He spoke his pronouns
and tensed before the door.
His sword,
more ancient than the sanctum
where he stood,
swayed like a flickering flame,
like a leaping fish
caught in the silver light of dawn.
Yet, no sound returned,
no echo comforted his claim,
just the dust that swirled
in glittering gyres
to rest again upon the floor.
He called once more, and then,
in the silence trembling,
whispered one last time:
“They, Them…”
His tears smudged among
the ancient motes
gathered there beneath his feet.
The long dead sconces gaped.
The winds that circled in their siege
groaned with a slakeless thirst,
pounded with a solemn fist,
but still, it stood,
The Ebon Keep
— too ancient to recall
the eye that measured,
the back that hauled,
the hand that laid the stone
that still disdains
the lineage of wind and rain
and all who came before the one
who stood and called.
Such freedoms fought
that brought him here,
such perils overcome,
he who stood against
the dice of fate,
that bears upon each face
a one.
He gave a wretched shriek,
in descant to the keening wind,
and bent his shoulder to the stone
and pushed with such a force
that broke the seal,
and sent him prone upon the floor
— as once those ancient acolytes
had done.
There he gathered to one knee,
witness to the Holy of Holies
whispering in its reliquary;
then he turned and bowed
before the golden throne,
but there he found,
long dead and turned to bone
—the faded motley of a man,
crumbling like sand
to the shudder of wind on stone;
so too, his rotten teeth
rattled in their jaws
that out-endured his juggling rings,
his leathern *****
whose gut and cord
spilled out upon the floor.
Though the bells upon his shoes
lay tumbled on the stone,
his lute unstrung,
yet, there still endured
the whispering hum
of that lost Covenant;
and to This he turned
and spoke again,
unanswered,
declared one last time,
and unavowed,
took his seat upon the throne.