…and roared the manticore

Excerpt from Book II, Shadows of the Void

Chapter 4: A Stirring

At first, she knew only darkness. She had been born out of a darkness, but this was different—incomplete. Here, she needed only to open her eyes to catch a hint of light, small and flickering from a distant flame. She tried to move, but something held her. One of her legs was pinned by fallen rubble, but she did not know where she was or why only ruins surrounded her.

Who was she, for that matter? She knew a name, but it had faded. Her memories gone, too. She knew only darkness. A fitting home for the nameless, she thought.

She struggled to move, and discovered she was stuck. She felt around, razored talons clicking on stone. She felt her head, hairless and hard with a shredded mask of flesh. She felt her body, firm and slick, coiled in hard lines. She did not know what she had become. Nor did she know what she had been, but she sensed a metamorphosis.

Memories began to return to her, only as images without context. She had seen a blinding light, and it had consumed her. A swirling storm had swallowed her, but its powers had not been focused on her. Her flesh had drank the flames, but then the earth—or a structure—had collapsed, protecting her from further harm. Thus, the darkness and her pinned leg.

Though she knew little of herself, she knew instinctually she could spit. So, she spat into the shadows where the rock and metal held her. She waited.

Time meant nothing to the nameless. She waited until the metal melted and she could wriggle her leg. She began to crawl. At first, she made no progress, but then the melting rubble began to give with her effort. The metal left a gooey, sticky wad on her leg as she freed herself.

Crawling into an open space, she sat and kicked globs of gooey metal from her foot. She sat and listened to her subterranean environment. The earth was still and silent. Nothing else lived. Even the earth around her was dead.

She found that she could see in the dark. It had birthed her, after all. It was in her blood. It was her heart, her home.

Who am I? What am I? They were some of her few clear thoughts, but they vexed her worse than the faded ones. Names like ghosts flitted beyond her grasp. A life now gone haunted her. An awakening had changed her. Whoever and whatever she had been was lost, forgotten, dead. But she was alive.

What is this life? She asked herself, not expecting a response.

The purest life, mother, came the voice.

Had she spoken it aloud, or had it come from within? She did not know. But she knew nothing else lived, only she, so it must have been her voice.

We are the blood of the void, mother. We, I, you are the shade where light cannot reach. And we are the purest for we thrive in the realm of absolute perfection. Untainted and immaculate, we know no fear, nor shackles, nor peace. Ours is the adamance of the undying, and the honor of the forsaken. We are born of the void, mother, to bring harmony where there is discordance. Our sustenance is life, and blood, and souls of the accursed who dwell in our brethren realm.

We come from the farseed, planted in soil of flesh and darkness of cursed womb. We arise and we awaken, to bring harmony, the gift of death and endless night, to the turbulent songs that have tainted the soulscape. We come to purify the corruption of light threatening to fade our dreams forever. We seek to bind this realm to the old, lost dark that its denizens have forgotten.

We are darkness, mother, and we live. So, arise, and begin what you have been born to do.

The voice was right, she knew; she was right. The shadows held her as she waited, waited to awaken to the light of the tainted world.

We are hungry, she thought. She needed blood, raw flesh, to regain her strength lost in the fall. She recalled, at last, her last feast. In these same depths, she had gorged on a variety of flesh and bone. She had been nearly sated when the last two escaped her, and she had fallen into a cataclysm of thunder and flames.

She could smell the destruction, the far off scent of death and excrement, and the lingering aroma of the two escaped morsels. She smelled the acrid tang of melted steel and her caustic phlegm.

Then, she heard. She heard the stirring above her quiet nest. It was the sound of fire, a song of freedom. She heard shifting stones and dripping sparks. She heard whispers echoing down the cavern to her skull. It was the sound of life.

Feed, mother, and be free. And walls will fade. This, she knew to be true, and her sole purpose in life.

Feed, mother and be free. Bring them the harmony of death—end the corruption.

She waited. Tendrils of dripping spit burned lines in the flesh rotting beneath her mouth as she hungered.

We are darkness, mother, and our hunger is endless. Feed, and free us.

. . . . .

Darius cursed as he surveyed the ruins.

“It’s no wonder Pace failed to report. Something went wrong here, Lana,” he said to his companion.

“Yes, do you feel it, the absence? Even the valatrokos is dead,” Lana said.

He reached out in his mind, seeking the barrier, but there was nothing. He shuddered to think of what had killed the valatrokos. The entryway to the underground complex was collapsed and leaking thin trails of smoke. When the doctor’s annual report had failed to come, the Riftwalker had dispatched Darius and Lana to the facility, to ascertain the truth of the silence. It was worse than he had expected.

There had been an archon on site here, but he had been silent, as well. Darius had not seen him in months, since his last visit to the sanctuary.

“There has been no sign of the archon, no report from Pace, and the valatrokos is dead,” Lana said, echoing Darius’s thoughts. “What happened here was evil. No mere accident, this stinks of an attack.”

“An incursion, you think?” Darius asked.

“Who are we to say? Perhaps. If so, it did not begin here. None have occurred in the shadow of the vala. But it ended here. Look at the doorway. See the edges where the stone was burned? Too clean. This was done by magic.”

Darius saw that Lana was correct. He had been too concerned to notice the details. Someone had survived, and closed the structure with beams of fire.

“But it was not their archon. He would have cleansed the area. This is hasty work. Hard and fast and desperate. He would have returned by now, too,” Darius said.

“So, we know that at least one wild mage is on the loose. And not a weak one either, judging by this work. But we do not know what occurred below, to free this mage. Or why this was necessary,” Lana said.

“In Pace’s most recent report, the Isenheart family had been apprehended, yes?” Darius asked. Lana nodded.

