Death Blade

Section Two

II. Section 2. Blood, Corruption And A Stranger.

I. Darkness:
The short man in the black robes stood on the ridge of the canyon around the research station and surveyed the desolate scene below. Ten thousand dead blade dragons, slaughtered by only one hundred human warriors.

“That could not have gone better my lord. It is all as you wished.”

"Good… Where is he Bicarno?” High lord Bicarno, that was the mans name, but now even hearing it spoken reminded him of the disjointed time before his enlightenment, he shuddered.

“Right here lord, Genesis they named him” As he spoke a figure that seemed to be cloaked in armour made of flickering red flame stepped out of the darkness, he was more than twice as tall as Bicarno.

"Is he strong?"

“Very much so my lord. He defeated my puppet.” He took a deep breath, certain this would give his master pleasure “His only equal is Casian, but he has one advantage over even him, he needs no trigger.” He said reverently.

"That is very good."

Pleasure burst inside Bicarno like a supernova and its fires tingled through his body.

"He will follow commands?"

“Yes lord, if it weren't for him, Linwe would be dead.”

"There is just one more thing you must do to him to convert him fully."

“I know.” Bicarno stood up to his full height, but he was still dwarfed by the menacing figure. “That which was born from the flames of ignorance, gifted with a seed of the great tree that is our lord Orageos, take up your true form as his child and become cloaked in his illustrious robes of darkness. Be reborn in a christening of blood. Kneel.” He drew a glittering black knife from his robes, lifted it high up and cried to the night “Exulted Lord Orageos, greater of the twin gods and rightful ruler of Tulandier and Tutauilung and all between and after them. Embody yourself in this blade and reunite yourself with your child.” A menacing tendril of darkness snaked down from the sky like an inquisitive serpent and was absorbed into the blade. Without hesitation he held out his left arm and slit his wrist open. Blood splashed over the head of Genesis and sprayed in a dark fountain that froze instantly into ruby red jewels.
Then he plunged the blade into Genesis’ heart and stood back, his job complete.
The knife became liquid and coated the creations whole body with unimaginably black and cold darkness that seemed to devour what light and warmth there was with a ravening ferocity.
“It is done, lord” his wound already healed “He is yours”

"Good. I have great things for you Bicarno."

Bicarno shivered with pleasure at praise from his master. Then Genesis spoke in an insanely deep and warped human voice:

“What is my bidding?”

"Go to Morthiot with Bicarno and meet your brother."
 
II. Sniper Larian:
A sharp whining filled the air as the transport disappeared from this universe and into the next, the world melting into darkness before Larians eyes as his consciousness faded with the light until he was alone in the darkness. Then the visions began.


It was raining delicately, he could hear the roar of energy weapons, the crackle of lasers the eerie whine of the alien weaponry and the shrieks of dying monsters. ”Davan!” Bellowed Casian “Get up!”

Larian realised what was happening and with all his willpower tried to avert it, but he couldn’t.

He opened his eyes and saw above him a vision of hell. Thousands of sharp jagged Iratui ships flitted across the sky like clumsy fish in a sea of blood, locked in a deadly dance of death with just a few hundred elegant Taui-Kun fighters. The sky was lit with flickering energy fire and burning globules of warped space-time.

Explosions from artillery were an almost constant thunder like background noise, Davans ears throbbed from it.

Davan, that had been his name before he joined the Taui-Kun.

He stood groggily to his quivering feet, surrounded by a towering squad of Taui-Kun, they seemed kilometres above him like archaic edifices filled with the supernatural power and glory of the ancients.

“Davan, the Iratui have began to retreat, we are going to pursue them, in Earth’s name they are not allowed to live. Can you walk?” He looked down and saw the grisly wound in his leg, an alien had shot him with one of their strange weapons, a chunk of his leg and been torn into separate quarks.

“I can make it” he grimaced and gritted his teeth against the hot tide of pain that now seemed to emerge, it was as if the wound hadn't existed before he had seen it. “Where are they heading?” he struggled past his lips and gasped at the new heights of pain he was subjected to. 

“Section BF28” Davans heart sank, that was the section he lived in. Where he’d left Elaine. “Lets go!” he screamed and ran as fast as he could, his leg sending jolts of pain, he gritted his teeth and tried in vain to stay with the Taui-Kun. All around him in the street were blasted chunks of rock and the massive foundations of towering skyscrapers like the feet of giants, anchored firmly to the ground, even amidst the chaos. He leapt over a lump of masonry and his leg throbbed angrily, causing him to grunt in pain.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye, he swung around and there, leaning out a heat warped Transparisteel window was an Iratui sniper, it glared at him with glowing eye slits and pointed its rifle at him, but Davan was faster. Without dropping pace He pulled out his laser gun and shot it in its oversized circular fanged mouth. It retched purplish blood before collapsing.

“You have a good eye Davan, perhaps when all this is over you will join us” Davan seriously considered that, it would be a new life, would give him a purpose, but he knew he’d never be able to leave Elaine.

“There they are!” a squad of the creatures were a few hundred metres ahead and had dug deep into positions “Death and glory!” roared Casian in a rising cry of blood fuelled tumultation. The Taui-kun split, as if a knife had been cut through their ranks. Half drew swords and began to charge while the rest raised their energy guns and fired a barrage of shots over their shoulders to keep the aliens heads down until they reached them. Davan raised his own gun to join in but Casian sensing that he had the courage to stay with them and fight turned and called out “Davan, we’ll deal with this, go, find your girl.” The dying sun behind him gave him a magnificent ethereal air and formed a bloodstained golden halo around his head as he raised his sword to him in a godlike salute.   

He scampered away as the shots began to crackle overhead and kicked down the door to his flat. A snarling monstrosity leapt towards him, he raised his gun, but it clicked empty. The alien clubbed him around the head with its weapon and Davan fell against the wall, half-stunned. The creature ecstatically raised the gun to his face, but Davan lashed out with his foot like a striking scorpion and caught it off balance, before it could scramble back up he snatched its gun and shot it in the head in a roar of dissipating atoms.

Someone screamed. Davan ran into the next room and found to his horror an alien on top of Elaine, gnawing greedily at her neck like a suckling child. He screamed in rage and shot the creature in the gut, it rolled off of Elaine and whined as the air escaped its lungs, twitching and writhing. He ran over to Elaine, but it was too late. Blood trickled from her still lips and her eyes stared lifelessly. Davan didn’t believe what was happening; it couldn’t be true, this wasn’t real, any minute now he would wake up, with her at his side. But he didn’t.

He bent down and kissed her lips, hoping to find some life, but they were as cold as starlight. Her blood tasted thick and rotten in his mouth. 

