Long years ago, at the beginning of the Second Age of the world when the Old Realm fell, the Lunar Exalted fled into exile in the depths of the Wyld. One of these fallen demigods forsook her fellows and came, alone, to an isolated tribe of primitive humans living on the very edge of Creation. Few Lunar Exalted took the shapes of insects; fewer still had them as their totem, but Zhiyu Beä (pr. J-eye-yoo Bee-ah) was a Bee-totem No Moon Lunar. These people became her swarm; their kingdom her hive. When she died, almost a millennium later, the eldest of her twin Moon-Born children, Zhiyu-Beä Yæla (pr. Yay-lah), inherited a thriving kingdom in which the females totally dominated the males. They had three castes: the Beä, the caste of leadership; the Ji (pr. Jee), the warrior caste; and the Hi (pr. Hee), the worker caste. The Beä consisted entirely of the tribe’s women, the men made up the other two, subservient, castes. Yæla’s brother, Zhiyu-Hi Xeng (pr. Sh-eng), as head of the Hi - being male he could not hope to rise higher than the worker caste - supervised his fellow His in the continuing construction of their great city, built in accordance with the wishes of their majestic progenitor. Future generations of visitors to the city would call it simply “The Hive”.
The subjugated males of the Zhiyu were not content with their second-class status, and once the Great Mother, Beä, was dead, they were able to begin plotting revolution. Xeng became the figurehead for this rebellion. When the time came, on a single pre-arranged day, hundreds of workers and warriors simply stopped what they were doing and left the city. They walked some hundred-or-so leagues to the east, and began their own tribe, the Xeng. They must have had some women among them for, as history records, they survived.
Though the initial revolution was bloodless, there has never been any love lost between the female-dominated Zhiyu and the male-dominated Xeng. The two tribes remained bitter enemies for the rest of their history. Their shared origin ensured they had a shared destiny. This destiny was fulfilled during the reign of Zhiyu-Beä Astral, who was Queen of the Zhiyu at the time of the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.
As the final test of a would-be Royal Guardsman, the candidate is sent into Xeng territory to perform a difficult and dangerous act of espionage, sabotage or assassination against them. If the candidate returns successful, he is accepted. If he is unsuccessful, he does not return.
Djinn was given the task of assassinating a chief of the Xeng called Gnay. His target had survived a previous attempt on his life, and now travelled everywhere with a squad of bodyguards. Djinn was ordered to dispose of them, too.
Infiltrating the Xeng capital was no problem; the Ji had been doing this for centuries and the routes were well established. Djinn picked his time to act carefully; his mark was at home with only his bodyguards - no guests, no witnesses. Careful surveillance of the house had made him sure of this. He made his move in the dead of night, over the walls and into the grounds, which he crossed with silent skill. He got into the house through a skylight that he had previously identified as a weak point, and made his way directly to the master bedroom. Djinn knew he faced the risk of being killed on this mission, and so he had to eliminate his primary target first. Gnay was sleeping soundly when Djinn entered. He approached the bed silently, drew out his dagger, and hesitated. Djinn had killed before, in skirmishes with the Xeng, but these had always been combats, in which he faced death as well as his opponent. He had never assassinated before. This was the test - could he do it?
He could.
Djinn stabbed Gnay in the heart. It should have brought the man instant death, the dagger was straight through his chest and pinning him to the bed, but instead things started to go wrong. First, Gnay opened his eyes and stared up at his murderer. Then, the entire room was bathed in golden light. Djinn staggered back, stunned by the light, as Gnay thrashed around on the bed, spurting blood from his wound and gurgling in obvious pain. Djinn was so bewildered by the light and transfixed by the man’s death throes that he failed to notice another person enter the room for several seconds. When he did, instinct took over and he leapt backwards to the balcony doors - his chosen method of escape in an emergency. Regaining his bearings by this action, Djinn looked at the new arrival to see which of the bodyguards it was, and saw that it was none of them. The figure was that of a woman, a tall, pale, elegant beauty in a dark night-robe.
Djinn couldn’t believe he had overlooked the presence of a woman here. If he had been acting rationally, he would have killed her immediately to prevent her from alerting the guards, but the dazzling light and the ingrained psychology of the Zhiyu men that they treat women as their superiors meant that he was acting far from rationally.
