Lord Valentine Saren's Story

The cruel blade glinted in the desert sun. Razor-sharp silver, turning over in the light, white reflection of light gleaming off it, blinding those around slightly, the tiny gleam upon the blade looking white-hot. Black leather fingers, like the cold hands of death, slid across the clean blade, feeling the heat of it - not enough to warp the beautiful piece of steel, but enough to lightly burn the fingers of an unclad hand. Yet through the leather gloves, it was simply a soft warmth, like that of an old fireplace, comforting and sleepy.

Valentine looked up at the huge, empty sky, completely cloudless, the sun beating down upon sand and rock. The small chunk of orange sandstone he sat upon was even hotter than the blade he had left out that morning, but he did not care; the pain was minimal for him, and through his duelling jacket and cape, it felt no more warm than a comfortable bed. He lay on his back, where he had for days. He did not thirst; he did not feel hunger. Such things had barely affected him before, and held no meaning here.

Lifting his hand off his blade, he stared at the leather of his gloves; they were clean, unworn by the ravages of time. His riding boots were barely worn as well. His clothes were well-made; in his world, in the hell of the night, he'd demanded that they be as such. He would not wear or use inferior equipment. To do so was ill-befitting of a man such as him.

He heard a voice; a little like his, but not as crisp, cruder, its tongue twisted by the words of the lower classes. It lacked his sharp, refined edge. It interested him; he had not heard voices like that for many years, not since...

He could not remember, and discarded the thought like an apple core, the meat of the fruit gone from the memory. He had no use for such thoughts. So what if he could not remember? He did not remember much. It never concerned him.

He rolled off his back, pushing himself to his feet. He grasped the hilt of his sword, sliding it into its sheath with barely a sound; once, it would have been silent, but the oil was degrading, and he had no replacement. Soon, his clothes and boots and gloves and blade would wear and become useless to him. Hopefully, he'd make it to the mountain sooner rather than later. It was necessary that such a thing happened, before he died. He knew, just like the rest, that he had to make his journey, his pilgrimage, to the mountain. That was why he'd written all those notes.

He leapt off the edge of the rock, moving silently, landing on the sand like a ghost, the only noise the soft settling of dislodged sand beneath him. He quietly turned, observing a young woman before him, his crimson eyes cold, systematic, watching like a bird of prey. Was she a threat? From the looks of her, not. Had she come to help him? From the looks of things, yes. She must have found his note.

Most curious.

'Blastut...Flat palm 'gain.' Grumbling to herself, Vooli snatched up the talismans she'd cast upon her stone table and readied her hand for another toss. Glaring down at the rock, daring it to disturb her work again, she let her talismans tumble from her open palm. The pleasant clacking noise did nothing to lighten her mood, as the talismans once again predicted ill luck. This time there were three facedown and two up, the two being 'Jackal' and 'Closed Fist'. That signified a clever danger that wouldn't reveal itself until ready to strike. The same type of reading she'd been getting all morning. With a sigh, she scraped her charms into her knapsack, collected her spear, and resumed her march towards the gleaming spire in the distance.

Vooli had no memory of how she'd arrived in this desert plane, nor how long she'd spent traversing it. Not that it mattered in a place like this, as she felt neither hunger nor thirst and so could theoretically travel infinitely. The landscape passed her slowly, though she took great interest in it, as she always did. Paying attention to the details kept Vooli sane, and also let her determine whether or not the landscape was really endless or simply vast. After much deliberation, possibly years worth, she concluded that it was simply vast and her objective would be met eventually. Many more hours passed, so Vooli decided to do another reading.

She climbed up onto a rather high rock formation and settled in. Groping around in her knapsack, Vooli drew another five tiles at random and scattered them in front of her. The result made her blink a few times in disbelief.

"Serenity, th' Starman, an' Shiner's luck? Suspecting, Oi yam," she commented to no one in particular. As she made to scoop up her talismans, Vooli's wandering gaze lasered in on two figures in the distance. Swearing mightily, she quickly tucked away her talismans and pulled out the mysterious note she'd found so long ago. 'You need to make it to the summit', it read. Those two may or may not have also gotten a note, but they were closer to the towering structure than she, which meant that either they'd been at it longer than her or had arrived her closer than her. Either way, she wanted to get closer and study them before announcing her position.