He saw her laughing face in his mind, but it was just an elaborate death mask now. She would never laugh, never love or cry anymore.

And what had been his last words to her? Don’t be afraid, ill be back for you. And now he was back and it was too late. Her soul had been torn from her body and cast among the lost and damned and he had never said goodbye.

Perhaps if you had been a few seconds sooner…

Perhaps if you had stayed with her…

He collapsed trembling and shivering, too shocked to realise the full horror of it. The blood drained from his face and his temple pulsed. Tears began to stream freely down his face, they scorched like acid. Half formed words quaked in his throat. Then the rage over took him and he stood up sharply and shot the mewling creature on the floor again and again and again, screaming and cursing with each shot until there was only a bloody sizzling pulp left. His strength left him and he collapsed as wave after wave of grief pummelled him, washing away his heart, his mind and his soul like tiny sandcastles underneath a towering tsunami.                                               


Again the air was filled with the sharp whining as the ship decelerated and fell back to the universe as we know it the same instant it left, but at the other side of the galaxy. This coupled with a sharp jerk woke Larian back to consciousness with a sigh of relief; he was back from the terror.

He was slumped on the floor in the corner of his quarters, his helmet still on as usual, but none of the rest of his armour; it was pointless keeping all of it on.
He looked around; it was the same as usual, except he was not alone. Lying peacefully on the bed at the other side of the room was the girl, Linwe. He had agreed to keep an eye on her until they could put her safely down on Earth.

He was startled by her beauty, and moved by it like he had not been for a long time.

“What are you staring at?” she smiled at him with a sweet little smile that spread no further than her mouth. She had been watching him also, through eyes opened the tinniest crack. Her voice sounded to him like the joyous singing of a Co-cui on a dusky Hiran morning.

“You remind me of someone.”

“Who?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested
Larian paused, before deciding there was no point in keeping it from her.
“My wife.”

“Married hmm? Guess I don’t have to keep such a watchful eye on you anymore.”

“She died twenty three years ago.” he said dully. His voice was like a sheaf, covering the cold sharp steel that lay beneath, preventing it from wounding others and himself. “Don’t fear me, human. I won’t attack you. Rest, you have much to sleep off.”

“I don’t think I can ever sleep off what happened.”

“Then we have one thing in common.” She looked as if she was going to ask something else, but then she rolled over with obvious discomfort, wincing as pressure was put onto her left arm.

Larian waited until sleep held her in its irresistible clutches and crept softly over to her sleek form. He listened to the sound of her breath as her lungs fed her dreams, such a gentle and soothing rhythm. He stiffened and grimaced as if a knife had been plunged into his gut. For a moment he was back on Hiran as the first rays of morning filtered through the pollutant laden air and danced on Elaines sleeping body, her smooth arms wrapped around him, creamy breasts pressed against his naked chest, long dark hair tickling the sensitive skin of his throat. Breathing in that same dreamy way.

He had lain there with her under that heavy, itchy blanket on a bed of Co-cui feathers that clumped together into little boulders of discomfort, revelling in the way her exhaled breath played across his face, how it caressed his skin like a warm hand. He could never know it was to be the last time he would do so.

Larian twinged uncomfortably. How alike they looked. Was it just his delusioned mind playing unkind tricks on him, or could she really have passed for Elaines long lost twin? Why was it she must continue to haunt him now after all these years? Why couldn’t his yearning mind let go? He was painfully aware of a deep abrasive longing in his chest that pained each softened breath. How he wanted the touch of a womans skin once more. How he wanted to have someone to hold close and share his love with, to stoke the dying coals of his heart. He wanted the impossible however. There was no love for the Taui-kun, only the comradeship of a unit and the brothel of carnage, death and blood that the mistress of war had to offer.
 
But was it impossible? Was it even so far away now?

He reached down to Linwe, towards her velvet skin, her firm, shapely breasts centimetres from his fingertips, an electric current seemed to arc through the empty air making his hand twitch.

He thumbed on the medi-ray concealed in his palm. Stimulating rays caressed Linwes body, encouraging damaged tissue to regrow. The burns that trickled down her back like hot wax healed almost instantly. She had hidden them well, but Taui-kun see in more ways than mortal man. She had also tried to conceal the terrible gash in her left arm, but Larian had not needed god-like powers to notice how stiffly it moved, or the discharges of blood and pus that had caked the silver-white material of her clothing.

It must have taken incredible force of mind to even attempt the game she had played. But why had she done it? Was it pride? Or was it fear? Fear that the kindly medic would ask for a little something in return for the service? Something that didn’t take the shape of a handful of credit chips?         

The ship rocked as they stopped completely in some other god-forsaken edge of the galaxy, he had no idea where they were, but it didn’t matter, what did matter was his duty and he knew that was here.

His com burst to life, Larian was awoken from his half sleep. It was Casian.
“Larian, we must drop to the surface… and we must take the girl.”

“Sir.” He walked over to Linwe and reached out to shake her arm, but the moment his hand touched her creamy silk skin, she rolled over to face him, clutching a lit energy knife. Where had she come by such a weapon?

“What do you want?” she snapped

“We’re taking you to the surface.”

“Why?”

“It is not my business to know.” He growled and turned away from her, grabbing his rifle from its cradle on the wall and holstering two pistols.

Holding the gun in one hand he marched her down the elaborate corridors to the hanger bay, as he walked he set of the trigger in his mind, inside his chest his Mòróplex squirted liquid Mòrón and secreted it through the pores in his skin. Linwe stared at him in fascination and awe. Then her gaze moved to his long gleaming rifle. She shuddered.

“There’s going to be fighting, isn’t there.” She said timidly, almost to herself. “Why must I be a part of it?”

Larian twitched.


“There’s going to be more fighting, isn’t there Davan.” Whispered Elaine softly, staring blankly out onto the smog choked street. “Why must we be a part of it?”
Davan stepped up behind her and placed his hands comfortingly on her shoulders.
There were bodies in the street. They had ambushed a squad of Iratui that morning. The firefight was short and brutal; the aliens were dead before they had a chance to call for backup. Six men from the street had been killed in the attack, they lay intermingled with the carcasses of the enemy.

“We fight because we must, Elaine. Because there is nothing else.” She looked up at him with frightened eyes. He kissed her, and held her shivering body close as the sirens began to wail.


But her sweet lips turned to blood in his mouth as Larian came back to reality with a jolt.

“What's your name soldier?”

“I have no name.” He snapped. Linwe flinched back as though stung. They walked in silence the rest of the way.

When they reached the hanger, the rest of the team was already there. They stood impatiently, silent and intimidating giants, robed in demonic black.