He decided to abort, and smashed through the doors to the outside, leapt from the balcony and ran across the grounds. The light was following him, making stealth impossible. Some of the bodyguards were running out after him, and they could all see him clearly. They caught him just as he reached the outer wall, preventing him from attempting to scale it and escape. Surrounded, outnumbered, Djinn prepared to die fighting rather than be taken alive - a fate worse than death in the mind of the Zhiyu-Ji. He drew his sword.
They did not attack. By the unnatural light he could see their faces - they were each too afraid to attack him. But then the circle of guards was parted and the woman Djinn had seen earlier stepped through. She looked him right in the eye as she came towards him. Before he knew it, Djinn was disarmed, and she held his weapon in her hands, limply, as though disappointed.
“Have you seen yourself?” she asked him. Djinn did not respond, he simply gaped. He could not believe what was happening. After a moment’s uncomfortable silence, she produced from her person a mirror, and held it up for Djinn to look into. He flinched at the light reflected back, and then squinted at his own reflection. It was his face, bathed in light, with an empty circle at the heart of the brilliance, shining forth from his forehead. Djinn shook his head, though whether this was an attempt to shake off the Mark of the Anathema or simply to deny the reality of the situation, none could say. The woman tutted sharply, and put her mirror away. Djinn buried his face in his hands.
“What shall we do with him, Lady D’Arquing?” one of the guards asked.
“Take him back inside. Guard him. He will try to slay himself - do not let him.” She delivered the instructions efficiently, as one used to command. Djinn raised his head and looked at her.
“But…” he managed to say.
“What is it? Speak, O Chosen of the Sun,” she mocked him.
“But you’re a woman. The Xeng do not follow women.”
A look of contempt crossed her face. “You loathsome worm. How very provincial of you. Given one of the greatest gifts in Creation, you are more concerned with how your enemy is more like you than your petty prejudices would have had it. For your information, I am not Xeng.”
The guards took him inside before he could reply to this revelation.
A prisoner of the Xeng, Djinn began his re-education at the hands of “Lady D’Arquing”. Using manipulative tricks and techniques unheard of by the primitive Zhiyu or Xeng, the foreign woman worked on Djinn’s psychology to turn him into an agent for the Xeng. She found it pitifully easy - the natural inclination of the Zhiyu-Ji was to obey women; she merely had to adjust his loyalty so that he was devoted to her alone.
Lady D’Arquing also began his instruction in the development and use of Charms, and the other magics of his Exalted state. She taught him that, as a Solar, he was an agent of ultimate evil, and made him believe his purpose as a member of the Night Caste was to bring death to the enemies of darkness. He swallowed her lies totally, based as they were upon common legends. By the end of it, she knew he would live and die for her.
Before returning her slave to the Zhiyu, she had Djinn kill the former bodyguards of Gnay at her bidding - to make it appear he had completed his mission.
Djinn was welcomed back by his colleagues, who had assumed him dead in the months he had been gone. The story he told convinced them he had merely had to track down the bodyguards after they fled from him. They also had to break to him the sad news regarding Queen Djana, who had died during his absence. This meant he would be joining the Guard of the new Queen.
Djinn’s first meeting with Queen Astral was when she presented him with his ceremonial yellow uniform and black armour that marked his acceptance of one of the elite.
As this great honour was done to him, Djinn thought only of his far-off Lady and her words to him, when she explained the yellow of the uniform was an unconscious attempt to emulate the ancient glory of the golden Solars. He smiled at the irony. Misinterpreting this, Astral smiled back at her young Guardsman. From this mistake was born the friendship between the Queen and her betrayer.
Seven years passed. Djinn’s skill at essence manipulation grew, and he became by far the most skilled warrior of the Zhiyu-Ji. Before he was 20 years old, he was put in charge of teaching the young Ji the art of the sword - the youngest instructor ever. Among his kind he was accounted a prodigy, and none ever guessed he was more than human.
He almost gave himself away once.
Djinn had learned the magic of calling his sword to him through the air, and then refined it until the blade did not even pass through space, but simply appeared in his hand at his wish. He could practice this Charm only in secret, though, as it was clearly a magical power - swords do not normally appear from thin air.
