Dark Come Soon – A Dark Sun novel

This is a short story I wrote to prepare myself for running my portion of the Dark Sun campaign for Dungeons and Dragons.

Chapter I – You went away

Fear wasn’t something that the citizens of Urik were very familiar with. While other city-states lived in quiet distrust of their patron sorcerer king, Urikites willingly trusted in Hamanu and his Code of Laws. King Hamanu loved his people and he knew that without his citizens, he would be nothing. It was a symbiotic relationship where the citizenry needed his protection and he needed them to still feel his humanity. There were many words to describe it, but undernearth all of them, at the core of it all, was a word that was so unfamiliar on the world of Athas that many a tongue had never used it: love.

What else but love could prompt Hamanu to form the grandest military that Athas has ever seen? The Templars of Urik are the lifeblood of the city. Protectors of the weak, enforcers of the Code of Laws, and soldiers in the strongest military in the entire world, the Templars were everything to Urik. In cloaks of yellow, the Templars patrol the streets ensuring the citizenry would be safe, but nothing could prepare them for the hell that was coming.

Rumors began to circulate. Some say it started in the Foreign Quarter, others believe it began in the Old District. Truly though, no one really knew where they first heard the news and it was never entirely clear on who really knew what was happening. Every story seemed to begin, “A friend of mine knew this person . . . ” And on and on it spread. No matter what details were put into the rumors, one detail was always clear: Plague had come to Urik.

Of course, no one had actually seen anyone afflicted with the plague, but everyone had heard it from a reliable source. Still, the death count was constantly in flux. Some days, the count was in the twenties, other days it would boost to a hundred or so, and then drop the next to only a dozen. Truly, no one knew anything except that it hadn’t afflicted anyone important. No one of worth. It was a plague that only effected statistics, not real people. Sure, the numbers were still there, but they were nameless and faceless. They were easily ignored. Everyone could go about their lives like normal and while the rumors would persist, no one would really mind because surely the plague would never directly effect them.

——

Magda Gideon lies paralyzed and dying in the bedroom of her modest home. The wife of law enforcement Templar named Praetor Gideon, Magda is dying in a most unique way; where most people of Athas will meet an untimely end in the desert wastes of a dying planet, Magda is afforded the luxury of her home and the company of her loving son, Kravia. Her breath is shallow and her eyes are vacant as she stares at the ceiling.

Kravia kisses her palm and feels the sting of a tear as it slowly crawls down his cheek. “Please,” is all he says, but he does not know why or to whom. Perhaps he is begging her to not leave him – as if she has any say in the matter. Perhaps it’s a one word prayer to the gods – gods who have been gone centuries before he was born; an empty gesture that is somehow still ingrained in the souls of the living, a tradition that is as useless as it is foolish. Whatever the purpose, it’s a purposeless word that gives away the boy’s immaturity.

Magda had loved her son more than anything in this miserable world. His existence was proof that life could still go on even in the wastes of Athas. He was a symbol of hope in a world where almost all hope was lost. When he was a baby, she wondered what he would become. On good days, she imagined him in fields of green as a cool breeze brushed his face; a stupid fantasy. On bad days, she saw him as a slave indebted to a sorcerer king. On the worst days, she imagined no future at all for the worst thoughts always surrounded nothingness. Not a world without hope, but no world at all. Blackness. Nothingness. Chaos. It was certainly more plausible than a field of lush, green grass.

She had no strength or she would have commanded Kravia to leave the room. The plague was tearing her apart, but it hurt more to think that her only son would have to watch her fall apart.

“Mom? Will you promise me something?” Kravia choked back heavy sobs. Magda tried to turn her head when suddenly, her entire body convulsed. Kravia let go of his mother’s hand and he stood in horror. A yellow liquid began to run from her nose. The noises she made would stay with her son for the rest of his life. In her final moments, she sounded like a pathetic, dying animal. She whimpered and cried as the spasms inher body caused her to violently arch her back. Soon, her noises were choked by the sound of gargling and as he body slumped back into the bed, she vomited the yellow liquid all over herself and suddenly, she was gone and Kravia was alone.

——

Fear wasn’t something that the citizens of Urik were familiar with.

But they would be.