Absi Kire - Autumn Promise

Race : Imass/Barghast

Age : a toddler (2-4)

The son of Onos Toolan and Hetan, brother to Storii and Stavi

Sitting oblivious on the ground, the son of Onos Toolan and Hetan made curling patterns in the soft dust with one finger.  Four squiggles in one particular pattern, trying again and again to get it just right.  It was getting dark.  Shadows walked out from stones.  The shadows were part of the pattern.

The Imass possessed no written language.  Something far more ancient was buried deep within them.  It was liquid.  It was stain on skin.  It was the magic of shadows cast by nothing – nothing real.  It was the gift of discord, the deception of unnatural things slipped into a natural world.  It was cause in search of effect.  When the sun was gone from the sky, fire rose in its stead, and fire was the maker of shadows, revealer of secrets.

The child had a secret name, and it was written in elusive, impermanent games of light and dark, a thing that could flicker into and out of existence in the dancing of flames, or, as now, at the moment of the sun's death, with the air itself crumbling to grainy dust.

Absi Kire, a name gifted by a father struck with unexpected hope, long after the death of hopeful youth.  It was a name striving for faith, when faith had departed the man's world.  It whispered like a chill wind, rising up from the Cavern of the Worm.  Absi Kire.  Its breath was dry, plucking at eyes that had forgotten how to close.  Born of love, it was a cry of desperation.

Patterns in the dirt, fasting sinking into formless gloom.

Absi Kire.

Autumn Promise. - (DoD UK HB, p. 504