2 Prologue : The Land of Nothing

Every ten winters, when the world was plunged into the abyss, people would whisper of the Dawaha (A/N : Semani people's concept of Satan/Devil), the origin of all evil. Some spoke of him as a black serpent with the head of a Na'bian dog (A/N : Na'bia is the sole desert on the Katra continent). Others thought him to be an Alhari giant of old, with indigo skin and red eyes (A/N: Alhari refers to the mythical kingdom of Alhara. This fantastical kingdom is found in the legends and folktales of the Semani people). The scholars of the Reznali court claimed that the Dawaha was the Nak'e (A/N : equivalent to abyss dragon. A legendary beast of Semani mythology) from the book of the Ancient Carnage; the winged black-scaled lizard who devoured the old gods and burnt down the heavens. The Kumatani of the Zaradate Temple (A/N : Priests and priestess of the Sema's focus of faith) preached that the Dawaha had no tangible form because they believed original evil to be a shapeless thing. But Yuer had met the Dawaha. He had neither indigo skin, nor red eyes. He had neither scales nor wings.

He was, in fact, a man, one with a face unlike any other. He had eyes with the most enchanting shade of blue. He had hair that seemed to be woven out of the threads of the sun itself. He had the clearest skin and the most gentle of smiles. But above all, he had a name. His name was Jarak Reznali. The pride of his clan and the Malhada of the Semani Empire (A/N : Malhada means Crown Prince). He was also a heinous creature with the most rotten of hearts. A thing far worse than a beast. He was the monstrosity that trampled all over Yuer's life and the lives of many others. He was his tormentor, his jailer and ultimately his murderer.

Yuer Ayaseen was a naive little thing. For most of his life, he was often told how blessed he was, a child born with the Alikana mark (A/N: The mark of those who are 'twice-blessed' by the Echo/magic. They are the rarest of the blessed and yield more than one Echo/magic attribute). He was a rare and a precious creature or so the Kumatani had him believe. Etched into his skin was the favor of the Mahatir, the All Mother (A/N : The Semani goddess). He was to be the bearer of small miracles and the bringer of fortune. The man whose earring he would wear would soar above all others. Thus, Yuer could only belong to Reznali blood (A/N : Imperial blood). If not to the Rezas himself, then to one of his children (A/N : Rezas means emperor is Semani). It was his destiny, his duty, they said.

His sire's consort, Akra, would often speak to Yuer of the many young men and women who would gladly give away their souls to the Dawaha, just to be able to bond into the Reznali (A/N : bond means marry in Semani culture). She would often speak of the riches, the dignity and the renown the Ayaseen clan would gain once he came of age and had his bonding ceremony. She would mention and re-mention to him that the Tewekaga of the Zaradate Temple had decreed his 'freedom' of choice and that no one had the right to coerce him to choose a Reznali over another.

Then, she would harp on about his 'choices', coloring her words with the bias and smug prejudice of the pompous Dasra (A/N : the Dasra are the noble class of Sema). The fourth Reznal; the fickle, harebrained drunkard. The third Reznal; the dull, weak-willed child of his concubine mother. The second Reznal; the disfigured and defective son of a Shefrin concubine. And then the first Reznal, Jarak the Malhada; the pride of his sire. The rising sun of the empire. That was what the Rezas nicknamed this golden eldest child of his. (A/N : Reznal means prince.)

Akra made it quite plain to him whom he must 'choose'. She had the strongest conviction in the assured bliss that awaited Yuer after bonding with the Malhada. But of course, she would think so. Once the current Rezas died, the Malhada would become the newly appointed Rezas and Yuer would no longer be a mere child of a Dasra household. Instead, he would become the official Rezna of the entire Semani Empire (A/N: Rezna means empress, except it is gender-neutral). That was, after all, all what his sire's Dasiri (A/N : Dasiri means the official spouse/consort of the clan's head) and the whole Ayaseen clan sought. He was to be the footstool upon which everyone else of his so-called blood would rise. More gold, more prestige, what else but these matters would be of value?

And like the ignorant child he was, he heeded her and spent the following seasons grooming himself for the Reznali harem Selection. Akra chose the Red Dawn for him to dance on the awaited day. She said it would be the most fitting dance to perform for the man designated as the rising sun of the land. And so for the Malhada, sixteen-summers old Yuer wasted days and nights, practicing every turn, every move and every spin. He danced on swollen and blistered feet; he danced until blood broke through the skin of his tender and swollen toes. He danced like the sacrificial lamb he was, on the altar of the one who would slaughter it.

