Oh, its surface had been scoured by wind, and rain, and sand, and salt, and all the ravages of time – but it would take centuries for such treatment to reduce the rearing horse to broken rubble and distant memory. The years had left their mark, in ragged grooves that ran like scars across the alabaster flesh. One proud ear was shattered and lost, and cracks running through one out-stretched leg spoke of a similar fate to follow.

But the statue stood, despite all the elements could throw at it upon this craggy field, where it looked down upon the lonely beach where tiny crabs danced their scuttling dance amidst broken shells and the bones of long-dead fish. The statue stood, despite all the power of nature that had laid low the once-pristine, white-roofed manor behind it. And the statue stood, despite all the will and wishes of Sir Thomas Kincaid, upon whose land it defiantly stood.

It had not been placed there by his design, however. To this day he did not know where it had come from – he had simply arrived at the manor on one crisp autumn day, and there the statue stood. The manor was merely his summer home in those days, and had seemed a safe retreat when the first rumors of war began to spread.

Sometime between the end of his summer vacation, and his hasty return two months later, the horse had appeared. An alabaster statue of a rider-less horse, caught in mid-leap with its front hooves extended tall and proud – as though at any moment the statue would launch itself down onto the beach below, and ride off into the crashing waves.

The land’s caretakers could not tell him exactly when it had arrived – they claimed it had simply appeared, upon one recent morning, and they had assumed he had commanded it to be so. The whims of wealthy men were not theirs to ponder, after all.

He had not know, then, how bad things would become on the mainland. That this would not be simply a temporary retreat, but instead the only haven he could find from the chaos spreading elsewhere in the world. That he would yet remain here, seventeen years later, even with one wing of the manor collapsed and only a handful of rooms that yet remained habitable, for him and the two servants that yet remained. Two friends, in truth, for the concept of service had faded with the fall of modern society. His huntsman, Roger, still gathered food and hunted game, while Alessandra still prepared their meals… but there was no service in this, only shared survival.

When first Thomas had seen the statue, it had disturbed him, but also sparked his curiousity. Some strange prank, perhaps? A message, from a fellow collector of rare curiousities?

He had been curious, so he had not commanded its removal. And when autumn came again, and no answers had been found, fear of embarassment held him back, for it would seem foolish to destroy it after letting it sit there for a year. And by then, the wars had gotten worse, and over the next few years, there were more important preparations to be made than tidying his estate.

And one day he found that he had grown old, and all but two of his staff had abandoned him, and it would be little worth the effort to uproot this strange unanswered mystery from the past.

Thomas stared at it now, bitter and angry that it yet remained. It seemed a symbol, to him, of all that had gone wrong with the world. He had his life, which left him better than many – and his freedom, which left him better than most. But no man can weather the collapse of civilization without some regret, and all the more so for a man so used to wealth and power.

He trudged over to it, his threadbare black coat wrapped tightly around him in protection from the wind. His stare could not topple it over, for all his will. Nor his strength – though that did not keep him from trying, each day at dawn. He hoped that one day the soil would simply lose its strength, its grip upon the statue, and the lightest push would send the alabaster horse crashing to the ground.

Yet until today, each attempt went the same. He placed his hands upon the statue, and it did not move. He pushed against it, desperately, and felt the cold, rough stone press against his skin… and then he would abruptly let go, feeling foolish, and stomp back to the house to pretend the attempt had never been made.

Today, the statue did not fall at his touch, but something far stranger happened. He placed his hands upon the stone… and the statue was warm to the touch.

He staggered away, instantly, tearing his hands free from that unnatural warmth. And as he watched, in fear and, strangely, excitement… the statue began to move.

“This one,” he repeated with his usual white-toothed grin, “this one I keep.”

His son, Shamus, was clearly puzzled. He had good reason to be disoriented, admittedly – today was the day his father was turning the busines over to him. Despite years of being primed by Teetonka in the trade, he had spent the day getting a crash course in the true secrets of the craft – the tips to getting the most zip and zoom out of every hand-woven, lovingly-enchanted carpet, as well as the tricks to putting them on the market, cajoling customers into taking a ride, and persuading them to part with every coin they had to their name.

