And So We Spoke
He sat on a stone throne before an altar, a beautiful porcelain doll draped in dyed Chinese silks and cold precious metals. He looked upon the audience gathered with bright unseeing eyes, lids heavily drooped as if burdened with an unspeakable truth. They said he had not moved, not spoken, not so much as blinked for centuries. He was a silent and eternal deity, and they have carefully ensconced him with mortal trappings deep in a mountain cave.
They had brought little Vanya on his eighth name day to be initiated. As he trooped into the hall, he felt his master's hand clamping to the back of his neck, and his knees buckled as he was bent over in a deep bow. The silence roared in his ears as they waited… and waited…
Finally, just as his eyes had grown accustomed to the shadows and he could trace the black veins running through the white marble floor, he was allowed to rise.
That was when the porcelain god beckoned him with a slow, heavy hand.
Whispers erupted in quiet fury among the people gathered, and Vanya stared at the stone hand raised still in an unmistakable summons. He was terrified.
"Go to him."
His master pushed him onto the first step of the dais. He looked behind him, trembling and uncertain, to find that everyone had fallen silent, and was watching him now with cold, hard eyes. He was very much alone.
Slowly, he turned to face forward once more, and reluctantly he climbed the steps. It took him a small eternity to reach, stumbling, before the immobile god.
The hand fell soundlessly back onto the throne's armrest. The flames continued to flicker light and shadow across the god's smooth countenance, as if he had not moved, not broken years of stillness and silence to beckon towards himself a small, quaking child dressed much too lightly for the winter chill. In spite of his anxiety, however, Vanya found his eyes irresistibly drawn to his idol's, which were golden and curiously warm.
Your name…
Vanya started. The voice was light as a breath of wind and almost inaudible, except the air was still, and the words had not issued from any lips. He shook even more violently as a fresh chill stole over him.
"I-I-Ivan," he squeaked.
The voice did not speak again. He continued to stare at the god with a tightness in his throat, but there was no change. After a while, they decided that he was dismissed, and he was allowed to back away. He half-ran and half-tripped down from the dais in his haste to leave.
Before he was herded out of the hall, he turned for a final look upon the figure they call the last of the dragons.