To the Shyugan Wardens, his struggles were a source of derisive sport. He became a figure of mockery, a target for the jests of men who saw only his frailty. In Gaigon, he had known the cold weight of silent contempt, but there, men were bound by the chains of his station; they obeyed his hand because they had to. Here, the shackles were sundered. They laughed openly, their insults sharp and unbidden. There were even those who sought to jostle and shove him in the corridors. While his father’s shimlyndvyens stood as a bulwark between him and the wardens, they were forced to temper their reactions; to strike back too harshly would be to poison the fragile peace between the House of Jado and the Shyugan.
Byuga had expected this. The cruelty of men was not a revelation to him. He bore it not with sorrow, but with a weary sense of disappointment, accepting it as the inexorable truth of his existence.
Yet, despite the mockery, his fascination with the world did not dim. The Shyugan Wardens were a marvel—an order older than the Guardians of Perlam, more ancient than the dwindling brotherhood of gunslingers, perhaps even older than the monasteries themselves. They functioned with the rhythmic precision of a great machine’s gears. Most of the time, his uncle’s role was merely to provide the spark for those gears—signing documents, rendering judgments, and wielding the authority of his office. Beyond that, the chain of command moved of its own accord.
As the weeks turned to a month, the Prince of Gaigon learned the secrets of the stones. The buildings clustering around the tower were the cloisters of the high-ranking officers. Beyond those lay the great armory, and within each ring of the outer walls sat a stable, a forge, and a storehouse. However, at the very heart, encircling the Black Tower, sat a central armory of staggering proportions. The gates between the innermost ring and the center remained eternally open, while the others were barred at night. Byuga realized that no matter how much he wandered, it would take seasons to truly master the geometry of this place.
His labors were often mundane, yet he found joy in two things. The first was the reading of the Shyugan’s correspondence. Initially, he read everything, but after he correctly diverted a letter regarding the jurisdictional disputes between the wardens and the local lords to the proper office, his uncle had granted him a rare autonomy: he was to read and decide what truly required the Shyugan’s eye.
The letters were mostly a grey tide of requisitions and inventory lists, yet they revealed the world to him. He learned of the towers from these scrolls and the maps he borrowed from the archives.
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To the east sat Gaigen, the First Tower.
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To the far west lay Sulunchez, built by the Mashidas. It was a bleak, desolate bastion, the most beleaguered of them all. Their letters were desperate, pleading for grain and wool, for the cold there was a whetted blade. It was the tower closest to the Kardam heartlands, and Byuga thanked the gods he had not been sent to rot in its shadow.
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Then there was Nil-Alumni, the greatest tower after Gaigen. It was the seat of the great rebellion that had followed the end of the Jade Lineage, a tower that had once dared to challenge Gaigen itself. Now, it was a quiet place, surrounded by a small township, its reports predictable and calm.
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Hayus held the throat of a barren valley, once a Kardam fortress.
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Kyatu was a house of warriors, where over half the wardens were shimlyndvyens, trained in the ancient ways.
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Hashimi sat miles behind Bayton, serving as a sanctuary of learning and healing. It was a monastery in all but name, explaining why Byuga had seen no monks of the Chang-Chao or Taom-Dium; the Shyugan bred their own scholars.
However, a chilling commonality began to emerge from the patrol reports. From Sulunchez to the towers hugging the Frost-Spear Mountains, patrols were vanishing. Two letters mentioned a strange phenomenon: they had encountered almost no Kardams at all, noting that the creatures seemed to be migrating north. One report claimed the Kardam villages in the Snowy Plains had been found utterly abandoned. His uncle dismissed these as the fevered imaginings of green recruits, but Byuga felt a prickle of dread. To him, the words read like a prologue to a dark adventure, a story written in the language of shadows.
It was during his third week at Gaigen that the letter from Hymnori arrived. It was the first he had seen from that particular tower. Byuga rose and approached his uncle. Since Balbun was unwell that day, another shimlyndvyen stood at his side. Byuga handed the letter to the warrior, reading along as the man held the parchment.
