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Chapter 27: Grief
🕑 Added 2023-01-03 05:15:01 +0000 UTCBy the time Dan’s hands were raw, the pile of crystals still loomed over him. It only took a glance to the high priest to redouble his efforts. The man did not look pleased, despite his famous smile. The other cultists continued to chant unintelligible words, each syllable a guttural growl or a sharp spiteful stab.
The sound grew in Dan’s mind, overcoming his senses and controlling his movements. The effect was gradual at first but slowly, his arms fluttered with determined vigor. Handful after handful, the crystals were haphazardly thrown into the Void. The rhythmic chanting and deep hum reminded him of a time far simpler, specifically the concert hall/bar hybrids back home.
Alcohol and live music, what was a better night? Every refreshing sip, every kick of the bass drum. Every cold drink, every slow song. Dan remembered his legs feeling weak from the drinking and dull vibrations of the overly loud band. He smiled at the thought of hangovers and slow loss of hearing.
It was mesmeric, thinking back on it.
Reaching for a new handful, a stirring within the cultist’s chant stopped the human. It was short, almost inaudible, but the chanting hesitated. It was enough for Dan’s brain to catch up, to reform and depart from the dazed effect the ritual produced.
He groaned, falling to his knees and clutching his hands against his chest. They were bleeding, his skin torn to shreds and parts of bone peeked out from behind crimson sinew. Expecting a lashing for his stoppage, Dan turned to the high priest.
The man had moved from his original spot, stepping closer to the Void tear and staring longingly through the border. Slowly, the high priest turned and locked eyes with Dan. He nodded in success and spoke aloud.
“That should be enough. It is here.”
A pang of anxiety rushed through Dan as his hands glowed golden. The skin on his palms stretched and stitched, zipping together while the pain evaporated. Where the pile of bone nearly reached the ceiling moments ago, it was nothing more than a mound of sand on a low tide beach. Dan recoiled, his nose gushing blood as he tried to remember moving such an amount of crystal.
Apprehension dawned on the human, his bond and mind forcing him to forget his time in the trance. Dan agreed easily, but only because the cultists stumbled again.
This time however, the cultists changed their pattern. Gone were the visceral chants and in their place formed the lulls of demented song. Rather soon, those who listened clutched their heads in solidified pain. Spikes of misery compounded within their ears and minds, the demon speech forming long winded afflictions of grief.
Magic drained from Dan’s core as an avalanche of magic poured into himself. He made it wild and loud, anything to drown away the sounds of the calling of the Void. He fared better than most, only Golden Robes and the high priest able to withstand the brunt of the noise, although Golden Robes cowered away from the fresh presence.
The tear in space succumbed to a force, one of endless sight and infinite knowledge. It peered through the veil with hundreds of eyes, each looking independently of one another. Everything was scrutinized, but Dan felt the weight of the world probing within his mind.
It smelled Dan, it tasted Dan, it watched Dan, it determined what Dan was or was not. It did the same for the others, but returned back to Dan. It inspected Dan, its eyes scanning through its reality and into Dan’s. The high priest said something, snapping the being’s attention from the human.
Tiny shards of crystal shattered as Dan fell to his knees, violated.
A menial thunder ripped across the tear, sparks of magic splintering from the high priest’s staff. Around and around the tip circled, growing spheres of black forming along the movement’s wake. With a thrust, the high priest sent his attack across the boundary, blasting the being’s many eyes.
Gray viscera rained into the lowest floor of the family building, dark blue blood drenching all who stood within. Dan recoiled from the smell, losing his lunch and the next few dinners in the process. Mottled gray-green bile mixed with the blood as secondary explosions carved the being’s form, like cookie-cutter mortars.
The being screeched in pain, drops of silvery liquid forming at the base of every eye. The high priest reacted in an instant. He reached a robed arm across the plane and dug his fingers into a small eye. With a guttural yank, his hand returned with an eye the size of a kitchen table.
Then the song cut.
The tear collapsed with a snap, much like the cultists who kept the ritual alive. Dan’s ears quickly finished reforming for the dozenth time, allowing him to hear the offensive breaths of his captors. The room huffed and heaved, exhaustion taking form within the crude room.
The high priest and Golden Robes didn’t seem to mind, instead focusing on the singular eyeball they scraped clean. Every ounce of silvery liquid was poured into vials and capped with a glyph carved rune.
After the prize was fully harvested, the high priest destroyed the eye with a single void explosion. He turned to his family, and Dan, and spoke with the confidence of a successful hunt.
“One hour! Then the true show starts!” His eyes met all of the cultist’s. “Tonight we summon the prophet!”
The family responded with a resounding cry of victory, one Dan did not take part in. Instead, he got to his feet, brushed off his sickly clothes, and walked out. No one stopped him, not even the guards outside the building. He walked in silent steps, finding the camp quiet and fearful.
They must know something is happening, Dan concluded, throwing buckets of water on his puke ridden skin and clothes.
He took his time, the rhythmic and relaxing splashes of water cooling his red hot nerves. At some point his greasy hair became wet as well, then his entire body and wardrobe. Dan scrubbed at his skin until his nails pulled along too deep. He grimaced in pain but forced himself to clean, at least until he felt remotely safe.
The madness stayed away, Dan noticed. He found the black trail of magic easily, the helpful shield was like a beacon within his gold-filled mind. The effect, while tempting to keep, was vile and only a reminder. It faded with the smallest touch, dispersing the protective film around his mind.
The madness jumped at the chance, returning Dan to the endless cycle of misery. Despite shivering like a wet dog, he walked back through the camp towards the prison. With his mind on checking on Sully, his heart sank when Golden Robes appeared waving him down.
The madness puffed his anger, his core flared to life. For a heartbeat or two, Dan saw red and gathered magic. He was over helping the cultists, he was over being a slave. He was breaking out, here and now-
He stopped, the madness being flushed away.
“What is it now?” Dan surprised himself speaking first.
Golden Robes didn’t seem to mind, instead launching straight into the meat of the conversation, “The high priest is demanding your presence once again.”
“What? Why?”
“The creature we just summoned, it liked you. The high priest feels that with your presence the prophet will provide a better future.”
Dan stared incredulously at the man, but looked away when the cultist’s posture hardened. “What do you mean ‘liked’ me?”
Golden Robes released a held sigh. “I do not know. However we all felt the way it bore into you. Perhaps it was your stint in the Void. You are the most recent Voidling in the camp, you are fresh in its eyes.”
Dan felt obliged to scrub himself clean again. “What do I need to do?”
“Nothing except stand beside the high priest and I.”
Together they walked to the center of the camp where a rounded canal had been carved into the blood grass and dirt. The cultists were busy inscribing tightly packed glyphs within the grooves, each making use of magic to do the labor for them. Runes and glyphs formed within the air, each glowing in a different aspect and element. The magical language took to the world, searing into the dirt.
Golden Robes led Dan directly to the high priest. The leader quizzically looked to the slave before snapping his fingers. In an instant a new mind shield was erected within Dan’s head.
“Do not remove it,” the high priest said. “It will be needed unless you plan to die tonight.”
“With that being said, do not interfere more than you already will be,” Golden Robes added.
With both of the cultists now ignoring him, Dan sucked in a deep breath and found a seat. Idly he thought of Sully and how the old man was doing. If this summoning was anything like the previous, the night would be long, slow, and painful.
Hopefully Sully doesn’t get too restless, he thought, turning away from a curious cultist’s glare.
The Void prophet, the decider of who would be sacrificed. The idea that a sentient monster with unspeakable knowledge and influence would be the deciding factor for someone’s life didn’t sit well with Dan. He knew there was little he could do, the simple remembrance of the lesser Voidling he fought off made his pulse quicken.
A drop of sweat fell from his scruffy chin to the grass below. The blood sod didn’t react, much like Dan himself. Dan felt at home in the stress, at peace with dire situations. Someone was dying tonight, and for some reason he was content with that. Was the madness getting to him? Was the reality of his new life finally overcoming his sense of justice?