The day eventually came and he danced for the golden beast. He laid his sash under his dais and kowtowed to him. That day, the doors to the Nrai, the hell of the living and the dead alike, opened up for the pitiful boy. What would follow would be a decade of humiliation and abuse. Underneath the golden Malhada's gentle smile laid fangs and a hollow world of pain. And Yuer was not alone in it.

The rest of the beast's harem and him suffered the brunt of the Malhada's sadism and sickness on a day-by-day basis. And being the stellar performer that he was, he made sure the charade of his generous character would not be unearthed. After entertaining himself on their expense, he would always remember to ask for the Rahadi to come and 'tend' to them with the healing power of their Light Echo (A/N : Light magic). He also had the Dark Listeners he planted within the Rahadi make sure they couldn't speak of a thing, or in the case of some of them, remember a thing at all (A/N : Dark Listeners means mages of the Darkness attribute, they can manipulate people mentally.)

The beast's favorite games involved blood-soaked kisses, red-hot daggers and hunting nightling hounds. He rejoiced in seeing his 'lambs' crumble beneath him, like paper dolls cut from their strings. He had it the worst for Yuer, because the boy was the best at playing 'special'. After all, that was what the one thing the Ayaseen house had taught to be. In this regard, he found the process of breaking Yuer to be the most enjoyable of sports. And break him, did he try. When he had enough of Yuer, he would threw him aside like a filthy piece of used, tattered cloth. At that point, Yuer receded so far into himself that nothing was able to touch him anymore.

Yuer couldn't clearly remember who was the first. Maybe, it was Kanja. The servants found her soaked in her own blood in the harem's bathhouse. The palace declared it an accident. She fell on her head while bathing and the hit killed her. Then it was Ran'e the male tribute concubine from Kersa (A/N :The Northernmost province of the Semani Empire). He hung himself they said. He was too jealous and his greed for the newly crowned Rezas's affection drove him mad.

Little by little, faces came and faces went until the time for Yuer's 'accident' befell him. The beast told the servants to dress him up in the finest garments they could find in the Reznali treasury. It had to be something befitting of the newly established Rezna, he said. Yuer was also gifted the most prized steed in the palace stables. The beast wanted it to be just two of them. It was a special occasion that must be celebrated, he declared. So, they went hunting.

The beast let loose his nightling hounds and Yuer run. The few last moments of his life were spent being feasted upon by the gnawing jaws of his murder's pets. It didn't take long for Yuer to fade. He wanted to fade. He had wanted it for a long time. At last, he did fade. Only to wake up and find himself there.

He was as naked as the day his concubine mother bore me. Beneath his bare feet, a wasteland stretched endlessly. The earth had the color of charred wood, black and scorched. The sky above him was died crimson. There was neither moon nor stars. The only thing he could glimpse in that barren land of nothing was one twisted, tormented tree. He walked toward it. The earth shifted beneath him with every step he took, like a living breathing thing. Once he drew close, he noticed how shriveled and dry the bark of the tree was. It was as withered as the rest of that place was; still dying despite being already dead. From within the sapless, wilting branches emerged a blood-red serpent. its long, supple body coiled around the trunk of the dying tree, choking it. It had empty sockets for eyes and some of its scales were missing. It bore its empty and sightless gaze into him.

"Is this the road to the Nrai?" He asked it, thinking that since this is the afterlife, anything, including a talking serpent, was within the realm of possibility.

"sssss--Not quite, young one." The serpent spoke, confirming what he suspected.

"Then, where am I? I died, didn't I?"

The serpent slithered across the branches, drawing closer to Yuer's face. "This is the land of nothing, child. In here, you are neither dead nor alive."

He furrowed his brows, "I don't understand. The Kumatani of the Mahatir never spoke of a serpent greeting the departed. Where is Ukurl, the coachman? Isn't he supposed to be the one to guide the souls into the afterlife?"

The serpent laughed in response to the young man's musings. It did genuinely laugh and Yuer did hear the echo of its laughter in his head. How bizarre, he thought.

"Is that what they tell you, child ? A faceless man with a steed as black as night dragging a carriage made of sand. He asks you to ride it and you follow him to wherever he leads you." Yuer understood that the serpent was able to project its thoughts into his head so he could hear them. The distinct tint of sarcasm in its words did not escape his notice.

