The Maiden's Sorrow
One of the Myths of Ixonia
832 years since the Chaining, somewhere amidst the Drifting Sea…
The sand whipped about Cyrus Darke in an endless vortex of confusion. The desert was on the move, his destination along with it. Quom’s Fortress lay amidst the endless dunes and sandstorms, ever distant, never changing. A fabled castle mentioned in disparate tales as a foreboding spectre of evil and menace, a place of ancient bandit kings, cannibal tribes, and apocalyptic cults. Host to long lost treasures, immortal warriors, and future wizard-emperors of the world. Cyrus Darke hunted for an artefact. An object of celestial importance to the Veiled Maiden, the Goddess of Death. He had not been told what it was, nor what it did, only that the divine article had been stolen centuries ago and was an item that spoke of great sorrow. An item to remind the Order of their purpose, their duties, and the deep meaning of the Veiled Maiden.
The Ebon Herald’s sable armour had lost much of its sheen as the harassing sand scoured the steel from obsidian to silver. The joints creaked and stiffened, clogged with dust and grit, he had. abandoned the lower half days ago to be left with only his leathers. Cyrus Darke was thankful the Drifting Sea was a cold desert, at least for this cycle where the dust storms blotted out the sun and the nights were so chilled dew would glisten over the sands, radiant with alien colour. Battling the ferocious storm he was uncertain in which direction he was headed, for all Cyrus Darke knew he was wandering in circles. Yet for a fortress without a fixed location being lost was ideal.
A shadowy haze of high walls and higher buildings shuddered through the sands. He held a hand to his helmets visor and squinted into the distance. The structure was a shimmer of light, a high outer wall protected higher internal walls that rose up to impossible heights with a gentle sloping curl. In the centre was a tri-walled tower that kissed the illusive sun. Cyrus Darke forced himself to move once again, the buffeting sand failing to hold him back. With staggered steps against howling winds the Ebon Herald neared Quom’s Fortress. The mirage solidified and along with it the husks of dead palms and withered cacti clinging to the edge of a long dried up oasis that encircled the castle, tumbling sand cascaded down the cracks in the dirt. Cyrus Darke slid down the embankment and crossed the arid oasis. He clambered up the other, shallower, bank and pressed his hand to the mythical castle’s wall. A vibration passed through the stone, a subtle shudder from something long sleeping now awakened. The wind weakened, the sand drifted lazily, and the sky above peaked through the perpetual storm. For the first time in days Cyrus Darke could see more than a foot ahead and he found Quom’s Fortress to be an impenetrable beauty.
There were no gatehouses. No arrowslits. No murderholes. No passageways. No barred tunnels for water. And no way to scale the wall for the sandstone was as smooth as polished marble. Cyrus Darke trudged the perimeter of the great castle, the oval walls remaining impervious. He let one hand trail against the stone every now and then hoping, praying, to feel the shudder but it was not to be. He walked until the sun dipped beneath the horizon and felt himself to have completed a full loop of the outer wall, yet he could not know for sure. He had long since lost north from south, east from west, but Cyrus Darke was sure he’d completed a full rotation. When he returned to the point of the shuddering wall he found an iron banded door of solid walnut. Without hesitation he grabbed the handle and winced. Blood welled from his fingers and lingered on the black circlet of rose thorns. There is always a price, Cyrus Darke felt the thorns prick his fingers as he turned the handle. The door swung outward with the silence of newness and an unlit tunnel of sandstone stretched endlessly before him. Cyrus Darke stepped inside.
The howl of the dusty wind ceased. The walnut door slammed shut and the knight was plunged into darkness. His breath echoed in his helm and for a few moments he did naught but listen. A flicker of light, thick and orange, bloomed far ahead of him intimating a wall far thicker than any other fortress he had seen. With trepidation Cyrus Darke advanced, sliding his sandy boot across the smooth sandstone for fear of ledges and traps. He gripped the ivory and ebony hilt of his arming sword and drew it in a slow, careful motion, until the tip caught the distant orange flame and guided him onward like a torch. The distant passage, no larger than his thumb, grew with an unnatural slowness. The passageway caressed him on both sides and even the ceiling was beginning to encroach. Hunched, Cyrus Darke pressed on with his heart in his throat and the sense of something following him. A presence long forgotten, long hidden, awakened by his touch. Earlier in life Cyrus Darke would dismiss this instinct as foolish but he’d ventured Ixonia’s length and breadth and beyond to gaining a healthy dose of belief with each destination.
Soon he was crouching, his pauldrons scraping the wall, until he was forced to discard the rest of his armour. He shivered in his leathers and began to crawl towards the orange flicker. His sword clacked against the sandstone with each shuffle, the wall pressed his shoulders and grazed his knees. His breath rebounded, hot and heavy, into his eyes and just as he thought he could squeeze no further he felt a ledge and his hand was bathed in golden light. Cyrus Darke dropped his sword over the ledge where it clattered a short distance and he pulled himself through the hole in the wall. Landing in a heap he breathed a sigh of relief. The sense of a follower vanished as he stared up at the azure domed ceiling made from a thousand tiles all shimmering in the warm hue. Standing, he sheathed his sword and gasped. In the centre of the room was a pedestal with four everburning candles sitting in its recesses. Upon the pedestal was a jewelled blade with an ivory and ebony carved hilt like his own arming sword showing his Veiled Maiden with her left hand over her heart, a sword in her right, and her ebony hood pulled so low only her ivory lips showed.