He was slowly becoming Sully, something that Dan didn’t want.
He sat up straight, wiping away his moist forehead. The thought hurt him more than he wanted. Sully was a guiding light, a leading star, an important friend. Dan didn’t want to be like him though. He didn’t want to accept his new life, he didn’t want to be comfortable as a slave.
A tear fell down his cheek and mixed with sweat before falling. The grass didn’t react.
The sound of metal scraping against brick echoed through the camp. Dan looked up, finding the high priest swiveling his staff in an odd pattern. Three dark beams blasted through the sky of the dome, attaching themselves to both ends of the protective barrier. The beams held firm but slowly faded from reality, turning invisible.
Dan could tell the beams were still there, his evolved mind filling in the gaps. They were scaffolding, he realized, magical scaffolding devoid of proper supports. The concept interested him, but the fact that the high priest made them marred the situation.
Pooling from his split lip, a single drop of blood spilled down his chin. The tickling sensation broke his ire and brought him back into reality. The taste of fresh iron filtered through Dan’s mouth, his front teeth caked with crimson from gnawing his bottom lip. With a curse, he sucked his lip into his mouth and formed a small bubble of light within his maw.
In an instant, his lip healed and the drop of blood fell to the ground. This time the grass did react, but not in the normal chittering way. The red grass distanced itself from the sinful liquid, allowing it to soak into the dirt.
Dan frowned at the bizarre movement and nicked the back of his hand with an untrimmed finger nail. He squeezed his skin, dripping a few orbs of blood into the sod below. Again the grass reacted and again it moved out of the way.
With his mind racing, Dan started to squeeze his hand again but a cold shudder stopped him. He looked up, finding Golden Robes keenly staring at him. The mimic was positively preening despite his hooded and shrouded face. Dan was waved over and he begrudgingly got to his feet.
“We are ready to start,” Golden Robes said before leaning in close and whispering “What an interesting anomaly you have found. Has anything changed since the last time we tested your blood?”
Shuddering at the reminder of a past torturous experiment, Dan simply shook his head truthfully.
The cultist shrugged. “No matter, we will find out the cause tomorrow. Right now, however, we must serve.”
A few dozen paces away, the high priest clapped his hands. A whiplash of air blasted from the movement as a smile crept across the man’s face. He stepped up just after the cultists started chanting in rough scratchy voices. The push against reality fully realized as the high priest spoke.
There were no words, only silent articulated syllables that caused the blood grass to craze. In a single long breath, the high priest lit all of the glyphs in a blue heated glow. At the same time, the cultists gathered energy within their staves. The ritual summoning shook with an isolated earthquake.
The magic of the blood god worshiping family connected together, latching onto the open air before a stiff power word was spoken. The grunt pulled the magic with the force of a dozen mages, ripping a hole across the camp. The cultists redoubled their chanting efforts as hidden trumpets and low brass blistered against the world.
Milky black gas poured from the tear, forcing the high priest to react without improv. He shouted silent words and threw the bottle of Voidling tears into the hole. For a moment there was silence, the cultist’s song hitched as the world froze.
The air went stale, the camp went deaf. A presence stopped the high priest from throwing another bottle. It clawed from the Void, one twisting pull after the other. All around, the cultists fell to their knees. Dan, Golden Robes, and the high priest, however, did not.
A pressure built around Dan’s mind, like a sieging army in the dead of winter. His body went cold, ice forming along his brow. Trying to look away, he filtered warmth through his chest and core. Instinctually he looked away, but the snow stopped his hasty retreat.
Within his mind, all around the shield the high priest provided, were flakes of white. Against the blackness of the shield the flakes stood out. Dan counted them all, anything to keep his mind from faltering. The presence would pounce, he knew, it would devour him if he let it in. Shield or not, Dan knew he was prey. He was nothing compared to the prophet.
“Six million one hundred thousand and fifty three ‘flakes,’” Dan suddenly blurted out in a voice that was not his.
