by Ty Arthur
Blood welled up on his palms as he pushed against the broken shards of mirror littering the floor and propelled himself forward, looking back to see a smooth wall behind the shattered glass that still glowed softly despite the missing mirror.
He fled the chapel and its insane horrors to return to the beast and its rider waiting patiently outside, as he expected they would be. The parasite went quiet and ceased its treacherous pain upon seeing the glittering blackness of the spear that had previously swallowed its rage and rendered it inert.
Neither druid nor mount made any threatening move forward, silently allowing Myrr to make the first move. “Well, what then,” he asked, “are you going to end this madness finally?”
It was the eyeless mount that spoke in his mind to offer the answer, rather than the thing in the shape of a man that rode atop him. “You completed one task, but another remains undone. A bargain was struck. Now you wish to renege on your deal. As the shattered mirror will reform with time, it is inevitable your task will be completed, by you or another.”
He took a single step down the stone walkway into the courtyard, slowly approaching as he answered, “That task will never be fulfilled by these hands, even if it means my life.”
Ever patient and calm as its rider, the mount hissed back without malice or judgment, “Many will die because of your decision. Do you have the fortitude to see such a path to its end?”
Myrr was beginning to understand the frustration the priest had felt conversing with this inhuman creature, shouting out “What does the life of any man or woman matter to you? You aid an empire bent on destruction and tyranny!”
It was the druid who spoke next, causing Myrr to look up at the wooden face, “The light burns and consumes rather than revealing. The darkness is the refuge from the light, one in which resides the ultimate annihilation of anything sentient. Only in the balance between the two can sane life have any chance at existing.”
Myrr proceeded down the steps, no longer afraid of the creatures as he said, “Your battles between light and dark are meaningless. I will not take part, and I will never hurt her.”
The voice in his head echoed sadly, “So it shall be. One who can do what must be done will bear the burden instead. The shadow will be removed from you, whether it wishes to leave or not.”
As an afterthought it mildly added, “Your form may not survive the process.”
Bold as the priest now smothered by darkness in his heaven, Myrr asked a favor of the beast, “Will you first take me away from here and back to the Empress' army? Tala won't be able to follow me there.”
The druid, slightly more human of the two, responded with something akin to worry when stating, “They will not be kind to you. It would be better to die now.”
He pressed on, more interested in another's well-being over his own for the first time in his life, repeating the question, “Will you take me away and ensure Tala never comes close?”
In response, a sharpened talon struck out, fast as lightning, scooping up the thief just as the creature began buzzing its wings and took to the air. Myrr shouted involuntarily at the sudden movement, looking down at the disappearing chapel and then ahead to the still-burning city and its new broken tower.
The hills surrounding Cestia were awash in blackness, which soon came into focus from above and revealed itself to be all-too human rather than born of the void. An army encamped across the entire region, eagerly awaiting the return of their coveted artifact.
31 (The Lambent Chapel, Eventide)
Tala stumbled out of the chapel, disoriented and confused from the sudden departure of the light and return to physical reality. She called out Myrr's name, her eyes shooting up as she heard him cry back in alarm.
Her arms reached futilely towards the sky as the beast and its rider carried Myrr off above the line of trees, rapidly disappearing towards the horizon and back towards the city they'd done everything to escape. She dropped to her knees then, the whispers washing over her, half unheard and half clear as they spoke of her failure, taunting that Myrr was gone and there was nothing she could do.
Even lacking their insane missionary companion, she was but one woman against an army. She didn't have Myrr's skills at skulking and hiding or even Casterly's bravery and willingness to face overwhelming odds.
The voices continued their gibbering as the tears started falling. For the first time since leaving the monastery, she didn't bother to force up the shield, letting their words pour over her, letting them inundate her.
They spoke seductive words of revenge and salvation. Of a life still to be lived if she just opened herself up to the possibilities. There could be another son, and Myrr returned safe and sound to be the father she knew he could be. The rest of mankind never bothered to care about her sorrow, so she shouldn't be moved to shed any new tears when they all died screaming at the hands of the children reality never let her have, but that the insane light realm would happily provide.
When exhaustion set in she pulled her face from her hands through a monumental effort of will she no longer felt she had. Wiping the tears from her cheeks was habit now, a rote exercise and nothing more. Besides, there was no one left to see the despair crawling its way slowly down her cheeks with a will of its own.
With Myrr gone there was no point in holding it at bay any longer. The time to accept fate was at hand. That insane priest had been right. He just hadn't lived to see his faith proven.
Finally giving into the brightness that had been swelling within, she gave up on the hysteria that had overcome her and accepted the only option left in store. Bereft of any semblance of dignity but full of malign purpose, she let slip the skein of reality and gave into the whispers that were constantly crawling across the back of her skull.
