Here you go... see you Monday!
*evil laughter*
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
* * * * *
Chapter 110
THE END AND THE BEGINNING
The Doomed Bastards were not the only ones discomfited by the earthquake that had shaken the foundations of Rappan Athuk.
In a dark chamber deep underground, so far down that the very pulse of the world seemed to vibrate faintly within its black stone walls, men and women clad in the dark robes of the cult of Orcus lay sprawled upon the cold tiles of the floor. Some groaned, and stirred fitfully; those would recover, with time. Others lay unmoving, their breath rattling faintly in their chests, like a trapped animal. Their eyes were wide open, but saw nothing. Off to the side, the serpentine form of a marilith lay staggered against one of the thick bronze pillars that buttressed the ceiling, her weapons making a scraping sound on the stone tiles as her limbs twitched. Deep cracks were visible around the perimeter of the room, lingering reminders of the quake, but the effects wrought upon the room’s occupants were not the results of the earth’s convulsions. The tremors had been a side effect of what had been wrought here, not the cause.
A black-robed figure stirred. As the cowled head lifted slowly up off the ground, the robe fell back to reveal pale skin, marked with twisting tattoos that spelled out foul defilements in the Abyssal language. The tattooed figure, a woman, pulled herself up into a crouch. She groaned, and clutched her gut, slowly mastering herself. Then she dragged herself over to the nearest robed form lying nearby. Reaching out, she gently shook him.
“Wheraz!” she hissed.
The man let out a low moan. Slowly, he came around. The woman helped him up. “Gernaldra?” he asked, blinking his eyes. The only light was a very faint, diffuse redness that seemed to radiate from the bronze pillars.
“Yes, my love,” the woman said, placing her hands upon the man’s face. Like her, his head was shaved of all hair, and marked with unholy sigils across most of his exposed flesh. There was something more, an uncanny similarity in their features that hinted at a link of blood between them as well.
“My eyes,” Wheraz said, rubbing at the deep hollows with his fingers. “I can barely see...”
“Can you stand?” Gernaldra asked. When he nodded, she helped him to his feet. She was more than a bit unsteady herself, and for a moment the two priests of Orcus leaned on each other, taking in their surroundings.
“The Stone...” Wheraz said, as they inevitably turned to the altar on the far side of the room.
The altar was a vast construct, hewn from a massive slab of black onyx. It had been hollowed out to form a basin, within which a deep red liquid that could have only been blood bubbled and swirled. A miasma of heat rose off the basin. Behind it stood a huge statue that rose up almost to the ceiling high above. It was covered in blood and gore, which trailed down to gather in ugly splatters upon the surrounding floor. Cradled in the statue’s open palms was the Sphere of Souls. The artifact was quiescent, utterly black and silent, a black pearl in the hands of the hulking idol.
“What... what happened?” Wheraz asked, squinting as he tried to see.
“We have failed,” Gernaldra said.
“No, children,” came a dark voice, a sinister sound that filled the temple with power. Both clerics immediately fell to their knees and collapsed forward, abasing themselves, as another figure emerged from the shadows.
The demon approached them. Its decayed flesh seemed to barely cling to its emaciated form, but the glowing eyes deep within the horned skull flared with brilliant power. It mottled wings spread out behind it as it came forward, adding to the impression of pure chaos and evil that it represented.
“Lord Maphistal,” the two clerics changed in unison.
“Rise, children, and greet the glory of the coming of the Great Master,” the demon croaked, its voice sounding like an echo within a huge cavern.
The two clerics rose quickly. “But Lord,” Gernaldra said, “I do not mean to doubt... but the Sphere is dark, and while I can feel the Master’s power...” she trailed off, uncertain. The demon came forward, and laid a skeletal claw upon her bare head. Its touch left ugly gray marks upon her skin, but she leaned into it, like a puppy being patted by its master.
“Foolish child,” it said. “The first seal has been sundered, and the path forward has been laid, but the coming of the Great Master will be an event to facture the fundamental nature of this reality. This ritual was but the beginning, not the culmination, of that process.”
“Yes, Lord,” the cleric said, lowering her gaze. “Forgive my presumption.”
“Fear not, little one,” the demon said, turning away. It walked over to one of the acolytes, one of those that had not stirred. Reaching down, the creature lifted the hapless figure in its claws. It turned back to the two priests.
“The way forward must be lit for the coming of the Great Master. The signal fires that will announce His coming will be fueled by the souls of the people of this world.”
The demon’s claws clenched, and the acolyte’s spine and neck snapped with a sick, audible cracking noise. The demon looked at the broken body as a faint gray wisp, slick with a deep black taint, rose from the body, and drifted to the altar. It hovered there for a moment, before seeping into the quiescent Sphere of Souls. As the clerics watched, something flickered deep within the black orb, a tiny flicker that hovered deep within. The glow was barely as bright as a candle’s tenuous flame, but the clerics fixed their eyes upon it with terror and awe. Finally, they tore their gazes from it and stared up at the demon.
“We shall fill the Sphere once more, Lord,” Wheraz said. “All those who oppose the True God will forfeit their lives to abet His arrival.”
