City of the Sun and Moon

A thousand miles to the south of Kragov lies a culture undreamed of…

In today’s installment, a flavor text from the country of Turog, far to the south of Kragov and its neighbor Walakia.

Turog is a country of shifting sands and loyalties, crushing poverty and cruel wealth, illusion, power, and above it all - the mysterious Exalted.

See a brief look at its capital city’s “Bronze Ward” through the eyes of Rafe, a ruthless young criminal.

And as always…keep your blades sharp.

-Castle Grief

The sun was just breaking the horizon, a colossal red monster being birthed into the world once again, only the flaming crown of its head showing, but rising, as certain as tax and poverty.

Its light slowly reddened the sprawling buildings, tents, temples and markets of the Brass Ward, like blood spreading from a murder victim, many of whom would surely be discovered by the Palladium this morning in the twisting alleys, tangled streets and the filthy tunnels of the Undercity.

From his perch high up the side of the Tower of the Unmerciful Father, Rafe could see half the Ward - people all going about their morning business like insects there below him. In the wide Street of Indulgences, a small knot of sadhus were collecting alms and putting corpses on their ramshackle cart. Gold sparkled in the noses and face chains of merchants as they oversaw their wares on wagons and pack animals, four legged or two. All must bear the weight for their master.

In the soft dust of an empty lot near the Undying Rose, he could see a gang of wrestlers performing their morning stretches and exercises as they prepared to worship Maru with their exertions, blessing those who walked past with their sweat.

Clouds of sweet smelling smoke poured from the incense chambers at the top of the House of Our Gentle Mother, offerings to her estranged husband, whose time it now was for dominion over the city.

And here, just below the Tower, Rafe could see his own small piece of the Brass Ward, called Headsman Square by the locals. Tiny. Insignificant. But, at just 19, he had taken it by the edge of his springblade, and the cunning of his mind’s thoughts.

He came up here to look at the rest of the Ward, every morning, as the Unmerciful Father rose over Daryada, the City of the Sun and Moon - because one day, he knew, this whole Ward would be his, and he would bear the title of Princeps of the Brass Ward.

From there, who knew?

Perhaps he would become like Pashim, the thief prince of old, so famous for his exploits that he was treated by the city as a sort of hero. It was even said that one of the Exalted had taken him for a lover, and that he spent his nights in the pleasure gardens of Acanthus.

Rafe’s eyes moved from the nearby sights to the far distance. The dust and sunlight obscured everything into a shimmering bronze and brown, a haze of heat that made outlines dance and writhe like one of the well-oiled whores of The Flesh Emporiums - but there it was. Far beyond the walls of his own Ward, and past the rising streets of the Middle City, and the Emerald Quarter, up, up the side of the stone pinnacle. From this distance nothing could be made out but a tall, graceful finger of rock that from here seemed too slender to stand of its own strength.

He had never been out of the Ward, but those fortunate enough to travel the city freely had brought back stories for as long as the Brass Ward had stood, telling them of the palaces of Acanthus, the high homes of the Exalted who ruled over Daryada and the blood-soaked warring kingdoms and caliphates for thousands of miles around it.

Once, as a child, Rafe had seen them.

Living statuary of great height, moving as though in a dream, shining like the sun and stars who were their gods, with golden armor glaring blindingly bright and elaborate masks obscuring their faces. They rode no beasts, but walked gracefully, alabaster feet caressing the stones and dust. Surrounded by their elite guard, all in the armor and clothing style of their masters.

He remembered how they had looked around themselves, smoke billowing from the mouths and eyes of their cruelly sharp masks, slowly, impassively, as though observing an anthill.

He had screamed once as the killing began, and then ran. He had climbed up here, his hiding spot since he was a child, fearless of the heights and uncertain handholds since he had been old enough to climb.

The entire Headsman’s Square had been put to death, although they didn’t call it that back then. It was named for the statue of the Exalted that stood in its center. Someone had removed its head and painted the word “Defiance,” in the old tongue on its base, and the head had been placed next to the tall and elegant statue.

The next day, they had come, and the streets had greedily drank the blood of his mother and father, and his little sister, and everyone else living there.

He had watched with tears and smoke stinging his eyes as the sadhu burned them all in a great ghat on the Hill of Bones, saw the silent holy men thoughtfully chewing on the flesh of the cremated as the rite went on for three days. 

There was nothing to be done.

In the days following, other people had moved into the pitifully small house owned by his family, and he was forced to live in the streets. For those years he had stolen, or helped the sadhu move corpses, and they would sometimes give him food, as they only ate the flesh of the dead, as a rememberance, and did not need the sustenance that others took from fruit or from meat.

They showed him strange constellations, and he learned of the gods of the old people, and the One Who Dwells Behind the Sun, and took strange drugs with them and howled their worldless songs of praise to that nameless god who takes the souls of the dead to his palace as the black smoke of their bodies. 

He made friends with the worshipers of Maru, and trained with them every morning and afternoon, in between his other work, and learned to wrestle well, and heard the songs of Maru, who fights against the cruel and the unjust, and loves the common man and the strength of the body.

He met Anjo, and his life changed from one of scavenging and wandering the Ward without a purpose to one that understood the value of a dream, and of ambition. Working for Anjo’s troop with his other youths, he learned the worth of the daram, the coin of the city, and its pleasures and power. He learned the use and the style of fighting with the springblade, and bore its scars in battles for coin and position. He learned how to promise girls the world, and to make them love him, to show them a way out of poverty that only led to another kind, and in three years he had been appointed as whoremaster of Anjo’s troop.

Rafe had changed his dress from rags to well-made clothes in the new fashion, with a purple silk sash showing his station, and nearly every girl of a working age in Headsman’s Square was under his employ. He grew his beard short and sharp, and wore a thick earring in his right ear, and another in his nostril, and his fingernails were clean and long, in the style of the position.

He wore his hair cropped short, to show both his ruined ears, battered from street fighting and wrestling, and to leave the many scars on his head and face on display, badges of his time battling for every daram. Nothing had been given to him, and when he had seen his chance, he had taken control of the troop. He had stood on the Hill of Bones and eaten a sliver of Anjo’s flesh to remember all his lessons, and especially his most important, as he watched his black smoke go to the Hungry God:

“Power goes to the ruthless. The narcosis of love or friendship is for the common. Power is our only drug, Rafe, the only one that will blacken our eyes and quicken our pulse. And power, like a beautiful woman, must be taken by the strong, and guarded jealously.”

Now, as he watched his troop from high above, as they moved into Headsman’s Square, and outward from there - cutthroats, purse-slitters, prostitutes, child-thieves, and sellers of leaf and powder - he smiled.

In a year, all of the Brass Ward would be his.