The City of Sun and Stars: A War of the Twelve Prequel (Mothers of Sorrow Book 2), page 36
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2025 by Alex Robins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
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ISBN 978-2-9588450-7-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-2-9588450-6-3 (ebook)
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For David Gemmell
A Legend
In more ways than one
Hark, hark! the dogs do bark,
For her children are coming in.
With rogues and jades and roaring blades,
They make a devilish din.
THE STORY SO FAR
Imagine an ocean of churning white fog, stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction, suffocating the surface of the earth like a burial shroud. Imagine an island, a gash in the bichromatic landscape, a colossal mass of rock and metal. This is the last vestige of humanity. This is the city of Keselgraad.
Its inhabitants are trapped by the Mists that rage outside its walls. To breathe them in is poisonous. A single touch means death. Only the blinding brilliance of the Church of the Mother can delay the inevitable, the crystals set into its spire acting in concert to form a protective barrier that shields the city from harm.
The shards were once part of a much greater whole, an amethyst jewel found during one of the many expeditions into the Depths; the name given to an underground network of halls and tunnels buried far below Keselgraad. These expeditions were mandated by Matellas Thane, Keeper of the Peace, and Sister Superior Nayelle, Keeper of the Faith. Both hoped to unearth artefacts or documents that could help prolong Keselgraad’s precarious existence. Unfortunately, instead of saving the city, the amethyst would only precipitate its destruction.
Sister Superior Nayelle and the nuns of the Mater Sorores were eager to capitalise on this miraculous discovery, deeming the jewel a gift from their goddess and demanding its relocation to the Church of the Mother.
Thane and the other members of the Council eventually relented, dispatching a group to retrieve the crystal from the Depths, including a foreman, Gamin, and a miner, Aldin Pine. It was while carrying their prize back along one of the many tunnels that disaster struck. Pine’s foot slipped on a stone, causing the jewel to fall to the ground where it shattered into a hundred pieces. The resulting explosion collapsed the nearby supports, killing all of the miners save for Pine himself, and sending great clouds of amethyst-laced dust along the adjacent passageways to fill the lungs of the infirm and the children waiting in the expeditionary camp.
In a bid to consolidate his hold on Keselgraad, Matellas Thane used the tragedy to bolster his own public image. The crystal’s role in ‘The Collapse’ was redacted, and its remaining shards were recovered to be set into the spire of the Church of the Mother. An orphanage was created for the surviving children. And finally, Aldin Pine was offered a post in the City Watch.
§
Ten years later, Keselgraad continues its descent into ruin. Matellas Thane rules the Council with a mixture of corruption and intimidation, supported by black-clad, masked enforcers called wardens. The orphans of the Collapse are exploited by Krabbon, the self-styled ‘Insect King’, who gives the children bug-inspired names such as Roach, Ant, Spider, or June Bug, and forces them to beg and steal their way through the sewage-stained alleyways of the Slums.
After a fateful encounter with a warden that leads to the death of one of the orphans, the young pickpocket, Roach, or Roe, plans to escape from under Krabbon’s heel. He persuades one of the children, Spider, to join his cause, and together they discover that Krabbon has been selling orphans to the wardens. After killing the Insect King and saving his next victim, a young girl named June Bug, they flee to the upper levels only to be captured and imprisoned by the supposed leader of the wardens, Devrard.
Meanwhile, Aldin Pine has risen to the rank of Captain. Still haunted by what happened in the Depths, he patrols Keselgraad with fellow watchman, Selene, a distant cousin of one of the Council members. Selene and Pine are called to investigate the murder of a jeweller named Spritt, who was working on a strange, tong-like device on the orders of Matellas Thane. When Pine brings this information to Thane, along with proof that the jeweller was basing his design on documents found in the Depths, he is summarily dismissed.
After assassins posing as wardens attempt to murder Thane, he once more turns the situation to his advantage, planting fake evidence in Pine’s quarters and sentencing him along with one of Thane’s political opponents to be ‘Gifted to the Mists’; a torturous form of execution by which the condemned is slowly lowered over the walls of Keselgraad to be torn apart by the white fog waiting below.
Pine is saved, however, by the sudden appearance of a beautiful woman with flowing golden hair and piercing blue eyes who emerges from the Mists unscathed. Proclaiming herself to be the Mother, she takes up residence in the Church that bears her name. Pine is returned to his cell but released shortly afterwards by Selene, on condition that he help her reach the Depths.
Pine reluctantly agrees, and after enlisting the help of the foreman, Gamin, they travel deep underground, eventually finding a large, open room dominated by a strange mechanical contraption. Twelve chairs surround a central pedestal upon which a faintly glowing amethyst has been placed. Eleven of the chairs are occupied by the missing orphans, including Roe, Spider, and June, their eyes held open by the pronged tongs that the jeweller was designing. Tubes snake down from their faces to capture their tears and feed them to the crystal.
