Part XIII: The Jali

"Come Reignsheer ibn Qal Jali, sing for the us some great tale of Qi'ra or possibly the 100 isles of Dnashar," boomed Ihlen Seeradiant, father of Jhlen.

Reignsheer was still quite winded. He had walked several miles to get to S'rn finally pulling himself to the second level apartment of Ihlen Seeradiant which overlooked the cove. The apartment was of the blue shale rock that glistened when polished. Ihlen Seeradiant had a huge terrace and was entertaining several guests.

Reingsheer hailed from Qi'ra and was the bosom bound brother to Jhlen in various ways. In addition he was also initiated into the Brotherhood of the Purple Gourd at the same time as Jhlen. Reingsheer finally was a jali of Qi'ra, a bearer of their sacred history.

Sitting near the edge of the terrace he let the ocean's air brush against his back taking in the wisps of the tides. It was slightly cooler here in S'rn. Reingsheer was diligent though and remembered to layer his black cotton garments. Pulling back his hood one could see burn marks on his right cheek. If one was to gaze down at his hands as he tuned his kora one could see fire scars along the back of them.

Each jali in Qi'ra was required to go into the forest to gather the wood from the sacred baobab trees. When it came time for Reingsheer to do the same he found the grove lit afire from P'lonian rebels. He dove headfirst into the forest to still gather wood to construct his kora. The grove survived and his his name grew in renown even before he sung his first song to the public.

He started plucking the cords of the kora, delivering the bassline, declaring his lineage from the first Jali's of Qi'ra. He sped it up a little, sprinkled it with improvisation as though he was dropping metal snowflakes.

He sang of the founding of rebellion of Qi'ra where the Nali, his people from the 100 islands of Dnashar were brought as slaves to the city of Budrah by the P'lonians during the first P'lonian war. Where his people overcame their slave masters and founded the great city-state of Qi'ra. That rebellion initiated the second P'lonian War. Looking over his audience Reingsheer could tell that they were pleased. Many of them were native Qi'ranians. In fact Ihlsen Seeradiant was a veteran of the second P'lonian war.

Though he loved to carry Qi'ran with him wherever he traveled he didn't expect to travel to S'rn this soon. If only that woman didn't give him that message to deliver to Jhlen. If only he didn't have to be the bearer. He turned his mind inward to Qi'ran to better release it's songs.

Time Line

This is the timeline of the world of Daybreaker. It will expand as the story develops. I haven't developed the 'calendar' yet so things are just in chronological order without 'dates'.

Fall of the legendary City-State of Nshantla
Founding of the Barian Empire
Legendary founding of the 3 territories Mysan, Klore and Cinarvin
Founding of the Confederacy of Tla'sorian
Fall of the Barian Empire
Dynasties of the Merchant Kings
Post Merchant King dark ages
Post Merchant King era of Light
First P'lonian War
Second P'lonian War
Battle of Narib

X: She: Dasha

When the worship of the earth mother Rhy fell to the waste side all that was left of her lofty name were small groves where the juniper trees pushed the sky and uchuva berries littered the grounds. Many of her litanies became nursery rhymes while forms of her many titles became names of the young girls in S'rn. Ana'sren, little sapling. N'ila'han, spring faun. Mara, mother of sparrows.

Though her priestess forgot her worship they didn't forget their oath to her. The dashas kept the groves immaculate, keeping their pledges of virginity sealing their bodies. Yet the dashas were not cloistered nuns. Many took the rite of kyshan becoming the celibate wives of soldiers. A man pledged to war was not allowed to start a family in many cities, including S'rn. His duty to death had to be completed before his duty to life was to begin. In that bridge stood the dasha. When he returned from fields of ruptured entrails and rust blood rivers she stood at the gate of the grove to offer her Dan, solider husband, solace. All acts of valor against the oncoming darkness were done in the dasha's name.

And Zahra, dasha to her dan Jhlem, could only wonder at this moment what was milling in his mind.

Jhlem always noticed Zahra. She was his dasha. Her walking into the grove at an early age loving the shade under the juniper tree. Her left hand pierced with needles made of sea shells giving her hand small measured movements found attractive in S'rn. Fingers stopping thoughts in amber. He swore she smelled the baku's last breath upon his face. He poured out the whole story soaking her hair. She so clearly saw his seven wounds scintillating on ethereal horizons.

"They made you a duppy Jhlem."

He knew that Zahra didn't know who 'they' were. Neither did he. The answer was in the West.

Part IX: Candor

Jhlem broke through the headache fogginess cracking the thin film sealing his eye lids. It took him a moment to realize that he was laying on his stomach. Scanning the room he saw scrolls tumbling of a bookshelf, a small table with a decanter of water and an assortment of herbs. Various porcelain figurines lined the window which he could not make out from this distance. Zahra's quarters.



