Daughter of the Sun - Ch. 01

Sir Lothar Reeves - that was his name - former Commander of the Sun's Guard, had in fact been surprised in the middle of a sexual intercourse with a subordinate woman of the Guard, just few days before the Royal wedding with Hailey. This unfortunate fact had cost him his rank, his position in the Royal court, his marriage with Hailey and his elevation to the title of Grand Duke.

For many months, Eluan had witnessed a literal procession of various characters coming to the court of Syfall with the hope of winning Hailey's heart. Some of them offered military alliances, others gold or trade treaties. Minor nobles or knights tried to conquer it by extolling their honorable virtues. Others, reckless adventurers, tried to seduce her with poetry or by shamelessly proposing as if in front of them there was a simple village girl. And others came up with even more bizarre proposals.

The fat lord of Thorthenam, a remote outpost in the far north, father of over hundred sons, had promised Hailey to make her the mother of over twenty children thanks to his extraordinary fertility. A nomadic chief from the eastern steppes had offered to buy her in exchange for a herd of a thousand horses. Most of the suitors had been treated with the due honor and respect, others, the more arrogant or inappropriate ones, had been brutally thrown out of the Hall. In any case all of them had been refused by the Queen without a second thought.

But, unexpectedly, it was a woman who showed up with the most shocking offer of all, the one which had remained most impressed in Eluan's mind. An emissary of the Empress of Yzca, a distant Kingdom on the western continent of Antaros, on the other side of the ocean, had presented one day in a crowded Throne Hall.

Her name was something intricate and unpronounceable, like the one of the Empress who had sent her; in Eluan's memories therefore, she had remained simply as "the Golden Woman". Her only garment was a sort of large, golden headdress, adorned with long peacock feathers that spread out like a fan. On her naked body she wore absolutely nothing, except for a layer of golden paint that covered her entirely from head to toe, and which gave her the appearance, at the same time disturbing and fascinating, of a living sculpture.

The exotic emissary didn't offer any political, military or economical advantage of sort; Instead, she had openly tried to seduce Hailey through the promise of the incredible pleasures that would await her, would her have decided to accept the proposal.

"A thousand women" she had begun, her deep, sonorous voice filling the room, immediately binding the attention of the crowd like a magnet "live in the Divine Palace of the Empress, Goddess of the Goddesses. Their sweet sighs, delight and pleasure for the ears of the mortals, fill the halls and hallways day and night. Slaves they are, and devoted wives of the Goddess. But, more honored and revered than Queens themselves they are."

As she spoke, the Golden Woman had advanced slowly along the thick carpet of the hall, moving her naked body with a swaying, serpentine grace, her dark, penetrating eyes fixated intensely on the blue ones of the Queen, who had stared at her motionless, paralyzed, as if under the effect of a spell. When the Golden Woman spoke again, her tone was something in between a pleading and a command.

"My Mistress, Goddess and Sovereign calls for you, Hailey Val Lumenar, Daughter of the Sun, first among the women. Accept, I pray to you, the honor of Her divine gift. Lay down your crown and robe, here and now, step up and descend from your throne, naked and barefoot, and follow me toward a life of endless, heavenly servitude" she had concluded ceremoniously in the astonished silence of the Throne room, prostrating herself and touching with her forehead the floor at Hailey's feet.

Eluan had remained fascinated to listen to the persuasive voice and the honeyed words that flowed from the lips of that enchanting golden creature, and she had knew for sure that if those words had been addressed to her she would have accepted without hesitation, stripping herself naked in front of the entire court in order to follow that woman towards the life of unspeakable pleasures that would await her on the other side of the ocean.

Turning her eyes towards her sister, Eluan had realized that the flattery of the golden woman had touched something deep into her mind too. Hailey's beautiful face was flushed with blush, her hands gripping the arms of the throne as hard as they could, trembling. Later on, she had confessed to the younger sister how that has been the most difficult proposal to refuse.