As Pine and the others enter the room, they are attacked by a warden, who kills Gamin before being stabbed by the crystal. Before they can escape, Thane arrives, his self-confidence shattered. He admits to constructing the machine from blueprints found in the Depths in an attempt to repair the shards set into the spire of the Church of the Mother. The shards have been failing at an exponential rate ever since the amethyst jewel was broken, and only the minute quantities still found in the bodies of those present during the Collapse can refill them with the essence needed to repel the Mists.
The Mother, however, has disclosed to Thane the futility of his actions. The Mists are her own creation, a fail-safe to prevent humanity from evolving into a state where the people might challenge her rule. Every thousand years, she releases them onto the earth to wipe the slate clean, selecting a chosen few to seed the following cycle. The Depths are not simply a place beneath Keselgraad, they are Keselgraad, the remains of the city from a previous cycle whose citizens, under a technologist named Arniel Sin, realised the Mother’s intent and devised the crystal in an attempt to stop her. Unable or unwilling to destroy the remaining shards, the Mother has nevertheless ordered Thane to demolish the apparatus so that the crystals can no longer be repaired.
This new revelation leads to an uneasy stalemate. Thane, angered by the Mother’s deception, wishes to keep using the machine to stop the Mists from entering Keselgraad. Pine, horrified by the half-starved, red-eyed orphans and memories of his past failure, refuses.
It is then that Selene offers a third solution. For she is not from Keselgraad at all but was sent there from another city, hidden from both the Mother and the Mists. If Thane allows Pine and the orphans to escape, she promises to broker an alliance between the two cities and use their combined strength to thwart the common enemy.
Thane agrees, confiscating the half-filled crystal shard and returning to the upper levels, narrowly avoiding falling to his death when the cables of the lift he is in are severed. He barricades himself in his fortified mansion, which is soon raided by a group of wardens who have slaughtered the other members of the Council. Thane manages to stab their leader, Devrard, in the chest before he is captured and imprisoned in a cell under the Church of the Mother.
Pine and the orphans use the underground tunnels to escape the city, discovering that the amethyst dust in their veins allows them to pass through the Mists unharmed. They have not gone far before they are ambushed by a large group of wardens who mortally wound Spider and nearly kill Pine before June awakens, using the essence in her veins to conjure a deadly storm of rocks, roots, and stones that tears the wardens to pieces and threatens to overwhelm her. Pine manages to calm her down by reaching into her mind and discovering her true name: Shala. As the exhausted orphans rest, Roe asks Pine to do the same for him, and after a long, difficult journey into the boy’s memories, he reclaims the name Brachyura.
The Mother is enraged to learn that Pine and the orphans have escaped her grasp. She descends into the tunnels below her church with Sister Nayelle to commune at a second altar, an octagonal font filled with a thick black liquid, the same liquid used to create the wardens. As the Mother stands over the reflective surface, a face takes shape in the dark: long and thin with almond-shaped eyes. Mater Tenebrarum, sister of the Mother. And behind her, a chittering in the shadows. Blurry shapes with elongated limbs and razor-sharp claws. Monsters from another world.
Greylings.
PROLOGUE
THE TIME BEFORE
“My father was no hero. He was too frail to man the walls. Too timorous to lead and too obstinate to follow. Yet, when my mother died, he endured. When his experiments failed, he began anew. When the Mists reached the city, he spent the last moments of his life fighting to keep them away. He was no hero. He was something even better: an ordinary man who refused to give up. And that is why I loved him.”
Herina Sin, Daughter of the First Technologist, The Time Before
“Daddy?”
Arniel Sin used to love hearing that word. Hearing his daughter’s voice. But now, it scratched at the surface of his tired mind like the screech of a rusty nail, reminding him of his failure.
He had been close, so frustratingly close, to finding a solution. The Mists were not quite as infallible as he had thought. Their poison could be countered by the energy of the land itself: the air, the water, the plants, the earth. Years of futile experimentation had finally led to a miraculous breakthrough; a machine capable of harnessing that intrinsic protection and condensing it into something solid, something tangible. A large crystal that, when complete, would generate an impenetrable barrier wide enough to encompass the city of Keselgraad and its inhabitants.
“Daddy, when are we going?”
“Soon. I promise. Why don’t you go to your corner and play for a while? I’ll call you when we’re done.”
His gaze shifted to his last surviving assistant, a balding, bespectacled man named Grysen. The poor fellow looked just like Arniel felt, his skin cracked and dry, his bloodshot eyes sunk so deeply into their cavernous sockets that they were half-lost to the shadows.
“The screams have stopped,” Arniel said to him, his rasping tone tickling the back of his throat.
Grysen nodded, removing his spectacles to rub at the lenses with the frayed edge of his jacket. Arniel remembered how much his assistant had loved buying new clothes, always chasing the latest fashion. That didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered.
“Perhaps the Mists have slowed their advance.”
The crystal sitting on the pedestal between them glowed softly. Amethyst light swirled around the bottom like dregs in a wineglass.
“No. You’ve done the same calculations as I have. We both know it’s not enough.”
