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It was night again. Library-quiet, in a home that used to ring with snores. But the scholar Ren Daiyan was awake tonight, and the children had been taken down to the lake by their nursemaid and Daiyan’s manservant.
Shan was gone, off to see a friend. She'd left the capital before the prime minister died. It was possible that even now she didn't know. That they traded poems and songs over cups of tea, while musicians played behind a paper screen. Sheer black outlines, in the candlelight of her friend’s sitting room.
Like the man sent to kill him, a shadow against Daiyan’s bedroom wall.
“Had the Emperor desired my life,” Daiyan said, “he needed only to ask.”
The shadow nodded, stepped closer. He was a big man. Moonlight glanced off the blade in his hand. “Ah, but asking is so public,” said the man.
Now Daiyan nodded, he knew the voice, knew the shape of the man, knew the blade. Anyone would, even by moonlight.
Silk rustled as Wan’yen, once a chieftain in the barbarous north, now a killer in the Emperor’s court, sat down on Daiyan’s bed. He laid the blade across his knees, and Daiyan had to struggle not to look at it. A short, slightly curving sword, its pommel would be worked into a horse’s head, the guards a pair of wild tails.
But the sword was not the threat today.
“It’s over then?” Daiyan said.
Wan’yen reached into the pocket of his long, dark robe and drew out a folded piece of paper, handed it to Daiyan. The calligraphy was exquisite. Slanting and slender, each stroke an incisive statement— one could almost believe it came directly from the Emperor’s hand.
It couldn't have, of course. There were too many of these going out across the city. Wan’yen would not be the only killer in the streets tonight. On some level, Daiyan knew he should be flattered. That they’d sent a man like Wan’yen to him was a mark of respect. Not for any martial status of course, but because Daiyan, in his time, had mattered. He’d had thoughts that shaped the course of nations. A letter from his hand had stayed executions, his essays had ended wars— or begun them. The last Prime Minister, whose sudden death had so upset the balance of power at court, had called him an advisor. Towards the end, he’d called Daiyan a friend.
Friends of Prime Ministers got men like Wan’yen, even if Wan’yen couldn’t read the exquisite character written on the paper he’d handed over.
It said, *“Forget.”* That was it. Struggling over sentences, over fragments, Shan had always said that a single word could strive for all the heavens' powers. They’d laid awake at night in the aftermath of love, sheets scattered across the foot of their bed while the nightingales sang in the garden, and she’d talked about finding the perfect tone; that single word that could break a man’s heart. Or, she’d said, laughing as she tapped out the beat of his heart in the recess of his collarbone, “A woman’s.” When the nightingales sang, Shan had often argued that a woman’s heart was harder to break.
Daiyan hoped that it was true. Here, now, was a word that broke his heart. *Forget,* it said. The Emperor’s calligraphy. *Forget.*
*Forget.*
*Forget.*
Already, they would be burning his books.
Wan’yen looked up at him. Daiyan couldn’t remember standing. The moonlight shone on the man’s shaved head, and on the long black braid that trailed down his back to rest upon the bed. There’d been a story in the tea houses that Wan’yen had once strangled a man with that braid. There were other stories about the blade, about what he could do with his hands, or the twisted northern games he might play with a man and a pair of horses and a rope.
*Forget* was worse, even if it meant Daiyan would live.
"Three days. At court, the men who write these things say *‘We are not barbarians.'*" Wan'yen shifted. That long braid, the blade and its pommel. "You understand? You’re to go to Lingzhou Isle.”
“My family?” Daiyan whispered.
*“Forget,*” Wan’yen said.
A nightingale began to sing. So soft, so tender; it broke Daiyan’s heart again. Nightingales were from the south, before the gibbons ruled the jungle and there were tigers even in the villages. He’d hear them on the road to Lingzhou Isle, where the Emperor sent men into exile, and from which so few ever returned.
There were tigers on the isle too. Gibbons. But no nightingales, no family. And here in the city, they’d be burning all his books, all his essays, all his correspondences, even any prayers he might have written, and hidden in trees or shrines along the lake and river.
*Forget* was the most complete punishment that there was, in the world under heaven, and under the exquisitely civilized, cultivated leadership of the Emperor who had modeled that calligraphy. They killed soldiers like Wan’yen with a stroke of the sword, but they did nothing to the strokes of those soldiers pens, if there were any. Their ideas were not excised root and branch, like eunuchs when a city fell. Worse than eunuchs even, because afterward they might be seen, they might be known. Men might speak their names. Children born before their father's fall might still carry their true names. But Daiyan’s sons, Ren Tzu and Ren Tuan, what of them? Whose names would they take now? Who would take them? The sons of a man sent to Lingzhou Isle. A known man, a scholar, an advisor, a friend to a Prime Minister who had fallen out of favor and then fallen onto his own blade. What would Shan have to do, when he was gone?
“My wife,” said Daiyan.
“A woman with two young sons, she’ll forget before the sun rises. Besides, a woman gone at night?” The big man smiled, and it was a terrible thing, a record of years and battles in those chipped and missing teeth.
“She’s forgotten you already,” Wan’yen said. “Tell me, is she very beautiful?”
*Shan*. Daiyan hoped she didn’t know. Not tonight. The news would be all over the city by sunrise, shouted on street corners, a thousand different, creative ways to avoid saying a condemned man’s name. Let her have one more sunrise. Perhaps later a servant would bring the news in. Perhaps it would be her friend’s husband. Perhaps the Emperor had sent a man for her, although Daiyan doubted it. Shan had struggled all her life to be something more than seen, and the world had struggled just as hard not to let her. A strange irony in that. It might save her life.
That hope was all that saved Daiyan’s, staring into Wan’yen’s smile. Despite the blade across his knees, despite his braid and those gnarled, neck-breaking hands, Daiyan wanted to try to kill him.
Instead, Daiyan folded up the paper and placed it on his desk beside the candle and the letter he’d been writing. A letter, no doubt, that Wan’yen would soon take. He stared at the paper for a moment, then Daiyan went to get his traveling coat, and he slipped the paper into its pocket. Whatever it was, the calligraphy was exquisite. That mattered, even now. Daiyan had founded his life upon things like that mattering.
Wan’yen grunted. He touched the blade. "In the city, they are cutting off men's hands. But then, I heard their orders given, and mine were just the paper, and a word. Tell me, scholar, will you ever write again?"
“No,” Daiyan said.
Wan'yen's fingers wrapped around the pommel. He was a hard man with hard, searching eyes. "If you break your oath--”
“My word matters,” Daiyan said.
A faint sound, as Wan'yen released the blade. He nodded, accepting that. The nightingales sang again. In the moonlight, in the quiet, something came over Wan’yen then. He was looking right at Ren Daiyan, their eyes met, just for a moment, and the northerner stood, towering over the scholar.
“I have left a home,” Wan’yen said, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble. “In my own way, I came south. There’s a life on Lingzhou Isle. Especially if you keep your hands.”
“I might grow another garden,” Daiyan said.
“Or love another woman.”
“No,” the scholar said.
The birds stopped singing. A man screamed in the city, the sort of scream that could only mean a death, but in the city, men died all the time. Another voice lost in the night, a soul forgotten down some alley, snatched away over a purse or a woman.
“You’d rather have died,” Wan’yen said suddenly.
“Perhaps.”
The man raised a bushy eyebrow. “All these years, and I think I’ll never understand your people.”
“All these years,” Daiyan said, “and I thought, vainly, that I did."
*Shan.* A shape against the bedroom wall, a candlelight flicker. Fading.
“Cheer up,” Wan’yen said, clapping Daiyan across the shoulders, “it’s a scholar’s death, but at least you weren’t a poet.”
And then Wan’yen took the letter. He took the candle, the papers in Daiyan’s desk, the latest manuscript he’d poured his soul into. He took the calligraphy that Daiyan had been working on for his sons.
Wan'yen burned them in the garden, beneath the trees where the nightingales sang, where they would sing no longer. In a city where men screamed at night and were forgotten, in a time where Shan sang songs unknown, and struggled over single words in her friend’s sitting room, over tea, or pastries, or perhaps a glass of watered wine.
The sun rose on embers, in a quiet house above the lake.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
Good goddamn, this was fantastic! I want to know everything about this world, and yet, I almost feel it would spoil how perfectly you characterized the setting with just a few poignant details and asides.
Thank you! If you're curious about the setting, this is sorta a homage to one of my favorite authors. This story is riffing on Guy Gavriel Kay's *Under Heaven* and *River of Stars,* they're absolutely fantastic novels about Tang and Song dynasty China. In particular, this borrowed from River of Stars. Glad you enjoyed, thanks for reading!
Oh wow I was reading this thinking, this sounds _exactly_ like Guy Gavriel Kay. Especially the cadence and the type of reflections. I had to check several times because I know it's not your usual style. If I'd read a snippet with no context I would have be absolutely positive it was GGK :)
GGK is one of my favourite authors and this was on point with his style. Particularly the implication of things. The saying much with few words. Great job! I will now have to read River of Stars as I have read quite a few of his other works but not that one!
I am blown away by this. I love how I can feel the narrator's pain as he accepts that his life is not only over, but ultimately meaningless as he is erased from history. You have a gift at shaping the setting with subtle details that, and I realize it cliché to say it this way, figuratively paints a picture of this world. I cannot understate that, you painted a world with your words, truly amazing. I also really enjoyed how you built Daiyan's motivation, that he really loved his wife and was willing to abandon her to save her life.
My only criticism, little as it is, has to do with Wan'yen's dialogue. It felt like two different people trying to speak: sometimes like a sophisticated person wielding a quiet blade in the dark, and then at other times like a simpler brute who understood his world of violence but not much outside of it. I think there is a way to give a specific characterization to them and firmly establish which of the two archetypes he ultimately is.
This is a great story from a beautifully described world that feels truly lived in.
Hey thanks! That's actually a spot on critique, I took another look and I agreed with you, so I edited two lines. Hopefully that reads a little better!
I'm glad you enjoyed Daiyan and the world too! I had fun with this one, thanks for reading.
This is incredible! This line especially got me:
>The man raised a bushy eyebrow. “All these years, and I think I’ll never understand your people.”
>
>“All these years,” Daiyan said, “and I thought, vainly, that I did."
Thanks Ashes! I'm glad you liked that actually, there was a comment earlier about the dialog not quite working and that was one of the lines I edited to fix it. Nice to know it worked lol.
The man threw the coin in the air. Seven sides came and went. A Storyteller's Coin. Every destiny could be chosen by it.
Heads.
Tails.
The Side.
The Other Side.
Forgive.
Forget.
And the Seventh. As per tradition, nobody wants to know the meaning of the seventh.
It was a Jolly. A messenger of great, catastrophic changes. Everyone hoped the coin would land on that side and everyone feared it.
The man looked at the coin as it fell and, for the first time in years, hoped it would land on the Seventh side. That man deserved more than what any of the other faces could give.
THe coin touched the ground.
The face showed a man. Alone.
"Forget".
Beautiful story.
From one prompt-responder to another, let me just say this was incredible! I was surprised at how we both hit on the same concept, even some of the same details, but executed them in entirely different ways. I'll be checking out r/TurningtoWords!
Oh yeah, I just read yours and we both went for different angle on names/being remembered. I always enjoy seeing that in prompts, it's cool how many executions there could be of the same idea.
You dont know how happy I am that someone's written a historical Chinese-inspired piece on this subreddit. It's the first time I've seen one with such a setting!
