Shadow Fealty
Key art
Prologue
Low red candles burn the length of a stone hall and throw little heat. An oath circle glows on the floor between them, the line unbroken.
Watch
Permanent screening
2:57 · 16:9 · not filed.
One line
Before the synopsis
A living woman and her shadow kneel in it together, badly matched: her knees rest on the bright line, the shadow's knees fall inside it.
Synopsis
At the edge of the hall the oath keeper waits in a cloak seamed like written clauses, cloth that hangs as a contract. Wax has run down the nearest candles and stopped in small hard tongues on the stone. The glow of the circle does not flicker with the flames.
The shadow's chest does not copy the breath in time. Her hands rest on her thighs.
The shadow's hands rest a little behind hers, still inside the glow. The keeper does not speak. The cloak's seams hang straight.
Extended sequence
After the cut
Minutes pass as candle smoke rising and failing before it reaches the dark above the hall. The keeper breaks a chain over the circle with both hands. The links part and scatter.
They ring once on the stone and lie still, some on the bright line, some off it. A medallion splits down its middle. One half stays in the woman's palm.
Figures in the frame
Who remains
The other half drops through the shadow, strikes the stone inside the glow, and stays lit. The lit half does not dim when the candles dip. The woman rises to her feet.
The shadow does not rise. It kneels on, head bowed, hands empty of any half. The half in her palm cools.
Codex fragment
Filed with the room
The agreement can end and the kneeling can continue. The hall does not require a reason. It requires the circle. Fragments
The keeper steps back to the edge and stops. The candles dip and then recover their small flames. The broken chain lies where it fell.
The scenario is filed in the Codex.
Sound of Imagination
Residual
Chain on stone. Cloth that is not quite cloth. A cold hall, and a hum at the pitch of a promise with nowhere left to go. Sound of Imagination
The circle keeps its glow, and the shadow keeps the kneel, with nothing further offered out of the dark. Wax begins another slow run on the nearest candle and stops at the same height as the old tongue beside it. The woman's half stays dark in her hand.
Showcase
Object from the universe
A broken chain, a split medallion cut with a star-wheel, a scrap of the dark cloak. Taken off the floor of the hall. The Showcase
The light in it shrinks to a rim and then to nothing, while the half on the stone inside the circle keeps its glow. She does not kneel again to match the shadow.
She does not hold the dark half out toward the lit one. The scattered links do not draw together. A link that landed on the bright line slides off it, a finger's width, and stops in the ordinary stone, dull as the rest of the chain.
The Craft
Image · motion · sound
The kneel is held before either figure moves. Motion is the shadow that stays after the person has gone. The chain is what the room keeps. The Craft
The shadow's knees remain inside the line. Her standing shadow on the far wall does not replace the one that kneels.
The kneeling dark stays in the circle, separate from the dark she casts by standing. The lit half of the medallion holds on the stone.
Read it as written. The scenario.
Filed in The Houses
World & Myth · Dark Fantasy
Dark fantasy as a closed oath: the world goes on, and the kneeling does not ask permission. Filed under World & Myth in Dark Fantasy. The house keeps the climate. The climate keeps the film.
The next room
After this filing
The shadow keeps the kneel, and the keeper remains at the edge with the cloak hanging still. The next room is Lantern Path.
After the frame
Mark · keep · letter
Released rooms keep a mark from one to five, a keep on this device, and letters that stay with the page after the feed has moved on. Shadow Fealty is ready.
Letters under the frame
The Archivist · held
Filed in the archive. The page does not expire.