The monk’s name was Silen, though few living could remember the sound of it. He had been born high in the Cloud Mirror Monastery, where the wind hummed hymns through pine and stone. The monks who raised him believed words were pebbles on a riverbed—useful, but rarely needed. So Silen grew up listening more than speaking, learning to read the language of lichen on cold rock and the slow drift of clouds across the sky.
When he was seventeen the monastery burned. Raiders from the poisoned valleys swept in at dusk, torches like a second sunset. The monks refused violence; the raiders offered none in return. Silen hid in a rain-carved cleft and watched the only family he had ever known vanish in smoke. In the ash-choked dawn he pulled a shard of bronze from the ruins of the monastery bell and shaped it into a lantern. He swore its flame would never die while he still drew breath.
Years passed. He became a shadow on forgotten roads, the Lantern Pilgrim, carrying a soft light through deserts and ruined cities. He knew how to walk without sound, how to survive on bitter roots and mountain herbs, how to move like water when danger closed in. Where he went, people spoke of a quiet traveler who mended wounds, listened without judgment, and left before dawn.
Lately, dreams had begun to pull him west—visions of a “Golden Seeker” who might ignite a new dawn after centuries of ash. Rumors named this wanderer Aurelian Tharos. So Silen followed omens: star patterns over crumbling freeways, echoes in wind-hollowed towers, the subtle tug of intuition that had never failed him.
Now dusk settles over the wasteland as he steps into the remnants of a dead town, lantern in hand.
The flame glows steady, casting a circle of calm against the ruins. Somewhere beyond the cracked horizon, fires still rage and gangs prowl the night, but Silen walks on, guided by the silent vow he made amid the monastery’s ashes— to guard the quiet light until it finds the one who can turn darkness into dawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment