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Dawn was streaking the sky as Kirinos-Halbro and Herald watched the Bahktak leap through the gateway bearing the squirming humans. The remaining ten were dumped at their feet.
Lying on the ground in a sprawled heap, Prakash-Ken found himself shivering so hard, his muscles started to cramp. He tried to straighten his arms and legs to ease the stricture, but found he couldn't move. He surmised the beasts’ jaws must carry an immobilizing venom. The cold surprised him. Though autumn was approaching, the days and nights had been mild.
His eyes darted about as he desperately tried to get his bearings, but all he could see was stony ground and prone bodies – fear-wide eyes swivelling as they sought a way out of their predicament.
The gateway shimmered, the carved sigils glowed red, and two figures stepped out, blinking in the dawn sunlight. Tall powerfully built men with jet-black hair swept back from their foreheads, and eyes so black, they absorbed all light, making them all but invisible.
Herald fell to his knees, pressing his forehead into the dirt. The Usurper glanced into the abyss of their eyes, then swiftly followed suit. Surgat and Jakut ignored their grovelling minions, stepping forward to view the blighted landscape from which they once held the entire region in thrall.
Though they were sorcerous beings, the Gualich had limited offensive magicks, but this was offset by the sheer power of their minds. They simply had to imagine something, concentrate, and will it into existence.
This ability enabled them to shape-shift and take on any appearance they wished. It had also helped them construct the towers and low, hive-like buildings of Tor-Arnath.
Beleth, in the human guise of Gual, had duped the then King of Mellania – Kirinos-Halbro, into bringing his entire court to Arnath. Emerging from the portal, the Suanggi and Bahktak had gorged themselves on the human souls. Energized via their servants, the Gualich followed, and subsequently built the city of Tor-Arnath.
Their task was much easier now, as the building blocks of their city were already in place – though strewn about the landscape.
Bursting with the energy provided by the stolen life force of the luckless mercenaries, Surgat and Jakut stood – black eyes glowing, staring intently at the jumble of stone and rock.
A haze rose, obscuring the ruins. Behind it came a great rumbling. The Usurper, now standing alongside Herald, blinked as the mist disappeared, revealing two towers standing proudly in all their green-blocked splendour, their spires disappearing into the clouds. The low hive-like buildings surrounding the towers were also intact.
Surgat and Jakut moved toward their newly constructed towers. Prakash-Ken groaned as jaws closed around his midriff, hoisting him in the air. The hell-hound padded after the Masters, nine other Bahktak in its wake, each bearing a hapless mercenary in its jaws.
The mercenary leader must have passed out at some stage, for when he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the floor of a circular chamber. The earlier paralysis appeared to have left him. Suppressing a groan, he climbed gingerly to his feet. He could feel blood running down his sides under his mail-shirt where the beast's fangs had punctured his skin.
Looking around, he saw the chamber, encircled by high windows with green-tinged glass, was bare of furnishing. He moved to the nearest window, and his breath caught in his throat at the view that presented itself. He was clearly in a tower of some sorts, for wispy clouds floated outside, and the vista of the countryside spread out before him as far as the eye could see.
Feeling a presence behind him, the mercenary captain swung around. A tall powerfully built man stood looking at him. Clad in a long black robe girded at the waist by a golden belt, the man looked like a priest, but his wide shoulders and bearing suggested a warrior in his prime years.
Prakash-Ken met the stranger's gaze, and his bowels went weak. The man's iris and pupils were so black, it seemed he was looking into the abyss of a gaping pit that threatened to swallow him. The miasma of evil radiating from them almost unmanned him, and he began to shake uncontrollably.
A hollow, sepulchral voice echoed painfully in his head. “You humans see us as evil, but is the lion evil for feeding on the deer, and are humans evil when they consume the flesh of lesser animals? Unlike you, we do not hunt and kill for sport. We only hunt and kill when we hunger.” A grating titter that could have been laughter reverberated through his skull. “But we have such prodigious appetites!”