Both the high priest and Golden Robes reacted to this, each in their own way. Golden Robes stepped back, his hands out in guard and golden light forming through the seams of his stitched robes.
The high priest, however, bowed.
Dan recoiled from the display, but false words flowed from his lips, “Who do we have here?”
A whip emerged from the hole in reality, striking the crude wound on the back of Dan’s hand. He recoiled again, his arm going black from impending frostbite. A spark of gold bloomed from below his feet before fortifying into a pillar of warmth. Dan’s arm quickly went pale, his blood finding the passageway unblocked.
A force turned Dan to his healer, Golden Robes. “You use this one’s magic… that is unsightly. Although you did use it to heed this one’s death…”
The words screeched to life, a blade of ice forming from the Void tear. The prophet’s presence shifted, sending the glacier spike into the camp. It collided into Golden Robes, lacerating his mirrored body in two.
As Dan turned back to the high priest, he caught a familiar light form around the bisected cultist.
“What is it you wish to see?”
The high priest reacted slowly, straightening his back in a single cool movement. Without glancing around, he locked eyes with the prophet inside of Dan.
“Same as always. Who do we sacrifice?”
The voice oozed joy as it spoke, “Not you, fool. This one.”
The high priest twitched, his smile faltering for a heartbeat. The presence grew closer to the tear in that moment, bending the invisible scaffolding. A tree of white cracks grew along the dome where the scaffolding attached. Blood rain seeped through.
“Go on, Dan,” the high priest said. “Tell him what we want.”
Suddenly the white flakes within Dan’s mind melted. From six million to three, the black shield grew in size and power. He felt his motor functions return slightly, giving him control over his jaw.
Dan hated the question. It was everything he wished to run away from but the fear of disobedience proved iron. Any other question and he knew the high priest would kill him on the spot. Still, guilt bubbled within his heart, he slouched and his pulse slowed. He conceded someone was going to die because he was forced to ask.
“W-who do we s-sacrifice?”
Closing his eyes, Dan saw the high priest’s smile against the back of his eyelid. Proud. The slaver was proud.
Like a slow blizzard, the prophet spoke through Dan once again. “Apprehension and acceptance, such lowly emotions. Being of the Void, I expected more from this one.”
Disappointment passed from Dan’s possessor to himself.
Then the prophet answered. The name came out as guttural turbulence, something that was rather common for the beings within the camp. For some names, true names, were rarely spoken. For some species true names were special, were sentimental, were useful.
Dan didn’t know whose name was said, but the presence removed itself from his mind and body. The surrounding cultists regained their stature, ending their chant with the sealing of the tear to the Void. Silence, however, overcame the camp. Cold silence, like the wake of an angry parent. No one dared move, no one dared speak.
Everyone, excluding Dan, stared at one man. The man whose name had been called. The very leader of the camp. The high priest of the rooted cult above the corpse of a dead god.
Dan followed the hints, coming to the same perplexing question. What was the high priest going to do?
The question was never answered, the high priest storming off in undisputed anger. The man had no smile, no shield to protect him against the sovereign madness.
Dan watched the man walk away, his furious form a pin cushion for barbed hairs and worms of madness. Golden Robes, pieced back together, quickly chased after his leader while fighting off the pungent madness.
Slowly, as to not call any more attention to himself, Dan turned and walked away. He went the long way through the camp, but ultimately reached the prison. Through the dark dusty hallways, he found himself at Sully’s door. However, something was wrong.
There was no light seeping through the door frame.
Dan threw open the metal door, ignoring the loud bang it created. Bits of rock crumbled from the spot it collided with, falling on the room’s resident.
Dan fell to his knees, tears, snot, and anger all flooding out of his body. He screamed in hideous wails, butchering his throat in the process. Light appeared from his fingertips, but it stayed away from his raw vocal cords. Instead, he touched his friend’s body with expectancy and dying hope. The light failed to take hold even after he expunged his full crippled core.
His mind teetered at the edge, his only thought was to clean the crumbs of stone off his dead friend.