A lifetime of control slipped away with a sigh. No longer would she draw up the shield of banality to keep out their vile, hungering need. In a brief moment it was dropped and the words poured in, echoing and screaming and tearing in one cacophonous outpouring. What had been brief stabs of light in Cestia and huge jagged shards in the chapel became a consuming beacon – a lighthouse showing the way to heaven. The dam was let loose and there was no stopping the deluge once it began.
Her body jerked and spasmed uncontrollably for a few moments, so hard she worried the cracking sounds might be bones breaking, but soon it was over as her physical body became accustomed to the sudden influx of bright, ethereal things that had no business existing in the physical world. Calm, cool clarity set in once the whispers had taken up residence after being denied their desired home for so long. She heard their siren song so clearly now, and she knew exactly what to do. Though she didn't understand the particulars of their language, and suspected no mortal could, the intent behind the maelstrom of grunts and shouts was clear.
Thrusting her hands towards the sky – a place those poor fools without the knowledge the whispers granted thought of as heavenly, rather than rightly fearing as a place of unending chaos - a litany of unchecked power burst forth from her lips. Had any survivors of Erret's congregation been near, the profane prayer of pure hate spoken in the infernal tongue would have sent them screaming as their thoughts gave birth to terrors undreamed.
In that moment she couldn't say where the dagger came from, but there it was, in her hands and slashing down with a force that would have shocked her just moments ago. A current of precious steaming liquid spurted across the ground as her chant grew in intensity. There should have been pain, so much pain, but even that sensation was subsumed by her invocation, fueling it on to greater heights. All thoughts and feelings, the entirety of perception that made up her being, was funneled towards this one purpose.
The chant reached a crescendo, with words tearing themselves out of her throat that she only fleetingly understood before they departed her mouth, words claiming the rights to ancient pacts of retribution. Her final cry was deafening, though no one remained to hear. Seeming to instinctively know what was required, as her body fo
llowed very different rules in the wake of the arcane conjunction, the wound had no choice but to close itself when the ritual came to an end. A ragged angry scar, the color of a bad bruise, was all that remained to show the invocation had even been enacted at all.
Blessed silence reigned when it was over, as the very air itself sat with bated breath awaiting her next sound. There was an odd sensation of hovering outside her own body as she departed the courtyard, seeking a mate for the first of many children to fill out an army of her own.
Even through the deafening whispers now free to cavort throughout her mind, one name rang out louder than all the madness, and soon he would be returned to her side, if it took the deaths of ten thousand men to achieve.
32 (Military Camp Outside The Grave City, Twilight)
Spearman recruit Fenton gripped his freshly oiled and polished spear nervously, focusing on standing at attention while a man he admired was flayed alive. The entire company was gathered outside the western gate, just on the outer side of the smoking remains of a once-grand city. He cleared his throat lowly, hoping not to draw attention from his superiors, struggling to keep his composure as the men around him seemed to do so effortlessly.
Another soul-churning shriek from Overlord Brant forced Fenton to suppress a shudder and keep his back straight. A legend among the soldiers back home, the fallen Brant was now held in place atop two large planks of wood sunken into the ground and lashed together hastily with a length of rope. His cries sprung from the ministrations of the company's sacred bloodletter, deftly wielding his razor as another layer of skin and muscle was removed.
Breaking their immobile silence, an excited muttering passed through the assembled soldiers when that scream contorted into an audible cry of praise. “Know and rejoice! The watcher in the void sets his gaze upward to this wretched world!”
Fenton maintained his composure, eager to display his discipline in the face of his comrades' breach of decorum. Un-phased by the outburst, or perhaps hoping to elicit another, the bloodletter continued his grisly work, digging the razor in deeper and peeling away a strip of muscle from the former Overlord's exposed meat.
Gone were the screams of pain, now replaced by a clear voice calling out prophecy as his soul hovered between life and death, catching a glimpse of the shadow that was the darkness ahead. “He who rends the veils has penetrated the infinite expanse of wretched light and now returns to us!”
There was only a moment's pause for breath before the next prognostication was shouted down to the assembled forces. “The shattered tower will be made whole again, and the maw of oblivion will swallow the scorching sun!”
Fenton saw the bloodletter pause his brutal surgery then, looking up at his victim to respond. He expected a chastisement to be quiet, but instead heard something closer to admiration in the man's voice. “The sacrifice you and your men gave here will mean something when we conquer the north and shatter the light. You will not be forgotten.”
A horn blow pierced the air, sending the soldiers apart from their regimented stances to assemble into individual squads for new assignments, most muttering quietly to one another about the flayed augury from the former Overlord. It had been a long and exhausting trek at a breakneck pace to return to Cestia, but his squad would see no rest yet this night, being tasked with the exploration of the western ward to find surviving soldiers and salvageable supplies.
