13th August 1103

Miriamele shivered as she entered the cathedral, though the room was warm and stuffy. Great roaring fires rose in the braziers around the room, curling tendrils of smoke leaving great sooty stains on the soaring buttressed roof. They said N’nkasha had come from the desert, roaring out of scorching depths like a sandstorm, flaying all unfortunate enough to cross his path. It was hot there, on the Southern Continent and so the fires were tended till they flared higher and higher and always he cried, “not hot enough” in his rasping tongue.

A trickle of sweat snaked down Miriamele’s brow as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. N’nkasha had chosen the Cathedral as his throne room, profaning the sanctity of that room with death after death and every rampant fury of his insatiable lust. It was told he had taken the first wife, his moon wife on the very altar of their God.

Shapes loomed at her through the smoke and the shadows, scantily clad dancers twisting and writhing obscenely. The gleaming oiled bronze skin of the guards, cruel curving blades in their hands and tattoos obscuring their faces. And seated before the altar was the God King himself.

The eunuch jabbed her sharply in the back, “Stand up straight little star, the God King does not want to bed a hunchback.”

Her trembling hands fell to her side. They had dressed her in thinnest of silk, all but transparent so that no curve of her adolescent body was hidden from view. She longed to cover herself, to curl up and hide but the eunuch was pushing her forward into that room with its rank, charcoal smell and its hundred cruel eyes all fixed on her.

She crept ahead of him, past the dancers and to the front of the room where the God King and his night sky regarded her impassively. Akana, his moon wife was swollen with his child, her huge belly painted in gold with strange symbols, bells from a vest that barely covered her heavy breasts jingling as she shifted her weight. Akana had borne him child after child, four girls and a boy but never the Sun child that he awaited.

Beside her were the star wives, Lubaya from the conquered Jungles of the South and Nagale, a peace offering sent by the Tassril to ensure the God King’s favour. It was said that Lubaya had once been a great beauty but when the son she bore was stillborn the God King had torn her eyes out in a fit of rage. The child had not opened its eyes and so she never would again. The ruined mess of her face was hidden under a heavy veil. Miriamele was glad she could not see it.

“God King, my sun, my golden light. Please allow this pathetic worm to speak,” the eunuch intoned in the language of the Kerthqua, his voice high and weak.

Miriamele had been trained in their words, deep in the sanctuary of the harem, preparing her for the night when sun and star would dance. That night would come soon she had been told, on all hallows eve when the people of her culture said the dead walked the earth. The Kerthqua believed that on this day night stalked through the daylight, dragging her ragged cloak of destruction behind and bleeding the land as she walked. To save the world from eternal night the God King must pierce a star flooding the sky with light once more. After coming of age and choosing his moon wife, the Sun King would take a new star wife each year to protect the world from endless night.

N’nkasha gave a slight nod of his head.

“The third star is rising great Lord. She comes before you now to bathe in your boundless light.”

“Hallo Mirri,” a voice called from behind the throne.

“Shut your mouth maggot meat,” the fat usurper Faldorn growled from his plush seat.

She had tried not to look at the wasted man tied to a crucifix, another mockery of their religion that N’nkasha had profaned the church with. But she could not help it, her eyes finding the face of the man she had known, Estan, cousin to the King, brother of her sister’s dearest friend. His face was a ruined mess, scars new and old streaking across the skin. His left eye was gone, N’nkasha had plucked it out and thrown it to the dogs. His arms were frail where muscles had once been strong enough to wield a great sword. Pale scars snaked across his chest and open, ragged wounds weeping pus and blood. He should have died when he was supposed to. It would have been a merciful fate.

She fell to her knees before the God who walks the earth hoping he would ignore this indiscretion from his very favourite plaything.

He gazed down at her, his golden eyes glowing with unholy light. Such eyes were the inheritance of the Sun King, only the child that had such eyes could take the throne when the final fire took him. She gave a shudder, suddenly afraid that child would be hers.

He rose slowly to his full height, towering above her. He was the tallest man she had ever seen, all long, slender limbs, angular, like some great golden insect waiting to tear her apart with his slavering jaws.

But he turned and went to Estan, hanging weak and exhausted on the cross.

“You would speak to my star in this way pink dog?” he rasped in common, bringing his huge head close to the broken man’s face.

“We’ve known each other since she was a child,” Estan replied boldly.

Please, please Estan, please stop.

She rose trembling to her feet.

“No one may know the star but the Sun King,” he purred drawing a razor sharp golden knife across Estan’s belly, opening up the flesh behind it.

Estan gritted his teeth in pain but did not cry out. He looked up at the God King, defiance written on his mutilated face.

“Now dog, there is no pleasure in your silence, the third star wants to hear you scream.”

He jammed his long finger deep into the oozing wound and Estan cried out in agony.

“How I wish I could pull the feeding snake from your belly but then you would die and that would be a shame,” he drew his finger along the bleeding cut as Estan writhed and groaned.

Please oh please stop.

“Please,” she moaned out loud and then frightened went completely silent.

N’nkasha went rigid, slowly drawing his finger from the wretched man’s belly. His knife flicked out and for a moment Mirry thought he was going to kill Estan. But he was only cutting the ropes that bound him to the crucifix and the injured man fell heavily to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“Come to me little star,” he beckoned with one bloody finger. From the corner of her eye she saw the Tassril star shudder. The moon wife was looking steadfastly ahead.

“Would you plead for this man’s life my star?” he crooned.

He reached up to stroke her cheek with his soft fingers, leaving a bloody trail down her face.

She was paralysed with fear, repulsed by the slithering of his finger as it slid over her cheek coming terrifyingly close to her eye. She tried to answer but she had lost her voice.

His other hand darted out like a snake and closed over her throat. Squeezing the air from her he lifted her bodily from the ground, struggling in his grasp.

“Who are you to ask me anything?! I am the God King. Perhaps this man has already pierced you?!” the Sun King roared shaking her like a ragdoll.

“If I find your light already spilled I swear you will suffer like no one ever has. I will flay the skin from your flesh alive star-child!”

Her vision was growing dark, the blood vessels in her eyes bursting as her struggles grew weaker. Her hands pawed ineffectually at his arm, which, strong as iron, closed tightly around her windpipe. Just as she was losing consciousness he released her.

He caught her in his strong arms as she fell.

“There now little star, you must not anger me so. Shh now.”

He pulled her gasping and spluttering for air to his chest. Her face scraped across the jagged medallions that covered his oiled chest. Her nostrils filled with the acrid scent of his sweat, the sickening sweet smell of his perfumed hair. She choked and coughed, tears running down her face.

“Shhh shhh, little light, little star,” he murmured.

He was running his hand along her spine, pressing her against his body.

She felt one of his hands closing over her breast as the darkness engulfed her.

Arwaduhn, Tadhgar