TheT/ScionUnconqueredSun
The Southeast. The Desert of Plague’s Triumph. It was said that this was once a land of plenty in the First Age. Verdant fields fed several cities, so the legends said. Now its very name was lost. The Great Contagion swept through like a wildfire, and the Fair Folk came to destroy that which remained. And even the immortal faerie passed, and now there was only death, a shadowland where the realm of death spilled out, a gangrenous wound in the skin of Creation.
Into the shadowland came two children of the Unconquered Sun and the restless dead that made this dark place their home did not hinder them. One was a handsome young Southerner, barely more than a boy. His dark eyes were wild with suppressed fear, his dusky skin ashen, his thick black curly hair nearly on end. The other was a small woman in rich silks, a slim sword at her waist. Her lack of height aside, she was the perfect image of a citizen of the Blessed Isle, the center of the world. Black hair, fair skin, brown tilted eyes, strong nose, and full lips all combined in her rounded face to give her a certain sweet attractiveness. The young man’s name was Golden Fortune, and once upon a time, the woman’s name was Anjis Maret. But now, she called herself only Nil.
It was all Fortune’s idea, in a roundabout way, but now he clearly regretted the suggestion. Nil didn’t need any of her newfound power to tell that he was terrified. The very instant they passed into the shadowland, the silence of death enveloped them like a smothering shroud. Never one to quail at danger, Nil even surprised herself at how unafraid she felt. She knew she was well-protected.
They came alone, no porters, no scribes or servants or bodyguards. Nil had pared her mercantile goods down to a bare minimum, to whatever she and Golden Fortune could easily carry. She, of course, carried in her pack, the cask of black wood and orichalcum that had brought them in the first place.
A month or two of aimless wandering had not brought them any closer to either Fortune’s lost sister or to the Exalted sorcerer he had heard was in the area that might know the nature of the cask neither of them could open. Instead, there were many rumors of a dead city in a dead desert where the ghosts of the First Age dwelt, whispering their secrets to a priestess of dark powers. While Nil was never one to shy from danger, she considered the rumor a dead end. She had no desire to offer herself up as a sacrifice to some dark cult.
“The pacts,” Golden Fortune had said suddenly, when they were off in the little wagon Nil had procured once more.
She waited to hear more, then. While they both had dreams and flashbacks of who and what they were as Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, Fortune’s visions were clearer, stronger, and more frequent.
“The pacts,” he said again, his voice distant and trancelike. “The Solar Exalted bound the lands together with pacts. An Eclipse Caste, like you, could travel demon realms and shadowlands and Fair Folk holdings in peace, so long as you followed the rules of hospitality.”
As always when Golden Fortune spoke words about his true nature or hers, Nil knew the words to be true, even as he spoke them. So, really, it was Fortune’s fault they now traveled the dead black earth of the Desert of Plague’s Triumph on foot and minimally armed. More than likely, Fortune wouldn’t see it quite that way.
The dead trees had decayed and fallen centuries ago, and so the approaching riders were easy to see, five of them coming fast enough to raise a cloud of dust in their wake. Nil and Fortune continued to walk onward to meet them.
They were all dead, horses and riders alike. Bone gleamed through the desiccated, patchy coats of the gaunt steeds. The riders were rust-spotted, decaying armor over their tattered and withered flesh, and despite their cadaverous appearances, their sunken eyes burned with malign intelligence. In perfect cadences, they drew near to the living pair and formed a tight circle, forcing Nil and Fortune to a stop.
“Chosen of the Unconquered Sun,” rasped the rider directly before them, in the name of our dread mistress we welcome you to the Desert of Plague’s Triumph. Her Holiness awaits.”
“Thank you for your gracious invitation,” Nil replied, with a bow. Fortune nervously copied the gesture, and the dead bowed from their saddles. There were no more words as the riders broke their circle to turn back slowly, leading their guests into the heart of the shadowland.
