The Parting
And so begins yet another of many great wars to the ever greater expense to civilization and civility. New forces, with new plans and goals (though arguably the same old methods as ever before) have secured their power in the galaxy, and now begin their orgy of terror across the known world. Let the rape and pillage and burning begin - right after the remnants of the old order stop standing in the way, of course.
The generally accepted wisdom of the age indicates that the ideal obstacle for a rampaging horde is a similar horde of one's own.
God bless the New United Republican States of Gamezoha. Can't you all just smell the freedom? Bright and glorious, the rush of the solar winds across one's face as he cruises through infinity, alone but united with his brethren-in-arms, free from the wretched bonds of tyranny, O blessed day that the rightful rule of the people swept over this land! Long live the Revolution! Hail to the President!
The people who saw through this B.S. can, for our current purposes, be divided into two groups: those who gained power from its true nature and those who lost power because of it. And the latter hardly comprised a minority in much of the Empire - it was but a matter of organizing and uniting them before Operation Perfect Freedom wiped them off the fabric of space-time.
- ...and so it's settled, then, concluded Gauss. Vinny, Jon, Assumpta, you three head back to Earth and find out just what is going on with that Order of yours. Oscar, you'll accompany Wyn and Skai to find the Wendauer loyalists. As for Whutty and myself, we shall scour the fringes of the Empire to round up and save whatever is left of those still (at least superficially) loyal to the monarchy. Miriam, of course, is to come with us, as her link with Jon, Vinny and Oscar can keep her updated on your two groups in case anything happens. As future Emperor Gauss had had to perfect the art of making useful ideas sound like his own to gain credibility; Miriam had in fact arranged the groups.
- But why can't I go with Windsong instead? I mean, both me and him have a link with Miriam so really either of us can accompany her and Skai.
- This arrangement confuses me as well, Miriam joined in, remarking on the one part of the setup that was actually Gauss's idea. In terms of the socio-emotional dynamic of the minds involved this doesn't seem quite wholly in tune with the ideal team dynamic as thus far shown to be.
- As much as I appreciate Brother Vincit's company, I too see an advantage in Oscar coming with us instead, added Jon, before suddenly noticing that Sister Assumpta was beet red and Oscar was agitatedly seeking some magical way of shrinking into his chair and hiding from everyone.
- Oh, nonono, that wouldn't do at all. To state the painfully obvious, Vinny, you're much older than she - (Vinny found himself unconsciously bristling) - with the two of you together like that it'd look like you were fishing for some puppet kingdom or something.
Windsong reluctantly agreed and sided with Gauss on this one. He's right, Vincit, not that I... well... it's just that no one would trust us if we went together... Something about her shoe seemed to be attracting a great deal of her attention.
- Yeah... I guess so... it's... well... it just doesn't feel right and I don't know why!
Awkward pause. A couple more people tried to disappear into their chairs.
- So it's settled! Gauss suddenly broke the ice.
- Meeting adjourned!
And so would the party - or three parties, rather - have left the Hikari-No then, but Dumla insisted that they stay a few more days as he got them equipment - including a third ship, a sleek black stiletto of a vessel with what seemed to be enough firepower to flatten half the Wendauer fleet, for Vinny, Jon and Assumpta - and, as with any good host, a banquet in honor of the new guests. The Hikari-No cuisine turned out to be exceptionally good, though some of it was still squirming on the trip from plate to mouth, to Skai's fascination, Sister Assumpta's lingering at the vegetarian side of the buffet, and Jon's showing of an uncharacteristic daintiness in his appetite. It turned out, too, that the Hikari-No women were by no means unresponsive to Vinny's particular brand of animal magnetism; Windsong found herself slowly perfecting the art of glaring daggers at people while superficially seeming perfectly polite and endearing.
But at last it was time to leave. They all exchanged goodbyes with the Hikari-No and each other, Jon and Vinny received even more gifts at Dumla's behest (among other things, of note were a thyberium claw of no small degree of sharpness nor length for Vinny, and for Jon, a custom-made buckler with a rather nasty surprise for anyone fool enough to cross its owner's path), Sister Assumpta tried her hand at the new ship (-You never told us you could fly! -You never asked.), and Vinny and Windsong said their last goodbyes before boarding their respective vessels. This involved a rather tender moment, the emotional content of which was quite beyond the ability of this humble narrator to describe; the much more aggressive, physical moment, however, this humble narrator shall decline to describe for other reasons.
