The Heart of An Immense Darkness

[Siiri]

Siiri raised and pointed her blade at the direction where the voice had come from, but it was only the boy, stepping out of the darkness like some juvenile phantom. He looked stiff and appeared to have been crying. For Savra? Siiri thought, sparing the woman's corpse a glance.

It didn't matter, not to the Myrian anyway. Not now. Savra had taken herself out of the mission parameters by dying, and whether she was killed or took her own life was immaterial. She did not matter. Whatever had waylaid her and the boy was, however.

"What was it?" she asked, stepping closer to the boy. "What wanted to take her? More of those bat-like filth? A monster?"

Siiri peered into the darkness outside of the pools of light provided by the reflective disc above, her weapon held at the ready as if she was expecting some beast to jump out at them. Ever the warrior, she could only think of the threat as something physical, something she could cut down with Slayer. Something she could deal with.

But nothing came at them, not at that moment at least.

The Myrian relaxed momentarily, lowering her greatsword as well as tucking the blade Savra used to kill herself on her belt. It joined the many blades already strapped and sheathed there.

"Forget her," she advised firmly. Her words were directed to both Hirem and the boy. "We came for a single purpose here, and the fallen cannot help us with it.

"The stones. Lead us there."

Siiri spoke imperiously, as if used to having her orders followed. She expected the boy to obey. He had no one else but them now, after all. Plus, he was male. He should know his place.

To Hirem, she said, "I will take up the rear. I will not have you wandering off into the dark again."

Safety in numbers. The law of the jungle should still apply here, given how savage Hai's denizens were. And there were only three of them now - two, for the boy looked too frail to properly defend himself against anything that might attack them - and Hirem had already proven how poor his sense of direction was earlier. She could not afford to have him getting lost again.

"Lead us," she repeated.

[Colombina]

When Siiri asked what killed Savra, the boy answered solemnly. "Hai. Hai killed her." When commanded to lead, the boy nodded mutely and turned away. He moved like one of Uldr's own, mindlessly driven on. Hirem fell into formation, though he was still unsettled by Savra's death. Where were her assailants? Did they wait for Siiri and him? Foreboding touched him and he remembered the lady of the last door had asked for him by name. Suddenly twisted by urgency, he stopped and reached for Siiri's shoulder. "Myrian," he said hoarsely, "Remember this: Ulric, justice not mercy. It was our guide's final words to me. I have nothing else to bring light to them." He swallowed, and was keenly reminded of how long it had been since they had water. Beyond the ruins to the unknown god was the final border of Hai. A great wall of fawn colored stone rose before them, reminding them even misery had limitations. Broken boulders made jagged piles of dark gray at the base of the high wall. The stones were shark colored, vastly different from the sand hued stones that made the prison and its foundations. Even in the dim, Siiri could not the difference. Though piled in a seemingly natural formation, these stones had been brought from somewhere else. In the center of the front line of boulders, one was sundered by blood. A partially desiccated body was cradled between two broken stones high as men. Its mouth was still open, filled with shock until the last. A vague humming moved under the dust and air. It was the feeling of being slowly hunted, knowing something powerful and quiet was circling. On closer inspection, the unbroken stones had a skin of glyphs, visible only when deeper shadow was cast on them. They showed themselves in a brief shimmer, then vanished. "Why did you want to come here?" the boy asked.

[Siiri]

Siiri could not understand the boy's reply to her query. As a fighter, a warrior, she could only recognize threats that were physical and distinct, corporeal. What the boy said only confused her. Hai was a place and they were in Hai. How could Hai have killed Savra? Zith could have killed, or those dog-like things that had chased them when they first descended into the underground prison. But Hai itself? Ridiculous. And so she relegated what the boy had said to the back of her mind and decided that he was addled by his fear of the place and whatever it was that truly killed the human woman. It was a natural reaction for someone not training to face such violence.

Hirem's sudden outburst only added to the Myrian's confusion. Ulric? Justice and not mercy? What was he talking about? She knew of no Ulric, and if these were the last words of the fat mage, then they were of no use to her. She had no time for riddles or mind games. If these words had any bearing at all to the task they were hired to do, then she hoped their purpose would be made evident when the time came.

