Ghost stories of Malignatius
Jun. 28th, 2012 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfyn"So it is told," the old man said, with firm solemnity.
Ariak Torenson was beginning to get bored already. The Criticorum nobleman had been on this benighted planet for less than a week and already he was growing to hate it. It didn't help that on Malignatius, each day/night cycle lasted a little over a week. They had landed at the close of one Malignatian 'day' and so all they had seen of the planet had been in this thin grey twilight haze, which did not flatter the grim concrete New Quarter of New Jakovgrad where they had landed. Everything seemed grey, and even the little coloured lanterns which the locals strung up over every window and door ("to keep the demons away") didn't really improve things and only meant that Ariak, who was tall by Malignatian standards ("malnourished hellhole that it is," he had muttered quietly to himself) seemed unable to enter a building without getting bashed around the head by a dozen little glass lamps.
And now he was stuck in some Pancreator-forsaken tavern, sampling the 'good local cuisine' which smelled suspiciously like real meat and not nice safe vat grown protein, enduring some old man's unending stream of drivel on the folklore of the planet. Unfortunately, his travel companions seemed to find this rustic absolutely entrancing, and weren't going anywhere.
"Go on," one of them said - one of the three girls from Criticorum he had attached himself to on the space ship over.
The old man shrugged expansively.
"Simply put, in those parts, it is believed that Death comes only for those who he already knows. That if you can avoid Death, so Death never sees your face, he will not be able to recognise you and so will never come for you.
"This, of course, is an impossibility. We all encounter Death at some point in our lives. Nevertheless, in that region, it is considered very bad luck and they do their very best to avoid it. The worst luck, of course, is to have your home entered by Death, for once Death knows his way through the front door, he may return as often as he likes, and will do. As such, once someone has died inside a house, that house may never be used again, for it is expected Death will be a regular visitor there. Instead, any house which one has died it must be either bricked up and abandoned, or burned to the ground."
Ariak thought longingly of Criticorum, and the giant towers of Acheon. He thought of where he lived, high above the clouds (the artificial clouds of pollution, which giant turbines kept blowing down on the poor levels of the city), of the theatres, the games, the universities and churches. He thought dreamily of civilisation. But he was not there. Instead one foolish minor error of judgement on his part had left him cast out, sent off to this frozen wasteland of a planet by his father on some spurious 'business'. And instead he had to listen to this tedious old man dribbling on.
"That must be expensive," Alannah, a slim dark haired woman of uncertain but not very significant age, was saying. Her eyes were aglow with interest. "I mean, for a peasant family,"
"For any family," the old man said firmly. "And that is why they have developed the Houses of the Dead."
"That sounds creepy," said the very cute red head who's name Ariak couldn't remember. He just knew she was the illegimate half sister of a Marquise, and as such worth getting to know.
The old man grinned a toothless grin.
"Oh yes," he said. "The way the House of the Dead works is this.
"If one should be near death, for whatever reason, then they must go to the House of the Dead. They will be taken there with their family, with any of their personal possessions that they choose to take with them into the afterlife. They will be carried up to the gates, as close to sundown as possible, and there they may say their goodbyes to their loved ones.
"Then they must be left alone, and the family will return home to mourn. They will never see them again. They are now dead. And once the sun comes down, then those already dead - those who have gone within the House of the Dead - will come and collect them. They will take them inside, and they will remain there until they are actually dead and gone."
"Do they starve to death? Or just lie down and die?" the third woman, a dark skinned Guildswoman, clad in a closely fitting black Reeve's suit (which was just taking off on Criticorum. Off world, Reeves still largely wore the traditional brown robes).
The old man shook his head.
"Oh no. Some stay there for years. Traditionally a village or settlement make regular offerings at the gateway. They leave wood, food and the like. There is no obligation to die within. Just not to die without.
"And people go inside to die for many reasons - some criminals, who know they would be condemned to death outside - will run away there and live their lives inside the walls, where it is considered their death sentence has already been carried out. And of course, some go inside and then recover, and can't come out. So they live there.
"Most, I believe, die soon after going inside, but no one knows. No one goes inside and comes out again. It is..." and he gestured expansively with one hand "...unthinkable. In that region anyway. To enter the house of Death himself? You would be a menace to everyone if you emerged. You would be cursed beyond all accounting.
