Sanct, a man lacking memories, skills, and purpose, possesses (or is possessed by) an object that seemingly ignores the gods’ rules with impunity. To make matters even more confusing, Sanct is purportedly one of the gods’ servants.
Excerpt
Gosh, it takes a long time to die, thought Sanct.
For another moment or two he kept his eyes closed just to make sure that this wasn’t the Death Goddess’s way of playing a joke on him after nipping past her angels, letting him think that he was saved, then Whoops! Just Kidding!
Apparently it wasn’t, because he felt nothing being crushed or splattered mercilessly onto the nasty stone pavement. In fact, the mad whistling in his ears that had let him know that his descent was accelerating had been reduced to a mild whoosh. Sure that he was being teased, he kept his eyes closed.
His body slowly touched cobblestones one piece at a time.
After waiting patiently, Sanct noticed that there was still no death occurring, as far as he could tell. Then again, he had never done it before, so he could not be sure.
He opened his eyes, and found himself lying on the ground, covered in glass shards and feathers. Blinking a couple times and breathing deeply once, he decided that he had not died.
He slowly rose and dusted himself off. The shouting he had tuned out during his fall came to the forefront of his mind, and he peeked around the corner of the building to find a mob in front of the Temple of Knowledge, most with a weapon and a piece of paper in their hands.
“Maybe it wasn’t paranoia after all,” Sanct said to himself, recalling the people who had noticed him on his way to the temple. Some of them must have followed him but he had lacked the street savvy to notice.
He fled from the building by the alleyway behind it, not daring to take the main street and expose himself to the mob there gathered. He tried to run through the University grounds, but when he reached the side entrance, he found that the closer he got, the more burning a sensation he received through the soles of his feet. Remembering the banishment thrown over him by Lord Olber, he retreated from the entrance, and the painful sensation subsided.
Copyright 2008 Danny Birt. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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