In and out, or so it seemed. In and out. In and out. The black hole seemed not to notice anything.
Having exited the illusion and departed the Hikari-No, the three ships parted ways.
The Neo-Phobos-Ex-Machina belt of Erenduis B. A sprawling, ugly mess of grey and mottled greyer, a loose collection of dead rocks long since depleted of all their cherished thyberium, the scraps left for the ignominous oblivion of the void. Every so often the greyness becomes something else: a glint of metal, an old relic, some pathetic memento of some long-forgotten life, some great, burned-out hulk of a building, a refueling station, even pieces of small space-station towns - sometimes the greyness lifts, and one sees it for that palimpsest of civilizations that came, fed and flew away, until nothing was left to consume.
And then there were more rocks, and the grey came back.
A little further in was another little place where people once gathered - and perhaps still did.
Megiddo. The ancient military stronghold of the Wendauer Kingdom, long abandoned to dust and age, until something drove everyone back to gather here....
- Windsong, are you sure this is the place? The sensors aren't picking up anything.
- Captain, sensors detect a rogue Wendauer scout headed this way.
- Are you sure? That can't--no, that can't be right at all. Keep scanning, Osc.
- Investigate.
- Alright, but I don't really see why anything would be responding now if it didn't before...
- Three fighters have been sent to intercept them.
- Well, just--hey, we got something!
- Attack formation.
- Set all hailing frequencies, Osc.
- The fighters are ready to vaporize our guests at your command.
- But we don't know if they're even friendly or not.
- Wait, we're receiving a hail.
- Wyn, I sure hope you've got a backup plan...
- Capture.
- Well, I mean, uh--of course I have a backup plan, it--
- Shall be done, Overcaptain Anxarcule.
And done it was.
Neither Shadowscorcher Klot nor Overcaptain Anxarcule had really bothered to acknowledge the hail. The first two fighters immediately closed in to attack, overwhelming the tiny scout with barrage after barrage of warp-boosted plasma; the third cloaked, made a quick dive, and launched an EMP bomb straight into the scout's engines; miraculously, the emergency life-support system survived. The two support fighters continued pounding away. Shields, defences, weapons, hull, engine, all these slowly began to boil away...
Then silence. Hatches opened, and strange, fungous little somethings began flapping towards the ship. They slowly, slowly forced and cut open some of the hatches.
The quarry being still unconscious from having been buffetted around under brutal enemy fire, the flashbangs and stun gas proved wholly redunant. But nonetheless the fungous somethings scuttled through the green clouds none the worse for wear.
She found herself in a little room, bare save for the tiny cot on which she lay. Some dark, greenish metal formed the walls, reinforcing the standard thyberium that formed the frame of the force-field door. Beyond that, across a broadish corridor, another room stood a similar room - supposedly more such cells adorned the rest of the corridor. Further examination confirmed this, as she stepped out of her cell. None of the doors were closed.
She walked down the corridor. More cells, more of the dark green metal. The place seemed completely deserted.
She continued walking down the corridor. More cells, more of the dark green metal. The place seemed completely silent.
She walked on. More cells, more of the dark green metal. She gradually became aware of a low drone, a punctuated hum on the dimmest fringe of her perception. Hmmg. Hmmg. Hmmg. It seemed like the ship's engines.
She walked on. She gradually became aware of a low rhythm, a throbbing beat on the dimmest fringe of her perception. Hmmg-bm. Hmmg-bm. Hmmg-bm. Strangely organic.
She walked faster. What was that infernal throbbing? She walked faster. Hm-bm. Hm-bm. Hm-bm. More cells, more of the dark green metal. She began seeing... things...
She walked faster. She saw things in the grainy, dark surface. Wrong things. Cackling at her. Silent howls without motion, trapped in the wine-dark walls, leaping out at her. More cells, more of the dark green metal. The walls came out at funny angles. Weren't they straight? Yes, they are straight. So why does the corridor twist and turn so?
She walked faster. Why doesn't the corridor end? There's the end. No, it's not the end. She was running now. Where is the end? It's just there. Cackling howls. Silence. Hmbm, hmbm, hmbm. Where? Why? Cells, dark green metal. Where? Why? The corridor never ended. The end was straight ahead, around that impossible angle. Keep running. Cells, dark green metal. Where? Why? Where is everyone? Skysong? Oscar? Keep running. The corridor turned another odd angle. Or was straight. More empty cells. Skysong! Oscar! Hmbmhmbmhmbm...
