The City of Eternal Light was wreathed in darkness. This magical atmospheric effect was necessary to mitigate what would otherwise be the overpowering luminance of the three Vallorn Jewels, which flowed in vast channels over the streets and under the heavy black clouds that dominated the sky. The glare from those clouds, the balance of light and shade in the city, would turn and twist with the movement of the king, who lived atop a grand spire at the center of the city, an open turret so that the power of the jewels would always flow over the city. It was the only illumination they received.

The forest had been cleared away for many miles, and the earth sculpted into even shelves that rose into the flanks of the mountains enclosing the city. It had taken us hours riding on Falcor’s back along a road of smooth woven roots to arrive here, and we were scheduled to have an audience the following morning. PamyuPamyu had borrowed a Tom, one of the large, grumpy cats the Fedo-ration commonly used to travel overland, and she was making good progress toward us. There was no evidence in the capital that Yamatoei was being invaded by three clans, but I knew Kyofu and his goblins were working hard to keep it that way.

Because the city rarely played host to outsiders, there weren’t any inns. We were boarded in a large empty house that belonged to a wealthy family of Dark Elves. They watched us from a slight remove as their servants ushered us in and showed us to our rooms, which were dusty from disuse and barely furnished. There were no locks on any of the doors, and it hardly would have mattered if there were because the walls were shoji screens, thick paper set into thin wooden frames. They let the light in, and anything else.

Shippo was nervous about us having separate rooms, so I told him to share one with Falcor. We had been cramped together on the ship long enough that it was pleasant to have space for myself. That was another consequence of having a body, the ability to feel crowded instead of just freely and incontestably being everywhere at once. Rest wasn’t as necessary for me as for the others, but it did give me an opportunity to further explore my adytum. The old man in the pilot’s chair wasn’t giving me any hints, and there hadn’t been any other major changes to the scenery since his appearance. But a quick glance at the map showed me that Lawlimi and Lili were both in the ship at the edge of Mythopoeian space. Lawlimi would sometimes vanish from my map, and I wasn’t sure if that was an effect related to Eternity or Isekel’s cloak, which could protect him from scrying. He was with Orobos, and I would just have to hope that when we met again he was not corrupted beyond recognition. The demon’s motivations were beyond me. He was pursuing power in the game, but what was the point? He had said something to the effect of completing the Maker’s design, but I had no idea what that meant in a practical sense. It worried me that Acarus, who was now freely infecting players on New Arda, had learned how to do it from Orobos. They had to have an end goal in mind because if things got too out of hand, Darkest Horse would have to take action and wipe the server, do a whole system reset, and that could destroy them both… Or maybe it wouldn’t. Eternity was self-sufficient. Someone would have to find the physical server in the real world to shut it down. Purging New Arda would be a setback for the demon, not annihilation.

Would it destroy me? When I was Lawlimi’s companion, I had been backed up in his adytum. Now that I was on my own, where was I stored? My data had to be a part of the New Arda mainframe, which suggested I would be wiped as well if they did any major overhauls on the system. Maybe that was the whole point of infecting players. Acarus could restore itself using the virus it had installed in player neural nets. Eternity had to be stored somewhere, but where would the Maker have hidden his personal sandbox? The only available clue was the Book of Old Names. If PamyuPamyu was correct, then completing the ritual to ascend into godhood would put someone in control of Bill Yang’s assets, and that had to include Eternity’s real-world container. If I was able to complete the ritual, then I could take Eternity out from under Orobos and have a safe container for myself in the event that the board of directors got antsy and decided to defrag, or perhaps frag everything.

While in my adytum, I received alerts regarding what was happening around my body, so I came awake when someone entered my room. It wasn’t dark, exactly—there was no night here and the shoji screens could only dim the radiance of Vallorn—but the woman who had appeared in my room brought her own shadows with her. She was a Dark Elf, but twice as tall as our hosts, taller than a human, with wine-colored eyes and an opulent spider silk gown. The light was wary of her, hanging respectfully back at the edges of her black Celestial aura.

>>

Jo-O, Queen of Umbras — Celestial 3

South — Air — Black

>>

“Hello,” I said.

“Greetings, creature.” Her voice was low and smooth. “What brings you to my city?”

“Pardon my presumption, but is this not the city of the Most Glorious Lord of Light, Kurayami?”

“Heavy is his head, and our king can rarely be troubled by the more mundane tasks of rulership. That falls to me.” Though she was standing in the doorway and made no move to enter, her aura did that for her, so powerful that it created a physical pressure against my skin. “So though it is the King’s city in name, in matters of everyday affairs, it belongs to me.”