"Shyugan Kungam,
I am Nildu, Hattori of the bastion of Hymnori. An incident of most peculiar nature has occurred. A group of Kardams approached our gates. As there are few paths through the mountains not held by the towers, they came to us. They did not attack. They begged to be allowed passage into Bahysaris. Their leader shrieked that if we did not grant them sanctuary, he would return as a curse of most dire aspect. Most of the garrison dismissed this as a hollow threat, but I cannot. The villages of the Snowy Plains are empty. Our scouts who venture north, beyond the Frost-Spear Mountains, do not return. The portents are stronger than mere rumors, my Shyugan. When this happens, one feels in their marrow that the world is tilting.
I beseeve you, grant me the authority to muster a grand scouting party, or better yet, form one yourself. For by my oath and the twenty years I have spent upon the ramparts of Hymnori, I tell you this: I do not smell a mere threat; I smell a danger that seeks to consume us all."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Byuga noticed the shimlyndvyen had stopped moving his lips. He looked at his uncle. Kungam looked troubled; he gnawed at his lip and scratched his beard—a luxury among the Bahysas. He turned to the warrior and spoke. The shimlyndvyen then turned to Byuga and signaled: "The Shyugan has ordered me to summon the Hattoris and the high-ranking wardens to council. May I go to fulfill his command, my Prince?"
"Of course," Byuga signaled.
He sat back and tried to focus on the remaining letters, but his mind was elsewhere. The letter from Hymnori sat on his uncle’s desk like a coiled viper. He wondered if his uncle would include him in a scouting party. At last, he might do something. He might see the true North, live through the adventures hidden in the Kardam lands. He had no city, no family, no rights. If he was to die in the North, at least he would die having seen more than most men ever dreamed of.
When the shimlyndvyen returned, his uncle was standing by the balcony, overlooking the interior of the tower. He turned and spoke to Byuga, then, remembering the boy’s silence, he laughed and gestured to the warrior. "Your uncle asks if you wish to go fishing. A party is departing now for the Gaigon Lake."
"I do," Byuga signaled.
Kungam issued the order to halt the group. As the warrior ran ahead, the Shyugan himself helped Byuga don his heavy furs. Once the boy was bundled against the cold, Kungam threw an arm over his shoulder, walking with him. Byuga was taller than his uncle now, and the man’s arm rose and fell with every limping step.
When they reached the fishing party, the wardens looked far from pleased at the prince's presence. Nevertheless, they saluted the limping Shyugan and, at his command, moved out with their tackle and spears.
Byuga remained silent, an observer to the boisterous talk he could not share. This was his first time joining the weekly fishing trek; though his uncle had promised it upon his arrival, the duties of the office had always interfered. They exited through a hidden gate at the base of the tower, entering a tunnel that tunneled through the living rock. The passageway was well-lit, and Byuga noticed several iron-bound doors. Finally, they emerged onto a sheer precipice halfway down the vertical face of the cliff upon which Gaigen sat. A narrow, treacherous staircase wound downward, wide enough for only two men. They descended one by one, Kungam following close behind Byuga. The prince wondered if his uncle had avoided this trip because of the strain the stairs put on his limp, but he kept the thought to himself.
After what felt like hours of a harrowing descent, they reached the bottom. Here, the wind was a howling beast. Byuga, used to the dry, still air behind the ramparts, pulled his leather cap tight against his cheeks. They walked further until his uncle stopped him. They were no longer on the shore, but atop the lake itself. Byuga realized the ice further out was thinner; his uncle must have sensed the danger.
Kungam, with the help of the shimlyndvyen, began to secure a rope to a massive iron spike. Byuga watched the other wardens spread out into two long lines, leaving hundreds of meters between them. He turned his head and looked at the waterfall. Its base was a frozen sculpture of jagged glass, but above, the waters still roared down in a thunderous cascade. He was enamored by the sight. He wished he could hear the sound of that collision. He watched the spray rise like ghosts and the ripples dance at the edge of the ice.
