Other city residents huddled in doorways, given over to despair, waiting the inevitability of their own destruction, clinging weeping to one another, or staring towards the Centre, whence the Darkness was coming.
From the Time Before Time legends about the Final End had persisted, but these stories were seen as nothing more than metaphors, cautionary tales with which the Elders might teach children so they could contribute usefully to the People during this particular Endurance.
It was said that some Elders had repeated the Endurance so many times that they remembered bits and pieces of previous incarnations and had begun to piece together the plan of everything in the world. It was even whispered that some had ventured into the realms of madness – known as the ‘Other Places’ or ‘the Outside’ – or even to the edge of the Void, and returned, but few credited such reports as anything other than tall tales.
The People rejoiced in their Existence and their Endurance, and when their personal end came they knew it was no more than an interruption of the Eternal Journey.
But what they faced now was the Final End, the termination of the Eternal Journey, and no words existed to express the terror and anguish that assailed them.
The female pushed through a knot of the People clustered at an intersection in the centre of the city’s Eastern Canton. Some had come to seek the Sunrise Gate but having come here did not seem to know what to do next.
Nothing in the history of the People had prepared them for the Darkness.
The mother looked down at her child, who clutched her robe with delicate claws, her black eyes enormous in the still-tiny face. ‘My child,’ she whispered, and although the screams and cries from those surrounding them drowned out the sound, the child saw her mother’s lips move and understood. She smiled at her mother, showing rapidly growing fangs. Her baby skin had already sloughed off and her first set of scales were visible. If she could feed her, her mother thought, she would grow quickly and would be better able to flee.
‘But flee where?’
East.
Out of the gate to the Quartz Mountains and through the Valley of Flame, then on to the Kingdom’s boundary. It was rumoured that others had found safety in the Kingdom of Ma’har, to the south, where age-old enmities had been put aside in the face of the common terror.
The mother elbowed her way through the press, sensing more than seeing that a fight had erupted to the north. Ancient perceptions, buried under civilized training, rose to the surface to aid her and the child. Along with them rose ancient hungers, appetites for the flesh of something more substantial than the lesser animals the King had decreed would form their sustenance. Soon the People would become like the Mad Ones, struggling for survival by devouring one another. She sensed that several threats were converging, threats that would soon turn into feeding frenzies, and she knew that to be caught up in one of those would be her doom or the child’s, or both.
She chanced a brief look back and as she had suspected, claws were being wielded and fangs were dripping blood. A feeding frenzy would soon sweep through this area of the city and even with her child’s life in the balance, she could easily be caught up in it. Neither of them had fed in a very long time.
A few Guardians not detailed to delay the onslaught were quickly intervening, their flaming swords rising and falling, dispatching not only those involved in the nascent frenzy but also those unfortunate enough to be slow in departing.
She turned and fled.
Once, like so many who lived in the city, she had marvelled at the splendour of the King and his Guardians. They were magnificent in their armour, their terrible beauty a source of fear and breeding lust. It was forbidden for a Guardian to breed, but that didn’t still a young female’s desire when they flew by, their massive red wings unfurled, eyes blazing as they sought out any source of discord which might break the King’s peace.
Now, she wondered how anyone could gaze back at the all-consuming Darkness and imagine any part of the realm enjoying the King’s peace.
She hurried on to join a press of frightened citizens making their way through the Sunrise Gate, the eastern entrance to the King’s city. The jostling and bumping threatened to turn into fights, and fights would turn into frenzies. She felt her fear and rage rising. Glancing down at the child she found its eyes studying her face. It seemed to see more, know more, than a baby should.
The streets running eastward were becoming ever more crowded as others sought to put as much distance between themselves and the coming Final End. She turned down a back alley, running past two males who appeared to be on the verge of conflict, the energy generated by one’s mounting rage acting like a beacon to others nearby. Within minutes another melee would erupt, drawing the attention of the Guardians; and then yet more lives would be lost.
Part of her wondered, as she ducked around a corner, if there was any point in trying to maintain order in the face of the Final End anyway, especially now that the King was gone. Those Guardians left behind were attempting to keep the peace, but to what end?
Everyone lived and died by the King’s edict: his word was law, which was how it was and always had been.
Thus had the Kingdom of Dahun flourished through many Endurances, and Existence was as it should be. The People thrived, at peace with the other kingdoms, safe from the predations of the Savage Ones and the Mad Ones beyond.
But now he was gone.
She found herself assailed by a rising hopelessness, an alien emotion for which she had no name. Suddenly she wondered why she should go on, whether there was anything to gain by it. And then her child stirred against her, and she knew the answer.
The child was hungry. And so was she.
She spoke her own name, ‘Lair’ss,’ as if she wished her child to remember it. So much left undone, she thought as she hurried on.
With the King gone no one could say what would become of the People now that the Final End was approaching, but she was determined to see her child to safety or die trying.
When she reached the wall, she saw the stairs to the ramparts were empty, so she climbed to get a better view of the gate. As she had feared, riots were underway everywhere as terrified people tried to leave, but the remaining Guardians at the gate held them back. No one could leave the city without the King’s writ; and the King was gone. She paused, fearful and undecided.
She turned and looked down on the city of her birth: Das’taas. It had been a place of terrifying majesty, and although it was never truly at rest, it had gradually achieved a state of equipoise, a state almost approaching tranquillity. While the People would never be without their impulses towards bloody violence and destruction, the King and his Guardians had managed to keep it to a minimum, even though there were many with ancient memories which stretched back to the Time Before Time, when the People had lived like the Savages and the Mad Ones; when every individual had been spawned in the birth pits, creatures of frantic need and limited power. Strength had been earned and the price had been bloody. Child had eaten child and the victor had emerged stronger, smarter and more cunning. The subsequent battles were never-ending.
Then Dahun had arisen, as had Maarg, Simote and others, each carving out their empires. Of all these rulers, Dahun had moved farthest from the madness and savagery that marked the People. But his most bitter enemy, Maarg, had been more like the Mad Ones during his rule. Dahun had instituted laws and created the Guardians and the majesty of the People had reached its highest expression, seeking to evolve them in a way unknown before. In the end, Maarg had created a realm in which the chaos of the Mad Ones had been contained, channelled, and used to build a meritocracy, in which merit was defined by strength, cunning, and the ability to recruit allies, vassals, and protectors.
All this Lair’ss knew: her memories, and those of others, flowed through her as