I stood up so I could bow. “My apologies, Queen. I am not at my best, as you arrived during my meditation. You asked me why I was in your city. It is because I heard of the glory of its king from afar, and I longed to bear witness for myself so that I could create a performance in his honor.”

“You are polite enough, and you sound sincere, but what about Kyofu? What does he want?”

“My Queen?”

“The general allowed you through our perimeter, and he would not have done so if you were not a part of some scheme of his or another. Does he mean for you to impress me? To help him win back my affection?”

My knowledge of Yamatoei’s internal politics was not as complete as it was in Valanthia, but I could intuit that this was a trick question. “I think that Kyofu knows he could never impress you, Empress.”

She nodded. “True enough, but it does not answer my question. Why did he allow you to pass the border?”

“I was given an opportunity to perform for a goblin regiment, and they enjoyed my song. I would be honored to do the same for you.”

“You will be performing soon enough. I have seen that you and your companions are no threat to the crown. But be warned, whatever scheme Kyofu has involved you in is meant for his benefit, not yours. Your lives are little valued here.”

The shadows swallowed her, giving the impression of turbulent waters drawing a victim under, and she was gone. The room brightened in her absence. That hadn’t been a Warp, which would have been loud and magically expensive, Jo-O was capable of traveling at great speed, but it wasn’t instantaneous. Bodiless Hollen could have tracked her easily. As it was, my senses had been barely able to perceive the difference between techniques.

PamyuPamyu had logged out for the night, but she was close to the city. The chaos at the border had allowed her to slip past the Tengu patrols, though she’d had to give up her Tom as she approached to avoid notice. My internal clock told me the morning was close when Shippo knocked on the frame of my door. He entered nervously.

“Trouble sleeping,” he said.

“We had a visitor.” I told him about the Queen and her questions. It had struck me as a perfunctory visit, not something to change our plans over, but it put Shippo on edge. His fur ruffed.

“Do you think she knows about Kyofu?”

“I don’t think there’s anything to know about Kyofu, but if there was, she would hear about it. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out she was listening to us right now. The wisps are floating around everywhere outside, and I’m sure they are spies.”

“Oh!” Shippo covered his snout with his hands, realizing he had come close to giving us away.

“It’s fine,” I said. “We don’t have anything to hide. I’m a performer and so are you, and the Queen herself said we’re obviously no threat to the crown, which I think is true. All the same, you and I should keep focused on our jobs and not speak needlessly.”

(Can we group chat?) Shippo got the idea.

(NPCs don’t eavesdrop on party channels. Anything you want to ask that you don’t want the Dark Elves to know about, use this.)

(Is Lawlimi coming soon?)

(It’s impossible to know when or if he will be rejoining us. The best option we have is to use the ritual in the book. If he is a captive of Orobos, that should give us the power to win him back.)

Lower-caste Dark Elves came to collect us in a few hours. They were deferent, avoiding eye contact as they would have with a higher-ranking member of their own society. Being in line to perform for the Radiant King put us on even footing with nobles, and the deference would likely last until things started to go terribly wrong.

We had to don protective eyewear to enter the palace, and many of the servants there had gone blind. The construction was a mixture of stone, stained glass, and obsidian, reinforced by magic and arranged in such a manner that there was nowhere to escape from the light. Mirrors directed the glow into every corner and hall that might otherwise have remained dim, all of it channeled down from the highest tower platform, where the King acted as a living sun for his entire city. Wisps were numerous, their own ambient luminance muted in comparison to the flow of light from above, and some of them followed us after we entered.

Up and up, my legs were already tired and sore by the time we reached the bottom spiral of the King’s tower. Our Tengu escort kept ahead of us and set a difficult pace, but otherwise didn’t seem to be keeping a close watch. After a half-hour climb, we were allowed into a waiting chamber below the grand platform where the Radiant King held court. We were instructed to wait, watching Dark Elves going about their daily business. There were no members of the lower caste here, distinguished by their short stature and humble clothes. The Fae I saw were all as tall as humans or taller, and their kimonos were intricate works of art in silk. A player passed us, heading for the next level, and I didn’t immediately recognize her.

“Charmlet?”

She stopped, a honey-skinned woman with braided hair dressed as one of the Dark Elf nobles, and she squinted

“Do I know you?”

Of course, she didn’t recognize me. There was nothing to recognize. I patted Falcor and stepped forward. “We met on another server,” I said. “I used to watch you weave.”

She stared at me, no doubt scanning what information was available on me through her menus, which wasn’t much. “I’m busy,” she said.

