(Translated from de Robilant's Histories)
Truth is like a bubble. While rushing currents may carry it wherever they please, still it remains what it is; part of, and yet distinct from the river which bears it. A thing unto itself, visible, identifiable, but ever inseparably a part of the greater whole. And, like a bubble, once burst it can never be un-burst. Though the skin which gave it form must surely exist in fragments subsumed by the river, though the tiny breath of air which filled and gave it shape is still there, mingling in the wind, they will never be reassembled into that which was.
So it is, so it will ever be, and so it was with the great catastrophe which befell the Sinian Empire. History records that the ghastly realm of Nygorach drowned the Empire beneath a wave of dread beings and broke its monuments in a tide of ruin. And yet, seekers of the truth may still find those whose witness speaks a different tale. A tale in which an empire rotted from within rather than being slaughtered from without.
Indeed, the Sinians of the final age had not the noble spirit of their lofty ancestors. Where the first Emperors were mighty among men, the last were gods among rats. Where the first lords sought unity for the common good, the last sowed discord for their personal gain. Where the first princes were captains at the fore, the last were gluttons at the feast. So it was that the imperial corpus gorged until it was dripping with fat and crooked of spine. And from the hidden folds crept cults of flesh and blood and bone, worshippers of death and the dead, summoners of vile things. Orders of lust and orgies of violence emerged in palaces and swept down to the rookeries in ever-greater concentrations to slake the base thirst of men. Those of status beseeched the stars to grant them power to rule over their fellows, never thinking that power beyond their dreams would be power beyond their control.
And the power grew, and the thirst grew, and the discord grew, and the Empire swelled until it erupted into a thousand petty civil wars. So weakened, the attack from Nygorach - which would, in better times, have been repelled with ease - devastated what remained of the Sinian civilisation. The felltide swept through Sinian lands, devouring all until it had consumed even those whose invocations had made its triumph possible.
Like the truths it will no longer hold, the Sinian Empire is shattered and can never be re-made.
Truth is like a bubble. While rushing currents may carry it wherever they please, still it remains what it is; part of, and yet distinct from the river which bears it. A thing unto itself, visible, identifiable, but ever inseparably a part of the greater whole. And, like a bubble, once burst it can never be un-burst. Though the skin which gave it form must surely exist in fragments subsumed by the river, though the tiny breath of air which filled and gave it shape is still there, mingling in the wind, they will never be reassembled into that which was.
So it is, so it will ever be, and so it was with the great catastrophe which befell the Sinian Empire. History records that the ghastly realm of Nygorach drowned the Empire beneath a wave of dread beings and broke its monuments in a tide of ruin. And yet, seekers of the truth may still find those whose witness speaks a different tale. A tale in which an empire rotted from within rather than being slaughtered from without.
Indeed, the Sinians of the final age had not the noble spirit of their lofty ancestors. Where the first Emperors were mighty among men, the last were gods among rats. Where the first lords sought unity for the common good, the last sowed discord for their personal gain. Where the first princes were captains at the fore, the last were gluttons at the feast. So it was that the imperial corpus gorged until it was dripping with fat and crooked of spine. And from the hidden folds crept cults of flesh and blood and bone, worshippers of death and the dead, summoners of vile things. Orders of lust and orgies of violence emerged in palaces and swept down to the rookeries in ever-greater concentrations to slake the base thirst of men. Those of status beseeched the stars to grant them power to rule over their fellows, never thinking that power beyond their dreams would be power beyond their control.
And the power grew, and the thirst grew, and the discord grew, and the Empire swelled until it erupted into a thousand petty civil wars. So weakened, the attack from Nygorach - which would, in better times, have been repelled with ease - devastated what remained of the Sinian civilisation. The felltide swept through Sinian lands, devouring all until it had consumed even those whose invocations had made its triumph possible.
Like the truths it will no longer hold, the Sinian Empire is shattered and can never be re-made.
No comments:
Post a Comment