Remnants Of The Sun

by J. A. Day

  She slid out the Scroll of Shadow, thinking this would probably have the mention of same sex love. She took it over to the desk, underneath the Sol Shard, and rolled it out. She sat down, and skimmed through to find a passage she was looking for. She found it near the beginning of the scroll.

  Aileas and his clan stood shocked as the last remnants of Sol turned to dust within the sky. The tribe saw the glittering of crystals raining down onto the earth, and felt the shiver of cold. Aileas knew that humanity was on its last days and it was up to them to survive. He called on his clan to go towards the crystals.

  On the trip, Aileas went through his clan to see if they were hardy enough to survive the new world. He was thankful to see many strong armed men and women amongst his clan, but one sight disturbed him greatly. A man sitting by the fire, holding hands with another man.

  Aileas’ voice boomed. “How can you be with a man when you have just seen the destruction of the world?” The two men were confused and asked what was wrong with being with a man. Aileas replied, “We are the last of our kind, and if we don’t want our song to be the last heard we must produce children and make sure they are hardy. A man cannot have children with another man.”

  The men protested, but the others in the clan saw the wisdom in Aileas’ words. Their clan would need offspring if their race was to survive. Thus they brought in laws banning the act of same sex love, and demanded the two men separate and take wives.

  Sonja reread it again, a little confused. But after another reading she understood that was it. The reason why being gay was considered a shadow was because it didn’t produce babies. Maybe back in the chaos of Sol’s demise she could see the pragmatism of wanting babies, especially for Aileas clan who thought they were the only ones left, but it had been many centuries since that was the case. The wagon train passed through many settlements, towns, and cities full of humans. Humanity seemed to have weathered the storm and was coming back into prominence. Besides, there were a few Priests and Priestess in the celibacy movement, who believed purity was in not having any relationships or sex. A lot of the mainstream faithful believed this to be strange, but they didn’t feel it was a shadow. So if that was the case, why was being gay considered one?

  Sonja sat back, shaking her head. Would the other shadows be the same way, would they have just as tenuous an explanation? She went back to the glass cabinet and took out a few more scrolls, ones she knew would have teachings about over drinking and overeating. The one that she focused on most was Priest Robin’s account, as that focused on the supposed connection with partying and corruption.

  The account wasn’t any better. Most of the connections Robin made were based on feelings rather than fact. Robin thought the city he was in was more corrupt because of the parties but Sonja thought it could be the other way around: the city was more corrupt so they had more decadent parties.

  It made Sonja go through every single scroll to see if they were the same. She spent many days in the Keeper’s wagon, pouring over teachings and stories to figure out if anything her mother did was actually based on any real evidence. By the end she found none.

  INFORMATION IS CRUCIAL TO HAVE AS A KING, THAT’S WHY MANY TRY TO HOARD IT, OR ONLY GIVE IT TO YOU FOR A PRICE

  ‘The Unhappy King’ by Lysanne Lungbourg

  Gregor and Yael sat opposite Sigrun. Yael had a dark green coat over his fine tunic, and his chubby face looked over at Sigrun appreciatively. Gregor looked tired and his face pale, his hands shook when they rubbed his braided beard. It definitely seemed that Gregor was sick with something, but Sigrun had been too polite to ask what it was.

  The two Elders explained to her the political situation she found herself in as Jarl. In the past when some guy – and it was always a guy – talked about the politics of the wagon train she would space out and think about the cute redhead that was dancing around the bonfire, but she understood that now she had to pay attention.

  “After harvest the Keeper usually picks the destination,” Gregor said, his meaty hands unfurling a map on the desk. “Since we got a new Keeper I’m not too sure where she will take us, but if we see on the map there are two options.” He followed the river, the Is, with his finger. “The Town of Munn, and,” he then placed his finger in the middle of the Glass Forest, “The City of Eik.”