"So no one ever emerges. And no one - no one knows what lurks within the Houses of the Dead,"
Ariak Torenson was beginning to get bored already. The Criticorum nobleman had been on this benighted planet for less than a week and already he was growing to hate it. It didn't help that on Malignatius, each day/night cycle lasted a little over a week. They had landed at the close of one Malignatian 'day' and so all they had seen of the planet had been in this thin grey twilight haze, which did not flatter the grim concrete New Quarter of New Jakovgrad where they had landed. Everything seemed grey, and even the little coloured lanterns which the locals strung up over every window and door ("to keep the demons away") didn't really improve things and only meant that Ariak, who was tall by Malignatian standards ("malnourished hellhole that it is," he had muttered quietly to himself) seemed unable to enter a building without getting bashed around the head by a dozen little glass lamps.
And now he was stuck in some Pancreator-forsaken tavern, sampling the 'good local cuisine' which smelled suspiciously like real meat and not nice safe vat grown protein, enduring some old man's unending stream of drivel on the folklore of the planet. Unfortunately, his travel companions seemed to find this rustic absolutely entrancing, and weren't going anywhere.
"Go on," one of them said - one of the three girls from Criticorum he had attached himself to on the space ship over.
The old man shrugged expansively.
"Simply put, in those parts, it is believed that Death comes only for those who he already knows. That if you can avoid Death, so Death never sees your face, he will not be able to recognise you and so will never come for you.
"This, of course, is an impossibility. We all encounter Death at some point in our lives. Nevertheless, in that region, it is considered very bad luck and they do their very best to avoid it. The worst luck, of course, is to have your home entered by Death, for once Death knows his way through the front door, he may return as often as he likes, and will do. As such, once someone has died inside a house, that house may never be used again, for it is expected Death will be a regular visitor there. Instead, any house which one has died it must be either bricked up and abandoned, or burned to the ground."
Ariak thought longingly of Criticorum, and the giant towers of Acheon. He thought of where he lived, high above the clouds (the artificial clouds of pollution, which giant turbines kept blowing down on the poor levels of the city), of the theatres, the games, the universities and churches. He thought dreamily of civilisation. But he was not there. Instead one foolish minor error of judgement on his part had left him cast out, sent off to this frozen wasteland of a planet by his father on some spurious 'business'. And instead he had to listen to this tedious old man dribbling on.
"That must be expensive," Alannah, a slim dark haired woman of uncertain but not very significant age, was saying. Her eyes were aglow with interest. "I mean, for a peasant family,"
"For any family," the old man said firmly. "And that is why they have developed the Houses of the Dead."
"That sounds creepy," said the very cute red head who's name Ariak couldn't remember. He just knew she was the illegimate half sister of a Marquise, and as such worth getting to know.
The old man grinned a toothless grin.
"Oh yes," he said. "The way the House of the Dead works is this.
"If one should be near death, for whatever reason, then they must go to the House of the Dead. They will be taken there with their family, with any of their personal possessions that they choose to take with them into the afterlife. They will be carried up to the gates, as close to sundown as possible, and there they may say their goodbyes to their loved ones.
"Then they must be left alone, and the family will return home to mourn. They will never see them again. They are now dead. And once the sun comes down, then those already dead - those who have gone within the House of the Dead - will come and collect them. They will take them inside, and they will remain there until they are actually dead and gone."
"Do they starve to death? Or just lie down and die?" the third woman, a dark skinned Guildswoman, clad in a closely fitting black Reeve's suit (which was just taking off on Criticorum. Off world, Reeves still largely wore the traditional brown robes).
The old man shook his head.
"Oh no. Some stay there for years. Traditionally a village or settlement make regular offerings at the gateway. They leave wood, food and the like. There is no obligation to die within. Just not to die without.
"And people go inside to die for many reasons - some criminals, who know they would be condemned to death outside - will run away there and live their lives inside the walls, where it is considered their death sentence has already been carried out. And of course, some go inside and then recover, and can't come out. So they live there.
"Most, I believe, die soon after going inside, but no one knows. No one goes inside and comes out again. It is..." and he gestured expansively with one hand "...unthinkable. In that region anyway. To enter the house of Death himself? You would be a menace to everyone if you emerged. You would be cursed beyond all accounting.
"So no one ever emerges. And no one - no one knows what lurks within the Houses of the Dead,"
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Date: 2012-06-28 06:57 pm (UTC)