Chapter 606 — The End of Winter
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 5
A vast hall opened before Luo Yan, a hall that seemed capable of holding a thousand for a ball—and yet, in truth, the entire palace was empty of all people.
An indescribable dead silence shrouded this magnificent and desolate structure. No attendants, no guards, not a trace of any figure—only a faint, twilight-like light streaming in through the tall narrow windows, casting one alternating band of brightness and shadow after another across the palace hall.
Luo Yan gazed quietly at this unpeopled palace within the dream, his expression calm and cold. After a brief stillness, he stepped forward.
The instant he set his foot down, countless low, blurred whispers and murmurs suddenly came from every direction.
Within that omnipresent sound were mingled fragmented, overlapping conversations and laughter and playful teasing, and it seemed blended too with stifled weeping and sudden screams—as though this empty palace had suddenly filled with people, invisible visitors or dwellers coming and going through the vacant corridors and halls, chattering and laughing and cursing and weeping freely all around Luo Yan Augustus—and yet Luo Yan, surrounded by all these voices, merely walked quietly onward, as though he ignored the interference of every sound.
At last, out of the chaotic whispers and murmurs emerged one clear voice, hoarse and low, reaching the Emperor of Typhon's ear: "...Ah... you have come again... so unwilling to submit..."
Luo Yan walked on. As he stepped forward, the broad hall shattered in silence, and before him appeared a deep, long corridor leading no one knew where. Along both sides of this corridor too were rows of narrow windows; the twilight glow spilled through them onto the opposite wall, and amid the interwoven light and shadow one could see portrait after portrait hanging silently on the walls.
Luo Yan saw his own elder brother, saw his own father, saw his own uncle...
Every one who had inherited the blood of the Augustus family and had already departed this world hung quietly here, watching him through those cold oil paintings with cold eyes.
Nearest to him was his eldest son, who had died young.
The young man frozen within the frame looked at Luo Yan and suddenly spoke: "Father... will you not stop and rest a while?"
But Luo Yan did not halt his steps, and walked on.
That low whisper sounded again: "On both sides of this road lies death, and at the end of this road lies death as well..."
Luo Yan walked gradually deeper into the corridor; the light around him grew ever dimmer, and the portraits on either side grew ever more ancient, ever more faded, ever more cold and distant. Those Augustuses from more distant ages seemed to watch the Emperor of Typhon advancing through the corridor with outright malice, and that low whisper went on and on without cease:
"...Better to stop your steps and rest a while. There is no need for you to challenge this impossible task...
"How painful the truth is... better to cast it from your mind. Sometimes, to live in ignorance is a blessing for mortals...
"Those Augustuses before you were as stubborn as you, and what became of them? Not one succeeded. They went mad—all of them went mad... You should not have seen it, but since you have already seen it, then better to accept this curse with composure..."
The corridor reached its end, and all those maddening whispers and murmurs vanished abruptly without a trace. Luo Yan quietly raised his head and looked at the portraits hanging at the corridor's far end.
That was the beginning of "Augustus" as rulers of Typhon, the very origin of this ancient family—the Augustuses earlier than that had faded with time into the collapse of the ancient Gondu Empire, and even if names had been passed down, no likeness of them could remain in this "palace."
In the dim, shifting light, Luo Yan saw several portraits: Roland Augustus, Bertomund Augustus, Talia Augustus...