Without a word they marched into the awaiting dropships belly. Almost instantly it shot into the atmosphere like a bullet.

“The leaders of this planet, Morthiot, have declared a rebellion against humanity. They have rounded up the entire planets civilians and threatened to put them to death if we do not meet with them. The council has ordered that we comply to their wishes.” said Casian

“Maybe we should leave them to it, they’d only be ripping their own guts out.” Remarked Larung “Why is the girl here? Isn’t involving civilians against standard procedure?”

“It may be against standard procedure to involve a civilian in an action, but it also against standard procedure to allow ten thousand men woman and children to die through strict adherence to the rules. They said we must bring her too. Earth knows how they knew we had her, or why they so want to meet us.”

Larian watched, mildly amused, as Linwe ran her hand across where just minutes before the terrible wound had lay, confusion and worry on her face, but also relief. The kindly medic had not been as lustful as either of them had thought.

“We don’t have any landing craft at this time Linwe, so we’re going to have to make a low altitude drop.” Explained Casian gently. “The fall will not last more than thirty seconds, and you will be in no danger at all.”

Linwe nodded timidly to signal that she understood. She did not look particularly well. 

A chime sounded and a pleasant female voice spoke “Drop altitude in fifteen seconds.”

Larian leant down to speak to Linwe, who looked as if she had lost several pints of blood, barely concealing the shuddering of her limbs “When we jump you must hold on to me, do not let go.”

“You expect me to cling to you like your lover?”

Larian shrugged. “Or you could just fall the whole way.” he almost smiled. The kindly medic was making his demands after all.

He thrust an atmosphere pack at her, and she strapped it on without question, she knew what was about to happen.

“Five seconds till drop altitude. Doors opening.” The doors opened in a rush of screaming air. It was breathable, but there wasn’t a lot of it; at this altitude, a human would suffocate.

He grabbed her by the arm and led her to the opening. She took one look over the edge and blanched, staggering back a few steps.

“Three” chimed the computer cheerfully.

“I can’t do it” whimpered Linwe, Larians augmented ears barely able to pick up her trembling voice over the howling wind.

“One” piped the computer.

Larian sighed in frustration, ignoring her screams he grabbed her around the waist and ran to the edge with her under the crook of his arm and took a gigantic graceful leap into nothingness.

The speed was insane, the wind howled like vengeful death, he seemed almost to be suspended on a column of air, Larian laughed at the madness of it all.

The ground below beckoned to them, a mother calling back a child that has strayed too far into the woods.

Linwe clung to him desperately, wrapped her arms tightly around him, buried her face in his chest and entwined her legs with his. Her long dark hair billowed up into Larians helmet like a cloud of ebony black twine. Larian held her there with his free hand, in his other was his long rifle.

The ground rushed up to them at an impossible speed. Larian was almost disappointed when he was caught on the soft cushion of anti gravity and lowered safely to the ground.

The instant her feet touched the ground Linwe thrust herself away from him. “Do you always manhandle women like that?” she snapped

“Old habits die hard.” Larian said, more to himself than to her. “I'm Larian, by the way.”

She stormed away, leaving Larian alone. He hadn't felt so alive in years.


III. Commander Casian:

Come and get me Casian… I'm waiting for you…Come and find me.

Casian shook the voices from his head as he hit the ground.

He had finally been spared from the drop descent; his head was still spinning, as if he had several shots of Kuputian whisky but he managed to stand up. This planet was a dull one, made completely of flat and featureless granite like rock. The occasional lump of feldspar glittered like a chunk of sunlight.

The ancient and fading sun of this system had just set, and the stars in sky were as bright as any Casian had seen from the surface, chips of diamond caught in the thick velvety black material of eternity. This far out in the galaxial spiral there were so few stars shining, and that made them seem all the brighter.

A gigantic cave entrance dominated the landscape, it was a yawning giants mouth, ten metres from lip to lip. A man in black appeared to stand at its entrance, but it was just the way the shadows played with his sight. 

He looked around and saw the girl, Linwe. It occurred to him that no-one had asked her whether she wanted to risk her life down here, though no-one had asked the inhabitants of the planet whether they would mind dying at the whim of one woman.
He touched her shoulder, and to his surprise, she span around to face him with her knife alight. He caught the hand holding the knife, switched it off and let her hand drop. He watched her pretty face contort from fearful, to embarrassed, to shameful.

“I, I, I’m sorry… I’m just feeling a bit jumpy…” she said from behind the small atmosphere pack, pin bricks of light blazing from it like golden teeth.

“Linwe, you have a right to be feeling jumpy, what happened to you in that one day was more than any human should ever have to face. Now, when we are in the tunnels, you must be within three metres of either Larian, Malian or me. We don’t know what's going to be down there and we need to keep you alive.”
 
The squad gathered around him.

“Brothers, let us enter these caves to find the traitors within! Let us root out the wretched maggots that dared to challenge the authority of the High council! We will meet with them as requested, but before this day is done we will have the head of everyone of them, they will rue the day they tried to bargain with the Taui-kun!”

“We will purge the traitors!” roared the squad in acknowledgement, punching the air with their fists.

And so they ran through the foreboding entrance of the cave, and into the unknown.

“Do you not believe you are being a little rash, commander?” asked Malian, his second.

“How so friend?” Casian inquired

“What if they are aware of the fact that we have probably come to purge them? What if they have wired the place with explosives that will go off in the event of their deaths, or worse?”

“I doubt they will be quite that forward thinking, friend. It requires a certain degree of madness to declare rebellion, even more so to threaten the death of your own civilians if demands are not met. Who would produce food? Who would trade? Who would fly the ships? Who would fight their battles? No Malian. I expect them to be little more than frothing lunatics in desperate need of putting down for the good of all. Besides, if your scenario does turn out to be true, we have Linwe with us, just in case.” Casian explained. He was a cautious man and did not often take risks; he did not see any human lives as bartering chips.
 
It was warm and dank in the cave, the heat and moisture caused by geothermal reactions deep down in the core. At least, that is what it said on Casians neuro-screen, the temperature in the suit being tailored to his individual preferable temperature and humidity.

There was no noise in the cave, even with his advanced senses he could hear nothing other than the slight footfalls of his soldiers and Linwes more obtrusive steps echoing terribly in his mind.

They turned past one snaking corridor and were immediately faced with a huge door of ornately decorated brass.

Casian blinked, how strange that his eyes could not see through it. For his vision to be blocked completely like this it would require at least a metre of lead or shielding devices.

A figure was engraved on it. A twisted and malformed face that protruded from brass to scream at him. The craftsmanship was incredibly detailed, the flakes of peeling parchment skin curled out like freshly planed wood and the maggots that reveled in its flesh almost seemed to wriggle as the light played on them.