A very wrong thing scuttled across the back of her mind.
She screamed.
He walked up to her, clapping his hands and laughing. Truly an impressive show there, your Majesty. First time anyone actually broke through our trusted old security system...
It took a while for her to focus. She miraculously found herself standing, amidst a tingling haze of ions and ozone, the aftermath of who knew what magic she had cast to break free. She still saw the things around her, at the edge of her vision. They were gone. She saw them nonetheless. The green metal wasn't even touched.
She beheld the figure before her. Its vertical trunk consisted of some tough, dark, leathery material, with what appeared to be vestigial limbs on the front, or sacs, or glands of some sort. It split about halfway, ending in hard, black knobs tenuously balanced on the floor. She saw the thing somtimes move a bit to maintain the balance. On top of the trunk was a rough round thing, connected by a short limb only a little thinner than the bulbous object it supported. Thousands of incredibly thin, purple tendrils of varying length sprung from near the top of this protrusion, under another larger protective rim of similar material to the trunk. On top of this, a little to the thing's left, another tentacled, bulbous object sat - was it some sort of parasite? Near the top bulbous projection two larger limbs branched off from the trunk, ending with thick, jointed, fleshy tendrils that could conceivably be used to manipulate objects.
It took a few seemingly eternal seconds before Windsong could begin to give names to things again. Walls. Corridor. Man wearing a many-pocketed vest, grimy old Schwarzwyrmkommando uniform and wide-brimmed hat with a little stuffed winged octopus attached to the side. It reminded her of that weird doll Skai always carried around.
- Shadowscorcher Ariston E. Delapore, SURTR, at your service. Welcome aboard the Coyote. Sorry 'bout the unnecessary precautions, we, ah, had to make sure. Tough times, you know.
He bowed. Two other Schwarzwyrmkommando-uniformed individuals and a few fungous-looking somethings behind them followed suit. Behind Windsong, Skai and Osc tenuously peered out their cells in the short, six-cell block to make sure that the elder sister's bombardment was over.
Aris and the two other SWKs (whose armbands read Gunther and Samsa; Oscar couldn't help getting the feeling he'd seen the latter from someplace before) took them on a tour through the Coyote. It was one of SURTR's three flagships; of the locations of the other two, the Kalki and the Jehovah, everyone remained silent. More of that bile-green metal. The Coyote being rather small for a flagship - she was scarcely a mile long, not including her engines, which could not be heard from most of the habitable areas of the ship - most of the ship was hangar, guns and power reactor, with many tiny, Spartan barracks even more cramped than the already-minimal prison cells. All in all, there wasn't much to do except train in the combination dojo/firing range, sign up for patrol duty or numb oneself in the surprisingly vast computerized libraries of mindless entertainment. All three guests were growing rather bored of the whole presentation.
Of SURTR, they could only glean from their guides that it was some manner of loosely-organized group of freedom fighters who happened to oppose the rule of Adamus Windgust; of any further goals nothing specific was said, beyond some garbled ramblings about overthrow and the fires of revolution or something to that effect. At the moment the group was closely working with the Wendauer loyalists, who indeed had established themselves in the abandoned Megiddo bases and whom Windsong, as rightul heir, was to meet shortly. All in all, very little was conveyed.
At last the group came to the bridge. In the captain's seat sat a horrid, pulsating mass of long, thin feelers, dotted with beady little black eyes - or so they resembled eyes - ever shifting in form and place, whether of its own volition or because human senses could not register the actual angles and positions of the vague, impossible mess of pseudopods. It radiated an almost tangible darkness, a deep feeling that something just wasn't right, that intensified as the group approached. Even the Kommandos began to flinch a little. They found the nerve to salute nonetheless.
- Overcaptain Anxarcule, the guests have arrived.
Oscar was still frozen in horror when Windsong all but forgot about the monstrosity before them. Instead, she greeted the five last surviving Council members from her father's reign who were standing a safe distance from the captain.
The meeting hall was typically used for storage; crates, shelves and weapons supplied the furniture for the first official meeting aboard the Coyote in years. Most of it consisted of Windsong catching up on recent events: A few days ago the loyalist/SURTR coalition had won a huge victory over Adamus over the frontier planet of Adelburg, though on that same day the Gamezohans massively weakened the defences at Batyxtlis 4 in a surprise raid, and Hungarden offered to join the loyalists after some "persuasion" from SURTR forces. Morale, however, had been waning thus far, given rising casualties and growing cynicism about what they were fighting over - for most, it seemed much safer and more profitable to join the new USG/W alliance and be done with it. The rightful heir had returned just in time.
