Chapter 4.7: A Fear of Heroes

“Hurry up, Bruq”, Lyssa shouts. “You’re falling behind!”
She looks over her shoulders and sees the satyr coming after them. His running creates a dull galloping sound on the barren earth. As he comes closer, the siren sees how red his hands are. With every step he shakes a drop or two from them.
“By the gods, Bruq, are you hurt?”
She walks back to him. The first words of one of her songs are already rolling off of her lips when the satyr shakes his head.
“No”, he says and he wipes his hands on his furry legs. “I was only collecting something to remember the hunt by. Just as I always do.”
He remembers what Oanoa said to him, that all these trinkets were going to weigh him down. He hasn’t spend too much time thinking of it - he didn’t have much time to think at all - but for now he doesn’t want to break his habit. It’s as the Beholder said: he is collecting stories. He doesn’t want to forget the story of his first hunt in a place like this.
“You really are incorrigible.” She sighs and rubs her eyes. “What did you take?”
He gets his bag and pulls out a leather pouch. It makes a squishy sound when Bruq opens it and takes out a bloody paw.
“I need to clean it, but I will do that when it stops bleeding.”
The claw is as big as his own hand. The ends of its nails are crumbled and the fur is soaked with blood.
“If you are happy, I’m happy.” She sticks her tongue out a little, teasing him.
He snickers and puts the paw back in the pouch.
“I would be happier if we didn’t have to be in Abaddon.” He sighs. “It doesn’t feel right to walk around a landscape as dead as this.”
She gives him a couple of rather rough pats on the back, staying just far away enough to not get the wolf’s blood on her clothes.
“Yeah, a hunter without bushes to hide in is almost as lost as a captain without a sea to sail.”
The gentle glow in her eyes makes him feel for her. She’s also having a rough time, being away from everything she’s accustomed to. He understands it completely.
“Luckily, the hunter and the captain have each other.”
He winks.
She laughs.

“My name is Zamazel, by the way.”
Although Dargothoth took care of his injury, he still has a bit of a limp. They’ve been walking for a while now, but without the sun they’re used to, they don’t know how much time exactly has passed. The suns have moved. The two smaller ones are now almost right above them. They have come closer to the big sun. At first they were far apart: the white and purple stars were in front of them, into the direction they’re heading now, while the yellow and orange one was behind them. Now, they almost align.
“You don’t have suns where you are from?” He looks at the satyr. “I couldn’t help but notice you looking up constantly.”
Bruq shakes his head.
“No, we do have one. Ours is just very different than the ones you have. I have no idea how the trajectories of these are and I have no idea how to tell time or navigate with them. Can you shine some light on it?”
Bruq chuckles at this own play of words.
“Are you proud of yourself?” Oslando laughs. “This was an easy one, even for you.”
The hunter shrugs and looks back at the demon.
“The two smaller suns are called Baltor and Vexys”, the demon explains. “They are named after what are believed to be the first Father and Mother of Abaddon and Parents to all other Parents we still worship. Everyday they circle around each other and move in a different pattern around this plane. The only moment they are always in the same place is at the middle of the day - then they are up in the sky, like now - and at the middle of the night. In the night you can’t see them, because they are below Abaddon. It takes them twenty days to restart their cycle. During that cycle - if you would look at Abaddon from away - their rotation always goes a bit more to the right than the previous day. So, orientation by those two suns will be very difficult for ucha’ari.”
They can understand everything he says, but Zamazel speaks with such emphasis on his last word, the translation stones take just a bit longer to translate: outsiders, foreigners, strangers.
“Just look at Akaleth, the yellow one.” He points upwards to the biggest of the celestial bodies. “He always travels the same course, from east to west. Also in the middle of the sky in the middle of the day, same as the others. Legends say Akaleth was the first child of Baltor and Vexys, but was stillborn. The powers they created him with was too unstable to create life and he never left his glowing shell. I don’t know all the details anymore, I learned about it when I was much younger. The stories about it always fascinated me as an infant, but now I have other, more adult things to keep myself busy with. The priests know these tales better than I do. When you meet Sa’arlach, you can ask him if you want to.”
They nod in silence, processing all new information and thinking if they want or need extra information.
“I have a different question”, Dargothoth says. “The demon that sent us here said something I want to know more about. What can you tell me about the beings your kind calls Reapers?”