The City of the Sun God was crumbling. Once, the city of glass had been maintained by the same Atlantean technology that had helped stabilize the Savage Lands. But while that verdant jungle had become self-sustaining, the city had not. Many of its people had left for one local tribe or another. More still had been killed for disloyalty, speaking blasphemy against Garokk the Sleeping God. Of the Sun Empire, only this ruined city remained.
Zaladane knew this to be true. She told herself of it every day, speaking aloud in the measured tones that made such impassioned speeches to corral her remaining flock. Every day, she made pilgrimages to the ancient glass-that-imagined, seeing the days of yore when the entire Savage Land had fallen under the yoke of the Sun Empire, and the mountain underneath the City of the Sun God had shown its thrall with roars and great smoke.
But the smoke no longer came and the pictures, no matter how they moved, were still just pictures. And though every night she visited the tomb of her husband Garokk—who she was married to in absentia, as all high priestesses were stretching back to when the Sleeping God had walked—and she begged him to return, to awaken, to fulfill the dread prophecy that had once struck fear into all the tribes of the Savage Land... her faith was not rewarded. Her prayers were not answered.
She maintained her daily routine, bathing in the mountain water that chilled her like the heart of a stone. Once every possible speck of the wasting city's pollution was removed, she allowed the serving girls to anoint her with oil and rub it into her flesh until the dark skin gleamed like freshly polished onyx, her long, straight hair only a shade darker—marking her as the perfect mate for Garokk the Petrified Man.
The rest of her was similarly appealing to her long-lost, long-awaited husband. Her legs were long and powerful, tapering from firm thighs to dainty sandaled feet. Her arms were almost the same length, thin-muscled down to slender fingers, festooned with rings to give them the appropriate weight. A long neck led up to a narrow face of thin lips and slitted eyes, cruel cheekbones leading from her pointed ears to her pointed chin. In everything, she was tall and slender, like a diamond after being carved from the rough. Her breasts kept with the rest of her, unavoidably small, but well-framed by her red and white robes, which swept over her body like a bird's wings. She was a vision of striking loveliness, superior to any other among her people. And if she wasn't, she had them killed.
What remained of the once-mighty army had managed to capture a hunting party of Waidians. The green-skins would make adequate sacrifices to attempt appeasement of the Sleeping God. If not, perhaps in their entrails Zaladane would find some sign of her lord husband's return while she was still young and beautiful.
She had dreamed of him the other night. Garokk the Petrified Man had awoken and reclaimed the Savage Lands for her, his patient bride. First, he had rebuilt the City of the Sun God, more splendid and gleaming than ever! Then, he had reunified the People of the Sun, punishing some of the more egregious doubters to set an example, but forging the rest into an all-powerful army. Then, the Sun Empire resurgent! All the scattered peoples of the Savage Lands, no longer squabbling and worshipping, each in their own chaotic way, but all brought low before the might of the Sun Empire and its god!
Then, Garokk had fucked her as only he and he alone could do, dominating her, ravishing her, driving her to heights of pleasure that even her dreaming mind could not imagine.
That part of her dream was a little more vivid than the stuff about refurbishing the city, though it really did need it.
Soon, she knew, in her heart, her soul, her needing loins. Soon, the return of her lord husband, the end of the disbelievers, the reclamation of the Sun Empire. Zaladane stood in the balcony of her great citadel (greater still if they had possessed the technology to remove the graffiti from between the windows). She looked out at the City of the Sun God and, beyond its vined walls, the great reach of the Savage Lands. She imagined the unchecked growth razed into order, all the scurrying vermin that lived in that filth forced to kneel to her—and her lord husband, of course.
Perhaps she'd visit the Waidians before their sacrifice and offer her body to one or three of the more appealing ones. The Sleeping God would best appreciate an offering that had been shorn of lust, after all. It would bring her nowhere near the same pleasure as loving submission to her lord husband, naturally, but for her beloved, she would endure.
Suddenly, Zaladane heard a great thrumming overhead. Something was passing over her—her, in the highest tower of the city built atop the mountain! She looked up, and it took her a moment to know the shape of the thing, in all its bulk. It was like a great metal bird, though it moved slower than any she'd ever seen, more like the sun as it passed through the sky... or how a vulture slowly rode the air as it waited for its prey to submit to its deathly appetite.
And indeed, the vulture-thing was making a slow circuit of the Savage Lands, its shadow already passing over Gorahn Sea. She knew what this meant. It could only be outsiders, with their electric magic, and that meant one of the signs of the prophecy had been fulfilled! Soon, her lord husband would be returned to her! Soon, the Savage Lands would be made civilized!
She hurried to the Waidians' cell. She would have to celebrate... that is,
give thanks
to Garokk the Sleeping God for the blessing he was about to bestow upon her. The blessing carried within the outsiders' flying ship.
***
Jean Grey awoke slowly, not sure where...
who
she was. She'd been so many people over the past few months. The Phoenix, that cosmic entity whose animus was beyond all human understanding. Then a carny in Mesmero's sick circus illusion. Finally, a facsimile of her own ancestor, imagined to draw her into the clutches of Jason Wyngarde and the Hellfire Club. Being plain old Jean Grey, with her dull suburban childhood and gracious but unremarkable personality, was getting to seem...
Never mind that, she
was
Jean Grey, but
where
was she? Her mind was in shambles, the telltale sign of a psychic attack. One strong enough to overpower her? She remembered Scott—sweet, loving, dependable Scott—then violence. Capture! Bonds closing around her body, tighter, tighter.
She managed to get her eyes open. She'd come to rely on her psychic powers so much, in the wake of her death and fiery rebirth, that sight had become counterintuitive, like sniffing the air to learn your surroundings. She was in a small room, the glossy metal and blinking lights those of high technology. She was seated, her chair curving around her to secure her arms, legs, and head. She couldn't move, and her immediate impulse to disintegrate her captor simply resulted in a rush of blood to her head. She was imprisoned with inhibitor technology.
Jean looked around the room, feeling ashamed of herself for only now realizing that her friends were locked up with her. There was Scott—
no, not him
