Enar stood in the dankest of alleys, immersed in the stench of wet garbage, awaiting the answer to his call.  The sea sang in the distance, punctuated by the sharp cries of fishing birds.  He surveyed his surroundings with calculating iron-gray eyes, picking a speck of dirt off the lapel of his immaculate white suit.

He had walked unnoticed amongst them, observing.  The tree stood abandoned, choked with weeds as it reached bare, desperate limbs to the water.  He had spoken the words of recognition, but not one responded in kind.  Children played at jumping rope, but none of the learning rhymes danced from their lips to the rhythm of their feet.  The temple was repurposed—linen covered over the stained sacred altar stone and bread was offered instead of blood. Enar had woken the Master.

The sapphire pierced through his nose glinted in the cold dawn sunlight, and the crescent-shaped scar on his wrist began to ache. A brief ocean wind lifted Enar’s thick black hair off the back of his neck and washed away the stink of the alley for a moment.  Frost formed on his lips.  Master was coming.

"I am here," said the child beside him who had not been there before.  Her voice chilled his flesh.  She was about six years old and wore a simple dark wool dress that contrasted her achingly pale skin and white-blonde hair. Damp white stockings bunched around her ankles.  The girl looked up at him with eyes too terrifying to meet, but Enar met them because he must.

"They have forgotten," Enar said.

Master took his hand, sending familiar ecstasies of cold, crushing pain through his scar and up his arm.  The two of them walked to the pier, out to the very end.  Waves crashed wildly against the wood pilings, filling the air with salt spray.

When they turned back, citizens were emerging from their homes, roused by a call too strong to deny.  Some resisted, clutching their new symbols and struggling to speak their blasphemous prayers, but all of them were drawn to the Master.

"Your faith is weak," the child said.  The sorrow in the words brought tears to Enar’s eyes.

One by one the silent townspeople approached, weeping under the crushing reality of Master’s disappointment.  They came to her, adults and children and elders, priests and mothers and innkeeps.  She touched them each in turn before they plunged into the icy water, every last one.  The wind whipped around them, knotting her flaxen hair and plastering the skirt against her legs.

The animals came next, and not a one escaped her notice.  Domesticated dogs and feral cats, chickens and horses and goats and cows, even the rats grown fat from their scavenging were summoned to the pier. Everything living came to the Master.  She touched them all, and they surrendered to the water.

She released Enar’s hand, but the memory of the pain remained to comfort him.

"The price is paid," she said without satisfaction.

"Sleep," Enar said.  The girl nodded, and stepped off the end of the pier into the waves.

After a moment the ocean calmed, and the wind subsided.