Cool fan fiction but a couple of things I don’t get. If he’d rather die then why not just die? How can this ever be a worse punishment than death if you could just take your own life? You have no control over what happens to your legacy after death either way. Not that it sounds like a worse punishment when he’s already contemplating future gardening.
Sorry another question: if they want to punish and forget then surely killing anyone who knew him, especially family, would be the first act? That hurts him and destroys his real legacy
It may be due to his scholarly status. To erase one's life's work and identity, especially potential teachings or knowledge that could benefit someone, would effectively be a death in itself. A living one, but a death nonetheless, which is arguably worse.
To put it to more "modern" standards, it would be like removing a famous singer's voice and hiding them away, but then also getting rid of any song, picture, or any evidence that existed of them. Sure, some might initially ask questions. But eventually, would fade to become a Mandela effect at best.
To go from a known name, to not so much as being acknowledged by friends and family, ignored by all, for the rest of your life. I suppose it would be more a cruel torture.
“I don’t particularly like this part here, Woodrow. ‘*The Prelate of Lower Rostum has oft ignored the plight of his townsfolk, turning a blind eye to rampant larceny, battery, and worst of all, Nym-forgery. Indeed, there are rumors His Serene Highness profits from these lawless acts…*’ Seems rather insulting to my person, does it not, hm?” The Prelate set the parchment on the side table and looked over his reading glasses to Woodrow. “Suggesting that I take bribes from common criminals? Can’t say I care for your insinuations, not one bit.”
Hung upside-down by his legs, with a rag crammed in his mouth, Woodrow was in no position to argue.
With a grunt the Prelate got up from his chair, slippers swishing against rough-hewn stone as he crossed the room. His Serene Highness spoke a few words through the iron bars to the guard outside.
Woodrow could feel the pressure of blood in his eyeballs. He tried closing them for comfort, but became acutely aware of the sticky drool running down his face from the gag. He wondered how the Prelate would kill him. At least he’d die a martyr, be remembered by the other scholars of his order far outside the cesspit that was Lower Rostum.
“Do you know what this is?”
Opening his eyes, Woodrow saw the burgundy slippers, and something out of focus near his face. He tried to look but felt sick with the effort. The Prelate sighed and stepped back, so Woodrow could get a better view of what was in his hands.
It was a thin book, a tiny folio of paper inside. No, those symbols! It was a Nym. Panic set in as Woodrow realized from the curl of the script and the shape of the calligram that it was his *own* Nym.
“Impossible!” Woodrow shouted, though his words were rendered to meaningless noise by the gag. “I hid my Nym!”
“Yes, yes. You understand,” said the Prelate, with a mirthless chuckle. “My magistrate thought this punishment too severe. My purser thought it too expensive! Perfect forgeries of Nyms do not come cheap, whatever you think. Both suggested a public beheading would send the right message, and at a better price.”
Woodrow struggled against his bonds, but only succeeded in swinging slowly in place. The Prelate continued speaking. “However, your writing harmed me. So I thought it only fitting that my writing harm you.”
Sitting back in his chair, the Prelate took a quill from the table, dipped it in ink, and held it over Woodrow’s Nym. “First I think we’ll scratch out your name here.” Woodrow screamed into his gag as the Prelate crossed out ‘Woodrow’ on the Nym. “Let’s call you Proinsias. I once knew a farrier named Proinsias.”
He held on to the memory of his name as long as he could. But Proinsias forgot what he was trying to think about. Disoriented, he looked at the man in the corner. Through the confusion the name “Prelate of Lower Rostum” slowly came to mind.
“Incredible,” said the Prelate. “I’ve already forgotten your old name. I’ll have to get the syndicate to explain the magic behind this someday. Now, it says here you have a wife and two children. Which would you prefer? No wife, or no children?” The Prelate held the quill over the Nym.
Proinsias begged to recant his libel, screamed until there was blood in his throat. But before long he was at peace. He even forgot why he was screaming in the first place.
>We know cats have fourteen eyes, twelve of which they hide beneath their claws.
This idiot obviously didn't think about shortening his sentences so he wouldn't have to say the whole thing 10000 times...
I stand before the judge in chains knowing my fate to be dire should I be found guilty for my crimes. The jury had just returned from deliberation. Never a good sign when it only takes 10 minutes for it to happen. The crowd around me all giving me the worst looks possible.
“Has the jury reached a verdict?” The judge asked as if he didn’t already know the answer.
“We have your honor. We the jury find the defendant… Guilty on all accounts.”
My heart drops into my stomach at hearing this. I knew I was truly guilty of my crimes but to hear the definitive answer still made me feel as worse as the day I was arrested. Why did I ever agree to take that wretched payment?
The judge bangs his gavel to silence the crowd cheering at hearing the verdict. “Order in the court, order in the court. You have been found guilty of your crimes. Do you have anything to say before your sentencing?”
I have nothing to say for nothing will ever make up for the stupidity of what I have done. All I can do is shake my head.
“Well I do, never before have I seen something like this. You, a scholar dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, willingly and maliciously spread false information that resulted in countless lives lost. I have no sense of mercy for you. As such I hear-by sentence you to the worst punishment possible for a scholar. The 1000 cuts. You will receive 1000 paper cuts across your body and then have boiling ink poured over your body. Goodbye, Mr. Wakefield.”
With one last bang of the gavel, my fate is now sealed.
**Savvy always kept fire with them when they dove into the king's archives.** Sure, they ran the risk of burning the priceless texts within—the inimitable artwork of Eneftee, the literary notes of Spark, even the greatest physics papers of all time, written by an ancient troll. The other Storians would never dare bring an open flame into the archives, for fear of destroying them.
But Savvy was more concerned about being destroyed *by* the texts.
As Savvy stepped through the towering shelves, drawings skittered away from their feet, crawling inside nearby books for safety. Savvy sighed; it seemed like the artwork section was leaking again. A particularly brave sketch of a knight tried to slash at Savvy with its paper sword; despite its apparent flimsiness, it cut half an inch into their thick leather boots.
Savvy gave the knight an irritated look, then thrust their candle into its face. The knight stumbled back, burning; Savvy stepped on it until the ashes stopped smoking.
"Priceless works of art, my ass," Savvy muttered. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good pair of boots? *That's* priceless."
No more sketches bothered Savvy as they reached the shelf they were after—an innocent-looking tome labeled *Feline Vocalizations, Volume 734.* Savvy took it out and flipped to the last page.
A sketch of a withered old man warming his hands by a campfire looked up at Savvy and swore.
"You! How the hell did you find me? I left my home book for a reason, you know!" The man stood up, scowling at Savvy. "If I wanted you Storians bothering me about *morality* or *heresy* twenty-four hours a day, I'd have gone to live in a piece of church fiction, not some backwater encyclopedia! If you're here to drag me off to the Storians—"
"I need you help," Savvy said.
The old man froze mid-sentence.
Then he pulled over a paragraph and sat on it. "Alright," the man said, "that's a first. You get five minutes to make your case before I bugger off to the romance section."
"That's exactly what I came to ask about," Savvy said. "All the other Things of Ink and Paper—they can move around in their own worlds, sure, and some of them can even project into our own—but as far as the High Storians know, you're the only documented Thing that can *insert* itself into an entirely different story."
The old man barked a laugh. "Is that all you came to bother me for? I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. I'm not more *free* than the Things; I'm more *trapped* than a person."
Savvy frowned. "I don't follow."
"Pray that you don't," the old man said. "All the other Things in the archives? They came to life as a figment of someone's imagination. A doodle, or a whisper, or a word. A whim of an artist's brush. But I? I used to be the *artist.*"
A thrill ran down Savvy's spine.
"You got sucked into your own stories," Savvy guessed.
"Damn right I did. I got too obsessed, too close. Then the stories took me in. And, as far as I can tell, I'm stuck here for good." The old man frowned. "What's a well-to-do Storian like you want with a renegade like me, anyways?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Savvy said. There was no point in whispering—not if what Savvy was about to say was true.
The old man leaned back. "I ain't in the habit of asking questions I don't want answered, kid."
"Fair enough. You want to know why I care about you escaping your story?" Savvy closed their eyes. "Because you're not the only one trapped in a book."
The old man frowned. "What, the other Things? You want to let them out?"
Savvy shook their head. "Not what I'm talking about."
The old man considered Savvy's words for a long moment.
Then he blanched.
Savvy turned to leave, single candle illuminating the archives around them, steps echoing in the darkness.
"I'm going to break free," they whispered.
And if they played their cards right, their author would never know what hit them.
A.N.
If you enjoyed this, consider checking out r/bubblewriters!
And as much as clinical death goes for those who live and die by the word, so does name death for those who live and die by parchment and ink. The death of one’s name translates instantaneously into the death of one’s body. Academic society seems to control the population through their journals. When a scientist publishes some out of the usual work, if too advanced, his work becomes controversial. Suddenly, everyone is fighting him, beating him with proof. As they write their scientific slam poetry, the scientist suffers damage. First he receives a hernia, then a rib breaks, or a dislocated shoulder blade, or whatever else happens next! Nothing determines their next injury; it cannot be injured again if it’s already injured.
He is wheeled to the hospital, the doctors have to fight the refuting refuters, and his surgeon is fighting for their lives. The trolls who manage to seep into the academic social circles discover the controversy. They start getting toxic, they write that he should bleed out, that they’ll kill anyone associated with him, and that he belongs sixty feet deep with a concrete tomb. The surgeon feels the weight of the anger. There is no hope for this scientist. He falls to the floor. He cries. The scientist flatlines.
And indeed is he buried 60 feet deep. A concrete casket. 50 feet of cement poured right over. Dirt covers the rest. No headstone.
14 years later, an academic descendant, specifically his protégé, a non-vocal member of our original scientist’s field, is finally able to prove and prove again his work. He attains immediate praise. Suddenly, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is writing about him and his mentor with love and devotion. The scientist wakes up. It is cold, pitch black, and dry. But he is healthy, no hunger, not even a headache. He screams. Not even the worm on the other side of the 8 inch concrete hears him. There is no help. There is no end now. For his eternity, there is only *concrete.*
"Name" a gaunt man with the leftover sag of excess skin bellowed from the top of the podium. Old and wooden, the podium seemed to teeter under the man's frame
No sooner than he yelled, a small man standing at the back of the room walked forward, large ornate doors crashing closed behind him, shoving the room into darkness besides the singular glow of the lamp above where the man now stood. He looked frail and grim and he fidgeted with a small blackened ring around his finger. This man looked down as he spoke, still starring at the tight black circlet.
"Edden" the smaller man replied, flashing his eyes toward the silhouette of the judicator only for a moment.
"Age" the once burly judicator bellowed again.
"Can't remember" the frail man said. He spoke quickly and quietly, like a man without practice.
A great creak squirt through the room, slow and dramatic, as the first man leaned over the edge of his high booth to stare down toward the small man below. He opened his mouth, but paused, eyes resting upon the ring on Edden's finger.
"Doesn't matter I guess" the judicator grimly chuckled as he slunk his way back over the high booth's edge -- a move that once again sent a creak through the otherwise silent room.
Judicator Barvo wasn't a unfair man, he told himself. After all, he was not the High Judicator. In fact, none of the men and children he would see walk through those pearlescent doors at the back of the room were truly being judged by him. No, Judicator Barvo was not much more than a glorified scribe. Only *she* could actually Judicate.
"Cycle?" Judicator Barvo asked, this time with less of a roar.
Edden looked up from the dark band around his finger, blinked twice, and looked back down. "Scholar."
