Everything changed the day the eclipse broke. The sky turned purple, as it was rumored to have been in the time before the masked men came. Zakx had earned a mask that was half white, half black, the second level of mask, above white and burgundy. The race to earn the next mask seemed like such a distant thing now. He had been a fool.
Zakx trained under a master with a black and gold mask, the highest rank below the pure-gold masks of the Matrons. The master was able to drift into the land of the Dream Goddess at will and steal her essence, the energy required to satisfy the constant hunger of the Shadow Hunter bound to him. He only needed to sleep for five hours a day.
Zakx and his friends strangled the man that morning. After he lost consciousness, they dragged him to the edge of the city and dumped the contents of their bedpans on his body, then tossed him over the side, to suffer the great fall into the mushroom forests and blood rivers far below. The vertigo of the fall woke the man, and he screamed, covered in refuse, as he vanished below. Zakx and his friends laughed.
It was the first time they had seen the surface. The rumors spoke of the sky, but the ground below was unknown to even the rejected elders with the white-burgundy masks. They had lived in a nightmarish darkness for so long. The elders said that eighteen thousand moons had passed. Zakx was only two-hundred and fifty-two moons old. He could not possibly imagine eighteen thousand moons. Only the goddesses could comprehend such a span of time.
The day the eclipse broke and the sky turned purple, all of the masters were slain. The people refused their purpose, to summon their Elementals and suffer the spiritual cost of doing so, according to the demands of the goddesses. Rumors began to spread that the "goddesses" were a fraud, a story. The elders claimed ancient knowledge, that the purpose behind summoning the Elementals was to satiate the desires of humans who lived in "paradise." They had grown gluttonous and fat off the power harvested from the masked people. One of the "Great Houses" had finally betrayed the others, and the End Times had arrived.
The masters, screaming and covered in human refuse, had even been rejected by Ashe. Their bodies had been transformed into pure shadow and then disintegrated as they fell.
They prayed to her every day. Even Zakx, who had been so put off by his lifetime of service to "paradise," found no solace or peace in nihilism. He prayed to Ashe, the sealed child, the lost half of a goddess, who had been freed when the eclipse shattered and the sky changed. He prayed every hour, every minute his thoughts turned to her. She was his secret goddess, his obsession.
Until the day the portal opened.
His obsession was no longer a secret. It was shared by the entire city. Everyone cheered when those beautiful machines arrived. It was Ashe, he knew. It must be Ashe. They gathered upon the pale cobblestone streets under the dim lights of gas lamps and cheered. "Ashe! Ashe! Ashe!"
Six white birds made of metal passed through the portal and flew over the city. A seventh bird of metal lingered behind the others, watching like a master, ready to scold a pupil for transgressing. Two of the great metal birds broke away from the others and flew over the city with an astonishing hiss, somewhere between a deluge of water, the crackle of an open flame, and the breath passing through the gap between a person's two front teeth. Glass windows shook at their passing. Certainly a vision of Ashe, for nothing else could command such power and presence.
Four of the metal birds always stayed together, flying like a diamond. The bird in the lead seemed aloof, the bird on the right and behind were diligent students of the master, and the bird on the left was a rookie, barely able to stay in formation with the leader. The seventh bird must have been scolding the one on the left for the entire display. And a display it was, a pure display of power.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Mother is here, his Elemental said, her voice like some crazed beast that was unknown to Zakx and his people. Mother has come to inspire us with her allies.
"Where is your mother?" Zakx asked. As always, the Elemental did not reply. She could not hear him. She could not read his thoughts. Speechless the crowd watched as the quintet of metal birds looped through the sky.
Your suffering has ended, the End Time has come. Look now upon the blessing for those who have been forgotten. The blessing of my chosen companion, Lady Ghost.
It was a powerful, powerful feminine voice in his mind. It must have been in the mind of everyone, because that voice silenced the crowd. The two solo birds flew over the city again, cracking windows and causing children to cover their ears with the palms of their hands.
Something else flew through the portal. It was not shaped like a bird, not exactly. It had squarish wings, and at the end of each wing there was a spinning fan. The sound those fans made was otherworldly, a throbbing, pounding, crushing sound. The fans on the end of the wings tilted upward relative to the machine, and it began to hover above the city streets, slowly descending into a grassy park. People bravely threw themselves against the metal doors, even as they opened and warriors stepped through.
Warriors. Zakx knew what a warrior was, and these men were definitely warriors. They carried some unknown type of weapon, but they looked strong and confident. Their eyes cast a confident command to the crowd. We are warriors, and we will kill you without hesitation.
People backed away to allow the warriors to spread out and create a perimeter with their strange weapons. A young woman with a black-white mask stepped out of the strange bird. She summoned an Elemental that Zakx had never seen before, shaped like a woman holding a flute, made of ethereal teal fog. When the woman spoke, all could hear her voice.
"My name is Mia, and my story is the same as yours," the one called Mia said. Those frightening metal birds flew overhead at that exact moment, causing many people in the crowd to duck away. The woman called Mia grasped her mask with one hand, silencing the crowd. She cast it aside, revealing a beautiful and youthful face. One hundred and eighty, perhaps two hundred moons at most. "We have been tricked! Paradise is not real, and this world you live in is also not real! You have been tricked into visiting the Dreaming Goddess, to satisfy the needs of the too-human outsiders who have tricked you!"
The crowd roared in approval. They rushed forward, and raised the woman into the air upon their hands. Zakx wormed his way through the packed bodies, trying to get closer.
"The Queen of Darkness, the sealed child Ashe has been released!" the woman shouted even as she was being carried away by the fanatical crowd. "The End Time has come! I ask you, I beg you, to join me in my quest! Two great empires control the world outside. One empire wishes to free you, one wishes to enslave you. I have chosen to serve the Heylin Empire, which gives us a choice, and does not enslave us! If you choose to join our cause, you can help fight against an enemy that seeks to return our people to their former state. A world of lies."
The crowd went silent. They lowered her. Her warriors pushed everyone away and took up positions around her.
She was not a liberator. She might not have been free herself. She was a recruiter.
At that moment, the voice from before resumed: She seeks to recruit you, as is my command. Hear my name and despair, I am Ashe, Queen of Darkness, the source of evil in all worlds. Listen to my words and know what I seek. My chosen, the Lady Ghost, carries in her breast the power to destroy gods. Join our efforts, and know free will. Your souls will bear the burdens of your own choices, and none other.
"FOR ASHE!" Zakx cried as he entered the clearing that the warriors had made, and bravely leapt forward to hug the woman called Mia. She embraced him, her eyes filled with surprise. Four metal birds flew over the square, low enough to cause the people to cower in fear. Zakx rejoiced, pointing to the machines as they rocketed away. "There can be no lies from those things!" he shouted, his voice giving way. "No lies! Truth! Truth!"