It was while practicing this ability, trying to establish the range of his power as exactly as he could, that Djinn was almost found out. He stood alone in his dormitory, which he shared with other Guardsmen when he was not serving the Queen, and willed his blade to him. He was taken aback when an entirely different weapon appeared in his hands - a sword, to be sure, but far larger than any he was used to wielding. Djinn found it beautiful; it possessed a four-foot golden blade, decorated with intricate carvings and runes that said, though Djinn could not read them, “Song of Night’s Glory Unveiled”. It felt right in his hand, and he knew it belonged to him. He began practicing with it, swinging it around the dorm and imagining the foes he could slay with this weapon in his hands. Then he heard the sound of someone approaching. Djinn was endowed with acute senses, which had grown far sharper since his exaltation, so the footsteps were still some way off, but nevertheless - what could he do with the sword? It was too big to hide in the spartan sleeping quarters. He could call weapons to him, but not get rid of them! He began to have visions of having to cut his way out of the city with this weapon of the ancient Anathema in his hands, revealing his nature to all before he slew them as he escaped to his Lady. Panic grew inside him with the thought of ruining her carefully laid plans. He steadfastly refused to accept this fate. As the approaching person reached the door, Djinn calmed his mind, and bid this sword return to whence it came.
It did so.
Djinn was the trusted favourite and companion of the Queen, but he was still very young. He could not hope to rise in the ranks of the Royal Guard until the elder Ji considered him ready, unless they were specifically ordered to promote him by the Beä, which was almost never done. The plan of Lady D’Arquing had to wait for this to come to pass. The sheer talent of Djinn could not be ignored for long, and he was made Watch Commander by the time he was 23, in RY768. At the start of 769, the Lady communicated to Djinn that she was ready. One night, Djinn paid a visit to those under his command that were guarding the main gate to the Zhiyu city’s walls. He slew them silently and without warning, and then opened the gate. A Xeng force entered “The Hive” and began their mission of holy slaughter. Djinn assisted them in overcoming the few Zhiyu-Ji that resisted. No Zhiyu was spared, no woman, no man, and no child. Djinn felt no remorse at his actions; even as he killed those he had known all his life. How many died with an unspoken “why” on their lips? Too many to count.
The invaders made their way inwards, towards the palace. There, Lady D’Arquing met her slave and took him inside to see the final end of the line of Beä Yæla. The Xeng did not need to assault the palace, it turned out. The Lady had her own troops, which were clad from head to foot in sinister crimson armour with black faceplates, gloves and boots. They took Djinn and the Lady to Queen Astral’s bedroom, where she was captive. Around her lay the bodies of her maids and her Guardsmen that had died protecting her. She sat quietly, awaiting her fate. Lady D’Arquing addressed her:
“Your Majesty, I wanted you to know, before you die, what has brought your people to their doom: nothing more nor less than the base treachery of our dearly beloved Djinn. All the time you thought him your most dedicated and precious servant, he was, in fact, mine.”
Astral was horrified, and could not believe it. “No, no, no. You’re lying.”
D’Arquing smiled a cold, predatory smile. “Djinn. Kill your Queen for me.” She drew out a dagger, the very one Djinn had used to kill Gnay seven years before, and handed it to Djinn. He looked at her, and then looked at his Queen. After several seconds, he turned back to D’Arquing and looked into her eyes.
Queen Astral said, “Djinn, I…” but got no further, because Djinn struck her dead with a strike to the heart. His eyes were still locked with those of his Lady.
“Well done, Djinn, Last of the Zhiyu. You please me. Come, I think now you are truly ready.”
They left the room, where the Queen toppled sideways onto her bed, dagger still through her breast.
“Last of the Zhiyu.” These words echoed in Djinn’s mind as D’Arquing led him from his city. Everywhere they passed he saw the bodies of Hi, Beä and Ji, but not one living Zhiyu. It seemed to him he truly was the last. The Xeng, his people’s ancient foes, were victorious in the end. Their warriors were exultant in the streets of their enemy’s city - having achieved their goal, discipline had broken down and they were indulging in the sports of conquering armies: looting and pillaging. Djinn looked at them with hatred - this was not his victory. It was his ultimate defeat. At the gates of the city, where he had first let the Xeng in, D’Arquing halted.
