"He forgot his name. Then his voice. Then even his face. Only the mask remembered."
---
The winds of the upper mountain were cruel—cutting like blades, whispering the names of those long gone.
Asma-Ra climbed toward the Edge of the Hollow Path, where no footprints ever remained. The earth itself rejected memory here. The moment you stepped, it was as if you'd never been.
He walked alone until he didn't.
A figure appeared. Not from behind a tree, nor over a hill—but from nothingness itself.
He wore white.
Not robes, not armor—just a mask, smooth and featureless, save for a faint crack across its left cheek. No eyes, no mouth. Only silence.
> "You've come far," the mask said, though it never moved.
Asma-Ra placed a hand on his hilt.
"Are you a ghost?"
"No," the voice replied. "I am what ghosts wear when they forget they are dead."
The path shivered.
Around them, the hollowed began to rise—pilgrims, monks, soldiers—each with a mask of their own, each muttering forgotten prayers, swinging weapons too heavy for memory. They fought without anger. Without thought. Without souls.
Asma-Ra fought them—not to kill, but to remember.
He called out names—names he should not know. Names buried under ash.
And with each name spoken, a mask cracked and fell.
> "What are you doing?" the White Mask asked. "They are free. Empty. Free of the burden of self."
But Asma-Ra shook his head.
> "They are not free. They are stolen."
The White Mask tilted its head.
> "And yet... you still wear one."
Asma-Ra reached up to touch his face. For a moment, his fingers met not skin—but porcelain.
A white surface. A faint crack.
He staggered back.
"No," he whispered. "I remember who I am."
"Do you?" the voice echoed. "Tell me your name."
He hesitated.
The mountain went still.
Then he looked into the mask.
> "I am Asma-Ra," he said. "I am the child of ash. The bearer of flame. The one who chose remembrance over power."
The White Mask laughed—not cruelly, but like someone mourning a child's first heartbreak.
> "Then take this, Asma-Ra. The Fractured Mask. It once belonged to a god who forgot he was one."
He handed it to him.
It was heavier than it looked.
> "Wear it when you must lie. Break it when you must remember."
The path ahead trembled—and the Hollow Path collapsed into a staircase of light and shadow, each step an echo of someone else's pain.
Asma-Ra walked on.
And behind him, the White Mask whispered:
> "May you never forget again… until the Tree makes you."
---
END OF CHAPTER IX
Next: Chapter X – "The Bone Temple and the Sleeping Curse"