Casians head began to throb and pound, pressure built up on his ear drums and the air became as thick as curdled blood.

Not now! He screamed at himself. As the cave, his men, everything except that brass door began to fade like unwelcome memories he felt the madness rush towards him like a cargo train, anti grav motors shrieking, air rushing and snapping like a great whip, blazing lights blinding him.

He felt his sanity slipping away as if his head had become a sieve. He yelled and pressed his hands against the sides of his head, trying to block the pain that was mounting, trying to hold himself together.

The brass door was the only thing left, carved out of the blackness that Casian tumbled through. The carved face burst into rancid flame and it tore itself from the prison of metal. It rushed towards him, desperate to sink its gleaming, broken teeth into his neck, drool flying, maggots charring, single eye blazing with livid hate that coursed through Casians body in sheets of unkempt outrage.

Casian! See what the power of Orageos has wrought! See the future of your insignificant race! Give up Casian, there is nothing more you can do. Step down of your pedestal, cast of those robes that fit you no more, come back to me! Be one with me once more! 

“Get away from me!” screamed Casian, feeling hot winds of madness rush into his lungs. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head! Get out!”

Using all his force of will he flung his arms through the soup of madness and blood that cloaked him and smashed his fist into the pulsating metal of the face. It bellowed laughter at him as he rained hate on it, tearing it apart, smashing it down.

Then it was gone.

The world came flooding back to him and Casian sucked in a deep breath of relief, panting and shaking.

He was flat on his face, resting on shards of mutilated brass.

In his madness he had completely destroyed the door. He had ripped it open as if it was paper, torn it from its hinges and beaten it with his fists until it was an unrecognizable hulk of twisted wreckage.

He pushed himself to his feet feeling his muscles burn and his bones creak. He turned towards his squad who stood still and unsure of what to think.

“I have had another vision. The high council filled me with righteous rage to tear down this work of blasphemy. There is nothing left on this world but insanity and rebellion. All who stand against us shall be purged.” A small lie, perhaps. But not that far from the truth. Still, better that than his finest men to think that he was no longer sane enough to lead them.

They didn’t say a word, no zealous cry of we will purge them! No acknowledgements or affirmative gestures. Dread sank deep into Casians stomach. How much of the interplay within his head had been broadcast? Had they seen in his actions the true extent of the things in his mind?

Malian flicked his head, motioning towards something that was behind Casian.
Sick apprehension bubbled up through Casians chest as he spun slowly around.
As the oncoming cavern filled Casians pounding head he thought that he had slipped back once more into one of his nightmares.

For a moment it was if he was looking into the gut of some monstrous behemoth, but the twitching pink flesh that caked the blood-slick walls was not from one creature alone. A patchwork of mutilated, naked carcasses clothed the underlying skeleton of stone in robes of rancid meat.

The realization was like an ice-cold knife sinking further into Casians belly with every passing second. The rage of their betrayal set his blood aflame.

Every carcass that plastered the wall had been flayed completely of its skin, peeled fresh from their bodies still streaked with yellow slithers of fat and hung to dry from the caves heights on insane, macabre washing lines.

Without the familiar and comforting layer of skin the decomposing corpses took on a new grotesque appearance. Rotting lumps of muscle slipped from reddened bone, pulped organs slithered out of shrivelled abdomens and smashed ribcages, eyeballs bulged from lidless sockets in widened terror, reddened skulls with clinging strands of stubborn tissue grinned sightlessly to the darkness.

Each body never possessed more than a single eye, nerve endings dangling from empty pits, their precious organ plucked away like ripe fruit. 

The only sound was the steady dripping of blood into the knee-high sea of roiling crimson, it writhed as if just below the surface thousands of ravenous fish were emerging to feed, sandpaper scales scratching its skin, bringing up angry boils. 
How was it that the bodies still twitched after weeks of death? Why did they still drip blood when it should all have been drained in hours?

Too late… hissed the voice. Does it not lift your spirit also? The rotting flesh, the dripping blood, the screaming souls… the food of the gods. But this is just a taste of what is to come… the end times shall drown all your petty reality in blood.

Casian roared in anger and smashed his fist against the wall, breaking a huge chunk of rock into powder.
IV. Linwe:

They were all now splashing through a river of blood within a forest of crucified corpses. Blood constantly dripped in a dirge of echoing splashes for the departed.
The acrid taste of bile was never out her mouth or the blear of tears from her eyes. Which was good. It hid at least some of the terrible sighs from her.

She had already thrown up twice and would do so again were there anything left to throw. She shivered as if several thousand volts were passing through her body and felt as though carpets of icy pins were impaling her arms neck and spine. A shoal of restless fish swirled impatiently in her stomach and gnawed at her insides like ravenous dogs. 

She had only glimpsed the butchered lumps of meat that jutted from the walls like hideous gargoyles for several seconds, and she was sure it was enough to traumatise her for life. 

She looked down to prevent her self from seeing any more. That was almost, if not more terrible and was harder to ignore seeing as she was almost up to her waist in a writhing sea of blood. She kept trying to tell herself it was just water, but that thought could not get the bleached red stain out of her clothes. She could not help thinking that a few days ago this blood was sloshing around in the veins of living, breathing human beings.

How could they all be dead? Why were they continuing if the mission was jeopardised? The answer stuck in her brain like a shard of glass. There must have been people to nail them up… dedicated, insane people. People who have to die.
It was hard work forcing her legs through the water, (That was all it was, water) It was as if it was putting as much resistance as it could against her, physically attempting to impede her progress.

A sheet of white hot terror shot from up her body as something brushed lightly against her leg. In her mind she saw a hand, swollen grey flesh sagging from the bone, slimy chunks of skin and rotten meat bloated with water breaking away and trailing behind it.

She whimpered and tried to quicken her pace, but the water (Only water) forced her back, enjoying her distress.

She stifled a scream when a moss-coated fingernail lovingly caressed her foot and daggers of pain pushed past her ribs at the effort.

She risked a glance upwards to see where the Taui-kun were and a tide of sallow lolling faces crawling with maggots and stained with livid blood loomed down on her, skin peeled away, muscles bare and twitching in hideous unnatural life.

Linwe choked and spluttered, feeling her head pound and her vision blur and looked back down again. The Taui-kun were still all very close, Larian was only a couple of metres from her.   

It was odd, however much she told herself to hate him, she couldn’t and despite the fact she had never seen his face, there was something roguishly attractive about him.