Like a nimble fox, Vooli somersaulted over the edge of the rocky shelf, landing in a roll and keeping low as she moved from cover to cover. Vooli always seemed to surprise herself, as she didn't know where she knew this skillset from, but was glad for it now. Darting between rocks and low dunes, she advanced on her prey quickly, always keeping herself mostly hidden. Within a half hour, she'd drawn close, though she now saw that the figures were quite removed from one another. The closer, a tall man clad in black, appeared to have noticed the more distant figure, so she waited to see how he approached the situation before revealing herself to them.

Lucy gulped again, the saliva in her mouth now wet enough to sooth her dry throat. She sat against the rock exhausted for the moment. Where was she?. She looked towards the mountain in the distance, "What are you?" she asked a loud. She grasped without conscious effort to the note in her hand and then realised she still held it, "Where did I get you?" she asked with curiosity of the note. Lucy looked up the blaring sun and squinted, revelling in the shade she was seated.

Then Lucy felt it. A presence. It was odd to say the least. She stood with trepidation, unsure of this odd sensation she was feeling. It was much like the mountain, but yet, different at the same time. It was weaker than her desire to move forward, but somehow linked to what she wanted. Lucy didn't remember where she was from, or much about who she was beyond her name; but she knew to trust her instincts. Lucy stood with purpose, and looked towards the mountain, she stepped from the shade of the rock formation and looked out across this expansive desert she found herself on and spoke quietly but with purpose, "Who, are you?"

Lucy turned herself completely so that she could face the man spying on her. Then she felt it more prominently - that sensation. That feeling of knowing this man was connected to something she was connected to too - "Where am I?" she asked before he could answer. Lucy looked to him with confusion and curiosity, "I feel like I know you... Or I'm supposed to know you." Lucy took a step forward and held the note out in her hand, she wasn't sure why, but she trusted him. Something within her trusted him. Her life was a mystery to her, but she had a purpose, she knew it, not specifically what it was, well no further than to make it to the mountain. Looking at the man Lucy knew he wasn't here to danger her, but while she felt connected to him in some way she was still hesitant somewhere within too. Suddenly she felt a surge of herself, it was small. But it was like she remembered a small bit of something like she found a strand of herself in this moment. Then Lucy remembered slightly, just a sliver of what she was; and suddenly her tone of curiosity was peppered with a sassy, "I can tell when people lie too..." Lucy looked at him, "I... I don't know who I am.. Or where I am... But I know when people lie."

((I'm so sorry for not posting sooner! My novel has been getting in the way...))

Valentine watched the young woman with a great deal of curiosity. Where was she from? Not his time, evidently. Unless she had come from one of the great city-forges, it would be most unheard of for her to have been from the eternal night. And besides, her skin was not pale enough - she should have been white as a sheet, but instead, had a good deal of pallor. No, she was not from his time.

He accepted the note, hand moving slowly and deliberately; once it was in his hand and she had released it, he whipped it up to his eye level, like a graceful, lethal snake snapping on its prey. He read it for a moment, confirming that it was his, before discarding it, letting the warm, sandy winds carry it off to be found by another. He did not care for whom it was who found his notes; there was little semblance of order in this place, and determining who would be of use and who would not was nigh-impossible, so he did not trouble himself with such things.

He heard her speak, and while he listened intently, did not make it seem as such, looking out over the horizon, onto the burnt-orange sun slowly climbing into the sky. It was larger and darker than it had once been in his world, before the night came. It still amazed him, seeing sun, seeing light of that volume; not even the sun-stones of his world, the crystals that he'd fought and killed for, had such beauty and light.

And yet for some reason, the burnt sun seemed somehow... dead, as though this world were slowly dying, the end of those who walked upon it slow, inexorable and inevitable. Perhaps the sun would burn, or perhaps it would simply disappear from view one night and never return. But he knew all too well that, without a sun, worlds died.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, turning to her, giving her his full attention, a slightly-confident smirk across his features, his crimson eyes holding a slightly arrogant and yet charismatic charm to them. All perfectly calculated to give the impression of just who he wanted to be. "My name is Valentine Caine Astartes Saren, Lord of the Night and the one who wrote the note that summoned you here. It is a pleasure to meet you, miss..."

