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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Canaan" data-source="post: 3892928" data-attributes="member: 40239">Chapter 36: Balian RevealedBalian placed the Book of Abu-Abai on a small pedestal table near the entrance to the dank, torch-lit summoning chamber; the book that Balian had recovered from Hu Li after the errant apprentice pilfered it from the wizened old mage.  I recognized it by the screaming face on its leather, hide-like cover, appearing to try to break free from its binding.  Was it made of human skin?  I wondered.  We filed in, one by one.  A cloying scent of mildew, vinegar and rotting rose petals assailed our senses.  Balian closed the heavy iron doors behind us.  He seemed old, then, and frail—older and frailer than usual.  Perhaps it was the strain of his preparatory vigil, or perhaps it was merely an illusion created by the enormity of the doors against his thin frame.  He wore only a long gray kilt.  It was unsettling seeing the perpetual oozing sores, leaking black ichor down his back.  He called them girls, yesterday.  Did he name them?  I shuddered involuntarily.“Apprentice.” Balian said, his back still to us.  “Should this thing go…wrong, take the Book of Abu-Abai and let my wisdom guide you.”  Balian turned around then and winked at me.“Yes M—.” Hu Li and I both began, startling each other.  Hu Li glared at me.  “What do you mean, wizard, ‘If this thing goes wrong?’” Rin asked menacingly.Balian’s eyes locked onto Rin’s.  “I mean, demon, that fail-safes have been put into place.  Do not worry.”  Balian’s tone matched Rin’s.For a moment, I thought Rin would lash out at the wizened mage, but after a pregnant pause, Rin accepted Balian’s response with a mild nod toward the man.Balian shuffled past us toward the center of the cold stone chamber.  The soft sound of leather scraping on stone followed him.In the chamber’s center was a pentagram carved into the floor and surrounded by a circle.  At each point of the pentagram was a lit black candle.  Several identical innately carved daggers lay equidistantly around the perimeter of the circle.  As I approached the circle, I could see that its outline was a trough of sorts, dug into the floor.  The hairs on my arms stood erect and my skin prinkled as I waived my hand in the air above the pentagram.  The waves of power emanating from that circle were staggering!Lilian’s corpse lay next to one of the daggers.  Balian walked across the floor, careful to walk around the outside of the circle, taking a position directly opposite Lilian.  Hu Li took his spot to Balian’s left.“Everyone gather around the circle.  Do not enter the circle.  Step up to the dagger and take it in your right hand.”  Balian commanded.We all did as he said, but found that there were one too many of us.  Preoccupied with the workings of the circle, I was last to take a position around it.  Seeing no spots left I was at a loss for what do to.  “Master Balian.  There are not enough spots around the circle.  What would you have me do?” I asked.“You must use your prayers to bolster my abilities for the ritual.  Once you have completed that task, go to Lilian’s spot and take up the dagger at her position.” Balian responded in his characteristically shrill voice.  It echoed through the chamber.“Once the ritual begins, it cannot be interrupted.  Nobody can leave their designated spot.  Everyone must do exactly as I say, the consequences of failure are…..”  Balian shuddered as he trailed of in his admonition to us.I finished my prayers to Canaan, asking that His Holiness bolster Balian, using every miracle I could think of.  For I knew that whatever it was that was so frightening as to cause Balian to shudder, it was something I for certain did not want to see come to pass.  Then I took my spot next to Lilian’s corpse.“Let the calling begin!” Balian howled.  A crackling purple halo of energy surrounded him.A calling.  I cringed.  Rin’s mouth opened in surprise.  Shallahai glanced at me with a worried expression.  Have faith, I told myself.  I tried to reassure Shallahai with a look.  But I couldn’t muster the confidence.  All color drained from my face.  Only Talon seemed unaffected by hearing those words.  In fact, he seemed almost curious; the twin incongruous effects of his intense mental training and Half-Faean impulses.Balian chanted for what seemed like minutes, uttering complex incantations in a language so ancient I didn’t even recognize it.  I had taken my place at Lilian’s side.  Balian raised his hands out to his sides.  Purple energy began lancing out from them to his left and right.  As Balian’s magic leapt from his hands to the adjacent spots, Hu Li and Rin, who were to his left and right, began writhing.  Their arms raised involuntarily, outstretched to their sides.  The crackling purple energy engulfed them both.  It was as if it was feeding off of them.  After a few seconds, the energy proceeded around the circle to the others.I was terrified.  I had never before experienced anything like this.  Balian’s magic seemed insidious, draining energy or power from those participating in the ritual.  I could see the pain in their faces before the energy hit me.  It took all of my faith in Canaan to stand where I was, not to flee.  Sweat began to drip from my brow.  How stupid I was!  I used all of my miracles to bolster Balian for this insidious ritual, holding nothing back.  I had no prayers left to protect myself from Balian’s magic.Then the magic lanced toward me.  But it was not me that it hit.  It was Lilian’s corpse.Writhing with Balian’s magic, Lilian’s corpse levitated off of the floor.  The purple coruscating beam shot out of her continuing around the circle.I was terrified, the enormity of what was happening just beginning to dawn on me.  