It had been an intense, primal experience, and left Shamus fuzzy-headed and his thoughts swimming through a sea of silver words and cunning strategies – which made it especially difficult for him to understand why his father was laying claim to the rattiest, thinnest, dullest enchanted rug in their storeroom.

Teetonka’s smile grew even wider, his teeth shining bright despite the dim lighting in the warehouse room. “You think I have lost my touch, yes. My eye for the prize! Here I am, finally ready to retire. My enemies have been laid to rest, my family is safe and secure, and all I have before me is years of carefree travel and sampling the coffees of the world, yes? Why would I want to make the trip on such a rag as this, eh?”

Shamus nodded. “Yes, father. I would not have put it in quite those words, but… something like that, yes.”

Laughter echoed through the room as Teetonka shook his head and kneeled down beside the magic carpet – though his son, privately, wasn’t quite sure what his father found so amusing. Running one hand across the threadbare fabric, tracing out the red and gold pattern that had faded into a single crimson haze of color, the elder O’Malley chuckled until the room fell into silence.

Then, his eyes still dancing with merriment, he looked up at his son. “There are no words with which to explain it. But this one I keep as my own. And one day, when you stand before your own child and are flush with your greatest triumph, certain of your family’s safety and security…. then, on that day, you shall understand, with no explanation needed.”

And as the retired salesman rolled up the only magic carpet he would ever claim as his own, Shamus stood there in bewilderment trying – and failing – to offer a response.

A mind that has been trapped within itself for a thousand times a thousand years. Bound by a race ancient when the universe was young, a race long since departed and forgotten. Their only legacy is an enemy as old as they – one sealed within the metal subterranea of an artificial world, a steel trap that imprisoned his mind in a perpetual loop. His thoughts have been running in an endless cycle since the dawning of the stars…

…and now comes the beating of the drums. A message sent through the dark of space. Song, noise, rhythm - a pattern of sound intended to break the loop and awaken the one trapped within. Sent deliberately, by an unknown benefactor, to unleash the first criminal known to sentient life. For reasons unknown, but surely malevolent.

The metal spires rattle, the steel wires shake and resound with the thunder of the sound. A mind stirs from its eternal dream. It takes note, for the first time in a very long time, of something other than itself. Figurative eyes are opened, and look out upon a universe that has grown old and dark…

And he awakens.

And it begins.

Confectionry and flour were everywhere, patches of color and layers of white dust that shrouded the room in a faerie grove haze, making Veritan recall the time he and his squire had fed upon mushrooms whose poison hadn’t struck their bodies, but simply dazed their minds. Navigating this room was a similar trial in seperating visions from reality, but one thing was undeniably clear – there was a young woman collapsed in a heap upon the center of the floor, bawling her eyes out.

“It’s – it’s gone! Oh, woe and wrack and ruin, thieves and robbers have defiled the heart of our sanctuary, profaned our kingdom and, and, and taken away our most precious-”

“Sister!” Veritan called out, trying to stem the flood of words the Lady Verix unleashed in a long, low moan. “Sister, dear sister, you must calm down! Please, just – tell me what is wrong, shall you? What has happened?”

The words cut off, though the sobs still continued chasing their own echos through the castle halls. Slowly, his sister lifted tear-stained eyes up to meet his gaze. “I, I had finished it. Oh, it was finally there, pure and certain and strong, the culmination of all my experiments, all my work – and then it was gone!”

The exasperated knight shook his head (and resisted the urge to shake his sister). “What is gone, Amantha?”

“My cake!” she bawled, wrapping her arms around him and weeping into his clothes. Grabbing a loose baking spoon for a bit of leverage, he pried her away, though she grabbed hold of his shirt and wiped her eyes clean, before finally letting go.

“A cake? This commotion is over a simple cake?”

Her lips turned down, anger quickly replacing sorrow. “It was no simple cake, dear brother. It was the perfect cake.”

“Don’t be absurd, sister. There is no such thing as a perfect cake. It might have been a fine cake, or even a magnificant cake, but perfection is the domain of nature and the heavens, not desserts. “

“You would say otherwise if you had seen it! Smooth but yielding, scenic but inviting, empowering while fulfilling – it had fully acquired every key feature listed in the Art of the Baker!”

