Crown of the Ancient Traveler

For this.

As I walked through the pale rim of the snowy sky, I came upon an ancient shrine to the southern god of four-turnings now remembered.

I sat down, breathing deep the freezing air as rime began to coat my beard, and looked upon the diverse items placed upon the sacred surface.

An amulet of the god in question,

wraps for his wards,

iron arms and armor,

a helm especially caught my eye turned as it was towards the shrine,

and a flower red like a severed head.

I wondered at such a place laying here, where any roaming bandit might come, unlooted. That any of my ilk had not yet taken of these simple spoils was maddening.

So I reached forth for the iron helm, and grasping it gasped in shock as my blood turned to ice and my eyes began to blacken. Uncovered as I lifted the helmet there was ancient and weathered, jawless and eroded, a skull of which only the empty sockets still resembled a living man. As blackness took me I could not turn away from the gaping holes of the sockets that pulled me inside them as the ice itself entered me. My hands would not let go and my legs were stuck to the earth like bloodthirsty Tongues on steel swords. Suddenly before me there was a thing, and I would have screamed if I could open my maw but my gums were filled with frost and my teeth were tumbling down my throat. And the thing walked to me with the proud gait of the ancient ones, wrapped in steel it resembled a man but I knew, I knew this was the skull and the skull was no man not anymore if ever it had been one. And around me without words it spoke in the tongues of frost and cold fire, burning my soul as my ears shriveled away. And it said to me 'as I walked through the verdant rim of the summer sky I came upon a newly risen shrine to the southern god of make-sure-not-to-be-ignored. I stood before it, exhaling fire as taught when greeting a brother first met, and looked upon the neatly kept places where men should have placed their affections to this newfound god; an amulet always to keep him near, shawls to cover from the heat of the day his lively folk, tools to plow the fields of war-to-heresy and earn his left-handed favor, and a flower bright enough to spite the sun. I wondered that such a place lay here, where any warrior might pay homage, unworshipped. That any of my people had not left sacrifice to this austere shrine was maddening. So I lay my head down upon it and reached up to take off my helmet so that I might leave it there upon the shrine when the keening of the changed ones rose from the south and west. And the shrine burst with light that burned me red raw and stuck my skin into place as it morphed into more than dead and less than here. Through my forehead-upon-the-shrine I watched as this fresh god was morphed and split and fractured and forced to watch words pulled from His own mouth and my skin burned with fire of a heat, so! that I noticed not the turning of the ages or the seasons newly born or the way the rim turned cold and lifeless like the elder woods I once knew. And my body withered away in heat and fire and cold and ice but my head remained on the shrine, still watching, still feeling, the ashes of my bones welcomed into the home of the unwelcome but my head still feeling the pain of the oathbreaking the disowning the betrayal and maiming and the king in the sun whose spite unearned envy so much fire only ash now and this is what I am and what this shrine is and this is what you will become if you would love me as none have done since the verdant summers of the distant days long gone come to me brother bandit and ease my suffering loneliness broken promise of the gods I can not die there is no pit deep enough for us to die in-'

And fire wreathed me, melting the ice I had become and my hand came unstuck from the severed helm and head. The earth around me was charred with dragonflame but I was whole, unburned and unfrozen but filled with the fire of terror and the ice of dread, a man-demon imprisoned before me and a dragon at my side. I ran south, fast as I could before the drake could greet me again but I can never forget the call of the weathered skull that no more resembles a face than does my own if looked at in the throes of sleep when dreaming, in the hours when I return to the shrine and to the ancient traveler trapped in his own head reliving the death and birth of god.