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The meeting
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The newly arrived woman stood beneath the dehiscent fruits of a dried tree, its trunks writhed and contorted, under which shadow her white gown dimmed and rippled. She stood with no one and talked also nothing. Seeing from a lateral profile, her face told only minimum amounts of details of herself, the gentle and tender face characteristic of a Perity, with the meekness and modesty that had enabled her subsistence in the world. The only thing extraordinary regarding her was possibly her age: Seeing the ring of scales by her eyes one could perceive that she was senile to her appearance for more or less a few good decades, or perhaps even a century. Exceptional it was, as the time dictated that Vansiyr should dull in their wrath and Perity wrinkle in their bearing, and too often they did not preserve their equanimity but grieved by the mortified onus of their kind, as made her tranquility noteworthy. Nonetheless, no commentators capable of such casual remarks were present, and there could be no less attention that could be addressed to a Perity. They were of no concern to the pivotal functioning of the world where they lived and the simple surviving itself shall be taken with a surge of gratitude, which normally will be used by others to vindicate her composure if they happened to pass her by, that she was contented with her life.
It was a site near the TOWER, the center of all that was the world and its authority. Looking up one could discern the massive wings lurking in the nebulous, hazy cloud, and the magnificent bodies that sailed around the cardinal landmark, the TOWER, as if in the floating sea; the dragons were staging on the siding windows wide open for the meeting as entrances, the sound from their throats and pinions grazing heavily over the air, sending the solemn clamor far and wide to the dormant wildness lying beneath the tower; The woman gazed up and wondered to herself when the meeting should begin and when she should be able to leave. The last desiccated leaves of the high trees were too falling on her shoulder and around her feet, which crunched and crackled when treading upon.
She walked towards the tower. High above resounded a roar, so exceedingly colossal and stupendous that the quiet and unassuming woman trembled. She didn’t look up for the exact physique, knowing that the sound must have come from a gigantic one. A huge dragon contrasting herself, or even more, depending on the further indicator, which came as if promised. A chill film of silence descended, swaddling and enveloping the environs, the soundless lake, and the shadowy forest, bringing a moment of peace over the thousands of howling. All by one.
So it was clear. There came a dominion.
Amid the muffled quietness the woman walked towards the tower, for the meeting of all dragons.
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The woman walked along the herds of her own kind, the faceless and soundless Perity into the TOWER from a sided entrance on the edge of the lake. By convention, they were not to enter the tower, even less to enter the upper floors, but that was a special day, special still among all the TOWER MEETINGS that they will climb up the stairs, ascending the spirals to where Vansiyr stood, which happened with no antecedence. Despite the peculiarity, not a single being expressed any blithe, delight, or jolley. For a relatively long time, the woman hadn’t been joining her own genus by nature, yet assimilated into the downcast parade in no time in which no soul ever recognized the other and no loss of life would ever be mourned. It renewed itself in a constant and hashed way unknown to and unconcerned by the world like a river of blood in need of no distinguished drop but an amaranthine stream, and it was as salubrious as the day she left it. For a moment when the woman was compressed inside of the river, dragged and pushed towed by its force and compel, she contemplated, an act rather uncommon to the group of creatures usually thought of nothing, that the word ‘leave’ might have been inappropriate. Judging from her familiarity with the experience and the shrouding atmosphere, she might have never left it. She was simply standing by the bank, watching in numbness, to see it flow.
“When you enter, women, stand by the right corner to form seamless lines. Do not raise your voice or mumble. Do not look around wildly and shamelessly. ”
The Sheperd warned, which was unnecessary. Up came no reply or attention. They were as silent as the deaden night.
The woman lowered her head to adjust her posture and, stance. She hadn’t been back for many years and she was not dead enough. She was quite in the dynamic nature, but in her own kind she brought out a lively solitude. From time to time one gloomy eye flashed upon her as if inquiring with no offense but bare perplexity why she was breathing so heavily that she nearly waked them from their grave chamber. She couldn’t talk, otherwise, she would have apologized and promised a quick adaptation to bend down, obliterating her torch-like feeble heat.
When they began to enter she was doing better.
The TOWER possessed so tangled a jumble of structures; it was the most famous building in the world but also the most recondite one. Disarray of various elements were brought in by different dominions according to their own preference and the TOWER permitted, condoned and intook them all. Here and there one room was circular and domed, the other folded, flanked and windowed; some welcomed the high wind and abundant light. some hid under the lee of roof. One part it was timber, wood, merry and glowing, another uses stone supported by buried arches and piers. Time rushed dominions in TOWER with the temporal accolade and laurels then rushed them out in much the same manner into the wildness. Constructions unfinished under one dominion whose heart was attached to it might become a quarry for materials of the others. Some managed a return to finish it, while others never. the TOWER never said one cannot take the throne forever, yet by far the attempt had never been filled. Time is usually quick-tempered such that nothing seemed to retain long: when one returned to the TOWER again he might be completely disinterested by his past penchant and renounced the structure once for all.
