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[Isk]

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A stream dashed and trickled off the ashen trunk of a long decayed Magincian tree, the flow of it curved by the crevice of moistening soil. It worked its way to press along the Magnate’s steel toed boots, coating the bronze engraved lions with its wet foulness. Thick vapors rose to mingle with the crisp air of a ruined city in need of rebirth.

As his urine flowed upon the lifeless ground Isk gazed at the common ghosts that would pass from this place and that. Their faces were often hidden but at times he could see one of a man or woman he remembered. “This is death,” he stated as he made himself modest with his gloved hands.

With unclean boots he began his march among the ghosts. It was a walk that was becoming frequent, a walk that always brought to him the memories of the past. “The primal years.”

He thought of the times when he, Isk, went up against the status quo, the times he spread the views of his heart. The times his beliefs and deeds pushed aside older ideas and those that upheld them. “It makes me envious instead of bringing me joy,” the Magnate confessed as his step touched the sandstone road. “My enemies left at a time when their glory was high, yet I am still about”

His eyes averted from the specters he had mistreated while he continued his soliloquy on the walk from where Magincia’s bazaar had been towards the scattered debris that is now the bank. His crisp words formed from behind an emotionless mask of porcelain. “I’ve had ample opportunities to exit like them, but instead I remain. Each month, each year, I become forgetful. Remembered for what I took part in years ago, but with no say in how the world moves now.”

He lifted his head to catch the wind from the west. “My own fault.”

The cold chill of winter caressed beneath his chin and forced his unclean gloved hand to touch at it. The smell of urine penetrated his senses. She shock of bile caused him to detached himself from the physical. Isk’s envy green eyes rested like dead potato bugs in their sockets, devoid of life as his complex mind entered the analytical process.

Lifelessly he stood on stones with ashes of long dead life catching on the wind. The ghosts of the City of Pride moved past him on either side, paying no heed to the Magnate as if he were one of their own. Isk stood there like a paved bronze statue, the only thing that moved being his thick mane of white and silver hair. Time passed him as he reflected. It was not until his knees felt the soreness of his stance that he moved. His emotionless mask was no longer able to hide the disquiet in his eyes. His steps were slow but wide, the clang of his soles first lost in the hush and whispers of the wind and ghosts became audible as every pace was one of resurfacing confidence.

He was moving, moving to use a resource he had never had until Magincia died. It was time for a parley he had avoided for too long. “Khay’Thall,” he whispered “time to restart the cycle. Time to go back to the beginning.”