It’s been nine months since this series went on hiatus. However, I received a request from the artist of this work to attempt another story based on it. I couldn’t resist, of course. Would I still have the chops? Would I be able to come up with something interesting? Yes and no. It took me some time during the series to accept that not every story would be great. The constraints of time and word count and just lack of inspiration could all work against me.
The interesting thing about this story is the concept hit me pretty quickly, but that concept changed over the course of the story. I think it’s possible to return it to the original inspiration, but should I? I’ve always said that I feel it’s important to keep the core of the story in tact, even after an editing pass down the line. Maybe I’m more drawn to a flawed character, battling an internal struggle than I am to someone who is manipulating the reader to a degree, or his demeanor doesn’t match his nature. I’m not sure.
I think there are other powerful things said here by not following the original inspiration. It’s about a man battling his duty, his morals not matching what must be done. But it’s also about a young boy who has accepted his grim fat, despite being so young. We normally think of youth as rebellious, trying to change the past and blaze a new future. So maybe the irony there works. Anyway, the story is done (for now).
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
This was the worst part, Juran had found. Their thin skin, frail limbs, and emotionless eyes. Looking older than the snow-capped structures they sat among. Places of worship. Living quarters. Staircases leading to both. Men and women alike, though not as they should be. No conversation or song. No holding of hands. No resting upon shoulders or bosoms for comfort. For closeness.
This wasn’t living. But live, they did. In the shadow of a great riddle writ by the old gods, shaped, well, like a colossal mushroom, rising from the stone impossibly above him and them. Juran had spotted many just like it on his journey here, albeit miniature, clustered on the forest floor as if foreshadowing his destination.
He made sure to clean where they had touched his cloak and boots, so their spores would perish in the ice and cold. The temple could not be sullied.
He looked at his boots now. The mud there. Some dry. Some wet. How much of that would be sacrilege? He had no time to ponder further.
As he pressed on, a boy appeared the bottom of the great staircase. Curiosity cocked his head like an animal. He sniffed the air like one, too, then padded on all fours, keeping to the purple shadows that grew across the cobbles and slush.
Juran took one step forward, and the boy dashed into the sun. Juran’s hand went to his belt dagger and immediately regretted granting a sliver of steel a glimpse of sun, and the boy a glimpse of it. The child showed the whites of his eyes. Innocence and fear intermingled. Yet, he did not flee. Nor did he flinch when the click of hilt to scabbard made voice. He merely grasped Juran’s forward boot and pounded his fist upon the leather.
“Get off!” the boy shouted. “Off, off, off!”
Feet crunched in snow as the disciples gathered around them both, keeping their distance, of course, which Juran never liked. He was nothing special. He would break bread with them, have conversation with them, if they allowed.
“Off, I say!” The boy had split the leather with a rock, which he hammered on Juran’s ankle.
“All right boy,” Juran said. “Calm yourself. I mean you no harm.”
Sobs consumed the boy. “Then move.”
Juran stepped back, and the disciples recoiled into hoods and alleyways.
The boy sat back on his heels with a look of defeat, a look that should not grace one so young, and it whittled at Juran’s ribs.
“For whatever I’ve done,” Juran said, “I am sorry.”
The boy rocked forward and back with cupped hands into which he peered intently. “You killed him. My friend.”
“Whoever your friend is, I assure you, I meant no harm.”
The boy sniffled. “‘All things must end. All things must bury. Star to stone we are. ‘Neath the shadow we must be ferried.'”
Juran had heard this prayer many times and in many places just like this one. Though never from the mouth of a child, for children were not made for this place. These places.
“Who is this child’s mother?” Juran asked anyone who would answer. The solemn note of a breeze was his only response because they all had fled. All but the boy.
“I have no mother,” the boy said.
“Every boy has a mother.”
“Not me. Not him.” He flattened his hand to show Juran what lay there. A snow-blue beetle, crushed.
“Your friend?”
The boy nodded.
“Perhaps we bury him together?”
The boy nodded again.
Juran led him to a square of soil free of ice behind an abandoned hovel. “Here. Look, even a sprout grows. He shall nourish it.”
“Flowers eat bugs?”
“Yes. And–” Juran thought better of finishing.
“Fine.” The boy made a fist-sized grave and placed the beetle in it before covering it up. He lay a single stone on top.
“Fine, indeed,” Juran said, then stood, the sun already coasting past midday, which meant he was running out of time.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“A priest.”
“You don’t look like a priest.”
“What does a priest look like?”
“Not like you.”
“You’ll have to trust me then.”
The boy only offered a sidelong glance. Then: “Can I come with you?”
“With me?”
“To summon the flame.”
A chill not born of ice nested inside Juran. “You may not.”
“Why?”
“It is not for the eyes of children.”
“I am no child.”
A scoff Juran could not find, so he set off to the base of the temple, his destination, where great pillars supported an entrance blacker than night, tall as a giant. Quiet here. Colder.
He turned to find the boy carefully stepping in his footprints behind him. An animal he was. Clever, but an animal nonetheless, he told himself.
“Go on, then,” Juran said and held out the igniting stone, cupped it in both hands.
The boy took the offering and went to the entrance mouth and cast it inside. Echoes of stardust and a warmth you could hear turned Juran on his heel and sent him to the temple outskirts.
Breathless, the boy caught up to him. “Thank you.”
Juran put his hand on his dagger in case the boy tried to breach the temple boundary. Only one foot had, which the boy noticed and pulled it back across the threshold. No dead beetle there, just pure white snow.
He left the boy without answering, because no answer would be good enough, and didn’t face the temple again until he had crossed the frozen river that encircled it.
The funnel-like temple looked less like a mushroom now and more like a great wave ready to crash upon those below it. The old ones. The young one, whose stare traversed that distance to Juran as an arrow might.
The entrance between the pillars grew hot and red. The earth shuddered deep and fierce.
This was the best part, Juran told himself. As he always did. This was the best part.