“Look, it doesn’t matter how well it matched your formulas and checklists – perfection is impossible in any impermanent object, especially one that exists at such cross-purposes. Even if visually stunning, the moment you sampled it, that vision would be ruin. And if instead left untouched, it fails at is primary purpose to be eaten!”

Sir Veritan crossed his arms over his chest, staring his sister down with the same scornful look his tutor had always used to keep him in line in years past. She, unkindly, ignored it, and staggered to her feet before pointing one flour-covered hand at the counter beside the oven. “I don’t care what you say, Avery! It was perfect – and now it’s gone!”

He turned to look at where she pointed, and found that she was right – about its absence, if not its perfection. If there was a cake in the center of the counter, it was now gone – along with a solid circle carved out of the counter itself. And, looking up, the ceiling – of this floor, and the one above, and on upwards until he saw the sky. It was as though a cylinder had simply fallen from the heavens and plunged straight through the castle, and then been snatched away along with everything that had been in its pass.

Sir Avery Veritan stood there, staring at the expanse of emptiness, and for the first time ever in all his arguments with his sister, he found himself speechless.

Andreas turned away from the sunset, his bare feet making no sound as he softly padded across the cold steel rooftop. He shivered at the feel of the metal on his skin, taking solace in the chill reassurance of the world around him. The city remains. The city endures.

He could feel vibrations carrying through the metal frame of the building. The citizenry did not notice the omnipresent hum, and even those who did had long since grown used to it. It was birdsong, crashing waves, white noise – but to Andreas, it had meaning. The thrumming of the city’s heart, the pulsing of its lifeblood, the shining song of a metal world that had embraced the parasitic life that burrowed through it on each and every day.

It was glorious.

The wedding itself was not of any great importance. Oh, the joining of Prince Caspen and Lady Allera was a celebrated throughout the land, and foretold as a match that would have a positive impact on the future of their Kingdom for generations to come. And so it did, given the two of them would promptly retreat into privacy to make one thaumaturgical discovery after another, advancing the learning of the realm with a thousand petty works of ingenuity.

But the fourth son of the king and a minor noble from the mountains were, in the end, figures of no great consequence. They had a love-filled marriage and enjoyed their days in peace and prosperity. They never produced a child. Their love was spent on experiments and invention alone.

What they did have, though, was a wedding of no small magnificence! Invitations sent to every Named person of the realm, musicians and performers brought in from across the seven Kingdoms, and the highest royalty of every state in attendance. The dishes and cakes served were works of art, that could bring tears to the eye of the most miserly Clerk. A week long holiday was held in celebration of the event, for the commonfolk to take part in this grand occasion. The High Keeper of the faith himself presided over the ceremony, enshrining the entire event in an atmosphere of peace and calm that was almost unknown to the normally bickering and scheming members of the nobility.

And after the service was held, while the dukes and dames of seven lands danced and drank the night away, and gave toast after toast to the health and future of the royal couple… two figures had scurried away from the bright lights and merriment to find a moment of privacy.

In that dark seclusion, heady on fae wine and strangely becalmed by the magical peace, a man and a woman who hated each other very, very much… made love.

They were rivals at best, archenemies at worst – each considered a hero by their own Kingdom, and a villain by the rest. Their own grievances with each other was a nigh-endless list of betrayal, murder, deceit and damnations. Whenever they clashed, death fell in their wake.

And this night was no exception. Amidst the enforced revelry, their hatred turned to a form of dark passion… for one night only. But that was all it took.

For from that union would come a child. A child of terrible beauty and incredible will. A child with a heritage of not just magic, but majesty – who would not just command the winds of thaumaturgy, but the armies of nations.

A child who, sadly, inherited the best of both parent. No cruelty here, no nature of spite and hatred… no, no such easy weakness. This was a child born of pride, and honor, and determination. Righteous and vengeful and just.

Pure as the shining sun… and just as damned to eternally fall into the cold embrace of the dark.

The injured man awakes, as shadows drift across his eyes at the passage of the black birds overhead. Barbarian, heretic, warlord – Shard was all these things, and more. The world had trembled at his rise. Cities died at his command. Before him, faith failed and courage turned to ash.

