In the city, once called Cabitela, and now Ollaria, lilacs were blossoming. Its white and purple candles were doomed, as all burning candles are. Cooing doves and bustling people were doomed too, as was the whole world. The inevitability of the end gave the spring city some sort of bitter charm. It's difficult to love something that was and will always be, but the understanding that "it's the last time" revives blunt feelings, and you start noticing things you never paid attention to, and your heart fill with love and pain.
It was the last time the Lone one walked down the streets of Ollaria, the world was getting dangerous. Soon good old Kertiana will become the house for rattons. A few ages will pass and the remnants of once free and joyful world will be destroyed. One more Pearl will leave the great Necklace - little price for the safety of the Thread.
The Lone one knew that the trouble will not come tomorrow. His "soon" was close to "never" for the mortals. Hurrying people, who didn't even notice the tall alien, will have enough time to love, to bustle, to hate, as well as their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And still, the Lone one could not help pitying the lively city with its chestnuts and lilacs, its twittering starlings, its red roofs and its cobblestones.
Humans... The Lone one smiled - he was a human too. He was, before he went through the Flames of Aeterna. No one forced him. It's impossible to push or lure somebody into going тещ the Flames. He chose his fate, agreed to die in order to be revived as a Guard of Sunset, an immortal warrior and wanderer, who vowed to keep the Necklace.
The Lone one didn't know, where his path had begun - the Thread is long, and his memory burned in the flame, which was the same colour as the lilac blossoms. He didn't regret anything - the endless fight, where there is no victory, became his past, present and future, leaving no space to doubts and gloom. But there were some worlds, where the wanderer wanted to stay for a little longer. The Lone one assumed that something about them reminded him of his homeland, but he didn't, he couldn't know, what was it. All that happened before the future Guard entered the lilac Flames and infernal pain ripped his head, all disappeared.
It was sensible - our past has too much control over us. Those who hold the sky on their shoulders must be free from former debts and affections, but the spring in Kertiana made him excited and sad. It could be caused by blossoming chestnuts and lilacs or by stranger's smiles, or by rapid swallows...
The Lone one has spread out his hand and the mighty chestnut tree bent its branches to meet the stranger. The strong fingers touched the blossoming bunch and the stranger smiled, squinting like a cat. He could turn himself into an old man, a young man, a woman, a leopard, a dragon at last, but he prefered his own appearance. It was the only thing left to him by the purple flames. The Guard of Sunset that once somebody loved him as he was, or hated him. The Lone one had no doubts that he had always been a warrior, but everything else... Was there anything to lose? He wanted to believe that there was.
Sometimes he tryed to imagine his human past, happiness he had rejected to follow the ada, who called him, but these fantasies melted away like clouds, or burned like hot iron. Eternal warrior, he made up stories about great love and faithful friends, but the stories did not want to be made up. He saw himself dying from a traitor's hand, he saw himself waiting for torture and death, he saw himself wandering around foreign lands, he saw himself going through others' envy, anger, contempt, but he never saw himself happy. For some reason he thought that in his life there was more hate than love, more pain than joy, but anyway, the Lone one prefered to remember everything.
Bell chime reterned the stranger back to the land of Kertiana. In all places and in all times mortals ask deities for mercy, they don't know that the gods are now dead and those who took their places have no power, no possibility to condescend to human requests. The Alien keeps trying to absorb the Necklace, and the Lone ones are the only who resist the groing pressure. Their job is to fight, and while they are struggling, damned rattons answer to mortals' prayers.
The Lone let go of the branch and moved forward mingling with the crowd leaving a cathedral. They did not notice him, but he noticed everything, after all, he saw Kertiana for the last time. Kertiana, which was his "clearing in the woods", the place which his heart was aching for. Having healed his wounds and having gained strength, before entering the fight again, he walked through the world memorising women laughing and children shouting. The Lone one did not create Kertiana and wasn't created by it, but he wanted to love, and he loved this world, so protecting the Necklace he protected it. Kertiana lived and breathed behind his back, that was, but that no longer will be. He cannot let rattons find his trail - the Autumn is too precious to risk it. The Autumn ismore precious than Kertiana, and the Necklace is more precious than one Pearl.
When Aeterna was intact, they were fighting for every world in the Necklace. Now they have hardly enough strength to hold back the Alien at the New Frontier. Formerly the Lone ones interfered in mortals' affairs, who called them either gods or demons, now it's in the past too. Everything is in the past, everything except the fight. When the last Guard falls, it will be the end of the Necklace, but the rattons don't understand it. There is little they understand, these nonentities, who imagine themselves to be gods. Playing their games they gnaw the Thread, involuntarily helping those, who strive to get it from the outside. No they have raised their heads in Kertiana.
The Lone one was slowly walking down the streets enjoying the feeling of solid ground under his feet, relishing in breathing fresh air, seeing smiles and flowers. The dirt, old age, injustice haven't gone anywhere, but he tried not to think about them, as well as about the rattons. The creatures haven't come into force yet. Kertiana doesn't know that it is mortally ill, and this is its happiness.
If only he could stay for a little longer! But everyone should do the things no one else can do for him. The Lone one's place is the fight at the Frontier.
to be continued |
