Daylight

The sun beats down on the city of Valekenport. For most, this is a comfort in the seaside city. The light illuminates the roads for horse-drawn cabs, pierces the fog that persists past the dawn, and brightens the flamboyant colors the general citizenry wears as they hustle to their destinations. The light nourishes the farmer’s crop outside the walls, makes for warm conditions in the greenhouses of the assorted apothecaries, and fights the mold that would otherwise take the port city by storm.

For others, not so much. Those who engage in thievery, the cutpurses, the robbers, and the politicians, they all, after perpetrating their evil, seek refuge in places away from where the daylight reaches, where those who do business in and enjoy the daylight cannot reach them to hold them accountable.

Those who live in and love the darkness in this manner understand explicitly their fragile state of being, that the daylight not only exposes them, but opens the opportunity for their prey to become the predator in their stead, it makes visible their attempts to take advantage of their neighbor, attempts that would ordinarily go unnoticed. They understand that being exposed in such a way inadvertently crafts an environment for themselves in which they have few allies; the good and the ordinarily disinterested are bolder in the daylight, where it’s easier to see that other like-minded people stand with them against the ill-intentioned ones of the darkness.

Daylight is a reminder that there is life in the world. Daylight is a reminder that there is good in the world.

***

Declan, a human acolyte in the Valekenport temple of Ra, stands on top of a ladder, cleaning the skylight windows, letting the light illuminate the temple. When he is finished, he cleans the candelabras and replaces the candles. Next, he refreshes the thurible, cleaning it of charcoal and incense in preparation for the priest to add new consecrated incense and duatian charcoal. He hums as he works. Declan is happy and he leads a happy life. During the day he works in the temple. At night he dreams of flying. He’s well-fed and well off. On Saturdays he has supper with his parents. Things are simple for Declan. Sometimes thieves come into the temple, looking to have their guilt removed, sometimes they come in to make off with the candelabras. Either way, Declan prays for them. He’s not a holy man, by strict definition, but he cares about the well-being of his fellow people. He loves his life and he loves his city.

Declan works beside another acolyte, an elavis named Sariel. The two have spoken on occasion, and Declan knows that Sariel is wanting to be able to take the training that the temple offers to become a priest. Such training hasn’t been offered to Sariel, yet, so Declan continually prays to Ra for his co-worker. He knows that Sariel has some inherent magic that others don’t have–the ability to cause light to materialize and the ability to heal small wounds. He feels that this will give Sariel an edge against any other contenders that might arise. Declan has no aspirations of priesthood; he is content with life.

Two other people are in the temple, at the moment, sitting in the pews and conversing. A refined-looking human and a fit-looking forest elf. They are discussing potential employment under one of the noble houses in Valekenport. Declan tunes it out, but he sees Sariel eavesdropping.

Ignoring that, he goes back to cleaning the skylight windows. It is another day for Declan, and he isn’t about to get involved in matters that aren’t his business.

They love the daylight.

***

Two gather in the darkness of a cave, far enough in that the daylight has no hope of reaching them. Draeg and Orlaith, having killed the dragon that occupied the cave and scattered its children, finally sit down to discuss events of the past and plans for the future. They sit in the darkness, illuminated by a single candle that sits on a shrine that bears the symbols of a book and an eye. The two chat as old friends do, ones who have not seen each other in an age. The withered and dead features of Draeg do nothing to diminish his lively expression of joy at seeing his old friend, and Orlaith’s golden attire and charming, happy features do nothing to mask the fact that she is dead inside. Orlaith introduces Draeg to his benefactor as the candle blows itself out, and the smoke that wafts up through the air dissipates–a green eye glows from the back of the cave, illuminating surrounding features of the area that are not the walls of a cave, anymore. Instead of a shrine, there is now a royal, red carpet, flooded with blood and ichor. Lining the soggy carpet up to the glowing eye are abominations such as Draeg has never seen: things that are both living and dead, both undead and unliving, both are and are not; one is a centipede of exposed ribs with red meat sloughing off with each contortion and convulsion, various organs outside the bones quivering and squirting from putrescent flaws in its flesh; another being that is made of pustule-ridden arms that leak onto the slick floor, waving in praise as it does so; another being that is a series of curved backs punctuated by teeth that have never known the grace of hygiene as it constantly bows and forms mouths from its bent backs and teeth, and multiple, many, countless other beings that are perfect in their imperfections, all squealing, snuffling, and screaming, “praise him, praise him, praise him!” in all-out, all-encompassing, all-consuming fervor that pulsates through the air, and as Draeg looks upon the eye and the half-body it rests in, for the first time in his long life and undeath, he is afraid.

***

Daylight is a curious thing. There are different phases of daylight throughout the twenty-four hour period that we call a “day”, ranging from daylight itself to the lack thereof, and those that love the light and those that love the darkness are both groups that rely on the daylight to provide them with what they need, whether they know it or not. Some of them unknowingly wait to receive this lesson in the daylight, and some unknowingly wait to receive this lesson in the darkness.