The dead town that was their destination was faded and broken, its buildings jutting out of the ground like rotten teeth, and its pale denizens, living, dead, and undead, like parasites in the maw of the dead land’s corpse. Looming over all was the temple, a black fortress, a cathedral dedicated to the worship of the end of all things.
Nil, Fortune, and their dread escort were paid no attention as the people went mechanically about their work. No children played in the streets, and the dead and living alike mingled with no fear. Indeed, it seemed as though the living deferred to the dead in all things, as though the ghosts made manifest by the shadowland were a higher order of being. Even Nil started to feel disturbed. Night was coming on, which meant they would have to stay until dawn. Leaving a shadowland at night was a dangerous and foolish thing to do.
The great wall of the fortress was before them, and they passed through a narrow gate into a courtyard paved in black stone. There the five dead guards dismounted and wan living attendants robed in black came to take those fearsome horses away.
Now that she was close, Nil had to admit there was something grandiose about this ornate, towering edifice of black stone. It seemed a living thing in and of itself, filled with a sort of malevolent, unholy, hungry vitality. She could feel Fortune trembling next to her, likely experiencing the same emotions, but less able to hide them.
A solitary finger came forth from the temple, also cloaked in black. One wave from its pale hand sent the undead guards away, shuffling, the that same hand motioned for Nil and Fortune to follow. The Solars exchanged glances between themselves, resigned. This is what they had come for, after all.
They followed down a long hall through smothering silence and oppressive gloom relieved only by the rare ensconced candle. At last, they passed through a pair of vast double doors into a vast chamber as chill as the grave.
It was quite obviously a chamber of worship, draped in the black of night and the red of blood, and the white of corpses. Mats for kneeling worshippers covered the floor but for aisles through the middle and along the walls, and in the front was an altar before a dais backed by heavy curtains.
Before the altar stood another black robed figure, veiled and dressed as if for burial, every inch of skin covered in layer after layer of shrouds. Nil and Golden Fortune stepped forward to meet the dark figure, and their guide stepped back, disappearing into the encompassing gloom.
The figure moved forward, her swaying walk marking her clearly as a woman. Slender, chalk-white hands lifted to pull back the veil, and Fortune gasped aloud. The woman was beautiful – perilously so – a deathly face given the appearance of cold life. Her pale skin relieved by full red lips and impossibly dark eyes, and her face was perfectly sculpted. Even Nil, raised among the demigods of the Blessed Isle, found herself staring.
“I greet you,” said the pale woman in formal tones, “in the name of my great mistress, the Bitter Maiden of the Devouring Sorrow.” Fervor shone in these deep, dark eyes, and Nil felt her skin crawl. “I am the Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge, and you are most welcome here.”
Nil bowed slightly before the priestess. This was the one that had come seeking. Fortune, taking his ever cue from Nil, bowed as well, never once looking away from the coldly alluring face of the Singer.
“I am Nil, and this is Golden Fortune. We have come seeking your aid.”
The Singer smiled, and in that moment, she seemed much less cold and distant, her entire demeanor touched by all too human warmth. Nil was no longer sure what quite to think anymore.
“I know this. We have some hours before services – would you care to sit with me?” She gestured to the curtains on the dais behind the altar.
“You are most kind,” Nil responded, and they followed past the curtain into a small, sumptuous chamber lined with couches and cushions. Someone had set out refreshments – fruit, wine, some vegetables, on a table in the center. Such things could not have possibly grown in the shadowland, nor would most merchants come within. Nil wondered where such things might have come from, then considered it was perhaps best not to think on it.
“Did you know,” the Singer spoke after long minutes of silence, “that the Desert of Plague’s Triumph was once a paradise? An oasis of plenty? Now, it is a testament to the inevitability that I worship, the relentless push of eternal peace.” Matched with that warm smile, her words were all the more chilling.
“I knew it,” Nil replied simply.
“They sought to preserve their lives and only ended up drawing their entire land into the domain of my mistress – and then into my hand. Death comes at last to all things. Even to you, Scion of the Unconquered Sun.”