"I don't believe I will ever marry with any man, regardless of how much good he may be or how great could be the political advantage that the marriage may bring" Hailey had said another day to her sister, just after having refused another proposal. "Which means, my dear Eluan, that the duty of propagating the House of Val Lumenar will fall upon you. Or upon Iulia, may the Sun Goddess always protect her."

Niece of Hailey and Eluan, at nineteen Iulia was the youngest of the three still living members of the Val Lumenar family, the only daughter of the late Princess Emily, their older sister, who died prematurely and tragically on the battle field four years ago, at only thirty-nine.

The incessant flow of suitors had continued for almost a year, until one day Hailey showed up in the Throne room and made an announcement that took everyone present by surprise: Darya D'Agatos, appointed as new commander of the Sun's Guard after the dismissal of Sir Lothar Reeves, would have been known from now on as her official fiancée and lover, and from that day no further marriage proposals would have been considered.

An astonished silence had descended on the room at that announcement, but no one had dared to question the Queen's choice. Never like that day, Eluan had felt such a strong admiration for Hailey, an admiration and respect that inextricably made her to feel connected to her sister.

***

"Please, sit down" said the Queen to the two women once they were entered, indicating a pair of armchairs near to the bed.

"What happens, sister?" Eluan couldn't prevent herself from asking. "You look terribly concerned."

Before answering, Hailey waited for the two women to take their seats in front of her. When she began to speak, her voice sounded low and distant.

"I still had that dream" Hailey began to say. "The same, exact, identical dream that I'm having since the day we arrived at the Tower, three days ago. There was a great, terrible army marching all over the continent, destroying, killing and enslaving everything and everybody along its path."

She paused for a moment, thoughtful, as if hesitant to provide further details.

"It was an army of chaos, made entirely of wild and ferocious women, fighting without shields nor armors and with merely staves and stones as weapons" she continued. "But they were so ferocious, so frenzied that they could easily overwhelm whole armies of soldiers in armor. No one seemed able to stop their march. In their fury they were burning cities and villages, destroying crops, deporting women as slaves. And, at the head of such all destruction, there was the darkest of all creatures, a demonic being made of the pure essence of evil."

"A dream may just be simply a dream" tried to venture Eluan, feeling in the stomach the grip of the fear at the thought of the obscure images conjured by her sister's vision. "Or a nightmare, in this case; it may does not have necessarily any actual meaning."

"No. It definitely does have an actual meaning" Hailey replied in a harder voice, as if her sister's words sounded just as a childish and annoying remark. "And a very concerning one. Praja and I discussed for long on this, and we are both in agreement; such a vivid dream, every single time so perfectly identical, for three consecutive nights, cannot be just a mere coincidence. This is clearly a message that the Sun Goddess Herself intends to send me, for the sake of our personal safety and for the safety of our land. Praja and I strongly believe that She intends to warn us about how a grave danger looms over us all, and that we must prepare ourselves to face it."

"But who would be this enemy you have seen, leading such terrible armies?" Darya asked.

"In the language of the savage tribes of Gloomdor, he is known as Ml'aal Azul" Praja replied calmly, and for some unexplainable reason Eluan felt the muscles in her body tensing at the very sound of those dark words. "In our language, this is a title that can be translated approximately as Night Lord. He is the incarnation of one of the four primordial aberration of the cosmos; descendant of the evil seed of Nargom, perverted practitioner of the blackest sexual magic, capable to penetrate into the dreams and to subdue the minds of his victims to his will."

Before continuing, Praja placed her cup of tea on a table. The silence which had descended in the room was so intense that the simple sound of ceramic lightly touching the wood seemed to rumble for a moment like thunder.

"The description which Hailey has provided me with such a detail matches perfectly with his known appearance in lore and legends" continued the sorceress. "And at the same time it is very well known how the Sun Goddess can in case of need communicate directly with the Queens of the Val Lumenar dynasty though visions and premonitory dreams. We both believe that the Night Lord has manifested himself in this world and is now preparing to attack our land, in his perpetual, insatiable desire to enslave us all."