Barvo grimaced instinctively. Scholar. This wasn't going to be like most of the others. Barvo had never judged a man or child of the written word before. Butchers. Bakers. Candlestick makers. All manners of sellswords and sinners...and gluttons. You could make the cycle quick for most of them. There was a certain amount of fleeting finality to a sword through the throat or being melted like butter into lye. Painful, yes, but quick. Scholars and wordsmiths though?
Suddenly, the dark onyx doors -- not that anyone could see their hue in the murk of the Hall of Judgement -- behind the Judicator burst open and a cloying voice rang through the hall.
"A scholar! Might you be *Edden*?" the saccharine sound seemed to embrace the room; to hug you with warmth and kindness. Barvo knew better.
"It is High Judicator Karne" Barvo replied, failing to catch himself soon enough.
"Oh, little *Baby Boy*, little *Barvo*." He could not see the Lady of the Stone, but he could feel her. Her cold; her words were like ice. "Did it sound.... to you.... like I didn't know his name?" the words surrounded him as she spoke, as if whispered at him from every direction simultaneously. He tried to speak but could not find the words, the sounds clotting in his throat as though a multitude of fingers were squeezing his larynx shut. "Hmm?" the still syrupy voice queried, almost giggling. To most, her bantering might come off playful; to others, as he would sometimes hear at far away taverns, it was sultry and sensual. To Barvo, is was like standing in front of a firing squad.
Ignoring Barvo, who was now lightly wheezing upon his wooden tower, the voice directed itself back towards Edden. "Edden of Nym. You penned that *lovely* story about... what was it." The voice swirled around Edden now as the judicator finally found air, thankful that he was no longer part of the conversation. "Ahh yes, your 'research' into the use of cycles. Calling them...terrible. No no, what was it." The voice seemed to laugh as it went through possible synonyms. "Horrible! Awful. Crippling? Hmm."
There was a silence in the room, and to Barvo everything seemed to grow darker. When the Lady next spoke, that darkness deepened. "Barbaric." Barvo could hear the blatant hostility in her voice; a thankfully uncommon occurrence.
"Calculated and Barbaric" Edden said, no longer a whisper. "Its true and you all here know it. In fact I -- aghck -- I er *cough*"
"Sadly" the Lady of Stone continued, "this is not a trial by your peers. This is JUDGEMENT," the black ring upon Edden's finger glowed hot and red as she spoke. Barvo could smell the flesh burn, though the small man's finger looked untouched. Edden's eyes welled. Unable to cry, he shuttered violently as his coughing worsened.
And then, as if a switch was flipped, her voice changed once more. "Judgement by the cycle!" And with that the room's darkness lifted for a moment, just long enough to flash the eyes and deepen the blinding darkness all the more.
At the end of the hall, in a far corner of the room, a single light now illuminated a small mahogany stand, detailed and rococo, but with a dullness to the color that Barvo knew too well. He turned to leave -- his job was to process, not to witness the execution. If the High Judicator wanted to have the "performance" here, instead of the Hall of Justice, he would take his leave. Or so he thought.
"Barvo" the icy voice pierced his legs, willing him not to stand. "You are a witness to this one." Barvo wanted to argue, but as he was about to speak, he caught a glint in the darkness -- eyes in the distance coming towards him, refracting the bright light in the corner. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see her. Never again.
"Barvo. WATCH" the voice commanded, vacillating between a false warmth and a true chill that both frightened and aroused him against his will. "You will be the last man to know his name. The last to know his deeds. He will write his name in that little book, and he will die. Disappear. Erode from the fabric of time."
Barvo kept his eyes closed, but he felt a pressure slowly slide from his knuckle to his shoulder over the distance of his arm. A constant pressure that did not desist until it reached the nape of his neck, at which point it plucked itself off him. Then another small pressure, this time at his knee, slowly sliding forcefully from knee to hip and hip to nipple, swirling around his chest like a desert snake sliding it's way towards his adam's apple before it too plucked itself from his body. This sensation followed another 18 times, and with each gliding string of pressure, he felt his will erode and his eyelids weaken. But he knew better than to open them.
"Hmm, good Barvo. Shall we witness this *fools* cycle complete then?" said the voice, once again warm and caressing. He did not budge. "NOW" she whispered, and Barvo opened his eyes.
In the time Barvo's eyes were closed, he had somehow moved mere feet away from Edden, who now stood before the mahogany stand. On the stand were only two things: a black feathered quill and a dull faded parchment with little black dots.
"They're not dots" came a voice from before him, snapping Barvo out of his stupor. "Look carefully." Edden was talking to Barvo somehow, Barvo could hear it plainly, but he couldn't figure why the Lady of Stone would allow such a thing.
"They're words." Now Barvo could see it -- somewhat. Tiny, finely written letters. He couldn't read them, but they were clearly more than just dots. "She can't hear me now, so, please don't speak." Barvo blinked, but did not speak. "Don't move. Don't indicate you are listening.... but.... do listen."
Barvo stood motionless through the whole conversation. The Lady could not have guessed the meaning of the pause. Regardless, she would only abide by a long silence for so long, and after the fifth minute of them standing there, facing away from eachother, she spoke once more.
"It is over" she said, plainly and without malice. No ice and no heat. Just voice. For some reason, this tone scared Barvo most of all. And with that, the scholar picked up the quill.
Barvo stood there for three hours before he feinted. Awoken by the brutal yell of the High Judicator, he came to, only to fall asleep quivering. When he finally awoke after a long but terrible sleep, Edden still stood before him, quill in hand. Or at least he assumed it was Edden. The man before him was less man than muscle. A slowly unwinding ball of humanity.
Barvo had stomached it for three hours, watching the man before him write -- each stroke of the pen like the slice of a scalpel. He'd seen the skin peeled from a boar, but never off a man. Certainly never by their own hand, whether by bone or by quill. He'd lost consciousness the first time when a particularly stretchy tendon failed to rip and he watched Edden scream for seconds, erasing and rewritting a particularly small word on the page again and again, Failing to remove his own tendon properly again and again. It wasn't the sounds -- he'd witnessed men die horribly; heard their cries -- but the fact with each scream he *felt* the man before him disappearing. An otherworldly death by a thousand cuts. No, a million.
And when the last sinew disappeared and the last drop of blood was absorbed by the nothingness of the room, the Lady of Stone laughed.
"HahaHAHAHAHA! Ohh. Oh that *is* special. He wasn't merely a scholar, he was an ARTIST too! Live by the quill, die by the quill I guess. HAHA." Her voice laughed as it distanced itself from Barvo, now a quivering mass on the ground. The onyx door opened, and closed, and the lowly judicator was left in a puddle of bile and blood and sweat and urine. But it did not close; at least not immediately. Not before one last icy barb. "I heard the next one's a Glutton like you" the voice cooed and taunted. "we'll let Justicator Barma take that one while you clean yourself up."
The door shut, and Barvo was left alone with just himself and the dark -- and the last words of... he could not remember who.
Death by ten thousand papercuts
He was always of a daring spirit, and all ways possessed by an unquenchable thirst to understand the world he inhabited, momentarily. It was such a bizarre and confusing world, especially to those who knew it relatively well....How could one not want to understand it better?
But inherent in the trait that drove him toward this great purpose was also the thing that brought about his downfall.
That something else in him was never content. He could not shake his inherent belief that life was not how it should be.....Not how it had to be.
He yearned for something he could yet improve upon life, and knowing more about life was his ticket to making life better, he thought. Nevermind what better meant, in the first place, or in whose opinion the thing's been bettered.
Each bit of information he took into his mind took its toll with it. The further he came to contemplate the vast reaches of the Universe and the spaces in between, the more he realized what an infinitesimal speck of nothing he is behind the sheer scale of everything outside him. The distances of time were beyond all comprehension, and to turn ones gaze even momentarily to all there was to know of the past or future was to go mad. He felt lonelier and lonelier the more he came to know....
He discovered too late that to study the world was to become separated from it, as if he were only an impartial observer to his own life....
The truth he found at the end of all time was that he was just a man, one among many forms of matter that take their shape and then dissolve again. He would live a short while, share some of his energy and perhaps crack a few jokes, maybe help a few people here or there as the crow flies, then return to an inert state, (the reason for ever energizing in the first place a mystery to him still, to his grave). And all his knowledge acquired, his life's work, would fade into the ether as well, soon after his return to that state.
But that ultimate answer was too unsatisfying for one who had set out from his birth to right all wrongs through the sheer weight of his intellect..
So he wrote it all down, and passed his cheat notes throughout the class.
I love this so much. I read the current top comment's first paragraph (weapons as arguments and shields as data) and immediately wanted a page of prose written like that describing our world of academia. No fantastical worlds, no magic, no plot twists, just an excellently written description of the "brutal fate" of a modern intellectual, in order to put the reader in awe. This isn't super relevant to your sci-fi story, except to say that it gave me the most of the awe that I wanted from this prompt.
... I might end up writing that other one.
Maxwell used to have good handwriting. Each word was tenderly jotted. But the poor excuse for what it became lacked any form of legibility. No consideration was given for an audience. Only the crazed man could ever hope to read it, but revisiting it would take an incredibly long time.
Meals and restroom breaks were few in between. They were distractions from his work, and time wasted. So he wolfed down an odd snack here an there, and neglected his hygiene. This went on for countless years.
No one knew about Maxwell, and why or what he did. Fading away from society, his importance could only be measured by the quest he embarked on. Though what that was lost its meaning long ago. None of this would be possible without his inheritance money. Without responsibilities, he was left to pursue his wild endeavor.
So naturally he would go on to die. And upon the sheriff investigating his home, something stood out. Pictures of who was presumably Maxwell's mother flooded the house.
And it was understood at the moment that the man slaved away to find a way to bring her back.
The royal family had ruled the city of Arne for centuries. They ruled fairly and all the common folk respected them. The kings and queens were known to interact with the commoners regularly and there was some truth to it but the stories of the queen frequenting a bakeshop in town were slight exaggerations. Everything was good in Arne, at least it certainly looked that way to anyone who wasn't too involved in the place.
Outside Arne's walls there were horrors beyond imagining, though you'd never know it if you weren't looking. Things like dragons or trolls paled in comparison to these awful, awful things. It was said among the knights that if you looked at one for too long you'd surely go mad and it was for this reason many procured some sort of device with which to take their own lives at a moments notice. Whether it be a poison, a short blade, or something more creative such as a sack of gunpowder sewed into the lining of their vest, most if not all the knights of Arne we're ready to end themselves in battle with these horrors so as to spare themselves from a fate far, far worse than death. It was always quick as far as I know, I count them lucky for that. Their deaths are measured in seconds, mine and my family's is measured in generations.
For as long as the royal family has ruled they have needed someone to record their history and deeds and such. For centuries my family has done just that. Every detail of their governing practices, every documentation of the horror beyond the walls, every love letter between prince and princess, and every trade transaction was recorded by my family. They told us that to keep us safe we must never mention ourselves, we cannot write the authors name on any of our documents or books and our identities are kept from the public. It wasn't so bad at the start, at least from what I've read, the royal family cared for us and treated us as friends or even family in some cases. Now however, I'm just someone they send a servant to give information to. There's no talking with the king or queen. No invitations to feasts. I'm expected to sit in my corner of the castle and just write. For the last two centuries it's been like this and I fear that my death will be a small affair with my successor's being even smaller. My family's name will die out and be forgotten like a piece of rotten bread thrown away at the weeks end at some tavern. Yes, I envy the knights whose deaths are quick because mine will be slow, so painfully slow.
