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“Wake up, Desh,” a soft, sweet voice called out from far away.

Desh’s golden eyes opened and he was surprised to find that he was lying in a dark, cool room. As he sat up he realized he was back home and in his bed underneath the basement stairs. There had been room in the main house above ground for his bed but he had preferred the cool, dark basement.

He had a nagging sense he was forgetting something extremely important. As he rubbed his face with his hands, he tried to think of the dream he had been having. Something about a desert and a man who could command the wind. That would make him a windbringer but he thought that the man was very unlike a windbringer.

“You don’t want to be late for your lessons.”

The panic of being late pushed any thoughts of the dream out of his mind and he leapt out of bed. He scrabbled for his pants and slipped them on while walking to the stairs that led up to the main floor of the house.

Like most houses in the city of light, the main floor was an open floor plan. The doors to the courtyard were open, the better to let in sunlight. His eyes quickly adjusted to the light and he began to look around the room for his books. He realized his mother was standing at the entrance to the courtyard with his books in her arms. She also had a small paper package tied with twine, obviously a meal prepared to take with him.

His mother was a short, plump woman with a kind face and tired eyes. They were a pale yellow, almost the color of wheat. Desh had gotten his brighter, golden eyes and his darker gray skin from his father. Her skin was much lighter but still gray enough to identify her as Arkatuan by sight.

She had been sick for quite a while now. Despite her constant fatigue she always managed to take care of him. Once he left for his lessons,however, she would spend most of the day lying down and trying to recover her strength.

“You know they don’t like us to bring food anymore,” he said as he jogged up to her and grabbed the books. There were three of them bound together with a leather strap. He slung them over his shoulder and held them by the strap.

“Well, then you can eat them before school. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” The woman gave him a playful wink and he tried his best to act disinterested. His goal was to one day become a lightbringer and that meant he would eventually have to learn to receive all of his sustenance from the sun. It took a lot of practice and it didn’t help when she was constantly trying to give him delicious food. However, the smell of fresh baked flatbread made his stomach rumble.

“Thanks,” he said with fake annoyance, and took the paper package from her. By the shape he could tell she’d made him wraps. Previous history indicated they would be filled with roasted vegetables and a delicious cream based sauce that was his favorite. With books and food in hand, he went to leave but his mother grabbed his shoulder.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” There was a smile on her face as she bent over to lean down closer to him.

He grumbled before turning around and pressing a quick kiss into her cheek.

“Good boy. Now hurry along. You know the elder hates it when you are late.”

He moved quickly to leave, noting the time on the wall. Luckily his mother had woken him up early enough that he’d be able to eat his food and dispose of the paper before classes started. He jogged through the busy streets and made his way to the temple.

The city of light was one of the largest cities in the world and it served as the capital of the Arkatuan empire. There was no city closer to the sun. The land sunward of the city was a vast, inhospitable desert. There, potential lightbringers made their pilgrimages to stand directly before Arkatu and receive his direct blessing. Desh hoped to make the journey himself one day. For now he had to continue training both his body and his mind.

The city was shaped like a crescent. In the very center stood the golden temple, the largest single place of worship for Arkatu in the entire world. The closer one lived to the temple often denoted their status. The richest and most successful Arkatuan’s lived just blocks away from the temple. Those at the outer edges tended to be new converts and the less fortunate. On account of Desh’s father having been a well known lightbringer, Desh and his family lived somewhere in the middle. All of their needs were met on account of his father having died in the Great War.

For the most part the buildings and streets were crafted with sandstone taken from quarries in the desert. Their bright colors reflected the light and made the air feel warm. Many visitors balked at the incessant heat of the city. Desh had never known anything different and he loved the way the warm stones felt on his bare feet and the feel of the sun on his exposed chest and back. Like most boys his age he wore only a loose pair of light colored pants out of modesty. The older men tended to favor loincloths.

He arrived near the temple and saw other children his age meandering in. A quick detour was taken into a park beside the temple where he quickly ate both of the wraps his mother had made for him. They were delicious, of course. Once he was done he carefully folded the paper and hid it away in his pocket out of shame. Then he joined the procession of students entering the temple.

Like most other temples, this one was built as a small amphitheater that was recessed down into the ground. Once you were seated you would feel cut off from the noise of the city around you but there was no roof. There was a stage with a small pulpit. Behind the stage a single twisted tree with white bark grew upwards. Such trees were commonly planted as a sign that all life had originally come from the sun.