“Be that as it may, I would like to postpone that for as long as possible.” Nil forced herself to sound pleasant. It was just a conversation. Just a friendly chat. She didn’t have to look at Golden Fortune to feel the depths of his terror.
“Will you come to services tonight?” the Singer was equally casual.
“I think the Unconquered Sun might frown upon my attendance, but thank you, nonetheless.”
The Singer merely smiled again, and held out a perfect, slender hand. An artist’s hand, Nil thought. “Lay your prize upon the table.”
Nil could feel the slight bulk of the cask clearly against her back, though it was wrapped tightly in her pack. Now it came to it. The negotiations could begin, and as supremely confident as she usually was, Nil wasn’t at all certain at how this would turn out.
“We did not come to ask about the artifact, but about the Solar sorcerer who could tell us about it,” Nil returned.
That smile softened the Singer’s face again. “But you understand there will be a price, correct?”
“I understand this,” Nil said carefully.
“I know this sorcerer. I know his name and where he lives.” The dark priestess shifted lazily on her couch. “Two items require a double price.”
“What would you have of me, then?”
“First, a name for the name,” the Singer murmured. “I would have yours, Nil.”
“You just spoke it,” Nil replied, eyes steady on the woman across from her. She had not even told Golden Fortune her real name or her origins, though he likely suspected she was a wealthy former citizen of the Realm proper, if not actually the patrician she used to be.
“No, no.” The Singer shook her head and smiled indulgently, in the manner of a mother pleased by the cleverness of her child. “You are a Dynast, or would have been, but for the circumstances of your birth. A patrician of good standing, I think. Good breeding. It’s in your bearing, your accent. I can see it. House… Ragara? No… not Tepet, either. Ledaal, perhaps?”
Nil got the vaguely panicky feeling of being in over her head, though she didn’t dare show it. The Singer, through skill or luck, was closer than she knew. Nil’s former house was closely allied to Ledaal.
“Anjis,” Nil said, her voice steady. “Anjis Maret. House Anjis is allied with Ledaal, since we are… they are… a minor House.”
“It is shameful that you should be outcast from your family for being more powerful than they,” the Singer said. “That is the heart of why the Dragon-Blooded hate those such as you or me. I, too, was once outcast, and driven out to die. But the Bitter Maiden of the Devouring Sorrow lifted me up and Exalted me, just as you were Exalted.”
“Not just as I was,” Nil couldn’t help but shoot back.
“No, not yet. It is but a matter of time. The one inevitability is death, and one day, you and Golden Fortune will belong to us, one way or another.”
“But not today.”
Again, that warm smile. “No. Not today. Would you hear the price for the location now?”
“Once I have the name…”
“You wll never find him,” drawled the Singer. “He has unlocked a hidden Manse of great power. Unless you know what to look for, you will never find it.”
“Very well. First the name, and then the price, and I will decide if I wish to pay it.”
“Tinch. Once a respected sorcerer, now Anathema. As for my price to learn where he is, you must attend services tonight, and stay until I declare them over. I must at least make a token effort to show you the beauty of the powers I serve.”
“No!” Fortune finally spoke, his voice harsh, roughened by horror. “I can’t! I couldn’t!”
“You must,” purred the Singer. Nil could tell the priestess had the weight of the inevitability she preached behind her. Really, they had no choice.
“I’ll be with you.” Nil laid her hand on Fortune’s.
“I wish we’d never come here,” he whispered, but his tone was one of helpless capitulation.
Again, the Singer smiled. “Wish as you will, one day you will still taste the peace of death. I offer to you not only the chance to feel it and to see it, but to join us in our cause.”
“I would never join you!” Fortune’s outrage overwhelmed his apprehension.
The Singer rose from her couch in a smooth, languorous motion, and moved close enough to stroke her fingertips against Fortune’s cheek. He tensed, as if meaning to recoil, but did not move away, eyes fixed on her pale and lovely face.
