The Dark Sanctuary story, deep prologue (draft)

[Ripheus23]

ℵ

10,000 Years Ago

The whole star system was moving in the wrong direction.

Erenen Dmaltiar, holding the Argent Helm, could feel it. And just after... after that shockwave... but from what? And why did he feel such fear? "Guardian Thieros," he said, turning to his protector and second-in-command, a man in ornate armor marked by the sigil of their city and their land, the Sunrealms, "something terrible has happened, and worse may come for us soon. Be ready!"

Jarlel Thieros saluted his emperor, the Sovereign of the Sun. "But what is it?" he then asked, looking towards the sky.

Would that I knew... "Something... By the Godlight, I cannot understand it yet. But something... something to do with that light."

Thieros tangibly shuddered. "The Adamant One is unbreakable! Surely you don't..." He was cut short, though, by another, much more powerful shockwave from beyond the sky.

And then Dmaltiar felt that "worse" force clearly. The Dark Sanctuary! The sun of this world, Chthornos, had been driven by the purling of space into the conduit of a time in which it would drag this world, and all the others in the ambit of the Sunrealms, into an abyss so hungry, so devouring, that not even material luminescence might escape it.

The Helm began to quietly hum, with a power that beckoned to Dmaltiar's hopes.

He reached into the nearly silent magic of the Helm. Adamant One, save us! "Pray!" he shouted at Thieros and the other guardians of the city around them. "Pray! Or our doom is beyond certain!" He then wished and willed himself, the Investiture of his soul, into and through the electrum diadem in his hand, placing it upon his head like penance for an unmerited victory.

The Argent Helm burst alight with its own Invested grace and splendor.

Connected its might to something beneath the city.

And, impossibly, resisted the outer maw of the Dark Sanctuary.

Everyone here besides Dmaltiar stumbled or outright fell to the ground as their planet, Hiphanad, staggered like a shattered earthquake while the Sovereign of the Sun held the world fast against the consuming void. Praise be to the Godlight! O thank you, thank you, Adonals...

Horror raptured itself through Dmaltiar as he felt, in the esoterically self-transforming Helm, the true origins of the shockwaves that had nearly thrust Hiphanad into infinite darkness. Adonalsium, the Godlight and Adamant One, the very Origin-of-Songs and Aegis-of-Glory, was dead. The aura of Its Investiture were being reshaped, assumed part by part by God's murderers... The Helm itself is changing! It is being attuned... to a being of false honor, and a witless preserver of life and death...

The Sovereign of the Sun threw the crown from his head. It clanged on the ground like a bell meant to be rung only for the worst of the dead.

And Chthornos resumed its fall towards the Dark Sanctuary.

"This power is not enough to save us forever," Dmaltiar said, helping the stunned lieutenant-guardian up, taking up the tenebrous circlet again as well. "It will do for now, to keep us from that," and he gestured at the strangely aflame blot of obsidian in the deep sky, the terror of the night that had been for centuries watched with trepidation by anyone with a good telescope to hand, "but for a while only. A greater way must be found..."

Thieros shrugged, wincing as he stared at the far, warped edge of the Dark Sanctuary. "I have no knowledge to aid you in this endeavor," he said, almost weeping. He might as well have dropped the intricate scimitar by which he stood watch for his Sovereign, so crestfallen was he as he lost the purpose of his eyes in contemplating the obsidian hell above.

Somehow, our prayers were answered. Adonalsium must have anticipated this hour in some way. Made the Argent Helm for us to Connect to, to forestall our ruin... With as much hope as he believed possible in this moment, Dmaltiar smiled at Thieros. "Do not be overcome by dread," he said, a hand reassuringly on the guardian's right shoulder. "For we are our own light as well, as was gifted unto us in our world's creation. I will uphold us by this crown of mine, and the greater power will be ours one day also."

I vow, he thought passionately, inspired by forces he did not comprehend, that those words shall stand true.

And somewhere, from far beyond the Dark Sanctuary and the murder of God, Dmaltiar felt a reply like an ancient melody, calming and inflaming at the same time.

Those words are not fully accepted.

With his Helm shielding the heavens of his world, Dmaltiar, confused, started himself to weep.

[ChickenBonanza]

very neat, we love original cosmere works