Thus read Windsong Ellamina de Lanseau's speech, largely improvised, hastily edited, broadcast on public networks across all loyalist-occupied territory:
My fellow Wendaurians:
It is with a great sense of honor that I may speak here tonight, to so many noble, courageous women and men who have fought so bravely to protect the institutions that we, the Wendaurian people, hold so sacred. We have suffered much in these past months, and somtimes the burden seems almost too great to bear, but one must never lose sight of hope, of duty, of justice and honor. We see before us a great opportunity at hand. An opportunity not merely of greatness, courage and valor, but also of defeat and death. We see before us a vast enemy, a countless host of those who would defy the true lineage of the Wendauer monarchy, who would defile the greatness of this empire by their foul, venomous desire to fuel their own power to serve their own vile, selfish ends. They wish to destroy us, and destroy our way of life; our enemies wish to trample us down, and annihilate our homes, our families, indeed, even our race. We shall not let this happen! I tell you the truth: Before us lies a path of victory and glory for those who would take it, for those noble souls courageous enough to take arms against this swelling sea of troubles, who would storm our enemy's gates, and burn them down, and crush their walls to dust! Let us charge then, bravely, into this loathesome horde, as an eagle swoops down on her prey, rending him to pieces, dashing his brains against the rocks, devouring his flesh and snapping the bones! Let us put their cities to the torch, to smash down their homes and those of all who support them! Let their babies be dashed against the rocks, their children gutted alive and thrown into the yawning maw of Moloch! May their wives be raped and eaten by our dogs! The flames of righteousness shall consume their greasy fat upon the gore-soaked altar of war! Their blood shall flood the streets before we declare victory! Murder! Havoc! Death! Fire! Annihilation! ...
And then the camera panned back to show her incinerating alive two Adamite prisoners who had been kept for this very purpose.
Ratings soared.
As did sleek black stilettos across the death-black aether, tearing through the veil of space, thirsting for violence. Under cover of eternal night they came; the sensors picked up nothing; the Neo-Phobos patrols who strayed by were dispatched to the last possible witness. Perfectly loyal, perfectly ruthless, perfectly insane, the black pawns made their assault on this long-forgotten rook; decapitate her, and the old Wendauer order was crushed.
It did not occur to the Schwarzwyrmkommandos, of course, that they were being watched ever since they crossed the outer Deimos rim.
Deep inside, Overcaptain Anxarcule rearranged his fibrous, tentacled little things-that-should-not-be in a way roughly equivalent to a human smile.
The klaxon went off. Loudly and gladly it rang, bursting at its little seams with the promise of battle and glory. Then everyone began having trouble hearing orders so they asked it nicely to ring a little more quietly. It did. Anxarcule rearranged his fibrous, tentacled little things-that-should-not-be to glare at the little klaxon who had sent everyone into a panic when it was they who were planning the surprise attack.
- Pick a ship, your Majesty, any ship, cheerfully chirpbuzzed a fungous little something whose name Windsong could neither pronounce nor remember. Do hurry, though, you have a fleet to command!
- Look, Wyn, that one over there looks like the scout we used to--
- Hey, feathers, was I talking to you!? I said let her Majesty pick the bloody ship! Now--
- It's okay, he's a friend of mine. Friend. Calm, boy. Friend. Friend!
The little fungous something buzzed indignantly; at any rate they all agreed on a much more heavily armed vessel than the scout they had before. Gunther and the indignant fungous little something took the guns, while a large, burly fish named Glipfronzel de Nospios served as copilot and, if necessary, Oscar's assistant engineer.
As befitting a Wendaurian princess, Skai had her own fleet and choice of ship. Aris winced as she indicated her desires; as both gunner and copilot, he was going to find managing the vast array of asteroid-pulverizing cannons both an honor and a maddening chore.
- Not a bad choice at all, commented the ex-SKW named Samsa, who began leading them to Skai's vessel. Come on, I'll show you guys how to do a Gargulean Barrel Roll--
- Shadowscorcher David Samsa has control of the Coyote, a voice behind them boomed. Dave spun on his heel just in time to watch Anxarcule slide away. This could only mean trouble.
