Declaration of War

He forgot the commandment! He looked back, And all that remained in his eyes was Eurydice's figure, vanishing in the light, That life more precious than his own, The road of prayer shattered into foam, and death's covenant was cruel and merciless.

—Virgil, Georgics

Herpo the Foul caught up after only a short while.

The cold wind howled. The dark clouds were split in two across the sky like the wings of a Dragon sweeping to either side, and sunlight unseen for years carved straight into the ground in the shape of a sharp sword. The land, long unfamiliar with sunlight, rapidly dried and cracked. Light-hating lichens and fungi could not bear to look directly at its brightness; the instant the light scattered over them, they were reduced to ash.

The dried corpses stretched out hyphae, struggling to crawl toward the shadowed places where there was no light. The sunlight did not bring long-lost warmth to this nameless city-state standing atop the mountain peak. Instead, it dimmed the streetlamps, adding to it a pallid, bone-cold filter.

The buildings and traces of life that had preserved their original appearance in the dark, like murals in an ancient tomb, began to turn as brittle as biscuits. The wind pouring in through the gaps in the clouds merely blew softly, and buildings collapsed, the flagstones of the streets turned to soil and sank underground. This city-state, silent for three long years, would completely lose its name from the map.

Broken stone chips were everywhere. Amid the destruction falling thick as heavy snow, Nelson, standing in the middle of the street, bent down and picked up the Suitcase on the ground. He shook his arm, and the silver bandages reaching from his sleeve bound the Wand at his fingertips tightly to his fingers.