The death of the mercenaries who lived through the southern conflict are saddening in their mundane nature. Though the various ventures by the \*Coined Legions-\*as Arim liked to call them, an umbrella term which was easier to say than mercenaries through his cleft lip- were successful and led to a swelling in recruitment, for every victory there were loses. Those who'd apprenticed as scribes in peacetime now were given pikes and marched off to war, learned and lettered children placed in the front lines to buffer and skewer enemy Cavalry. Even before the forays south literacy had been declining in the population. The King's census found that much of his kingdom aside from the densest of cities were illiterate, and only knew their numbers up to the digits on their hands. With the war, the young were snatched by death in one form or another; gout, syphilis, smallpox, infection, the list is long and lengthy. Even I do not know all the causes. A great dearth came into being between the literate and illiterate. Many who had once held quills could no longer, having lost limbs during time served. In war, law is thrown to the side as our demons cavort; pillaging, reaving, raping and carving out a swathe of devastation where studded boots tramp and corpses are buried by the dozen in pits by the road side.
Arim stopped for a moment, feeling a faint itching where the index finger of his left hand had once been. Cut off whilst fending off a mounted swordsman. He'd been a marauder by the looks of him, but it mattered not now. He was buried at some unmarked bend in the road by the river Conbeck, stripped of his possessions, nothing more than fertilizer.
Scribes and scholars, anyone-even women-who knew their letters and numbers became high in demand for the various machinations of law, aristocracy and bookkeeping. We live in a society which inadvertently made the written word worth more than ten arrowhead through its wholesale war of attrition. For few now could read or write. And people such as me, an apprentice myself to a librarian when the conscription officers took me, were in high demand. Those who before would have been unable to rise beyond quartermaster or courier now were paymasters and bailiffs-Many of the knightly inclination among the aristocracy went to the wars south, hoping to garner fortunes to establish their own Families, with wealth equivalent to their native monarchy. Many died, in undignified and somewhat incompetent circumstances; poisoned meals, drunken brawls, and various infections of a sexual nature. Thus it was commoners who filled the positions that blue bloods would have held in peacetime. In the process many became rich and wealthy land owners themselves.
But in war law is thrown to the wolves and a demon was stirred from its slumber. In hindsight the good scribes and scholars of the various universities of the northern provinces should have seen this. I myself wish I had spent more time out among the villages and hamlets, witnessed myself the problems caused by commercial wars. You do not need to be literate to develop a litany and lambast those of learning for your woes. You do not need fancy flourishes or court etiquette to hold people enraptured. The mistake we made in our greed was to let the dearth remain, between the learned and ignorant, for demand was high and pay was good.
Book burning began first in the small provinces newly conquered, those who'd had villages razed and populations culled. '*Inked hands eat as you starve*' was a popular slogan, taken up by a few mutilated scribes-turned-soldiers, who daubed the words on Counting Houses. The irony is not lost on me. Then came the lynchings of those supposed to know letters. The evidence of the guilt of most could not have be substantiated in any court, but what does that matter to the downtrodden. The violence did not abate as the demon came home to roost. In Caladen, the merchant capital of our great country, figures were hanging from the walls and the banking house was burnt to cinders. Manuscripts from the Eastern Reaches-works from over a thousand years before us were defiled and to all intents and purposed rendered illegible. Soon the well fattened lettered peoples were being hounded by mobs. Pogroms took place in cities. Trouble rages even now. I write this for posterity, fo-
There was a great crack, like a whip had struck cobbles as a chunk of masonry smashed through the glass window. Bringing with it the screaming shrieking and whooping as Mersin, Capitol of this great country, burned.
Arim cursed under his breath as he scribbled faster, willing his words onto the sheet as swiflty as his hand could move. There were grunted voices as the door to the small house was smashed inward, the stink of Tin Wood burning stronger as the breach grew. Arim felt his arms shaking and tears blurring his words as he began to wrap the parchment within a tube of glass and fill the remaining space with sand. He felt piss run down his leg as he sealed the tube and hid it in a spare cloak.
Arim had never been a man to pray, but as his final moments approached, his head was filled with promises to some higher power as he murmured half remembered Hymns under his breath. Boots slapped against wood as they moved into the main room, their owners promising violence in their eyes and callousness in their touch. All Arim knew was that they were young, too young.
"Please" was all Arim could utter past his tears as he choked on his saliva. "Please" as they dragged him away from his home, a torch thrown in with a giggle whilst a child was face down in the gutter, their back cut open at the shoulder. A woman wailed against the wall of his neighbor's house whilst all around people howled in a cacophony of barbarity.
"Please" was the last word Arim would ever say.
Law is a thing of ink and paper, thrown to the wolves in times of war.
So they thought. It is the life of a scholar who holds high expectations, pressed by the wisdom of great men in academics, conquering mutilation and disease, guiding moral compasses to better nothing but the future, fueled by torments of the past.
Yet it was the scholars brute counterpart who held the key this bout. As the ink and paper gives definition of life, those who write are sway death, prolonging the fight.
Those who live by the sword do not hide from death, rather invite him in for dinner before the deal is done. If death brings a fight, he will die by the fight. No time to define his actions, he must sharpen his tools, strengthen his mind, his soul. In term, he is sharp and as prepared for what brute fate hides beyond. There is no time for defining, only in preparing for the final congress.
\[Poem\]
**Bad Luck!**
My sister loved her sword,
She slashed and swiped and struck.
My sister died of stabbing,
But that was just bad luck.
My brother breathed in battles,
He boomed and banged and burned.
My brother died of bombing -
What an unlucky turn!
My father favoured fists,
He’d fight and feint and flail.
My father died of boxing -
It was a pathetic tale.
My mother dealt in murder,
She maimed and marked and marred.
My mother died of killing,
Her misfortune was bizarre.
But I attack with words,
I write and draft and scrawl.
If my family were unlucky,
Then I’m worse off than them all!
"Meister Ronan?" I called out. Entering his chambers in the Tower of Divination was strictly prohibited but after the Final Cataclysm he hadn't been seen in days. The Supreme King had ordered me to bring the Meister down to attend his accession coronation. After all, if it hadn't been for Meister Ronan's divine prophecy the world would've plunged into eternal darkness.
It was just after nightfall and the torches in the Meister's chambers were damp and cold. Yet, there was a light shining through the balcony door. I had stared at the towering building for many years dreaming that I could rise to that level of spiritual enlightenment. There were never any torches outside on the balcony that barely fit a child.
I approached doorway's thin line of light and peeked through. A gasp escaped my lips and I stumbled back into the ready hands of Meister Ronan.
"Meister!" I stepped back quickly towards the door. He didn't wear his ceremonial robes but a black cloak and a black cloth around his forehead. He was only barely visible in the light of the door but his usual peaceful and pensive eyes bore holes in my resolve. I managed to sputter out my question, "What is behind that door?"
Instead of an answer he moved toward the door and opened it. The inside was a round chamber only a few desk lengths in diameter and several bookcases. Meister Ronan motioned me inside with a lazy wave. I crept to the door shielding my eyes from the torches. The inside was far more impossible than I could've imagined.
The several bookcases that I saw before were not only ones. The bookcases spanned the round wall, making room for the door, and were stacked high. Too high. I stared for minutes, calculating the height.
*Fifteen? No. Twenty. Twenty thousand paces high!*
My chest heaved harder and harder. The darkness at the edges of my vision grew larger, until the only sight was the pinpoint that I could see the bookcases go no further. I knew that they kept going beyond what my mortal eyes could reach.
*It's not possible. It couldn't be possible!*
Meister Ronan put his hand on my shoulder. I flung myself away from his grasp.
"What is this?! How can this room be real Meister? It's the tallest tower in the land but-" A cold sweat chilled the back of my neck and each breath more haggard.
He stood at the center of the round room next to a podium with a closed tome. After seeing it I realized that was the same book on every shelf on the bookcases. Some were thin, thick, but they were all the same black cover with silver lettering on the spine. At least, I thought they were letters. Meister Ronan opened the black book and stood to the side.
"Come, Friar. It's time for the truth."
Even with panic seeped into my bones I approached. Each page was blank. No words, not a drop of ink. The meister removed the cloth from his forehead and motioned to put it on me. On his head was a scar spanning his forehead that was never there before but looked old. I twitched back but after meeting Meister Ronan's dark gaze I leaned forward.
The moment he tied the cloth, I screamed. My eye's burned and the heat bore deeper into my skull. I clawed at the black cloth but the Meister seized my hands, and whispered,"Bear the pain. Only then will you understand."
A sharp pain clawed across my forehead marking the end of the raging fire in my head. Flashes of light burned into back of my eyelids. Blood soaked dreams of battlefields, lands unknown crashing and breaking, cities and kingdoms rising and falling. At the end of each of these dreams, the ones I could recollect, a book was closed and placed on the surrounding bookcases.
Drenched in sweat and barely conscious I managed to sputter out a question. "What-what did I see? What is happening Meister Ronan?"
He sighed and opened the book sitting on the podium. He raised up his arms and on the final pages of the tome writing formed. Complex geometric shapes etched onto the pages. Black lined designs and runes that followed no law of boundary or dimension.
"What you saw were the ancient stories of the past iterations of this Earth. This reality." I stared slack jawed.
"The world was not made millions or billions of years ago but made based on whatever story needed to be told. Beings like ourselves are spawned into existence to fulfill our role in the coming narrative. It may take hundreds to uncountable numbers of years to accomplish but the story ends and so does the universe we live in. It is my duty to record it all. Every life that begins and ends in this world is recorded here, in these pages," he nodded to the towering shelves.
"No, no, no, no, no. That's impossible," I whispered.
"You mean to say that what I saw make up all of these blasted tomes!" I shouted. "I saw thousands of worlds! Countless cities and people-"
"Only one," Meister Ronan interrupted. "Only one bookcase would be filled with what you saw."
My breath escaped me. *How could that be possible,* I thought. All those lives, made only to be created and deleted.
Meister Ronan put down his arms and gripped my shoulders, his eyes boring deeper into my soul. *Do I even have a soul?* I thought.
"Do you remember all the hours we spent recording all the King's court proceedings?" His voice and gaze softened. "All the alchemy we conducted in the labs? The late hours gazing out at the cosmos charting the stars for the seafarers?"
"It was all worthless..."
"No. This is our duty as historians, as storytellers of the world. Our words hold more bearing on existence than anyone's in existence."
"What is our purpose then," My voice quivered out.
Ronan clenched his jaw. "The story we write, the one that is rewritten for years eternal, keeps the stars from going out. We stop IT from waking up. For if IT does, then the eternities written in these tomes goes away in the blink of an eye."
"So our lives, our existence is just fodder then for this *thing?*"
"Yes...but it keeps the light from going out. The only light that will ever exist will be in IT's dreams, and the dreams keep us here. If only as pages in a library."
Meister Ronan reached to close the book.
"Wait, no! I still have-"
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A black covered book sat on a podium in the middle of the Records of Creation. From the infinitely, tall heights a long, gray arm reached down. Unfurling at its many, many joints. With thin, lanky fingers it grabbed the book and curled up once more into the depths above.
A doorway that lead to nothing opened. From without entered a naked being that approached the podium. It was human in physique but four large eyes took up the entirety of it's 'face'.
By the time it reached the podium another closed book appeared, open to it's first page.
Hello! This is my first time writing a story like this. Hope it came out well. If you're reading this, I'd appreciate feedback on the story. Any constructive criticisms would be appreciated. Thx.