He trailed off, leaving a pregnant pause, as he awaited her own introduction. Perhaps it would tell him more about this enigmatic figure; perhaps it would not. But he would discover who this young woman was if it killed him. The unknown was death to him; he had fought what he could not understand a thousand times, and each time, it grew a little more difficult. Knowledge and blood were the only currencies of the soldier - and if he were forced to swap the latter, he was fully prepared to do so.

"I did not bring you here," Valentine said, making a vast, sweeping gesture, as though to encompass the whole world. His voice contained, if one looked hard enough, a slight defensive note; her sudden verbal assault had caught him off-guard. He vowed that it would not happen again.

His mind turned to thoughts of war, and he wondered if she would attack him. She was clearly in a heightened state of emotional distress, as though an animal caught in a cage, desperately searching for a way out, clawing violently at the steel bars, unable to cut through them but trying in vain because its mind's rational thought has been whisked away by the stress of the moment. If she did attack him, he would cut her down like any other opponent; she did not appear to be armed, and his blade would slide through her leather and flesh like the ghostly entities that inhabited his world moved through the planes of life and death. She was only human, and would die like one; sever the nerves of a human, take the air from their lungs or the blood from their veins, and they would die. He had killed far more capable beings than her; he did not recall the details of such beings, but he recalled that he had felled them. He would not be called 'Lord of the Night' if he could not kill mere humans, would he?

"No, I merely summoned you here, to my simple abode. Or have you stumbled upon this of your own accord?" he asked, stepping backwards, leaning against a baking rock, feeling the heat faded through his cape and dueller's jacket, just the soft, comforting heat of a fireplace or a lover's flesh instead of the burning sensation that it bore when pressed to bare skin. "I do not, I am afraid, know what brought us all to this desert. I know nothing more than you do on that subject; at least, I presume not."

As she pointed to the figure in the distance, however, he turned. His eyesight was sharp; it had to be, for him to have survived this long. In his world, the slightest shimmer could mean the impending detonation of an anomaly, an explosion of fire or ice or blood, or the space-warping, nightmarish anomalies that the abominations left in their path. In his world, one had to be better than any ordinary human to survive for long.

"That, I expect, is our next visitor," he said, holding up his right hand for a moment, staring at the black glove, all the secrets contained within it. What did the tiny lines across it mean? The tiny marks of wear... what had worn them down? How many lives had he stolen with those gloves gripping his blade? How many people had they touched, how many lives had they changed? Who had he once known?

Caught! She'd been sure that her stealth was perfect, and yet the two she'd been observing somehow spotted her. They didn't advance or call out, but to remain in her hiding spot might imply a sense of hostility. She couldn't afford to make enemies of these two, since numbers always dictated the victor of a fight and she had only the one of her to rely on. Still, that didn't mean she was going to approach them as if they were best friends.

Sidling out from behind her stone sactum, Vooli held her spear at the ready and moved no closer then ten paces of the duo. After a short, but tense silence, she dug her note out of her satchel and flashed it at them.

"Yous gotta note such's this'n?" she queried gruffly. In order to win the hand, one had to play their cards, after all. Keeping alert, Vooli resumed holding her spear with two hands, eyeing the tall, dark clothed stranger's sword. She played out a dozen combat scenarios in her mind, each one starting with killing the weaker, easier female and then using her reach to pick off the man. Vooli frowned slightly, knowing that no fight was that easy, but until it came down to it, she'd have no way of knowing how skilled this man was.

Valentine turned to the new animal, raising an eyebrow calmly, observing this new woman. She was... deformed. For the briefest of moments, he wondered if she was from his world; it was entirely possible, as she reminded him all too much of the beastly, mutated tribes that inhabited the lost regions of his world, places where scarred natives danced soaked in blood to the beat of the laughter of mad gods. He remembered but flashes of these places. Including the horrific screams of them as they fell to the ground, his blade slicing through their flesh. Human, animal, angel or abomination, everything screamed when it died. That was one of the things he remembered most vividly.

But she could not have been. Her skin was too smooth, and while somewhat brutal, her appearance to fine, too innocent, to be of his world. She was not among the savages who worshipped the dark gods that he had for so long tried to bend to his will. She was some odd, tribal being, from yet another plane.

