Prologue
The Realm of the False Gods
Gilded doors of bone open to let a gold laden Godling into the antechamber of the Shrine of Blood, only a sheer curtain of glass beads separating the godling from his destination. Servants no more than bone and wisps of black fog help the godling shed his adornments, layer by layer. Heavy gold pins shaped like a pair of spiders ready to strike, with obsidian eyes, when removed by fingers of bone and smoke let a wave of pitch-black hair tumble down the bare shoulders of the godling. He walks towards the softly clinking glass curtains his movements reminiscent of the spiders recently extracted from his hair, meticulous and practiced.
The room beyond the curtains smelled strongly of iron and incense, the walls painted a rich red made the room feel as if it were slowly getting smaller, more intimate. In the centre of the room, there is a pavilion painted the same red and encrusted with small pieces of obsidian. A small dark object covered with a sheer veil of black and gold stood upright on the pavilion. A few steps closer the godling realised that the object had eyes that followed his every movement, and that the object was a small child crouching down. Its skin charred to a dark black, in some places the skin had burned off completely to show the red stained bones beneath.
The godling kneeled on the ground before the immortal child, the son of prosperity. The child climbs down the pavilion, bells on its veil softly chiming with its pained movements. It has an uneven gait, its arms flailing around to keep its balance but it’s eyes never leave the stooped form of the godling. The bells ring hideously with the jerky motion of the burned child, and they grow louder with every passing second. Its voice is raspy and weak but yet its words carry from across the room, ‘When the moon turns bright a new blood shall bring the fall of a false god.’ The child’s voice gets louder and more desperate with each word it pronounced, ‘The mark of one will become the mark of many, a child in red will awaken sleeping gods to herald an age of blood and light.’ The end of the prophecy is punctuated with a cacophony of bells as the child collapsed. Ghostly servants carry the child back to pavilion, to rest till it is time to make a new false god aware of his fate.
The silence of the chamber seemed like a heavy weight to lift as the godling stood to leave, each step loud as thunder. The glass beads clinked much too loudly behind him as he shunned the ghostly servants as they attempted to clothe their new lord, he needed to think, to soak in his unfortunate future.
The air outside the temple smelled sweetly of the bloodflower, the traditional offering that the overworlders gave to the false god in the moonless night. The night was not the pitch black that the godling had expected, a thin curve of white in the star barren sky cast just enough light to transform the scenery to a host of shadows each a shade lighter than the last, and each in stark contrast with a speck of firelight swaying in the waves at a distance.
The Realm of the Slumbering Gods
The wind howled outside the walls of the golden palace, the magic imbued into it unable to prevent that dastardly sound from seeping into the walls of the castle and presenting itself as a low moaning inside its stone corridors. Deep within its bowels, there was a room only illuminated with the moonlight filtering in through large glass windows. Here lied the empress Avyanna Narkensok, on a birthing alter of warm stone, glowing script of an ancient language pulsing with her own heartbeat. Her hands clutched at the edges of the alter, my body exhausted from the process of labour, but her children still refused to come into this world. Shadows danced across her features accentuating the determination etched into her features.
The room pulsated with an eerie glow, both from the alter and the unnatural moonlight that cast shadows that moved like beasts prowling across the room, looking for prey. Forces beyond her reach or comprehension observed the spectacle unfold, each hoping. Her children would usher in a new era, her child would rise to the seat of a god, at least that is what the priestess at the temple of the False Gods had predicted, and it prevented her from giving up on them, it prevented her from closing her eyelids that grew heavier by the second.
As another contraction raked her body, she cried out in pain, her fingers clasping desperately at the stone alter, someone wiping her forehead with a towel, muttering words of affirmation, a maid, or a midwife she couldn’t tell at this point. It would so much easier to let go, slip into the soothing blackness, escape from the searing pain that felt like someone had taken a knife and scraped her insides out. As she snuck deeper into the viscous darkness of death unearthly whispers filled the room, echoing in the vast chamber. The convergence of dark forces and moving machinery sculpted an atmosphere of both awe and terror in the chamber, the pulsing of the glowing script on the alter slowed down, eventually coming to a stop. An elderly woman, in white robes put out a hand to stop the other women in the chamber from touching the empress’s still warm body, she took up a sharp obsidian knife, her hands steady for her age. Silver jewellery clinked together in the silent room as her knife parted the flesh in which the heirs to the Kingdom were trapped. A gut wrenchingly miserable wail echoed from the adjoining chamber, alongside the high-pitched crying of two newborn babes. The rapidly cooling body was wiped clean by the trembling hands of weeping women, the gash on her stomach sewn shut by golden thread as the midwifes tended to the twins, bathing them to rid them of blood and other bodily fluids, wrapping them in the softest silks. One a beautiful black-haired girl, her smooth skin making her look like a gold statue, the other a boy, his skin and hair a pure white, as if he were carved from ivory. Both children unnaturally calm, smiling like little cherubs as they snuggled into the warm hands of the midwife.
A man whose, glass bangles had been broken leaving a trail of blood running down his wrists, his hair devoid of any ornamentation as was custom for someone who had lost a spouse, stumbled into the room, supported by an old ailing man who served as the head of servants, tears steaming down his leathery skin. The man fell to his knees before the alter, his hands holding onto the cold hands of his beloved desperately trying to rub warmth into them. “Look, priyotama,” he said, using the endearment from the ancient tongue, “Look at our children, wake and look at them, won’t you?” he pleaded, his tears staining the golden silk, worked with black embroidery, that the mother was wrapped in. “My Yana, won’t you listen to me just this once?” he pleaded once again, not willing to accept the reality. Sobbing he looked at his children, motioning to bring them to him, “Yana look, we can use both the names we decided on, come beloved, hold them,” he sobbed, “don’t be like this, my love, who will they call their mother now? Who will teach them how to be good rulers like you?” he keened. The maids, servants and midwifes who had gathered there, had averted their eyes, the scene too painful to look at. The old mad held the emperor from collapsing, motioning for someone to take the babes away. “Your Highness, hold yourself together---”
“How can I Bal? how can I?” he said grief plain in his voice. “I was supposed to raise those children with her, we were supposed to be happy family, but those devil children they ate her, I-”
“Your Majesty! You mustn’t, they are mere babes, a parting gift from her highness, you must not resent them.”
The next dawn saw the empress laid out among blood flowers and a thousand lit candles on a wooden boat, cloaked priests from the temple pushed the boat into the sea of bones so that it may take the empress to the Moonless Night where she may find piece. The priests trudging back to shore in their soaking, sand caked robes as the fog envelops the boat, back to report to the dowager emperor that his wife has set on her journey to the afterlife.
