Ashes of Ythril - I

[Callistus 988]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoEGsxUZ2F4

 

Of the Sun, Myths and Men

 

When Wieghard set out in pursuit of the stars, there existed not deep within him a glimpse of hope, a deep reliance on fate defiant to all reason, that he might find Truth in it all. Always had he sought to meditate upon sin, and deliberate on the conscious purpose in questioning the very query long roused by the prodigious of Mankind; he studied in fact at depth through work and expedition in a then-vain hunt for an answer, and this answer he believes now to exist high, resident far to the great sky. Whatever it is that lurked above, dwelling with neither cause or reason, provided a salvation to rend curiousity.

 

These thoughts revolved and twisted deep within his mind, but it did not suffice him to merely think or will in thought; as hope without cause or reason is an instrument of the weak, that they accoutre upon themselves in order to spurn the immortal burden of inquiry bestowed unto mortal-kind, turning their backs on the purpose of being and divinity. Mankind had always striven as a collective for holy ascent, prying at earth and stone for the next step of a path into evolution; but so deep buried was this principle beneath varying and ludicrous ideals of political purpose and blood-based heirdom that the rest of Man will never hold witness. For their self-given designation of a cultural and communal species, Mankind had forbidden themselves the primitive visions, and instead allowed it better hidden into the pinnacle led unto by all prior processions of evolution, lying unseen through the name of a monarchy or sovereignty, whose constituents – in light of that knowledge – assumed themselves the trial of fulfilling this primordial purpose, and in so doing representing to cosmical ascension the salvation sought by a downtrodden Mankind. 

 

This foolish and unwitting reliance the race of Mankind had allowed their higher authorities, by nature, proscribed into them an eternal curse spoken of within the heavens as frivolity; frivolity and cowardice, and sets them in likeness not far from the idiotic and specious colonies of ants and insects, which do not prize selfhood or purpose but rely blindly on a fragile chain of command. Unlike ants and insects, however, this curse, touched upon throughout time by the philospohers and undaunted, is now incorruptible and chronic, too far rooted, that all Mankind can do at its face is prostrate and cower, as befits those alike cattle.

These debates of profound gravity had long since risen and verged into the mind of this astrologer, who, willing to pry at the matter in greater length, ventured decisively upon cosmic pilgrim, hoping thence to witness with his own eye this revelation, or concept, or psychaedical sensation that since birth had conducted into him these guiding whispers of starlight, and in beckons that shall later prove to him an imminent demise... all within a tomb of fateful madness, from which there can be no flight or escape.

 

 

This procedural rite ensued with no apparent deviation, for now the cold stone altar was lit by inscriptions not only withdrawn from meaning, but wholly abolished from all historic account (possibly even through the age of archaic blood sorceries and the rise of the first to meddle in blood). The altar consisted of etchings and hieroglyphics that owe no kinship in fact to any known bygone culture, least of all the civilities of Man, for there did not even derive from these patterns and symbols any meaning to the watchful eye, bar perhaps to older creations possibly predating of our existence, or our survival into whole-fledged civilizations. But in now deciding final verdict and seeking closure into this sacred ritual, the Astrologer had sown the circle in ash and ground basal coal (teased from the decrepit bone of a mentor) and began there to recite by memory word and vowel of an old conjurative speech, which patterned more after a force than mere vocal resonance, as though a dormant and inexplicable spiritual strength poured from the deep in order to invoke a medium that shall conduct him passage, or perhaps in a sacrificial offering or barter of the Soul that few had ever dared venture upon. It was not long before this far-flung cosm reposed to abridge the great exodus, thus tearing to ribbon that mortal veil which served to protect the plane from these very cataclysms and ruins that are apt in their own right to plunge the earth into ruin, and so usher a  coming age of vast and consummate darkness.

 

 

“Oh Vyrghan, of the Untrodden Land

By what right do you lure this curious monoculus?

An eye pinched, a soul bent, but the heart does not cower.”

 

Nothing followed there but the dark, and the fool who blindly wandered its depth without guidance by light. The heavens hence coalesced in blood, and the ashes of the land were as that of graven bone, reminiscent to Mordskov and the tragedies that plunged its pale city into great waste and ruin. The Astrologer had an epiphany; for the ashes of Ythril are unlike the ashes of other land, and the adage thus inscribed resonated deep within his mind, one wearied to great lengths by the contractions through time. 

 

“The ashes of Ythril are unlike the ashes of other land, where the Sun and Moon are conjoined by sacrament of hand”.

 

And the saying rang true; for what he once thought of ash in the desert was indeed a vestige of testimony to fallen planes and extinguished stars, whereas the hills and mountains were once moons, perished to exodus and half-buried beneath the scapes of the land. The Astrologer now had only the stars to seek for guidance, and so by path of the constellations known by heart he sought to venture east, where supposedly stood the Ruined City of Saints, and the Crypt of Suns that lies deep within.

Only death now stands the path.