And trouble it did mean, for as Samsa left to report to the bridge, his replacement looked anything but like one of the three Gargulean Barrelrollers. Indeed, that shadowy figure kept reminding Oscar of someone... if only he could remember who, or what... no, that couldn't be... the aura was all, well, wrong...
He watched the three board their ship, then turned back to his own equipment. Wyn was too itching to leave the hangar to have looked back at her sister, the new pilot, the charred black skeletons that were now boarding the ship, and that odd trail of plant matter...
And so our heroes crossed the death-black aether, tearing through the veil of space, thirsting for violence. A small but particularly well-armored escort followed closely; behind hung Anxarcule at the prow of the Coyote waiting, tendrils extended, as a fish past his due, long forgotten by an unwitting owner, dangles between rock and filter in the tank, half animal, half fungus; within regretted Dave again the lost opportunity of showing his colleague that maneuver upon which he had stumbled by freak chance two years ago; a protegé would have been nice, but for now he had the Coyote to command.
- Can we kill stuff now?
- Not yet, kid, we've still got to get to your people, then wait for the squishies to get here before we can start smashing them. Squishies was a rough loan-translation from Anxarcule's race, originally referring to humans in general although in usage among the SURTR ranks had slowly narrowed to denote hostile forces - or prey.
- Can we kill stuff now?
- Just a few more minutes until we're there.
- Are we there yet?
The pilot, who had been enduring silently all this time, slowly began to turn his empty black sockets towards the child; a fell, withering glance from his fellow Shadowscorcher silenced whatever he was going to say.
His partner's silence thus prolonged, Aris tried to relieve the tension and boredom. Hey, Skysong, I hear you and your sister are really good at magic. Is that true?
- Uh huh uh huh!
- Betcha I'm better than you are.
- No way! I can blow up stuff real good! Big grown-up stuff too!
- Oh yeah? I bet ya can't blow up this! He randomly produced some piece of heavy, expensive-looking, armored equipment.
The pilot broke his silence. Aris, you fool! We need that... that thing!
Aris grinned a frightfully large, toothy grin. We don't now. Anyway, bet ya can't break this!
- Yeah I can!
- Oh yeah?
- Yeah!
- Oh yeah?
- Yeah!
- Let's go, then! Race ya there! He led Skai into the prison block, the only part of the ship's interior that could have had enough armor to withstand the imminent assault. He let Skai squeeze past him at the last moment and lost the first part of the contest.
Klot looked at one of his skeletal thralls that Aris had ordered into the copilot's seat. It looked back wordlessly. He repeated the process with a maintenance droid, who looked comparatively much more worried. This was going to be a long trip, no matter how short those two feeble-minded fools might make it...
- I still don't get why they insist on sending an escort for us, muttered Oscar so that only Wyn could hear. I mean, are they trying to scare us or something? Send us some sorta message?
- I'm sure these guys are trying to show they're friendly, some kind of reminder of who's protecting us or some crap like that.
- Maybe, but... I dunno... seriously, Wyn, these are some of the creepiest lot I've seen in all our travels so far--
- Oh, they're not all bad, the guy with the hat was nice enough, and I have to admit that pilot that was going with Skai was rather cute--
- That shady-looking freak accompanied by all those skeletons?
- What!?
- There was some sort of last-minute change or something, they replaced Samsa with that... guy...
- I didn't see it, I must've been busy figuring out the controls on this thing. Well, I'm sure they had their reasons...
- Anyway, does that name sound familiar to you?
- Who?
- That other guy, the one you said was kinda cute... I swear I've seen him before - Oscar paused - as well as his "replacement"... I swear I must have--no, wait, maybe it was at--what's his name again? That place with the old man--dang, I must've gotten a worse bump on the head than I thought...
- Maybe we can ask one of the crew who he is, maybe jog your mind a little?
- Perhaps--
- Excuse me, oh Mister Fungous-type Person--
- You may address me as Lore Delver Bhæzgð:tkpa:rzðæzgv:bzr--
- Can we call you Baz for short?
The fungous little something buzzed indignantly.
And the aether was crossed, and they were there. They gave chase, hunted down their pitiful quarry, fell lances of hateful fire ready to pierce the puny foe's heart. Forty black ships homed in on the small cargo vessel as it began to open its hatches. They fired.
And it was gone.
