Small silver bells chimed anxiously as a tall man fidgeted with them, pacing nervously outside a stone building. Light hair gleamed gold as he paced in and out of the light of a single flickering torch by a door. Splendidly armored in polished silver plate on which was etched a stylized sun burst. His broad shoulders were caped in flowing ripples of white cloth. Surely a majestic man should you see him in battle or on horseback in a parade; however, he was humbled as many of the finest men are when forced to wait for the news of their child to come.
So this man paced helpless and humble before a wooden door in a long, and judging from the well worn path before the stone tower, well established tradition of his people. Sometimes he stopped before the door to listen, his delicately pointed ears seemed to stretch, searching for a hopeful sound. Then, when none was found, he would sigh in frustration and resume his pacing.
Perhaps it was not frustration, but sadness in his sigh that set this man apart from most expectant fathers that paced this old path. A sigh of weary resignation that ached of sadness and regret had settled itself into the man's face as he stared out into the night.
The night, the darkness, he glared at it like it was his enemy. Looking up through the tree branches, the man stared in disgust at the night sky. Glaring at the nearly full white orb that hung there, the waning reddish sliver that clung closer to the horizon, then he searched the dark skies for something unseen. His eyes darkened, reflecting the absence of light at one point of the sky. He reached over with his left hand, and absently touched a black circle, a burn mark, on his sword arm.
The door to the tall stone building behind him opened, and a white robed woman quickly exited though it, closing it swiftly behind her, hiding whatever lay in the temple annex from sight. The blond woman was sturdy looking, but lines of strain crossed her weary face. Her white robes were rumpled, dirty, and blood-stained. Only the small silver bells that hung from her belt, ringing the chords of the chants favored by her order, had escaped untarnished. A white circle was painted on the center of her forehead.
She stood with a grim look on her face; her voice mellow and pitched on a note matching her chiming bells. "Mkkkt-hikkkut." She bowed before the man.
"Hikkkutta," the man nodded at her and spoke grimly, "What news?"
"It is as we had thought, a child of our blood is too great to be borne by a drukkmai."
The news was bad, but the way the high priestesses spoke it, it almost sounded like she saw some victory in the news. Many would; the elven woman that was well past due tonight was half drow-elf, and thinner, lighter, and weaker of build than the average Srysmai lass. Because of this unfortunate fate of her ancestry, most of the clan did not trust the woman, yet had to humbly serve her, for she was the wife of their holy leader, the Hikkkut, Kinickkth Srys, Crusader of the Sun.
"What are my options then?"
"We can draw the keska from the womb now; however, the process will kill Merinana, or we can wait for day; by then both mother and child will surely be dead by exhaustion." A smug note of approval seemed to ring in the high priestess' voice.
"Those are not options." Kinickkth spoke sternly and glared darkly at the hikkkutta.
The woman looked taken aback for a moment, "My lord, they are the only two options available to us. Had Merinana the means to bear the child, by Srys, you would be a father by now. Worse is now that the night has fallen again, she has stopped even trying again, knowing she will only give birth to a keska.
"I suggest we allow this to continue as we have; tomorrow exhaustion will surely take them and it will be day to burn them forever. Besides, if we drew the child out now, it would only be a keska, and it would be quite unsightly for the Hikkkut Srys' first born to be a night creature." The woman gave her advice impartially, as if talking of removing a splinter, or the everyday droll protocols of court life, and not a suffering young mother and child, who's lives seemed to be nearing an end; even before one had even begun.
Kinickkth glared at her in disgust, looking vaguely sick, he snatched up the reigns of his dark horse who had been grazing peacefully nearby.
"Hikkkut, Kinickkth, where do you think you are going?" The priestess' mellow voice broke into confusion as the crusader mounted his steed.
"To get a second opinion." He grumbled and turned to a few of the acolytes of the temple. "Build a fire below her window, and let the light shine upward to it; let her think the day has come." He ordered them.
