Shadow Slave

A heavy silence settled in the tent bar, broken only by the muted rustle of the rain outside. The mention of the nebulous Sovereign, Asterion, caused the chill of the night to feel colder, and the darkness in the corners of the bar to seem darker... even though both Sunny and Mordret had avoided mentioning his name.

After all, those who knew of his existence all believed that the Dreamspawn could hear his name being spoken aloud, no matter where and when it was spoken.

Even knowing about him could attract his attention.

Sunny smiled crookedly.

“The Dreamspawn... oh my, what a scarecrow.”

He leaned back, relaxing on his plastic chair, and shrugged.

“I’ve been hearing scary stories about this man for decades now. But is he really that frightening? From what I could tell, his only claim to glory was joining your father in betraying Broken Sword. Even then, they just barely managed to kill him.”

Mordret shook his head.

”I think you misunderstand something, Sunless. It wasn’t that the Dreamspawn joined my father... my dear father only dared to turn on Broken Sword because he had struck a deal with the Dreamspawn. Which, albeit it pains me to admit, is not at all an indication of my father’s weakness — rather, Broken Sword was that much of a monster.”

He smiled pleasantly.

”I should know. After all, I was the price my father paid to ensure the Dreamspawn’s support. And because of that, Broken Sword ended up dead despite all his dire power.” He shrugged.

”You are quite a treacherous person yourself, Sunless, so you should know that the means one uses to achieve victory do not matter too much. The only thing that matters is who is left standing at the end of the battle — that is the only true measure of power. The Dreamspawn might have used cunning and treachery to kill Broken Sword, but he still killed him. Which means that, in the end, he was a deadlier monster.”

Sunny could not argue that point.

Still, he felt reluctant to agree.

”Sure, cunning and deviousness are a part of one’s power. But what of it? How diabolical that guy could have been if he ended up being outplayed and trapped on the Moon by his allies?”

He smirked.

“Gods. Who’s to say that he is still alive, even? That mysterious boogeyman everyone seems to be terrified of might have died years ago. There is a Category Six Gate on the Moon, after all... or maybe something even more unfathomable. Which means that there is an Unholy horror guarding that Gate. Even if the nature of the waking world is suppressing its powers, I find it hard to believe that your Dreamspawn has survived decades in the domain of an Unholy Nightmare Creature.”

Mordret smiled faintly.

”Oh, he’s alive. Of that, I have no doubt.”

He glanced at Sunny with a peculiar darkness hiding in his gaze.

“And the two of you — you and your own Dreamspawn — have made a deadly mistake. I cannot in good conscience blame you, though... in truth, his return became inevitable the moment the King of Swords and the Queen of Worms fell. Do you think that he is staying on the Moon of his own free will? No, naturally not. He could have escaped it a long time ago, if not for the fact that they were suppressing him all this time, and preventing his insidious influence from spreading back to Earth.”

Mordret sighed.

“However, the only two people who could shield the world from him are gone now. Changing Star, you, and even me — we simply do not know enough about the Dreamspawn and his powers to take their place in time. We do not have the benefit of having thoroughly prepared to contain him, either. So, he is coming... in fact, I am willing to bet that his influence has already began spreading both across the waking world and the Dream Realm.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow.

”Who says that we haven’t prepared?”

He sighed and glanced away.

”Naturally, we are no fools. We suspected that a confrontation with the third Sovereign was inevitable, too — so, we have been looking for signs of his return ourselves. Naturally, it has not been easy due to the fact that merely knowing about him puts our agents in danger... but we have been looking.” Ꞧ𝙖𝐍ọ𝐁Ěʂ

That was one of the purposes — perhaps the main purpose — of the Shadow Clan. Sunny had created a vast information network that spanned both worlds, serving as his eyes and ears, precisely because he wanted to know about Asterion showing up as soon as possible.

The members of the Shadow Clan did not know what they were looking for themselves, for safety reasons, but that did not prevent them from reporting all strange and suspicious things they had noticed to Sunny, as well as serving as conduits of his shadow sense.

In fact, he was going to receive the next report soon, now that the busy days of the winter solstice were behind them.

Mordret glanced at him with an amused smile.

“Then you have not been looking well enough.”

Sunny remained silent for a while, then sighed.

”The Dreamspawn... what is he like?” Mordret studied him for a long while, then took a deep breath and let out a short laugh.

”Oh, him? Well, if I were to describe him succinctly... I’d say that he is a mirror image of your Changing Star. A being very much like her, but also the exact opposite of her and what she stands for, like the dark side of a radiant sun. Or possibly he is what Changing Star was supposed to be, taken to the logical conclusion.”

Sunny scowled, surprised and unnerved by that answer.

”What do you mean?”

Mordret gave him a concerned look.

“You know what a Dreamspawn is, don’t you? A being born of both worlds, belonging to neither. Someone walking on the edge between a human and a Abomination.”

Sunny’s scowl deepened. That was one way to interpret it. Nephis was no Abomination, but in some sense, she did share a degree of... kinship with them.

That was the reason why she could absorb a portion of the soul fragments of the abominations who died to her flames, just like Awakened who killed other Awakened could.

“What of it?”

Mordret smiled darkly.

”Well, it seems to me that both of them have taken the burden of being a Dreamspawn to an extreme end. Changing Star denied the Nightmare part of her so thoroughly as to become the very symbol of humanity. Completely incorruptible.”

He glanced at Sunny and added in a lower tone:

“That man, however — the first and original Dreamspawn — did the opposite. He doesn’t care about being human at all... in fact, I don’t think he even considers himself a human. Instead, he has accepted the creature part of him with open arms... and among all creatures, he is the most frightening one of all. He is the kind of creature who walks around wearing a human face.”

Sunny shivered.

‘I think... I am starting to understand how Mordret ended up being who he is...