“One never knows what might happen under the right circumstances,” she murmured. She stepped back to encompass both Nil and Golden Fortune in her gaze. “The ceremony begins at midnight. You may be in the front, as our honored guests, but get some rest. We will continue until the darkest hour.”
“You cannot make us worship,” Nil replied, standing. She was shorter and smaller than the statuesque Singer, but knew herself to be every bit as formidable. Or at least she hoped she conveyed that impression.
“Why would I wish to?” The Singer sounded almost hurt by the suggestion. “Worship that is not freely given is not worship. But do not be so quick to dismiss that which you do not understand. Please, rest and refresh yourselves here. An attendant will come to bring you in time for the ceremonies.”
The moment the priestess departed, Golden Fortune turned on Nil. “Don’t you see that woman is evil? She’s going to do something! She’s going to force you to break the pact and kill us both!”
“I know she is,” Nil replied. “She doesn’t want us dead, though. She wants us alive. She wants us like her. No matter what we see, no matter what is done, we have to hold fast until dawn. We need what she knows.” She tilted her hat forward over her eyes to catch some much needed sleep. “If we want to find this Tinch and your sister, and free your friends from Talt, it all starts here, and we’re going to have to play along. She can’t do anything to us unless we break the rules of hospitality – so let’s not blow it.”
Fortune’s anger petered out quickly. Nil could no longer see him, but heard him sigh, defeated. “I just don’t know if I can do this…”
“You’ll be alright,” Nil said, before drifting off. She was of a warrior race, and warriors caught what sleep they could when they could get it.
There were dreams. There were always dreams, these days. And as was becoming more and more common, this dream involved the cask she carried. Once, in an Age long dead, it had belonged to her. It was… it was…
…In her mind’s eye was a great cage of jade, and inside were hundreds of sun-bright motes, swirling, striving to be free…
…”I see their minds!” It was the man Nil loved. Or once loved. “The truth will be known! Must be known!” He was no Twilight Caste savant, but no less brilliant for all that. Before him, on an altar to the Unconquered Sun was a cask of black wood bound in orichalcum, and a knife of that same magical metal…
“My mistress summons you.” Nil struggled out of the fog of dreams to look into a dead face, and it was all she could do to stay herself from drawing her sword. The dead man exited even as Nil arose. Golden Fortune was pacing the room, his face tortured.
“Come on,” Nil said, taking his arm. “Let’s get this over with.”
Arms linked, the pair walked into silence like the grave. It was night in the shadowland outside, so every inhabitant, even the incorporeal dead, was strikingly visible, even in the cavernous gloom of the temple. Especially in the gloom of the temple. A few dozen mortal worshippers knelt, all gathered toward the front, and in the back and lining the walls were the dead and the undead, waiting with hungry expectation.
The Singer’s voice broke the silence as the pair of Solars descended the dais and passed the altar. “Behold! The night grows in power, as the Sun lies slumbering in a precursor to the day when the light shall die at last. On that one, ceaseless night, we will all be enfolded into that eternal, comforting darkness, and the world shall be at peace.”
There were two unoccupied mats for Nil and Fortune only ten feet from the priestess, a place of honor, to be certain – an honor Nil fervently did not want. She folded her legs and sat, pulling Fortune down next to her.
The Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge had changed. She was still striking, but her robes and veils had been exchanged for layer after layer of diaphanous fabric draped from her lush figure. Even in the dim light, certain of her movements threw she shadows of her form beneath into stark silhouette.
“Did I not foretell their coming?” cried the Singer, arms upraised. The congregation moaned their assent. “Two scions of the Unconquered Sun come to us, in search of the wisdom only the whispers of Neverborn could grant. And so, a special ceremony is prepared.” The Singer stretched her arms out to the living, the dead, and the undead. “Tonight, we celebrate the transcendant power of death over the transitory nature of life! Tonight, we demonstrate the glory of our inevitability! Bring forth the first of the chosen!”
