The City Of Alenghor

RopeDrink

Alenghor gleamed under the cold hard stare of the moon, its towering beauty mirrored on the near still Ghalin River that ebbed with the grace of sliding glass through the lush undergrowth. Wisps of woven grey clouds plumed overhead, hastily sewn into the knitted reddening skyline whilst the murmur of everyday life slowly retreated into the depths of nothingness where the quiet booming of crickets slew the silence with invisible vocal blades. Night was seeping over the city like water over rock, stealing the sunlight with groping, merciless hands before darkness cradled the world with its immense arms. Life was withered away to nothing but the sounds of owls and insects. Their united rhythms were a tribute to the success of the nightfall, a song of worship praising their allegiance to the darkness.

Nightfall is a beautiful thing - An eternal being that has many qualities similar to those of evil itself. Cold, heartless, overbearing and malevolent, it has mastered the art of thievery beyond the skills of any adept rogue, yet it is kind enough to relinquish it's belongings in the presence of light, as if it's taking time to repent for it's sins. It is never late, it is trustworthy and it is predictable, thus making it a tolerable component that forms the building blocks of everyday life, but through the eyes of some, night is anything but beautiful.

Val Emmeric glared out through his bedroom window, the beauty of Alenghor lost on the surface of his dark, brooding eyes. All that could be seen were vague images of what he remembered his homeland to be. Bright, menacing and graceful like a fatally sharp diamond that beckoned you to touch it's awe inducing surface before slicing your hand. To Val, the world was an eternal nightmare - A hellish monstrosity that drew crystal clear memories along its hide, then smudged them beyond recognition before him. Memories that continuously pierced his thoughts and haunted him - Memories so overplayed they lost their colour and merit - Jewels he once treasured with his life, until they grew legs, scales, fangs and talons and embedded them so deep into his mind that they were impossible to be rid of. In the land of the blind, the mind does the looking, and there is nothing more flawed and clouded then the mind itself.

Val maintained his motionless stare whilst attempting to polish his thoughts into the glorious figurines they once were, failing miserably with each wipe. His once concrete grip on reality had been gradually worn down by the torrential rain of tormented darkness and dragged far beyond his mental reach. His accomplishments in life converted from objects of memorable pride into a collection of circling vipers that whipped and snapped at him, scars that seared along the surface of his skull so that they may never be forgotten, tendrils of flame that entangled his heart and screamed with scorching hatred for his actions. Val now realised that the greater you became, the longer the fall of failure gets, and it seemed that his indivertible destination also required a brief crash through the rafters of sanity.

Val suddenly lost his concentration to the piercing sounds of steel over stone, as metallic footfalls rapidly filled the room. Over the years he had grown used to the sounds, sometimes even welcoming them, for they were the sounds of his sons plated war boots colliding with the outside hall, coupled with the recognisable aura of authority that always travelled with him. Before long, a slow rush of air wafted toward the slouched figure, indicating that the owner of the boots had finally entered the room. A sigh escaped Val's lips, lured out by the stale stench of death that hastily immersed him.
"Father," came a soft voice almost lost within the darkness - A voice weighed down by loving respect and admiration, whilst also being hindered by previous battle endurance.
Val did not respond. He instead sniffed the air for a sign of success amongst the ferocious reek of spilt blood and burnt flesh, hoping that his restricted sense of awareness was capable of doing so.
Failing this he closed his eyes, hoping to shut out the demons contained within his head in order to muster enough energy to finally speak.
"We have won, then," he breathed, "For you would not gift me with your presence if it were otherwise. It seems as though you now save your visits until either war or destruction has previously been undertaken. Why is that, I wonder?"
Ghail Emmeric took his place at his father’s side, unwillingly staring at the depressing figure that remained deathly still within the confines of its seat. It was as if years of hardship and pain caused the figure to emit chaotic roots of sadness and dreamy anguish that attempted to protect the defeated figure by eternally anchoring it to the safety of the woodwork. It was hard enough to look at the poor man, let alone call him 'father', yet love has a funny way of pulling you through even the most dire of tasks, making you carry out actions that courage, bravery and even pity couldn't invite you to do.
Ghail firmly clasped the tip of his sword hilt, as if seeking out a grain of comfort within its cold shell. Finding none, he reverted his vision to that of his father’s bedroom window and to the sight of the city of Alenghor.

Fluorescent flares of a thousand torches winked in and out of existence amidst the blanket of night, bearing enough light to reveal the after effects of the previous war. Scorched grass and specks of red that were the stains of fallen comrades and smited enemies had defiled the usual, peaceful Alenghor image whilst the sound of success lightly drifted up from the depths of the city, hitting the tower window with brute force equivalent to that of a blood soaked feather. The wails and cries of wounded warriors and widowed citizens soon joined the fray along with the distasteful voice of death that could be heard in the form of swords searing through flesh of enemy survivors and retreating regiments. Yes, victory was theirs, yet it bore no more attractiveness than a slit throat or a severed limb. Ghail wasn't sure which was harder to look at. The aftermath of battle, or the degrading downward spiral of health that his father was taking part in. He turned from both to look at the room in general before breaking the following silence.
"My visits have been restricted due to the path you have ordered me to take. I do not understand, father. You have appointed me King of Alenghor, yet we both know that despite your affliction you see more than I. I am not fit for this position, yet you thrust into my possession, then damn me for taking it. Why is THAT, I wonder?"
Val sighed once more, noticing the tinge of defensiveness boiling out his son’s throat. True, Ghail cursed and pleaded against receiving such an honour, his respect for his father tricking him into thinking that Val's blindness was not an important factor when it came to ruling a kingdom. This thought also amplified Ghail's uneasiness, as it felt to him that incredible responsibility was being force fed to him, despite the lack of a quenchable hunger.