Despite her misgivings however, Siiri matched the human's apprehension with a confident, if stern, air. "This place is not meant for mercy. Whoever this Ulric is, if we must choose to deal one or the other to him, then he should know what to expect."

Noting Hirem's obvious thirst, she unslung her waterskin from her shoulder and handed it to the man. It held the last of her water, a meager amount, but it should serve. "Drink," she instructed Hirem. "We may need your strength yet."

She had no qualms in allowing the man finish the contents of the container. Coming from a race bred for survival, Siiri knew she could live off blood for a week. Surely there were plenty of beasts to kill around this place that she would never lack a source of sustenance. If not, well, there was always the boy and Hirem. Callous, but she would not hesitate slaying either if it meant her own survival. She hoped it did not have to come to that, however.

At last, they finally reached the stones, if that was truly the place where they boy had led them. The first thing Siiri noticed was their distinct coloration. While arranged to blend with the surroundings, their greyish hue still set them apart from everything else. it seemed to her as if they were not a natural part of Hai. Had they been added some time after the prison's construction? By who, and how had they even managed to carry such heavy things to this location?

Siiri moved closer, finally discovering the dried up corpse, noting the trail of blood it left on the stones that, strangely, it seemed to have sundered. The scene looked familiar. Her people had something similar back home in Taloba: large stone tables where live enemies had their hearts and brains cut out to honor Myri. They would be butchered upon the same stones as well. Did the one who die here meet a similar fate, as a sacrifice? But for what purpose...?

A closer look on the unbroken stones revealed strange glyphs that seemed to glow for a moment in the darkness and then vanish. She recalled similar carvings from her youth, ones done on bone, etched by her own hands during her malediction training. Those had been activated by her own blood. What about these? Siiri moved to touch one of them but she was interrupted from doing so when the boy spoke.

"It was a means to an end for me," Siiri replied, seeing no reason to lie to the child. He likely would not understand anyway. "The one who led us here promised me information, but with him gone, I suppose it doesn't matter now. But our purpose for coming here remains."

She mumbled something about righting a wrong, remembering almost belatedly that she was not supposed to tell anyone of their reason for braving Hai. Did it even matter now, with the mage dead? Yes. Yes it did. Like she said herself, their purpose still remained.

Turning to Hirem, Siiri asked, "How are we to fix this? The mage's words were vague and I have no talent in magic to understand even if they weren't."

She was stumped.

[Colombina]

Hirem was wiping water from his mouth, grateful for its taste of life, when Siiri posed her question. His first answer was a hollow expression of confusion and dismay. They had come far in so little time. Hirem felt years older having seen death uncommon and macabre, and felt the grazing touch of the divine. His heart reminded him soberly, the lady of the last door still had his name on her tongue. All this, and he had failed to fathom the final purpose of their journey. They stood before the stones, ignorant as children and profoundly useless. "I- I do not know. I had pinned much on the mage." His hands made fists, showing the fury of uselessness. The child was growing skittish, pivoting his head at every loose shred of sound. His limbs tightened then raised for moments at a time, prepared to propel his body elsewhere. "It's quiet now, but something else will come. Hai isn't kind." He instinctively retreated towards the stones, wedging his ragged body behind the rock of offering. The terrible residue on the stone gave him no pause. It was a shield, and shelter from which he could speak. "You owe Hai nothing. Why help it? We should leave," his eyes darted over the stone towards the broken temple. He licked his lips, suddenly parched. "Maybe the guards will remember you and have mercy." Behind the child, the stones rippled, light and symbols illuminating with the hiss and crackle of old power. It reminded them that no magic was clean. The spells had the sharp smell of ash and metal, still potent after the years of squatting amongst the damned. The force binding Hai was merciless as its inhabitants. "These stones cannot be good," the child observed gravely, "Perhaps they should stay broken."

[Siiri]

"No," Siiri replied with finality to the child's suggestion, her tone inflected to brook no argument. She did not add that the way back to Hai's entrance was far and fraught with peril. She did not have to; the himself had seen the underground prison's demons. He should have understood, having survived in Hai far longer than she had been in it.