  Sigrun noticed that next to the City of Eik was a large cross. “Why is that there?”

  “The Queen of Eik really doesn’t like the Mission,” Yael said, leaning on his cane. “About a decade ago some proselytizers gained some traction with the revolutionaries and outsiders. As you can imagine they caused a lot of trouble for the Queen. When we went back there we were nearly taken prisoner, took a lot of wrangling to get us out of that mess. The Mission won’t admit it, they’ll feel it’s a great city to visit, but if the Keeper chooses that city you’ll want to say no. Make it a vote in the Council if you have to.”

  Sigrun nodded. The lecture they had given her before this discussion had been about the Council, how even though the Jarl could bring in laws themselves it was always best to get them voted in by the Council as they were more likely to stick. The council was composed of the five important people on the workers and faithful side.

  “So I guess then the only option is the City of Munn,” she said.

  “Not necessarily,” Gregor said. “We are about to have a harvest which means we have plenty of supplies. The wagon train could easily take a month or two before going to the next town.”

  “You were there when it was announced Gregor, do we know who this new Keeper is and what path she is likely to pick?” she asked.

  “It was one of the ‘daughters’ of the Keeper, Sonja I believe her name is.”

  The name Sonja struck her heart like lightning. Was it the same Sonja that she had saved and kissed? It couldn’t be, not if she was in the faith. There was not many things she knew about the Mission but the one thing she definitely knew was that they hated people who were gay.

  As a young child Sigrun attended prayers with her mother. At the time she didn’t mind praying to Sol and hearing the sermons about being good, but that all changed when one of the sermons was about how being gay was a shadow and should be stamped out. After hearing that, knowing that it applied to her, she refused to attend prayers anymore.

  “I feel I probably should meet this new Keeper,” she said.

  “It’s probably a good idea, but be careful,” Yael said. “You don’t want to appear too friendly towards the Keeper. Many of my workers don’t like their influence, and it’s becoming clear that quite a few of Gregor’s workers are feeling the same.”

  Gregor fingered his Sol necklace, grimacing. “Yes, our family has definitely not liked the purity agenda the last Keeper pursued. They basically outlawed a lot of things my workers liked. It made it difficult to keep allying with them. My own workers nearly revolted when they heard I had voted with them to cast out Hannes.”

  “Ah yes, Hannes, that’s another thing I wanted to understand,” Sigrun said. “Why did you vote him out?”

  “He was stealing our food,” Gregor shouted.

  The outburst surprised her and Yael. Yael squeezed Gregor’s arm to calm him down. “Yes, Hannes was using his connection with the Administrator to take food for his parties. And these weren’t the usual every month feasts or celebrations, these were every week. Can you imagine a feast every week being held, the amount of food that would be used?”

  Sigrun could imagine it because she had been to those parties. The tables had been heaving with meat, cheese, and vegetables. At the time she loved the fact that the parties were more frequent, and she definitely enjoyed herself to that food and drink, but now she understood what that meant to the wider wagon train. They were a nomadic tribe that sometimes didn’t see civilization for a few months, wasting that much food and having none left could have led to starvation.

  “Please tell me that Hannes was just taking extra stock.”

  Gregor shook his head. H
e stroked the braids in his beard vigorously. “No, he wasn’t using extra stock. He was using the normal stores, and they got pretty empty. He tried to mask it by going to the town of Matt. He told us all it was just a trading mission, but since we had already been in another town recently we were very suspicious. That’s when we found out about the stores. After that revelation we had to vote him out. He was lucky there was a town to get food from, if we were outside of civilization he would have starved us.”

  She understood Gregor’s anger and sympathized with it, Hannes actions were reckless and stupid. The only troubling question she had was why, why did Hannes create frequent parties every week? She guessed Hannes wasn’t totally stupid and would have understood using that much food wasn’t going to be sustainable for a nomadic tribe. He must have had some endgame in mind. But what was it? Was it just to be popular amongst the people? That was good for a leader but she didn’t feel it would be worth all that risk, if you wanted to be sure in your position as Jarl your best bet was to get the two people sitting in front of her on board. There was definitely something she was missing.

