The Wailing Hall

Throughout the night, screams had echoed through the corridors of the Obsidian Citadel, cries of agony so piercing they seemed to be tearing through the stone itself. Pleas, desperate pleas to the Celestials, to the Wills, to death itself, mingled with the imprecations shouted in Nagan, guttural and raging, filled with impotent rage.
Every stone oozed pain, and the walls, the carpets, the cold floor tiles... everything seemed soiled by this agony...

Locked away in a room in the basement of the Citadel that the, wamūjis (wa-mou-ou-dji) and the servants, in low voices, named among themselves the Hall of Lamentations, the queen remained there, alone, self-mutilated and in the midst of a crisis, bent under the weight of her own affliction. A pain and torment so manifest, so striking, that a stranger could have believed that she was the victim.

But those who had served her for years knew, or thought they knew, that suffering was neither foreign nor imposed upon her. In the corridors throughout the citadel, they said that the queen delighted in it, that she loved this pain. That her weeps, if one listened closely, were mingled with squeals of pleasure, laughter of madness, and howls of acute pain.

When the queen left for one of her nights of crisis, she systematically rejected all help, all soothing words, all offerings of balm or rest before being carried to her room by one of her guards, once daybreak had arrived and finally, exhausted, she fell asleep.

—Pain, for an eternal lover , the queen had once said, before throwing herself on the face of a young maid, who had been sent to offer her help. The maid, a young moon elf named Yãma (Yay-ma), lost her left eye that night. It was torn out by the queen, who, in a fit of madness, forced it to be swallowed, before beating her bloody until the two wamūjis intervened and finally dragged the unfortunate woman from the room.

Since this incident, no wamuji, no servant, no one close to the queen ever dared to cross the threshold of the room again when she was in the throes of her nocturnal fits. Everyone feared what they might discover there, or what might perhaps discover them.
The boldest trembled, while those most loyal to the queen averted their eyes.

All but one.

Bubakar, a Moon elf, having lived over a thousand years, a child of the Southern Water Tribe . A loyal, protective, and unyielding advisor from the Balake (Ba-la-ké) governing clan, he renounced his title after taking a vow of lifelong servitude to the Mamake royal clan by becoming a wamūji.

Always on the right of the queen, when she left the citadel, it was to him alone that ZA Dãna confided her thoughts and allowed herself to be approached in her most vulnerable moments.

Once again, it was him, as the stars lit up the inky veil of the sky, who had been invited by the queen in the middle of the night. For several hours, dozens of messengers had run throughout the citadel, in order to warn him that the queen ardently wished to speak with him in the hall of lamentations.

Having reached the basement of the citadel, Bubakar stopped for a moment, a slight apprehension in the pit of his stomach, facing the massive black wooden door behind which, he supposed, the queen had briefly dozed, so heavy and oppressive was the silence.

In front of the entrance, two wamūji stood guard, spears firmly in hand. Straight, rigid, and stoic as ever, they wore traditional red, black, and gold attire. Their obsidian breastplates were adorned with the Mamake crest: a solid gold Mingwa.
At the sight of their captain, the two men bowed their heads respectfully.

— The queen is waiting for you, Commander.

Then, in a ceremonial gesture, the two wamūjis struck their spears against the ground simultaneously, two sharp, metallic blows that echoed like a death knell through the empty, silent corridors. Finally, the two alkebs stepped aside, allowing their commander to enter the small, unfurnished room, partially plunged into darkness.

Inside, the silence had something almost supernatural about it. An eerie calm, broken only by a faint rattle escaping from a figure huddled against the brick wall at the far end of the room.

It was the queen...

Usually so beautiful and imperious, there she was, sitting, covered in filth, disheveled, near a dying hearth, her gaze lost in the flames, as if she were searching there for a memory that she herself had burned.

After a brief exchange of evocative glances with his two Wamūji brothers, Bubakar closed the door behind him and saw the queen's cat watching him with those piercing, menacing red eyes.

— Yes… I know it amuses you , murmured Bubakar in a hoarse voice, a weary breath, while throwing a last haughty glance at the beast which, impassive, defied him with its gaze.

As he walked past the cat, Bubakar shimmered his endokã and looked down at the hunched posture of the queen, sitting on the ground.

The heat in the room was overwhelming. Two braziers roared at the queen's feet, casting strange, dancing, menacing shadows across the walls. The air thickened with the acrid smell of coal and charred wood, enveloping the space in an almost suffocating dampness... And yet...

With amazement, Bubakar saw steam escaping from the queen's mouth with each of her exhalations.
The contrast was unreal: her lips, chapped and blue...
The queen was shivering with cold...

Behind the queen stood a tall, cracked mirror with a shadowy frame, carved from blackened wood and adorned with intricate Alkebian ornaments. Faces emerged within it, men, women, beasts, like frozen presences trapped in the glass. Bubakar, who knew this mirror all too well, was aware that day after day, it seemed to tell a new story. Its carvings, so precise and timeless, betrayed a craftsmanship so refined… it became unsettling.

As his gaze brushed the surface of the glass, unwillingly, Bubakar caught sight of a shadow. A black, formless mass, suspended behind him, without anchor or reflection.