The demon smiled, a grim expression indeed on his face, but he shifted his eyes to Gernaldra. “Still you doubt, child?”
The priestess lowered her eyes. “Forgive me, Lord... but our strength... the power of the clergy of the True God, it is... depleted.” She avoided looking at the dead acolyte, but the message was clear.
The demon let out a deep growl, and darkness flared in its eyes. “The lives of your brethren are insignificant in comparison to the needs of the Great Master,” it said. “Know that your tiny lives are forfeit to His will; do not doubt that, ever!” Confronted with the demon’s anger, and the full force of its presence, the two clerics collapsed to their knees. Groveling before it, Gernaldra begged, “Forgive me, Lord!”
The demon mastered itself and looked down at them. “You are favored, child; unlike some of your peers, you do not seek to rise above your proper station. Your questions are born of an imperfect vision. Do not forget that the plans of the Great Master are far more complex than your tiny brain can comprehend.”
“How shall we bring about the True God’s mandate, Lord?” Wheraz ventured to ask.
The demon fixed him with a hot stare for a moment before responding. “Do not fear, my gifted little wretches; your god will give you the tools you need to bring about His coming.” The demon made a gesture, and two figures came forward into the temple, stepping around the limp bodies of the temple’s priests. They were humanoid, but the charnal stench that surrounded them identified them as the unliving even before they drew close enough for the priests to see them clearly.
One was a hulking brute, looming over the other. His body bulged with muscles, but his skin was a sickly gray, and his flesh bore the marks of numerous wounds that showed signs of rot. His hair and beard were long, and tangled with filth. But he moved with a feral efficiency utterly unlike the tentative shambles of a zombie, and dark points of light flared within the deep hollow sockets of his eyes. His huge hands had grown ugly yellow claws, and his teeth protruded from his jaw, stained with old blood.
As the clerics looked at him with surprised expressions, Maphistal said, “I believe you remember Marthek.” The once-mad barbarian, now a ghast, did not react to the utterance of his name, and he only regarded the two living beings with an obvious hunger in his eyes.
The demon gestured, and the other creature came forward. This one too had once been a man, tall and lean. He was still clad in the remnants of a chain shirt, ruined by the same spear that had torn the gaping hole in his chest. Blood and filth likewise covered him, but his face had not changed, and still bore the outward semblance of what he had been. But his eyes... there was intelligence in them, but it was trapped beneath a web of compulsion, by the fact of what he now had become.
The clerics saw that, and recognized what it meant. “A revenant,” Gernaldra said. The creature clutched something in both of its hands, partially concealing it from view.
“Come forward, Zafir Navev,” the demon commanded. As the undead warlock obeyed, the priests could see what it was that he held, and they sucked in startled breaths.
The device was simple and grim, a rod fashioned from a long bone of pale white, topped with a sinister ornament, a black skull. The whole was barely three feet long.
“It... it cannot be...
that...” Wharaz breathed, looking up at the demon with an expression of alarm.
“It is not the original artifact,” Maphistal said. “That never strays from the hand of the Great Master. But it is a potent copy, granted by the Prince himself, to aid your cause.”
The priests stared at the wand and its holder. Both could sense the necromantic energies that radiated from it.
“And so begins the doom of this world,” Maphistal said, a dark laugh sounding deep within the cavernous interior of its skull.
* * * * *
As the Doomed Bastards started back on the long journey back toward Camar, and one of the former members of that company was held captive by a fate worse than death, there was one other unintended consequence of the dark ritual that had depleted the Sphere of Souls. In another place far beneath the ground, unknown to the cult of Orcus, or to the knowledge of any mortal being upon the living world above, a field of shifting magical energies formed a huge pyramid within a chamber larger than the Palace of the Grand Duke of Camar. Huge, perfect blocks of dark gray stone formed a smooth dome high above, somehow retaining its shape without pillar or buttress to support it. A massive metal frame anchored in the walls surrounded the energy field, focusing it, shaping it. Beyond the translucent barrier dark shadows could just be seen, if there was anyone here to see it. A thrum of power filled the place, unbroken for millennia.
The earth tremors had not affected this ancient vault. But there had been one change that had marred the eternal security of this place. A black streak had appeared in the rocks along one stretch of wall, decades past. Slowly, creeping forward in intervals marked by years, it had extended deeper into the room, moving from the wall to the floor, and then out across the floor into the room. It was not a crack, but rather a darkening in the stone itself, as though a slick of oil had spilled out over the stone.
It had taken almost thirty years for it to extend from the outer wall of the chamber out onto the floor, about twenty feet from the edge of the energy barrier.
Now, as the followers of Orcus unleashed the stored potency within the Sphere of Souls to help bring about the arrival of their god to the Prime Material, the black slick had swelled and extended forward, until it almost touched the glowing pyramid.
There was only the slightest effect upon the field, a faint darkening at the point of nearest contact.
Then, the shield began to bulge slightly at that point, as though something was trying to push at it from within.
THE END OF BOOK 2
)
