StoryOfKalin

Story Of Kalin

A Strange Infinity

The Children of Akailea have a weird magic. This world
abides by certain laws, but the Children of Akailea, being
half Outsider, do not live by them. They violate the land
with little thought, they change the surface of reality with
their stories, and when they die, they leave, never to
return. Except once. There was one of Akailea’s get that
managed not only to hold onto his grip of this world, but to
gain a stronger purchase. He is such an anomaly that Jade
Crow is perpetually perplexed by his continued influence.
His name is Kalin.

His story is deceptively simple, for he was just an ordinary
man, with an ordinary name, living in terrible times, just like
so many of Akailea’s Children. Kalin was a herdsman. He
inherited his livelihood from his father, and gained his
status from his wife, who inherited it from her mother. His
village had a building where they met to discus their theories
of life, where they invented their stories to shape the
land. And like many young men, Kalin had his questions; he
doubted the establishment. Their head theorist, a priest,
made to bend Kalin to their current doctrine, but Kalin was
stubborn, and kept his thoughts in quiet. No one really
knew what he had harbored in his head, and it wouldn’t
have mattered, if his life had turned out differently. But
tragedy struck, and provided the stress necessary to break
Kalin of his destiny as a Child of Akailea. He had figured out
how to cheat death.

A great empire had been growing to the South. Riding on
the plunders of it’s conquests, the empire soon came to
Kalin’s land like a monsoon. His village, his people, his
culture were swallowed by the Southern empire, and soon
forgotten by all save Bone Jackdaw, of course, and me,
Fenmere, the Worm. It was a drama that has been played
out century upon century by Akailea’s most troublesome
whelps. The details are unimportant, insignificant, except
for Kalin’s story.

Kalin joined his fellows in arms against the enemy from the
South. And in a devastatingly short battle, Kalin was taken
prisoner. As an example to the rest of his people, the
soldiers of the empire chained him to a post near a crossroads,
and left him to starve. As the procession of his
enemies and former neighbors receded, Kalin stood and
made his declaration.

“The wolves may eat me!” he shouted, “but I shall forever
haunt you, and hound you! For in consuming me, they shall
become me, and through them my spirit and will shall
continue!” And he lay down on the ground, on his back,
and spread his arms. And a pack of wolves came from the
nearby woods and tore him to pieces before the eyes of all
the soldiers and the villagers. And at the site of that, they
believed. And because they believed, it became true. Such
is the magic of the Children of Akailea.

Again, as in the fall of Jade Crow, I suspect the hand of
Bone Jackdaw in this. For why would the wolves heed
Kalin’s call? Jackdaw must have orchestrated it; it is his
style. There have been stories of others who have done
what Kalin did, but none are quite true, the events and
forces never coming together quite so perfectly. And from
that day forth, the empire was plagued by wolves. Wolves
became a scourge upon the flocks of its citizenry, and
savaged travellers within it’s borders. An edict had to be
called to drive all the wolves from the land. And the empires
descendants maintain a persistent stigma against
wolves and all wild dogs.

Everything from the beginning of the world to the end of it, and all the fiddly messy bits in between.