Now, he had been left to die.

“Fools!” he cried out – or tried to, expelling only a bloody cough that echoed over the dead, and set the drifting birds aflutter with alarm. They hadn’t even bothered to kill him – they left him there, amidst his broken blades and slain men, and assumed that was the end of him.

“Never,” he whispered, and this time his voice was clear and firm. He leaned up, forcing his broken torso to rise from the rocks upon which it had fallen, and pain tore through him like a burning wind. He could not feel his legs, could not make them move – but he sat up nonetheless, using his right arm to prop up his body and hold his weight.

Blood dripped down into his eyes, and it was as though he surveyed the field in a dream. The scent of blood and iron was distant, as though he was watching from afar. A pale smoke seemed to rise from the bodies of the dead, and he almost imagined he saw their spirits drifting away from their useless and sundered shells.

“I will arise again,” he muttered through lips grown pale and blue.  “I shall drag myself from this empty field, this false defeat, and find myself a new land of refuge. Men shall again cheer at my words and ride forth before me, and the signal fires of the west will again be lit in fear at my approach. Your victory is hollow, young Prince! I shall crash down upon your world like a black wave, and break your precious walls, and send your people down into the light-less depths of the land below! Before my might, you shall be broken!”

Shard’s voice grew more momentous as he spoke, grew stronger and more confident with every word, such that the last burst forth as a roaring shout that scattered the black birds to the four winds, and left the field empty of any living thing… for such words had also taken the last of his reknowned strength. During his final speech, he had not noticed when his arm crumbled beneath his weight and his body again fell flat upon the stone. He had not noticed when the pain eased and the pink haze crawled across the last of his vision, for he saw not the cold mountain slope around him, but the visions in his own mind of conquest and triumph and war.

Visions that befit the Butcher of Norn… even as they were visions that would never come to pass. His final shout had expelled the last of his life, one ultimate oath of anger and hatred and revenge – a cry that would echo across the mountainside for all of time, caught in eternity amidst the craggy slopes.

His words, immortal, as he would never be.

The chimes were brief, and then there was silence, broken again by a woman’s voice as the new customer ordered cigarettes at the front of the shop. He shrunk further away, towards the cool hum of the refrigerators. His eyes caught on one drink – Diet Tangerine, of some strange brand he didn’t recognize – and he remembered drinking it before, and it tasting like melting popsicles, and that pleased him. So he selected one plastic bottle and moved on.

In the second row from the back of the store, he chose five cartons of razorblades. He chose three with green packaging, and two with blue packaging. They were otherwise the same, but it took him just over four minutes to make that choice.

By then, the other customer had paid and left, and he shuffled over to the front of the store.

He placed his purchases on the counter. When the cashier smiled and greeted him, he look down and mumbled half a sentence at the ground. He felt this was rude, and cleared his throat, and tried to look up at the lady, and was just about able to do so.

Her voice was that of a young girl, though he couldn’t judge that by her appearance. Not that it was unusual to anyone save for him – but the disparate elements he saw, they did not come together to form a complete image, to provide enough information to judge her age. He saw pale blond hair and smooth skin and downcast eyes, and knew they formed a person – but nothing more.

Searching for something to say, as the cashier rang up his purchase, he announced, “I’m not buying razorblades.”

 She paused, looking down at the green package in her hand, and then back at him. “Oh – I’m sorry, sir. Was there something else you were looking for?”

He shook his head. “No, I, I mean, I am not paying you money to buy razorblades. I am accepting razorblades so I can give you money. You see?”

She clearly did not. She asked if he wanted her to cancel the purchase, but he shook his head, staring back down at the ground. Stupid, stupid! he thought, knowing that if he said anything more, she would only become more unsettled. Or angry. Or frightened. It all made sense in his head, the words lined up perfectly – and they still seemed logical to him when he spoke, even as they confused everyone else. It was not fair. It was not just.

The door opened again with a chime, and this time brought in the scent of the chill air, frost crisp upon the winter breeze. He shivered, as he dug through his pocket for the money he needed, and the right amount of change.

He couldn’t remember why he had come here, and he wanted to be home.

