It was the last day of spring when the Girovaga arrived at Xanadu to meet the Patron; though it mattered not what season or solstice held authority, for they had long left the planet at that point.

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Atomic wars of attrition turned Earth into an ash-house; storms of fusion and fission causing a shift in the celestial axis, rendering the world's climate comatose. This was the reality of the Moor, after the War of Tears, after Nightfall, after the angels left men to become monsters. This was reality, a reflection of his withered spirit. But as barren as the tundra within the Patron was, he still managed to hold on to that vision of weather; of rain and wind greeting the flowers at dawn. And yet, all the flowers were dead, leaving him with this memory of spring.

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The girl entered the throne-room of Xanadu like a whisper, quietly filing across the furniture of corpses that surrounded the Patron. She found a junction in the great hall beneath an edge of the canopy to stop, settling between a rotting cadaver infested with maggots, and a pale young man not even lifeless for a day. The Patron himself sat in quietude; an old bull whose mane ran white like bone, enveloping a robust figure that could have once been a double to Heracles. As she watched, the Girovaga removed a book and pen from her cloak pocket and began to write.

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From the land beyond the Moor had the Girovaga come: a sterile steppe of nomads and artists who were spared from Nightfall's judgement decades earlier. These dreamers had withdrawn from the stage after the war broke out, retreating to hidden hovels at the ends of the Earth. They watched as the Patron led his Empire of Ameri-Khanates against the Philistine Covenant, beastly men who worshipped gods of sin. They watched as the soil burned with every step taken by these warlords, a campaign of annihilation christening this cadaver-world. They watched as the seasons died, and the sun set forever. They watched, and they wrote in their little white books.

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As the Girovaga scribbled descriptions of the bodies that lay around her, the Patron lifted his head to acknowledge his guest.

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“I can see you, girl. I may be old, but a tiger does not abandon his senses so easily.”

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The Girovaga stood silent in the corner of the room, the flicker of her quill onto the pages of the tome producing faint sounds, an opera of prose. Once again, the Patron questioned the girl:

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“Why do you continue to wear the darkness as if it provides any deception?”

 

The Girovaga stepped forward out of the shade while continuing to scrawl, creating a chuckle in the chest of the Patron.

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“I grow weary of these constant dances with death. The charades of assassins do nothing in the face of internal oblivion. You wear the shadow, but I am the only shadow here; a skeleton-king awaiting regicide.”

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She approached the throne with a strange serenity, her eyes rising to meet the view of the Patron while her hands moved with a mind of their own; a ballet of ink unleashing a flood of calligraphy detailing everything that surrounded her.

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“Greetings, Great Patron: sovereign of the Moor, victor of the War of Tears, master of the atomic Nightfall. I am the Girovaga, wanderer-scribe. It is an honor to be in your presence.”

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“Spare me the sentimentality, girl. I am Patron no more, only a pharisee left to rule the carcass of this planet. Why are you here, seeking a bitter old man with nothing to offer but regret?”

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The Girovaga smiled.

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“I have come for a story. Gift me a tale of your strife, your sorrow, your bane, and in return I shall preserve it in the Alabaster Library of my people.”

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“Very well then. If this be my legacy, then let it not be masked by smoke and mirrors.”

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And they began with his strife.

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“Tell me of these men that decorate your hall.”

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“They are mere heralds of the inevitable. Butchers sent by my lieutenants, the five regents of the Ameri-Khanates, hoping to end my reign. The void of war has made politicians out of soldiers, forcing them to hide behind weapons of espionage and intrigue. My demise will be a conflict engine, a return to the language of violence that they long for. But I will not yield to these inheritors; for this mortal coil is my penance.”

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And they continued with his sorrow.

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“Tell me of your internal oblivion, your shadow, your regret.”

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“My heart is a dying star, clinging to faint echoes of a bliss-that-was. A taste of honey from lilacs and tulips, a taste of life and laughter. The smile of my love that made my soul weep so effortlessly. Her hands in mine as we watched the children dance around the meadow. But all the flowers are dead, and my family went with them.”

 

And it ended with his bane.

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“Tell me of the atomic Nightfall, the weapon that ended the War of Tears.”

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“After the Philistines leveled Karakorum… After I searched the ruins for the bones of my wife and children… I didn’t care for why we started fighting in the first place. In those final days of the war, we all worshipped gods of sin. We were barbarians, all of us.”

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As he continued, the Patron gripped the arms of the throne, his fingers digging into the cobalt hue.

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"That hour still accosts me in my dreams, that moment when the sun set forever. A split second governed by tempest and torment, my last breath as a true warrior before allowing weakness to consume my heart. They never would have wanted that."

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And the grip tightened, his palms bleeding thick black blood.

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"I razed this world for a song. A scream of anguish and rage, a curse at the sky for what was taken from me. But when I gazed into the glower of ultimate destruction, the abyss stared back and shook its head."

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The Patron’s hand loosened, blood painting his cheek as he wiped a single tear from beneath his eye.

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“And I knew the folly of my weakness. And I knew nothing would ever bring them back.”

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The Girovaga stopped writing, closed her tome, and looked up at the Patron.

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"I have heard the confessions of a broken man and thus completed my function. But if I must defy my own nature, then it will be in service of your resurrection.”

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As she spoke, the Girovaga cast open the doors of Xanadu, the Moor’s light meeting the face of the Patron for the first time in years.

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“You have made gods and jailers of spiritual defeat, resolving to linger within a Tartarus of your own design. But even now, a crossroads presents itself bearing this final examination: Will you wait for the reaper's release and surrender, or will you emerge from this prison to reclaim the warrior on the road to absolution? The choice is yours."

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We cannot know what happened in Xanadu after that last day of spring, nor will we ever. All that is certain is the Patron's story was over, and it returned with the Girovaga to the Alabaster Library.

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"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea."

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1816

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