"Hikkkut," the annoyed high priestess called after the man as he urged his horse off into the night, "where? Who? There is no one else in the cities more knowledgeable in.."
"Kkutta," Kinickkth regarded the woman in utter distaste, "I go to see my laikkt. See that my wife and child to be are still alive and well when he arrives." Called out the troubled crusader, his voice laced with a cynical irony as his dark horse galloped off into the shadowed tree-lined streets.
The hikkkutta's face filled with dread.
Laikkt: the word could mean any number of people. Family, clan, one could even call the members of the tribes that paid tribute for Srys' protection laikkt, if one was generous. This laikkt who's home Kinickkth now raced through the city and out into the darkened forest to was laikkt in the most literal sense of the word. His brother, or brother of his wife to be exact; a Kkut of Tak'urta, one of the cities under Srysmai rule. A drow city. The dark man seemed disinterested in his position in the underground city, and instead spent most of his time in a small cottage in the woods outside the city of Srys. A dangerous and powerful man, few bothered him about where he had chosen to settle.
Far out on the edge of the woodland civilization, the cottage was like the man, twisted, dark, and surrounded by a magic forbidden to the Srys. Kinickkth dismounted, bells chiming softly, as if afraid to disturb what lay inside. He brushed off his cape, and beat on the door.
"Tryzeler, drukkmakkkit, open this door, now." Commanded the crusader. There was no answer, no sound from inside the cottage, only the smoke rising from the twisted chimney betrayed the presence of an inhabitant.
"Drukkmai-kkut, I demand to speak with you." Kinickkth gripped and pulled at the latch, it moved, but the door would not open. It was not locked, or jammed, it simply did not open.
"Laikkt, please, it is about Merinana, I need..." the door fell open, and a rasping voice called from inside.
"Enter, laikkt." Tryzeler Sakam, the renegade necromancer of the black robes, Srysmai kkut, and son of the First house of Tak'urta, sat by his small fire place, wrapped in a dark robe and hood, reading an old book.
Kinickkth entered the house nervously, eyeing the strange charts, books, spell components, and other bizarre items cluttering the small cottage.
"My sister still tries to give birth to your Srysmai brute." The mage waved his hand, and a small blue flame hovered in his palm, he stared into it.
Kinickkth ignored the insult, "I need your help, the kkuttak can do nothing for her, and she will surely die."
"Is that not what you have wished?" The necromancer continued to regard the small, cool blue flame in his hand; its light casting an unworldly and deathly blue glow on the mage's tired face. Kinickkth could not say a word, he merely looked at Tryzeler and the flame in hopeless confusion, finding himself drawn towards the small, blue, hypnotizing light.
"I have wished many things, laikkt, but not that." The crusader answered softly.
"Brother, why are you here? I truly wonder as to your twisted thinking at times." Tryzeler turned towards Kinickkth, his face lined with pain and age; even though he was only a mere 40 or so years older than his lovely sister and her husband.
Kinickkth gathered himself and his thoughts, and stared into the small blue flame.
"You have studied the magic and power associated with death; Srys' kkuttak cannot avert these deaths, but perhaps someone who lives in the darkness of a keskmak, can. You are not limited by the scruples and will of the Sun; surely in your studies of death, you have learned ways to reverse it?" Kinickkth spoke, feeling the blue flame pulling him deeper inside, feeding off of an unseen energy, and he tried not to tremble as it seemed to begin to feed on his own life energy.
Tryzeler smiled, the Srys did not stop at chasing shadows in their quest to purge the land of darkness, but even the things that cast shadows, keskmak, were named and destroyed. "Drakkara's moon is indeed a powerful keskmak, but who am I to argue with a fate decreed by the High God? Is it not His will that those who fall in shadow, and those that dare to give birth there are to be purified by the Sun?"