But soon enough the writhing stopped and the energy began to settle into a solid pulse between everyone gathered around the circle.  Cries of pain subsided.  I thanked Canaan.Balian’s shrill demand rose above the pulsating crackle of energy. “Cut your wrist with the ceremonial athame.  Bleed into the trough in the floor outlining the pentagram!”  Shallahai glanced at me with an uncertain expression.  Talon, who had been particularly racked with pain from Balian’s spell, looked at me.  I was surprised to see, not the calm stoic mein of the well-ordered monk, but eyes white with fear.  Panic.  He had the look of a doe, about to flee in the face of danger.  I was lost.  This was so totally beyond me.  I had no idea what to do, what to advise, how to react.  Putting aside present circumstances, as a priest, I would counsel them to have faith in Canaan and everything would turn out right.  And that’s what I did, for better or for worse.Balian commenced chanting, again.“Have faith my friends.  Do as Balian says.”  I counseled.  Immediately after uttering those words, I doubted them.  I am a fool.  I thought.  I am leading my friends to their deaths.  Just as quickly, I berated myself for having such thoughts.  Canaan would see us through.  He must!The others made narrow cuts into their wrists, bleeding into the trough.  After a few seconds, the trough glowed silver and from the center of the pentagram the floor seemed to open, like a sphincter.  The sound of stone grinding rose above Balian’s chant.The opening stopped at the far edges of the circle.  The retreating stone revealed a black inky pool with a smooth, still surface.The surface of the pool began to bubble and froth.  It agitated for several seconds and then suddenly went still.I looked at Rin.  Had the ritual failed? I wondered.  Rin didn’t acknowledge me, focused instead on the inky pool.  My eyes, too, were drawn to the inky blackness of the water.  Something immense was coming.  It's presence nearly suffocated me.  Yet I could see nothing.Suddenly, the water cascaded up to the ceiling.  Ropey tendrils of inky black water traveled along the ceiling of the chamber, while the main body of the pool formed a column in the center of the circle.Hu Li gasped.  The column began to materialize into a slimy creature with a black flat carapace covering its head.  Or maybe the carapace was its head.  I couldn’t be certain.  So much happened at once, I cannot accurately recall.  The top of the carapace faced the ceiling, giving the creature a vague mushroom-like appearance.  The black ropey tentacles extended from the edges of the creature’s flat carapace to the ceiling.  A huge toothy maw opened on the top of the carapace and red eyes formed.  Meanwhile the lower portion of the column shrank, forming more ropey tentacles attached to the bottom of the carapace, its legs, perhaps.Balian spoke to it in a surprisingly lucid voice.  “I am a Servant of the Xith`Krull.  I am the Guardian of the Black Mirror.  You have been called here from the Realm of Astaroth to serve as the Mirror’s guardian in my absence.  None shall enter the Black Mirror and none shall leave it! So says the Xith`Krull!”Terror.  It is the only feeling I can recall.  Rin and Shallahai and I were trembling.  The only thing keeping Hu Li from going fetal was the utter paralysis that had overtaken him.But Talon.  Talon bolted.  Overwhelmed by terror, he panicked.  Talon was but a blur as he ran out of the chamber with such speed, a sound escaped his lips that I had never before heard Talon make and never would, again.  A scream.“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Shrieked Balian.Talon had broken the circle.  The purple pulsing energy winked out.The creature screamed.  My mind nearly exploded with the force of the creature’s simultaneous thoughts of exultation and hatred. It was so alien, so overwhelming, I felt my ears bleed.Freed from its captivity and Balian’s spell, the creature attacked with incredible ferocity.Hu Li was the target of its initial rage.  Detaching its tentacles from the ceiling of the chamber, the creature slammed them into Hu Li’s frail body.  Hu Li went flying twenty feet into the wall behind him, unconscious or dead, I wasn’t sure.  The rest of us variously prepared to fight or flee, when Balian’s voice boomed through the chamber.  It was not the characteristically shrill, piercing shriek to which we were accustomed.  Rather, it was a deep, commanding lucid voice over a haunting feminine chorus.It so shocked me, that even in my terror, I forced myself to look at its source.My eyes widened.“WE ARE BALIAN!” The whites of Balian’s eyes had turned black.  His arms were outstretched to his sides, at the height of his shoulders.  Eight black tentacles slowly writhed behind him, slithering like snakes, elongating.  The end of each of the tentacles was adorned with a slimy eyeball.  They appeared to be attached to Balian’s back in the locations of his sores.  “WE HAVE CALLED YOU AND YOU WILL OBEY!”  The Balian-tentacles lashed out at the creature.  But the creature was ready.  It’s own tentacles rushed to meet them.  They grappled each other in a silent test of strength and will.Balian shrieked in his usual voice.  “Everyone flee!  You cannot harm this foe!”Rin was the first to react.  He ran to Hu Li’s apparently lifeless corpse, hefted it over a shoulder and ran for the exit.  I struggled with Lilian’s corpse.  But I was too weak.  Shallahai dashed to my side and picked it up, carrying it like a sack of potatoes.  Rin and Shallahai exited the room.  I was last.  Risking a look behind me, I saw the Balian-Tentacles and the creature at a stalemate.  Then Balian began to chant, an aura of power surrounding him.I prayed that Balian would win this fight, as I grabbed the Book of Abu-Abai and fled from the chamber.</blockquote>

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