~ Interlude
I ~
The surface
of the water was as still and reflective as a mirror, quiescent in the depth of
the carved stone basin. But it did not reflect the guttering torch lights that
partially lit the small room, nor did it reflect the shadowy visage of the man
bent above it, hands splayed, cupping the basin’s rough, pitted sides. Instead,
the water was dark as unlit sea, smooth as midnight, broken only by a dim pulse
of red from the center of the darkness, like the shade of burning stone viewed
through a crack in the mantle of earth.
“There it
is, Sir,” the man suddenly spoke, his whisky-rough voice betraying a hint of
excitement. “As you have foreseen, the Relic is wakening. I can feel its burn
even through my construct.
“Of
course,” a deep baritone answered, a slight accent tingeing the cultured, upper
crust British inflection. “Have I ever misled you in such matters of
importance? Now, hush, here it comes…”
The gentlest of footsteps, soft as whisper, came echoing as if from a deep,
hollow well. Slowly they grew louder, until finally they sounded as if they
came from right outside the room, though they were muted as if heard from
behind a pane of glass.
The two
observers watched the scrying water intently, and were rewarded as a weak amber
glow wavered into being from one corner of the view. It quickly resolved itself
into the unmistakable form of a torch, its half-extinguished barely providing
any illumination. But it was enough to bring to life shades of shadows that
sketched a tantalizing picture of a cave, extending far back beyond the ability
of the light to reveal.
The man
holding the torch, for it was possible to see his broad outline, was tall, but
the finer details was lost. Soft rustling of cloth could be heard as the man
walked towards the red glow like a moth drawn towards candle flame. He stopped
abruptly, standing directly on top of the glow, and it would seem that he
should have fallen straight on top of the glow, except that he did not.
Instead, he stood almost as if suspended upon a crust of thick ice, the glow a
short, teasing meter below him.
The man
knelt, one hand holding the torch closer while another rapped on the surface
none too gently. The dim torchlight glistened across the smooth surface as if
reflecting upon black basalt. Dull raps confirmed the solidity of the surface,
the sound absorbed by the thickness of the intervening barrier.
The man
made a sound of frustration, quickly followed by a hard punch. Chips flew,
testimony to the strength behind the blow, but the punch barely gouged the
surface.
The first
observer shook his head wryly. “Does he seek to break the protective barrier
with his fists? When not even the strongest explosive invented by man could
make a head way?”
“I would
not underestimate what this one can do with his fist,” the second observer said
absently. A glitter from the corner of his eye alerted him, and he grinned
suddenly, a rather wolfish grin. “But,” he continued, “I do not think our
friend will have a chance to find out. It would seem that he had attracted the
attention of the Guardian.”
A sudden
wash of red swept across the cave, revealing carved giant statues adorning the
walls and ceiling of a huge room, far too angular to be natural cave. When the
light dimmed, it was to reveal a new addition to the occupant of the room – a
huge monstrosity whose six incandescent wings nearly filled the entire cave
with their spans. The body was that of a lissome maiden robed in white, the
white face with its closed eyes serenely beautiful, the long fall of golden
hair completing the picture of a perfect feminine beauty. Which made the sickly
greenish serpent tail that made up its lower body all the more grotesque, the
six elongated arms with talons as long as human thigh bones sickening
deformities.
“The
Guardian of the Temple,” the first observer said not without a little bit of
awe.
The
Guardian glowed with its own white light, brightening the room as if it was
broad daylight. The brown-haired man standing in front of her had long since
thrown away the now useless torch, both fists held up in front of him in
classic defense stance. He should have looked ridiculous, a puny man barely a
fifth the size of the Guardian. Yet there was something - perhaps in the way he
held himself in front of the Guardian, the way he watched it unflinching with
dark eyes. It took the first observer a while to tease it out.
It was the
total lack of fear.
Even as he
watched, the man dropped his fists, tilting his head up at the Guardian almost
insolently. The light washed over his face, still an unlined face of a young
man, strong cheekbones with just a hint of an Oriental bloodline in the upswept
angle of his reddish-brown eyes.
The young
man glared at the Guardian, then he suddenly gave a quick, feral, toothy grin.
And once
again the room was flooded with a brilliant flash of light.
~ Interlude
II ~
The old
man, back bent from too many hard years and punishing arthritis, turned and
pointed a finger towards the mist-shrouded forest higher up near the mouth of
the valley. The lantern in his hands cast a weak glow over the small porch of
his house, and the village lay sleeping beyond.
