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Misruid's Hall
The work of stone braziers kept the great courtly hall of the wooden palace warm and lit. While high narrow windows close to the ceiling moved the air throughout it was the fires that crackled in the middle of the slate-floored hall that helped to repel the bitter chill of spring and autumn and the biting hellish cold of winter. The floor did little favors, and was nearly covered in furs which softened the sounds of foot-steps so even the heaviest stomping was muffled by the fluff of wolves and deer skinned during winter. There was hundreds that littered the smooth stone floor, there had to be to cover it. And great piles of skins lay between the heavy wooden posts that held up the floors above. They covered the furniture that filled the spaces between, and the large pine chair that was now Perciv's throne.
Gently working at a wooden panel in the corner of the chamber, a spidery thin man with whispy wraith like hair knelt with a knife and rock in hand as he delicately chiseled away the wood. With the patience of a nature spirit he chipped away the wood to add writing to the walls. Later he would go over it again, not with a knife but with a stick dipped in paint, adding color to the words so they burned clear and bright from the faded dark wood. This was the story of Perciv's father, told in brief through the sacred sharp script of the Antevich.
The script was hardly a original device of the Antevich peoples, and really only a handful read and used it; the kings, the priests, and the carvers who deployed it. It was an import of Lesovichk's, or was an inspiration in part.
Standing at one of the carved panels, Perciv ran is hand along the faded beveled script etched into one of the first panels put up to recall the kings who had come before. It was old, and the sharp edges that had once defined the etchings had gone soft and round, barely indistinguishable from the graying birch slab used. If it wasn't for the red-paints used to highlight and give life into all the writing, to pull it out of the indistinguishable gloom of decay it would have been invisible to all but the close eye or the sensitive hand.
To speak more to its age, the writing on the panel was larger, cruder. Made by masters who had not yet mastered the skill or knew the entire story of the king. This one was of Lesovichk himself, but only put up well after his death, like so many of the early Misruid kings. Along with the crude writing there were symbols that no longer existed in the current form, long ago dropped or married with others to slowly symplify a style of writing that was as untrained and unrealized as Lesovichk's attempts to make his kingdom like those far-away Empires that the most ambitious and lusting adventurers sought after.
Still, they were not wholly untranslatable to the studied eye. Perciv read the panels again and again in solitude through the days, coming to his granduncle's and stepping back to start again. “Lesovichk son of Misruid. Slew his father in a duel of honor and became as his father, a conqueror and victor. Father of the Zemlyanarod. A wolf dragon who won the Battle of Vrāna. Brought word, and built up.”
It was hardly an epic. Misruid's own was hardly any more sparse. “Misruid, the great conqueror and unseater of power. A giant who killed many by his own hand. Conquered the Ves River. Subjugated the Devier. Killed not his own father for prominence, but many a man's own. Glorious: earthly hand of Tharun.”
As the placards went through the generations the practice refined itself and the skill of the artisans improved. Short bios with large child-like writing became detailed stories as long as a short fable written in small intricately crafted letters. A fuller list of details was recorded in chronology from memory. But it wasn't as if all was forgotten from then, song still existed. And there was many songs sung of the old kings.
Perciv looked over at the old man carving the words of his father's life as he felt a tinge of regret, sadness, and more mourning. But it was the way things had to be, he had to slowly resign himself to that. And here in the hall he could read of the many kings who have in their stories, “killed their father in honor to succeed him in life” written as parts of their histories. To be a king was not to be alone in one's regret, he was of a large court. What often appeared to be the most disparaging were those kings whose next act after succession was the taking of their own lives and the seeming desperate rules of their sons, even in the Misruid blood-line these figures did not achieve a relation with the gods and became cursory stepping stones of rulers to be later slain in battle by a cousin, nephew, even if the new king was only just a child.
And at a point, total usurpation by an unrelated family occurred.
“You've been moping, your honor.” the artist said in a low gravely voice. The sudden announcement by the only other soul in the room stirred Perciv and he spun on his feet to the wiry man working in the corner. They locked eyes, and Perciv stood, attentive and inquiring in his patience. “It's no good to mope about for too long. I understand who you are, what sort of person you are. I did this for your grandfather, and here I am to do it for you. Though I hope and suspect I shall not do one for you soon. But I can see you are still stuck on what happened, and good or ill and however it happened it's no good letting the weight lay on you like this.”
The old man had the dialect of the peasants. His tone rich and rough. Consonants accentuated and rough on his lips.
“How do you know this?” Perciv asked, quietly. There was a lingering pain in his heart and he felt he should be offended, but he did not have the energy as a slow malaise crept over.
“I have seen it.” the old carver announced.
He waited for Perciv to respond, and heard nothing. Without fear he continued on, looking back to his gentle work: “I lost a son many winters ago, when he was but a boy. I nearly drowned myself in the cold waters if it had not been so cold that the water had frozen clear over. I wandered the river up and down for leagues for weeks hoping to fall in. I tried to succumb myself to the Biting Blue, but I was ushered inside with the tears frozen to my cheeks.
“As it had happened when I lost my father one summer, and as I have seen for others who lived through great loss. Every man freezes in spirit. Some men die of it when it chills their hearts so solid it stops beating. You can see the distance in people's eyes when their soul if succumbing to mournful chill. And I am seeing its cold blue grip on you.”
He turned away from his carving again as he brushed his thumb along the edge of the dull metal knife in his hands, “It is the last thing we need, a king frozen on the inside.”
“I am not.” Perciv said plainly.
“So you think.” the old man sighed, “So why do you go and ponder these stories so deeply? Do you look to find reprieve in men who have killed their predecessor? This is doing nothing, your honor; if you do not mind me speaking so plainly.”
He stretched his neck, and went back to work. “I am waiting.” Perciv answered him.
“And letting the Soul Chill catch up.” the old man grumbled, “It was when I got myself back to work, and began to move my hands that I escaped the chill of a sad soul. I do not wish to see my king turned blue on the inside, so I ask that he finds a way to keep himself busy and moving ahead.”
“I am waiting for that moment.” Perciv said defensively, annoyed.
“That is what I worry for.”
