Shadow Slave

Sunny had not known what to expect from the Tomb of Ariel — the real Tomb of Ariel, not the phantom of it conjured by the Nightmare Spell — but he at least knew what not to expect, which allowed him to make some predictions.

First and foremost, the difference between the real Great River and the Great River he encountered in the Third Nightmare was the role Daeron the Serpent King had played in the fate of the River People.

Daeron had made it across the white sands of the Hell of Ariel and entered Ariel’s Tomb in the company of his strongest champions — those like his daughter, Wind Flower. By doing so, they left an imprint of themselves on the Great River, which meant that a version of them would exist in all Nightmares that took place there.

His people, meanwhile — the entire population of the Twilight Sea that still remained — made their way to the giant block of black stone that lay among the dunes, containing a Seed of Nightmare, and challenged it. It was the same Seed Sunny and the members of his cohort had challenged after the Battle of the Black Skull.

The survivors of the Twilight Sea could do so because, unlike their Supreme, they did not have to reach the Tomb of Ariel itself. So, they did not need to traverse the Nightmare Desert at night, when the Deathless rose from beneath the sand to engage in the eternal battle.

That must have been a terrifying pilgrimage, still, and one that could not have been completed without countless people accomplishing countless astounding feats. But they did succeed, in the end, and a legion of challengers entered the Nightmare of the Great River, where the phantoms of King Daeron and his Saints were already waiting for them.

That was how Twilight was founded, becoming the core of resistance against the Defilement… in the Nightmare, that was. There was no Twilight in the real Tomb of Ariel, though. They couldn’t be. Daeron and his Saints were still here… had been here, at least… but there was no vast army of Outsiders to battle the Defilement.

There was no Nephis, either, and as far as Sunny knew, she was the only one capable of destroying the First Seeker — Aletheia of the Nine — without succumbing to Corruption.

There were only the River People. The cities that were ruled by the sybils, who were destined to succumb to the whispers of the Estuary themselves, and Weave — the city where the cultists of the Nightmare Spell lived.

So, even if there were no Plagues in the real Tomb of Ariel — no Dread Lord, no Torment, no Soul Stealer, no Undying Slaughter, no Devouring Beast, and no Mad Prince either — Sunny did not count the chances of the River Civilization high.

It was most likely already gone, having been consumed by the forces of the Defilement. The whole Great River would be a seething mass of Nightmare Creatures by now.

And since there was no Mad Prince here, there would be no piece of flotsam for him to clutch onto, either. No field of demented runes carved into it, and no warning to be careful of what he wished for.

It was too late for Sunny to heed that warning, anyway.

‘Right. And then…’

And then there was the most important difference, one that Sunny was wary of the most.

The Vile Thieving Bird. The phantom of it had made a nest in the Estuary of the illusory Great River, but now, that phantom was in the real world, having escaped the Nightmare. There was no telling what the loathsome creature had done, how it had changed the Great River, and what it was doing at the moment.

The only thing Sunny was sure of was that the Thieving Bird was still in the Tomb of Ariel. There was a very simple reason why he believed that: if a Cursed Terror that even the gods had despised escaped into the Dream Realm, humanity would have felt the consequences of its freedom very soon. What would the odious Thieving Bird have stolen first?

Would it have taken all the pretty eyes in existence as its prize? Or just absconded after rending the entire Mirror Lake from the fabric of the world?

Would it have stolen the radiant Strings of Fate from which the Nightmare Spell was woven, perhaps?

That sounded quite fantastical, but Sunny was not going to put anything past that damn bird. It had already stolen his fate, after all, so who was to say that it couldn’t rend apart the Nightmare Spell, just for the fun of it?

If anything, since the Thieving Bird seemed to be obsessed with all things Weaver, and the Nightmare Spell had been born from Weaver’s soul, it was under the greatest threat should that loathsome thing escape into the world.

‘Huh. I didn’t think about that.’

Sunny sighed, then finally acknowledged two facts that he had been aware of from the very moment he plunged into the Great River, but was reluctant to think about until now.

The first one was pretty obvious… the comfortable darkness he was enjoying was not supposed to exist inside the Tomb of Ariel. In the Nightmare, the Great River had been illuminated by the light of seven suns, each forged by Ariel from the soul cores — or at least soul shards — left behind by the Stone Titan, the Unholy horror he had killed.

Those suns were nowhere in sight right now. Of course, they could have moved under the Great River, plunging this stretch of it into a deep and lightless night. But then, the water itself would have been emanating a beautiful radiance, illuminated from beneath.

There was no radiance. The waters of the Great River were lightless, and the world was shrouded in absolute darkness.

‘Perhaps the damn bird really did steal the suns.’

They were the shiniest thing in the Tomb of Ariel, after all.

It was bitterly cold — so cold, in fact, that Sunny could not explain why the still and dark waters around him had not turned to ice yet.

And that was the second thing he had to acknowledge… the second way in which the world was wrong.

The endlessly flowing waters of the Great River were not flowing anymore.

The water stood still, utterly unmoving, stretching in every direction like an endless flat plain. If there was a current, it was so weak that Sunny could not feel it at all.

He could explain the absence of the suns, somehow, but this…

This, he couldn’t even fathom, let alone explain.

The Great River was not meant to stand still. That was entirely against its nature — against Ariel’s design. No force was supposed to be able of making its waters stop flowing, and nobody was supposed to be capable of breaking the fundamental laws that governed this singular, strange realm.

Drifting in the cold water, surrounded by utter darkness, Sunny let out a heavy sigh.

“I can’t believe it.”

He had spent so much time — how long had it been, now? Six, seven years? He had spent all those years imagining the day he would return to the Tomb of Ariel. He had imagined all kinds of possible scenarios, but he still failed to predict what would really happen.

Reality was utterly different from even his wildest theories.

Which meant that he had no idea what to expect here, inside the Tomb of Ariel. Whatever he encountered would be a complete and utter — and most likely terrifying — surprise.

The only choice he had was to delve into the unknown and hope for the best.

Somewhat rested, Sunny took a deep breath and finally forced himself to move.

“First things first. Let’s find Nephis…”

Judging by the Third Nightmare, she had to be close.