He cast a
curious look at the woman standing in his front lawn, who had interrupted his
sleep when all sensible people would have been comfortably in their beds,
deeply asleep. She looked to be in her late twenties, corn blue eyes and full
lips set in an attractive face, sun gold hair pulled back in a high ponytail.
Her heavy woolen long coat was dusty and stained with travel wear, heavy
leather boots that may have been new and fashionable at one time, but were now
as stained as the coat. Underneath, she wore thick woolen sweater in concession
of the cold, and long men’s pants that was just a tad too snug for the old
man’s comfort of mind. It was obvious that she had been on the road for a
while, but for his life, he could not imagine what could have brought such a
woman to a small village in the middle of nowhere, to knock on his door at
close to the middle of the night. It was not the safest of time, these days,
and the forest of late was a right downright dangerous place when the sun had
come down.
He was,
therefore, thoroughly appalled as the woman turned on her boot heels and headed
out, especially after the pointed questions she had just asked.
“Wait, you
should wait until morning. When morning comes, we can get the men to go with
you. It’s not safe there, there are beasts and worse…”
The woman turned
towards him, blue eyes glinting with amusement, and faster then his eyes could
follow, a full bore twelve-gauge shotgun appeared on her hands, the clack of
loading stock sharp in the crisp night air. She must have hidden it under her
coat, he thought dazedly.
Her smile,
though still as sweet as the one she bestowed when he opened the door, was just
a tad too bright and eager for a woman who was about to enter a dangerous
forest in the middle of the night, all on her own.
“Don’t
worry, pops,” her smoky contralto voice purred, “I’m quite capable of taking
care of myself.”
~ Interlude
III ~
The crow
burst out of the cave mouth, wings flapping wildly as it sought to gain as much
distance and altitude from where it had came from. Even as it climbed away,
other creatures came bursting out of the cave mouth. Bats, hundreds of them,
their shrieking cacophony and erratic flight generating total chaos at the
front of the cave. Fast behind them, bigger birds, their bulk unnaturally big,
their flight ungainly because of it and because of other unnatural protrusions
and distortions in their body, things that were not born of any natural
evolutions. And below them, the land-bound came tramping, crawling, slithering
out – creatures as small as a lizard, things that looked like wolves and lions
and crocodiles but were not, and a few of them, huge beasts that roared and
screeched and screamed as their twisted, malformed bodies crashed past their
smaller brethrens, flattening and tearing in indiscriminate terror-driven
reflexes, as they all fled their haven, forced out by something beyond even
their ability to survive.
As the crow
soared on the night wind, high above where chaos boiled out of the cave mouth
beside the hill mound, it could hear a rumbling from below, deep underneath the
earth. A second later, a blast of crimson light punched out of the center of
the mound, battering aside huge boulders weighing tons as if they were
matchsticks, and tons of loose rock and dirt showered the area, raining down on
the shrieking mass beneath, pulverizing and burying those who were unlucky
enough to be in the way.
The crow
watched with beady black eyes as a black form came shooting out of the
meters-wide hole in the ground, watched as it slowed down a hundred meter above
and snapped open massive leather wings topped with wicked talons, stopping
itself dead in the air and hovered in the air. Following the silent instruction
in its head, the crow veered closer, giving itself and its Master a better
view. The creature in front of it, a fusion – the crow’s Master
whispered, looked like something that Hell had spit out, unrelieved black in
coloring, its fully three-meters length of humanoid form covered in what looked
like natural plate armor. Everything, from its hideous crimson-eyed visage to
half-meter talons and blade-like protrusion on its right hand spoke of lethal
violence. Even as the crow circled it cautiously, the fusion’s hands weaved in
front of him, and recognition flooded the crow as its Master identified an
arcane conjuration being drawn. It dove steeply to the side, madly putting
distance between itself and the beast as a ball of darkness, something so dark
and empty that it may as well be anti-light, grew between the creature’s
palms. It held it there, waiting, bolts of black light crackling from within
it, hungry for release.
The light
was the first warning of the second creature’s coming. It lit the hole in the
ground from below, then the glowing form rose from within, lifting itself as
effortlessly as a feather, its six wings holding still and in no way supporting
its ability to fly. The being, the one that the crow’s Master had called the
Guardian, was singing, its full red lips opened, the wordless tune
reverberating in the air like a Church hymn inside a Cathedral. Yet within its
mouth, there was only the stump of a tongue, the raw bleeding appendage as
still and useless as the wings. Its eyes remained closed, yet it turned itself
unerringly towards its nemesis. The song picked up in strength.
