An aged, wizened man. He wishes he could follow his wife, and his kids, and his grandkids into the great beyond. But, when he was young, and on guard duty, he had fallen asleep at his post, failing to raise the alarm when invaders got inside, and a thousand within the city perished as a result. Now, his gods won't let him die, until he has saved one thousand lives. One life for each that had been lost. Marking his arms and hands with stripes, one stripe for each life. There were still almost a hundred to go. -- Anon Guest
Be careful when you make a Sacred Oath. They have repercussions, they have consequences. Some, like the oath embedded in a white obelisk in Whitekeep, worm their way into the oath-taker's brain and will not allow themselves to be broken. Others, like an oath on the heart of a god, allow the oath-taker to persist so they can uphold it. One has come with its own punishment.
Call him Marcus. He has had many names throughout the centuries. Once in his youth, he took an oath to preserve lives and defend them with his own. It was his bad luck that he took that oath in ready witness of his gods.
He made a mistake. He fell asleep on a night when bandits came. One thousand died, and the gods demanded restitution.
One thousand tallymarks appeared in his flesh, all over his body. He could no longer sleep, he no longer had the luxury of being able to ignore things. The gods also did not permit him the privilege of staying young. Every time he closes his eyes for longer than a blink, he hears the screams of the terrible night he failed his oath.
He must walk, or feel the burning of the fires that ended a thousand lives, and so he wanders, a withered old man, looking for lives to save.
For the first score of years, it was easy. He could fight an attacker away from the vulnerable. Thereafter, it was more difficult. He had to find other ways. More... time-consuming ways.
He was one hundred and twenty when he began dedicating himself to unwanted children[1]. It was a cruel world, and he only had two hands.
Nevertheless, a wandering saviour finds ways into wealth. Last century's chump change becomes this century's collector's item. People reward an old man who saved their daughter from the wrong kind of attention.
Founding an orphanage or two didn't count, once he stopped bringing the helpless babes to those doors. He had to make the effort, said the gods, to repay its lack that one night.
To eight hundred children, he was a funny old man who spoke with a weird accent and knew strange things about the past. He would raise them with care and attention to their education, and a good life. Then he would wander away.
Eight hundred children called him "grandfather".
He had two hundred lives to go when artisans made it possible to choose to have children. Marcus had to find other ways to save lives.
Just as there are many ways to endanger life, there are ways to save it. The gods would not let him die, and therefore knit his flesh back together whenever it failed him.
Saving souls from slaver's chains was hellishly painful, but it took the tally marks away so quickly, it was almost worth it. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty... Marcus could believe that he had found a solution to his sins.
Then the world unilaterally decided that slavery was bad and stopped it.
One hundred marks were left on his arms. One hundred lives left to save, and only his direct action could save them.
Once more, he took to wandering the streets in dangerous areas. Looking for people who were at risk or in danger. Once more, he joined search teams looking for missing children, or those who had gone for adventure and found themselves trapped.
It was slow, terrible work.
People kept finding him and praising him for his tirelessness. They kept exalting him for saving so many.
"Please don't," he croaked. "I am not doing this for them. I am repaying a great sin. I cannot rest until it is done."
The slow centuries crawled by, and he saved households from disasters, carrying people and even pets on his withered old back. Rowing people across raging floods, or piling them into transports to take them away from the scenes of chaos.
On one such storm-tossed sea, taking the last souls from a sinking ship, he saw an end to it all.
The closer he got to the safe harbour, the more tallymarks faded from his hands.
He only needed twenty-five to earn his rest. There were fifty aboard his ship, and some were babies. More than half were babies. If he ended now, those little innocents would not have a chance. The ship would founder.
"Gods," he begged them for the first time in his tormented millennia, "let this curse last until all these souls aboard are safe in shelter. I have worked so hard to save this many, let me save them all."
The gods, as ever, were silent.
Marcus set the sail and lashed the helm so that the ship would run safely aground if he fell before they reached it. He pressed maps and journals into the hands of the destitute, shouting above the roar of the storm that they should use it for the greater good.
By the flashes of lightning, he could see the tallies fading. Eighteen... sixteen... twelve...
Please, let me save them all...
He put his hands on the wheel, making sure the ship would get to where it was going, correcting the ropes.
A flash of lighting. One mark left.
Please...
Flash. He couldn't see it. Not in that brief a light.
Crunch against the gravel of the beach. A lurch. A list. A cacophony of shrieks that brought him back to that terrible night. He used the sheets as ladders and helped every single person ashore, out of immediate danger.
One left. A crying baby left tangled in a hammock. Marcus lifted it up and clambered out of the ship.
One. Last. Soul.
Villagers were ushering the others into the town hall, and hurried him inside too. There, helpful souls were helping the survivors get dry. Handing out soup. Handing out blankets. Assigning cots.
Marcus pressed the infant into the hands of the woman who had held the guiding lantern. He said, "Save this one, too."
And then, without any further fuss, he finally died.
Witnesses would later tell horrified stories about how the old man who had done so much turned to dust before their eyes, drifting away in the breeze. How the journals he'd handed across told his entire story, in lives saved and tallymarks removed from his wizened flesh.
The nurse who took the baby from his arms swore blind that he hadn't had any tallymarks on him when she saw him.
[1] Before reproductive choice was an option, people would abandon unwanted or unwelcome babies to succumb to the elements.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / andreykuzmin]
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