*Tuk, Tuk*
“Wh…who is it?” asked Zilan as he stood up from his desk.
A light sigh was heard coming from behind the door.
“Zilan, I know something happened yesterday in town. Let me in so we can talk.”
Zilan stared at the door for a while before sitting back down and resuming his work. His hands moved at a speed that would shock anyone who saw it. With each breath, at least half a page had been filled with words written in a very strange language.
Some time passed and Zilan was still scribbling down things in his book when suddenly he heard a knock on the door once again.
*Tuk, Tuk*
Annoyed by the constant nagging, Zilan couldn’t help but lash out,
“Leave me be! Must I report all that goes on in my life to you!? Just leave me be.”
*Silence.*
No sound could be heard from the two but you could still feel Uncle’s presence behind the door.
“A message from Miss Hula was sent to the restaurant, she said that you should be at the Auction House by sunset. I came to ask if you would still attend or should I cancel.”
Zilan pondered for a moment before finally speaking,
“I’ll go!”
With that, his Uncle also walked away from the door, not saying anything more.
“If only, I could do something. However, truly the heavens are fair. But it is from that fairness that comes to this life that I, no, that all like me are forced to live.”
Zilan stood there with a smile that seemed to show more sorrow than happiness, plastered on his face.
He walked towards his desk and picked up his book, and four stars again appeared in his pupils.
He turned to the front cover of the book where thirty names were written in blood red, all with the same surname.
Trios Zaum.
Lilo Zaum.
Hensro Zaum.
………
All the way to the final name,
Zilan Zaum.
Written at the bottom of the page were these words,
“Keep this story and treasure it, for, without this tale, we would never have truly opened our eyes.”
Zilan turned the next page and on it was a story that was only a page long,
Life of Zaum.
In a place plagued with dying land, dried up rivers and where even the heavens divine light did not shine.
A single tribe of people lived. They supported each other and through perseverance were able to somehow survive.
Each year, the tribe could only have one child as that was all they could support.
On the five hundredth years of the tribe’s existence, a child was born and he was named Zaum which meant Star in their language.
The child was born frail and weak unlike previous children so a meeting was held on whether or not to kill the child. After much debate, it was decided that after five years, the child would be slain and eaten as that would benefit both the tribe and the child’s parents.
Time passed and after three years, the child had only grown a fifth of what a normal three years old should look like. However, despite this, his parents didn’t care and still loved him. The child could now crawl and whenever it could escape his parents, he would head to the hilltop and stare at the stars, stretching out his hand and laughing by himself.
These strange acts caused the tribe elders to believe the child to be mad, however, that didn’t change the fact that in two years he would be no more.
Another year passed and the child had stopped going to the hilltop. In fact, the child had stopped talking altogether, spending most of his time alone staring into the distance.
One night when the sky was clear and the moon was at it’s brightest.
Five giant stars seemed to appear out of thin air, slowly revolving inside the moon. The villagers woke up and once they laid eyes on the five stars, their brains turned to nothing and their bodies dissipated, except for the child’s parents who frantically searched for their child.
However, what they saw shocked them, in the child’s eyes were five stars slowly revolving. At first, the parents thought that they were just a reflection of the stars in the moon however upon closer examination, they realized that it was actually the moon that was reflecting what was in the child’s eyes.
Three days and three nights passed with the child not moving from that spot, his eyes open throughout. It wasn’t until the fourth night that the child passed away, still in the same position. His parents wept and cried out to the heavens but in the end, their child was gone and so they buried him.
The next day the parents killed themselves out of sorrow.
Thousands of years passed and finally Zaum rose once again, he had not died that night but only that his body couldn’t contain his soul’s power therefore it died but his soul survived.
Zaum despised his fate, he had spent thousands of years unable to do anything as he recalled the scene of his parents committing suicide.
He then decided to spend the rest of his life on the path of revenge. Revenge on the heavens. However, after venturing into the vast world and exploring it, he finally understood that the heavens are truly fair and unfathomably deep.
He was stripped of his gift, no longer able to see, stripped of his freedom, turned into a cripple and finally, he was slain by a common practitioner in a tiny realm who knew nothing of the workings of the vast world.
However, before his death, Zaum had left a book along with a descendant who was the only one who could comprehend the things within.
The book was titled PATH and held the last remaining bits of knowledge that Zaum had gained from his three-night enlightenment. Depending on its owner, the book would guide him on their respective paths until they ultimately died.
Only those of the line of Zaum is worthy of following a Path and knowing of this tale.
……………..
Zilan closed the book and turned to the cover where written in bold blood red was the words,
“Path of Blood.”
It looks like no matter how much I try to deny it, this truly is the path meant for me.
Zilan threw the book on his bed and with conviction said,
“So be it!”
The MorningDew Auction house.
Carriages of varying shapes and sizes filled the road to the Auction house with waves after wave of people, all dressed in luxurious attire moving in.
The Morning Dew auction house was located on the outskirts of the city. The main reason for this being it’s sheer size. It would be absolutely impossible for a structure such as the auction house to be built within the city.
Although it was called “Auction House” the Morning Dew Auction house was actually much more than that. It resembled a giant triangle from above but in truth was actually six separate smaller buildings packed closely together.
Each building housed a different type of entertainment gathering but because of the mass popularity and need for an auction house; the structure was dubbed the name Morning Dew Auction House.
……
At the front of the main building, a luxurious carriage with a saber crest on its body pulled up.
The driver quickly opened the carriage door and from within two people walked out.
“Hula, make sure you entertain Zilan. I’ve been summoned by the Brave of the second sector so I won’t be able to join you.”
Hula gracefully walked out of the carriage, dressed in a faint violet gown that dropped down to her ankles and was adorned with various tiny jewels and gems that glittered when exposed to the gentle light rays of sunset.
“Don’t worry father, I’ll do my best.”
Laus nodded in satisfaction before vanishing into the sea of people.
“I wonder if Zilan has arrived yet.” Thought Hula as she also went her own way.
In a different part of the Auction House.
A middle-aged man stood in the middle of a large arena, a large charismatic smile on his face.
“Welcome all to tonight’s Damned Duel! As always, we will have two sides competing, the one who seeks glory and the one who seeks salvation.
From the side of glory, we have the quickly rising Janam, an inner disciple of the Flaming Shade Sect who has won all nine of the fights he’s taken part in.”
As soon as the man finished announcing, a loud uproar filled the arena. Deafening chants of “Bloody Janam” rained down from above.
“Calm down, calm down. This time, we have a rare sight in the duels. Charged with smuggling and spreading the plague of the beast, the freshly captured dog from the Brivata range, Flesc the trader.”