Worshippers sat directly in the heat of the sun while they contemplated the nature of Arkatu and his benevolence. Normally this contemplation was guided by no particular person. Other gods had priests but any follower of Arkatu was invited to come up and share their blessings or concerns. They would walk down to the stage and share their personal feelings with the other congregants.

During the time of teaching, however, an elder would stand on the stage and provide lessons for the children in subjects religious and otherwise. The Arkatuan faith dictated that the sun was the source of all energy and life. So it was that every science and history was taught from the ideological lens that they were, in essence, their own form of worship. Science was the study of how Arkatu’s world worked. History was the study of how he had shaped the world through his life giving power.

Other religions did not hold this view. However, Arkatuans didn’t argue and they didn’t evangelize. Converts were rare but there were a few fairer skinned people in the city who had come to understand the light god’s omnipotence and were as welcome in the faith as any other.

This particular temple could hold roughly 100 congregants but there were roughly 30 children of various ages who attended lessons for this area. If a child showed enough proficiency in their faith then they would be sent to the larger temples closer to the middle of the city. Desh wanted more than anything to be selected like his father before him. Unfortunately, he had been mediocre at best when it came to his prayers.

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He was one of the last students to sit down. Luckily he made it before the clock on the wall chimed the beginning of the lessons. Today’s speaker made his way down to the stage and took his spot.

Today it was Dosin, one of the oldest elders alive. Long ago he had been a tall, strong lightbringer. Time had shrunk him down and made his back crooked. His dark gray stomach was the only place on him that held any fat. It protruded over the hem of the loincloth that clung to his bony hips. His beard had grown long and yellowed while his hair had receded all the way back on his head. Once bright and resilient, his eyes were now a dull bronze color. However, there was a certain cunning still held within them that spoke of the danger he once posed.

His lessons were usually about history, especially wars. His retelling of the Great War had been one of Desh’s favorites.There was quiet, excited chatter as the students looked forward to another dramatic retelling of a battle.

“Today’s lesson will be on the gods of life and death, Ussei and Ankee,” the old man said in his loud but clear voice. Dosin had always been an impeccable speaker which is why he’d been granted elder status and allowed to teach.

The chatter stopped and there was more than one audible groan. Desh was one of the groaners. He unbound his stack of books and grabbed the small cheap book he used to keep his notes. It wasn’t a book of devotions but something very similar that children practiced writing and note taking in.

Learning about the other gods was one of his least favorite subjects. They were told countless times that they had to know about the rest of the world in order to serve. Because their god was the highest in the hierarchy they had a divine obligation to serve people of every faith. That meant understanding them all, ideological errors and all.

Dosin’s lecture covered the basics of the two gods. Desh had a passing knowledge of all the gods but the lecture provided some new and interesting details he’d never heard before.

None of the gods had an explicit gender but their idols and depictions followed specific styles. Arkatu was always drawn as a man, for example. Ussei was purposefully portrayed as both male and female in equal measure. Sometimes the god was portrayed as both genders at once to symbolize the creation of life. Ankee was portrayed as androgynous and without gender because in death such things did not matter.

While all the other gods had large groups of people that worshiped them exclusively there were few temples dedicated to either god. In a way, the entire planet was a temple to both gods because it held the constant flow of life and death. Every newborn child was a celebration of Ussei’s benevolence. Every death reminded us that we would all have our chance to meet with Ankee at the end of it all.

Smaller shrines to Ussei were not entirely unheard of, however. Couples wishing to have a child, for example, would grow plants in their house as a sign of worship to the life god.

Worship of Ankee was uncommon and very frowned upon. Death was inevitable. That meant that most people praying to Ankee were asking for a faster death and usually someone else’s. This sort of worship was often a precursor to murder or war. Several court cases had used Ankee shrines in the suspect’s house as evidence that they had planned a murder.

There were circumstances where worship of both gods intersected. Some people offered up their prayers to both gods whenever they were extremely ill. Their hope was to prolong their death regardless of which god was willing to answer the call. If the case was bad enough some people begged only for an easy end to their life. This part of the lecture piqued Desh’s interest and he found himself full of questions he didn’t feel comfortable asking. He wrote a few of these down in his little book so that he wouldn’t forget to look into them later.

