Illustration (c) Romeo Esparrago
Madmen know. They shout it in the streets and in the fields but go unnoticed. Those dying know. They whisper it with their last breath but no one understands. The dead know. They touch the living in warning, passing silently over what were once their homes, yet go unheeded. And I know, though I no longer bother to tell anyone. I will tell you, though I do not do so in warning for it is already too late. I tell you more out of a desire to understand what has become of our world; what has become of me.
It began years ago, in the silence of man’s ignorance. Warroks, they are known as. They were once men, fools who dabbled in what they did not understand. They were the first to see that essence of our existence, that whisper of magic which lives within our world and all things upon it. When understanding came, they began to leech it from the earth, living on it as man lives on bread, ravaging it until it became as rare as the life it once sustained. It is the reason for our existence, and our end.
I have run from them since I was a boy. I remember a late morning not long ago, standing in a forest. They had been closing on me lately, though I still could not understand what they wanted of me. Weeping branches hung above, lifeless forms reaching down with their cold touch. Cadavers of wood littered the rise of ground, limbs frozen by death in a last futile gasp for light. A smell of putrefying wood wrinkled my nose; one can become used to the decay when constantly faced with it. Amid a swirling mist that gave life to the decomposed, I barely noticed it anymore.
A forest stream ran through the birthing bog, gurgling with pity for the death of the land. I knelt before it and, throwing back my hood, careful not to wet the ends of my cloak, I splashed my face, enjoying the coolness and sharpness of life for I was alive. I stared at my reflection then, its form broken in the foraging water. Amon Rush is my name, though I no longer recognise the man that goes with it; black eyes set within a pale face, hair and beard rusty red as the mulching leaves at my feet. A thinner form that has lost its youth, though I am no more than twenty five.
For as long as I remember I have run from them and their hunger, wandered through the dying lands in search of peace, for hope is too much to ask for. I had wandered into a valley in the Arfael region that day, somewhere in the Northlands. I had hoped I might find a place to rest for the night, for forest land offers neither food nor shelter anymore.
Posted by planetmagazine 