Behind them, the Coyote's hatches finished opening, and the wine-dark fleet surged forth, tearing through the veil of space, thirsting for violence. Her guns decimated the black foe as the remaining three dozen scrambled to protect themselves and their captain. That small cargo vessel looked so - different - at this new angle.
The SURTR horde gave chase.
Valiantly six and thirty stood and gave fight, grappling with the savage pilots in Megiddo's near-space, determined to kill them all, the number being slightly superior, because of their particularly abhorrent and desperate though rather clumsy mode of fighting. But the fiends pressed on, guns roaring, the wine-dark wave wearing away at the quickly crumbling defense. Again did they decimate the black foe, and the remaining score and dozen ships were driven into a rout.
Captain de Guilles and his men made a final stand against the abomination that was tearing apart their ship. They had split from the main force, trying to outmaneuver the enemy and assault what had appeared to be a weak point on the Coyote. There was something horribly peculiar about this fight - with the warp engines, ionized gases and other energetic disturbances in a standard space battle, some distortion of coordinates was expected - but nothing in de Guilles's fifteen years of experience prepared him for what he had seen here. The enemy seemed to fade in and out of existence, or fired from angles that simply could not have been available, or appeared to be moving one way while actually going another - things happened that could have only been explicable in a dream, or a fantastic nightmare within a dream. And so as they thought they were flying towards the rear of the enemy flagship, the Freedom-class Republican cruiser ran straight into a squirming, inconceivable mass of mind-numbing fractals. The thing spared no time in attacking the ill-fated ship, its seemingly infinite tendrils reaching in between the molecular gaps of the hull's superdense armor and tearing it apart, as if a time-lapse display of weeds destroying pavement were repeated again and again to immensely small and huge scales. Already it had thus eaten away three-fifths of the vessel; no barricade, forcefield or weapon even slowed it down. Gotzenschmidt was its first victim; he committed the sin of Lot's wife, and simply collapsed, laughing hysterically and foaming at the mouth as the squirming, gibbering darkness simply engulfed him, and continued without pause. Then they lost Hayworth; Giles had mysteriously disappeared; in a desperate but well-meant panic Kang charged into the thing, pulling the pins on twenty grenades strapped to his bandolier - to no apparent effect. And now de Guilles, Galen and Kurtz made a final stand in the barricaded bridge, blasters trained on the only possible entrance.
It flowed through the doors. Several gigawatts of raw blaster fire concentrated themselves on the horror as it closed in. Only as his eyes began to focus on the thing itself did de Guilles realize that it was feeding off of the energy...
All seemed hopeless for our Schwarzwyrmkommando heroes when the cavalry arrived.
King's Sanctuary, SA43B-delta, Xuiqeto Continent, Megiddo. Dawn came with her rosy fingers, caressing the great white bastion of the Wendauer race, bathing the unfailing bulwark in flaming blood-red light. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott...
Storm's a-brewin'.
- Incoming hostiles. Clearance to attack granted.
And in the black, bleak night lay the burnished fleet of the Wendauer host, guns gleaming in the reflected rays, sky-blue knights of perfect wrath. The black foe beheld the advancing column, and vain lost hope gave way to true, perfect despair.
King's Sanctuary, SA43B-delta, Xuiqeto Continent, Megiddo. Lucifer herald to Helios was long since gone, and resplendent evening fell upon the land, drenching it with the golden blood of the defeated, lighting the spent thunderclouds above with the rosy afterglow of conquest. And there, in that very hall of the ancient victors, did the great host now gather to honor their new queen in the presence of the sacred setting sun.
Wyn and Skai stood resplendent under the great orb's gaze, before the great altar drenched in gold. No fires were lit, for all stood in awe of the red blaze that came over the entire land. Thus stood the host, in utter silence for a few seemingly eternal seconds. They gradually became aware of a low drone, a punctuated hum on the dimmest fringe of their perception. Great, low drums, impossibly far, out of primeval Night herself. doom. doom. doom. doom.
It grew, or rather everyone became more attuned to it. Soon other drums accompanied it, and everyone felt the beat as if it were their own heart - or equivalent thereof. Doomdoom. Doomdoom. The horde chanted, repeating unknowable words of power that could not be written down, in perfect beat with the ceaseless, ever so gradually growing drums. Doomdoomboom, doomdoomboom, doomdoomboom. The chanting became more passionate as several priests, clad in purest sky-blue and gold, led the naked, drugged Schwarzwyrmkommandos up the great feast-hall, before the countless eyes of the great host, up to the hot, gleaming black altar of the sun.
