Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Strands of Fate

This heathen rite had long been known,
From age to age since dawn of life;
The god of pain could be renewed
By sacrifice upon the knife.
The human body of Akrull
Though weakened by the battle stress,
Could be restored to strength and might
By lives surrendered in duress.

Yet still the god's frail human host
Is doomed to age as all mankind
So every generation sought
A new host for the god to bind.
A child is found in every age
To hold the soul of twisted god -
A child both strong and full of life,
To clothe their lord in youth's facade.

But woe to him who takes this role!
His life is stolen by pain's lord;
His heart is crushed beneath the god
Who sears his soul to guide the horde.
Divided thus, Akrull is both
A man and god in living death -
The human soul finds endless sleep;
Akrull drinks deep of human breath.

And so it was, two decades past,
His human host reached three-score ten;
Akrull demanded youth and strength
So priests of pain sent forth their men
To find a child of beauty fair
And strength of limb and innocence
To bind his soul and body there
'Midst chanting priests and crude incense.

Thus fate had drawn the strands of life
And shaped those cords in strangest schemes;
Not even wisest men could guess,
Nor find it in their wildest dreams.
For while inside the city gates
One twin is steeped in songs of woe,
Outside his brother, long subsumed,
By strangest fate did guide the foe.

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