Despite the divisions inside, seen high above the sky from a celestial view the building begot a unified harmony of a many-tiered giant ring, each minute piece a huge cylinder, climbing relentlessly to the sky. It was said that the evidence that their kinds were the choosen one lied exactly here as no other creatures in the world could follow its height, spiraling into the zenith unknown; Hence they commanded and instructed all the others as well as manipulated themselves.
Then they went in, to the positions designated for them, across a maze of people already slotted in their own positions, one by one filling the niche and groove. The meeting hall existed from time immemorial, itself a complex vertical structure inserted into the middle of the TOWER, rising above the lake, a spacious sub-layer with multiple tiers. Rumors had it that the meeting hall could accommodate as many as 50,000 people properly--- everyone with a seat; By corollary, then, with the servile kind amassed in tight line by the shadow of the room it held, even more, that day. The pattern of participants miraculously maintained a regularity of its own, with the guards assembled by the porch, in light gray, from whence spreading the lowly-bending figures in white, with their tender and gentle figures, to the far corners. On the center of the hall a pavement for the nobles cut across the populous room to curve a line of silence, around which the seats and tables were seen and squires, servants, mistresses appeared, while far from the center the space was full-loaded, where the Perity in white stood like a ghost.
When the woman was a child, similar spectacle happened once or twice when there was a pageant or an extravaganza, then the masters cancel the days’ work and sent the Peirty to the streets in search of brief happiness, which now in reflection seemed bitter and confused in a lukewarm way, which arose for at that time she was after all, young. The youth had something to offer even in the ultimate misery; it cut through one’s flesh and life. The time it faded one’s life shall also be gone, so as long as she was breathing she ruminated--- again she did that inappropriate act--- ruminated the experience with a gentle feeling, remembering how at a loss and mystified she was by the short-lived, mocking freedom, immune from all the clamor and joy, only retreating to the hut silently and slept for five good hours, then returned to work.
It reminded her of her life back in the south. The TOWER was not south, yet it was not north. It was the TOWER, where the center lied. But it was not far, so she cannot help but be dragged in. The entering, positioning and placing of slots after slots continued while she raised her head, watching through the open window, big enough for a small dragon to perched and entered; big enough for herself to rest on and get out. The autumn light was bright and clear outside the window, upon which she mesmerized with dreamy and wandered eyes.
“You are a dreamer.” A voice mumbled. “It’s a misfit. You are always thinking. It won’t work out.”
She turned her head, looking at the woman standing beside her, uttering not a word. No other voice appeared, and none except two paid any attention.
The other women shrugged. “But I am also talking. I am bad, too.” She grumbled to herself. “I am too bad. Thinking and talking. Why won’t it stop?”
The woman who was thinking about her blurred, bitter, yet somehow wistful past smiled ruefully and understandably. She was even beautiful when she smiled in the way, to which the other woman complained. “Too bad.” She repeated, negating all possible things, “You are kind. You are sweet. Meek, mild, tender, kind, and sweet. And you even think. You are a hodgepodge of impossibilities.”
The shepherd strode by. They lowered their head smoothly, yet swiftly. She strode and strolled over and over again, wedged herself across the tight lines of slave women with no particular intention. They were all too well-trained to be taught a lesson or two regarding discipline, so she simply killed the time while the room were being filled, and thus the two women never talked again.
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A segment of so perfect a silence was fabricated over the meeting hall, wondrously, for at the time it had taken in over 50.000 people, with not a soul whispering, when the name of high lords from Vansiyr was being announced. From an early age the slave women were trained not to speak when serving, and the guards were told not to speak unless asked. A melodic voice echoed through the high hall of the renowned structure of the TOWER, nominating the distinguished guest from the ancient clan. From now and then a name of Perity would also be called amidst their Vansiyr lords, for they were the Lurywen of the young dragons, whose devotions as breeder lay the foundation for their future growth and perpetual opulence: Here came the lords from southeast Annihilesvian, the low and mild land rich with harbors and bays; there thundered the name of guardian in the Lauschwen, burgeoning with the wheat and grains, cattle and herds. These were all south nobilities with mild hair, and further north, from Gettylesivian, the hues in their hairs and skins faded, until reached the transparent hues claimed by the paramount lords of the north, who was then the Dominion of the tower, holding the meeting, emitting that sleek, musical voice.
The last time when the woman still knew of a Dominion, the lord of TOWER was a vansiyr from the far north Watering. Watering, that city she certainly knew of ! She worked there until she couldn’t work anymore, hiding herself into a town north of it, and delayed her return for a job, until the last time she saw it. It was a dazzling, glowing and daunting city, whose trailing fear dwindled in her mind until recently, and now seemed too easily to be recovered.