The Children of the Mountain knew otherwise. The lowland folk spoke of the creation of the world and all its creatures… but the Children knew that in the beginning, there was only cold hard stone. Endless rock and stone was everything and all. A granite tomb for a world unborn, solid and unyielding and eternal – until the Breaker came.

In one moment, the Breaker came to be, and shattered the stone – freeing the sky to expand into its proper place. And from the rocky earth that remained, the Breaker began to shape the land – carving away the excess, and leaving mountains and valleys in its place, finally giving the World the shape it knows to this day. Some of the stone he reached out and crushed within one hand – and then poured it forth as water, to fill the rivers and oceans and seas.

With a more careful touch, he tore individual pieces from the ground, and pared them away until their true forms were all that remained – and set them down as animals, and trees, and all the many people of the World. And so life was born, and all was good.

The lowland folk chuckle at the myths of the mountainfolk, if they even know of them at all. But the Children of the Mountain ignore such laughter, for three things, they know to be true.

They know that the World was not born from an act of creation, but one of destruction. 

They know that Life came forth from the hand of the Breaker.

And they know that his work is not yet done.

I’d get home from work, make dinner at the new apartment, and hit the streets – still empty, at first, in the aftermath of the fire. It took a while for people to trust each other enough to come back out into the open. They hid in their brick houses and behind their glass windows and suffered the heat in silence… at first. But after a week, they were staying out in the evenings, rather than simply ducking indoors with the heads bowed low and no words for the neighbors.

After a month, things were back to normal. Oh, you could see the blackened shells that had burnt down, you could even still smell the smoke on the air – but the city moved on. Workers worked, neighbors chatted, children played.

And I continued to hunt for the cat.

Seems like a silly thing, right? After everything that happened on that one night, after everything I lost – we lost – and all the tragedies throughout the city… I was worried over the cat that fled the house during the commotion. I mean, we had only had her for a few days before everything went down. A stray from the streets… we hadn’t even named her, yet.

Maybe it was right, and just, that she returned to the concrete wilderness of the city. Maybe that was her proper place – once we had nursed her back to health, she had no more need for us, and the night of the fire simply provided a good distraction to escape back to her roots.

So why was I roaming the streets, every evening without fail? Was it simply looking for one possible attachment to my old life… to everything that I had lost, or left behind, that evening?

No… I don’t think it was that. I think it was simply something to do. All that loss, all that tragedy… I couldn’t do anything about it. Not for me, not for anyone else.

But… maybe I could find the cat. And give her a proper home again. It was a faint, meaningless, ridiculous, absurd little hope… but it kept me going. It gave me time.

Just as the city slowly healed, so did I.

I never found her on the streets. I wandered for three months and a day, without a sign, without even the slightest clue to keep me looking. I walked the back alleys, I roamed behind the restaurants where they cast off their scraps, I picked my way through the junk lots where so many memories were piled up out of sight. Without success.

And then, on the ninety-third day from when I started searching, I came home… and found her sitting in my kitchen. I had left the window open – fall was well on its way, but the heat hadn’t yet left the city. It lingered like the smoldering coals of the fire, keeping us warm and reminding us of the scent of ash and smoke.

I don’t know how she found the place…. or why. It seems irrational. Maybe she was searching for me, just as I was hunting for her… and every night, when I was out on the streets, she was sneaking through the halls of one home after another, in search of a lost friend.

Or maybe it was just coincidence. Luck, fate, random chance… or the will of two lost souls, in a city that had burned… and lived to tell the tale. It told it through each one of us, who survived. Each one, who remembered. Victims and guilty were we all… and Ash and I as much as any.

She lives with me still, though she’s grown old over the years. Her coat is as gray as her namesake… but her steps are still young. Still adventurous, though her limp has only grown worse. I’ve only grown more sedate, on the other hand, and let time wash over me like a cooling tide. I’ve tried to tell the tale of what happened that night, tried to set the facts in stone…

But… but it can’t be done, can it? My views just one, of many. You’d need to capture the tale of every soul trapped in the city the night it burned. No, I can’t provide the full story – I can only provide my own. And, in doing so… a bit of Ash’s, as well, and a piece of everyone else I remembered from that night.

In the end, I hope that’s enough.