“Then it is safe, for now, to assume that one or more of them escaped somehow. There’s has been a virulent, flourishing line, true, but how would one end a vala? Lana, do you know of any such spells or methods to break a shield in which no magic may be cast?”

“No, Darius. Not from within. From without, it is possible that physical means would suffice in slaying a valatrokos, but this one was buried so deep and guarded by walls of stone that I do not find the outcome feasible.”

“Then someone found a way,” Darius said, his skin prickling as his hair stood straight.

“Or the void found its way here. It is wise to assume these ruins are tainted. Let us cleanse this place and be gone from here,” Lana said.

“Not before we have a look inside. This is the silence of death. Hear? Nothing. If there was an incursion, it ended here, as you said. Nothing lives down there. Cleanse it now and we lose any answers we might find below.”

“Speculation, Darius. We have answers enough. It is not wise to assume safety. The voidborn are darkness, and they crave such silence,” Lana said.

“No, they crave cacophony. If you fear this darkness, remain here, but you know we must investigate,” Darius replied.

“Then, though I find this venture foolish, lead the way, brother archon,” Lana said, gesturing to the rubble.

With the power of the wind, they heaved aside the broken stones, and shifting the earth, they widened an opening into the subterranean complex. Within, they seared a hole through a wall of solid iron. They cooled the portal of molten metal with a wintry blast and passed into the smoky underground. The archons ignited their inner flames, bathing the depths with bright, white light. They glowed. They were of the light, as the void was of the darkness. But these two knew that light always eradicated the dark. It was truth; there was none other. Regardless, the stillness of the place, much like a tomb, filled Darius with unease.

“Stay with me, sister. Side by side. I will not lead, but I will go, if you go. Or we can leave, as you suggested, and cleanse and be done with this place. Wisdom trumps knowledge here. You were correct.”

“Are you afraid, Darius?”

Despite his incandescence, Darius trembled.

“Yes. For the first time in my life, I am afraid, Lana.”

“You are not alone in that, brother. It would be unwise to be fearless when a vala dies,” Lana said, as she leaned over a gaping precipice. “The lift platform has tumbled, see? We may descend by ladder or…” She grinned at Darius, her teeth shining like stars in the night sky. “Or follow me.”

In an instant, Lana slid over the ledge on her belly, dangling for a moment by her hands, and dropped from sight. Darius rushed to the edge and peered down to see Lana clinging to a thick red pipe and sliding down into the pit. She laughed up at him as she receded. “Much faster than a ladder, brother! No fear of the void! Only death here…” Her voice dwindled away.

Darius followed Lana, copying her movements, in a hurry to catch up with her. Below him, he saw her shining, shining, shining. And then she went out. Her light vanished. No sound, no scream, no blast of arcane power. Only darkness, only silence. The voidborn crave the silence, Lana had said. Was Darius such a fool? Had Lana, inspired by his confidence, been a bigger fool? He supposed he would know soon.

“Lana!” he shouted as he descended. But only silence returned to him, and no light, no light—no blessed archon radiance.

His boot-clad feet hit a hard, slanted surface and then he was falling, rolling end over end down a flat, solid expanse. Landing on his belly, his breath escaped him, and he heard her speak.

“Darius, help me,” Lana croaked.

But there was no way she could have spoken, poor Lana, his archon sister. Her headless corpse sat before him on her knees in a widening pool of blood, casting a shadow into a darkened corridor.

“Darius!” He heard it above him.

He rolled over in time to feel a wave of pain sawing through his guts as something fell on him.

“Darius, Lana wants help. Kiss her. Make it better.”

The thing was obscured by Lana’s bloody, mangled, eyeless head as it thrust it at his face.

“Kiss, you fool!”

The thing slammed Lana’s head into his face again and again, mashing flesh and shattering bone. He felt Lana’s teeth shearing his lips even as they splintered his own. Then, it stopped. The thing tossed away Lana’s ruined head and leaned close. He couldn’t quite make out the creature, but its face was almost human, he saw through the blood.

“Has your kind ever kissed the dark? I doubt you’d glow so bright.”

Darius was beyond fear, into utmost mortal terror, but he grasped for his hidden flame. No archon could die so easily, without a single spell cast. Lana had. He would blind it with his glow, then attack it when he had gained the upper hand. He began to glow…

The demon with the rotting face laughed at him.

“Nice trick, but you’ll need more than that, little archon. Unlike you, I’m not pure!”

The void is open, and its denizens are loose on earth—he wished to scream, but the thing bit off the ragged remains of his lips and pried open his jaws with talons as sharp as blades. Then, it vomited a steaming torrent down his throat, burning like his hidden flame never had. Hardly contained, the frothy mess splashed all over his face, too.

It surged through his innards, a searing flood, and Darius felt the onset of shock, his mind swimming, his light now dimming. He would have wept, but his eyes were putrid ruins streaming down his ravaged cheeks. The acid burned in his eyes, on his face, and in his guts, killing him quickly.

Before he lost his light forever, he felt the voidborn reaching down from its perch—its clawed feet buried in his crotch—and tear open his stomach. He would have screamed, but he was liquefying, only his mind remaining to register his torment. The creature began to drink.

. . . . .

She drank deeply of their delicious blood. Not mere human blood, theirs was archon blood. No fouler opposition to her kind existed, so she savored her sweet fortune, her sweet meal. She savored their so recently luminescent flesh.

We are free, mother, though we hunger yet, she said to herself. Her dinner guests made no reply. They knew now the gift of silence, and basked forever in song-less night.

She drank, she ate, she slept. And when she desired to depart the ruins—for time is nothing in the darkness—she left. No walls remained to separate her from the realm of men. They would come to know the void—for she was its mother. The world would weep for her arrival.