The Index of Silent Prophets

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The rain had transformed the city's cobblestones into a network of mirrors, each reflecting a different face of the night. Alondra, the Chronicler, pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she strode through the winding alleys. In its inside pocket, she concealed a fragment of a map, slipped to her by a wanderer who claimed to know the location of the Index of Silent Prophets. No one had ever heard a word of this work, yet the magicians feared it because it supposedly wrote the future—not in sentences, but in gaps. The trail led her to a ruined monastery on the outskirts of the city. Between walls choked with ivy, she found a passage that led down into the depths. Her lantern flickered, as if even the light feared revealing too much. Steps led downward, wet and slippery, until she entered a hall whose dome made the rain rush over her like a distant sea. In the center stood a pedestal, upon which rested an open book. It was large, but not magnificent. Its pages were blank—or rather, so white that every eye that fell upon it seemed to find something overlooked within them. Alondra approached. The index smelled of ash and rain. She placed her hand on the edge of the page, and immediately a cold sensation crept into her fingers, as if her own breath were being held. No word appeared, only shadows forming: a hand without fingers, a mouth that remained closed. She remembered the stranger's warning: "They don't speak with voices, they speak with that which is missing." The page began to tremble. The shadow of a figure loomed—a prophet, head bowed, his mouth open, yet no sound escaping. Alondra realized that she couldn't wait for words, but had to listen to the silence itself. So she closed her eyes and listened. Then it came: not a sound, but the absence of a sound. A rhythm like heartbeats interrupted. Between these pauses, meaning formed. She understood not through reason, but through emptiness. The message was clear: "When the sky no longer casts shadows, go underground. There, voices will take root." Alondra turned to the next page. Silence again, but this time deeper, almost oppressive. It was as if someone were pulling threads from her throat. Her voice failed her, even a cough stuck in her throat. She reached for the lantern—and saw that its flame hadn't gone out, but had simply forgotten to burn. Everything around her was swallowed by an absence. "Enough," she murmured soundlessly, her lips moving without making a sound. With trembling hands, she closed the book. A dull thud echoed through the hall, and for a moment, the world seemed to stand still. Then something moved in the niches of the walls. Figures stepped forward, shrouded, faceless, but each of them carried a fragment of silence with them. They didn't approach; they paused, as if testing her worthy. Alondra knew these were the silent prophets themselves, bound to the Index, their voices lost, their messages burned into the void.