He seemed so eternally calm, even now he was indifferent to the horrors around him and was gently stroking his rifle. Linwe didn’t know whether to admire or abhor him for that, but then again, no one else seemed to notice either. Well, they were Taui-Kun, immune to fear. They had probably seen much worse. But what could be worse than this? Linwe couldn’t think of anything. She didn’t want to.

Linwe heard something snap like a pine knot in a winters fire. Her right foot tumbled into a cavity and jagged rock, or was it broken bones? Slashed her shins. Her left leg continued trying to force its way forwards, and before she could stop her self she was tumbling forwards into the sea of blood.

It was as if someone had been playing with the colour resolution of her eyes and had turned everything off except for red. The repugnant taste of salty blood forced itself up her nostrils. She struggled, trying to free her captive foot, but all she achieved in doing was twisting it painfully and lacerating her shins further.

Something grabbed hold of her left leg. Mossy, slimy grey flesh. Five jagged fingernails stroking her. This time Linwe did scream and the last of her precious air burst from her lungs and rose as quivering red globules in front of her terrified eyes. Blood flowed into her lungs, she struggled and kicked as the world started to grow dark.     

A black torpedo exploded into the river of blood a couple of metres from her. It surged towards her and shot out a fist that crushed the hand that gripped her leg and gently eased her right foot from the empty ribcage it was caught within.

Gentle arms wrapped around Linwe and pulled her up from the depths.

Linwe spat a stream of foul blood and desperately gasped in the stale air of the cave as if she had never breathed before.

“You alright?” Larian growled, holding her in his gentle arms as if she was a child.

“Yes.” she sighed as she reached out a red stained arm to caress the sleek and hard Mòrón that encased his cheek. He pulled away from her touch.

“Commander, it was a bad idea to involve civilians in this.” Larian snarled. “Why can’t we just take her back to the ship? We don’t need her anymore.”

“There’s no time Larian. We can’t spare the men or the minutes in backtracking. Our first priority is the completion of the mission.” Casian said calmly. Was this the same man who had undergone a mad fit of rage and torn down the door earlier?

An ear-splitting bellow pierced the air, rudely punctuated by an angry burst of laser fire.

“Move!” barked Casian.

“I will have to carry you Linwe, or you won’t keep up.”

“That’s ok.” Linwe said, smiling slightly from behind the atmosphere pack. He looked at her curiously for a moment from far behind his bright red visor as if unsure what to think. He nodded slowly, almost to himself. Then, clutching her tight he sprinted off into the dark. 

V. Bio-Tech Warrior 138/AKY2K/556:
Though the primordial soup of blurry senses that had been programmed into It, Bio-Tech warrior 138/AKY2K/556 rose to Its feet and looked around. It could smell blood, the spicy aroma filling the air. To It blood was the most intoxicating scent, the most tantalising taste and the most exquisite reward. It saw the vessels in which the precious liquid was contained, although his sensors could not quite identify them. Were they human or some other creature? It could not tell, but it did not matter now.

There were two of them and It started laboriously plodding towards them. It may have been four metres tall and weighed over one thousand kilograms, but It could still be stealthy when It wanted to.

It was within ten metres of them when It dimly realised as if through a thick fog that they had laser weapons, but it was too late now as the urge to kill and drink deep of their vital fluids grew to an almost unbearable state. It could not hold back any longer and with a bestial bellow like an all-devouring storm It charged forwards careering straight into them.

The impact knocked one of them to the ground and something clearly had broken judging by the sound of the impact, It stamped on his head to make sure, it shattered like an eggshell with a delicious pop, warm brains splattered over the dry dusty ground. It longed to lap them up but there was another to kill yet. The remaining one span around, a gun in his hands, but before his finger could tighten on the trigger he had already been caught in a bear hug from the vast warrior. He fired a shot into the darkness in vain, but before he could fire again his entire right arm was torn away and flung to the ground.

To the warriors disappointment, he didn’t make a sound of discomfort other than the hissing blood pumping from the severed arteries. He struggled more trying to free himself from the grip, until his back was broken. The last thing he felt was tremendous pressure and the beast ripping open his chest.

It could feel his victims ribs snapping like so many dry twigs, making similar noises. It crooned in pleasure.

Before the mans corrupted black soul was swallowed by gaping infinity, two words bubbled passed his lips that puzzled the warrior
“Hail Orageos!” And the last thing he saw was the warrior beginning to feed with irrepressible ravenousness on his heart.

VI. Commander Casian:
As soon as they heard it, they ran, eventually out of the river of blood and away from the broken bodies, now there were just wet slimy walls of cold clammy stone and dry dusty ground. It was pitch black, though this meant nothing to the Taui-kun. 

But this almost tranquil scene was disturbed several hundred metres later by two horribly mutated corpses. Casian wasn’t even sure they were human, as their flesh was strangely mottled. One of them had had their skull crushed by what looked must have been a tremendous weight and the other had been horribly mangled. His back was broken, his ribs were splintered and cracked open and his right arm had been torn off and flung to the floor. The cold fingers still gripped a laser gun tightly, every few seconds the twitching of his fingers would fire another bolt of laser energy down the hall illuminating the dark caverns ahead. They both seemed to be covered with what appeared to be burn marks. Something else that was strange, was that even though they could only have been dead for several minutes, they seemed to be nearing the final stages of decomposition.

The strangest things about the bodies was the complete and utter lack of blood, there was none anywhere, not even a splash. The bodies were extremely pale, on closer inspection from Karrung, the medic it was shown that they had been completely drained of blood.

Casian knew this could mean only two things, a Karilion or one of their insane creations spawned from their warped and corrupted minds. Both of these meant something bad, that there was a deranged killer with an unquenchable thirst for blood roaming these caverns.

It sounded like some of the other troopers had had the same thoughts, “This looks like a Karilions work to me, or I’m a Taerran” muttered Calrung. He spoke of a diminutive dwarf like species of human that had evolved in a mining colony in the system Taerra. He was now three hundred and twenty two, although this is still young for a Taui-Kun who can live almost indefinitely. He showed no sign of ageing or of the horrors he had seen across the galaxy, apart from his eyes, which were dark and mournful, they twinkled like two glistening black heart jewels from the asteroid mines in Durrun. His face beneath the helmet was sharp and hard edged, as if it were carved from a slab of Krion tree. He was a pool of seemingly endless knowledge and had learned much in his centuries of service, but years of hardship had made him quite pessimistic. 

“Have you heard the legends about those things?” piped Larung “The texts say they were spawned from the blood of quarrelling gods at the beginning of time and were sent to plague the universe.”  Almost the complete opposite to Calrung, he was the youngest in the squad and his youthful exuberance could get on ones nerves at times. He had a smooth edged, boyish face and sparkling blue eyes.     

