Back to Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-five - Epilogue: The Last Follower of
the Ancients
Everything
ends.
When the end-fate of anything in the Realm of the Living inevitably
arrives, there is always the last one, a final survivor. The last
specimen of an extinct species, the last building of a bygone epoch of
architecture, the last speaker of a lost language, and the very last
person practicing an ancient religion that has passed into memory.
The Cult of Ancients passed into memory and returned to dust, like every
other human institution. It vanished from public view in late 1752, but
fading remnants persisted for several decades beyond, like the embers of
a campfire that was mostly extinguished, but not completely.
The embers of the Cult of the Ancients slowly faded throughout the late
1700s. Rumors persisted of strange bluish-green lights in the forests,
along with the faint singing of ancient hymns in archaic Danubian. No
one could verify the rumors: every time someone went to investigate,
there was nothing to be found. Maybe a few ashes or flattened grass, but
that was it. And, over time, the mysterious sightings became fewer and
fewer, until they stopped altogether.
The final place in the Duchy to ever record rumors of a mysterious light
and ancient singing was in the forest park just to the southeast of the
provincial town of Rika Heckt-nemat. The lights and ancient hymns
started after the funeral of the council's leading citizen, Farmer Tuko
Orsktackt. He died shortly after his 91st birthday, which was an
incredibly long life for anyone during the early 1800s. His wife, Vesna
Roguskt-Orsktacktna, put on a mourning robe and presided over his
funeral. She then relinquished her leadership of the local medical
school and research center and went into seclusion. She was never seen
in public again.
About a week after Vesna Roguskt-Orsktacktna vanished from public life,
a mysterious green glow-light appeared and strange singing began at the
chapel that she and her husband had built, decades before, on the
southern shore of a pond in the middle of the forest park. The chapel
had been built in honor of the families who lived and died around that
pond, in a time so long ago that no one else remembered them. Like the
Cult of the Ancients, the residents had completely vanished from the
Realm of the Living. There was only a single survivor of that community,
a girl who had escaped just before the Destroyer swept through with the
rat-plague. No one, and nothing else, remained.
Rumors had long circulated that the place was haunted, and that the
curses of many years before continued to torment ghosts that wandered
through the trees and stood around the shore of the pond after dark. The
place was safe enough during the day, but to remain there after sunset
was to tempt the Destroyer.
A
week after Farmer Tuko Orsktackt was buried, another ghost showed up on
the edge of the pond. The new ghost, which seemed to be a very old
woman, carried a faint greenish-blue light that illuminated the upper
part of her naked body. She walked through the trees and along the shore
of the pond, and eventually led the other ghosts to the chapel. She
knelt and stretched out her arms so the others could better see the
light and find their way to where they needed to be. The illuminated
ghost started singing, in a language not spoken for in the region for
millennia.
The townspeople heard about the disturbing rumors, but the local Priests
strictly prohibited anyone from going into the park after sunset to
investigate. "The night at that pond belongs to those ghosts. Let the
Realm of the Afterlife surface in that place, if it is necessary. Our
Path in Life is to leave those curses and pains of the past undisturbed,
so none of it enters the city. We don't know what is happening there,
and we don't want to know. Having that knowledge is not our Path in
Life."
And so it was. On the admonition of the town's Clergy, the people stayed
away.
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The mysterious light and faint singing continued for six years. Then, on
the morning of December 23rd, 1817, several of Tuko Orsktackt's
great-grandchildren found two notes that had been left for them when
they were sleeping.
The first note read: "The deed to the family estate and our will are
in the library strong-box. The key is inside the frame of your
great-grandfather's portrait. Take those papers to the Church and the
Town Council immediately."
The second note read: "Come out to the chapel, and you will find me.
Bury me there, in an unmarked grave. Don't worry about bringing a
mirror. I took one with me."
The family members walked out to the chapel. Sure enough, the frozen
body of a very old woman, lying on her back and dressed in a black
mourning robe, was waiting for them. There were two items next to her, a
mirror and a silver bowl. The woman's descendents, sworn to secrecy,
quietly buried her and returned to their house.
On that date, December 23rd, 1817, the last person with any memory of
the Cult of the Ancients held up her mirror before the Creator and
entered the Realm of the Afterlife. The very last ember of that ancient
fire went out.
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