On the day she was born, the whole city sat quiet. The silence was its own entity - a hesitant yet heavy hope that weighed upon the heart of every man and woman who was sentient enough to know. They all knew, as the horn was blown and they gathered in the square at the base of the Citadel, that the news that was to come would change the glimmer of future that lived in each of their withering minds.
If the news was good, well then all things were possible. All things, even God himself smiling down upon them. If it was bad, then it was over. Twenty-five times would be too many, even for five healthy wives. It would have to be over.
And then he came out into the mouth of the skull, that artificially-kept relic who looked less immortal each time and more like a man refusing to die. How could anything living come from him? they wondered.
But then a powdered henchmen held up the microphone to his mouthpiece, and his voice rang out strong and true across the canyon. It shattered the silence in a mighty wave, shaking the crowd in their feeble bodies. Those who had binoculars brought them up to their eyes.
"Rejoice, my people, for I am your redeemer! It is by my loins that you will rise from the ashes of this world!"
They began to murmur amongst themselves, ghostly faces turning to meet sunken eyes.
"My child has been born by The Splendid Angharad! A healthy child!"
Through their binoculars, some could see the wrinkled, pink face within the bundle that was handed to their leader. The bundle was tiny, but not too tiny. Looks right, they thought.
With seamless strength, he held it high above his head, and it wriggled. It wriggled.
"THE FIRST!" he bellowed.
"THE FIRST!" some of them cried out in return.
"I share with you this precious gift, just as I share with you all that gives life!"
On cue, the henchman pushed the big, shiny levers all the way to "full," and the water fell down upon them as it never had before, drenching their tattered clothes so that the dust ran off them in rolling, brown rivets.
The bowls and jugs that they kept on them always were filling too fast to drink, so they stood with their mouths wide open like grounded fish, not caring if they drowned, for no other death could be so sweet.
The water ran even as their savior lowered the Precious and turned his back to disappear into the throat of the skull. It ran long after he was gone, well until dusk. And they drank and drank and drank until their bellies bulged and their heads swam with the most fanciful liquid dreams.
To be continued ...