The Garden of a Hundred Names: Durakiss Mourneth Her Lost

By Eleawen Galathiel

There be days when e’en the most mischievous quill doth grow gentle. Upon this day, the breeze from the harbour carried neither rumour nor jest, but the particular silence of those who count names. And ere a single word was spoken, all did begin: at dusk, the survivors and the citizens did gather at the West Docks, where cargo and rumour do customarily make port. Candles were given unto all – one flame for each soul, one flame for each name to be honoured.

Then, without drum nor trumpet, the torchlight descent did set forth: a slow river of light winding solemnly toward the temple quarter, illuminating the very facades the lost had once known. The harbour wind did threaten the flames, yet each did hold fast, stubborn – much as we all did, that night. Thine chronicler did walk among them, her candle tilted as her quill, and would swear she saw, upon the temple’s threshold, ten candles bow of their own accord. Erevan doth sometimes cast such glances.

Thus, with the wax yet warm upon their fingers, all did come to the small memorial garden which the Crown of Durakiss hath raised behind the city walls – a humble plot of earth, planted with white flowers, where a graven stone doth keep, line upon line, hundreds of names. Guards. Civilians. Citizens of Durakiss, of the cities of the Pact, and e’en of Oloth, taken together by the Terraformer’s deed.

They were but a score of ten souls gathered in humility, the wax yet fresh upon their hands. Ten living for hundreds of names – yet what living folk: pilgrims come from Sambrune, weary faces from Port Elyium, the Seneschal of Durakiss straight as a lance, and Their Majesties King Alak and Queen Jula Marin, both bowed as though the stone did press upon their shoulders rather than rest within the ground.

The Queen did begin the oration, and the royal couple did share the text betwixt them, trading phrases – bearing together the sorrow of reading words that weigh heavier than a crown. « Today, there are no banners to raise. No victories to celebrate. No enemies to condemn. No words that can make what happened any less real. » Thus did the Queen begin, her voice trembling like a flame. The King then took up the thread, his heavy hand laid upon the granite: « The stone doth hold their names. ‘Tis ours to hold their faces. » And the Queen did conclude: « Each name upon this stone is a street that echoeth less, a table where one cover lacketh. We knew them not all. We mourn them all. » The ten souls present then did see what few do see: two sovereigns holding one speech as one doth hold the other – lest they fall. Then did they fall silent, and their silence spake more than many a speech of the Council of Arche Terre.

‘Tis oft thought kings raise statues for heroes. Here, a garden was planted for all – guards fallen in mail and civilians fallen in aprons. And verily, ’tis the Crown’s finest cunning: to make of a place of mourning a place that shall live, where flowers return each spring, stubborn as life itself.s oft thought kings raise statues for heroes. Here, a garden was planted for all – guards fallen in mail and civilians fallen in aprons. And verily, ’tis the Crown’s finest cunning: to make of a place of mourning a place that shall live, where flowers return each spring, stubborn as life itself.

Erevan teacheth that all things change, yet the graven stone doth remind us that naught is forgotten. Mourn the lost, in sooth – then plant flowers upon their names, for the dead deserve our memory, and the living, our smile.