Casian stooped down and picked up the Laser gun, it was a large rifle to a human, but he held it like a compact pistol. He looked it over, a Domeerus MK III laser rifle, capable of discharging one hundred thousand forty millimetre laser bolts a minute. It was simple to use, and was often used in the massive, bloated conscript armies that protected worlds before Taui-kun intervention. He tossed it to Linwe like a scrap of meat to a dog, she didn’t have a weapon other than her family knife, that wouldn’t be any good if a firefight broke out.

His gaze caught the creatures face, it was missing its left eye, but it was not a recent wound, it had long since scarred over. In its bloodshot red eye he saw reflected back at him the figure of an old and weathered man, neat snowy beard well kept. He shook his head, what was happening to him?

Carved on its skull were runes, runes that made Casian retch. They leapt out of the flesh to him and flickered like flame. He looked away.
“Larung, come here, what do these runes say on his head?” Larung walked over and stared at the creatures face. But deep in the pit of his stomach, he felt the oncoming dread that told him he already knew.

“These runes…” he swallowed nervously “It cant be.” He said defiantly

“Just tell me what they say damn it!” Casian barked, not knowing what the sudden burst of anger had been for.

“They are written in Orageon… but that is just ancient mythology, why, why are they here?” he did not hesitate to tell Casian what they meant, but just as Casian feared, he already new: Hail Orageos!         

“Contacts rear!” Larian spotted them first, fifteen foul human bodies clothed in torn blood-splattered rags shambling towards them. They had no heat signatures. That was why they hadn't been spotted sooner, heat signatures were the first thing that betrayed the presence of an enemy.

The lack of bodily warmth technically meant they weren't alive, although, of course, this could be explained away were they were sheltered under some technological device.

Casian wondered at the incredible talent it must have taken to sneak so close to a squad of Taui-kun without being detected. It was almost as if they had melted out of the shadows.

For a horrified moment he thought he could sense no heartbeat, but it was there, slow erratic, yet incredibly faint. His eyes that could cut through a mans flesh like a laser only had time to watch a single sporadic pulse before his squad took action. How had they not heard this betrayal of their presence before? 

The squad immediately span one hundred and eighty degrees and fell into fire team positions. Linwe not knowing quite what she was meant to do was left standing somewhat vulnerable in plain view, trying to spot the attackers; her human eyes were next to useless. Casian had to push her roughly to the floor as the laser bolts started cracking and pinging off the rock overhead.

“Return fire!” It was one thing to fire upon massive alien dragons, but to fire at humans was completely another, the more obvious problem being that you were getting shot back at. Standard pattern Laser bolts could hardly affect a suit of Mòrón, but he didn’t want to think of the damage it could cause to a frail unprotected body like Linwes.

The squad fired five deadly accurate shots and the assailants dropped dead in plumes of vaporised flesh. All but one, Casian had shot his in the leg, not out of a weakhearted mercy, but a burning curiosity.

He pulled Linwe back to her feet and marched over to the living one. It looked like it wouldn’t last long so Casian got down to the point, he directed his rifle to its head and snarled
“What is you business creature?” it only leered up at him and coughed up a globule of congealed blood. “Speak!” Casian bellowed. It only said two harsh words:

“Hail Orageos!” then it died. For some reason when he heard that spoken word pain erupted inside his head, he began to feel dizzy and disorientated, the voice screamed inside his head:

Hail me! Hail your lord!

But just a Casian felt himself slipping into the madness once more, it seemed to be washed away by a blur of blissful oblivion. He staggered, regained his balance and turned to face the rest of the squad.

“These creatures are abominations, shoot any more you see on sight. There is some sort of a connection with this and what happened on 526, stay sharp.”

It came as quite a shock as the ghostly blade flicked up in front of Casians throat.

His translators didn’t seem to be able to translate it, but he didn’t need them to understand what had been whispered into his ear:
“Don’t move!” The whole squad pointed their weapons at the spectral assailant, even Linwe.

Casian felt peaceful numbness tingle through him, he tried to move, but he was totally paralysed. He raged and shouted inside himself, kicked and struggled, but only in his mind. It was like all of his bones had been turned to liquid, he could almost feel them sloshing back and forth inside him. It infuriated him to be so weak and defenceless, yet no matter how hard he tried he could not feel threatened by the shadowy figure that held him in this state of impotence and the knife at his throat almost seemed a friendly gesture. 

“Khaila mashina nain” it whispered, in a strange flowing tongue that seemed to resonate with ancient power and hum as if with static inside Casians head. Casian did not know what it had said, but was horrified to watch his whole squad place their weapons gently on the floor as meek as kittens, take a few steps back and sit down, cross legged, Linwe with them, a childish smile on her face. Casian tried to bellow in despair at them, his finest squad of Taui-kun, the bastions of light, fearless and selfless warriors who would slaughter the darkest foes of mankind like cattle, sitting like a bunch of toddlers at story time! It was absurd!

But then sense tapped him on the shoulder and muttered in his ear, this creature, it was toying with them, it was psychic, and this was surely one of the most powerful displays Casian had ever witnessed. It had them all on strings, it could make each one sing nursery rhymes backwards whilst sticking a gun in their own mouth if it so pleased it. But it wasn’t like that, somehow Casian knew, it almost seemed to resonate with peaceful intentions. 

“Let me look at you, let me see your minds” It whispered kindly in the common tongue like a mother crooning into the ear of her infant. Was it speaking at all, was it only in their minds?

Linwe rose giddily to her feet, but it seemed unnatural, more as if she had been pulled up by ropes wrapped around her chest. Her head lolled to the left slightly, her eyes were half closed, showing only whites and a wide, dreamy smile was wiped across her face.

Casian got a strong impression that the being was searching through her, peeling back her physical shell and scrutinising at the subconscious, a wizened old prospector checking the dormant jewels for impurities. After a few seconds, seeming content it sat her back down and picked up the man next to her, who happened to be Larian and repeated the process with him.

When it had checked everyone in the squad, it swung Casian around and for the first time he set eyes on his mysterious attacker.

“Has he taken you yet, my brother?” it mused to Casian.

Though there was little to see, Casian got a strong impression of a man in long concealing robes formed from a sea of shifting mist, the only things close to solid where its eyes, deep, glassy and dark, a pair of black pearls, blazing with spectral light from another dimension. Singing filled his ears, wonderful, carefree singing. Its beauty was the voltage that passes between the clutched hands of lovers, the firm embrace of the father reunited with the son he thought dead and the tear in the eye of the mother as she clutches her newborn child.

The singing became louder and the deep eyes seemed to grow to fill Casians vision as his soul was pulled out from his body and given a thorough security frisk.

