There stands, at the end of this road, a stone. The black stone, hewn from no quarry we can name, marks the barrier between this and the next world. You will find that you can see someone beyond, though it is all clouded in fog, and if you are very still, very quiet, if you will listen, it is said that the figure who stands behind the stone will whisper to you.
You will know what he means if you hear, but you cannot tell or speak of it, though you try; though you empty an ocean of ink onto an ever unfurling scroll, you cannot quite write the whole of it.
It is inspiration and it is doom, for you will burn until you say what you cannot say. Some like a candle, some like an ember, some a raging and devastating fire have, in their passion, devoured these lands in war and famine—in their quest to share what they heard. Our last king was such, fighting with others like him, and the rubble is all that’s left.
Go, then, and listen for the whispers at the end of the world. It is safe. There is nothing left to burn, now.
Tale Told 