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The Palace of Alcazarzaray is considered the magnum opus of the young renowned architect Kaveh. It was definitely a project of a lifetime, one that had given him such creative freedom, a beautiful structure sitting atop gorgeous mountaintops with the view of Sumeru’s vast rainforests.
It is the one project that shut the sages' persistent arguments—that structures need no creativity so long as they stand as they are required to be. Kaveh proved the possibility of beauty coexisting in structure, and it is now one of the most popular landmarks in the region for tourists and Sumerians alike.
The people of Sumeru have since looked up to the architect for his creative mind and persistent attitude. He was given more projects, whether they be infrastructure such as the bridge on Port Ormos, or extravagant homes in the residential areas of the rainforest and desert.
Little do they know, it was also the beginning of his downfall. It has buried him in deep debt, that while he’d been kept afloat by an old friend and current roommate, it just kept him from further advancing in his career and financial situation.
Some people would think an architect with a great renown can easily regain the mora necessary to pay his debt, but not Kaveh. He never had it in him to invoice someone that provides him great profit. He’d merely charge one with the material and labor costs for the construction, with little excess only for his food and transportation. He wouldn’t even consider his brilliance as a reason to increase the paycheck. For if the debt was his blunder, why would he have his proceeding clients shoulder the costs?
Not only was it an issue on finance, but since then, he’s become extra careful with where and how he plans his designs. He feels as though he dodged a bullet with the Palace of Alcazarzaray, but the chances of him losing a project and ruining his reputation is just as high, if not higher now. And that terrifies him.
His one error plagues him like the epidemic, and a vaccine has yet to be created. If he makes another mistake, the mask would fall, and everyone around him would see: that he isn’t as good as they deemed him to be. He needs the mask on, and would keep it on for as long as it takes. Despite the writing on the wall.
Sometimes, he gets on his days without the looming memory of his faults. On such days, he’s able to see the brilliance he truly has, and he allows himself to carry pride as a badge he can showcase. But on other days, it’ll catch up as whispers all around him.
“Have you heard–the architect is bankrupt?”
“I hear he isn’t as put together as he looks.”
“Isn’t he just rooming with the Grand Scribe?”
He doesn’t know when the rumors started, not that they were just rumors, that is. Or if they were all just in his head. He at least hoped Lord Sangemah Bay would have kept her side of the bargain and not tell a single soul about the incident and his debt. Could it have been from one of his friends?
The whispers became harsh echoes as the time went on. New projects will bring him temporary feelings of relief, before everything comes back at full blast. Alhaitham would find him at Lambad’s tavern every time it got worse, and he wouldn’t even realize he’s feeding into the talks whenever the Scribe would drag him back home. Then again it happens during late nights, and other people aren’t present, surely they can’t know.
Instead of letting it all get into his head, he’ll compensate by working overtime. If his precision takes time, then all he’d have to do is pour more time into it. More energy. Feed into the passion. Ignore the impending burnouts. Day in, day out. Working. Drawing. Erasing. And drawing again.
At least that way, he’s also distracting himself. Because if there’s no time for a break, then he’s doing his best. For in his eyes, he can only be good enough when he’s at his best.
He keeps himself together despite the troubling voices. He gets dinner invites more often from his friends, as if they noticed he wasn't resting or eating enough, and they wanted him to take a break. He normally doesn’t accept though, unless it’s on the weekends and he had just accomplished a big deadline. Even then, he feels as though he needs to be in his greatest state to see them, to make them happy. Anything less, and he might bring the mood down, and he never would want that to happen because of him.
He is only good enough when he’s at his best. If at all.
Until one day, Kaveh’s biggest fear is brought to life.
His eyes land on a memo in the bulletin board in Sumeru City as he passes by.
HEADLINE: RENOWNED ARCHITECT KAVEH, BANKRUPT–SOURCES SAY
He can’t help but do a double take, and when it sinks in, he rips the paper off its pin. All of a sudden, everything around him becomes deafeningly loud. The voices around him reverberate in his head, as if he had speakers in his ears. He looks around. Everywhere he looked, they were watching him. Intently. As if he was the star of a show. As if he were on a microscope.
He crumples the paper and runs away from the peering eyes. He gets back home and shuts the door quickly behind him. Thank the archons Alhaitham’s at work. Has he seen the news yet? He wonders what he thinks. Could he have been the source?
Despite the closed walls, the noise seeps in. It creeps in and the buzzing sound becomes overwhelming. His knees buckle and he falls onto the ground. The inevitable has come, and it was as bad as he expected it to be. All his projects, his buildings—now foiled. Who would want to trust an architect who’s gone bankrupt during his magnum opus?
Perhaps, this will be his legacy. A young architect, passionate and brilliant, builds his greatest work at such an early age, only to experience downfall just as quickly.
Alhaitham comes home to an empty house. He usually finds Kaveh in his desk drawing endlessly. The only time he’d be away from home is if they were on the construction stage of a project, but the scribe knows he’d let him know if it were.
On nights where Kaveh would go out, he tends to run away to Lambad’s tavern or have a lovely stroll around the city for a healthier stress relief. The scribe checks the time, and mentally notes to look for the architect at the tavern if he hasn’t come home by midnight.
Alhaitham generally wouldn’t rely on intuition, but his gut drops when he finds Kaveh’s teal feather on the floor. He kneels down and takes it gently in his hands, before noticing another item next to it—a crumpled piece of paper, one with an Akademiya header peeking out, a memorandum. He unfolds the paper carefully, making sure it doesn’t tear.
What is this?
The memorandum is that of an announcement made earlier today regarding state’s affairs for mere transparency. It doesn’t make sense why Kaveh would take interest in it and have it all crumpled up and thrown hastily.
