Within the Edifice

This page is rated T for Moderate Violence, Frequent Depressive Themes, and Frequent Light Horror Themes.

The fact was that Yorick lay dying.

It was Adriana's doing; that he knew. He had scarcely lifted a finger when she had corrupted each of the Edifice's artifacts, enslaving everyone within the Edifice; his job's scale was too cosmic to let him intervene, even though it would mean the suffering of all those in his domain. His duty was to watch over the Edifice and do nothing save in times of direst need, for his actions were too grand to be performed lightly.

Then Adriana, who knew this, made him act. She announced the slaughter of everyone in the Edifice, a task that would mean that no life could ever flourish in the Edifice again. With deepest sorrow, Yorick had been forced to seal off every corridor, every doorway, every keyhole, trapping every resident in their own home or whatever orifice they had been trapped in. A grim fate, but they would not die.

He had not realized that Adriana was in his very room. Before he could do anything but behold her visage, she had stabbed him through with her twin knives and left him to waste away upon the floor of his own guardroom, believing that she had thus destroyed the final challenge to her rule.

Yet, there was one thing that Adriana had not predicted: that Yorick's power was the Edifice's power. As he died, even as the seals that he had newly created began to fade away, so did the power within the artifacts, leaving Adriana nothing with which to rule, yet still leaving its inhabitants a world in which to flourish. And Yorick knew that, no longer enslaved by Adriana and her artifacts, the people would depose Adriana and build a new rule to let them live as they had of old.

The fact remained that Yorick lay dying, but not without a smile.