|
|
Prologue
It has been a long time since I have set
a pen to paper, or even spoken, a long time indeed. I find it more
eloquent to make my statements as a silent, cold glare from my deep red
eyes, or in a pool of blood that spreads like a crimson cloak upon the
street as I melt back into the shadows. To many, my stare is only
a cold and inhuman gaze, and the killings are senseless, meaningless violence;
but to those who must understand their meanings are clear and concise enough.
But perhaps it is time that
I finally record that which cannot be told in murder or cold glares.
There have been enough bards over the centuries that I do not doubt someone
wishes to hear what I have to say. And perhaps, too, the time has
come for me to form some sort of memoirs, to look back upon the past three
hundred years and reflect. I have been avoiding the past for long
enough; never denying it, but avoiding it all the same. Is that the
purpose of existence? To be able to accept the past and assign value
to one's... life?
No, not life.
I lived hardly more than twenty years, and most of that was spent in meaningless
chaos: drifting here and there, alone and empty, mere flotsam in the wild
and undeniable current of time. The rest of these three centuries
I have passed in this unnatural, unhuman shell of my once-living corpse.
Believe a vampire when he relates the slow torture of unlife; do not ponder
why liches are mad. Myself, I have held onto my sanity only by plunging
into the chaos and insanity of the human world that surrounds me - the
living world. And the dead one.
Do I bore you with
my ramblings? I am quite sure that few things make sense to you now,
but have patience. These torturous years of unlife have taught me
nothing if not patience. Oh, they have taught me many, many things
more. Experience has granted me a sharp, cutting wisdom that I only
grudgingly accept, bending to the inevitable.
No, I will allow my
story, the events of my life, the events of my existence, to explain my
ramblings. Most bards would declare it as extraordinary and captivate
an entire tavern with its embellished telling. But I will embellish
nothing here. Though I exist and thrive upon the deceit which fills
my world, I have acquired a deep appreciation for the bare and utter truth.
But I have rambled
enough. There is a story to be told, a past to be unfolded.