The Story of Sheng Seleris
I am Sheng Seleris, which means "Pain Star" in my tribal tongue though this was not always my calling, for many years I was called only "slave" and before that I was named as a child and not a man for I had not reached the age of initiation when I was captured and changed into what I am today.
My tribe was the Turorreg and we were ancient in lineage, tracing our fathers back to the Warlords of the Sun and the God of Heavenly Fire himself. My father was Khan of many warriors, mighty magics but little intelligence for his plans showed his courage and not his wits.
Before the first day of my slavery, our tribe had wintered near the lands of the Dragon Men and a great force of our warriors rode out from our camp to raid and destroy them. I was not on the raid, being too young to acompany the riders and thus I missed their demise.
Five hundred of our best men rode through the mountain passes. They were led bravely onwards by my father and older brothers only to be trapped and slaughtered in some unknown gorge. We didn't find out exactly what happened but I know that the Exarch had ordered a purge of the Horse clans that were wintering near the Mountains in an effort to prevent us raiding them further in the summer. Our five hundred were met with Golden Sun Warriors, Spear Birds, Iron clad legions and mystical magics that turned our shaman to dust.
How do I know these things when none of our warriors survived? I know because they sent a force of mercenaries to our camp to take slaves and bring their anger against our womenfolk and children. Strange warriors came, mounted on high-legged beasts, using long spears wielded with merciless precision. The few warriors we had left behind were swept aside by these marauders of the plains. They were led by Kralori soldiers who rounded up most of the women and children, split them in half, giving one half to the high-legged beast riders and the other half they kept for themselves. We found out about the massacre of our men from the Kralori guards who gloated with capricious glee as they led us back to their lands. I remembered their gloating when I ruled the lands of their children. They certainly did not forget mine.
So it was that we were marched through the lands of Kralorela as an example of the Exarchs power over the foolish horsemen of the plains. Our destination was unknown but it was clear that our captors were in no hurry to get us there. We were taken on a wandering route to be pelted by stones and shit at every village we passed through. In-between those brief spells of contact with the Kralori peoples, we ate leaves and dirt from the roadside, we drank piss-filled water from pools in the mud and always we were whipped onwards by the guards who treated us like animals instead of the proud sons of the Heavenly Fire that we were. But like our ancestor in the Darkness, we endured it all without a moan of pain to bring pleasure to our captors though some endured better than others.
When they raped my sisters, night after night, I sat like stone, my back straight and my head held high. I ignored their screams and cries, the laughter of the guards and the sounds of fists on flesh. I was of the Turroreg and we left the acknowledgment of pain to lesser men. I was obdurate, unbreakable or so I thought. I did not know then that sometimes the only way to make something stronger was to break it and build it anew.
Many of us died on that march, including my mother. I remember her death to this day. The stone that killed her cracked her skull like a melon as she trudged forward against the hail of dung and rotten fruit that bombarded us all as we passed through yet another village full of hate and bitterness. The guards made me drag her body to the side of the road and whipped me on when I tried to cover her pitiful form with some leaves and rocks. My sudden grief at her loss was overwhelming. I cried in despair, feeling nothing of the lash on my back as I hunched over the woman who had brought me into the world, baring my soul to the mercy of other men for the first time in my life. Instead of mercy I was given pain. Instead of love, I was given torture. Beyond agony, beyond suffering a part of me that I had not suspected before came to the fore and my heart hardened beyond rock, beyond iron. At that moment I lost my fears and I became Sheng Seleris.
I still did not know my name, yet I knew my purpose - I would have my vengence and I would have a place in the world beyond the mercy of other men. Mercy would be _mine_ to give, and ultimately to deny. That day those men of cruelty made a dagger to stab deep into their own hearts. I would be the weapon of retribution, the scourge of my peoples enemies and the righter of wrongs.
When we had marched for what seemed like a season we reached a land of bleakness and cold nights. It was like the tundra of Northern Pent in many ways, though more fertile. People lived here but they ignored us, ignored everything as they grubbed in the earth with the relentless probing and thoughtless instinct of a Long-Bill searching for worms. How I hated them, how I longed to crush them beneath my fist, to ride them into their terraces of mud and burn their feeble buildings of wattle and daub. My hate burned stronger every day till I felt like my skin boiled with my rage yet I knew that patience would have to be my mantra. I was but ten years of age, lacking the strength that would come to me in manhood and lacking the skills to use that strength. I resolved to wait and the grim pleasure of _knowing_ that I would have my desires fulfilled gave me the will of a god, the determination of a Hell Hound and the heart of a Hollri. I needed every bit of that determination for Hell was to be my prison, my cage and my forge and only the strongest steel could survive that heat and come out stronger.
We crested a rise made of quarried materials and I caught my first view of the Hen Siao Instant Torture Camp. It sprawled like a choking mold, a morass of misery and bile that infected the very earth it festered upon. Vast heaps of slurry dotted the wide sweep of land before us, around which were clustered long buildings of blackened stone. The reek of death and dispair hung over the myriad swarms of people who worked in mines factories, quarries and foundries everywhere in sight. Around this vast forge of suffering ranged a wall of several man-heights which was broken by towers of black rock that stuck up like smashed teeth at irregular intervals. Motionless black armoured warriors stood on those walls and others in red stood atop the towers, pointing missile weapons into the prisioners below.
Our guard captain turned to us and for once his grin of glee was gone, replaced by a look of discomfort. This place frightened him as it did the others. Most of our group was Kralori now as my own folk had been halfed in number by their sufferings and along the way we'd been joined by many other columns of prisioners from all over the Dragon Empire. "Prisioners move forward to the gates!" He ordered and the group shuffled forward uncertainly, except me for I strode to the gates as if entering the Chiefs Yurt for a taste of foreign wines.
Red clad warriors issued forth from the black gates to usher the crowd in, they were startled as I walked past them into the Camp. A tall red clad man with gold dragons swirling on his cloak rode over to me on a fine horse as I walked in. "You!" He shouted.
I looked up.die, yet I go on. Bring me the worst you have to offer, bring me the sufferings of all your Hells and I shall endure and in the end, I shall overcome."
"You seem eagre to enter, perhaps you think a world of pleasure awaits
you?" He smiled but there was no humour in it.
"No." Said I. "I _choose_ to enter this place for I could have chosen to
He laughed then, amused beyond words for some moments. Then he spoke in all seriousness "Boy, you have the heart of a Tiger but the brain of an Ox. Nobody endures what we have to offer here. This is not simply a prison, this is a trap for the soul. Once through these gates you will not die of age, only of suffering. We will not _let_ you die until it is in the greatest agony you have ever known in your life. This is the magic we bring to you and believe me when I say that no man has survived it before, nor will."
I stared back, uncowed, into his eyes and I saw a flicker of doubt pass over his mind as he saw the certainty in mine. "Then I shall be the first." I said and stepped into the gateway.
That single stride seemed to last an eternity and I knew that I had moved beyond the normal world into something out of phase with reality. This place was truly a Hell and I was bound to it with that simple step like the thousands who had passed through those gates before me.
There was one difference though - none of _them_ had been Sheng Seleris.
To be continued
Martin Laurie
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