Pieces of Desta

Chapter One

Keeper of Lives

I can’t remember anything

Can’t tell if this is true of dream

Deep down inside I feel to scream

This terrible silence stops me__ One, by Metallica

      I joined the imperial army when I was twelve. Twelve year olds were sought out by Emperor Praxiteles; their minds were so pure, so easy to bend to his will. With one speech he had won me over to his cause, made me believe that the Goddess Elpis was an evil being, and her Acolytes had to be stopped.

      Emperor Praxiteles came to the Elpleiead throne when he was 19 years old after he had dispatched the previous Emperor, Praxiteles’ elder brother Kyriakos. Immediately he set about undermining the influence of the church, and of the Goddess.

      The country was split in two, divided between those who supported the Goddess and those who supported the Emperor. Many innocents were caught in the crossfire, including my elder brother, Kenneth.

      In my deepest grief the Imperial Messenger summoned me to the palace, to listen to one of the Emperor’s famed speeches.

      I was enraptured the minute Emperor Praxiteles opened his mouth;

“Your Goddess has forsaken you,” He said, the authority in his voice was staggering. He had absolute control.

“Who among you can say that tragedy has never befallen you?” no one spoke. The Emperor nodded, his eyes clouding with sympathy.

      “I was five years old when my mother caught the sickness.” He spun around and began to pace like a caged animal. A majestic tiger dumped in foreign territory.

“By the time I was six she had been ripped from me, when I needed her most.” He turned so we could see the tears that glistened in his eyes.

      “I too have been forsaken.” He rose his arm to wipe his tears away with his heavy, silken sleeve, a surprisingly common gesture.

“I see myself in all of you. Some of you have lost family and lovers, parents, siblings, even children. Others have lost their homes.”

      He lifted his arms towards the sky, his face taking on a predatory tone.

“What sort of Goddess inflicts such suffering upon her people?” the crowd began to stir, a ripple of unease traveling from man to man.

      I allowed myself to look up at the man, that man was suddenly everything, he was my elder brother, my dead father, and my sick mother, all wrapped into one man. His eyes met mine, a bright, exotic purple.

      “We shall forsake Elpis, all of us. We will join arms and fight her, and make our own paradise.” The crowd erupted into an applause, and but his eyes remained glued to me. A small, fatherly smile graced his lips.

      At that moment, I would have done anything for that man.

      Elpleia is a large country, stretching out north of the Banneth sea, and south of the warrior city Cairl. Winters are rough and long, but summers are bright and bring new hope to the rich, fertile soil.

      I was raised in the Village of bramble, in the southern parts of Elpleia, by a devout mother and a skeptical father. We were lacking in money and food, but we had love aplenty, and when my mother discovered her love of bee keeping and candle making, we began to live quite well.

      But during a harsh, desolate winter my father caught ill. My mother, Kenneth and I prayed every night for him to recover, but it was no use. He died surrounded by family, and taken by the undertaker to be stored until the ground was soft enough to burry him.

      It seemed mother gave up then, the once cheerful, golden woman became pale and gray. The pleasant plumpness that brought apples to her cheeks and filled out her dresses melted from her, leaving little more than a skeleton with ragged splotchy skin to hold it together.

      Then Kenneth died in the fire, and mother lost her mind. Leaving me alone, and starving.

      I look back at that time now, that aching hollow time when I was twelve years old. I am seventeen now, having survived much longer that I was expected to, I have raised through the ranks, becoming captain of my own band.

      Respected as the Emperor’s youngest captain I lead a busy and satisfying life, though I have not forgotten where I came from.

      I was born from dust, and shall eventually return to it.