Not yet a full member of the order, Fenton was committed to proving himself in the coming days to be invited to take the oath of the gauntlet and eager to take part in the grand crusade promised by the Empress. He snapped to attention lined up with the rest of his squad, certain that today he would distinguish himself while looting the remains of the Grave City. Sent back south after the massacre at the Lambent Chapel, he'd missed the battle that left Cestia in its current state, and had no intention of being denied any further chances at glory.
Envy coursed through Fenton at the thought of those being sent to the remains of the shattered tower, where some important mission was being undertaken that remained out of reach to a recruit such as himself. Fenton avoided the temptation to look back at the sad remnant of the mighty obelisk that had once brought cities to their knees through the guiding power of the darkness, and hoped Brant's prophecy would ring true in the coming days.
The squad began their march forward then at their sergeant's call, passing beneath the still-screaming Brant on their way through the remains of the city's western gate. Although the tormented oracle lacked eyes now, having been removed during the flaying process, Fenton couldn't help but feel the skinless husk of a man was calling down these prophecies for him specifically.
With little intel passing down to his squad directly, the spearman was surprised to see the burnt wooden gateway hanging open and a lack of bodies lining the city's western entrance road, as though no one had bothered to try fleeing the conflagration. While the western ward had burned itself out, embers still flickered on the wind and Fenton could feel a greater heat coming off in growing waves further afield from areas of the city that still actively burned.
As the squad broke the wall's threshold and entered Cestia proper, Fenton's sergeant shouted back at the soldiers under his command, “Form up men, wing formation and eyes sharp. All here know what the Empress sacrificed to secure that obelisk. We know what price she paid to pull it from the earth and master it. We won't fail her. Pray for the cruelty to do what must be done.”
Each man shouted back the appropriate response “We won't fail her, pray for the cruelty!” as they fanned out into a wedge shape, weapons at the ready and eyes scanning the side streets for potential ambush.
He offered up his own silent prayer to the darkness, beseeching it for resolve and strength to find glory in the coming campaign against the decadent and wicked north. That resolve would be tested immediately when a chorus of disturbing cracking sounds emanated from the nearest alley, as though dozens of bones were fracturing all at once.
Pride swelled within as he moved in perfect sync with his squad, quickly ranking up into the proper defensive formation before their sergeant even had to shout the command. Spear leveled towards the ear-splitting sounds now grower louder, he found himself wishing for the screams of the dishonored Overlord in place of the splintering pops and cracks that set his teeth on edge.
What loped forward out of the shadowy alley was a bizarre shape analogous to nothing Fenton had ever seen, with its internal structure splayed out at impossible angles that should have rendered the thing incapable of life, let alone locomotion. With shoulder blades shunted upwards and back while its legs and arms were fused together in unholy union towards the creature's front, it gave off the appearance of a sleek predator leaning forward and ready to spring.
More disquieting than its incomprehensible internal anatomy were the burnt and crackling layers of skin, haphazardly stratified one over another repeatedly and clearly torn from multiple sources. Gripping his spear tighter as the sweat started to bead on his skin, Fenton could still see remnants of screaming faces among the skin covering the beast.
There had clearly been victims among the Cestian populace who had fallen to this creature rather than to the fire or the violence. The once-human coverings had all been inexpertly removed and stitched together by a hand lacking in skill or ability, acting as some sort of pelt for the insane amalgam of man and beast.
His eyes dropping down to further inspect the approaching threat, Fenton finally caught sight of the thing's true face, somehow rent upside down and with jaws torn horribly wider than any human mouth should have been possible of opening. That wide open mouth was positioned near the bone creature's lower end, hanging close to the ground as it stalked forward, and nestled just above a lone eye weeping a constant stream of red fluid.
The squad's sergeant called a warning as the monstrous interloper hunched back and then leaped forward, tearing into the group of recruits and bringing its jaws snapping shut.
33 (The Grave City, A
urora)
Casterly feasted absentmindedly on the remains of the soldier, the agonizing pain of moving any muscle or joint now quieting to a dull throb as he acclimated to his twisted form. Madness had come in the wake of that all-consuming agony, but it was a madness that had led to useful insights as the freedom fighter forced his contorted body into shuddering movement, learning how to make his body work again as death still refused to take him.
Gnawing loose a tendon to get at the spinal column beneath, his insane thoughts turned towards how to continue adding new skin and bones to his collection with fumbling appendages that were more suited to mauling than building. He needed to add more stability and mass if he was to continue stalking the soldiers throughout the streets and finally break free into the surrounding countryside. The pull to find and savage his betrayers was a palpable sensation that cut even through the pain.