  “Is there anything else I need to know about Hannes, why you voted against him?” she asked.

  “Is that not enough?” exclaimed Gregor.

  Yael held onto his arm again to calm him down. Sigrun noticed for a brief second a worried glance from Yael and Gregor in her direction, before they went back to their usual expressions. She might be reading into things, but the two of them were hiding something. And that something had to do with Hannes.

  She put up her hands to Gregor. “I’m sorry I don’t mean to dismiss the issues, it’s just if I want to deal with this I need to know everything. So if there is something else you need to tell me about the situation it’d be good to know.”

  “There’s nothing else to tell,” Yael said, leaning back on his chair. “Except of course that the Mattsons are punishing us because of our decision. I don’t know why but Rita and her lot have tied their wagons to Hannes, and they are very pissed at him being thrown out. They are making sure we don’t eat any meat at mealtimes!”

  So Yael and Gregor were going to hide what they knew. What else did they want to hide from her, why were they hiding it? Had the two of them chosen her as Jarl not because they liked her vision, but to make a move against the Mattsons she was unaware of. She felt like a sacrificial piece within ‘The King’s Game’.

  She did her best to hide her disappointment and anxiety. She had to play this smartly, get the knowledge somehow and use it to her advantage in some way. God was this really the stuff she had to think about being the Jarl? Part of her wanted to go back to the simplicity of being a cattle rancher. She wouldn’t have to think about political games then.

  “And what’s the food situation?” she asked Gregor, making sure to breathe normally. “Can we stop them from doing this stuff again?”

  “Not totally, they still have the Administrator on their side who will give them whatever they want,” Gregor said bitterly. “Damn I don’t want our sweat and hard work in this harvest to go to waste to some stupid parties.”

  “Can you not just hoard the food for yourself?”

  Yael shook his head. “The problem comes in the fact that the Mattsons cook for everybody. They control the communal mealtimes and what gets eaten. They make the bread. So if we don’t give them ingredients they are going to make people starve for one or two mealtimes and definitely say why it happened.”

  “We already have grumbles from a lot of the farmers about Hannes. They understood the waste, but they still have a soft spot for him. If we appear too mean, Hannes will definitely use that energy against us.”

  “So this whole vote you did to stop him didn’t do anything, we are still in the same position,” she said, feeling the situation was hopeless.

  Gregor put up his hands in frustration. “What were we supposed to do, turn a blind eye and let him continue starving us? Yes the situation hasn’t changed but I still feel we did the right thing, just for the principle.”

  Sigrun nodded, leaning back on her chair, thinking. This was definitely a very tricky situation for her to deal with. What was she supposed to do? If she allowed Hannes to keep the food they would waste it again, if they stopped him from having it the Mattsons would punish the wagon train and tell everyone that it was Gregor’s and Yael’s fault. Both options seemed pretty bad to her. Was there a middle ground?

  She turned to Yael. “Do you still have those ovens you bought from the merchants a few years back. I remember the rumors about it, how your family was able to cook their own food, not needing to do communal mealtimes.”

  “We do, but we only use it for fancy occasions and private get-togethers. It’s only one so I don’t feel we would be able to cook everyone’s meal, plus we don’t have the manpower. There is a reason the Mattsons became a very prominent family in a very short space of time, they understood the power in cooking everyone’s food and seized it aggressively.”

  “What if we appear to be buying lots of the same ovens?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Yael asked.

  “We go to Munn and we get the resources to make ovens and give them to the handymen. We then make a big play out of us giving them to everybody. The Mattsons will feel threatened and might be willing to come to the table and make a deal against Hannes to keep their power.

  Yael sat there, rubbing his cane, thinking. Gregor seemed to be smiling. “I do like this idea.

