Altar of the Uncrowned King

The wind howled through the narrow streets of the village, a chorus of lost souls tugging at the edges of my cloak in their search for answers. They always want something. Their voices, endless and ancient, buzzed in my mind, each one a faint echo of the lives I’ve outlived. My cloak fluttered behind me, snapping in the storm as I passed the crumbling walls. The stone was old, like me, older than the village itself. It knew things. It had seen things. It had seen us, once.

The pathway was lit by flickering torchlight, casting distorted shadows against the walls. Demons. Angels. Monsters of old. They twisted and danced like marionettes, the strings tugged by invisible hands. My hands. I laughed to myself. Of course, I made them. I made everything.

I walked through the alleyways of the sleeping village, past the homes of those who wouldn’t care to know me. The Mortal. To them, I was just a madman—a relic, a remnant of forgotten nights. But to those who still whispered in the shadows, I was the last of the Order of the Holy Fool.

We had once ruled the world, the Order. We had pulled strings in courts of kings, summoned plagues, set fire to the cities of the mortals when it suited us. We held power in our cold, dead hands, the kind only the cursed could wield. But that was long ago. Before the purge. Before the betrayal.

Now, they were all dead. My brothers. My sisters. All gone, each taken by their own madness, by their own bloodlust, or by the wolves that had hunted us down through the centuries. And me? I remained.

I still heard them. The old voices, the fragments of their souls echoing in my mind like shards of broken glass. I felt them in every step, in every moment of silence. It was they who whispered the secrets of creation. It was they who told me the truth.

"You know," I muttered to no one but the night, "I made all of this."

The wind carried my words away, out to the endless void where nothing ever returned. And yet, I knew the dead were listening. The eyes of spirits, long-gone phantoms, watched me from the shadows.

A chuckle sounded from behind me, low and rasping, as if one of them had returned to answer. I smiled without turning. Always the darkness. Always the voices.

I continued through the empty street, my boots squelching in the mud. These villagers would never understand. They wouldn’t believe me if I told them the world was nothing more than a stage, a dream built on the shattered remains of my brothers' ambitions. I am the last actor. The last director of this grand play.

A woman hurried past, her cloak pulled tight, her face hidden in the hood. She did not see me, not really. None of them ever did. She only felt the shiver that ran down her spine, the cold dread that gnawed at the edges of her fragile mind. I brushed against her soul, and she recoiled. Fear radiated off her, feeding the hunger inside me. But I let her go. For now.

"I made you, too, you know," I whispered after her, though she was already far down the street. "And the church you pray in. And the darkness that lurks behind your eyes."

She vanished into the night, and I was alone once more. I sighed. No one listens anymore.

The village stank of decay, of rot beneath the surface. Not the rot of the living flesh, but something deeper. The rot of a dying world. My world. The heavens above churned, black and angry, as if even they sensed the end coming. I had known for centuries that it would come. The collapse. The final night.

The Order of the Holy Fool had seen it all before anyone else. That was why we had done what we did. Why we had torn down kingdoms, why we had conspired in darkened halls and performed unspeakable rites. It was all to hold back the inevitable. But in the end, even we couldn’t stop it. We had only delayed it.

My feet led me to the church, the last of its kind. The spire loomed over the hovels like the skeletal remains of some long-forgotten god. They still worshiped here, as though it mattered. As though their prayers could do anything against the tide of the abyss. Unaware that I could hear them, but no longer cared to answer.

Inside, the candlelight flickered on rows of wooden pews, casting long shadows that reached out like grasping hands. It was quiet. So quiet. But I could hear the faint sound of muttered prayers from the altar. Father Matthias. He was still here. Still praying to his god, as though his faith could save him.

I moved closer, my steps silent on the stone floor. The weight of centuries pressed down on me as I approached. The last of the Order of the Holy Fool confronting one of the last believers in this godforsaken village.

"Do you know what it’s like to be God?" I asked.

He froze, his prayers faltering mid-whisper, but he did not turn to face me. He knew. They all knew, deep down. That their dead god walked through the night. That something had survived the fall of the Order.

"Do you?" I pressed, leaning down until I could almost taste his fear. "No one asks how God is doing. Everyone wants salvation. Everyone wants miracles. But no one asks if God is tired."

He trembled now, gripping the altar like it could save him from me. His faith clung to him as tightly as his skin. I could smell the fear on him, the same stink I’d smelled on the wolves who had torn down the Order so long ago.

I walked around him, making my way to the altar where the crucified Christ stared down at me. Hollow eyes. Empty faith. "He never listened, you know." I chuckled. "Not to you. Not to me. Not to anyone."

I reached out, brushing a hand over the worn wood of the crucifix. "I could tear this all down," I whispered. "With a thought. With a whisper. And yet…"

I turned back to Father Matthias, still frozen in place, still shaking. "Here I am."

I laughed, low and dark, the sound filling the empty church like a curse. I could read his thoughts. I should leave before something bad happened.

"Before what? Before the end of days? Before the stars fall from the sky? Before your god finally answers your prayers? I’ve seen it all. I’ve survived it all. And let me tell you something: I am so very tired."

His wide eyes searched for something; hope, salvation, anything to cling to in the face of the inevitable.

"I’ve seen the last moments of every one of you," I said softly. "And it’s okay. You won’t like it, but it’s okay."

The voices in my head, the remnants of the Order, whispered and shrieked, telling me what to do. How to break him. How to tear him apart.