“Lord Paramount of Watering.” The Dominion said, smiling in his voice. “Welcome, and hail for our former monarch. A Dominion crowned by the TOWER, the crimson dragonlord.”
With his voice ringed like bell in the hall, line by line the mass bend, bowed and kneeled. The woman was not able to see the Vansiyr as the time the line before her collapsed and revealed the figure, she was to fall, like a crest of wave breaking in the sea. They did not raise their heads; they have no curiosity, nor fear or love.
The figure walked up towards the throne; all over the room the only sound was the step of his heel, clear, clattering. Small murmuring and greetings from nobles. Then the sound ceased, that bell-like echoing voice resumed to bid him a gesture of hospitality.
“Do not address me as if this is your house.” To which the southern replied. “Soon enough you shall be ousted from that chair just as before.”
“Ha ha” was the merry reply of the Dominion, then the conversation was over. The mass of people rose, swelling up always like the tide, even quieter, more orderly than the counterpart who moaned and howled when crashed at the apex of its formation. They stood there like identical spikes painted in white.
The woman felt the dizziness of kneeling and raising. She hadn’t been eating for two days and now was exhausted. Such lack of tenacity was unthinkable when she was younger but it was, what she had become that she complied with usually in silence. She diverted her eyes, not to the packed room of the hall, its motion of wave formed by people, but to the lucid autumn light outside the window. Dashing was the grasp of the grumpy woman by her side who grabbed her arm, clutching tightly, and shook her head.
“No.” Said her fellow slave, earnestly.
The woman smiled, exerting no power to unshackle herself from her clutch. They exchanged a treaty in which she no longer looked out of the window in search of the authum openness and she quit grabbing her arms. For a moment it seemed all had been completed: all the emptiness and order in the room had been filled. There were two dominions, one the incumbent, one the former. The nobles exchanged some short, cheery conversations, then the voice lessening, silence impending, followed by the final stillness; She was about to turn. She cannot help, at a brief moment, not knowing exactly why for the sudden rise of pressure in her body as if an impulse germinated without her notice, about to explode.
“No.” The woman by her side said. Yet this time She wouldn’t listen and turned, towards the window and the radiant fracture of light.
The woman parted her lip ---- But there was no light.
Outside the window, there was no light. That silhouette, whose shadow plummet from the sky and fell on the rim of window, wrapping over half of the space it touched with gloom darkness and tainted also the rest of it with a murky hue, whose original figure, now dived, now rose, passing by this circle of windows curved around the TOWER, yet not showing through tens of crevices its total length, displaying a color no less dark than its shadow. The woman turned and broke a certain rule but it did not matter then, for the whole room turned and followed that mountainous dragon circling the tower, making no sound except for that generated by its wing whipping the wind.
There was the whispering; the break of rule and a feeling of muffled complaints, confusion and commotion. When the figure faded and light flowed into the room again, the words rustled with each other and the woman heard her heart beat fast, with any possible reason.
“Well, then.” The Dominion said. “I thought he wouldn’t come. Seems that I am wrong.”
“What is that?” The woman whispered, or nearly pleaded, to the woman by her side, for an answer to appease her heartbeat. “Who is that? Who is that? ” And her cranky companion roared in a low voice. “Shut up. You dumb woman.”
The door flung open, whose motion brought in a surge of fresh and cold wind that chilled the woman to her bone. She was filled with bewilderment at that moment when the guard shouted across the mass of crowd to answer her.
“ Lord---(This is a name. And a name is not translatable)of city of Wein.”
The introduction was as simple as a name; like a fatal on key on a board to initiate a killer melody the woman stumbled at this first note.
This announcement of the guard was first appreciated by the Dominion on the throne, who smiled and chuckled like a dame.
“Oh, my dear lord.” He addressed the newcomer merrily, “I thought to myself that you might not come seeing that all has been ready for a while.”
“I intended not to come.” Replied the vansiyr of black scale, “Only that the calling of TOWER was too strong this time that I obey.”
“Never mind.” The Dominion said, “You are welcome and I am glad to see you. Now, my beloved friends, hail the four-time Crowned Dominion of the tower, our most glorious guest today, from whom I took this high honor of throne--- the black dragonlord of Wein.”
The late guest moved. He walked gently, for his step was covered by the movement of the mass. Once again they fell, plunged down under the command of the unknown moon of the TOWER but this time they fell all too fast for the woman. She stood still, moving not a part of her body and frozen in time, till the walls of flesh before her had vanished, to gaze through the tremendous space of hall on that moving figure. That man was in all black and the woman was dressed in the white gown of a slave.
“You dumb woman!” Her fellow shrieked to her, “KNEEL!”
She did nothing. It was too late to kneel. When she collapsed down, the man had already turned, and looked in her direction, to see that single white spot in the dark corner under curve, staring at him in the ultimate sorrow. That white figure soon fell, as if devoured by the tremendous mass of blackness, never leaving a trace.
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