Ghail Emmeric was nothing less than a score old and new to the artwork of Royalty.
He had been at his father’s side for all of his life, watching Val's rule with childish interest. Interesting was all it was until the twenty-seventh year when a white hot chill of scorching dragon breath took his fathers crown away from him in the bat of a lid, along with his eyesight. Even now the scars glittered on the face of the slouched figure, glistening within the flower bed of sweat beads that pulsated through his skin, brought on by fever and continuous battles with his own humanity. Ghail glanced at his father, a thread of hatred boiling out of his heart. Ghail could remember the day when the great Mohn Hao Mage War ripped across Alenghor like an expanding blade of fire and rock, magic rending soil and grass apart to make way for molten and gusts of heat - Enchanted particles of Warlock speech summoning demons and minions of hell that raged across the land, slaying all in their wake. And there, at the head of the allegiance was Val, donning the Royal gold and blue plate mail of the Emmeric name. Ghail almost smiled at his vision, remembering the tall stout figure of his seemingly invincible father at the head of the Alenghor Battalion that stretched as far as the eye could see, bellowing orders with the weight of great intelligence and wisdom behind each spoken word - the sword that seemed to deal out more damage than any other due to the dexterous hand that wielded it - the mind that could crush mountains with a single thought. Mohn Hao minions advanced with the power of a thousand rolling boulders, only to be quenched against the crippling hide of the Alenghor Defence as if it were nothing but a handful of insects.

RopeDrink

Victory back then was an angelic thing, not just a prize handed out after the game of luck that war was now. Victory was to be wrenched out of the opponent’s hand, not scooped out of the mud after the battle. Ghail could taste the victory in his memories, as he watched the mighty Val Emmeric from the towers of Alenghor castle advance to crush what remained of the Mohn Hao Warriors, whilst barricades of arrows reigned down on the enemy from the heights of the Castle like sharpened splinters of a crumbling tower of purest silver. Then the taste turned sour, as the ever resourceful mages summoned something far worse than enraged demihuman fighters. The clouds blackened against the blood red skyline as it filled with the horrific sounds of wing beats and flame, each cloud bearing host to the righteous wrath of something older and deadlier than hell itself, something smarter and quicker than the devil, something even the heavens were in awe of. Oblivious shadow emerged from the earth, as the Dragon descended to unleash the last grain of hope in the form of a blanket of ravenous breath that screamed and scorched and obliterated both sides of the battle. The castle itself buckled and whined as the miasma of flame and death cried across the field, claiming the life-force of both the Alenghor and Mohn Hao combatants, laying waste to the ground before it, along with the soul of all those unfortunate enough to be in it's wake. The entire realm was shook by the beasts kiss, and the ghastly sounds of burning life split the ear drum of the world, followed by the inferno of evil which rocketed from the ground into a searing spire of seething biting white fire. The sound was unbearable, but not as unbearable as the one sound that Ghail will never forget.


Over the din of decimation, he could see the figure of his father. He was once the pinnacle of the battle. Now he had been beaten down and repeatedly kicked by the aftermath, as he clutched at his face in near fatal agony. His desperate screaming could be noticed only by Ghail himself, as he watched the King sag to his knees at the front of the sea of fallen bodies. This is were Ghail's disgust slinked in to steal his good memories, and replace them with a vile invasion of negativity. This is where Ghail cursed his father for being the marble pebble once grasped out of the mud and polished to immaculate brightness, only to be dropped back into the mud once more. This is where blame invaded his heart and damned Val for ruling so well, accomplishing the impossible and defeating all odds, only to be crushed by one single moment of battle beyond the abilities of ruling again. Ghail was not his father, yet his followers now expect him to be - and this tiny detail, coupled with many other hazy and confusing shards of his life, danced their way into the cookery pot to boil into a love hate combination that was enough to ruin the mind of the wisest of mages or the heart of the toughest barbarian with one grazing blow. Did Ghail truly love his father? Did he honestly hate him? Or did he do either, or even both?

Harsh reality cracked the vision into a million shards, replacing the father he still wished he had with the one he had now. The gold and blue plate mail was exchanged for a shoddy black leather robe, the sword replaced by a rotten gnarled walking stick, the smile converted to that down turned expression of sorrow, pain and helplessness. Ghail was not sure of his feelings anymore, he never had been, yet he knew that being a king did not give him the ability to change the identity of his father. Rather than try, he reached out and squeezed the mans hand before silently taking his leave, giving Val enough time and space to reconfine himself to the room of nightmare and dire illusion contained in his own mind.

RopeDrink

That was something I wrote about a year or two ago and pasted to the literature forum. It was comprised in an hour of hasty, unthoughtful writing back when I took writing moderately serious.

Hope you enjoy it, I only placed it here to give you a read.
No need to criticise or suggest anything seeing as the actual project was binned when my old PC died, like a majority of my work.

Shad0r

gg, always good to see prose here amidst the sea of poetry