What was she doing here? Charmlet was a friend, as much as I’d had friends before. But there wasn’t a way for me to explain who I was without going into a lot of detail that would be hard for her to believe. She quickly ascended to the next level, and I wondered if it was worth the effort to reconnect with her. There were things she had told me that would prove I knew her, if not prove exactly who I was, but that wasn’t why we were here. Mission first, and we didn’t need to involve other players who might want the gems for themselves. Still, she would be trustworthy, as far as I knew her, and given how few players there were in the city, she might very well be the one who was already involved.

I tried to send her a message, but she had disabled her chat function for anyone outside of her party. That was consistent with how she had always behaved, avoiding contact with nearly everyone. Just seeing her in a city was very strange, especially being involved in local politics. That wasn’t like the Charmlet I knew at all.

She didn’t come back down, and I watched Shippo fidget for almost an hour before a Dark Elf soldier in silver chainmail came to escort us above. This was the throne room, meeting chamber, and feasting hall all in one: an octagon with open walls built like a massive gazebo. Even with our protective glasses, it was difficult to look directly at the King. He was an indistinct shadow burned into my retinas beneath three blazing suns. The fruit of the Vallorn had begun their existence as pale glimmers, growing stronger with each passing decade. That early, delicate beauty had given way to an overbearing refulgence. They were meant to be planted, but to do so would be to give up their light, and Kurayami would not do that, even though they had blinded him long ago.

We were ushered forward among rows of supplicants, difficult to make out as individuals. Falcor, who had no goggles but whose eyes were covered with a sash, whined in discomfort and nervousness. He could smell the power in the room. Shippo huddled close to me, walking a step behind my shoulder.

“Do not speak until spoken to,” the soldier said, “and bow three times when you reach the dais.”

We followed his instructions, stopping at the base of a large stone ring where the King sat trapped in a perpetual noon. The furniture was low enough that nothing would interrupt his radiance as it sought to outpour, and even the throne was backless.

“Who comes before me?” said the silhouette of a king.

“It is the performers,” Queen Jo-O said, “sent to you by your most loyal General Kyofu.” She shared the dais with her husband, her face and body blanketed by layers of cloth and shadows as barriers against the light.

“Good,” the King said, “I am in need of entertainment. Let them begin.”

Wishing Kyofu had given us a better understanding of the plan as a whole, I began warbling for the Radiant King. It wasn’t the same performance I had given to the goblin regiment, but I was sticking to a mixture of birdsong and hyena cackling. My Perform was at maximum, but I was sure my low Presence wasn’t helping matters. It probably wasn’t important to the Fae how disgusting I looked, but being naturally unlikeable was not a good starting point for any entertainer. Shippo, cute as he was, stumbled through a short routine beside me. He had his eyes closed, which put him off-balance, so we were fortunate he didn’t fall over in the process. Falcor, getting in on the action, gave a few low moans that offered a nice if somewhat off-beat counterpoint to my birdsong.

Being unable to look directly at the King meant I wasn’t able to gauge his reaction, and while he wasn’t making any appreciative noises, there weren’t any affronted outbursts either. The fact that we hadn’t been immediately stopped and executed was a sign in our favor, but it wasn’t a foolproof metric. The sycophants behind us were silent, awaiting the judgment of their lord before putting themselves on one side or the other. Kyofu hadn’t given us a time frame for being a distraction, so I was determined to go on as long as I was allowed. It wasn’t hard to improvise, and I was actually enjoying myself, riffing on riffs and putting my mathematical mindset to creative use. Music is essentially an algorithmic process, and I was comprised of algorithms.

That is partially the reason I was able to notice the fluctuations in the light behind the King. There was a pattern to them, a bending that suggested steady motion, as in some translucent being slipping ever so carefully across the platform. Out of the admittedly generous corners of my eyes, I watched them approach, more than one figure now, until the King and Queen were surrounded. They really did seem to be taking to my performance. The Queen seemed to be nodding, and Kurayami’s shoulders had slumped.

They were asleep.

Well, that was a little offensive, but I imagined there was more than my sweet musical tone at play here. The bending of the light continued, and the King and Queen were loosely wrapped in completely transparent cords of some finely woven material. Unicorn hair. Contrary to popular belief, their manes were not white, but clear, and they only appeared white from the way the light refracted through them. That wasn’t something you saw every day. The crown of the Vallorn was lifted gently from the scorched brow where it had sat for centuries uncounted, only to be swallowed by an invisible something that summarily cast the city in its entirety into darkness. Then the screams began.