The Prince of the Ruined City - by Opathu

((just the start of some Suulas stories, from his-nibs, Opathu))

*

Love. No. It was never love that had brought him back.

Duty... yes, perhaps duty. An overbearing mother too. On the surface at least. A business. A business dedicated to pleasure. And the virtues of pain.

He gripped the saddle and swayed.

Unlike himself, the steed did not tire. A gift from the Blood Guard. A fel creature that snorted beneath him and, no doubt, would feast on his flesh if not tethered carefully at night.

Colour exploded across his vision. A giant span of silver and shimmering strength. Silvermoon. A gossamer beauty scarred by fire and Scourge. Home to dead brothers and lost virtue. A life pandered to excess and vice. His life.

So few knew.

A memory of laughter, and flirting. Summers by the sea. Love. Her face.

Other thoughts tumbled through, spoiling the vision.

Dr Alaster and his frothing: an accountant of death. The screeching Druella, locked into a world of madness inside her rotting skull. The protesting cow-men, stinking of dung and cooking fires, gaping as the girls and gimps twirled about them in riotous abandon. Even tax demons sent by agents unknown.

Tiresome. But a necessary cover.

Suulas flexed his athletic frame and yawned, nodding at the gate guards, showing his death jester crest. The young captain grimaced and recoiled, almost bumping into her deputy as she waved him quickly through.

After all, even assassins, or spies, needed a day job. You could call him either. Interrogator, too. Sentiment was not part of their armoury. Duty was. One day this city would rise again.

Lord Suulas Var'nedris smiled. And it was a cold beauty which shone.

*

*

Some would call it blackmail.

Others libel.

Duels would be fought.

Families slandered.

Lies were simply a tool. As was the truth.

And the tools of his trade were not weapons of steel. Nor coruscating magicks. He had both. But needed neither.

A name blackened. An Order tarnished. A whisper now, of incest. And murder. Half-brother walking dead. Half-sister still with beating heart. Family found, reputations lost. Vile pleasures and trysts sealed. Corruption.

Suulas turned to his book keeper, and passed over the ancient, battered tome.

"Lock that away, Sime. Act two is now underway. Let us see how the human reacts ..."

*

*

As a 'tearling', a young Sin'dorei yet of manhood, Suulas had learned the seven names of the Sun. Jesha, Innoorit, Mchka'kuk, ... he forgot the rest. But those memories, those names, brought something back. A part of him which had died.

In those days, they had sipped sugared, drug-laced sherbet in their gondolas, dreaming spires lifting heavenwards above them.

She had smiled at him then. Tolerant of his jokes. 'Suulas - so well named you are, my love. The talking one.'

He had laughed, rolling on top of her, tickling, struggling, forcing his tongue into her honeyed mouth, stealing her soul with whispers of a life together. Children even. Though both knew they would have many arkets - life partners - in the long decades and centuries ahead.

Before Arthas. Before the Scourge. Before ruin.

*

*

He had faced a queen, once. A goddess even. Worshipped by her own peoples. Adored by The Order of Ash.

Yet to Suulas, a nithing. A nothing.

"You are banished from my sight, mortal!" she had screeched. "That is the last of your lies we shall tolerate!"

Her voice was ice and beauty, crafted pain. It rolled across the walls, echoing for a time from the dust and trophies which spoke of past glories and little new. Then a drifting quiet, a fleeting image of the snowy north. And marrow-seeping cold, as drops of water carved down her perfect cheeks, freezing before they e'er hit the floor.

He could fall in love with such perfection. If not for the harridan behind it. A spoiled child trapped in an ethereal body. She had spat lightning. Her arms threatened to crush his centuries of life. But she, and her taciturn doctor, whom Suulas - with graveyard humour - liked to imagine with lisp and limp, had remained nithings.

As he walked the length of swords, a simple candle flickered in his thoughts. Trained for years as interrogator, the master had ever to learn the lessons of the victim himself. The candle was the truth. The truth was himself. And he was the eternal flame.

"... never, and never repeat these rumours of the Doctor, the bar tab and the ladyboys of Silvermoon ... on pain of your mortal soul..."

He never heard the final words. He was already out of the door.

*

((slightly different, but still part of Suulas' fel deeds!))

Jungle. The constant croak of life, and decay. An eternal war of undergrowth and beast, insect and flesh.

Some said the mighty Attul began here. Others that it was a mere myth to frighten children. Empires lost and fallen, then risen again, 'ere the sun was young.

The figures paused. One spat, hawking a gob onto soil which sprang life wherever you trod. He flicked away a giant mosquito. His two companions' ghostly steeds snickered and pawed at the cloying air, unnerved even in death by what lay beyond.

They had fought and skulked their way north. Slain two of the wooded ones. Now their prey was near.

"To the tower, men," ordered the black-clad leader, sweltering inside his assassin's garb. "It is there my ... love awaits."

"And it's there she and her kind shall really learn what the Pact means," smirked his comrade, a scarred undead shadow.

"Ahahaha, indeed she shall," agreed his other companion, shifting her robes and mask. She set spur to dead flesh. "Come, pleasure-maker, let us be done with this filthy business."

"Aye ... cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war ..."

*

*

The ancient bridge rattled beneath the hooves. The leader gritted his teeth beneath his mask, and clung tighter to the dead beast, the juddering of bone grinding through his arse cheeks.

