The Last Monk on Hirethost

Prosencrios and the Isle of Hirethost held one thing in common; their isolation. The island was thousands of miles south of Aparnovos, past the infamous “storm belt,” its rocky form rising hundreds of feet above the vast expanse of the ocean. The rolling sea-swell, its momentum unimpeded for leagues upon leagues, thundered as it crashed against Hirethost, sending foam cascading upwards along the island’s rugged sea stacks. Nestled with the wind-beaten grasses and scrub in a dell on Hirethost’s northern, leeward side was a monastery of the same name. The domed stone buildings were low and sturdily built, surrounding courtyards with gardens whose crops clung to life amid the ever-increasing storms. Shuffling along the edge of one such space was Prosencrios, pulling his grey robes more tightly around himself. The bearded monk was the last inhabitant of Hirethost Monastery; his three older companions had perished, their failing constitutions falling victim either to rockfalls or the particularly harsh flu which had lain over the isle two years ago. They had stayed with Prosencrios even after the rest of the monks had boarded the ship which bore the news of the Fall of Aparnovos, bound for parts unknown. But Prosencrios and his late companions had been observing a phenomenon too entrancing to set aside, and he would continue the work even in utter solitude.   His cold fingers fumbled with the keyring, producing the key to the observatory after a little effort. Such things as locking doors Prosencrios performed more out of habit than necessity; the odds of another living soul being within a thousand miles of him were slim at best. Possessing a vivid imagination, his mind instead wandered to the innumerable shoals of fish and creatures of all sorts which plied the depths of the ocean extending around his home in all directions. Closing the observatory door behind him, the calls of the droves of seabirds around Hirethost faded. More and more had been flying south to nest here, he thought, and competition for rookery space made for raucous battles in the sky. Perhaps he would document the species he saw and the numbers in which they arrived. But for now, his present task laid before him as he walked down the brief hallway, removing a spherical object roughly one foot in diameter, carefully wrapped in silk, from a shelf with row upon row of such items. Proceeding further, Prosencrios entered a great, dark chamber, domed like the half of a sphere and with a floor of glass: the Scinorvys. The bricks which comprised the structure were a testament to the skill of its builders, so smooth and well-fitted that, when covered with plaster, the interior of the dome was completely seamless. Beneath the transparent floor, it could be seen that the dome was replicated beneath it, so that the room itself was a sphere divided in two.   Prosencrios slipped off his boots, and replaced them with thick wool stockings before treading upon the glass. The centre of the room contained a socket in the glass floor, into which he inserted the sphere he carried after unwrapping it. It was a hollow glass ball, containing a delicate round crystal at its centre, from which radiated a myriad of thin wires, each terminating in minute discs of brass as they reached the inside of the glass. Once the globe was situated in its proper place, Prosencrios muttered a brief incantation, and the crystal at its center flared to life, emitting a bright glow. In a moment of brilliance, the walls of the entire spherical chamber were illuminated, save for dark spots where the light of the crystal was occluded by the metal discs surrounding it. On the dome above him were projected all of the stars of the January night sky at the monastery’s precise location when the little glass orb was made, almost a decade ago. The stars beneath the horizon were visible on the hemispherical basin beneath the glass floor. A brass disk which rotated around the periphery of the room on a yearly basis represented the sun, powered by intricate clockwork. Prosencrios whispered another incantation, and the crystal in the orb flashed in response, with pinpricks of blue light now shining first on its surface, then on the interior of the dome: the new, changed locations of each star, based on the monk’s painstaking observations made throughout the preceding nights.   With practiced precision, Prosencrios moved about the chamber, astrolabe in hand, measuring the distance between each star’s new and old location before marking a long scroll which trailed behind him. Aparnovosi wisdom held that the magical ley lines and flows of energy which permeated the earth, while invisible to human senses, were mirrored in the patterns of constellations above as the gods revealed their secrets to the patient observer. For centuries the Aparnovosi had been using the stars to not only discover places and objects of magical significance, interpret prophecies and shape religious doctrine, but also to learn more about the nature of the world itself. Recent years had been both exciting and worrying in this respect. What Prosencrios and his fellow monks had discovered was that all the stars were moving beyond their seasonal norms, and steadily in one direction. Decreasing temperatures and violent storms had also shown that something was amiss. The measurements from the new projection, similar to previous observations, did not lie: it was not the heavens that were shifting, Prosencrios thought while turning to look back at the glass globe in the middle of the room, but the earth itself. It had to have rotated several degrees on its axis by this point. He paced the distance between the brass sun-disk and the globe, before running his finger from its equator to the area of the Wythian continent. The floodgates of his mind opened: the climatic shifts made sense.   But for the earth to have moved in such a way, what sort of momentous phenomenon could have occurred? Prosencrios cursed the lack of news from the outside world, only for a moment before re-sequestering the feelings of grief, regret, and hopelessness which accompanied the thought of home and the Fall of Aparnovos. He would have to make due with what information he had, and commit every scrap of his findings to parchment so that even if he were to die on this lonely island, someone may yet find them. Prosencrios was rushing out of the Scinorvis and across the courtyard to his chambers, scroll fluttering behind him, when a thunderous sound stopped him in his tracks. A deep, earth-shaking boom rent the air, followed by rolling cracks and reports. Prosencrios fell to his knees, his head swimming. It was almost impossibly loud, certainly far and above what could be a nearby storm or avalanche. Besides, the skies were clear, and it was carried by the southern wind. Were the gods infuriated by his discovery, his probing into their domain? Or was this their fanfare of approval? As the rumbling subsided, he scurried indoors, slamming the door behind him, ears ringing and heart pounding.   The next days, weeks, then months brought remarkable occurrences, all of which Prosencrios frantically recorded. The sun’s rays grew feeble and the moonlight sickly as a single, continuous pall of clouds thickened. Sunsets and sunrises were strange and fell, sending off-coloured rays far across the cloudy sky. The days gradually became colder and shorter, even for winter. One night, a tremendous wave collided with the island, shearing away dozens of feet of the southern cliff-faces in moments; luckily, the monastery’s sheltered location and strong foundations rendered it safe. On the rare windless days, thick fog settled low and heavy on the sea. The cries of seabirds and mournful songs of passing whales carried differently on those days, throwing Prosencrios’ isolation amid the heart of the sea into ever sharper and more painful array. The stars became increasingly occluded and difficult to read; Prosencrious mourned their loss, the same stars which before seemed to connect him and any other Aparnovosi casting his gaze upwards, no matter the distance. Eventually, he began to make his peace with someday dying on the far-flung island, while taking a peculiar solace as he recorded his findings, secured and preserved the works of the monastery’s library, and copied works old and new into clay or stone tablets, praying for them to last the ages. He grew content with the role the gods had allotted him in these strange and terrible times; a finder of secrets and a preserver of a rich and venerable legacy.