  Yael nodded. “Yeah, I like that idea. It could work.”

  “Good, I’ll speak to this new Keeper and will try to convince her to go to Munn.”

  It would be good to see whether this Sonja was the same one that she had saved and kissed. She felt it couldn’t be, but since she became Jarl she was prepared for any bizarre events to happen now.

  Gregor and Yael nodded at her, and got up. Sigrun helped Yael to get out of his seat and across the floor. She examined him, his chubby face, and his neutral demeanor. She caught another slight worried glance from him. He was definitely not telling her something.

  She would have to find out what was happening with Hannes, what was the true reason they had voted him out. And the best place she would get the answer would be from the people of the wagon train.

  SOME PEOPLE LOVE CHANGE SO MUCH THEY’LL ADORE YOU FOR IT, SOME HATE IT SO MUCH THEY’LL KILL YOU TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING

  ‘Ilhan The Reformer’ by Frey Hanne

  Sonja sat back in her chair, staring down at the scrolls. All careful consideration for them had been thrown out of the window, they all were rolled out and piled up on top of each other. She had skimmed them all and came to the conclusion that the basis of purity within the Mission had been a lie. The rules and commandments of what was a good life had been cobbled together from various different stories and leaders throughout the history of the faith. When taken in the context of the times they were in, the rules and commandments made sense, but she didn’t feel they made sense anymore. Those issues weren’t as big in people’s lives anymore.

  But where did that leave the Mission? Part of its goal was to proselytize to others about leading a shadow free life and by doing so they would bring Sol back into the sky. If what was shadow was arbitrary and changed throughout time, what were they going to teach others? What were the teachings that the Mission could give to people?

  Sonja felt a weight in her heart. Everything she felt she ever believed was crashing down inside her. The goal that she had dedicated her life to, that gave her life meaning, had been a false one. All those times that she felt she needed to be purer, the hate and shame she felt, had been hurtful wastes. Maybe she should just not be Keeper anymore, she clearly couldn’t see the point of the Mission and why it taught what it did.

  But she immediately rejected that feeling. There was something about the faith that kept her here, what was it?

  She closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth of the Sol Shard at the back of her neck. It was a warm and
cozy feeling, like being sat by a fireplace. She got up and turned around, opening her eyes. The orange glowed within the white crystal. It seemed to be pulsating, almost like it was speaking to her. She felt an urge to hold it.

  She grabbed the crystal with both hands, feeling a burn. But there was no pain, instead the burn felt like a deep sense of love. The heat went through her skin and buried into her heart. Her breath caught, as she was overwhelmed by a feeling of joy and ecstasy.

  Images flashed in her mind. There was a brilliantly blue sky with a large yellow sun. It cast golden rays down onto the earth below. One of the rays casted onto a wagon train, exactly like hers. A line ran down the middle, and two armies stood on either side. They wore leather armor and brandished swords. Men and women on both sides had faces of rage, and were ready to run at the other side.

  But they stopped and stared as a woman walked down the middle divide. It was Sonja in a beautiful white dress. Around her were her friends Roose and Teresa, but not Britta. Her two friends were wearing orange robes, and held yellow flowers in their hands. Vision Sonja looked towards her friends, and they looked towards her, smiling. When they smiled the Sonja who was seeing this felt that deep sense of love within her. Vision Sonja walked towards the middle of the wagon train, past the yellow wood pews, towards the Keeper’s wagon. On the podium stood Sigrun, also dressed in white. Sigrun had a smile of pure joy. Vision Sonja ran up the podium, and the two of them kissed.

  When they kissed there was an explosion of pure white light. All the people in the wagon train bowed their heads, and dropped their swords. They clapped and cheered, crossing the divide in the middle and hugging one another. Sonja and Sigrun turned towards these people, smiling, and putting their hands up in a regal manner. They both said, “We will lead you now.”