The God's Game

Words of Wisdom

"ACHOOO!"

"Bless you!" Einar called from outside. "There's still dust on the altar "

Arent you abusing your sick privileges, old man?

River grudgingly dusted the alter , inhaling another mouthful of dust.

The Whitlock ancestral hall was located on a more rural side of Wesown, a good few miles away from the city. It was nestled at the foot of a towering mountain ,and remained shrouded in the secrecy of a dense forest.

"How long had it been ? Two years ?" Einar wandered, biting in to an apple .
He sat on a stone bench in shade ,the two hounds at his feet, inhaling food at a blinding rate. He only stopped chewing to swallow or to point out a spot River had missed while cleaning.

"Probably longer" River called out from inside "It seems that dust has claimed sovereignty over this place "

Einar laughed so hard that he started coughing "Im so glad I have a deciple "

"You should ask His Majesty to send someone over to fix this place " River wiped beads of sweat off his forehead as he took in the condition of the hall.

Some of the wooden floor boards were rotten ,there were about tweleve,not so tiny holes on the roof,and two of six wooden pillars looked awefully close to collapsing.

"Nah" Einar peeled an orange. It seemed to be one of his hungry days, today. "I cant bother him with mundane tasks like this. He has a kingdom to rule"

After dusting , River fetched water from a nearby creek and washed the floor while Einar took each tablet off the walls and wiped them sqeaky clean.

River stopped vigorously wiping down the floor boards to take a breather and something odd caught his eye. It was the wall to his right and somehow it felt different from other three walls.

He stared harder,trying to find  what made it stand out him. River looked at the wall to his left and again at this wall a couple times before he realized that these memorial tablets were much less worn out .

He walked up to the wall ,which held about sixty ebony tablets and read the top one.

In memory of Kaya Whitlock
May the West God guide her soul in after life.
1028 ,second full moon

He read the next one...the next one..and the next...all the way to the bottom row.

A shiver ran down his spine as he realized about sixty two members of West Whitlock clan had died on the same day, 22 years ago.

"What are you staring at ?" Einar called next to him ,making him jump out of his skin.

"They all died ..on the same day?"

Einar's dark brown eyes scanned the wall. It was hard to say what kind of feeling was behind them . " Mmh..they were killed "

River felt his eyes going wide . Killed ? Why ? By whom ?

22 years ago..how old was Einar back then ?fifteen ? Younger ?River thought back on how worried Einar was about Whitlock craftsmanship dying with him ..

"You..are the last Whitlock .."

Einar gave him a small smile. He reminded River of Ayla Yearwood. How she would smile when she talked about her dead sisters .

"They were good people " he sighed "They did not deserve this "

River's eyes fell on the memorial tablet at the very bottom. That one particular tablet was empty, with no engravings on it.