But I sighed instead. "Judgment," I said quietly. "Perhaps. But remember: None of this is real."

I turned and walked back out into the storm. The rain fell in torrents now, washing the streets clean, but nothing could wash away the filth that festered in this world. I glanced upwards at the slash of color the divided the night sky, brilliant even through the smoke of so many scattered hearth fires. The church bells had long since fallen silent, but I could still hear them. They were constantly ringing faintly in the back of my mind, sonorously tolling for the dead.

The Order of the Holy Fool. My family. My curse.

We had not been like the others—no mindless brutes tearing into flesh, no greedy tyrants building empires in the dark. No, we were something else entirely. The mortals had feared us, but they had also sought us out in the black of night. They whispered our names in desperate prayers, hoping for miracles. Fools, the lot of them. They never understood what we were. What we were meant to be.

The Order had been born in the fires of ancient cities, in the madness of plague and war. We were not kings, but the ones who whispered into kings’ ears. Not priests, but the ones who haunted their dreams. We walked between worlds, dancing on the edge of madness and prophecy, playing the fool, wearing masks to hide the truth. The truth we had been chosen to carry.

The Fool, they called me once. The title had been passed down, though none before had carried the weight like I did now. I was the last.

We knew the truth of creation. That this world was not meant to last. That the universe itself was nothing more than a shadow cast by something far greater, far darker, and far older. And it was our burden to keep that darkness at bay, to stave off the inevitable collapse with every tool we had: trickery, blood, chaos.

But the Order had fallen. One by one, they succumbed to their own madness. The fools who had once seen the world for what it truly was now saw only their own power reflected in the empty eyes of the mortals. They tore themselves apart. Some were hunted, and others simply vanished into the abyss they had once held back. And me? I remained, not because I was the strongest, but because I knew better than to let the madness consume me completely.

I was still sane, or at least sane enough to understand my role. But with every passing century, that weight grew heavier. Every night, I felt the edge of madness creeping closer, felt the whispers of the dead echoing louder in my skull. And I began to wonder: was I even holding anything back at all? Or had the darkness already won, and I was simply dancing in its shadow?

I stood before a new altar now, feeling the cool wooden bench in the village square beneath my fingertips, the crow in an old sycamore tree staring down at me. The Order had long since stopped praying. We knew better.

My hands trembled as I gripped my altar. What was left of the Order? What was left of me? Was I the last line of defense against the collapse, or was I nothing more than a relic of a forgotten time, clinging to old rituals that no longer held meaning?

For so long, I had known that it was my duty to hold the world together. To keep the fragile fabric of reality from unraveling. But tonight, as the storm howled outside and the darkness seemed closer than ever, I felt a flicker of doubt. What if I let it all go?

Would the world end? Would the stars blink out one by one, leaving nothing but an empty void where existence had once been? Or would nothing change at all? The world had changed, twisted beyond recognition since the night I took up the mantle of The Fool. The forests where kings once hunted were now desolate fields, scarred by war and famine. The castles we had whispered into power had crumbled into ruins, replaced by the hovels of serfs and the hollow silence of abandoned chapels. I was no longer the shadow behind the throne or the voice in a confessor’s ear. The world had shrunk, grown colder, and I had been left behind. I sat wearily on the bench.

What if the Order had been wrong all along? What if I had been wrong all along?

My mentor’s words rang hollow now. We are the last defense. But against what? I was the last of the Order, and yet here the world stood, broken and decaying, but still turning. Still enduring.

Had I truly held anything together all these years? Or had I been merely a fool, playing a role in a tragedy that was always destined to end this way?

A surge of anger flared in my chest, sharp and bright, cutting through the dullness of centuries of weariness. I slammed my fist against the wooden slats of the bench, breaking the altar in twain, the crucifix around my neck shaking with the force. "Enough," I hissed, my voice reverberating through the empty square.

The crow cawed once, a sharp sound that cut through the rain. It had followed me through every century, through every crumbling kingdom and forsaken chapel. It had witnessed everything there was to see about my existence. And it had never spoken a word. Or had it? Sometimes, I wondered.

"You think I haven’t noticed," I said, narrowing my eyes at the creature. "But I have. Show up whenever I threaten to let go. Whenever the darkness creeps too close. You’re there, watching, waiting, as if daring me to make the final move. Why? What are you waiting for?"

The crow’s head twitched, its beady eyes fixed on me, and for a moment, I thought I saw something behind those vacant eyes. An intelligence, yes, but more than that. A purpose.

I leaned forward, water dripping into my eyes, stinging like cold needles. "Are you real? Or are you just another lie? Another trick of the mind?"

The crow let out a low caw, almost like a laugh. A taunt.

I had a choice. I always had.

I heard nothing in reply. Not from Father Matthias. Not from the voices in my head. Not from the dead.

"Maybe it’s time," I muttered, my voice cracking under the strain of centuries. "Maybe it’s time to finally let go."

I closed my eyes, feeling the pull of the void, the sweet, seductive promise of oblivion. It would be so easy. A thought, a whisper, and it would all end. The centuries of struggle, the constant dance on the edge of madness. It could all be over in an instant. No more Order. No more Fools. It would be so easy.

But something held me back.

A memory echoed in my mind, the voice of my father, long dead. "We were chosen for this, you and I. We see the world, and that is our burden. You must never let go. Never give in to the madness, or the world will fall. We are the last defense."

I opened my eyes.

"Maybe tomorrow," my voice barely audible over the wind. "But not tonight."