This tale is a true story that has occurred in the city of my kin. It evolves around one of our greatest artist who accomplished something that few would even come to think of. He has and will always have my admiration for his paintings that always knew to enchant me.
Especially this particular one.
- Viraïgon
The Picture in Darkness
A renowned painter had accomplished after many eons all what an artist could hope to accomplish.
Every motive was drawn, every color he had mixed and every known and unknown blood he had used to create them, as well as every type of skin he had worked into canvas.
And yet he longed for more.
»I want to let the darkness lead my hand and thoughts«, he said to himself.
Thereupon he began his preparations and as he had declared his plans loudly in the land of the Conclave, the citizens mumbled in excitement and wondered what wonderful piece he would create this time.
The Dark Elf laid the best skin canvas unto his scaffold, placed the opened pots of paint before it and the brushes into the pots, so that he would only have to reach for them.
He darkened the room wholly, until not even the smallest ray of light could enter and he could not even see his hands before his eyes.
He waited for the darkness to speak to him.
But nothing would occur.
Neither did he feel the inspiration that would let him grasp after the brush, nor befell him a thought of what he could paint.
The Dark Elf waited and waited.
After some time he became thirsty and he sought his way by touch to the door that would lead him into his kitchen.
But in the utter blackness he could not find his path. It seemed as if demons would have bewitched his room and re-aligned the walls. Nothing appeared to be there where he estimated it. He became ever more uneasy and began to walk up and down.
Blindly he ran into the scaffold, fell over the brushes, slipped in the puddles of the paint. He broke bones and his nose, bled from several deep cuts.
Finally did his apprentices perceive his cries and opened the door to the workshop.
As the light fell into the gallery, they saw that the blood of the painter and colors had mingled upon the scaffold.
The Dark Elf looked down on the piece and had to laugh, despite the pain and the chaos that he had summoned himself, for upon the scaffold nothing else had formed but: Blackness.
»Behold«, he called and rose up laughing, but in pain, »that will be your reward if you try to grasp the darkness: Nothing but darkness.«
The picture became so famous that it was presented on the great plaza before the tower of the Conclave, as the artist could no longer endure the great number of visitors in his home.
Until today, he did not sell it.
»For no coin and no pleasantness in this known world«, he spoke, »would I surrender my own darkness to another.«
