Page 1823

((Triple Wednesday -- Page 2 of 3))
After a short time, he felt bold enough to step closer to it. Perhaps Overra was right, and he was being overly cautions, but he was in a certain mental state now, in his life as a servant. It was something he’d heard about many times previously but never taken all that seriously. Some called it the Firing Phase or the Goldening Stage.

Put simply, it was the time period in a servant’s life when they were beginning to grow powerful enough to witness truly monstrous events, yet not powerful enough to actually take part in them.

The reapers and older servants considered it a kind of rite of passage. All it really did, though, was make Parson see danger around every corner. For all the power he wielded, he was only too aware of how quickly it could be taken from him, either by one of the obscene powerhouses that lived in this world or simply by a stray attack that obliterated Overra in an instant.

Carelessness was all it would take. And fifty years of work, of growth, and of ambition would be snuffed out. Gone.

He’d seen it several times before.

So to say that he was hesitant to get close to the statue of Ettol would be something of an understatement. Of course, he could have told her to go back to the city and wait for him, but separating himself from her had its own dangers, he knew. And she probably wouldn’t listen to him, anyway.

The ironic thing was that if he were twenty years younger, twenty years weaker, he would’ve waltzed right up to that statue without a second’s hesitation.

How odd, this kind of strength was.

All the same, he still made the trip over to it, albeit slowly. And once he was near enough, he could hear a noise amid the uneven sound of the varying winds.

Cracking?

Yes. The stone was cracking. He could see it, too. Tiny fissures growing in the otherwise smooth gray surface.

‘It’s breaking down,’ said Overra.

Parson was about to ask why when the statue’s left arm fell off. It hit the dirt and clumped apart like ashes.

‘Fascinating,’ said Overra. ‘Try touching it.’

‘Be quiet.’

The other arm fell off now and broke apart even more intensely. Parson could see dust trailing off of the statue’s head and shoulders in the aggressive wind. It wasn’t much longer before the torso gave way, and the whole upper body crumpled to the ground as well.

It was all rather grotesque and more than a little strange, but there was one thing that he was looking for in particular. One thing that was noticeably missing.

The soul.

Parson was more than old enough to see souls that no longer had a body. Obviously, Ettol’s body was gone now, but his soul should have remained behind. Yet it was nowhere to be found.