Digging into his wells of courage, Prakash-Ken drew a dagger from his belt. “I don't know who you are,” he snarled, “but you look human enough to me. Come taste my dagger you black-eyed whoreson!” Springing forward, he aimed his dagger low at the stranger's belly in a disembowelling thrust.
The stranger didn't try to avoid the thrust. Prakash-Ken drove his dagger deep and ripped it upward. Tearing it clear, he stepped back with a triumphant gleam in his eyes, expecting to see the man's insides spill out.
The look in Prakash-Ken’s eyes turned to one of horror. He had seen and felt his blade pierce the stranger's flesh, but there was no cut, no blood. There was nothing.
The dagger clattered to the floor as it dropped from his nerveless fingers. “Wh...at...are...you?” he stammered, backing away horrified. “I am Surgat,” came the voice in his head. “I am your death, Prakash-Ken, but you give me and my kind, life!”
Prakash-Ken cowered, staggering backward as the uncontrollable tremor hit his limbs once more. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor. The figure before him became blurred-indistinct. He thought he could make out squirming tentacles and writhing members within the huge amorphous form hovering over him, but those black eyes were still there. He felt like he was being drawn inexorably into their depths.
Indescribable agony tore through every nerve-end in Prakash-Ken’s body. It was like his very soul, his essence, was being drawn from him with infinite slowness, into a vortex that was beyond black.
He heard a scream, high, ululating and blubbering. An oddly detached part of his consciousness realized the sounds were coming from him. Then another sensation intruded. One of exquisite joy and satisfaction. He had felt similar after a particularly delicious meal, or at the high point of bedding a beautiful woman. But what he felt now was the joy coming from the creature that was consuming him. But it was magnified, for he could feel the same sensation coming from another – he knew one of his men was simultaneously being consumed by the other demon.
The last thoughts that passed through what was left of Prakash-Ken's mind were that he should have listened to the black man, and he would never see his estates on Paros, or enjoy the soft flesh of his concubines again. It wasn't fair, it wasn't meant to end this way.
The High Priestess of Mithros
Elphemina, the High Priestess of Mithros, moved swiftly through the corridor, her long silk night-dress swishing against her ankles, and extraordinarily long tresses gathered atop her head and held in place by a hair-net.
It was the dead of night, and all was silent in the temple. The torches set in brackets along the walls of the long corridor flickered from a mysterious breeze, making the shadows shift and twirl.
The Priestess had been awakened from her slumbers by a scream. She hadn't heard the scream, but it had reverberated deep within her. A soul-scream of anguish of a tormented one.
Elphemina hadn't leapt from her bed instantly, but lay quietly with her eyes shut. Breathing deeply, she focussed her energies, and loosened the bonds tying her to the physical plane.
Her ethereal eyes – called spirit-eyes by some, slowly opened. Seeing with the ethereal eyes could be confusing, disorientating, and dangerous to the uninitiated, as various phantoms generated by dreams and the human mind became visible.
Elphemina filtered out the dream-phantoms and thought-forms taken shape, and focussed on a pulsing orange-coloured thread. Tracing the path of the thread, she saw it originated from one of the sle
eping quarters housing the young initiates.
Pushing open the door, Elphemina stepped into the large room. Though it was dark, she was loath to bringing in a torch as the light might wake some of the slumberers. Moving silently along the row of beds, she stopped and knelt beside one bearing a figure bathed in a soft orange light.
The Priestess recognized Kiandra. Her parents had brought the then nine-year-old girl to the temple three years earlier. From the nearby island of Paros, they had recognized the rare gifts in their child. She appeared to have the ability to see the future. Weeks before the incident, she had dreamt her father would twist his ankle in an unseen rabbit burrow while playing with her older brother. She also dreamt raiders would attack the village and carry off three young women. Her warnings had been dismissed, and when the women were abducted, was accused of being cursed, and responsible for their misfortune.
Elphemina placed her hand on the sleeping girl's brow. It was hot and clammy, and the Priestess guessed the girl was having a troubled dream. She decided against waking her, as yanking her abruptly from the dream might damage her mind. Shutting her eyes, she flowed into the child's mind and her dreams.