Guided by a pair of dark-robed acolytes, a young villager, weary and ravaged from illness, came up the aisle in the center. The dead in the wings moaned in awful anticipation, and the young man was helped to kneel. A knife flashed in the Singer’s hand, and she held it high above the man before her. Nil felt her skin crawling with rising horror and steeled herself against what she knew was coming. Fortune’s hand found hers and fastened tight.
The Singer intoned, “Do you give up the burden of life for the surcease of pain to be found in death of your own free will? Do you give yourself over to the glory of the Neverborn?” Her rich and vibrant voice throbbed with fervent exultation.
“I do,” whispered the kneeling man. Without further preamble, the Singer seized him by the hair and cut his throat. As the blood sprayed out in a cloud of unnaturally bright crimson, the Singer flared into dark fire, surrounded in blackness like a wound in Creation itself. In that unlight, the Singer stood out all the sharper, and the blood was all the brighter.
Nil felt dizzy with horror, not only at the killing, but at the nagging suspicion within her that perhaps the man was too sick to be cured… that perhaps his death was for the best. In the presence of the Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge, disbelief was a very difficult thing. Golden Fortune moaned, a low, helpless sound, but the noise was lost in the groaning of the dead and the undead that surged from the shadows to consume the still-warm offering.
As the small living congregation prostrated itself, the priestess lifted her low, crooning voice in a paean to her masters, gently laying the corpse of the young man to the ground. A hazy shape formed above the freshly dead young man, growing stronger with the rise and fall of the Singer’s voice. Minutes stretched by and the shape became clearer – it was the ghost of the young man, strengthened by the unholy ritual, and the darkness of oblivion burned in his dead eyes.
A black disk appeared on the Singer’s forehead, crackling with energy the color of newly spilt blood. Still she continued to sing, and the new ghost stood aside and behind the Singer, in quiet deference.
It was a caste mark, Nil realized. This woman was Exalted, just as she claimed, as she herself was, as Golden Fortune was, but perverted in some unspeakably horrible way. The truth touched her like a sliver of ice through her heart. If the Unconquered Sun could Exalt a mortal, why not whatever gods the Singer worshipped? And that was at the heart of this ritual, of the Singer’s ‘hospitality’. She wanted to make the two Solars into Exalted like herself.
Oblivious to the horrified Solars, the Singer sang on. Another was brought forth, a young woman whose husband had died, whose child by him was stillborn. She would meet them again, promised the Singer before spilling the young woman’s blood. The dead fed on her as her ghost was sung into being. Blood dripped from the edges of the Singer’s caste mark, red tracks down her white skin.
There was a third volunteer, an elderly man. Then a fourth, another widow, this one of middle age. Golden Fortune had begun weeping, uncontrollably, some time before. Nil’s dizziness only grew, the undeniable power of the Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge throwing her off-balance, muddling her thoughts. If she left, she would break her end of the bargain, and be left to finding scraps of shadows of rumors to find Tinch. But if she stayed… if she stayed… she didn’t know what would happen. It had been hours and the mortal worshippers were still rapt, breathless in awe as one after the other of them was slaughtered. Nil took the last act of defiance left to her. She began to pray.
Nil was never a pious woman – not like Ledaal Niloba, her Dragon-Blooded friend from her former life. She paid lip-service to the Dragons, but what faith she had dwindled when her brother Exalted, then the Ledaal twins, while Nil herself remained a lowly mortal. The Dragons did not choose to Exalt Nil, but the Unconquered Sun did, and so it was to him Nil directed her fumbling but earnest prayers. Beside her, Golden Fortune continued to sob, inconsolably.
The copper smell of blood and the fervent moaning of the living and the dead receded, and a comforting warmth spread over Nil. The fog in her mind was broken, like the sun burning away morning mist, and it was then she realized the heat was not merely spiritual. It radiated from the cask on her back. The silence was also real, the ceremony interrupted, the Singer’s voice stilled. Nil opened her eyes and looked out through a halo of golden light – not pale, like her usual anima, but the brightness of noon.
