The Shadow of Issu

The Dawn of Ictha

The scent of blood and ash mix thick in the winds. The sun plummets the sky into a sanguine canvas of silence and gloom, a deep and haunting silence, for not even birds, nor any animal, was heard anywhere from miles and miles away. There is but the gray of the mountains and the dark hue of red that stains the sword and spears that come by the hundreds, littering the ground in an ocean of blades, as if a war had subsided, a great and terrible one. What this land brings is hopeless enough to madden a person, even to the point of death. For what scene has become of such desolation, it is impossible for a man to avert his ears from the sweet voice in one’s head that calls to end the suffering.

He stood upon a dilapidation, the tower that lay in the middle of a city. Collapsing it seemed, but what had happened here was beyond what any mind could imagine. For forty sunless nights, the monk had been led by this pillar of fire, and from it, came the silhouette of giants that made its advance towards this traversal. They had come before him.

There is but one destination—The Cauldron that burns in the center of Issu.

His journey spanned that of two years, but it had already seemed several hundreds. Had it only been just days? Or has the moon played tricks on him? After the forty sunless days, it seemed time had no longer followed the rules of this world. When he looks up to see the line of which divides the night and the day, the sun had not actually risen. And when he could have sworn it were the hours of midday, night shrouds upon the lands for countless more. Then it never ends, not one soul to tell him why. A long dark comes again, this time longer than forty days, where the sun returns only to show itself for a few brief moments of passing. Too brief.

 He had hoped to finally see the god whom promise he shall fulfill. A promise that begets a thing. A thing many cannot see, and even fewer know. A thing that only allows itself to be found, by one who is truly fated to find it. Yes. This journey was all but a gamble. With odds as impossible as this land’s restoration.

The monk wished only nothing but to see his own journey through. It was his pilgrimage, or perhaps an act of absolution.

The monument looked over the city. Despite a dozen towers that litter the landscape, it was built from beside a great lake that faced far west. The color of dying light reflected on its surface as the sun sets over the many faces of the mountains that circle around the valley. The silent lake’s ripples danced with unreal flames, as it almost seemed like it was on fire. He treads forward atop the crumbling stairs, then he stumbles, his right ankle now bent to a weird angle. His face pale with fatigue and his elbows black with dirt. He gasped, breathing in the ash that choked the air in a gray miasma.

Why, he asks, his gaze towards the sky. Is it not here? Is it not here that God lives?