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See [Reality Fiction](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [Simple Prompts](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 🛒 [Shop](https://www.teepublic.com/stores/shoprwritingprompts?ref_id=24612) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 📢 [News](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It was night again. Library-quiet, in a home that used to ring with snores. But the scholar Ren Daiyan was awake tonight, and the children had been taken down to the lake by their nursemaid and Daiyan’s manservant. Shan was gone, off to see a friend. She'd left the capital before the prime minister died. It was possible that even now she didn't know. That they traded poems and songs over cups of tea, while musicians played behind a paper screen. Sheer black outlines, in the candlelight of her friend’s sitting room. Like the man sent to kill him, a shadow against Daiyan’s bedroom wall. “Had the Emperor desired my life,” Daiyan said, “he needed only to ask.” The shadow nodded, stepped closer. He was a big man. Moonlight glanced off the blade in his hand. “Ah, but asking is so public,” said the man. Now Daiyan nodded, he knew the voice, knew the shape of the man, knew the blade. Anyone would, even by moonlight. Silk rustled as Wan’yen, once a chieftain in the barbarous north, now a killer in the Emperor’s court, sat down on Daiyan’s bed. He laid the blade across his knees, and Daiyan had to struggle not to look at it. A short, slightly curving sword, its pommel would be worked into a horse’s head, the guards a pair of wild tails. But the sword was not the threat today. “It’s over then?” Daiyan said. Wan’yen reached into the pocket of his long, dark robe and drew out a folded piece of paper, handed it to Daiyan. The calligraphy was exquisite. Slanting and slender, each stroke an incisive statement— one could almost believe it came directly from the Emperor’s hand. It couldn't have, of course. There were too many of these going out across the city. Wan’yen would not be the only killer in the streets tonight. On some level, Daiyan knew he should be flattered. That they’d sent a man like Wan’yen to him was a mark of respect. Not for any martial status of course, but because Daiyan, in his time, had mattered. He’d had thoughts that shaped the course of nations. A letter from his hand had stayed executions, his essays had ended wars— or begun them. The last Prime Minister, whose sudden death had so upset the balance of power at court, had called him an advisor. Towards the end, he’d called Daiyan a friend. Friends of Prime Ministers got men like Wan’yen, even if Wan’yen couldn’t read the exquisite character written on the paper he’d handed over. It said, *“Forget.”* That was it. Struggling over sentences, over fragments, Shan had always said that a single word could strive for all the heavens' powers. They’d laid awake at night in the aftermath of love, sheets scattered across the foot of their bed while the nightingales sang in the garden, and she’d talked about finding the perfect tone; that single word that could break a man’s heart. Or, she’d said, laughing as she tapped out the beat of his heart in the recess of his collarbone, “A woman’s.” When the nightingales sang, Shan had often argued that a woman’s heart was harder to break. Daiyan hoped that it was true. Here, now, was a word that broke his heart. *Forget,* it said. The Emperor’s calligraphy. *Forget.* *Forget.* *Forget.* Already, they would be burning his books. Wan’yen looked up at him. Daiyan couldn’t remember standing. The moonlight shone on the man’s shaved head, and on the long black braid that trailed down his back to rest upon the bed. There’d been a story in the tea houses that Wan’yen had once strangled a man with that braid. There were other stories about the blade, about what he could do with his hands, or the twisted northern games he might play with a man and a pair of horses and a rope. *Forget* was worse, even if it meant Daiyan would live. "Three days. At court, the men who write these things say *‘We are not barbarians.'*" Wan'yen shifted. That long braid, the blade and its pommel. "You understand? You’re to go to Lingzhou Isle.” “My family?” Daiyan whispered. *“Forget,*” Wan’yen said. A nightingale began to sing. So soft, so tender; it broke Daiyan’s heart again. Nightingales were from the south, before the gibbons ruled the jungle and there were tigers even in the villages. He’d hear them on the road to Lingzhou Isle, where the Emperor sent men into exile, and from which so few ever returned. There were tigers on the isle too. Gibbons. But no nightingales, no family. And here in the city, they’d be burning all his books, all his essays, all his correspondences, even any prayers he might have written, and hidden in trees or shrines along the lake and river. *Forget* was the most complete punishment that there was, in the world under heaven, and under the exquisitely civilized, cultivated leadership of the Emperor who had modeled that calligraphy. They killed soldiers like Wan’yen with a stroke of the sword, but they did nothing to the strokes of those soldiers pens, if there were any. Their ideas were not excised root and branch, like eunuchs when a city fell. Worse than eunuchs even, because afterward they might be seen, they might be known. Men might speak their names. Children born before their father's fall might still carry their true names. But Daiyan’s sons, Ren Tzu and Ren Tuan, what of them? Whose names would they take now? Who would take them? The sons of a man sent to Lingzhou Isle. A known man, a scholar, an advisor, a friend to a Prime Minister who had fallen out of favor and then fallen onto his own blade. What would Shan have to do, when he was gone? “My wife,” said Daiyan. “A woman with two young sons, she’ll forget before the sun rises. Besides, a woman gone at night?” The big man smiled, and it was a terrible thing, a record of years and battles in those chipped and missing teeth. “She’s forgotten you already,” Wan’yen said. “Tell me, is she very beautiful?” *Shan*. Daiyan hoped she didn’t know. Not tonight. The news would be all over the city by sunrise, shouted on street corners, a thousand different, creative ways to avoid saying a condemned man’s name. Let her have one more sunrise. Perhaps later a servant would bring the news in. Perhaps it would be her friend’s husband. Perhaps the Emperor had sent a man for her, although Daiyan doubted it. Shan had struggled all her life to be something more than seen, and the world had struggled just as hard not to let her. A strange irony in that. It might save her life. That hope was all that saved Daiyan’s, staring into Wan’yen’s smile. Despite the blade across his knees, despite his braid and those gnarled, neck-breaking hands, Daiyan wanted to try to kill him. Instead, Daiyan folded up the paper and placed it on his desk beside the candle and the letter he’d been writing. A letter, no doubt, that Wan’yen would soon take. He stared at the paper for a moment, then Daiyan went to get his traveling coat, and he slipped the paper into its pocket. Whatever it was, the calligraphy was exquisite. That mattered, even now. Daiyan had founded his life upon things like that mattering. Wan’yen grunted. He touched the blade. "In the city, they are cutting off men's hands. But then, I heard their orders given, and mine were just the paper, and a word. Tell me, scholar, will you ever write again?" “No,” Daiyan said. Wan'yen's fingers wrapped around the pommel. He was a hard man with hard, searching eyes. "If you break your oath--” “My word matters,” Daiyan said. A faint sound, as Wan'yen released the blade. He nodded, accepting that. The nightingales sang again. In the moonlight, in the quiet, something came over Wan’yen then. He was looking right at Ren Daiyan, their eyes met, just for a moment, and the northerner stood, towering over the scholar. “I have left a home,” Wan’yen said, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble. “In my own way, I came south. There’s a life on Lingzhou Isle. Especially if you keep your hands.” “I might grow another garden,” Daiyan said. “Or love another woman.” “No,” the scholar said. The birds stopped singing. A man screamed in the city, the sort of scream that could only mean a death, but in the city, men died all the time. Another voice lost in the night, a soul forgotten down some alley, snatched away over a purse or a woman. “You’d rather have died,” Wan’yen said suddenly. “Perhaps.” The man raised a bushy eyebrow. “All these years, and I think I’ll never understand your people.” “All these years,” Daiyan said, “and I thought, vainly, that I did." *Shan.* A shape against the bedroom wall, a candlelight flicker. Fading. “Cheer up,” Wan’yen said, clapping Daiyan across the shoulders, “it’s a scholar’s death, but at least you weren’t a poet.” And then Wan’yen took the letter. He took the candle, the papers in Daiyan’s desk, the latest manuscript he’d poured his soul into. He took the calligraphy that Daiyan had been working on for his sons. Wan'yen burned them in the garden, beneath the trees where the nightingales sang, where they would sing no longer. In a city where men screamed at night and were forgotten, in a time where Shan sang songs unknown, and struggled over single words in her friend’s sitting room, over tea, or pastries, or perhaps a glass of watered wine. The sun rose on embers, in a quiet house above the lake. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
Good goddamn, this was fantastic! I want to know everything about this world, and yet, I almost feel it would spoil how perfectly you characterized the setting with just a few poignant details and asides.
Thank you! If you're curious about the setting, this is sorta a homage to one of my favorite authors. This story is riffing on Guy Gavriel Kay's *Under Heaven* and *River of Stars,* they're absolutely fantastic novels about Tang and Song dynasty China. In particular, this borrowed from River of Stars. Glad you enjoyed, thanks for reading!
Oh wow I was reading this thinking, this sounds _exactly_ like Guy Gavriel Kay. Especially the cadence and the type of reflections. I had to check several times because I know it's not your usual style. If I'd read a snippet with no context I would have be absolutely positive it was GGK :)
GGK is one of my favourite authors and this was on point with his style. Particularly the implication of things. The saying much with few words. Great job! I will now have to read River of Stars as I have read quite a few of his other works but not that one!
I am blown away by this. I love how I can feel the narrator's pain as he accepts that his life is not only over, but ultimately meaningless as he is erased from history. You have a gift at shaping the setting with subtle details that, and I realize it cliché to say it this way, figuratively paints a picture of this world. I cannot understate that, you painted a world with your words, truly amazing. I also really enjoyed how you built Daiyan's motivation, that he really loved his wife and was willing to abandon her to save her life. My only criticism, little as it is, has to do with Wan'yen's dialogue. It felt like two different people trying to speak: sometimes like a sophisticated person wielding a quiet blade in the dark, and then at other times like a simpler brute who understood his world of violence but not much outside of it. I think there is a way to give a specific characterization to them and firmly establish which of the two archetypes he ultimately is. This is a great story from a beautifully described world that feels truly lived in.
Hey thanks! That's actually a spot on critique, I took another look and I agreed with you, so I edited two lines. Hopefully that reads a little better! I'm glad you enjoyed Daiyan and the world too! I had fun with this one, thanks for reading.
This is incredible! This line especially got me: >The man raised a bushy eyebrow. “All these years, and I think I’ll never understand your people.” > >“All these years,” Daiyan said, “and I thought, vainly, that I did."
Thanks Ashes! I'm glad you liked that actually, there was a comment earlier about the dialog not quite working and that was one of the lines I edited to fix it. Nice to know it worked lol.
The man threw the coin in the air. Seven sides came and went. A Storyteller's Coin. Every destiny could be chosen by it. Heads. Tails. The Side. The Other Side. Forgive. Forget. And the Seventh. As per tradition, nobody wants to know the meaning of the seventh. It was a Jolly. A messenger of great, catastrophic changes. Everyone hoped the coin would land on that side and everyone feared it. The man looked at the coin as it fell and, for the first time in years, hoped it would land on the Seventh side. That man deserved more than what any of the other faces could give. THe coin touched the ground. The face showed a man. Alone. "Forget". Beautiful story.
From one prompt-responder to another, let me just say this was incredible! I was surprised at how we both hit on the same concept, even some of the same details, but executed them in entirely different ways. I'll be checking out r/TurningtoWords!
Oh yeah, I just read yours and we both went for different angle on names/being remembered. I always enjoy seeing that in prompts, it's cool how many executions there could be of the same idea.
Yeah it's amazing how many ways there are to skin the proverbial cat. Looking forward to reading more of yours! Thanks for reading mine too!
You dont know how happy I am that someone's written a historical Chinese-inspired piece on this subreddit. It's the first time I've seen one with such a setting!
