It is said that in ancient times, the families of deceased kings would pay great sums of money to hire masses of paid mourners to weep for the passing of the dead liege. But if one were to compensate the grieving throngs that lined the streets of Heliocarsus on this day, all the coffers of Calydon would be emptied.

The entire city had gathered itself along the periphery of the Sisters' Way - the cobble thoroughfare that ran from the walls up to the Acropolis mount. Men with somber faces watched from between marble colonnades as their women crowded the road with tear-moisted eyes. A million wailing voices cried to the heavens as two horse-driven carts clattered up the road to the Mount of the Eight. The escort of honor guards draped in purple robes lead the wagons through the city, dispersing the mourning citizens back to the alabaster facades and chiseled columns on the edge of the street. But as the sandal-clad feet of the spear-armed warriors passed by, weeping girls surged back and cast garlands of posies and roses into the road. A fragrant carpet of flowers blanketed the road and crunched under the hooves of the drawhorses. Within the windows and upon the rooftops, onlookers gathered and looked down into the silk awning stretched over each wagon and sobbed. There, nestled within mounds of velvet cushions and pillows, passed Syros the Unbowed followed by Galos - his lone heir.

They had come from the very fringe of the known world; carried across the seas on a funeral barge escorted by a squadron of Calydonian biremes up the mouth of the River Helos from the hateful Rhumid wastes that had stolen both their lives. There was to be no jubilation this time, no funerary games held in the honor of Syros as there had been with Galos; the hearts of Calydon's people were too laden with grief to remember their fallen king and prince in happiness. There was only sorrow to be shown as Syros the Indomitable and his prince rode to their final worldly destination: the Mount of the Eight. Only there, on the very spot where Deos had spilled his blood to give rise to the Eight Sisters, could the people of Calydon find a piece of earth worthy of submitting their esteemed king and his son to the divine beyond upon.

Even along the narrow switchbacks where the Sisters' Way slithered up the granite hill upon which the Acropolis stood, citizens wishing to see their noble king one last time gathered upon the rocky cliffs to bid farewell. On jagged ledges scarcely wide enough for goats, small congregations of the more youthful and athletic onlookers formed amongst the conical poplars sprouting from the rocks. From their stony perches they cast blossoming wreathes at the hooves and wheels of the pall-carriages, along with a few well-wishes.

"Weep not, countrymen!" An onlooker clad in a dusty-colored tunic called out to his companions. "He will return to us! He who wears all crowns only leaves us now to conquer the heavens!"

There were a great many that could not believe that their beloved king - who had conquered the known world and beyond - could have been taken by so mundane a death. How could it be that Syros the Indomitable was struck down by an unruly horse? According to an imaginative-yet-numerous number, Syros' death was the product of Deos' direct intervention; they were convinced that the very creator of the world was intimidated by the unstoppable advance of the Calydonian king - and so he elected to end the Worldwalker's march before he might usurp his divinity. Others still held that Syros' death was the work of mortal conspirators. Their claims was a covetous noble family found opportunity rather than sorrow in the death of Galos and so orchestrated the accident that had claimed their king's life.

The pall-carriages passed into a tunnel carved into a rock face standing in the way of the twisting uphill road. A cohort of the same purple-clad honor guards stood vigil at the yawning mouth, preventing mourners from going any further up the mount or entering the Pilgrim's Passage. In the cavernous tunnel, flickering torchlight illuminated the way forward. In between the torch sconces upon the dew-slickened walls were great alcoves hewn into the rock. On the smooth walls at the back of the alcoves were giant frescoes each devoted to one of the eight sisters borne by Deos upon this very mountain. Offerings of stacked coins and withered flowers left by pilgrims on their way to the summit were piled at their feet. Iphygenia, the Goddess of Industry - a buxom maiden with swirling tongues of flame for hair who hammered out a horseshoe on an anvil from glowing iron - seemed to command the most offerings of the eight. Near the opposite opening of the Pilgrim's Passage, Dryca and Khryseis, the sisters of war and tumult respectively, looked down upon the wagons bearing Syros and Galos. Dryca rode atop a rearing warhorse, holding a mighty claymore to the sky and Khryseis held her hands aloft - summoning an earthquake that destroyed the surrounding cityscape in a maelstrom of dust, rock, and fire. Both looked down upon the wagons forebodingly as they passed back into the daylight.