The fusion
roared its defiance, and hurled the seething ball of destruction in its hands
straight towards the Guardian. It sped towards the Guardian, but just a meter
before it would have impacted, it abruptly burst open, black lightning
splashing like water and briefly highlighting the curve of invisible shield
that it had hit upon. The black creature snarled, lips drawing back to reveal
serrated, razor-sharp teeth, and it hurled itself recklessly towards the
Guardian. It did not slow down as it neared, rather using his speed to further
power the blow of its right fist. The fist hit the shield, visibly slowed as
the creature fought to push in, its powerful wings beating furiously, then with
a triumphant roar something seemed to give and the fist hurtled in, a solid
punch in the gut that drove the Guardian back. But before the fusion could
follow through, the Guardian turned its face up and the song rose abruptly into
a shrieking octave. The force of the blow, for the Guardian’s voice was
definitely its primary weapon, threw the fusion back, and before the
disoriented creature could recover, the Guardian’s six hands blur in movement.
A choked cry as the fusion doubled in on itself. A claw had embedded itself
into its left shoulder and another had ripped through the membrane of the left
wing, another two had scored a direct hit on its torso, and two hands had
fastened themselves around the right thigh. Even as the fusion twisted
desperately to free itself, the wicked claws on the two hands sank in deep and
a sickening crunch was heard as the force behind the claws broke through the
tough armored skin and savaged both the flesh and the bone underneath. The
fusion screamed in pain, but almost immediately, it drew back and punched the
Guardian in the face. In a blink of an eye it seemed to turn into a whirlwind
of violence, brutal fists and kicks, head butts, raking claws, anything and
everything that could hurt its opponent. Overwhelmed, the Guardian drew back,
grips loosening as it sought to escape its maddened captive.
It was enough.
With a
snarl the fusion drew another ball of absolute dark in his right hand, a small
one for it did not have the time for more, and shove it right against the
Guardian’s face. So close the two opponents were, that the Guardian’s shield
was of no use. It screeched in pain as the seething blackness burned its face,
white flesh running like hot wax and golden hair crisped into ash. The song cut
off abruptly as the Guardian reeled back, in more pain than it had perhaps
known in its entire existence, its hands letting go of the fusion as they
clutched at its ruinous injury.
The fusion
staggered and flapped its wings, awkwardly trying to regain its balance with
one torn wing. It started to go after the Guardian, seemingly intent on
finishing the fight, but the Guardian abruptly opened its eyes. Black
pupil-less eyes stared back in a face contorted with fury, and it Screamed at
the fusion with every hatred and pain in its being. The air rippled like summer
heat wave and the force of the blow hit the fusion like a runaway train and
hammered it down to the ground.
The crow
followed as the fusion fell in a wild corkscrew, wings twisted and limp. Just
as it thought it would crash to the forest underneath, the wings suddenly
stiffened, snapping out to their full lengths as the creature sought to slow
down its uncontrolled descent.
It was too
little too late.
The fusion
crashed through the layers of branches and was lost to the crow’s sight. But
the sound as it collided with the ground could have been heard kilometers away.
Following its Master’s urgent commands, the crow wheeled in closer, noting the
carnage the fusion had made on the forest – the broken boughs and limbs, entire
trees shattered and uprooted. It glided through the hole left in the forest canopy,
and finally saw the fusion, or what used to be the fusion monster, at the
forest ground.
There was a
five-meter radius hole on the ground, as if particularly potent dynamite had
exploded or a minor meteorite had crash-landed. The fusion monster was nowhere
to be seen. Instead, in the middle of the hole, sprawled the brown-haired man
last seen inside the cave. As the crow landed gently on a tree branch nearby,
the man gave out a small groan, and scrabbled weakly to his elbows and knees.
He stayed there for a few long minutes, swaying slightly. Another minute, and
he dragged himself to the side of the hole, slowly pushing himself to his feet.
A painful hiss and one foot buckled under him, nearly dumping him face first
into the ground. His right leg lay limp under him, huge rips showing in the
trouser leg, and his left hand hung uselessly. Soft, pain-filled curses drifted
to the crow’s hearing as the man half-pushed, half-crawled towards the nearest
standing tree and leant against it, panting.
The crow preened
its tail feathers fastidiously, smoothing those ruffled by its rough travel.
The two-legged was going nowhere fast. It would follow the man for as long as
its Master bid it, or for as long as the man would survive alone in the forest
in his condition. It cared not one way or the other. It just wished that dawn
would come soon so it could feed.
As the man
took the first halting steps, the first sounds of the hunters of the night
drifted in the forest wind.
~end~