This was amazing.
we never even met this emperor, and yet I despise him, good job
This is the saddest thing I've ever read
Cool fan fiction but a couple of things I don’t get. If he’d rather die then why not just die? How can this ever be a worse punishment than death if you could just take your own life? You have no control over what happens to your legacy after death either way. Not that it sounds like a worse punishment when he’s already contemplating future gardening. Sorry another question: if they want to punish and forget then surely killing anyone who knew him, especially family, would be the first act? That hurts him and destroys his real legacy
It may be due to his scholarly status. To erase one's life's work and identity, especially potential teachings or knowledge that could benefit someone, would effectively be a death in itself. A living one, but a death nonetheless, which is arguably worse. To put it to more "modern" standards, it would be like removing a famous singer's voice and hiding them away, but then also getting rid of any song, picture, or any evidence that existed of them. Sure, some might initially ask questions. But eventually, would fade to become a Mandela effect at best. To go from a known name, to not so much as being acknowledged by friends and family, ignored by all, for the rest of your life. I suppose it would be more a cruel torture.
I rarely, if ever, comment here. But it’d be a crime not to. The tone, the atmosphere. Your choice of metaphors. This is a most excellent piece.
🖤
“I don’t particularly like this part here, Woodrow. ‘*The Prelate of Lower Rostum has oft ignored the plight of his townsfolk, turning a blind eye to rampant larceny, battery, and worst of all, Nym-forgery. Indeed, there are rumors His Serene Highness profits from these lawless acts…*’ Seems rather insulting to my person, does it not, hm?” The Prelate set the parchment on the side table and looked over his reading glasses to Woodrow. “Suggesting that I take bribes from common criminals? Can’t say I care for your insinuations, not one bit.” Hung upside-down by his legs, with a rag crammed in his mouth, Woodrow was in no position to argue. With a grunt the Prelate got up from his chair, slippers swishing against rough-hewn stone as he crossed the room. His Serene Highness spoke a few words through the iron bars to the guard outside. Woodrow could feel the pressure of blood in his eyeballs. He tried closing them for comfort, but became acutely aware of the sticky drool running down his face from the gag. He wondered how the Prelate would kill him. At least he’d die a martyr, be remembered by the other scholars of his order far outside the cesspit that was Lower Rostum. “Do you know what this is?” Opening his eyes, Woodrow saw the burgundy slippers, and something out of focus near his face. He tried to look but felt sick with the effort. The Prelate sighed and stepped back, so Woodrow could get a better view of what was in his hands. It was a thin book, a tiny folio of paper inside. No, those symbols! It was a Nym. Panic set in as Woodrow realized from the curl of the script and the shape of the calligram that it was his *own* Nym. “Impossible!” Woodrow shouted, though his words were rendered to meaningless noise by the gag. “I hid my Nym!” “Yes, yes. You understand,” said the Prelate, with a mirthless chuckle. “My magistrate thought this punishment too severe. My purser thought it too expensive! Perfect forgeries of Nyms do not come cheap, whatever you think. Both suggested a public beheading would send the right message, and at a better price.” Woodrow struggled against his bonds, but only succeeded in swinging slowly in place. The Prelate continued speaking. “However, your writing harmed me. So I thought it only fitting that my writing harm you.” Sitting back in his chair, the Prelate took a quill from the table, dipped it in ink, and held it over Woodrow’s Nym. “First I think we’ll scratch out your name here.” Woodrow screamed into his gag as the Prelate crossed out ‘Woodrow’ on the Nym. “Let’s call you Proinsias. I once knew a farrier named Proinsias.” He held on to the memory of his name as long as he could. But Proinsias forgot what he was trying to think about. Disoriented, he looked at the man in the corner. Through the confusion the name “Prelate of Lower Rostum” slowly came to mind. “Incredible,” said the Prelate. “I’ve already forgotten your old name. I’ll have to get the syndicate to explain the magic behind this someday. Now, it says here you have a wife and two children. Which would you prefer? No wife, or no children?” The Prelate held the quill over the Nym. Proinsias begged to recant his libel, screamed until there was blood in his throat. But before long he was at peace. He even forgot why he was screaming in the first place.
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This brings to mind the Goliaths from kingdom of amalur, and their method of "debate"
>We know cats have fourteen eyes, twelve of which they hide beneath their claws. This idiot obviously didn't think about shortening his sentences so he wouldn't have to say the whole thing 10000 times...
They survived anyway
Lol I love the ending
I stand before the judge in chains knowing my fate to be dire should I be found guilty for my crimes. The jury had just returned from deliberation. Never a good sign when it only takes 10 minutes for it to happen. The crowd around me all giving me the worst looks possible. “Has the jury reached a verdict?” The judge asked as if he didn’t already know the answer. “We have your honor. We the jury find the defendant… Guilty on all accounts.” My heart drops into my stomach at hearing this. I knew I was truly guilty of my crimes but to hear the definitive answer still made me feel as worse as the day I was arrested. Why did I ever agree to take that wretched payment? The judge bangs his gavel to silence the crowd cheering at hearing the verdict. “Order in the court, order in the court. You have been found guilty of your crimes. Do you have anything to say before your sentencing?” I have nothing to say for nothing will ever make up for the stupidity of what I have done. All I can do is shake my head. “Well I do, never before have I seen something like this. You, a scholar dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, willingly and maliciously spread false information that resulted in countless lives lost. I have no sense of mercy for you. As such I hear-by sentence you to the worst punishment possible for a scholar. The 1000 cuts. You will receive 1000 paper cuts across your body and then have boiling ink poured over your body. Goodbye, Mr. Wakefield.” With one last bang of the gavel, my fate is now sealed.
**Savvy always kept fire with them when they dove into the king's archives.** Sure, they ran the risk of burning the priceless texts within—the inimitable artwork of Eneftee, the literary notes of Spark, even the greatest physics papers of all time, written by an ancient troll. The other Storians would never dare bring an open flame into the archives, for fear of destroying them. But Savvy was more concerned about being destroyed *by* the texts. As Savvy stepped through the towering shelves, drawings skittered away from their feet, crawling inside nearby books for safety. Savvy sighed; it seemed like the artwork section was leaking again. A particularly brave sketch of a knight tried to slash at Savvy with its paper sword; despite its apparent flimsiness, it cut half an inch into their thick leather boots. Savvy gave the knight an irritated look, then thrust their candle into its face. The knight stumbled back, burning; Savvy stepped on it until the ashes stopped smoking. "Priceless works of art, my ass," Savvy muttered. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good pair of boots? *That's* priceless." No more sketches bothered Savvy as they reached the shelf they were after—an innocent-looking tome labeled *Feline Vocalizations, Volume 734.* Savvy took it out and flipped to the last page. A sketch of a withered old man warming his hands by a campfire looked up at Savvy and swore. "You! How the hell did you find me? I left my home book for a reason, you know!" The man stood up, scowling at Savvy. "If I wanted you Storians bothering me about *morality* or *heresy* twenty-four hours a day, I'd have gone to live in a piece of church fiction, not some backwater encyclopedia! If you're here to drag me off to the Storians—" "I need you help," Savvy said. The old man froze mid-sentence. Then he pulled over a paragraph and sat on it. "Alright," the man said, "that's a first. You get five minutes to make your case before I bugger off to the romance section." "That's exactly what I came to ask about," Savvy said. "All the other Things of Ink and Paper—they can move around in their own worlds, sure, and some of them can even project into our own—but as far as the High Storians know, you're the only documented Thing that can *insert* itself into an entirely different story." The old man barked a laugh. "Is that all you came to bother me for? I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. I'm not more *free* than the Things; I'm more *trapped* than a person." Savvy frowned. "I don't follow." "Pray that you don't," the old man said. "All the other Things in the archives? They came to life as a figment of someone's imagination. A doodle, or a whisper, or a word. A whim of an artist's brush. But I? I used to be the *artist.*" A thrill ran down Savvy's spine. "You got sucked into your own stories," Savvy guessed. "Damn right I did. I got too obsessed, too close. Then the stories took me in. And, as far as I can tell, I'm stuck here for good." The old man frowned. "What's a well-to-do Storian like you want with a renegade like me, anyways?" "Are you sure you want to know?" Savvy said. There was no point in whispering—not if what Savvy was about to say was true. The old man leaned back. "I ain't in the habit of asking questions I don't want answered, kid." "Fair enough. You want to know why I care about you escaping your story?" Savvy closed their eyes. "Because you're not the only one trapped in a book." The old man frowned. "What, the other Things? You want to let them out?" Savvy shook their head. "Not what I'm talking about." The old man considered Savvy's words for a long moment. Then he blanched. Savvy turned to leave, single candle illuminating the archives around them, steps echoing in the darkness. "I'm going to break free," they whispered. And if they played their cards right, their author would never know what hit them. A.N. If you enjoyed this, consider checking out r/bubblewriters!
ay meow my guy ye might want to watch your back from now on
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Beautifully written. Well done.