"Tell me that I'm not naked."

"You're not naked."

"Am I naked?"

"You're naked."

"Zahra! Towel! Towel!"

Zahra's laugh was light and fragrant as she skipped across the room to grab an towel for Jhlen.

"And no cracks about my ass!"

"No cracks....you know I should say something witty right here."

"TOWEL!"

"Calm down. I had to check your etheric body, your astral shell and your meridians. There are minute scars all over them? Vleks. Those things that were chasing you. They're astral mites. They attach theirselves to some people and just nibble right out of their sight. No one usually ever sees them. They just manifest as a person not being able to focus on things. Usually someone like you isn't ever effected by them. Yet now I think that this is the reason why you haven't been able to concentrate this whole time. What is worse is that I think someone actually attached them to you. Vleks NEVER swarm. The only way they swarm is if someone feeds them a mixture of a target's blood and etheric fluid."

"Someone or something is after me."

"Someone or something is after you."

When Zahra repeated the phrase it wasn't mocking. It just emphasized the seriousness of the matter. It was only then that he noticed the slightly chilled breeze coming in the window. He saw the look on his dasha's face as if waiting for him to say something profound. All Jhlem could do was feel tired from the burden of his seven wounds pulling him toward the ground.

Part VIII: At the gates of the garden

A person's breathing tattletales on them. By watching the rise and fall of their chest, shape of their mouth, rhythm, and shape of their diaphragm a person with keen sight can tell if they are in love, afflicted with asthma, telling a lie...or if their life force is being assaulted by extra-planar vermin.

"Vleks!"

Zahra studied enough taxidermy of the exotic sort to know that exactly after seeing Jhlem's clipped breaths what was happening. Dashing to her quarters she left Jhlem. His weighted eyes seemed to become more heavy as she disappeared from his sight. The vleks kept piercing in and out of his side vision like a fractured picture. There was not one space or moment that he could hold. Attention span zero and then he became...cold.

Zahra had returned and splashed a picture of well water on him while scrubbing his skin with pink salt.

"Get off of him damn parasites."

Most insects in general hate salt. Yet vleks existed on more than one plane of existence. That is why the pink salt from Anda was needed. The crystal formations disrupted the phase mark of the dimensions. As Zahra scoured his skin the vleks abated scurrying off. Zahra salted the ground around the portal to the garden and the gate itself to keep them at bay. Looking down at Jhlem she noticed that he had fallen unconscious leaving her to figure out how to move his body from here to somewhere more comfortable. Jerk.

Part VII: The Vleks

It overtook him like delirium. The path to the grove of Rhy was a short one. One that he had walked a million times. Nothing unique. Nothing outstanding. Yet this time...what was the skittering he kept hearing just out of earshot? The streets were fairly clear. It was mid morning and most people were at their jobs. The crisp autumn air perched itself squarely on his shoulders. He needed to see his dasha. He needed to hear her.

The weight on his shadow...something was following him. Yet everytime he turned around there was no one there except a panhandler here, a waterbearer there, a mother and child, the constable. Gazing right...gazing left...he saw nothing yet Jhlem heard the skittering grow stronger. A growing nausea blossomed in his stomach. Then he saw it out of the corner of his eye scuttling across a nearby wall. Some feral insect like creature keeping pace with him. When looking directly at the thing it disappeared. It hovered only in his peripheral sight. And to his other side on the other wall across the street there was another one. He didn't know how many were just outside of his sight line.

Or how many were really close to him.

As he picked up speed they did also. He felt small pricks upon his skin wondering if he was really covered in them. Each one the size of a small cat with their carapace glistening slimy red, grey and black. Sweat dripped from his hair onto his forehead and stung his eyes. He was loosing his way on paths that he knew intimately. Stumbling he was afraid that he would be stopped by the constable, being mistaken for someone who had ingested too much plum wine.

No one else seemed to see them. Ravenous they appeared to only converge on him, so he ran faster. The sweat, the fever, the nausea worked his body until the point that his legs couldn't keep rhythm with his stride. Collapsing Jhlen curled into a ball to protect himself from the anticipated onslaught. He grew even more afraid when he realized he was half whimpering. At that point her timbrel broke the air.

"Jhlem, what you doing on the ground like that?"

Oh Zahra.

Part VI: Tenere who was N'Djamena

Some say that the island of Veidan Shra Lei lies on the Shari river, yet only appears at certain moments in dawn or twilight swimming in cast off fog. The truth is that Veidan Shra Lei lies beyond terrestrial boundaries where not even the scholars of Trechnt are sure to graph it. It was on this island that Tenere walked barefoot in the bamboo grove near the nape of the beach wishing that she had brought her sari to still the wind's bite against her skin.