"So… the Kumatani were wrong? Then…what about the Mahatir? Does she even exist?"

"The Mahatir…" The serpent pondered "I suppose she does exist in a way, a version of something that exists in many others versions. A different face of the many faces of the Great Void."

"The Great Void?" Yuer wondered, outloud. In his many years of Dasrari schooling and later, Reznali tutelage, he had never come across such a concept.

The serpent crawled down the tree, slithered across the blackened dirt and traveled up his scrawny naked body until it reached his neck. It coiled its cold, smooth body around his vulnerable throat and nape. The greeting touch of its forked tongue tingled against the skin of his cheek.

"Yes, child. If there is anything that would fulfill your image of what a god is, it would be the Great Void." and so it answered.

"I have never heard of it." Yuer lamented.

"It does not matter if you know of it or not. It had, has and will always be the source from which everything springs and to which everything returns. The Echo that your people speak of, its attributes, its marks, its blessings and the power that resides within them. All of that is of the Great Void." The serpentd added, "Do you see those empty eyes of mine? They are, in a way, a fragment of the Great Void and now you shall look deep into them". The tone of the serpent's speech took an imposing inflection. And Yuer, as if hypnotized, found himself obeying its wishes, unable to tear his gaze away from its hollow eyes.

"Now child, you shall open your mouth and swallow me whole. The Great Void shall decide its verdict."

He felt it keenly, the moment he lost control of this ghost body of his. His mouth pried itself open, without his consent. The red serpent didn't wait a moment longer and burrowed its head into the opening and continued to slide down Yuer's throat. He thought he would choke and die but then he realized he was already dead.

The moment that thought occurred to him, the sense of panic and fear Yuer had been repressing so far dissipated as if they were made of mist. A strange, foreign sense of calm blanketed his entire being. He could no longer feel the serpent wriggling its way down his insides. Just as Yuer had braced himself to be greeted into the true Nrai, a voice spoke to him in his head, the echo of its words resounding across his mind like ripples across water, "The verdict has been decided and you shall accept it. Mortal child of the Great Void, do not waste what shan't be given to you again."

The resonance of the serpent's voice had not yet dispersed before Yuer was mentally assaulted by images. They played before his eyes like fragments of an open-air drama performance. He saw the second Reznal, Ivak of Kersa, stumbling upon his dead body in the hunting grounds some days later. The blacked-haired Reznal didn't appear to know to whom those remains belonged and yet he still took them and rode his steed into the edge of the capital, carrying them along. He laid them gently on a piece of a ceremonial cloth. He lit them afire and prayed for their owner in silence. Once the remains turned into ash, he gathered it within the cloth and scattered it into the open, warm air of the Sun Plains.

The images shifted and Yuer saw the third Reznal, Mayir, wailing like a wretched widow, as he drove a dagger into his own heart. He saw the fourth Reznal, Sinrad, painted in filth and blood. His emaciated body nailed in chains to a dungeon wall. Yuer saw a crying infant being ducked into water in the dark of the night. He saw the ghost of the late Rezas, pacing across the Festivity Hall.

And then Yuer saw him again, Ivak of Kersa. A cloud of dark, inky mist clang to him like an extension of his body. The dark miasma so thick that it drained the life out of everything it touched. So many bodies were laid underneath his feet. Piles upon piles of blackened and shriveled corpses. Madness took hold in his now blood-colored eyes. The twisted and burnt skin of his face swiveled and pulsed. Strange black markings quivered against his damaged skin in strange, eerie hues. In his hand, he held the severed head of his brother; the current Rezas, the golden beast, Yuer's murderer.

Then he saw the entire Empire of Sema, bathed in flame and black mist. Tendons of darkness slowly crept across the land and eventually eclipsed the whole Katra continent, plunging it into endless night, just like the day the world birthed the Dawaha.

It seemed like the end of time and the beginning of the perpetual nothing. Yuer glimpsed Ivak of Kersa one last time. The latter appeared as a distant, lone and mad figure roaming a nightmare, eating away the world like a gate of an infinite abyss. Although the dead Yuer knew he was nothing but a spirit, his tired heart still ached at the sorry scene. It ached for himself, for the lost man before his eyes.

Moments or maybe ages later, the barrage of images stopped and everything simply went black.