RULES AND THE ASPECT: THE FIVE SECRETS

Darkness

As soon as the Galoran king was out of sight, Sukkra Lasair turned and started the walk back to his tent. He had been expecting Goron to show up, just not alone. I suppose one disrespect deserves another in response – we did invade his lands afterall, he thought.

"He could have killed you, and quite a few more of us if he was reckless enough," Rolin said, moving up to keep pace with the supreme ruler. Rolin was second only to the Sukkra in all military matters.

"Yes, my friend!" the Sukkra breathed. "Exciting, isn't it!" He flashed Rolin a full-toothed grin. "I mean, the chance of that happening was significantly low, but there was still the possibility that he would have succumbed to his passions and ripped through the lot of us." The Sukkra continued to grin, but then he stopped walking and turned to place a white gloved hand on Rolin's shoulder. "Do you see it, my friend? The End? Each event leading up to the next, and the next, on and on." He shivered from exhilaration "Stay alive long enough Rolin, and you will be very entertained." His grey eyes reflected the thrill of the moment...or were just crazy as he turned and continued to walk, leaving Rolin in stunned silence.

Sukkra Lasair had learned an approximate location of the first secret from the shivak, and having seized the initiative, the Sel army had bought themselves a few very valuable days to locate and retrieve the Broken Slate. However, the land mass to scour was still quite massive, which was why the Sukkra had brought twenty thousand for the purpose of digging up a relic no bigger than a wheel barrow. Well that, and to draw out the Gourama and anyone else that could interfere with the durat-en mission.

The shivak, a special unit founded over a hundred years ago by the then Sukkra for the purpose of studying and understanding everything extraordinary that may gain or deny the Sukkra any advantage, had had the fifth secret in their possession since it was given to Selmerdina by Ynsolwine at the end of the last war. They had studied it, and they had learned from it, the dark arts.

The shivak operated outside of Selmerdina's military. They had eyes and ears reaching far and wide throughout Heres. A source in the Shelangri market had revealed to them the time and location of the Galoran Consecration, and it hadn't come cheap. The durat-en had then received instructions; on the morrow, they were to proceed, and most importantly, not fail.

Sukkra Lasair moved a flap aside and walked into his tent.

"Welcome, supreme ruler," he heard a voice say as he entered. It was as the sound of wind whistling through a hollow wooden bulk, accompanied in the background by the sound of swishing water.

Without breaking stride, "Kezir, I presume?" the Sukkra asked as he walked to a pitcher on a table and poured himself a cup of blue wine.

"Indeed, Your Supremacy," the figure responded from the shadows, "your sharpness is most impressive."

"My authority is even more so, Kezir. I forbid you to conceal yourself in my presence." The weight of the Sukkra's words carried, though they were spoken casually.

"Durat semal soridal, Sukkra..."

"Are we not alone?" the Sukkra interjected impatiently between sips. "Would you reveal yourself otherwise?" His eyes remained locked onto the position of the dark form.

The figure in the shadows stepped forward. Having the appearance of being completely shrouded in an utterly black mist, Kezir reached both hands up and pulled back a hood. This motion was apparent because the black mist simultaneously dispersed, revealing a person in a deep red robe. Kezir's eyes were black –even the whites– and a network of protruding blood vessels extended from the corners of those eyes, and faded into the smoothness on both sides of a pale hairless scalp. Kezir stood half a head shorter than the Sukkra, two paces away. Head bowed, featureless hands linked in front such that they disappeared between the sleeves of the robe, "Moreshe Sukkra," Kezir said, in deference to the supreme ruler.

"Why have you come, Kezir?"

"Another one has been brought in. Her parents had been hiding her unconscious body for nineteen days. Fortunately, a neighbor desiring a reward, secretly notified the public office of the shivak. We may have an exact location within three days."

"Excellent!" The Sukkra pulled a wooden armchair to the center of the tent and sat in it, facing the entrance to the tent. "Is she awake yet?"

"Supreme ruler, this one is different. The girl awoke a day after an incursion by patrol guards into her father's house where she was found laid up in a back room. She has been with us three days now, and has been awake for two. Breaking her is taking...longer."

"Out with it, Kezir," the sukkra said, lowering his cup.

"She seems to be somewhat able to manipulate the progression of time, and using that power to protect her mind, she endures. If the Tenauri have a trained priestess with that ability, it would be a terrible inconvenience."

"She is of no value to us if we cannot break her," Sukkra Lasair said, dismissively. "All of it, fate, gods, priestesses, they all exist for my enjoyment," he said, smiling and sipping from his cup. In a blink, before the cup left Sukkra Lasair's lips, Kezir was gone.

*****

Dalan, the smith's boy, eagerly watched the Sukkra's procession. He admired the Sukkra immensely and would that he were worthy from birth to be a potential ruler candidate. Word of the Sukkra's arrival had spread throughout the capital along with news of the current war status with Galora, and potentially, the other four major kingdoms.

"If only Keri were here, Dalan," said Fiurra as her eyes misted over.

"Come now Fiurra, don't cry. Keri's just sick. She'll get better. Remember when Illa got sick and they took her?"

The little Fiurra nodded, blinking away tears. Dalan's younger sister was her closest friend. They had both marked their ninth in the later part of the past year. "She got better," Fiurra said, sniffling.

"That's right. She got better and they brought her back. So save the tears and stories for when she gets back. Here, take my hand. We're going up on the roof for a better view."

That made Fiurra perk up some. She had been counting the days since Keri's collapse. Twenty-seven days since her friend suddenly started crying in the middle of a game of bica, and pressing her small palms to her ears. The frightened Fiurra had run off to get Keri's papa when the crying suddenly ceased and her friend fell freely to the floor.

"Fiurra, look!" she heard the excited Dalan say.

They had run up a flight of stone steps and could see the entire parade of vorgen riders. Fiurra had learned that vorgen were horses with bull's horns. They were war horses. From up on the roof two buildings away from the procession route, Fiurra could see not just the white procession, but also the masses that lined the roads, cheering and bearing witness to the Sukkra's return, and the secret with him.

Meanwhile, leather-strapped to a stone platform in a torch-lit underground room of the main shivak building, Keri continued to resist waves of psychological attacks from the fifth secret, Darkness. Her eyes wide open, glowed black, and the room pulsed rhythmically, ever so slightly as she stared down her relentless invisible adversary.