“This, my dear, you may enjoy. Watch.”
Following in the footsteps of the Xeng, hundreds of the crimson-clad warriors poured into the city, and fell upon the unsuspecting Xeng. The Lady laughed as the hunters became the hunted, the butchers became the butchered. She looked at Djinn.
“You want to, but dare not, ask me why, no?” She could see from his face that this was so. “The creation of a shadowland is no easy task. Cities so remote from the heart of Creation are so few and far between. This shall henceforth be a land of death, a celebration of the destruction of both the Zhiyu and the Xeng. It will be my domain from now until the end of time. You shall be my first and greatest servant, but there shall be many more. You will be their captain, and my consort. I take you now to the Labyrinth, where you may realise your destiny and achieve true greatness. You have taken all the steps save one, my love. You have only to face the Abyss.”
Of the journey into the Labyrinth, Djinn remembered little, for it is the way of things that the mind must reject such memories to keep its sanity. Ever his mind remained on one sentence uttered by his Lady: “Last of the Zhiyu.”
She took him to a chapel of darkness, at the heart of a domain of evil. A jet black room, with a bottomless chasm. There she said: “And now… you must give up your name. Cast it into the void, and you shall be mine eternally.”
Djinn stood on the edge of the abyss, and gazed into it. As the saying goes, it gazed back. He looked into himself, deeper than he had ever looked before, realising the full significance of this decision. He saw his heart, his very core. It looked like the sun, and upon it was written “Zhiyu-Ji Djinn”. He had betrayed his Queen and his people. Because of his actions he had lost them, and was the Last of the Zhiyu. His name was all he had left. That, and his free will.
Lady D’Arquing saw his hesitation. “It is your destiny,” she cajoled him.
He turned from the Abyss.
“Fuck you,” he said.
She screamed and wailed in a terrible rage, and at an unspoken command her crimson troopers filled the room and formed a semi-circle around the lone Solar, trapping him between them and the chasm.
“You fool! Why? Why? You have nothing without me, nothing!” The once beautiful face of the Lady was a hideous sight to behold when twisted in wrath. The pair stood in a silent battle of wills as she composed herself. Her voice was eerily calm when she spoke again. “You deserve nothing, and that is what you shall receive. You will not give your name to Oblivion; I will give all of you to Oblivion. You will be cast into the Abyss, and that will be the end of your pathetic people. Kill him!”
Her guards charged forwards at the unarmed Djinn, but he drew his secret sword from its hiding place and the golden blade cut down the first wave even as they attacked. They fell back; even the Lady had not anticipated that. But he could not pull that trick a second time. There were too many opponents, and he was in the heart of his enemy’s citadel. Djinn knew he would die, but he was determined to kill as many of his former Lady’s minions as he could before he did. This was a determination he had never felt before, except in the service of the Lady. He was free of her control, and he revelled in that freedom as he killed guard after guard. Slowly, they forced him back at great cost. Standing at the edge of a precipice, there was only so much ground he could give. At the last, he killed two of his foes with one swing at the very moment he lost his footing.
Djinn heard in his mind a deep voice, a voice that rose up from within his soul, but one he had never heard before. It said, “The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance.”
He didn’t fall; he vanished.
Djinn found himself in a void, but not the terrible nothingness of Oblivion. He was facing a large, four-armed man that he knew instantly was the mighty Lord of the Sun, God of Gods. It was He that had spoken. He explained why He had taken Djinn out of time - by rejecting the offer of the Deathlord, he had taken his first steps on the path to redemption. But Djinn could never have truly atoned for his terrible crimes if he had died uselessly, though entertainingly, standing up to the Lady. The Unconquered Sun declared that Djinn must wait for a time when his skills would be needed more than ever. This would be an age when the whole world would be threatened by the Deathlords and their Abyssal servants, those weaker in spirit than Zhiyu-Ji Djinn who gave up their very names for power. He instilled in Djinn the desire to help these unfortunates, to bring them back from the abyss as he had brought himself. The power to fight the servants of Oblivion was his - knowledge of their methods, of their manipulations. Their way was but a hair’s breadth from his. As a Chosen of the Night Caste, he walks in darkness. Set a ninja to catch a ninja.
This, then, is Zhiyu-Ji Djinn, Last of the Zhiyu.