First Written Account of the False Gold

From the Journal of Jang Chae-sun

written by Gabriel Komisar

XVI-Meridian

Waning Gibbous

The marsh was so quiet I could hear my own breath. Even the insects between the reeds were gone. That was how I knew Valmiki was sick even before I saw the color of the water. Soaked to my bones, but I waded to the deeper parts to find him. I shouldn’t have. When I got closer I could smell it: sulfurous bile. This was not supposed to happen, but it trailed in the water and burned a little on my skin. Sample enclosed in the vial.

Found him by the old willow where he usually keeps himself at night, choking and sputtering. His feathers were dropping like autumn leaves. I prepared an unguent to administer, approaching immediately, forgetting my training. I was alone, but I did not feel that way. When we’d first met, I felt a kinship with Valmiki, an understanding. I always thought when I was near him, I was in the company of a friend. I was the only specialist in the marsh that day, as I had been the last few days. That was my undoing.

No one has seen me in some time, and after that day they would not find me recognizable now. I have not made myself known; I have borne my wounds privately. The first reason for this is I would not want the people in my village or our province or of any province of Ald-Amura to think differently of Valmiki. To think the way our ancestors did once more. But the second reason I have told no-one is I did not believe, or allow myself to believe, that this had happened. And I still do not believe Valmiki is to blame. But I do not have the answer.

The bile, the molting, the final look he gave me, these are signs that Valmiki was working with every fiber of his being to reject what was happening to him. Perhaps it is because I am cynical, perhaps it is because I am getting older, but I know all our species’ dirty tricks, and I believe we are responsible. Again, I don’t know how. But my grandfather watched his father melt his sword, and it will be an insult to everything built since if one is forged again.