Cryus Darke reached for the artefact and as his finger graced the hilt he felt the fortress shudder. Terror coiled in his bowels. Thick, acrid smoke billowed from the knife snuffing out the candles and drenching him in darkness once again. His skin blistered and cracked, his throat burned. The smoke became thick as night and for a moment Cyrus Darke felt like he was floating underwater. There was no up, no down, no left, no right, and no balance to be found. Terror turned to nausea and bile in his throat. His ears rang and dizziness assailed him. With a crack he was on solid ground once more, a howling wind chilled him to the bone, and two golden eyes blinked from the darkness.
The Herald swallowed his fear and nausea with a sting and drew his sword. He wished he had kept his armour, for his leathers would do little to protect him. The pair of eyes advanced on him and in a flash of azure light his enemy attacked. A mace, larger than he, tore above him. Cyrus Darke leapt to his left as the hulking mass of icy rock cratered the sandstone where he had stood. The wind howled and carried with it a pale luminescence. His assailant was a golem, a monstrosity of stone and nefarious magic, shaped like a human warrior but twice as large. Whatever corrupted soul shone behind the stone had been entrapped for centuries. It lunged for Cyrus Darke and wrapped three stone fingers around his leg. The golem pulled the knight toward him and raised his icy strewn mace. With a horrid warble the entrapped soul aimed to crush Cyrus Darke into paste. He twisted and hacked at one of the golem’s fingers. The stone chipped but it failed to release its grip. The mace neared his midriff. Cyrus Darke lunged for a shining eye and plunged his arming sword as deep as he could. A terrible discordant warble burst from the golem and the monstrous creation exploded into a shower of silver dust.
The icy wind ceased. The cold retreated. The golem was no more and Cyrus Darke found himself lying on a pillow of vines and long leafed foliage. The ground was wet and the sound of rain echoed against the dense interwoven canopy overhead. He found his footing and searched the dank forest not of Ixonia for his next enemy, his next trial.
No trial came. No golem or dark warrior, no evil wizard or decrepit creature. Bizarre sounding birds sang from the treetops while the rain hammered down. Caught off-guard Cyrus Darke prowled through the vines and toothed red flowers. Sweat dripped down his back, each breath thick with heat, each step tired him to his core, yet still he advanced through the jungle. But to where? Cyrus Darke blinked sweat away from his eyes to spot something, anything, that would lead him to his prize. He scoured the criss-crossed ground for the jewelled knife but it wasn’t there. It, like the golem, had vanished. He continued on, following a path amidst the tall thin trees with stilt like roots when the ground fell away beneath him. Cyrus Darke fell through the earth, the jungle vanishing above, and the infinite nothing stretching below. He fell, and fell, and fell.
He shouted into the void but no sound came from his lips. He tried to move his arms and legs but he was stiff as stone. He prayed, silently, to the Veiled Maiden for a swift death and for his tale to reach his brothers far away even though he had travelled alone. He landed with a thud, as if he had merely tripped backwards on a vine, and rose to find himself on a wide sloped corridor of smooth sandstone. Torches burned at regular intervals along the walls and in recesses replete with vacant suits of armour. With nothing else to do Cyrus Darke began to climb.
After what seemed like hours nothing had changed. The corridor of smooth sandstone with dull, functional recesses occupied by suits of unadorned plate armour, extended above and below him. An endless loop with no escape.
Cyrus Darke approached the nearest suit of armour and threw it to the floor. The steel helm clattered and rolled as the rest burst apart scattering across the stone. Minutes passed as the clattering steel helm grew fainter and fainter before growing louder and louder and it appeared further up the slope. Evil magicks, he spat a pitiful wad of phlegm. The moisture struck the stone and the fortress rumbled. The floor cracked open in perfect line running between his feet and up the wall and ceiling. The suit of armour collected itself together and, standing up, marched back into its recess. Cyrus Darke stepped aside, choosing the slope heading up while the armour chose the slope heading down. The two halves of the loop split apart to reveal a glimmer orange light below. With nothing to lose the Ebon Herald jumped into the abyss and pierced the dark like an arrow towards the light below.
He landed with a heavy thud that rattled his teeth and found himself in the room with the azure tiled ceiling, the jewelled knife resting on the pedestal in the centre. He rose and reached for the knife but stopped himself half-an-inch short. The orange candle glow radiated off the jewels and the tiles above. Cyrus Darke looked up. The everburning flames danced over the surface of the thousand tiles and along the white mortar lines, all glistening like the midnight sky, save for one. One tile glowed, bright and iridescent. He searched the room for something to stand on but there was only the pedestal. Fearful of the smoke, the golem, and all the rest he reached up. His hand bashed into the ceiling, barely a foot above him yet appearing further away. He plucked the shimmering tile.
A thick white smoke billowed from the hole in the mosaic. Swaddled in the opaque blanket of smoke the world shifted in a vortex of wind beyond the smoke. The white dissipated and Cyrus Darke found himself standing amidst the Drifting Sea with the air as still as stone. The sun shone but there was only a mild heat.
Quom’s Fortress was nowhere to be seen, nor the dried oasis, or his armour. The only remnant, only evidence, was the glass cube vial in his hand with a few meagre drops of translucent liquid inside. Tears, he knew. Tears of the Maiden. Cyrus Darke clung to the square glass vial and headed east knowing he would eventually come upon the Seraphine Mountains.
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