there was no grand cosmic truth to be found without, the only real truth in life must be found within. That a path towards finding oneself lay in knowing those around you, tending to those who frittered their short lives away in pursuit of a solution to a puzzle, who’s only solution was to realize there was no puzzle at all. But he didn’t have to. The man was a Bleaker, he understood. ‘Why not?’ was not an addled remark of a diseased brain; it was the most profound truth to be told. If there was no purpose to anything, there was no reason not to live with compassion for the fellow damned.
And compassion was all that Hadrian had left to stave off the blackness now.
But Hadrian knew.
He walked slowly along the narrow lane of shuttered cells. There was no point in rushing when there was no point in anything. Unhurried though he might be, every step fell with deliberation. Hadrian had a destination.
He was a comely man of Aasimar stock, with a commanding voice and handsome features. Hadrian possessed a frame that although neither particularly lithe nor muscular was sublimely sturdy and nobly proportioned. Raven black locks frame a visage almost achingly beautiful to behold. Lapis eyes gazed out from below a sorrow bent brow with a look of such fantastic mournfulness and fathomless compassion that ones heart broke in sympathy and bled in aguish to view them.
Borne carefully before him was a simple earthenware bowl from the almshouse kitchen. The roughened hands that gripped it were marked on the flesh between the forefinger and thumb with a pair of ravens, one on each. He wore a simple garment of leather and cloth, cobbled from shades of grey that rivaled the Dustmen’s robes for warmth.
Lamentations of the mad rose and fell from the chambers. He pressed onward down the hall. At the end of the wing a staircase spiraled up through the dim torch light into the ward above. Cautiously he stepped around it, for the footing was treacherous here in the shadows cast off by the sputtering brands. Set into the rear of the stone staircase, a low alcove choked with dust and cobwebs descended into darkness down narrow steps. It was not exactly hidden, but neither was it obvious, and the Bleakers were far from curious custodians.
A moment later and Hadrian was at the bottom, swallowed by the black. The interminable sound of water dropping from long forgotten pipes rang loud in his ears. He waited.
“Is that you, boy?” A dusty voice that spoke of a grave long unfilled rose out of the perpetual gloom.
“It is,” Hadrian replied, quietly marveling that the speaker yet lived. The man never spoke of himself, and Hadrian had been unable to ascertain a satisfactory identity thus far. Indeed, Hadrian was not entirely sure how the man managed to subsist on the days and oft times weeks that his duties kept him from the Gatehouse. Perhaps he starved. Perhaps he didn’t need the meager offerings Hadrian brought him at all.
“Brought me something, have you?” Hadrian could barely make out the contours of the hand stretching out to him weakly.
“I have,” he replied simply, offering up the watery stew. The bowl vanished into the darkness and there was silence. Hadrian turned to leave, but the voice halted him in his ascent.
“Boy” it said, “how did you learn?”
“How did I learn what?” he replied after a long moment, one foot still paused over the steep flight.
“How did you learn The Truth?” There was no mistaking what was intended by those words.
Hadrian exhaled sharply. He had come many times before today and never once had he been asked anything of himself, much less something like this. Curious, he turned to face the shadows and seated himself carefully on the narrow flight. For several minutes there was silence as he stared into the depths of his memories.
“I was born in Ysgard,” he offered at last, though his words were distant and distracted. “Born into the halls of the Einherjar. It matters little who my parents were, I barely knew them. What matters more is that I was different. I had sight. While the others were raised on the practice fields as soon as they could heft a blade, I was spirited away to the dark halls of the All Father.
“Beneath the stewardship of Odin’s clergy I learned the sacred mysteries and was taught how to search out more. I learned to wield magical energies as deftly as any blade, to forge them into weapons that could undo legions. I learned the art of War. And I learned these things well, I hungered for them, for I knew that my place in the planes was to stand before my kinsmen on the endless fields of battle and honor the gods with blood and victory. I knew this once, and I was a force of nature to be reckoned with in the strength of my conviction.”
The aasimar’s tone was edged now, and rose in both tempo and force as the next chapter of his story unfolded; echoing the battles that yet raged on in his thoughts.
“My unit was peerless. We smashed the enemy lines into flinders each day, earning the accolades of victory each night. The earth roiled and the sky rained fire before my rage. We were juggernauts, all, and the enemy feared us more than death. We grew heady in our success, pushing ever onwards, beyond the limits of reason and into the mouth of madness. In my hubris I began to range farther and farther from the safety of the phalanx, for I believed in my heart that I was immortal.”
“And I was right. But immortality, as I was to discover, was not a blessing. It was my unmaking. As I stormed across the fields of Ysgard I at last met my match. There was nothing glorious in this combat. I battled futilely against his might but I knew that there could be no victory that day as surely as there could be no retreat. His spear struck home, piercing my chest and crushing my lungs. I fell to my knees as I felt the life leach out of me. My blood ran cold, and I stared up at the dull grey sky. He knelt over me and closed my eyes. And there I died, alone amid the chaos.”
Hadrian was silent a long time after revealing this detail of his past. He had never felt so alone in a multiverse inhabited by so many, as he had that day. It had cut him to the core, wounding him in a manner so deep that even now he wondered if he could ever recover from it. The silence lay upon him like leaden weights, but at last he found the strength to continue.
“Like all deaths on Ysgard, mine was short lived. I awoke the next morning, mended but no longer complete. A doubt had wormed its way into my soul. A doubt that grew with each passing day, and each killing blow, and each dying breath. We fought for gods that could shape the very fabric of reality with a simple thought, but who desired nothing more than to watch our blood be spilled and commingle with that of the foe. We waged an eternal war for the sake of war alone. For you see, battles can not be decisive when the line is arbitrary.
“We pushed until we could push no more, and then they pushed until they could not either and then the land shifted beneath our very feet and all was for naught. I came to see that there were no victors and no vanquished, and beyond that, there were no foes at all. We were all blinded by the same veil, and I pitied them for the first time in my life.
“And thus I came into the halls of the All-Father once more. My spirit was broken and I was lost. And there I gazed upon him in his shrouded mysteries, and I felt his gaze upon me like an auger. You are embarking upon a journey, he spoke to me, and for an incredible moment I knew a fraction of his mind. And what’s more, I knew that he was right. For I was embarking on a journey; perhaps I had no corporeal destination ahead but my soul had long since departed Ysgard and I had to follow where it lead. I had to discover The Truth, as you so name it.
“For some the first step of the journey is the hardest to take. For me, it was the simplest. I had already taken it months and years before on the battlefield; I needed only to hear it put into words. There is no purpose, there is no destiny. There simply is, and that is all. Such is the Bleaker’s credo and I knew it the day I stepped into the Cage.”
Silence descended upon them both as they ruminated on their thoughts. The gloom was pierced only by the perpetual fall of water and the occasional wail of the mad. Hadrian began to wonder if his audience had left him to dwell on other things, but at long last came the gravelly response.
“Why do you tend to the Gatehouse, boy?”
“Why not?” Hadrian replied simply. He could feel the man’s smile in the shadows. Hadrian could have said any number of things. He could have said that after the first step came the realization that if there was no grand cosmic truth to be found without, the only real truth in life must be found within. That a path towards finding oneself lay in knowing those around you, tending to those who frittered their short lives away in pursuit of a solution to a puzzle, who’s only solution was to realize there was no puzzle at all. But he didn’t have to. The man was a Bleaker, he understood. ‘Why not?’ was not an addled remark of a diseased brain; it was the most profound truth to be told. If there was no purpose to anything, there was no reason not to live with compassion for the fellow damned.
And compassion was all that Hadrian had left to stave off the blackness now.