The Children of Llothora

  ~Stop!~ the Sky Father's mental voice thundered from all around them. The wind spirits obeyed instantly, and their assaults on Alchamedus ceased. The air around the Arakon became, not comfortable, but tolerable. Alchamedus breathed a sigh of relief. Every day was like this, but he knew that one day his will would falter and the Sky Father's attacks would destroy him.

  "I have need of your sight," Alchamedus said. The Sky Father nodded and walked closer to Alchamedus. Tendrils of power unwrapped themselves from the construct and reached for Alchamedus, passing through his flesh and into his Gift, feeding him the Sky Father's power.

  Alchamedus drew on that power and allowed his perceptions to expand, growing to cover the Sky Father's territory. With this enhanced vision, Alchamedus could see all of known Aerth, though he was still limited to how much of his vision he could comprehend at once. No matter what power he used, Alchamedus' mind was still human and possessed human limitations.

  He began his vigil by focusing on Valdaran, the homeland of the Wyvern Knights, searching for any energies that would indicate the Surok'tarn's agents were at work. Valdaran was clean, as he had expected, but the Skar was located in the heart of Valdaran, and so all of his vigils began there. He moved on to Deldanare, where he Compelled the Sky Father to quell a severe storm pattern which would have devastated the nation's crops. Further west, Fardan was also clean, closely monitored by the Triumvirate as Alchamedus' had commanded. The island nation of Lorkan also showed no sign of trouble.

  Alchamedus cast his senses further south into Coribhal, where earthquakes threatened to savage the city of Zakarra. Alchamedus used his Vordanitar Gift to Compel the spirits of the quakes south into the Devastation where their fury would harm no one. The Wastes to the east of Coribhal, just south of Valdaran itself, were calm, devoid of all life but the insectoid hrimthaar. South of the Wastes, in Allandaral, Alchamedus sensed a strange power he did not recognize, but could not isolate it. He determined to return to that nation of city-states later.

  Haddar, Morkav, and Nadyss each contained minor disasters, but Alchamedus quelled all of them. The Sharynwyn Marshes were beyond the scope of the Sky Father's vision. The Marshes were the province of a different Great Spirit, the most powerful of them all, one even the Arakon dared not Compel. Only the Witch Queens had ever survived contact with that Spirit, and they kept their secrets to themselves, forbidding the Triumvirate or any of its agents from crossing into the Marshes. Despite this, his inability to see into the Sharynwyn Marshes did not concern Alchamedus. The Sharynwyn had proven time and again that they opposed any who trucked with the Surok'tarn, sending their Hunters of the Slain to destroy any threat they discovered. Satisfied, Alchamedus turned his focus to the Bakiosh Swamps.

  The Swamps lay south of the Devastation, a region of Aerth so deadly that no human could even cross its borders safely. The Bakiosh Swamps had been the last refuge of the naelfarn, an ancient race that had become the champions of the Surok'tarn on Aerth. Though the naelfarn had not revealed themselves in over a century, Alchamedus had little doubt that they were waiting, biding their time until they could attempt to free their masters once again. Alchamedus carefully ran his vision over the swamps, stretching his senses as deep beneath the fetid ground as possible as he searched for any signs of activity. Alchamedus was about to stop his search when something came to his attention.

  He saw a serpent native to the Bakiosh Swamps which possessed a venom that could kill a man in minutes unless treated by an Alkesarim. The serpents were ubiquitous in the Swamps, but this serpent radiated a power that alarmed Alchamedus. He recognized the foulness of Irik'or, the blood of the Surok'tarn themselves, given to their favored servants. Irik'or was a mutable power source, capable of imitating many of the Gifts used by humans, but also able to cause its own form of transmutations. There was no way an ordinary serpent could have become infused with Irik'or, unless someone had done so on purpose, and only the naelfarn dared approach the Bakiosh serpents to attempt such an experiment.

  Alchamedus became aware of a second serpent also infused with Irik'or. The two serpents confronted each other, and Alchamedus sensed an immense hunger from both serpents. They each craved the Irik'or that infused the other serpent, and struck at one another swiftly, struggling viciously to consume one another. The victor swallowed its foe whole, and Alchamedus could sense the Irik'or in both serpents merge, growing exponentially stronger. The victorious serpent shuddered as its form began to grow and expand, more than doubling in mass, sprouting new eyes and even horns. Irik'or was a corrupt power source which mutated anything it encountered, but this transformation was beyond what Alchamedus would have expected. This was not the unpredictable change that Irik'or normally caused, but something engineered.

  Thick, heavy mists flowed into the area, creating a blanket that made it hard for Alchamedus to see. The Arakon did not waste his power trying to penetrate the mists, but instead waited patiently. Accompanying the mists was a new hunger, vaster than anything Alchamedus had ever sensed before. Irik'or permeated this new entity, whose form Alchamedus could barely make out. This creature, this Devourer, snatched up the Bakiosh serpent and consumed it, adding the serpent's Irik'or to its own immense reserves. Within that vast well of corrupt power, Alchamedus could sense an emptiness, the source of its hunger. What could fill that vast hunger that fed on Irik'or itself?

  Alchamedus felt a chill as he realized that the Devourer was studying him through the mists. He became aware of countless eyes glowing with a foul green radiance as they somehow focused on him. The hunger of that entity focused on Alchamedus himself, and then onto the Wound deep below Alchamedus, and he realized what this Devourer truly hungered for.

  The essence of a Surok'tarn.

  This was no mere monster. It was a vessel, carefully crafted to create the ideal environment for a Surok'tarn to inhabit, gaining a new body on Aerth, possibly bypassing the Wound entirely.

  Tendrils of Irik'or separated from the Devourer and reached for Alchamedus, just as the Sky Father's power had merged with him at the start of his vigil — but these tendrils would consume Alchamedus' power, and through him, the Sky Father's. If it consumed Alchamedus, the Wound would be defenseless. Worse, it would have the key to reopening the Wound.