Friday, November 25, 2011

The Shattered City

During his fifty year reign, the appetites of the Monarch were legendary among the lordlings, merchants, moon and common people of Sharazad, the fabled City of Glass. In the taverns, pleasuredromes, baths and sensoriums they would gossip openly of the six queens who had shared his throne, the countless concubines who shared his bed and of the mysterious dark sorceress who shared his secrets. With each he sired an abundance of children, all deemed legitimate by ancient law. On the scullery maids, handmaidens, cooks, ladies-in-waiting and the wives of lesser lords who lived within the Palace of Crystal, he fostered an abundance more and it was well known that rostitutes of renown or rare beauty where openly escorted through the Citrine Gates. If they pleased the His Royal Personage, they could expect a handsome reward or even a favoured place among his concubines.

Legend tells that when it came time for him to lie upon his death bed, the Monarch summoned his Queens, his councilors, concubines, generals, lords, wizards and children to him. As his heart grew faint, his eyes grew dim and his skin became pallid and cold, the throng of onlookers leaned in closer, waiting eagerly to hear him name a successor. Instead, with his final breath he laughed softly and whispered only, "Let it all be broken."

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