1 The End
Let us start at the end, from which all beginnings come. For time is a chain of ends and beginnings that have gone on since the beginning. However, does not every chain have a beginning and an end?
Is this end of this link of time, the beginning of the end thereof?
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The lift arrived at the final floor of the ArchThane's citadel: the throne room. Six of his Daedri Dark Knights stood before his throne. My legs and knees shook as I stepped onto the ivory and obsidian tiles. The tiles seem to be mended into the floor with gold. Using gold for mortar in your floor was a far cry from the holes families have dug out with their hands back home.
The room was massive, a thousand soldiers could line up in here by rows before the ArchThane's throne. The stained windows were three stories high and depicted battles which the ArchThane had won. Six dragon ivory chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Gold and splendor surrounded me but exhaustion and fear ruled within me. This is it, no one has survived against the ArchThane. No one of the Tribe of Woe WAS ever meant to survive this tower. The stained windows filtered in the shades of the setting sun in many colors. Something in me told me that the glass was made via melted down gold and diamonds.
The ArchThane is the closest thing to a god that I know of, and he has identified himself as just that. His throne was built into the base of a graphic yet ornate statue of a screaming woman. It looked like marble, and the woman had her scream cut off at her throat. The crimson Ruby throne was built into the flow of blood and the one who called us there clapped as I approached on wobbly legs.
Disheveled, and wounded I wasn't meant to be here. It was a privilege to be in the room where my father died. However, it just made me ever the more angry.
The ArchThane was in Gyros Crown armor and covered head to foot with metal or mesh. His helmet with three spires was like a crown over the fox furs adorning his armor over his neck. He looked more metal than human.
The lead Knight, the Winged Huscar, wings built for show and distinction on his back, hissed in his inhuman voice, "Vos ipsi vidistis Dei. Mors est tuus praemium."
(You have seen God. Death is thine/your reward.) {Latin}
Next came the hisses of blades from their scabbards. But then something unexpected happened, the ArchThane spoke, his voice unmuzzled despite the full helmet on his head, "Prohibere!" (Stop!) Then he spoke in my tongue, "It has been several thousand years since two generations in a row have had mortals make it here. Tell me your name."
"S-Sven Ragnarsson, ArchThane."
"You are the son of Ragnar?" Familiarity struck his voice and he added, "Your blood will serve me well. I will honor you and your father with this, what are your last words before final combat?"
I pointed my sword right at him and screamed,
"Mas quatenus quod unus mas, sit homo morior apud unus gladium apud eius manibus!"
(He that is a man, let him die with a sword in his hand!)
He replied with the order,
"Sit homo demorior."
(Let the man utterly die.)
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That was the end of one link of this chain called time that binds mortals. Over twenty thousand years ago, the Immortals imposed their wills upon the world. The chain does not bind them, they do not age and die as we do. Now, I will show you the beginning of this link of time.
It's quite humbling.
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It all started with a scrawny and malnourished me, aka Sven, crying his bloody eyes out. If I wasn't born to my father then I could grow up and have a family. But no, the ArchThane would protect the village as long as the sons of the Tribe of Woe entertained him. It meant growing up without a father and it meant dying where he died.
It meant that you could force women to marry you because that was the point. Keep the Sons of Woe coming, the feelings of the orphans and widows left behind were moot. It was either this or dragons, goblins or orcs would come. We would be driven out into the wastes with the Hordes that live in crumbling towers of the Old World. That would mean a life worse than death.
So I gotta do this formality thingy today and prepare to die in the next few days or weeks pretty much. Wiping my nose and spitting, I rose and exited my humble abode. Two cement blocks stacked like a tent against a mountain of rubble made up my home.
I watched the sun set, green from the smog and dust. Soon I will eat and drink like no one in our community has save my fathers. We are treated like lambs, soon to be fattened and lead to the slaughter. The sun reflected off the locks of a dirty blonde coming my way.
Tita Antonni's blue eyes glistened in sadness as she stepped over the rubble to me. We were silent a moment and I was topless. Skin and bones, a skeleton, that's what we all were. She pulled down her mask that would help with the dust of the night's wind storms and she asked the obvious, "Can't sleep due to the ritual coming up?"
"No."
"Sven, can I ask you a question?"
"You are my best friend, of course."
"Why did you never conscript a wife?"
"Why did I never conscript you? We spoke of this. You begged me not to."
"But you could've."
She was right, and I could see why she was curious. Every other man of my tribe in my generation took the women of their dreams. Conscripts and Mothers of Woe were compensated with better food and services from the ArchThane and his machines so it wasn't a complete waste on the woman's part. Daughters of Woe get benefits whether they lose a brother or not. They most certainly lose a father. After a sigh I answered,
"My mother was a Mother of Woe, she chose my father among all men. She loved him so dearly, she mourns even to this day. Then she loved me, trying to use me to comfort her for her husband's death. It is a cycle, a chain that ought not be forced upon any mother with an ounce of love or motherhood in her." I smiled, "That chain ends with me."
The wind blew some of her hair into her soft, round face. I was glad when she said, "May I come in?"
"It's too dark to return home."
She smiled, "I know."