He turned immediately, more a defensive gesture than a reflex, locking eyes with the cat, still unmoving. Then, without pressing further, he turned his focus back to the queen, determined to ignore the mirror.

Her fingers were clenched, digging into her own flesh. And blood, silent and steady, traced dark rivulets down her wrists.

—She doesn't even seem to feel it... he thought, observing his queen with his blue eyes that shone in the darkness.

The commander now stood a few steps away from his queen. He slowly straightened his back, assumed a straight and dignified posture, and then waited, waiting as protocol dictated for the queen to willingly make eye contact before announcing himself.

After a moment that seemed to stretch beyond time, the queen finally slowly raised her head. Her empty eyes rested on Bubakar, and for a split second, he felt she didn't recognize him. Her frowning, suspicious features slid over him, as if he were merely a distant memory or a forgotten dream.

—Nãara, my queen... You sent for me? he said finally, his head bowed, his hand over his heart in reverence.

She looked at him without answering, then, her lips trembling with cold, she said:

— Bu… Bu… Buba… B...Bubakar… Have you found the little boy?

His fingers dug deeper into the flesh on the backs of his hands, his nails bloody and quivering.

— No, my queen, Bubakar replied gravely. Not yet. We need a little more time.

The queen then looked away from him. Her gaze fixed on her gold ring set with an emerald that reflected the firelight from the two braziers just inches from the freezing queen.

— T… T… Tell me… Buba… B… B… Bubakar… do you think I’m… crazy?

He hesitated. For a breath, the silence between them thickened.

— No, my Queen, he finally said, frowning slightly.

—The t... the truth! She stared at him now, motionless, one of her translucent, blind white eyes rotating in its socket, while her other eye, the left one, was impregnated with the electric blue endokã that the queen, despite her fragility and instability, managed to make shimmer by some miracle.

The elf lowered his head, then took a slow, deep breath, like a swimmer before diving into risky waters.

— You have changed, he said carefully, choosing his words carefully. Since the loss of your sister, your mother... and your husband. No one could come out of such losses unscathed. And no one should be blamed.

A silence heavier than the palace walls fell upon them, and the queen now stared at the alkeb with both eyes, as if she were trying to read between the lines, as if she were trying to read his mind.

—Are you afraid of me, Bubakar?

A smile tugged at the corner of the queen's lips, a faint, almost mocking smile as the cat took a seat directly behind her and stared back at Bubakar.

— I'am. He answered without trembling, dropping to one knee, avoiding the cat's gaze as well as that of the queen.

The latter had a small smirk of satisfaction upon hearing her guard's response and immediately, her posture changed.

— So be it ! She said in a more assured and firmer tone.

The queen's fingers slowly relaxed, as if emerging from a painful dream and now anchored in reality. Then, with a mechanical gesture, she began to touch the emerald set in the ring on her index finger. Her finger traced circles over the smooth surface of the jewel, as if she were trying to soothe a sleeping beast.

The stone was throbbing.

Not as an inert object, but as a living thing, a will, tuned to the rhythm of ZA Dãna Mamake's heart. Bubakar saw it. He also saw what others would not have dared to look at: the filth, the bruises that mottled the queen's half-naked body. Her veins, green, thick, and twisting, rose under her skin like poisonous vines. They climbed from her wrist to her neck, then to her face, wrapping around her right eye.

This eye, veiled and pale, seemed dead at first glance. An empty shell, devoid of iris, without pupil. Many, even among the most learned of the court, thought it blind.

But Bubakar knew... That eye saw... Too much. Much more than light and shadow.

It was a gift, or a curse, that the queen carried like a burden. Perpetual visions of the invisible world, that of spirits, Wills, and horrors.
Normally, she managed, not without difficulty, to close this window between the two worlds.
But when the stone awoke...
When the maxetanis , lodged in the heart of the emerald, decided to regain its hold, sometimes for no apparent reason, and torture her, both physically and mentally, the queen, powerless to free herself from it, could only endure. Nothing could then stem the tide...

Then the visions flooded in.

And with them, the screams, the burns, the cold... Voices, too... The queen experienced all of this, and she was the only one experiencing it.

For what the eye saw, no one else could see. What he screamed, only his ears could hear.

And that, Bubakar thought with silent sadness, was perhaps worse than madness.

The commander, seeing his queen stagger as she struggled to get up on her feet, approached his queen to offer her support.

—By the Eternals, my queen... accept my help. Do not bear this burden alone...

ZA Dãna then looked up at him. An icy irony, as icy as her skin, flowed through her weary voice:

—I'm never alone... she hissed, turning her back on him. One hand clutched at his head, the other beating the air as if to chase away shadows that only he couldn't see.

— Find me the child, that is your mission, Bubakar! Find me the child and bring him back to us!

Without another word, the elf bowed, turned on his heel, and left the Hall of Lamentations under the gaze of the queen's cat, who would haunt him once again for many more nights.

No sooner had the door closed behind him, locked by the wamūjis, than the screams, the heart-rending cries and the tears began again, more ferocious, more desperate than ever.

Once again, for ZA Dãna Mamake, the night was going to be long...