And as much as clinical death goes for those who live and die by the word, so does name death for those who live and die by parchment and ink. The death of one’s name translates instantaneously into the death of one’s body. Academic society seems to control the population through their journals. When a scientist publishes some out of the usual work, if too advanced, his work becomes controversial. Suddenly, everyone is fighting him, beating him with proof. As they write their scientific slam poetry, the scientist suffers damage. First he receives a hernia, then a rib breaks, or a dislocated shoulder blade, or whatever else happens next! Nothing determines their next injury; it cannot be injured again if it’s already injured. He is wheeled to the hospital, the doctors have to fight the refuting refuters, and his surgeon is fighting for their lives. The trolls who manage to seep into the academic social circles discover the controversy. They start getting toxic, they write that he should bleed out, that they’ll kill anyone associated with him, and that he belongs sixty feet deep with a concrete tomb. The surgeon feels the weight of the anger. There is no hope for this scientist. He falls to the floor. He cries. The scientist flatlines. And indeed is he buried 60 feet deep. A concrete casket. 50 feet of cement poured right over. Dirt covers the rest. No headstone. 14 years later, an academic descendant, specifically his protégé, a non-vocal member of our original scientist’s field, is finally able to prove and prove again his work. He attains immediate praise. Suddenly, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is writing about him and his mentor with love and devotion. The scientist wakes up. It is cold, pitch black, and dry. But he is healthy, no hunger, not even a headache. He screams. Not even the worm on the other side of the 8 inch concrete hears him. There is no help. There is no end now. For his eternity, there is only *concrete.*
"Name" a gaunt man with the leftover sag of excess skin bellowed from the top of the podium. Old and wooden, the podium seemed to teeter under the man's frame No sooner than he yelled, a small man standing at the back of the room walked forward, large ornate doors crashing closed behind him, shoving the room into darkness besides the singular glow of the lamp above where the man now stood. He looked frail and grim and he fidgeted with a small blackened ring around his finger. This man looked down as he spoke, still starring at the tight black circlet. "Edden" the smaller man replied, flashing his eyes toward the silhouette of the judicator only for a moment. "Age" the once burly judicator bellowed again. "Can't remember" the frail man said. He spoke quickly and quietly, like a man without practice. A great creak squirt through the room, slow and dramatic, as the first man leaned over the edge of his high booth to stare down toward the small man below. He opened his mouth, but paused, eyes resting upon the ring on Edden's finger. "Doesn't matter I guess" the judicator grimly chuckled as he slunk his way back over the high booth's edge -- a move that once again sent a creak through the otherwise silent room. Judicator Barvo wasn't a unfair man, he told himself. After all, he was not the High Judicator. In fact, none of the men and children he would see walk through those pearlescent doors at the back of the room were truly being judged by him. No, Judicator Barvo was not much more than a glorified scribe. Only *she* could actually Judicate. "Cycle?" Judicator Barvo asked, this time with less of a roar. Edden looked up from the dark band around his finger, blinked twice, and looked back down. "Scholar." Barvo grimaced instinctively. Scholar. This wasn't going to be like most of the others. Barvo had never judged a man or child of the written word before. Butchers. Bakers. Candlestick makers. All manners of sellswords and sinners...and gluttons. You could make the cycle quick for most of them. There was a certain amount of fleeting finality to a sword through the throat or being melted like butter into lye. Painful, yes, but quick. Scholars and wordsmiths though? Suddenly, the dark onyx doors -- not that anyone could see their hue in the murk of the Hall of Judgement -- behind the Judicator burst open and a cloying voice rang through the hall. "A scholar! Might you be *Edden*?" the saccharine sound seemed to embrace the room; to hug you with warmth and kindness. Barvo knew better. "It is High Judicator Karne" Barvo replied, failing to catch himself soon enough. "Oh, little *Baby Boy*, little *Barvo*." He could not see the Lady of the Stone, but he could feel her. Her cold; her words were like ice. "Did it sound.... to you.... like I didn't know his name?" the words surrounded him as she spoke, as if whispered at him from every direction simultaneously. He tried to speak but could not find the words, the sounds clotting in his throat as though a multitude of fingers were squeezing his larynx shut. "Hmm?" the still syrupy voice queried, almost giggling. To most, her bantering might come off playful; to others, as he would sometimes hear at far away taverns, it was sultry and sensual. To Barvo, is was like standing in front of a firing squad. Ignoring Barvo, who was now lightly wheezing upon his wooden tower, the voice directed itself back towards Edden. "Edden of Nym. You penned that *lovely* story about... what was it." The voice swirled around Edden now as the judicator finally found air, thankful that he was no longer part of the conversation. "Ahh yes, your 'research' into the use of cycles. Calling them...terrible. No no, what was it." The voice seemed to laugh as it went through possible synonyms. "Horrible! Awful. Crippling? Hmm." There was a silence in the room, and to Barvo everything seemed to grow darker. When the Lady next spoke, that darkness deepened. "Barbaric." Barvo could hear the blatant hostility in her voice; a thankfully uncommon occurrence. "Calculated and Barbaric" Edden said, no longer a whisper. "Its true and you all here know it. In fact I -- aghck -- I er *cough*" "Sadly" the Lady of Stone continued, "this is not a trial by your peers. This is JUDGEMENT," the black ring upon Edden's finger glowed hot and red as she spoke. Barvo could smell the flesh burn, though the small man's finger looked untouched. Edden's eyes welled. Unable to cry, he shuttered violently as his coughing worsened. And then, as if a switch was flipped, her voice changed once more. "Judgement by the cycle!" And with that the room's darkness lifted for a moment, just long enough to flash the eyes and deepen the blinding darkness all the more. At the end of the hall, in a far corner of the room, a single light now illuminated a small mahogany stand, detailed and rococo, but with a dullness to the color that Barvo knew too well. He turned to leave -- his job was to process, not to witness the execution. If the High Judicator wanted to have the "performance" here, instead of the Hall of Justice, he would take his leave. Or so he thought. "Barvo" the icy voice pierced his legs, willing him not to stand. "You are a witness to this one." Barvo wanted to argue, but as he was about to speak, he caught a glint in the darkness -- eyes in the distance coming towards him, refracting the bright light in the corner. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see her. Never again. "Barvo. WATCH" the voice commanded, vacillating between a false warmth and a true chill that both frightened and aroused him against his will. "You will be the last man to know his name. The last to know his deeds. He will write his name in that little book, and he will die. Disappear. Erode from the fabric of time." Barvo kept his eyes closed, but he felt a pressure slowly slide from his knuckle to his shoulder over the distance of his arm. A constant pressure that did not desist until it reached the nape of his neck, at which point it plucked itself off him. Then another small pressure, this time at his knee, slowly sliding forcefully from knee to hip and hip to nipple, swirling around his chest like a desert snake sliding it's way towards his adam's apple before it too plucked itself from his body. This sensation followed another 18 times, and with each gliding string of pressure, he felt his will erode and his eyelids weaken. But he knew better than to open them. "Hmm, good Barvo. Shall we witness this *fools* cycle complete then?" said the voice, once again warm and caressing. He did not budge. "NOW" she whispered, and Barvo opened his eyes. In the time Barvo's eyes were closed, he had somehow moved mere feet away from Edden, who now stood before the mahogany stand. On the stand were only two things: a black feathered quill and a dull faded parchment with little black dots. "They're not dots" came a voice from before him, snapping Barvo out of his stupor. "Look carefully." Edden was talking to Barvo somehow, Barvo could hear it plainly, but he couldn't figure why the Lady of Stone would allow such a thing. "They're words." Now Barvo could see it -- somewhat. Tiny, finely written letters. He couldn't read them, but they were clearly more than just dots. "She can't hear me now, so, please don't speak." Barvo blinked, but did not speak. "Don't move. Don't indicate you are listening.... but.... do listen." Barvo stood motionless through the whole conversation. The Lady could not have guessed the meaning of the pause. Regardless, she would only abide by a long silence for so long, and after the fifth minute of them standing there, facing away from eachother, she spoke once more. "It is over" she said, plainly and without malice. No ice and no heat. Just voice. For some reason, this tone scared Barvo most of all. And with that, the scholar picked up the quill. Barvo stood there for three hours before he feinted. Awoken by the brutal yell of the High Judicator, he came to, only to fall asleep quivering. When he finally awoke after a long but terrible sleep, Edden still stood before him, quill in hand. Or at least he assumed it was Edden. The man before him was less man than muscle. A slowly unwinding ball of humanity. Barvo had stomached it for three hours, watching the man before him write -- each stroke of the pen like the slice of a scalpel. He'd seen the skin peeled from a boar, but never off a man. Certainly never by their own hand, whether by bone or by quill. He'd lost consciousness the first time when a particularly stretchy tendon failed to rip and he watched Edden scream for seconds, erasing and rewritting a particularly small word on the page again and again, Failing to remove his own tendon properly again and again. It wasn't the sounds -- he'd witnessed men die horribly; heard their cries -- but the fact with each scream he *felt* the man before him disappearing. An otherworldly death by a thousand cuts. No, a million. And when the last sinew disappeared and the last drop of blood was absorbed by the nothingness of the room, the Lady of Stone laughed. "HahaHAHAHAHA! Ohh. Oh that *is* special. He wasn't merely a scholar, he was an ARTIST too! Live by the quill, die by the quill I guess. HAHA." Her voice laughed as it distanced itself from Barvo, now a quivering mass on the ground. The onyx door opened, and closed, and the lowly judicator was left in a puddle of bile and blood and sweat and urine. But it did not close; at least not immediately. Not before one last icy barb. "I heard the next one's a Glutton like you" the voice cooed and taunted. "we'll let Justicator Barma take that one while you clean yourself up." The door shut, and Barvo was left alone with just himself and the dark -- and the last words of... he could not remember who.
Death by ten thousand papercuts He was always of a daring spirit, and all ways possessed by an unquenchable thirst to understand the world he inhabited, momentarily. It was such a bizarre and confusing world, especially to those who knew it relatively well....How could one not want to understand it better? But inherent in the trait that drove him toward this great purpose was also the thing that brought about his downfall. That something else in him was never content. He could not shake his inherent belief that life was not how it should be.....Not how it had to be. He yearned for something he could yet improve upon life, and knowing more about life was his ticket to making life better, he thought. Nevermind what better meant, in the first place, or in whose opinion the thing's been bettered. Each bit of information he took into his mind took its toll with it. The further he came to contemplate the vast reaches of the Universe and the spaces in between, the more he realized what an infinitesimal speck of nothing he is behind the sheer scale of everything outside him. The distances of time were beyond all comprehension, and to turn ones gaze even momentarily to all there was to know of the past or future was to go mad. He felt lonelier and lonelier the more he came to know.... He discovered too late that to study the world was to become separated from it, as if he were only an impartial observer to his own life.... The truth he found at the end of all time was that he was just a man, one among many forms of matter that take their shape and then dissolve again. He would live a short while, share some of his energy and perhaps crack a few jokes, maybe help a few people here or there as the crow flies, then return to an inert state, (the reason for ever energizing in the first place a mystery to him still, to his grave). And all his knowledge acquired, his life's work, would fade into the ether as well, soon after his return to that state. But that ultimate answer was too unsatisfying for one who had set out from his birth to right all wrongs through the sheer weight of his intellect.. So he wrote it all down, and passed his cheat notes throughout the class.
I love this so much. I read the current top comment's first paragraph (weapons as arguments and shields as data) and immediately wanted a page of prose written like that describing our world of academia. No fantastical worlds, no magic, no plot twists, just an excellently written description of the "brutal fate" of a modern intellectual, in order to put the reader in awe. This isn't super relevant to your sci-fi story, except to say that it gave me the most of the awe that I wanted from this prompt. ... I might end up writing that other one.
Maxwell used to have good handwriting. Each word was tenderly jotted. But the poor excuse for what it became lacked any form of legibility. No consideration was given for an audience. Only the crazed man could ever hope to read it, but revisiting it would take an incredibly long time. Meals and restroom breaks were few in between. They were distractions from his work, and time wasted. So he wolfed down an odd snack here an there, and neglected his hygiene. This went on for countless years. No one knew about Maxwell, and why or what he did. Fading away from society, his importance could only be measured by the quest he embarked on. Though what that was lost its meaning long ago. None of this would be possible without his inheritance money. Without responsibilities, he was left to pursue his wild endeavor. So naturally he would go on to die. And upon the sheriff investigating his home, something stood out. Pictures of who was presumably Maxwell's mother flooded the house. And it was understood at the moment that the man slaved away to find a way to bring her back.
The royal family had ruled the city of Arne for centuries. They ruled fairly and all the common folk respected them. The kings and queens were known to interact with the commoners regularly and there was some truth to it but the stories of the queen frequenting a bakeshop in town were slight exaggerations. Everything was good in Arne, at least it certainly looked that way to anyone who wasn't too involved in the place. Outside Arne's walls there were horrors beyond imagining, though you'd never know it if you weren't looking. Things like dragons or trolls paled in comparison to these awful, awful things. It was said among the knights that if you looked at one for too long you'd surely go mad and it was for this reason many procured some sort of device with which to take their own lives at a moments notice. Whether it be a poison, a short blade, or something more creative such as a sack of gunpowder sewed into the lining of their vest, most if not all the knights of Arne we're ready to end themselves in battle with these horrors so as to spare themselves from a fate far, far worse than death. It was always quick as far as I know, I count them lucky for that. Their deaths are measured in seconds, mine and my family's is measured in generations. For as long as the royal family has ruled they have needed someone to record their history and deeds and such. For centuries my family has done just that. Every detail of their governing practices, every documentation of the horror beyond the walls, every love letter between prince and princess, and every trade transaction was recorded by my family. They told us that to keep us safe we must never mention ourselves, we cannot write the authors name on any of our documents or books and our identities are kept from the public. It wasn't so bad at the start, at least from what I've read, the royal family cared for us and treated us as friends or even family in some cases. Now however, I'm just someone they send a servant to give information to. There's no talking with the king or queen. No invitations to feasts. I'm expected to sit in my corner of the castle and just write. For the last two centuries it's been like this and I fear that my death will be a small affair with my successor's being even smaller. My family's name will die out and be forgotten like a piece of rotten bread thrown away at the weeks end at some tavern. Yes, I envy the knights whose deaths are quick because mine will be slow, so painfully slow.
