Simply Old (assignment #2)

Mayor Writh Bane's mansion, at the center of the trade city Logai was a square block of white marble that over the years had grown as pale and unkempt as the mayor himself.  The stones were cloudy and smudged, rarely cleaned either from a lack of funds, or simple indifference.  There had never been so few servants in the great manse as in recent years, and the entire lot showed the lack of care.1

At the center of the great stone building was an open courtyard.  Deep green vines hung from the walls, spiraling down to the earth, and uncultured gardens sprang haphazardly like a minature jungle.  There was a path of circular marble stones at foot in diameter, yet they had long been overgrown and were barely discernable.2

Out the southern wall a staircase descended from the fourth level all the way to the ground, curving back and forth, a door at each level, until it spread out along the the bottom in a great patio like a great open hand.3

On a bench at the back of the patio, his feet up on the bench as he sat, his knees near his chin, an old man stared blankly while the rain poured, soaking his gray tunic and trousers to a near black, and dripping off his bare feet that gripped the end of the cast iron bench in a silent deathlike grip.4

His long gray hair, dripping like icicles and plastered in ringlets down his neck was ungroomed and tangled.  His beard and moustaches hung a foot long and had the rippled tangle that hinted of a previous braiding.5

He had left his room in the early morning and had met the dark thundering clouds and constant rain that mirrored his tossing emotions, his slow burning depression.  He had been unconscious for weeks – he had overheard them talking outside his chamber the night before, speaking in worried, hushed tones.  They didn't expect his awakening, thought he would die in bed, his mind gone and his dignity forgotten.6

But Maierdyn was made of a greater mettle than all thought.7

Padding in his bare feet on the wet marble floor, he had come down the staircase and let the rain fall without even a twitch in his face as the drops pattered at his eyes and cheeks.  He'd sat on the bench and stayed there unmoving except for a seemingly unconsious twitch every other moment, signaling his mental battle.8

His mind was a dangerous blank.  Holding onto concrete thoughts was like stopping a waterfall with his hands.  He groped and grappled in his mind for reason – for logic.9

Everything in his mental world had the reflection of death.  Memories were tainted, hopes shattered and fizzling.  Yet all of that was nothing compared to the question that haunted him as it haunted his early years.10

His mouth worked silently, trying to form the words he had forgotten, the answer he had found so long ago.  It was like wrestling a dagger from his flesh, winning or losing an inch of the answer hurt and his mind reeled with the pain.  He almost had it, his eyes widening in surprise and knowledge, but the words died, the answer eluded him and he settled again into a dark depression, lost in a shadowy world.11

The question burned behind his eyes: the meaning of all existence.  Like a symbol of his growth, his power, the old man now remained an empty shell and his pale blue eyes, eyes that before made men cower, reflected nothing – no passion, no love, no anger, and no fear had shone from his eyes in those years.  Now, they would have made men feel the grip of their mortality heavy on their hearts.  The only care, the only need, in those pale eyes was only the need to know, the need to understand.12

His depression was a doorway to a memory of the past, and he remembered his younger years in detail.  His parents had thought he was suicidal, and they were not far wrong.  His friends thought he was mad, but if anything, he was only mad at himself.  His young loves were vague and short-lasting, his desire not rising to the opposite sex nor any of his fellow men, including his parents.  They could not help him; without asking he saw the truth – they did not know.  And being so, then they were nothing to him, nothing but drones walking the path of life, unknowing why and what they lived for.13

Sure they had some weak reasons: love, happiness, fun, work, religion, a fear of death.  But those reasons weren't enough for young Maierdyn.  Those reasons were empty of the full truth his soul reached for and knew, somewhere, existed.14

As a young man, the answer had come to him in a burst of sudden clarity, and his mind had expanded as if the answer was a key to the ultimate power.  His awareness, a mental acuity, was capable of feeling the emotions of others, their pure emotions, and the intents of their hearts.  Behind a closed door, he could point out spheres of thought that told of each person behind that door.  For years he molded and flexed the skill and, reaching his middle aged years, he had mastered the art into a skill that reached beyond his body for distances only limited by his concentration.15

But now, that skill was lost, and his mind was alone and emtombed in his body like a stone burried deep in the earth.  He almost thought he could feel the Outside, feel the spheres around him, but the feeling fell to a dying hope and in reality, he was completely alone.  The answer was the key, he knew, and without it, he had not but an empty well of emotion or cares.  He was a man without a soul, a man without the knowledge that would separate him from every other self-centered, heaven-believing fool in the rest of the world.16

Now, without his power, he was simply an old man again, and like an old man fearing the proximity of mortality, he sat on the bench, his knees near his chest, held like a child holding a doll, and his eyes stared unblinking.  There was no energy, no fire or humor that he had once wielded in all opposition.  All his past experiences, war after war he fought for noble and evil kings, all the prophecies he had mastered, all the contacts and spies he had developed, living alone in his hermit hole in the forest like a great master positioning and pulling pieces around the world, all of it meant nothing now.  The choices of how the world would end meant nothing.  For sure, it would end despite his efforts, and he was old, and without the meaning, the answers, that made him who he was.  He was used up, and had no choice but the follow the fools and the scholars, the believers and the nonbeliever, into the only hell that existed – mortal life.17