Alhaitham drops the takeout he brought onto the dining table, and leaves the house once more in search of the architect. He heads first to Lambad’s tavern, but he wasn’t there. A nighttime stroll, then?
He has looked for him all over Sumeru City and he can’t find him. He even bumps into Nilou and asks her for help, but to no avail. Where could he have gone?
Just outside of the Akademiya, he finds Dori rushing out of the building with a few sages. He never sees her here, and the panic in their faces causes him to intervene. He knows of Kaveh’s situation with her.
“What’s the issue?” He asks one of the sages, matching their pace.
“It’s the architect,” Dori replies. “At the Palace of Alcazarzaray.”
Alhaitham doesn’t let Dori explain and he bolts as fast as his legs could carry him, way ahead of everyone. He doesn’t know what kind of situation Kaveh is into, but he has observed him to be more overworked these days, and he doesn’t know just what is going on inside his head.
He had just arrived at the location Dori had told him when he heard a loud thud and a scream.
He rushes to where the sound came from and slows to a brisk walk when he finds a silhouette of a woman crouching down by the foot of the building, shoulders shaking vigorously. A closer look tells him it’s Haypasia, a Rtawahist researcher. In front of her is a familiar man, flat on the ground.
Kaveh.
Haypasia turns around at his footsteps, eyes red and nose stuffy. “I-I’m sorry,” she cries. “I tried talking him out of it, but it seems he’s also ingested wild mushrooms.” She speculates.
It is then that Alhaitham notices the pooling blood around them. He takes her place, and Haypasia moves behind him. He rips a part of his own clothing to use as a bandage around his bleeding head. He takes Kaveh’s hand in his, hoping for consciousness.
The architect takes a while to realize it’s him. Tears he doesn’t know he still has stream down his face. “D-Didn’t want you to see me like this,” he says with a humorless chuckle, sorry eyes.
“What did you do?” Alhaitham’s voice cracks. He lifts Kaveh to bring him help, but Kaveh attempts to stop him, gripping his arm.
“Let me stay here… Please,” he cries. “T-They know, they found me out.”
“What are you saying?” The scribe fights back the sobs in his throat.
“I think It’s getting quiet now.” His eyebrows unfurrow, his face turning peaceful. “Thank you for everything, Alhaitham.”
Before he could even leave the area, Kaveh falls unconscious in his arms. Haitham stops in his tracks.
It is then that Dori arrives with the sages, who had brought others with them that could have helped. But the architect’s eyes have gone dull. The scribe carefully puts him down for a doctor to take over.
Alhaitham stands to the side; Dori follows him. “What’s gotten to him?” The merchant asks. The former merely shakes his head. He should be asking her that, she is who he went to after all.
Haypasia comes to them, sniffling. “I was here first,” she tells the Grand Scribe. “Let me tell you what happened.” She continues, leading them to a bench, before relaying her sequence of events.
The sun was just about to set, when Kaveh arrived, completely frantic. He screamed for Lord Sangemah Bay. Haypasia tried to call for his attention, but he almost looked at her blankly, like he saw past her and other people that weren’t there. He started climbing one of the gazebos, an attempt to run away. The scholar assumed he had had a wild mushroom that got him like this, because why else would such a prestigious architect have acted as such?
“H-How? Why?” He started voicing questions to nobody in particular, questions Haypasia just couldn’t find the answers to. He held his head in his hands. “I-I’m not defined by that one incident.” He spoke, more to himself than anyone else, feeling defeated.
This was when Dori arrived, surprised and confused about the situation. He then directed his queries to her. “What are you doing up there? Come down.” The merchant instructs.
“Why? So all of you could laugh at me more?” He asked with fearful eyes. “Let the whole world know the renowned architect is fake and is not who he claims to be?” He sat down near the top of the building. “Tell me, was it you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dori retaliated, before slipping off to get some help.
“Architect Kaveh, be careful. Please come down.” Haypasia pleaded. “Why are you here?”
“I was hoping for refuge,” he cried. “But everywhere I go, they follow.”
“Who follows?”
“The voices. Everyone.”
Haypasia was able to calm him down for a while, to get him to explain more of the situation. That he found the paper on the bulletin board; his secret was out, his reputation to shreds. That nobody would want an architect who wasn’t reliable. That the mask has inevitably fallen down, and they could see the lacking he had.
When she asked him to come down once more, it was like he was talking to the voices yet again. He became more frantic. She can’t tell if Kaveh meant to jump or he slipped by accident, but she was sure he wasn’t his typical self then.
And that’s when Alhaitham arrived…
The scribe can’t help but blame himself for not making it in time. He knows it’s not his fault, but if he came just a minute earlier, he could have probably saved him. For someone who has spent most of the time with him, he should have known something was wrong.
Perhaps in another universe, he was there in time. He talked him off the ledge. Maybe the voices would have quieted down. And Kaveh would still be here with them, with him. But it isn’t about him.
This is about Kaveh.
Nonetheless, it just doesn’t make sense. The paper the scribe had found at home was merely a memorandum. No news spread about him becoming what Haypasia claims the blond has said. He was still the ever-reliable, passionate, and genuine Light of Ksharewar.
However the events unraveled for Kaveh, whatever he saw or believed, none of them could truly know. Whether it was among the three of them or all of Sumeru, it remains a mystery. Rumors say it was an accident, some speculate it was his own doing. Others say he was high, or he’s gone “crazy”. Other theories even suggest he was terminated when he came across something confidential.
In the end, the Palace of Alcazarzaray remains Kaveh’s magnum opus. One that will stand until the end of time; a greater structure has yet to surpass the master’s craft. A shrine was built to commemorate the marvelous architect, and the people of Sumeru pay their respects as they are reminded of him, now in more ways than one.