 The carriages and their escorts returned to the surface from a portal emptying out into an open plaza on the summit. The Acropolis - a small town unto its own - stood upon the top of the hill. Smaller shrines, chapels, and gardens of swaying willows and fountains proliferated alongside the cobblestone road. Beyond the Acropolis' own ring of walls, one could see the whole of the city spread across the land. Amphitheaters, domes, and towers rose up above the sprawl and reached skyward alongside to the Pelepos Mountains to the south and west. A great colossus of weathered granite depicting a victorious hoplite raising a bronze sword into the sky straddled the main gate of Heliocarsus. The greatest statue in all the land - so enormous that its fallen member had been converted into a guardhouse - still only came within eye level of the Acropolis. At the very peak of the mount, higher than every other point and edifice in Heliocarsus, was the Temple of the Eight.

It was a circular temple crowned in a dome of polished lapis-lazuli stone held upright by a concentric ring of columns decorated with flourishing swirls from whence carved hoplites, demons, titans, and mythological beasts burst forth. Swaying poplars danced about the steps of the temple where a corps of elite guards stood and waited to receive the fallen prince and king. From within the enclosed chapel underneath the dome, a heart-stopping wail echoed amongst the stones.

Queen Lyca, who in the space of a single week lost both her husband and only child, burst into the daylight screaming hysterically as the horsehooves clattered up to the temple, eliciting sympathetic grimaces from the stone-faced guards around her. A scar-grizzled man wearing a white toga beneath purple robes held her onto the Queen's left arm as she attempted to tear herself way from her escort. The fact that a wooden peg came down from his knee where his leg ought to have been did not make his duty any easier. The Queen's amputee escort lost his footing when his peg slid out from underneath him as Lyca tugged forcefully against his grip. He hobbled fruitlessly behind Queen Lyca as she charged through the line of honor guards to the carriages. Her chalk-whitened stola fluttered in the wind behind her as she charged herself at the first pall-carriage. She pulled herself up to the lip of the wagon and looked upon the pallid face of her dead son. Her mouth stretched open and a gurgling sob came from her lungs as fresh tears streamed down her face carrying a new deposit of eye shadow to her pointed cheeks.

"This cannot happen!" The Queen wailed. "Deos, do not let this be!"

Queen Lyca looked to her side and saw the second wagon carrying Syros. The wagon drivers gave the despondent queen sorrowful glances and then directed their gaze to the cobbles beneath them. A small army of honor guards stood by, unsure of what to do as the queen screamed yet again at the sight of her dead husband. The peg-legged man shoved his way through the ranks of stunned guards and came to Lyca's side.

"Come down from there, milady." He pleaded, seizing her by the waist and pulling her down from Galos' carriage with surprising strength - the carriage rocked as he plucked Lyca from the side of the wagon.

"Release me!" The Queen demanded. "Guards! Seize this man!" She wailed between sobs. The Queen's orders notwithstanding, the honor guards didn't dare interfere with Septilios, Captain of the House Guard.

"Ssssh..." Septilios soothed, pressing his forehead against the Queen's. The guard captain was a frightening man to behold with his face carved and cratered with numerous scars. One would imagine that being so close to his tormented face would distress Lyca that much more, but he did manage to reduce her hysterical cries to controlled sobs."Deep breaths, milady... Very good."

"Why did Deos let this happen?" The Queen sobbed. "What did my husband do to offend him so? Why did he take my son so young?"

"I cannot claim to know." Septilios admitted, still in his soothing voice. He pulled his face away from hers back to a respectful distance. "Nor can any priest or soothsayer. No mortal can possibly know the designs of Deos and the godesses. We can only accept our place within them and be gracious when they decide our part has been played. Syros and Galos played a tremendous part and were great instruments of His will, but they have done their part... now it is time for them to rest."

"We too need our rest. Come retire with me, milady. It has been a very taxing day for us all." Septilios took the Queen's arm yet again. This time, she did not resist though she continued sobbing. Septilios led Lyca down the road, away from the carriages and their escorts.

"We will also need to be calm and collected. Mithreum has sent us an envoy, and we must take heed to his words when we receive him. I fear there may be more dark days ahead, milady. We must keep our wits about us if we are to meet them."