Whisper in the Wind

[Servant of Dante]

Whisperer in the Wind

 

The great daemon prince Kazar’drad sat in contemplation, endless warp eddies swirling before his eyes. A hint of a thought began in his mind: one among nine thousand, unnoticed, imperfect, incomplete. The nascent thought grew. It became a twisting lattice of improbable connections and inconceivable intricacy. As its beauty unfolded a slow smile grew on the lips of the waiting daemon.

 

023.M36

“Brothers, today is the day! Today we summon forth the master from the warp! Power and riches will befall us, and our names will be passed down through all of eternity; begin the Ritual!” Nine wicked knives fall, and the rays of a nine-pointed star are steeped in blood. A blue mist coalesces in the center of the rune, its tendrils whispering of things unimagined in a tongue beyond comprehension. A shadowy figure slowly appears from within the mist, as bright embers jump into its eyes the whispers become a roar; then, silence. The hulking form looms over the cultists. They begin to chant. Bright lightning streaks from the daemon’s fingers toward the nine, cutting their chant short as they are drawn into the jaws of the warp. Their devotion has been rewarded.

The daemon hoards of Daraur rage across the world of Mazan. Kazar’drad sits once more in contemplation, this time from atop a mound of sundered rockcrete and ceramite. The resistance is feeble, as expected. As the last pockets of mortal life are crushed to dust the world burns. Soon all is ashes.

While the memories of mortal achievement settle as ash to the ground, Kazar’drad walks the barren plains. Periodically he stoops to pick up and examine some piece of scrap or another, only to place it back from exactly whence he took it. For nine times nine days he searches, and his hoards have dispersed back to the endless tunnels of Daraur. For nine days more he sifts the ruin he has wrought, and finally he becomes still. On a continent across an empty sea the final speck of dust settles in timeless perfection to the ground, just as the great daemon lifts a scorched bolt pistol. Gingerly he opens the casing and examines its contents. After a few moments the casing closes and the pistol is back beneath the ashes. Kazar’drad dissipates back to his throne in the warp with the sound of an imagined of a gust of wind. Not a single footprint remains to mark his presence.

 

729.M41

Klugan hums happily to himself while he walks the roads of Kalta. After twenty-seven years of preaching and pleading he has finally managed to craft a lasting peace on his home planet. The planetary governor had just last week presented to him an ornate bolt pistol, which he had been told was several millennia old. The elderly preacher had never been much of a warrior, but had gladly replaced his battered old autopistol with the gilded bolt weapon.

Suddenly, an enormous zothai leaps from the grasses beside the road. Klugan pulls his pistol from beneath his robe, fumbling frantically with the safety, as the snarling canine charges toward him. He finally levels the weapon and, with one final prayer to the Emperor, pulls the trigger. zrr-clik Nothing happens. A cry escapes from his lips as the beast drags him to the ground, while the wind whispers over the fields. As the fighting on Kalta resumes in the wake of Klugan’s death, several factions turn in desperation to chaos worship, and cause the ruination of innumerable innocent souls.

 

Here are the not completely obvious instances of 9 in the story:

Hidden Content

36 and 27 are nine times four and three respectively.

729 is nine cubed, nine times nine times nine.

23 is the ninth prime number starting at zero (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23)

Sorry, 41 is just a number. I think it's a very special number though...

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The beginning is promising, but I've yet to see an overarching goal to explain the Daemon's actions. The Daemon should have more appearances, if only to laugh and gloat, to cement in the readers' minds the idea the Daemon himself is responsible for what happened. (This is a major complaint I have against many anime and manga where the US government is blamed for problems that befall the protagonists, e.g., 'Patlabor 2' and 'Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Second Gig'. They have the protagonists claim the Americans are supporting the antagonists, but when no American characters share a scene with the antagonists, the anime and manga writers themselves undermine these claims.)

[Carrack]

I like the plot, which for me, is the main factor in whether a short story is good or not. I think you had a good idea breaking the story into parts, seperated by time and space, to show the vast scale of the Daemon Prince's scheme.

 

Two things detracted from the story for me, in small ways, both with your last part. The first, was the suddenness of the Zothai attack. It felt like it was a bit of a forced plot device. Maybe a bit of foreshadowing would help, like explaining the road Klugan walked was not entirely safe, or have him hear a rustling of the brush or something first, so his death isn't so sudden.

 

The second drawback, in my opinion, was the very end where you explained the fate of Kalta. I think this would have been done better if you had seperated it into a different part, and maybe fleshed it out a few sentences. This way, you could show the cause and effect of his firing the damned pistol better. Much the way you had the first part show the Darmon Prince planning, then the second part the preliminary result of his plans.

 

Please don't take my criticisms of your story too seriously. I don't, it's a good story as is. The sacred number references were good, thanks for revealing them, I missed quite a bit. Did you write the story with the intention of weaving them in, or was that something you added as you went?

[Servant of Dante]

I like the plot, which for me, is the main factor in whether a short story is good or not. I think you had a good idea breaking the story into parts, seperated by time and space, to show the vast scale of the Daemon Prince's scheme.

 

Two things detracted from the story for me, in small ways, both with your last part. The first, was the suddenness of the Zothai attack. It felt like it was a bit of a forced plot device. Maybe a bit of foreshadowing would help, like explaining the road Klugan walked was not entirely safe, or have him hear a rustling of the brush or something first, so his death isn't so sudden.

 

The second drawback, in my opinion, was the very end where you explained the fate of Kalta. I think this would have been done better if you had seperated it into a different part, and maybe fleshed it out a few sentences. This way, you could show the cause and effect of his firing the damned pistol better. Much the way you had the first part show the Darmon Prince planning, then the second part the preliminary result of his plans.

 

Please don't take my criticisms of your story too seriously. I don't, it's a good story as is. The sacred number references were good, thanks for revealing them, I missed quite a bit. Did you write the story with the intention of weaving them in, or was that something you added as you went?

I just kinda put 9s wherever it made sense.

 

The end is a bit forced. I know. Maybe that's something I'll fix in the future. Thanks for the comment though!

 

 

The beginning is promising, but I've yet to see an overarching goal to explain the Daemon's actions. The Daemon should have more appearances, if only to laugh and gloat, to cement in the readers' minds the idea the Daemon himself is responsible for what happened. (This is a major complaint I have against many anime and manga where the US government is blamed for problems that befall the protagonists, e.g., 'Patlabor 2' and 'Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Second Gig'. They have the protagonists claim the Americans are supporting the antagonists, but when no American characters share a scene with the antagonists, the anime and manga writers themselves undermine these claims.)

I think it's obvious that the bolt pistol is the same bolt pistol throughout the story. To spell it out any more would hurt the story in my opinion. I didn't have the daemon appear again because this story is about "the twisting path" and all that. Who knows where that daemon prince was when Klugan died. there is, however, a subtle line where the daemon is almost mentioned . . .

 

 

 . . . while the wind whispers over the fields.

this is intended as a subtle reference to the daemon. If he was any more present I feel I would loose the mystery and the way that the daemon affected the future without directly interacting with it.

 

Thanks for the comment! Does any of my explanation make sense?

[Blackarmor_redtruth]

Very nice and what I would think a demon prince would do. Easy to follow the pistol, though I do agree that the end is a bit forced. It would be nice to see what other falsities the pistol provides, as one person falling seems a bit of a stretch to have the world fall back into turmoil.