Dosin went on to explain that both gods were also unique in other ways. The other gods all had designated champions who could utilize their power at will like lightbringers. There were bringers for all of the four earthly gods and even darkbringers not that long ago. However, any man was capable of bringing death. There was much debate on this topic. Did that mean that all men were capable of becoming a deathbringer or that there were no deathbringers? Dosin’s personal opinion was that there was no such thing. A true deathbringer would be able to summon death without having to resort to more manual methods. Such a divine power had never been witnessed before.

Likewise this debate was held in regards to birth. Some scholars argued that a couple producing a child could be theoretically labeled as lifebringers. However, this was an uncommon opinion as there had been actual lifebringers before. Ussei seemed fickle in picking this champion, however. There were periods where the status as their chosen was passed from mentor to protege. At other times there was no known lifebringer for many years. When there was a chosen person it seemed as though they were tasked with ensuring balance among all life and they almost never took sides in major conflicts.

The last lifebringer had been Tela who had sided with the lightbringers during the Great War and had been instrumental in ensuring the defeat of the armies of darkness. He’d perished during the final battle, having sacrificed himself to prevent the destruction of the entire world alongside the prophet of light.

Dosin slipped easily from this subject back into history, mentioning prior lifebringers and their pivotal roles in important events. One lifebringer brought a prophet of light back to life after an assassination, preventing a war. Another spent their entire life working to save endangered species from extinction.

Desh tried to pay attention but his mind wandered. He’d heard of the ill praying to Ussei for health and continued life. His own mother had a small shrine to the god that she tried to keep hidden from the boy. However, he’d never seen anyone pray to Ankee before.

The lesson for the day ended and their homework was to find something to read or study involving Ussei and the life that surrounded all of them. Desh packed up his books and headed for the library which was just a block away. Usually he’d try and get his homework done there before returning home. Today, however, he also wanted to try and get some books on another subject. As he walked he kept thinking about Dosin’s small note on people offering prayers to Ankee when sick.

The city was known for its extensive library system. The buildings were scattered evenly through the city with smaller branches in each neighborhood. The bigger libraries tended to be closer to the center. The local library was, like his house, of moderate size. Unlike most buildings, this one was closed off from the sun to protect the books. Multiple windows let light into reading areas but the bookshelves were kept far away from these.

He approached the old woman who served as the librarian and asked if there were any books on Ankee worship. The woman looked down at him over her thin brass pince-nez.

“Such books are not kept in the smaller libraries. You’d have to go to one of the central libraries,” she said with an air of annoyance.

Desh was shocked. In all his years as a student never once had be denied a book. If the local library didn’t have a copy, they would usually have it brought in for you. “There’s no way to have it reserved and delivered?”

“No. Frankly you probably won’t be given access to it. Such books are often only given to those involved in higher academic levels.” She seemed pretty firm on the subject, so he asked for a book on Ussei instead and she gave him the location off hand before returning to her work organizing returns.

It struck him as odd that such books would be protected. Ankee was just another god, right? Was there something to his worshippers that was secret?

As he walked the aisles he passed by a mirror and took a moment to look at himself. Something seemed off about his reflection. It was wrong enough that he stopped and looked more closely at himself. His reflection seemed much older and his eyes had the tired look that his mother’s had. The hair was too long. Was he wearing a poncho? His hand reached up to touch his own face and he felt a weird sense of disconnection from the image.

Then he saw the shadowy creature shaped like a man standing behind him. He might not have seen him in the shadowy area of the bookshelves, but the man’s eyes were bright and filled with a sickly yellow light. It looked as if they were bleeding or leaking some sort of black oil down the man’s angry face. Desh felt a sudden surge of panic. He turned around quickly, half expecting the shadowy creature to be gone as if it was a figment of his imagination. It wasn’t though. It loomed over him and reached down to grab his shoulders. Desh tried to run but he couldn’t.

“Wake up boy,” the shadow said aggressively. Its fingers were strong and as cold as ice. It shook him aggressively as it lowered its angry black face to his.

Desh realized now he was reliving an old memory. He had been asleep this entire time. He understood with cold certainty that this was the dark spirit trapped inside him. Worse, his body was left undefended with the red man who had attacked him. Now, more than anything he wanted to wake up. Not just to get away from this dark creature but to also survive in the real world. He struggled in that cold grip and cried out.

“Wake up!” It screamed again. For one painfully long moment Desh thought he might not wake up. He worried that he might never wake up again.

Then, fortunately, he did.