"Burn you!" Yelled Kinickkth, "You sit here and pretend to be humble before Srys when you are the only one living who has ever defeated His will. What good is this power over Him that you hold if you never use it?" The Crusader of the Sun looked away from the flame briefly and stared into the necromancer's dark eyes.
"I see." Tryzeler coughed and sat a moment contemplating. "The dark moon is waning, I can only save one."
"Merinana, of course, what use have I of a keska?" Kinickkth's gaze returned to the blue flame in the arch mage's palm. Looking carefully he vaguely saw shapes in the flame. He saw himself glowing in white, silver, and blue, aging and broken, and a dark shadow rising behind him.
Suddenly Tryzeler tossed the blue flame from his hand into the fireplace, and mysteriously the burning orange fire there stopped, leaving only charred wood and cold ash in the place.
"Of course," Tryzeler grinned wickedly and stood, carefully placing a few charts into a bag, coughing quietly he continued, "The Hikkkut Srys cannot spawn a night demon."
He puttered around the room, gathering his books, and placing a particular black bound spell book in Kinickkth's hands as he rummaged through his untidy cottage. "Such things are only found in the shadows of keskmakk." Tryzeler chuckled at the wild elf crusader, and coughed.
As they returned to the stone annex of the Temple of the Sun reserved for child birth, it was obvious that the hikkkutta and her acolytes had been busy. A bonfire now blazed as Kinickkth had instructed below Merinana's small window, but also an assembly of kkuttas and the highpriestess herself stood at the door, holy staves in hand meaning to form some sort of blockade.
The acolytes now scurried about, a few tending Kinickkth's fire, most had obtained some white paint and chalk, and now painted the symbol of the sun and other warding symbols on the door, building, and ground surrounding the hikkkutta. Still others rang small silver chimes, or were burning incense with some of the sacred ashes of the ancestors. Chants sounded and light seemed to rise up and around the building, even in the dead of night.
Tryzeler coughed and looked about the area with an uncomfortable wince, he spoke softly to his laikkt, "I have no desire to be delayed further by the bureaucracy of your religion. By the time they permit me to aid my sister, Chi Srynik Davikk will be come and gone, and we all will be sipping tea with Drakkara in the abyss."
Kinickkth sighed, there was definitely a true power to the Srysmai chants, for they never failed to make Tryzeler uncomfortable, and with the uncomfort came the sarcasm. He looked over at the coughing dark mage, and considered leaving him in the disquieting minor chords and fiery light forever.
"Hikkkutta, what is... this?" Kinickkth gestured vaguely to the goings on and was immediately sprinkled with some of the sacred ashes by an over zealous, young acolyte. "Is my wife not alive as I requested?"
"This is a precaution against your laikkt, Kkut Tryzeler Sakam." Answered the high priestess.
"He is proven Srysmai, and is here to help Merinana, where you cannot." Kinickkth declared.
"His evil influence has misguided you, hikkkut. He means to fulfill your ancestor's curse, and bring forth a demon that will destroy us all." The hikkkutta's calm voice matched the chants and flowed with a convincing power.
Kinickkth looked over at Tryzeler who coughed and withdrew deep into his black robes and shrugged. Mumbling Merinana's name, he uttered the word, "Oahz" and a gate of ripped space formed around him, he stepped into it and the gate closed.
A startled and frightened scream from the upper room inside the tower was promptly released from a terrified woman. Both Kinickkth and the high priestess pushed each other out of the way of the door as they raced up the spiral stairs inside the room where Merinana lay, and the scream had been originated.
Inside the room, standing beside the child birthing bed, robed in black was Tryzeler holding up a kkutta who had, apparently, been tending Merinana before the black robed man had gated into the room. This had caused her to faint, awkwardly into the mage's arms. Kinickkth rubbed his forehead and walked over to Tryzeler, taking the young priestess off the stunned mage's hands.
"I'll never know why I cause such fuss among your people." He said, almost apologetically, but a twinge too much sarcasm and humor tainted the sediment.