And so the first victim was prepared. The wreath, the flowers, the herbs; the chants, rising up to overwhelm the remains of his mind; and they held the wreath to the sun, and chanted the words of power; and this they draped about his neck, and broke the herbs and strew it about his body. And Windsong resplendent in purest sky-blue and gold beheld the dagger, spoke the ancient unknowable secret, raised the knife and plunged it deep into the victim's throat. She felt his dying throes, the life of the man gushing away in the hot juices redder than the sky: it flowed forth freely, and her mind basked in the moment of perfect power. She plunged it into him, again and again, cutting him open as the ancients had ever done in aeons past; she drank of the blood, and howled the unknowable secret in ecstasy. Victim after victim came to the altar, bathed in the holy passion, and the dead were arranged on the great stone table, and the priests set to work.
They cut open the victims as the ancients had ever done; they tasted of the entrails, and cast away the unclean parts, carving up the meat, taking special care with the heads. The thigh-bones they wrapped in the fat, and for the first time in decades a fire was lit in that great hall; the hairs were plucked, and cast one at a time into the fire as the chant and the drums droned on; and then the fat-wrapped bones went up. The sisters stepped down, that the sacrifice might be in full view of the sun; the younger spoke the prayer, the words of power, of gratitude and grace, and the flames danced and raged.
The sun smiled one last time upon the smoke and crackling, and set. The elder sister ascended once more.
The sacrifice finished, they added more fuel to the fire, and the flames soared twice the height of a man, obscuring the girl behind. The whole of the great hall glowed in the blaze, a white-red fire driven by some unknowable power summoned from the depths below. And she stepped through this dazzling blaze, and the fire reached up in kind. The blazing figure now held her arms to the heavens, her fire drinking in the draft from the hall beyond, penetrating the core of her being as her clothes burned away. No smoke rose from this flame; the witnesses themselves could scarcely describe the light as such, glowing brighter and purer than any natural fire they had ever seen. The great hall was lit as if by daylight.
And then it burned away. She stood before the great hall, radiant, naked and without shame, her complexion purer than freshly fallen snow. And the priests approached, and spoke the words of power, and she stretched out her arms, and they clothed her in the purple garment, crowned her with the golden crown. The elders of the Council knelt before her, and she blessed them; the sacrificial fire too died down, and torches were lit in the great hall. The chanting stopped, and the revelling began.
And so did the great host dance and drink and eat and sing drunken songs of hope and victory. And then did the slave-women, tragically beautiful remnants of empires past and now subservient to Wendauer rule, arrive with the dishes: works of outstanding beauty they were, of ribs and limbs and intoxicating blood-puddings, ordained by the great chef, who gave such delicate yet well-garnished grace to the enemy even in death - scarcely did a single ceremonially clean part of the Schwarzwyrmkommandos go to waste. And to the tables too came other meats, and fruits, and stews, and flavorful roots, and fungi of all kinds; no one left that great hall without eating to their utmost fill.
To each of the sisters was given the head of one of the enemy's commanders. Skysong savored the rich tang of the eyes, while Windsong smiled as she daintily twirled the meninges about her fork and took a bite. When she had swallowed this, the Shadowscorcher named Delapore, who had been watching this from a nearby table through the corner of his eye, suddenly stood up, raised his wineglass and declared,
- A toast... to our Queen!
And the great hall shook in the cheer that followed.
Oscar and Dave sat in the mess hall, eating some very nondescript bread and some kind of soy-based thing that was supposedly advertised to be some kind of substitute for meat. The tomatoes and salad, however, were excellent. The place consisted mostly of the fungous little somethings, though they did see some other humans and humanoids about - the few people who, for some reason or other (the fungous little somethings, for instance, could not eat human food), could not or were forbidden to partake in whatever was going on down at the old ceremonial chamber, and had their supper out here instead.
- So what's going on in there, anyway? Wyn never really told me in explicit terms except that I had best stay out of it.
- Oh, you know, stuff. Dave shrugged. He had never really bothered to inquire.
- I take it you don't know either?
- I've got a pretty good idea. You know that usual pagan stuff. Kill a bull, burn the parts, "Praise almighty Zeus, the great Thunderer that is Thundering" blahblahblah, it's probably kinda dull anyway.
- Hm. Well, I'll take your word for it. Boy, I tell ya this salad is really good...
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