Microstory 706: Abduct the Three Dogs of Death

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Elsewhere in the Book of Anseluka, the writer recounts the parable of the Three Dogs of Death, which no one in the galaxy had yet heard of.

In a small den in the deepest valley of the farthest lands lived three dogs named Malice, Mercy, and Mistake. Malice was black, with one ear missing that was supposedly bitten off by his brother, Mistake when they were pups. Mercy was white, stood tall, and spoke little. Mistake was brown and clumsy. These three dogs were responsible for all of death in the whole world. Malice was in charge of murder, and all forms of it. Mercy ended the lives of those in pain. Mistake controlled deaths by accident. Thousands of years ago, upon reaching adulthood, each individual was sent to battle these three animals. The goal was to procure a tuft the fur of one of them, and only then would they stop attacking. Whichever dog’s fur one managed to tear off his body was one’s to keep forever. There was still no telling when one’s death would come, but the nature of this death was determined at the end of each person’s fight. Children who died before reaching the appropriate age would have their fatefur forced upon them, with no choice.

One day, a young man named Dominti reached his journey’s end at the Den of the Three Dogs of Death, only to find all three were themselves dead. In the midst of their bodies was a young woman from the next village named Delurtha. In her zeal, she had savagely killed the dogs, thereby ending the curse of death for all. But Dominti was not satisfied with this, for he believed death to be a necessary conclusion to life. He cut from the corpse of each dog a handful of fur, and placed them in a fire pit of mystical wood from the Tree of Time. He then burned the fur, and out of the ashes grew a fourth dog named simply Mortality. Mortality was black, and white, and brown. She was now solely responsible for all life and death in the world. Delurtha tried to kill this dog as well, but Mortality was fierce and unwavering. And so death remained an inevitability. But recently, we have found ways of traveling to other worlds, and have discovered that each one has, or had, its own family of Three Dogs of Death. Some have been defeated, while others remain alive, and others have been replaced by something new. But that is another story.

The taikon passage regarding the Three Dogs of Death called for the abduction of the versions that can be found in Thuriama. Of course, we know that this story is nothing more than that; a story. We did find, however, that three Thuriamen leaders have been masquerading as these fictional characters in order to maintain control over the populace. After weeks of reconnaissance and planning, three separate elite teams were sent to capture the “dogs”, and fulfill the taikon. Though these missions came with obstacles and misfortunes, they were ultimately successful. The three frauds are now being held at an undisclosed location as leverage against our enemies.