"That damn sileesa," he whispered. "She'll pay for putting me through this ..."

Making their way cautiously through the creeping gloom of Ashtongue, leaving the jungle far behind, they scouted and moved beyond the patrols. His assassin colleagues slotted one or two over-curious guards, the grunts of surprise quickly silenced by a knife across the windpipe.

Breathless, they emerged from the dark forest. There, ahead, the tower emerged from the mists.

"Put on your disguise, my comrades. She knows I travel with mercenaries and will not be surprised. We do not want this wench knowing of the connection to tonight's fel deeds."

He signaled the dismount.

*

*

"It is I, Lar, Maiisha my love...," he lied, "do not be startled."

His words were whispered honey with acid menace.

"Come closer, my dear, come to your dear old lover boy ... that's right, don't worry about my friends here, you recognise the staunch and loyal comrades of the Pact when you see them?"

She sensed, if not saw, the grin stretch uncomfortably wider behind his mask. It looked like Lar, it sounded like him. Her legs trembled in anticipation. Like a schoolgirl she felt – he had really returned!

"Oh Lar, Lar..." she wept, starting to move forward.

He opened his arms and embraced her. His leathers smelled of damp and mildew, of rot.

“Ouch! That hurts,” she giggled. “But I like it, you little tease!” She flicked his nose with her finger, looking up into the brooding one-eyed face. What she saw there was cold, hard. She reached up to touch his scar.

“Lar? My love? Is anything the matter? I came here as soon as I received word. I knew - just knew - you didn’t really love Sie. It was hard losing you, and Laertes, to the new order of things. But now ... now we can be together again? Yes? Surely now ...” she whispered, leaning in close to his ear and breathing hot.

“Get away from me you foul thing!”

Suulas shoved her roughly aside. She stumbled and struggled to keep her balance. Her daemon growled and above, a bird rose in alarm. A soft “swoosh” moved past her.

“B-beloved? Why do you push me aside?” she cried, a tear trembling down her cheek. Furiously she wiped it away with a soft hand, adjusting the expensive silks she donned for this special occasion. Thank the gods her clan had no idea of this meeting – she’d be punished if they did. Bah! Let them, she thought. Shoving doubts aside she moved in closer to the Nil’Hume again.

“Lar, Lar, my brave bladesman,” she crooned. “I know you’re upset at the changes ... but I forgive you. I know you did what you had to do ... only following orders from Laer-”

“Shut up b'itch!”

Something heavy crashed into the back of her skull. Blinding, furious pain flashed through her eyes and she thought she’d be sick there and then. She hung, woozy like a punch-drunk boxer, trying to stay on her feet. She heard breathing close by...

*

*

Some had called him a Prince. But he had been a pauper in his time. Lived among the beggars of The Drag. Learned things a man should not know among the king of their kind. The fearsome and loathsome Lushan.

Now he sustained his investigations by chewing dreamweeed and drinking blood mixed with kumiss, smoking a strong leaf on his shishe and slapping his limbs. Hard lessons not forgot, despite the surroundings.

He scratched at his scarred flesh, fingering the hook marks.

What did these noble fools know of the common man? There was more art, more poetry, more reason and logic in their daily existence than that in a thousand pampered fools, heroes, demons or lords.

He smiled. Just faintly.

One day they would all be brought low. All revolutions began slowly. And they needed men - and women too, he had to admit - of vision and intelligence. Of courage. People with conviction to see through the dark days to the change that was coming.

A world free of gods and powers; a society of equals ruled by the people.

To this end, the noble-born Blood Elf mocked his own thoughts, pulled his cloak about him and set that famous smile in place as he welcomed the night's new arrivals to the Pleasure Pits.

*

((interlude from Lushan the beggar))

"Tap tap"

"Tap tap ... tap tap tap."

A walking cane?

A drop of water. An echo.

"Tap".

The figure froze. He was panting heavily. His thick rolls of flab hung over his ermine robes and seemed to create an impression of a stuffed over-sized toad. His eyes bulged, red-rimmed with fear and his gout was playing hell.

"Dammit! Who's there? You fiend, I'll have you flayed for this game! Mark my words..."

He listened. Nothing. The stench of the sewer was overpowering. He had to get out of here. A wrong turn on the Drag; an army of small urchins grabbing at his robe; the paranoia that came with the crystal every time he imbibed.

"Tap tap ... tap tap tap ..."

Suulas did not believe in the gods which his people worshipped.

He had returned a conquering hero, the blood of his enemies a fitting sacrifice for the names that were inscribed on the temples and shrines of Silvermoon.

Palm leaves had been thrown down. A saviour proclaimed. The prince would save them. But he had brought only shame and vice.

How could he fulfil obligations placed upon his shoulders by those who knew nothing of him? They worshipped his name, his family, some vain hope that a prophecy would be fulfilled and the might of Arthas undone.

But his master Kael had left them - him - and vapourous promises were just that. He was just a pimp and pleasure master, an entertainer now. That was how low he had sank. Until he read the book. It had torn his mind. A world without gods. But the seed had taken root; germinated; sank tendrils into the very fibre of his being; left him stronger, without a crutch.

No, the people did not need gods. But they needed them, in the way the wretched craved their ounce of magic.

They needed to break this addiction. They needed to purge themselves.