At that moment Eluan was at the point of feeling faint from fear. The idea of their life and freedom being threatened by such a powerful, otherworldly enemy was something her young mind couldn't handle.

The myth of Nargom was well known. The ancient deity of Chaos, evil brother of An, the God of the Order who generated the twelve Goddesses, who had afterward created the Universe. Legends told of how Nargom's unbridled lust was ignited by the sight of the naked bodies of the Goddesses and how he tried to grab them and reduce them to his power. Terrified, the Goddesses tried to escape by diving into the physical world, but four of them were ensnared by Nargom's tentacles, perverted by his power, and became his slaves. By uniting with Nargom, each of the Goddesses gave birth to an abominable being, the four aberrations.

"We cannot stay here any longer" said Hailey with a firm decision in her voice. "I was hoping we could may have been blessed with many other days of peace and tranquility here, but if the Night Lord is really preparing to attack us then it is my duty to return to Syfall and to organize the defenses immediately."

"We are ready to leave whenever you wish" said Darya, promptly jumping on her feet.

"Yes, but you and Eluan are not going to come with me" Hailey replied quite surprisingly, as she climbed down of the bed and walked barefoot toward a small round table near to the open window, its surface covered by papers and writing materials. "I have an equally important task for the two of you."

She took a couple of enveloped letters, each one closed with her personal seal, a shining solar disk surmounted by a royal crown.

"Here, take these. I wrote them tonight, after I woke up from my nightmare" she said, handing the first of the two letters over to Darya "Both of you will have to ride west and take these letters to the Duchesses of the cities of Vinevris and Hadun. The letters contain the detailed explanation of my dreams and a request for both the Duchesses to come immediately to Syfall to host a war council, bringing part of their armies with them."

"Darya, I ask you to go to Lady Dasha of Vinevris" continued the Queen. "You were part of her court once, and you know her better than any other of us do; I believe she would be more inclined to believe to my words if they are coming through your trusted intermediation."

For a second, Eluan thought to have noticed a slight tremor in Darya's body at the mention of the name of Lady Dasha; but it was a only for a brief moment, and Eluan decided to not pay further attention to the thing, as her sister turned now to her.

"As for you, Eluan, you will go further to the west, to the court of Lady Sung in Hadun, on the Isle of the Lotus. It is a far longer journey, I know, but I count on your swiftness to have it completed quickly. You will then both join me and Praja in Syfall as soon as possible, hopefully bringing with you all the allied armies you can."

Despite the tension and the incumbent sense of urgency, Eluan couldn't help but feel exhilarated by the mission that had just been assigned to her. It was the first time that her sister had entrusted her with such an important official task, and this would have meant also the first opportunity for her to travel so far from the capital. She had never visited Hadun, nor the remote Isle of the Lotus, and the prospect of being finally able to make such a journey filled her with overwhelming enthusiasm.

"We will be on our way within an hour" Darya said. "Just the time to equip ourselves and take some supplies for the trip. Do not be concerned, my Queen, we will bring to you all the allied forces that you ask."

"I agree, sister" added Eluan, posing her hand on Hailey's, feeling the wish of comfort her in some way. "Count on us for this."

For a moment, the concerned expression disappeared from the face of the Queen of Syfall, as a smile, so full of love and gratitude, enlightened again her face, her radiance making her appear for a moment as the incarnation of the Goddess Herself.

"My deepest thanks, my dears" she said. "I'm so grateful to the Goddess for having such wonderful friends by my side."

She leaned forward to affectionately kiss both Eluan and Darya on their cheeks. Also Praja had now raised and approached the others, and for long moments the four women were close together, standing silently in the middle of the room, almost in an embrace, enjoying the feeling of connection which they were sharing between themselves.

"Now go, my beloved ones" said Hailey, eventually breaking that magic moment of silence. "With the blessing of the Goddesses we will meet again soon. May the Sun Goddess enlighten your way and protect you along your journey."