"Maybe if you would learn to use the doors." Muttered Kinickkth, handing the groaning and dazed kkutta over to the High Priestess and her band of acolytes. "Leave us," he instructed the kkuttas, who now looked too dazed and afraid to intervene.
"And you too," spoke Tryzeler softly to the crusader.
"But...I..." Vivid memories of his image being surrounded by a shadow invaded Kinickkth's mind, and the hikkkutta's warning drifted there, fresh and ominous. He could not trust this man, even if he was his laikkt, even if he was the only one with the magic that could save Merinana.
Tryzeler gripped him tightly, the necromancer's cold fingers dug into his arm. "Whatever twisted and pale light that there is still in you will distract this magic." Snarled the mage as he whispered horsely in Kinickkth's ear. "Go."
Kinickkth stepped back and glared at the half-drow. "You will save Merinana." He looked away from the dark mage, and gazed at his wife, drugged by herbs, tired, and distended by the large child trapped inside her; a gaze that wished a great many things.
He turned and fled the room, rushing down the stairs, back to pacing outside by the door.
With a sweep of his black cloaked arm, Tryzeler cleared the bed stand of the assorted Srysmai herbs, wards, and other holy perphinalia. They crashed to the floor, clattering and crinkling as they collided and broke against the stone. Merinana woke with a start and groaned miserably.
Tryzeler placed his large black bound spell book on the bed stand. "Good, sister, you wake. The magic works better when the victim is conscious to start with." Grumbled the necromancer.
"Brother, how is it that you are here?" Groaned Merinana.
"I gated." Dry humor drifted from the dark mage, and Merinana simply glared at him. Tryzeler sighed and explained, "Your foolish husband, Kinickkth, has demanded that I use magic to avert the deaths of you and his child, but the moon is waning and I only have the strength to save one, you."
Merinana winced and looked at the pale yellow-orange light streaming weakly into the room. "It is not day yet." She spoke, sadly.
"No. Kinickkth had a fire built to give the appearance and comfort of day to you." Tryzeler informed her.
"I have never found the thought of day comforting." Merinana whispered sadly and in great pain. "Till now. I would rather not be saved, but my child instead. Yet, if it is born now, it will be burned when the day truly comes. If it is Drakkara's will that I live on, then I must to fulfill Her purpose."
Tryzeler grinned and leaned close, "The night is young, but I have counted these nights; if a keska is born tonight, it will be saved by a keskmak tomorrow, as I was."
The astrology charts could not lie, and ever since his supposed "burning day" Tryzeler had cherished them.
"Truly, brother? My child can be saved by the moon, as you were?" Hope crossed the exhausted woman's weary face.
"The simple fact remains, even Srys' Eye must bow to the movement of the stars, planets, and moons that Srys Himself created.
"Then it is Drakkara's will that my child be saved from Srys. Do what you must, brother, see that Her magic protects my child." Merinana drifted on wings of semi-consciousness.
Tryzeler Sakam opened his book, and sadly muttered a promise to his sister, "The child will be protected by a magic forbidden by Srys, I will see that it serves Drakkara's will in the end."
Magic words of death, decay, and destruction surged through the air and raced through the veins of the woman. Consuming her body with death and rot, and the energy that was converted from her was diverted to the womb. Flowing through the umbilical cord, feeding a near dead and exhausted creature that grew there. Like a parasite, the child gorged itself on the energy and power of it's host as it decayed and died around it.
Dead matter wasted away around the child and it opened its eyes to a blinding light. No, a darkened birthing chamber lit by only a small blue flame, but after months of darkness, even this light was blinding. A figure in dark robes lifted the child away from the dust and stench of a rotten corpse.
Tryzeler winced as the girl-child cried, loudly.
Nearly instantly Kinickkth, the priestess, and her acolytes burst into the room, and there was much confusion, shouting, and someone with a weak stomach retching in a corner.