"I will only attempt such a return once we have -"

She did not get to finish her sentence, for the stones suddenly lit up from behind the boy. Siiri jumped back in surprise, brandishing her weapon as she glanced around, expecting some form of attack from the shadows. Had someone activated the stones' magic?

But no, there were still only the three of them. No one else was around.

"What did you do?!" she demanded. "Are you some kind of sorcerer, boy? Speak!"

Her voice was stern, almost angry. She did not understand what had just happened. The stones had not reacted that way when she had moved to touch them moments ago. What was going on?

[Colombina]

The child flinched at Siiri's blindly brandished weapon. He crouched deeper, letting the blood coated stone shield him further. "No, no sorcerer." He shook his head violently and began to ramble peripheral knowledge. "Mages are killed on the surface. The beast in the labyrinth devours the rest." He kept to the dark crevice. His fingers, once curled over the stone, slipped after him. "There are worse things than magic, Myrian. Older things too. Fragments gathered, wrought, born anew. New and old all at once." The child's voice retained the light and taut timbre of youth, but its words began to swell and distort. "But what would you understand of that? You don't fathom a thing unless you can eat it. And he--" he laughed at Hirem, high and cruel, "Dira hems his steps. Beautiful and inexorable. She neither slumbers nor sleeps." Body had disintegrated to voice and voice to force. It slithered among the stones, passing through the shadow and growing thicker with the black blood of Hai. "So what are you going to do now?" The child was behind Hirem now, but his body had dimmed to corpse gray. His features began to stretch under their own weight as power melted fragile flesh from within. A parody of mouth and eyes were salvaged, but they were barren as a skull's. Pale blue light radiated from the stones, desperately trying to bind what was pressing so near. They were dumb sentinels, responding with all their might to a threat etched into their hearts. Siiri and Hirem felt their skin begin to buzz, fighting an oily taint that was beginning to form in their mouths. Something was infesting them, looking for images of itself. Siiri felt the base gratification of violence and power in her gut and all the cloistered places of pleasure. It pulled and pressed, asking her to only lay across a stone, for there she would be satiated.

[Siiri]

The boy's words slid past Siiri, most of them hardly registering to her due to her limited understanding of what he was saying. Of course mages were killed on the surface. As they should be! Tricksters, harbingers of destructions all, those who used magic brought nothing but strife to themselves and those around them. Wasn't the state of the world as it was because of the work of magic? But what did he mean by fragments being gathered? Was something being built? A weapon? Siiri's frown deepened. He spoke of something being born...but what?

Her line of thought was interrupted at the sudden shift in the child's voice - and subsequent transformation. She had to take a moment to zero in on his new location when he vanished, and once she did, Siiri could not help but grimace at the sight of his warped features. The boy looked like a dessicated corpse. And yet he was still alive, taunting her, taunting Hirem. What were they going to do now?

Siiri felt an invasion of her being just as the stones lit up once more, and she was held rooted where she stood, if only but a moment. Something within her wheedled and cajoled her senses to take herself to the stones, where it promised satisfaction for her propensity to deal violence. The desire for power. Unconsciously she touched her belly, feeling the alien force tickling her womb. It teased her nature just enough that she took a step in the direction of the glow...

Before she caught herself.

There was nothing there on the stones for Slayer to bite, save for some dried blood and the body of a woman long dead. Unless it was her own flesh. No, that was not where she wanted to be. She sensed that it would play a part in the conclusion of her time in gods-forsaken Hai but that was not how she wanted it to end. The beast had to be bound, as the fat mage, the dead mage, had instructed. That was the deal.

"I think I will kill you now," Siiri said in response to the boy-creature's last question. Her voice rose in volume with each word that passed her lips, as she channeled her anger to battle the compelling, but ultimately foreign, suggestion worming into her mind. "Just as you had killed Savra!"

She had no doubts her words were true, for evidence had pointed that it was only the boy that had been with the human woman at the time of her death.

Siiri exploded into a charge, moving directly towards Hirem, towards the boy, her greatsword raised and ready for a swing. She would barrel through the Benshira if she had to, just to get to the child and sever his head from his neck.