The Primeval Era

The aurora shifted, patterns of verdant-blue light rearranging themselves above as if the Emperor were gathering thoughts that had waited eight summers to be spoken.

"But I will tell you what I learned in life, and what death has only confirmed. If a man walks these cruel Lands and carries his honor with him when it would be easier to set it down, if he helps others when helping costs him, if he rises when rising invites the blade, then he has lived well. The Amadlozi do not count the years a life contained. They count what was carried through those years, and what was given to those who had nothing."

The Emperor’s voice deepened, and the verdant-blue light in his manifested eyes seemed to reach for his son across the impossible distance between them.

"You have carried honor, my Son. You have helped those who had no claim upon you. You have risen when rising should have killed you. For this, I am proud."

Damian’s eyes burned with brilliance!

The words should not have held the power they held. He had become something the Lands of Stone had not seen in generations, something perhaps they had never seen at all. Pride should have meant nothing to him.

But these were the words of his father! This was his father, and pride from his father moved through him the way water moved through dry earth that had forgotten what rain felt like.

The Emperor’s gaze held him for a long moment. Then it continued.

"Life gives different roles to those who walk the Lands of Stone, my son. Some are born to tend animals, and in their tending they keep their tribes fed. Some are born to turn the earth, and in their turning they make the villages possible. Some are born to knap stone and shape bone and weave fiber into the things that clothe and arm their people. These are not small roles. These are the roles that make the vast life of the Lands of Stone continue from one season to the next."

The booming voice grew heavier.

"But some are not given those roles. Some are born with responsibility already settled across their shoulders. Some inherit it through blood whether they sought it or not. The Vakochev line was such a line. It would have been easier to be a farmer. It would have been easier to be a herder. It would have been easier to be anything at all other than what we were. But ease was never what the blood demanded of us."

...!

The clouds rumbled above with the weight of the Ancestor’s voice pressing against them.

"Those born with responsibility are burdened with directing the lifeforms of the Lands of Stone. They are burdened with giving shape to the movements of tribes and empires. They are burdened with saying this is the way, and defending that way against every force that would see it unmade. It is hard, my Son. It is unforgiving. The lives you save will not always thank you. The lives you cannot save will be counted against you by those who never had to choose."

The aurora flared.

"But still, you must step up. Do you understand why? Because if those with honor do not rise, then those without honor will. And when the dishonorable rule, the vast life beneath them suffers. The farmers suffer. The herders suffer. The mothers weeping over cradles suffer. The children too small to know what is happening suffer. Every life you would have chosen over your own comfort will be ground beneath the heel of something that did not hesitate to take what you would not seize."

The Emperor’s voice turned quieter then, and somehow that was worse!

"Let me tell you what the Lands of Stone look like right now, my son. Let me tell you what I have seen from the place the Amadlozi walk, where all the Lands beneath are laid bare to those who watch."

The aurora darkened slightly!

"There are Dross Tribes across these Lands where no night is promised. The people lie down knowing they may not rise. Sworn enter these villages under cover of darkness. They come from empires that should have been shields and became swords instead. They kidnap mothers from beside their sleeping children, and they take them for pleasures I will not speak aloud. They kidnap sisters from the sides of brothers who cannot protect them. They behead fathers whose only crime was standing between their families and hands that wanted what their families owned."

Damian’s jaw tightened as his tattoos burned hotter.

"There are villages where the old are left for beasts because the young cannot afford to feed them. There are children who do not know the taste of meat, who grow with hollow eyes because their bones are being cheated of what bones need to harden. There are wives sold for bags of grain. There are husbands who sell them because the alternative is watching every mouth in their household fall silent together."

The Emperor paused, and when he continued, his voice held something that was not quite rage but was not quite anything else.

"And beyond all of this, the demons feast. They feast on souls, my Son.They consume the very essence of men and women and children, and they do so with the help of humans who have chosen to walk the path of demons for the power it promises them. They have traded their own afterlives for a strength they believe will protect them, and they do not understand that they have become the doors through which the demons will walk."

...!

Clouds trembled with the voice that moved through them!

"Children are taken in the night and never return. Not because animals took them. Because demons took them, and the Empires that should have hunted those demons have instead hunted the Tribes that complained too loudly. This is what the Lands of Stone have become. This is the state of the Lands you have inherited."

The aurora pulsed once, and the Emperor’s voice came down like a mountain settling.

"All of this because good leaders did not rise. Because the honorable sat back and said it was too hard to rule. Because those born with responsibility decided that responsibility was optional. But hard does not unmake duty, my son. Hard is the test that duty was built to answer. If it were easy, any creature that crawled the Lands of Stone could do it. It is hard precisely because only the few can bear it, and the few must bear it, because the many cannot."

Oh!