“Blasphemy,” whispered the Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge. Then, louder, “Blasphemy!” Nil knew then that the object she carried had broken the pact for her. She rose and had to drag Fortune with her.
“Snap out of it!” she hissed at him, shaking his arm. But he only wept all the harder, as though something inside him had broken. The dead recoiled, unable to face the radiance that billowed from Nil in silent waves. Slowly, she started to back out, and the congregation parted.
“Kill them!” The Singer’s voice echoed with her unholy power. “Kill them and bring them into our fold!”
The dead could not obey, driven back by the light of the Unconquered Sun, but some of the living certainly could. Black-robed acolytes surged forward, along with a few brave villagers. Nil didn’t want to kill any of them, but neither did she wish to give the Singer the satisfaction of her death. Either way, she would play into the Singer’s hands by providing more death, but one way would allow her to one day return and cast down this temple so no more would die to feed Oblivion. She drew her sword.
Hampered by the need to support and defend Golden Fortune, Nil did not have her usual speed, but what she did have was sufficient. Her sword flashed and more blood was spilled. She wove a shield of flashing steel with her blade that no attack could penetrate, and when an attacker overstepped his boundaries, he was cut down. The moaning of the wounded and dying soon rose in counterpoint to the anguished moaning of the dead – and over it all, the exultant laughter of the Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge. Many more souls would be entering the halls of her masters tonight, driven there by their fervent devotion, ushered there by a scion of the Unconquered Sun.
“Between day and night is the Tower of the Descending Sun,” the Singer’s was no longer laughing, her voice whispering in Nil’s ear as if they stood right next to each other. “It looks over the north, over Kirighast – if you look with the right eyes at the right time.” The attacks ceased – most of those brave enough to attack Nil were no longer able to do so. “It was good meeting you, my unwilling missionary. I look forward to doing so again.” The Singer mounted the dais and vanished behind the curtain.
At that moment, outside the shadowlands, the Sun was rising. Dawn was breaking. The ghosts vanished with a final, anguished wail, and the mortals left alive cowered in fear. It was over. The undead left behind were only able to glare balefully at Nil’s sun-bright aura, and the only sound was Golden Fortune’s ceaseless sobbing.
It took hours, but Nil left the temple, and the town, behind, bloody sword grasped firmly in one hand, dragging the insensate Fortune with the other. Step by slow step, they left behind the Desert of Plague’s Triumph, and took a new course to the north, to the city of Kirighast. The light flickered and faded from around Nil once they left the shadowland.
For three days, Golden Fortune could do nothing but weep. He would not eat, and would only move when guided by Nil. She began to wonder if the Singer had done to him what she could not do to Nil – break his spirit and shatter his will. If she had been forced to leave him, would he be even now singing his praises to the power of death? She knew she had begun to wonder what was so wrong with what she was seeing until the light of the Unconquered Sun cleared her mind.
They were in a tiny cave on a hillside one night, when Fortune finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Nil.” He sounded stronger, somehow, as if his long outburst had cleansed him in some way. “I just couldn’t watch any longer.” His eyes lifted to meet hers. “She wants us, you know. She wants us to go out and kill and kill and kill until the entire world is dead. The horror just… it…”
Nil just nodded and put her hand on his shoulder. She sincerely hoped the Unconquered Sun would strike her down before she ever gave herself over to such evil. But then, who could know what temptations might come to her in the future?
She cradled the cask in her hands. Blood had been spilled because of the Unconquered Sun’s power in that strange artifact, and it had only fed the darkness. The Singer of the Solemn and Endless Dirge made much of inevitability, and what had occurred in the temple only seemed to bare out her words. Not next time, Nil promised herself. Next time, the meeting would be on her own terms. She told herself that, then spent the rest of the night trying to make herself believe it.