No. Not a security frisk, more like a medical check-up. And Casians soul was not healthy. Reflected in those never-ending eyes he could see the malicious tumour at the core of his being. Then those black eyes burst like sour grapes and the face roared out at him, screaming and cursing, spitting fire and curling maggots

Come to me Casian! Come! Come to me! Surrender! Surrender your soul!

Casian felt his skin sizzle with its heat and his tongue smouldered as he opened his mouth in a soundless scream.

Then it was gone. As if a switch had been flicked, and those eyes were still searching. No. He wasn’t healthy, not at all. He had certainly failed this check up.

“No brother, you passed. It sleeps still within you. The damned one does not hold sway over you just yet.” Casian swore it was smiling as it said this, though he could see no mouth to speak of.

At last it seemed satisfied, thrusting Casian to his knees as it flung off its ghostly shroud and stood to its full height.

The next thing that they saw was firmly imprinted on their minds and souls for the rest of their days.

VII. Sniper Larian:
A sudden burst of incandescent gold light filled the chamber and half blinded Larian.

He stumbled to his feet as the glaring afterimage cleared from his stunned eyes, and there suspended dreamily on a thunderous cloud of awe a magnificent being stood, cloaked in power and blissful resonance, filling the chamber with a brilliant light. It was adorned in armour of perfect shining gold that shimmered with eternal fresh-polished beauty and around its shoulders was a sparkling deep ruby red cloak.

It wore a heavily rune encrusted helmet that seemed to hold nothing but shadow, nothing except for two floating orbs of incredible depth and shimmering beauty. And what Larian saw in those incredible eyes brought him to his knees, sobbing.

Reflected in the eyes of the creature he could see everyone he had ever known and loved that had been lost on his home world. He could see his wife Elaine laughing and smiling at him, his father, grinning roguishly, his bristly stubble and strong features just as Larian had remembered. In his head he could hear their voices echoing, snippets of his lost life:

…Then I envy you, for you will be a far better man than I…
…I love you Davan, with all my soul, please, come back to me in one piece…
…Go Davan! Leave me, I’ll deal with these…
…You’re the only thing I need…
…Don’t let ‘em catch yer…

And as each phrase bought its respective memories, the pain got worse.

“Its like a mirror Larian. A mirror on your soul.” That sweet echoing voice filled Larians ears. “A human life is such a brief ripple in the relentless river of the ages. Do not dirty yourself further on the mud of the riverbank whilst that ripple passes you by. Immerse yourself, wash the past from your body in the cleansing waters of time.”   

Larian shaded his face from the brilliant radiance of the face with his armoured arm, like one does to shade themselves from the sun on a hot summers day on the crystal beaches of the twin sunned pleasure system of Dfros and wept.

VIII. Commander Casian:
For a moment Casian was paralysed still, not by the creature, nor by its incredible, awe-inspiring presence, but by its eyes.

In them he could see reflected a faint figure. A mane of fiery red hair surrounding her bloodless, almost white face, razor green eyes and tumbling down her broad, Mòrón clad shoulders. Just like he had saw her last, that fateful day on Dalmos five. Rowenian. He almost screamed her name in absolute terror as he heard her clipped, authoritative voice echo in his mind:

Well Casian, this is it then. You must do your duty and I must do mine.

He shuddered as it started coming back again after fifty years of trying to forget. In his mind Rowenian stood tall and bold once more.


The harsh wind of Dalmos 5 whistled through blasted husks of buildings and over the churned up crater marked, blood soaked ground and Rowenians hair became a blazing comets tail as its entire length was blown to the right side of her masked, heart shaped face.


No. He would not remember anymore. He would not let any more memories of that accursed campaign come back to him. No more.

But all the same, he knew that soon enough Rowenian would be back in his dreams. For once he thought he might prefer the face.

“Remember her, brother. Don’t forget. Remember what she told you, for she spoke with more authority than you can imagine.”

“No!”  Casian yelled in his head. He would not remember it. But that was a futile gesture. It had already started to trickle back to him the moment he saw her scathing green eyes. He tried to force it back into the mist and darkness of his subconscious mind, but that only dislodged another couple of words from the netherworld to thud into his ears like lumps of cold stone.

“You will remember brother. You will need to before the end.” And Casian was sure now that these words he could hear only, it was in his mind, it was talking in to his mind.
“No!” Casian broke its gaze and looked determinedly away from its shining body.
No body moved. Had it paralysed them too? No. They were lost in their own thoughts. Larian sat with his head in his hands whilst the others gazed dejectedly at the ceiling. Casian watched several tears cut a runnel of damp down Linwes face.

“Commander! Are you alright?” muttered Malian, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Yes Malian, as always. Did you see its eyes friend?” Casian urged. Had the other men undergone similar things as him? Malian nodded slow and carefully.

“It grabbed hold of you, said something strange and then, it was as if its eyes were pools of black ice and I was falling towards them… I saw myself… and I saw…” he paused, as if unsure or unwilling to put it into words “other things.” He sighed.

The creature rode a wave of beauty and touched down beside Malian. The whole squad snapped out of their minds to watch it, except Larian, who sat stonily silent with his head in his hands.

“Its like a mirror Malian. A mirror on your soul.” It whispered. Then it leaned closer to Malian and whispered something in his ear so quiet that even Casians supernatural sharp ears could not hear it from just a metre away. Casian watched Malians shoulders slump and his head bow. What did it have to say to him? “Do you understand what I have told you Malian?”

“Yes.” Malian said slowly and with some difficulty. His gaze fixed on Casian as he spoke.

Plior skipped back into the air and took three dancing leaps to another man in the squad, Berian, and whispered something similar to him, again that stare at Casian and slumped shoulders to accompany it. Casian started to feel as if this strange being was a spiteful child, spreading rumours about him.

It visited four more people with these strange portents, Larung and Munrung; the rival pair, Viorlung, a young sniper from Larians squad, and Calrung, the wizened old trooper who had served for almost three hundred years. Then, satisfied again, it leapt away from them and stood in the air, head cocked ever so slightly, waiting for something.

“What was it Malian? What did he tell you?” Hissed Casian.
Malian was silent for what seemed an age. Casian could almost feel the seconds slipping away, they were almost tangible. Then he spoke, and the two words hit Casian like a pair of tank shells.

“Your future.”

IX. Linwe:
“Come now, sit.” The strange being said warmly and gestured to the hard rock floor in front of it. Linwe found herself, along with the Taui-kun, helpless but to obey it. They sat attentive to listen to what it had to say.