Seeing his own handwriting, creepily elegant, possessing a refined yet angular appearance - much like the rest of him, he mused - he nodded in answer to her question. "Indeed I did," he replied. "As a matter of fact, I wrote that. I," he said, performing a flourishing bow, "Am Lord Valentine Caine Astartes Saren, Lord of the Night." Standing, he smiled at her a little, and said, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture, "You can put down the spear. I wish you no harm."

Hmm....Lord of Night? Vooli didn't quite know how to react to this turn of events. "Y'seem ter be a bit removed fram yer homespace, eh? Not much 'Night' ta speak of out 'ere," she mocked, sweeping her arm across the sunny dunes. However, since they didn't leap at her throat or threaten her with violence, she relaxed her stance a bit. Vooli felt that the fact that this Valentine was indeed the writer she'd been seeking should have been significant to her, but it really wasn't. The truth was she didn't care either way who anyone was, as long as she reached the great spire in the distance.

"Hrmm...I don' trust yer, bu' I'll be willin' ta compromise in th' spirit o' gettin' ter th' mount yonder. Ye' gotta plan, er was 'make a bigg'n group an' hike it together' yer master scheme?" Vooli scanned the rest of the space around her cautiously. Another woman had shown up, much to her surprise. She seemed to be studying them with a certain wariness, and seeing as how her hand was on a rather large knife, Vooli casually gripped her spear in two hands again, ready for combat.

Every new variable thrown into the equation was another calculation Vooli would have to make on her own survival. The fact that she hated math didn't help matters any. It didn't matter in the long run, she supposed. Either she'd make it, or she'd go down fighting as hard as she could.

Valentine watched the figures before him with interest. This new one was mutated as well; she appeared to have gained some features of an animal, and to be specific, a domesticated feline. This was, in Valentine's world, not unusual in and of itself; after all, he'd seen many such mutations in his world. Some merely for their owner's amusement, some for the amusement of the one who gave the features, and some weaponised for war. Nearly everything was weaponised in his world. Yet this new figure did not seem quite as interesting as 'Vooli'; he did not know why, but Vooli's mutations possessed a character, a bluntness, a power to them. But the thought of them made him think of home, and this infuriated him, the thoughts running through his mind and onto the ground like water through his hands.

After spending some time trying to work out just what the tribal girl was actually saying, he nodded. "Indeed. I do intend to make it to that mountain, and I have enlisted your help in doing so. If you should prove willing."

When he saw the small confrontation between the two humanoids before him, one hand moved a tad closer to his sword. He knew how this would go; whipping out his sword, then slitting both of their throats in the space of an instant. It would be easy - pathetically so. They were unarmoured, and his blade was sharp enough to cut through stone, as a tiny wound in a chunk of rock to his right indicated.

"Now then," he said. "I believe that it is in our vital interests to make it to the mountain over there. We all feel the compulsion, do we not?"

Lucy just stared in quiet contemplation as she watched the myriad of hominids before her. Who were they? she asked herself, and what did they want? The mountain too? Lucy stepped forward, hesitant to get to know these people, but settling within herself that they were going to be as good as she was going to get in travelling partners. When the shaman looking woman who spoke with the strangest accent Lucy had ever heard and Valentine replied to the group in general about heading towards the mountain, Lucy nodded in quiet hesitant agreement, "OK" she said firmly.

Lucy looked out behind her, across the sweltering sand and into the distant horizon, admiring the towering mountain far off. Lucy shifted her weight and she stepped towards the giant rock mass far off and felt her urge to go towards it strengthen. "Can you feel it?" she asked out loud, "Of course you can..." she answered herself. Lucy turned back to Valentine, "I don't entirely know what's going on Lord Valentine... But this better not be a trick" she said firmly. Lucy took another step forward and stopped, the feeling becoming stronger, the mountain was willing her to step closer.

Lucy turned back to the feline woman, the strange shaman woman and Valentine, "What are we waiting for?" she asked curtly, "Let's get moving." Lucy turned back to the mountain and began to walk towards, the urge to get closer growing stronger with every step. She felt something stir within in her and a flash of something erupted into her mind - A young girl looking to the sky, asking something quietly, and the same feeling about the mountain, filled the girl as she looked towards the night sky. - as soon as the flash came it ended leaving Lucy more perplexed than before, "What is going on?" she asked quietly, as she began the journey towards the mountain.