Tenere who was once the goddess of love N'Djamena who by flirting with demon lords and dragon kings became Tenere the goddess of lust after loosing her station. The houri for gods and demons alike who whispered to the daughters of Red Tide obscenities. She bent the bamboo slightly to open her path while crushing white sand between her toes moving toward the direction of the water.

None knew the exact moment when she abdicated her station yet her servitude under the P'lonian House of Cnavel is a story of sullen tragedy. At the end of those stories she exiled herself to the isle of Veidan Shra Lei.

In those epics there was one man who stood with her. He stood with her before lust and after love. And she stood with him through perilous times. Because a goddess of love is also a goddess of passion thus a goddess of war and a fearsome opponent on the battlefield. With this man she wielded her urumi against the demon spawn of N'gLishib, sought for the hidden manna in the bodies of the dead at the field of Nishen.

Night ospreys dipped fish out of the ocean piercing the night air. Besides that, the bamboo grove was still, smelling of green bamboo shoots. It was at times like that Tenere thought about Jhlem and that last glance they shared in the southern rain forest.

The Battle of Narib

The Battle of Naribi is the last great battle recorded in recent history of note. It is the only major conflict that has arisen after the second P'lonian War. The end of the Battle of Narib brought for the Declaration of Sinaii which on the elementary level was based on the ancient Confederacy of Tla'sorian.iii

Narib historically was the capital city of the Barian Empire. By the time of the Merchant Kings that Empire was no more yet Narib still basked in spledor as a major city in the region. During the reign of the Merchant Kings Narib (also known as Barian proper at that time) retained its sovereignty and had a strong rule as a city-state. This was all to change during the 1st P'lonian War which decemated the surrounding country side. The P'lonians then occupied Narib and made it one of the major cities of their expanding empire. Narib continued to be occupied and utilized by the P'lonians after the 1st P'lonian War. Many major engagements of the 2nd P'lonian War took place at Narib. After the 2nd P'lonian War Narib was free yet still had a stigma of complacity with the P'lonians.

The city of Narib worked hard to improve its public image in the years following the 2nd P'lonian War. They could never shake the onus of collaborating with the P'lonians. In addition to this the P'lonians held Narib responsible for the loss of its expanded empire due to the inner city revolts during the 2nd P'lonian War that weakened the line of comunication in the P'lonian Empire. All of the above resulted in the Battle of Narib.

Though who to blameiv is still called into question until this very day the event that caused 13 Nations to band together against one city is not in question. Narib had long been rumoured to be a breeding ground for P'lonian atrocities. Narib pointed out that most of these reports were heresay, rumours, and lies. On the even of the 1st day of the 11th month of the year 12,019 this was called into question as 11 children appeared in the public square who had been raped , beaten, defiled and killed. Amongst their apparel were several items of the ruling caste of politicians in Narib. By the time the story had traveld outside of the gates of Narib it had grown to told that the total population of Narib was involved in demonic P'lonian practices of whose ilk hadn't been seen since the 2nd P'lonian War.


The Battle lasted 6 days and was particularly brutal due to the dark alchemy weaponsv from the P'lonian Empire that Narib had kept secluded and hidden from other Nations and their impressive war elephant troops. The use of steampowered tanks and slugslingersvi by the unifed Nations also brought a depressing level of bloodshed to the battlefield.

At the end of the conflict the majority of the men of Narib had been slain in combat with the remaining executed as war crimminals. The remaining women of Narib commited jauhar rather than to succumb to being taken as prisoners of war. The battle of Narib was immortalized in several works of Jhlen Seeradiant who was the sole surviving poet warrior of the battle.vii

She let the wind pierce her skin.
She withered
to ascend
ash sendviii

i Also known as the Battle of Tears
ii The peacemaking treaty that binded 13 Nations. Later to include 4 more.
iii The Confederacy developed out of the rule of 3 Princes. The Confederacy stood until the 2nd P'lonian War.
iv Some asert that a secret society devoted to the P'lonians orchestrated this event. Others declare that it was P'lonian sleeper agents. Some even deny that the event took place. For more theories on the cause of the Battle of Narib refer to “Where hyena's graze: Looking at the fields of Narib”
v In particlar the Death wine (ingested liquid that turned the warriors of Narib's blood caustic for several hours so that their blood would be acidic to the touch), the lotus blossom bombs (metal shurikens that when they struck a target would inject an agent in a person's body that would cause the body to explode and transform that body's blood into a poisonious gas), and dragon's breath (Greek fire).
vi Basic six shooter guns
vii “The Lametation of Nurish”, “We have come to”, “Feast of Hyenas”, and “What say ye WhisperClose” are amongst the most well known.
viii From “The Lametations of Nurish”