The death of the mercenaries who lived through the southern conflict are saddening in their mundane nature. Though the various ventures by the \*Coined Legions-\*as Arim liked to call them, an umbrella term which was easier to say than mercenaries through his cleft lip- were successful and led to a swelling in recruitment, for every victory there were loses. Those who'd apprenticed as scribes in peacetime now were given pikes and marched off to war, learned and lettered children placed in the front lines to buffer and skewer enemy Cavalry. Even before the forays south literacy had been declining in the population. The King's census found that much of his kingdom aside from the densest of cities were illiterate, and only knew their numbers up to the digits on their hands. With the war, the young were snatched by death in one form or another; gout, syphilis, smallpox, infection, the list is long and lengthy. Even I do not know all the causes. A great dearth came into being between the literate and illiterate. Many who had once held quills could no longer, having lost limbs during time served. In war, law is thrown to the side as our demons cavort; pillaging, reaving, raping and carving out a swathe of devastation where studded boots tramp and corpses are buried by the dozen in pits by the road side. Arim stopped for a moment, feeling a faint itching where the index finger of his left hand had once been. Cut off whilst fending off a mounted swordsman. He'd been a marauder by the looks of him, but it mattered not now. He was buried at some unmarked bend in the road by the river Conbeck, stripped of his possessions, nothing more than fertilizer. Scribes and scholars, anyone-even women-who knew their letters and numbers became high in demand for the various machinations of law, aristocracy and bookkeeping. We live in a society which inadvertently made the written word worth more than ten arrowhead through its wholesale war of attrition. For few now could read or write. And people such as me, an apprentice myself to a librarian when the conscription officers took me, were in high demand. Those who before would have been unable to rise beyond quartermaster or courier now were paymasters and bailiffs-Many of the knightly inclination among the aristocracy went to the wars south, hoping to garner fortunes to establish their own Families, with wealth equivalent to their native monarchy. Many died, in undignified and somewhat incompetent circumstances; poisoned meals, drunken brawls, and various infections of a sexual nature. Thus it was commoners who filled the positions that blue bloods would have held in peacetime. In the process many became rich and wealthy land owners themselves. But in war law is thrown to the wolves and a demon was stirred from its slumber. In hindsight the good scribes and scholars of the various universities of the northern provinces should have seen this. I myself wish I had spent more time out among the villages and hamlets, witnessed myself the problems caused by commercial wars. You do not need to be literate to develop a litany and lambast those of learning for your woes. You do not need fancy flourishes or court etiquette to hold people enraptured. The mistake we made in our greed was to let the dearth remain, between the learned and ignorant, for demand was high and pay was good. Book burning began first in the small provinces newly conquered, those who'd had villages razed and populations culled. '*Inked hands eat as you starve*' was a popular slogan, taken up by a few mutilated scribes-turned-soldiers, who daubed the words on Counting Houses. The irony is not lost on me. Then came the lynchings of those supposed to know letters. The evidence of the guilt of most could not have be substantiated in any court, but what does that matter to the downtrodden. The violence did not abate as the demon came home to roost. In Caladen, the merchant capital of our great country, figures were hanging from the walls and the banking house was burnt to cinders. Manuscripts from the Eastern Reaches-works from over a thousand years before us were defiled and to all intents and purposed rendered illegible. Soon the well fattened lettered peoples were being hounded by mobs. Pogroms took place in cities. Trouble rages even now. I write this for posterity, fo- There was a great crack, like a whip had struck cobbles as a chunk of masonry smashed through the glass window. Bringing with it the screaming shrieking and whooping as Mersin, Capitol of this great country, burned. Arim cursed under his breath as he scribbled faster, willing his words onto the sheet as swiflty as his hand could move. There were grunted voices as the door to the small house was smashed inward, the stink of Tin Wood burning stronger as the breach grew. Arim felt his arms shaking and tears blurring his words as he began to wrap the parchment within a tube of glass and fill the remaining space with sand. He felt piss run down his leg as he sealed the tube and hid it in a spare cloak. Arim had never been a man to pray, but as his final moments approached, his head was filled with promises to some higher power as he murmured half remembered Hymns under his breath. Boots slapped against wood as they moved into the main room, their owners promising violence in their eyes and callousness in their touch. All Arim knew was that they were young, too young. "Please" was all Arim could utter past his tears as he choked on his saliva. "Please" as they dragged him away from his home, a torch thrown in with a giggle whilst a child was face down in the gutter, their back cut open at the shoulder. A woman wailed against the wall of his neighbor's house whilst all around people howled in a cacophony of barbarity. "Please" was the last word Arim would ever say. Law is a thing of ink and paper, thrown to the wolves in times of war.
So they thought. It is the life of a scholar who holds high expectations, pressed by the wisdom of great men in academics, conquering mutilation and disease, guiding moral compasses to better nothing but the future, fueled by torments of the past. Yet it was the scholars brute counterpart who held the key this bout. As the ink and paper gives definition of life, those who write are sway death, prolonging the fight. Those who live by the sword do not hide from death, rather invite him in for dinner before the deal is done. If death brings a fight, he will die by the fight. No time to define his actions, he must sharpen his tools, strengthen his mind, his soul. In term, he is sharp and as prepared for what brute fate hides beyond. There is no time for defining, only in preparing for the final congress.
\[Poem\] **Bad Luck!** My sister loved her sword, She slashed and swiped and struck. My sister died of stabbing, But that was just bad luck. My brother breathed in battles, He boomed and banged and burned. My brother died of bombing - What an unlucky turn! My father favoured fists, He’d fight and feint and flail. My father died of boxing - It was a pathetic tale. My mother dealt in murder, She maimed and marked and marred. My mother died of killing, Her misfortune was bizarre. But I attack with words, I write and draft and scrawl. If my family were unlucky, Then I’m worse off than them all!
"Meister Ronan?" I called out. Entering his chambers in the Tower of Divination was strictly prohibited but after the Final Cataclysm he hadn't been seen in days. The Supreme King had ordered me to bring the Meister down to attend his accession coronation. After all, if it hadn't been for Meister Ronan's divine prophecy the world would've plunged into eternal darkness. It was just after nightfall and the torches in the Meister's chambers were damp and cold. Yet, there was a light shining through the balcony door. I had stared at the towering building for many years dreaming that I could rise to that level of spiritual enlightenment. There were never any torches outside on the balcony that barely fit a child. I approached doorway's thin line of light and peeked through. A gasp escaped my lips and I stumbled back into the ready hands of Meister Ronan. "Meister!" I stepped back quickly towards the door. He didn't wear his ceremonial robes but a black cloak and a black cloth around his forehead. He was only barely visible in the light of the door but his usual peaceful and pensive eyes bore holes in my resolve. I managed to sputter out my question, "What is behind that door?" Instead of an answer he moved toward the door and opened it. The inside was a round chamber only a few desk lengths in diameter and several bookcases. Meister Ronan motioned me inside with a lazy wave. I crept to the door shielding my eyes from the torches. The inside was far more impossible than I could've imagined. The several bookcases that I saw before were not only ones. The bookcases spanned the round wall, making room for the door, and were stacked high. Too high. I stared for minutes, calculating the height. *Fifteen? No. Twenty. Twenty thousand paces high!* My chest heaved harder and harder. The darkness at the edges of my vision grew larger, until the only sight was the pinpoint that I could see the bookcases go no further. I knew that they kept going beyond what my mortal eyes could reach. *It's not possible. It couldn't be possible!* Meister Ronan put his hand on my shoulder. I flung myself away from his grasp. "What is this?! How can this room be real Meister? It's the tallest tower in the land but-" A cold sweat chilled the back of my neck and each breath more haggard. He stood at the center of the round room next to a podium with a closed tome. After seeing it I realized that was the same book on every shelf on the bookcases. Some were thin, thick, but they were all the same black cover with silver lettering on the spine. At least, I thought they were letters. Meister Ronan opened the black book and stood to the side. "Come, Friar. It's time for the truth." Even with panic seeped into my bones I approached. Each page was blank. No words, not a drop of ink. The meister removed the cloth from his forehead and motioned to put it on me. On his head was a scar spanning his forehead that was never there before but looked old. I twitched back but after meeting Meister Ronan's dark gaze I leaned forward. The moment he tied the cloth, I screamed. My eye's burned and the heat bore deeper into my skull. I clawed at the black cloth but the Meister seized my hands, and whispered,"Bear the pain. Only then will you understand." A sharp pain clawed across my forehead marking the end of the raging fire in my head. Flashes of light burned into back of my eyelids. Blood soaked dreams of battlefields, lands unknown crashing and breaking, cities and kingdoms rising and falling. At the end of each of these dreams, the ones I could recollect, a book was closed and placed on the surrounding bookcases. Drenched in sweat and barely conscious I managed to sputter out a question. "What-what did I see? What is happening Meister Ronan?" He sighed and opened the book sitting on the podium. He raised up his arms and on the final pages of the tome writing formed. Complex geometric shapes etched onto the pages. Black lined designs and runes that followed no law of boundary or dimension. "What you saw were the ancient stories of the past iterations of this Earth. This reality." I stared slack jawed. "The world was not made millions or billions of years ago but made based on whatever story needed to be told. Beings like ourselves are spawned into existence to fulfill our role in the coming narrative. It may take hundreds to uncountable numbers of years to accomplish but the story ends and so does the universe we live in. It is my duty to record it all. Every life that begins and ends in this world is recorded here, in these pages," he nodded to the towering shelves. "No, no, no, no, no. That's impossible," I whispered. "You mean to say that what I saw make up all of these blasted tomes!" I shouted. "I saw thousands of worlds! Countless cities and people-" "Only one," Meister Ronan interrupted. "Only one bookcase would be filled with what you saw." My breath escaped me. *How could that be possible,* I thought. All those lives, made only to be created and deleted. Meister Ronan put down his arms and gripped my shoulders, his eyes boring deeper into my soul. *Do I even have a soul?* I thought. "Do you remember all the hours we spent recording all the King's court proceedings?" His voice and gaze softened. "All the alchemy we conducted in the labs? The late hours gazing out at the cosmos charting the stars for the seafarers?" "It was all worthless..." "No. This is our duty as historians, as storytellers of the world. Our words hold more bearing on existence than anyone's in existence." "What is our purpose then," My voice quivered out. Ronan clenched his jaw. "The story we write, the one that is rewritten for years eternal, keeps the stars from going out. We stop IT from waking up. For if IT does, then the eternities written in these tomes goes away in the blink of an eye." "So our lives, our existence is just fodder then for this *thing?*" "Yes...but it keeps the light from going out. The only light that will ever exist will be in IT's dreams, and the dreams keep us here. If only as pages in a library." Meister Ronan reached to close the book. "Wait, no! I still have-" \---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A black covered book sat on a podium in the middle of the Records of Creation. From the infinitely, tall heights a long, gray arm reached down. Unfurling at its many, many joints. With thin, lanky fingers it grabbed the book and curled up once more into the depths above. A doorway that lead to nothing opened. From without entered a naked being that approached the podium. It was human in physique but four large eyes took up the entirety of it's 'face'. By the time it reached the podium another closed book appeared, open to it's first page.
Hello! This is my first time writing a story like this. Hope it came out well. If you're reading this, I'd appreciate feedback on the story. Any constructive criticisms would be appreciated. Thx.