It was ironic, really, that by focusing so completely on one enemy, they had forgotten another just as dangerous. Time. As relentless as it was ravenous. It would take years for the crystal to reach its full potential. Hundreds of years, maybe. Far too late to save Keselgraad and its inhabitants. Yet, perhaps … perhaps it could be of some use to those who came after.
“I …” Grysen hesitated, his tongue darting over dry lips. “I’ll head to the surface. There may be survivors. If the Mists have retreated beyond the outer limits of the city, the escape tunnels should be safe now. I’ll bring down as many as I can and meet you there.”
Arniel nodded, unable to meet the other man’s eyes for fear of the despair he would find there. They both knew that this was the last time they would speak. There was no way out. No salvation.
No hope.
“Good luck,” he said, hating how bitter he sounded. “And thank you. For everything. You were one of the first to believe that the chains that bind us to this never-ending cycle could be broken. It takes great courage to challenge fate.”
Grysen looked at the soft glow of the crystal and gave a sad laugh. “All for nothing.”
“No. We must trust that there will be others who desire freedom. Who believe, like us, that what is lost can be found.”
“My wife is dead. My parents. My brother. Forgive me if I do not jump for joy at the prospect that what we have made might one day help some distant future generation. I did not do this for them, I did it for me. And I failed.”
Grysen turned around to hide his tears and left the room with his head bowed. He did not look back.
Arniel sighed. There was only one thing left to do now. The hardest part. He pulled a lever by his desk. Somewhere under his feet, well-oiled gears whirred. The stone pedestal juddered to life, and the crystal began its shaking descent into the earth. There it would stay, quiet and hidden, slowly leaching the energy from everything around it until, one day, it would be full.
A thick leatherbound book sat on the desk, crammed with hundreds of yellowing pages that looked like they would burst free of the well-worn spine. He placed his palm flat on the cover, feeling the rough imperfections under his fingertips.
There was a plethora of documents concealed in the warren of rooms and corridors that spread under the city. Blueprints, manuals, theses on the Mists and the duplicity of the Mother. A treasure trove of science and religion written by the greatest minds of his Age. But this book was different. He knew every single line of spiderly scrawl, every pencilled sketch, every ink spot and bloodstain, every splash of dried tears. It was his journal … no … more than that, it was his life. His thoughts, his fears, his loves, his losses. His entire soul, extracted from his psyche much like his contraption syphoned the protective energies from his lachrymal glands.
“Daaadddy,” his daughter whined from over in the corner. She was sitting on a tattered blanket, surrounded by wooden toys. Some of them she had built herself, scrounging offcuts from the carpenters and pilfering springs and cogs from his workshop. He remembered how her eyebrows would scrunch together when she concentrated, her fingers working to create a veritable menagerie of miniature animals: pigs, cows, and the more fantastical creatures that she had only seen drawn on scrolls in the city archives. Arniel could spy a bald-headed eagle perched on the back of a scuttling crab, its pincers made from two bent nails.
He picked up his journal from the table and added it to the bulging satchel that he had spent the morning preparing. Several changes of clothes. A canteen of water. A half-dozen strips of dried meat. And perhaps the most important item of all; a threadbare stuffed rabbit, repaired so many times that there was little of the original fabric left. It had two mismatched button eyes, one black, one blue, and a left ear that looked suspiciously like one of his old handkerchiefs. Arniel gave it an affectionate pat before buckling the satchel.
“Come here, Herina,” he said, surprised at how calm he felt. Perhaps it was the anticipation of the end that had caused all those sleepless nights and not the end itself.
His daughter tugged at the bottom of his grubby overalls. “Time for our journey, Daddy.” He smiled and ruffled her hair. “Yes. Do you remember what I told you?”
Her brow furrowed. All those little expressions. It was what he would miss the most. “Keep our backs to the city and follow the brightest star.”
“And during the day?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Look for … the moss on the trees. Keep the sun on our right in the morning and on our left in the afternoon.”
“Very good.” He slipped the strap of the satchel over her head. “I have a few more things to finish here, but I’ll soon catch you up.”
The furrow deepened. “That’s not what we agreed, Daddy.”
He could see the disappointment on her face. “I know. How about … how about a present to make up for it?”
She grinned. “A present?”
Arniel reached into the pocket of his overalls and produced a silver chain from which hung a shimmering amethyst crystal roughly the size of his thumb.
“Oh, Daddy!” Herina exclaimed, the purple glow reflected in her wide eyes. “It’s beautiful!”
He attached the chain around her neck. “It’s a magical necklace,” he said solemnly. “Whenever you are feeling scared or alone, clasp it tightly in the palm of your hand, and it will burn all your fear away.”
“I will wear it always!” she replied, tucking it under her tunic. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”
He would have wept then if he still could. But he had no tears left to give. They had been taken from him. Taken and condensed into the tiny crystal that his daughter now wore. “I love you, too,” he said, wincing as the words tore a deep hole in his heart. “Go, now, before it gets too dark.”
