"And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free."
- The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Eulogies
My story then. Perhaps you wonder at the intentions twisted, the ideals corrupted, marvel at inanities glorified.
I reject the mortal coil. I cast off these shackles of perception. No longer binding. Time the rustling of brittle pages in a great book where past and present are united without cause or effect, right or wrong, truth or falsity.
So much so that a thousand years may flurry through a gust of cold breeze. Then I find I have lost my placeholder, in solitude. Is this the hurricane of change?
And who will save the world from your mistakes, pray tell?
My fear... is that you are afraid of my successes more than of my failures.
Voices echo in the corridors, the elegy of dead leaves through the architecture of my fell ambitions. They mingle indistinctly with the terror of children fleeing. Nota bene, my dear, who will save them from your mistakes? Ahhhh yes... forever he saves fools from their follies. Now tell me who will save him from himself?
The sight of a lone man confronting a dragon is not ridiculous. It is more so! A splash of madness upon the bright canvas of his glory. Sword and staff in hand, he stands over his broken friend. And as the sun rises over the edge of the barren moors, his gold and crimson fire etches an indelible daguerrotype into the silver morning mist.
No, this is another. Fallen, an old man. Torn the edifices of the Law. Law? What is it then? Why, it is our lives.
But when the day of our lives come to an end, the sun sets and the moon rises.
Frenzied chases in unending corridors. Black spiral staircases amidst the jigsaw chambers. Now you see the brave fallen, the fallen triumphant. The stars scream in spinning cacophony. The moon leers - a filthy, obscene grin. The moon knows our secrets. The moon knows the principles of bone and blood. These are the true principles of life, that in being so, trump life itself.
I see a wand. I see blood...but it is my blood, and so I am falling. Spiralling into the ground like last year's leaves. Endlessly, silently, into the soft earth smelling of sap and flowers. The fallen voice of a man mingle with the voice of women, echoing with the terror of the children. Who is thinking of the children?
What have I done? He was our friend.
It was him or me. Him or me.
What has he done? Why?
The rising tide of shadows fills my throat. Because...because... There is the fire and the water. Fire, fire...Coldness, coldness...
I, the Bloody Baron, inclined my head respectfully at the tomb as the last of the crowd dissipated. After the words, music. After the music, silence. After silence, memory.
Is Man not the master of his Fate?