A Tale of Time: The Malice of Men

chapter 8: Change

Change is natural. Change is deadly.

Change is friendly. Change is schizophrenic.

Change is all-altering. Change is table-turning.

Change is a thief, stealing one's mind away and out.

Change. This archaic land could certainly use it. Symbeya belonged to the old men, the original inhabitants of Ëra, and even after close to seven hundred years of rule by the newcomers, few of them could be seen in this dark place and fewer still could claim to be settlers. The people of Symbeya were conservative, loath to change and thoroughly repulsed by anything new. The latest house was a hundred and fifty years old and looked three hundred years older. The streets were old, narrow and crooked, broken or dug up in many places, being in bad need of repair. Houses were old, run-down and dusty, coated with the same brick and mortar used to construct them. They were bent at odd angles, looking as though they might fall down onto the streets in a last embrace any moment. The state of the Windows put it, it seemed as if the hoses were staring with forlorn expressions at passersbies. While they looked like they could give in any moment, there had been no record in all of Symbeya of a house falling or caving in by itself, a singularly astonishing fact. The alleys were dark, dirty and shady and men of even shadier cult(if such a thing was ever possible) thronged the streets.

While a life of hardship and neglect can sap the spirit of even the most optimistic of men, it alone can seldom turn a good man into a bad one.

Still, one would do well to be on their guard. Crooks hide in crowds, they say.

Araan mused on this and much more as he sailed back home. Rowed back actually, for the ship which was provided for him that day had no sail. The scene was a pleasant one though. It more than compensated for the troubles Araan had to go through. It induced in one the state of quaint, solitary self-contemplation and introspection that many yearned for. If they were permitted, many from the mainland would certainly come here for rest. The vault of their souls would be replenished, it's purpose re-understood...

The sun flowered like orange amber. The sky and clouds reflected the light until the effect was manifold, the entire world engulfed in shades of Orange, red and yellow. Far off, seagulls were returning home after a profitable day of fishing. Araan was doin the same. The growing land breeze provided him cool relief as he rowed. His dry, brown hair, which reached up to his ears from the front, rustled in the wind ever so slightly. Not very far off, Araan could see his town Viharis, a fishing town in the island of Symbeya, which loomed large and impassive to the left and right behind his shoulder, as if declaring to all who gazed that this was the utter end of the world.

Araan and everybody else in Ëra knew it to be untrue. The new men came from further east, sailing in large numbers to seek refuge from their own desolation. Nobody dared to ask where they came from, for they remembered the prophecy of the giants and their ban.

They clothed them, Fed them, taught them their language and ways just as giants had taught them earlier. However, the new men lusted for power and managed to amass great amounts of it.They hired guards and did business. They grew rich and powerful. Finally, Malinor Greatsbane created an army. When men come carrying naked steel, people tend to surrender quickly. In the course of a little under two months, with hardly any deaths at all, the old order of peace was ended and the Greatsbanes ruled from Erastir, once the stronghold of the giants. The people of Symbeya were the last to stoop, but for the sake of their lives, they had to do so. Seven hundred years later, the only thing that changed was the arrogance of the newcomers, which grew everyday. Araan had never seen a newcomer, so he could not say if it was true.