“You are all strong and pure of heart. You will be needed before the end. You are here to rid the foul stench of the damned ones corruption from the core of this long dead world. My name is Plior Sanatan. I am here to build the foundations on which the twisted tower of a destiny that was never meant to be shall be built. It will grow from three sturdy roots, they will wind together to become one as it reaches up towards a black hearted sky where only a handful of stars still shine, and at the top? Who can say? We shall all know soon enough.”

Linwe felt soothed by its words, they were strung together in such a way that they sounded like the gentle burble of a slow flowing brook over a bed of round, polished black stones. Its eyes… its eyes were strange, almost frightening. She had almost found herself drowning in their murky depths, surrounded by misted figures from her lost life, she could still hear them…

“He will come from the sky…”

“I love you Linwe, don’t you understand?”

But then there was something else, something new. Larians voice. She had found herself enjoying it. The last thing she saw before she rose for the gloomy abyss, gasping for breath, was a different pair of eyes. Slate grey. Sombre, wet with tears.
Linwe began feeling displaced and dizzy, something did not feel right. She looked down at the granite floor, bright and vibrant, dancing with the light that shone form the strange deity. It was all so surreal, the blood that had soaked her robes was caking dry now, and that was what was wrong. How could something so carefree and glorious be in a foul pit like this?

But then Linwe had to silent her own thoughts, because Plior was talking again, and she could not miss a word it said.

“I will open the way for you now, friends. It will get you to where you need to be before it is too late” There was no questioning that sweet voice and powerful aurora, Linwe nodded, along with every other person in the squad. Except Larian. He still had his head in his hands and would not look up at Plior. How could he avert his eyes from something so wondrous? What had he seen? Had Plior shown him something too? Linwe wondered if he had seen her in his vision.

Plior sprung in to the air once more and began to sing in strange words that oozed arcane energies and mystical connotations like a lump of honeycomb. They filled the whole caves as surely as his (For Linwe somehow felt that Plior was a he, despite there being no way of telling) golden light, the very rock trembled in awe of its magnificence.

“Si-Listo-si sica; sava Si-e-Si ah Plior Sanatan” shudders of electricity like arcs of white fire leapt from Pliors body as he began to dance.

His rhythmic flails and gyrations were completely hypnotic, coupled with the swell of joyous words that tumbled from his tongue they gently pulled Linwe into a trance like state. His movements blurred and smudged the air around him as if he were gliding his hands across a painting fresh from the artists brush.

A streamer of blazing sparks like tiny stars began to unwind from behind him as he leapt and spun from left to right and up and down, weaving a spiders web with a galaxy of burning dust.

The speed of the song and the dance increased to a frantic pace as the air that was Pliors dance floor became more diamond dust than air.

It was like how a spraycan slowly obscures a patch of wall with a myriad of microscopic splashes of paint.

All of a sudden, Plior stopped dead still at the centre of his creation. The silence pained Linwes ears.

“Kunara!” He bellowed in a voice that seemed as loud as the explosions of dying worlds. The pinpricks of light behind him took on a whole new splendrous lustre and a blaze of intensity. Plior became a silhouetted stick man against the ferocity of the light. Linwe tried to shield her eyes with her hands, but it was useless, it passed through her flesh as if it was as ephemeral as air.

“Come.” said Plior floating stepping into the rent. His body was washed away in a tidal wave of fierce white fire.

One by one the Taui-kun leapt into the blaze until Linwe was alone. She could not quite bring herself to do it, what if she never emerged from the blaze, and if she did, what would be waiting for her on the other side?

“Fear not Linwe” urged that sweet voice. No longer under her own compulsion, she flung herself into a waiting hoard of cold sharp claws that bit hungrily into her flesh and dragged her away.

X. Sniper Larian:
Larian travelled at right angles with time, through the gaps in the grains of space. He shot past a cross section of the universe, a mechanical drawing in lines of lurid colour that the long path of the ages wrapped itself around. The universe birthed and died ten thousand times before his eyes, growing and shrinking at such a speed that it became a blur like the wings of a hummingbird.

A red light glowed in on the horizon like inevitable doom. It grew like the headlights of an oncoming train smeared with blood.

A black dot was shifting in its centre. It became the outline of a face, a leering and terrible face. Rotted and covered in pus.

It was coming closer and the face became clearer, Larian did not want it near him, it was the fear of death, rage, hate and jealousy blazing with rancid heat. He couldn’t let it get any nearer him, he tried franticly to manoeuvre himself from it, but he was trapped within the confines of his own mind.

To the left he watched curiously as a trickle of white fabric drifted towards him. It was growing, the shoots of some great plant.

It split once, and the two ends split once more, then, without warning the waters broke and the four tips exploded into activity, growing at a phenomenal pace, splitting over and over in a whirlwind of frantic activity.

Within seconds the dawning face was completely obscured as the myriad of threads twisted and intertwined around one another to become a sheet of cloth with a weave so fine that it was like sheet metal.

The face was gone. Larian heard its infuriated scream and relaxed into a state of smooth relief. It did not last long.

He watched curiously as three minuscule threads stuck out from the edge of the fabric. They became animated in a sudden struggle with the tapestry, pulling away at it, yanking at the weave, growing and combining in their efforts. They twirled around one another as the strain became too much for the fine tapestry.

Larians eyes widened in horror as the fabric gasped in surrender and unravelled like the confused and senseless plot of a dream.

The face called out in triumph as it burst through the pathetic bundle of lost thread, Larian cried out in agony as its wretched flames of hate and envy scorched his skin raw

Larian felt the vision burst in his mind as if it were the opalescent hue on the surface of a soap bubble as he was flung out of the rift that was physically trying to get rid of him, coughing up a sliver of bone caught in its flaming throat.
Larians knees connected silently with a dirty, yellowed floor. It was a patchwork of oval shaped rocks that may once have been white.

Larian grunted, his skull felt as if it had been brutally kneaded by a pair of rough iron hands that had been resting on the white coals of hell.

His brain heaved and pounded, trying to dispel the raw insanity that had leaked in through his staring eyes.

He tried to look around, taking in these new surroundings.

The squad was gone. That strange being, Plior. He had tricked them. Casian was rising giddily to his feet a few metres away and Linwe sat not far off, visibly shaking. Then Larian saw why.

The entire room was made of human skulls. Yellowed, aged skulls, stacked on one another. The walls reached up further than Larians unnatural eyes could see, cracked and grinning maniac faces all the way.

And stood placidly on a mound of bleached jawbones was a short and incredibly ancient looking man dressed all in black robes, his back to them. His skeletal white hair reached almost to his feet. 

He spoke in a voice as dry as ice and mocking as the caw of a raven, crackling with malice and disregard.

“So, you have finally come.”