The rhythmic strike of hammers broke his reverie. The pairs of wardens began to carve circular holes into the ice. It was a surreal, beautiful sight: dozens of men spread across the white expanse, laboring to find the water beneath. As his uncle held the spike, the shimlyndvyen began to hammer. They drew gear from their packs—hooks, lines, and lures. Byuga took the rod and watched as his uncle methodically cracked the ice in a circle. When the ring was complete, Kungam signaled to Byuga and mimicked a kick. Byuga understood. Holding his uncle’s hand for balance, he brought his heel down hard. The circle of ice gave way, sinking into the dark, flowing water beneath. The ice was nearly a span thick; it was a marvel.
His uncle showed him how to bait the hook. They waited. Only after they had landed several fish did Kungam hand the rod to his nephew. Byuga excitedly baited the hook and began to reel slowly, but his uncle’s hand stopped him, indicating it was too soon. Byuga watched the other groups, trying to learn their rhythm. His gaze drifted to the horizon. Far across the lake, the land rose again into undulating plains. He turned to the shimlyndvyen.
"Are we close to the Land of the Giants?" he asked with his hands.
Kungam laughed when the question was translated. "No," he said. "To the east lie the Zil Plains and then Tahmar, the realm of the dwarves. The Land of the Giants lies far to the northeast, at the very edge of where the maps end. Beyond that, the world offers nothing to the Bahysa."
"Have you ever been?" Byuga signaled, momentarily forgetting his rod. His uncle tapped his hand in warning.
"He says he hasn't, for it is too far. And if you hope to see giants, you should put it from your mind. They are extinct. No one has seen their kind in over a century."
Byuga felt a pang of disappointment. He had read so much of them; perhaps the mapmakers were wrong. He knew they couldn't accurately draw the lands of the Kardams because they could not travel there, which created a strange triangular distortion on most northern maps. No one even knew the true height of a giant—some texts claimed they were three to five meters, while others said they stood as tall as a great pine. He tilted his head, trying to envision such a creature.
In that moment, he felt it.
A slight vibration, followed by a sudden, violent surge in the wind. He looked instinctively at his uncle, only to see the man staring in shock toward the north of Gaigen. Byuga turned his head and beheld a brilliance that shattered the sky. It was as if the sun itself had been sundered in a fit of celestial rage. The light was so piercing it scorched his vision. A ring of white fire erupted, expanding outward in every direction across the firmament. The wind became a maelstrom.
The ring of light had not even reached their position when the shockwave tore their feet from the ice. Kungam grabbed for him, but they both lost their footing and fell, the shimlyndvyen tumbling with them. All across the lake, the wardens were swept aside like autumn leaves. Byuga saw massive shards of stone falling from the ramparts of Gaigen and the cliff face. His ears rang with a phantom pressure. Though he was deaf, he could feel the roar of a world-ending thunder in his chest.
As the ring of light rippled past, shaking the very foundations of the Black Tower, they scrambled to their feet. The temperature plummeted. Byuga felt the cold biting through his clothes, made worse by the dampness of the ice.
Then, he felt the ice beneath him groan.
Kungam grabbed him, his mouth open in a desperate shout. All across the lake, men began to sprint for the shore. Byuga ran without looking back, slipping and falling repeatedly. When at last his feet hit the snow-covered earth of the shore, he turned.
His uncle was staring at the lake in horror. As the shimlyndvyen rushed to pull others from the ice, Byuga saw the devastation. The surface of the lake had been shattered into a thousand jagged floes. The wardens were struggling to stay atop the drifting ice or thrashing in the freezing, dark waters.
He felt a heavy blow strike the back of his head, and before Byuga could understand what had happened, the world went black.