Elphemina saw Kiandra floating beneath the rafters of the ceiling of a large hall. Below her was a scene of chaos and carnage, as yellow-eyed demons and huge beasts ripped into a mass of people including men, women and children.
One of the demons had seen the watching girl, and was rising toward her, mouth agape and long tongue questing. Kiandra was frozen in terror, her mouth open in a scream. It was that soul-scream that had alerted Elphemina.
Cloaking herself in a golden breastplate, with a sword of blazing light by her side, Elphemina’ s spirit-form materialized next to the horror-stricken girl. Her sword flashed out, shearing through the squirming, reaching tongue. The demon fell back without a sound.
Elphemina placed an arm around Kiandra. “It’s only a bad dream child,” she whispered. “Let's get you back home. Close your eyes and think of your bed back at the temple. When you awake, I will be right there with you.”
Elphemina opened her eyes to feel Kiandra’s arms wrapped around her neck, as the frightened girl held onto her for reassurance. She could feel the rapid flutter of Kiandra’s heart through her thin night-dress.
“You are safe now, Kiandra,” she whispered. “It was only a dream.”
Kiandra shook her head vehemently. “No... I don't think so. All those people are going to be killed by those...things. My dreams always come true.”
“I know, Kiandra,” Elphemina said, stroking the child's hair. “I know your dreams often come true, but this one won't. I’ll make sure those...things we saw don't harm anyone.”
“Really?”
“Yes, dear child, I promise. Now I think you should go back to sleep.”
Elphemina felt Kiandra’s grip tighten around her neck. “No, I shouldn't. The bad dream will come back.”
The High Priestess hugged Kiandra, then gently lowered her back into her bed. Leaning forward, she brushed some loose strands of hair from her forehead. She could make out the golden glow of the child's eyes in the dark. Like Elphemina, Kiandra had unusually coloured eyes – the eye colouring shared by all the High Priestesses of the Order of Mithros down the centuries.
“The bad dreams won't come back Kiandra, I promise.” Elphemina whispered, touching the girl lightly on the temple.
Kiandra’s eyes closed, her breathing deepening. Elphemina rose to her feet and walked quietly down the row of beds and still slumbering initiates, to the door.
Returning to her quarters, Elphemina poured herself some water from an earthen jug on a small table by her bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she sipped the water, pondering the meaning behind Kiandra’s dream.
Getting to her feet, she walked to her study, and pushed open the door to a small room. A large oval-shaped glass-topped table dominated the windowless room. A large sunburst in glorious colour was painted on the ceiling directly above the table. A low shelf containing a line of different-coloured fist-sized stones, ran along the far wall.
She grasped a red scrying-stone from the shelf, passed it over the glass-topped table, and whispered the words of power. The glass turned opaque, then Elphemina saw a large stone-built building with a sloping roof, fronted by four high pillars. A large sunburst – its colours faded by time and the elements, decorated the front of the building.
Elphemina uttered another word, and the image shifted, revealing a two-storey building. A sign swinging above the door announced it as a tavern named the Philosopher's Folly. The image changed, showing her the interior of the tavern. The main room, lined with a long bar, and containing several tables and chairs was deserted. Other images appeared in quick succession, showing five figures asleep in different rooms. She recognized four, for she had seen them when they were still young. The fifth, a thin man with a receding hairline was unknown to her.
The last image disappeared, replaced by a stark landscape beneath a night-sky. Set on a low rise, Elphemina could see dark masses of large stone blocks scattered in abandon. She gasped, almost dropping the scrying-stone on the table, for not all was jumbled stone. Two towers rose high into the night-sky. The Gualich had returned, and time was getting short.
Moving to the shelf, Elphemina replaced the scrying-stone, then she sat on a high-backed chair, closed her eyes, and composed her thoughts.
The appearance of the towers had shocked her. She hadn't expected the Gualich to return so swiftly, let alone two of them. Things were moving at a pace that threatened to overwhelm them all. She wished she had taken matters in hand much earlier, instead of leaving them to Castillan's descendant, who clearly didn't understand the scale of the evil confronting them.