"Drukkmakkit! What have you done?!" Raged the Crusader of the Sun.
"Laikkt, your daughter." Tryzeler awkwardly tried to present the screaming child to Kinickkth, who knocked the mage's hands away in disgust.
"To add insult on top of insults, even if it was not a keska, it is a useless female." He spat and grabbed Tryzeler's dark cloak at the mage's neck. "You have played me for the last time, Drukkmai, tomorrow, after the Sun has burned this keska to ash, you will be executed for your crimes against the Sun." Kinickkth released him, tossing the mage to the floor, and whirred out the door; silver, white, and chiming.
The kkutta's ripped the screaming demon from Tryzeler's exhausted hands and stormed off behind their hikkkut, muttering chants and making warding signs.
Tryzeler stood, and gazed about the empty room, eyeing his sister's already mostly rotten corpse. He summoned a small ball of blue flame in the palm of his hand, and sadly regarded it. Tossing the flame onto the bed, it was instantly consumed in a rush of cold, blue fire.
"Sister, you are saved."
Kinickkth Srys stood before the altar of the Sun. Above him, set in the massive domed ceiling was a huge lens of glass, magnifying the near noonday heat to make the altar a sweltering hot furnace. On this circle of stone he placed his child. He looked on it for a moment; a girl, unable to carry on as his heir even if it was not a keska.
A demon, since the first days of the Srys all children born at night, away from Srys' eye were declared demons, and destroyed. A curse had been cast upon the tribe by his ancestor, a bladesinger that worshipped the impure and imperfect moons, that one born in their presence would burn the city and even grow to challenge the High God.
Others said that Srys' demon would be born and bring sun into the night, bring about the long waited, and feared Srynik Davik, the day when Srys would judge and burn all but the purest souls forever. Still others claimed that the night air was simply unhealthy, and those born then would be sickly and weak.
Whatever the reasons, the Hikkkut Srys' keska child was not above this ancient law, and sadly Kinickkth gazed at the dark, wispy-haired child. A gaze that wished many things. Slowly he backed away from the altar, the blinding sunlight grew stronger, as the sun rose in the sky.
Then a shadow passed over the sun. Terror raced through Kinickkth, as he looked up, for a Srysmai could bear to look at the sun without being blinded by its light, and a black circle crossed over the sun, weakening it's energy and light.
Only once before had this ever happened, on the burning day of Tryzeler Sakam, his laikkt. The dark mage had bid the dark moon to shade him, and prevented the full light of the sun to shine through the temple's lens.
Furious, he searched the temple crowd for the mage. Skulking in a corner, smiling, his black robes stood out against the field of white clad kkuttas. He strode over and grabbed the mage, snarling with fury, forcing the drukkmai to look at the tainted sunlight.
"Still your dark mistress twists and taunts our people." He growled, drawing his sword, blessed with Srys' wrath; Rrikkit hy Srys, pulsed with power.
The mage coughed and glared back, much too calm for someone Kinickkth was about to kill.
"Mkkkt-laikkt, I am certain that my mistress and I would love to take full credit for this occasion; however, that is the white moon, you sun-blind, idiot." The mage possibly looked more disgusted at the goings on than Kinickkth.
Truth was with the twisted dark mage's words, and the crusader released him, tossing him to the hard marble floor, and stared at the twisted and pale light through the sky light.
*is it not ironic that even the white moon turns black in Srys' light*
Kinickkth looked away from the light, the world a blur of empty white where nothing mattered. The crowd of onlookers fled or cried in fear, the kkutta's babbled their chants out of sync and off-key, and his laikkt; for the necromancer, Tryzeler Sakam, was still his laikkt as long as his keska-child lived; lifted the keska from the altar, and whispered to the crying demon.
"Kantilles is your savior, but I will make Drakkara your master."
Kinickkth, the Crusader of the Sun, muttered an oath to himself, and gripping the black mark on his sword arm, he strode from the temple.