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Trial in the Desert - Telamoniades | |
| Gravel popped and spat out from under the cart’s wheels as it bounced along the dusty trail. Inside a group of young Menites sat cross-legged on a pile of dirty straw, shaded under a canopy stretched above the cart on four thin poles. Towards the front of the cart an aged priest droned the scriptures from a weathered leather book. “And it was in the beginning that our Lord did battle with the endless chaos, bringing his great foe to bay and forging order out of the void. And thus he formed man out of nothing to serve Him, and praise Him, and maintain His law against the encroachment of the servants of the great Devourer.” The priest paused, gazing with rheumy eyes at the youths gathered in the cart. Most of them were staring off across the blasted landscape or drowsing with their head drooping down over their chests. The priest’s mouth tightened and he had to remind himself for the thousandth time that very often the young men who seemed the most wayward turned out to be Menoth’s most devoted followers. The Creator worked in mysterious ways. “Now,” he said sharply, drawing many of the boys out of their reverie, “who can name the representatives of the Devourer who threaten us in our own lives?”
The boys scratched at their collars and tried to avoid meeting their tutor’s eye. As always, any lessons that didn’t directly involve violent battle or the torture of heathens were lost on them. The priest let the silence hang uncomfortably. Finally one boy raised a tentative hand. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed and seemed bright enough, but rarely spoke around the other boys. Both his parents had been lost in battle with unbelievers, his father when he was very young, and his mother in a battle with the Cygnarans in Sul only a few years ago. Since then he had become a grim, mostly silent boy with few friends. “Yes, Niri?” the priest prompted. “You can tell us of the Devourer’s minions?” Niri nodded. “The Cygnarans, the followers of the false god Morrow,” he said. “Very good,” answered the priest. “Any deviation of the worship of the one true God is to destroy the order He has set down for us. Any others?” Another boy piped up, “What about the followers of the Dragonfather?” “Excellent, they are some of the most vile of the Devourer’s servants. Others?” “The dwarves?” asked another. “Most certainly,” the tutor said, “All partial humans are a corruption of Menoth’s true intent for the world and serve the Devourer by their very existence. More?” “The northmen,” suggested a tall boy named Faakir, a son of one of the knights exemplar. “Not exactly. Although many of the Khadorans have fallen into heathen ways, there are some who remember their true faith, even if they have forgotten how to express it correctly. The Hierarch Voyle has publicly stated his belief that they may yet be saved, although not without much unfortunate shedding of blood.” The boy’s face reddened and he grimaced in frustration. “It was a good guess though,” said the old priest by way of encouragement. He smiled as the cart continued to lurch along. The afternoon’s lesson was not turning out to be nearly so bad as it had seemed it would at first. That evening, as the sun was just disappearing along the broken horizon, bringing a blessed coolness to the harsh Menite landscape, Faakir wandered among the various carts and wagons of the caravan. The stench of kaelram dung hung thick in the air. He was still thinking about the priest correcting him earlier in the day. Although he often came across as brutish and overconfident, Faakir was really a very sensitive boy and the slightest reprimand tended to stay with him for a long time. He dearly wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as one of the knights exemplar, and although he flew through his combat training with ease, he had a hard time focusing on the boring scripture lessons. He had been certain that the Khadorans would be an answer that would please the old man, but, like most times he ventured to speak up, he had turned out to be wrong. Kicking at some loose rocks on the ground he rounded the corner of a wagon to come face to face with the dark haired boy, Niri from the lesson. The two froze for a moment, looking at one another. Blinking and stepping back, Niri tried to move off in a different direction. All the boys did their best to avoid Faakir when he was angry, and for good reason. “Look who it is,” he spat, “Father Abri’s perfect little favorite.” Faakir stood half a head taller than Niri moved and in very close to make sure the smaller boy knew it. “What are you about now? Running off to fetch the sand for his evening bath? You two are just great friends, aren’t you?” Niri grimaced, “Come on Faakir, I only answered one question, that’s all. It’s nothing.” Faakir knew he was right. If anything, Niri spoke even less than he did in lessons. But right now Faakir was in no mood to be reasonable. “Makes sense though,” he said, “If my father was dumb enough to get stabbed by a Cygnaran I guess even dumb old Abri might seem like a good guy to hang around with to me too. Better than nothing right?” Niri just stared sullenly, saying nothing. His jab’s failure to provoke any sort of reaction only made Faakir angrier. “Not so smart now, are you?” he demanded. Lashing out suddenly, he pushed Niri. The other boy stumbled backwards, but stayed on his feet. He kept his face stubbornly expressionless, and tried again to move away. “Look, Faakir. This is stupid. Just get some sleep or something. Tomorrow’s lesson will go better.” That was all Faakir could handle. “Don’t you ever tell me what to do,” he said, and threw himself at the other boy. The two went down rolling into the scrub off the side of the trail. A little while later, another boy from the earlier lesson, Alim, was walking by the wagon. Aside from learning how to think and act as a proper Menite like all the other children, it was Alim’s job to watch over the dogs that accompanied the caravan on its path to Imer. He was the kind of boy that assumed all dogs, no matter how much they slavered and growled, were really just starved for affection and needed someone to play with. It made him good at his job. So, it would come as no surprise to anyone that when Alim saw Ismail walking back from somewhere off the trail, with a barely concealed look of panic in his eyes and a red-stained rock clutched in one hand, he saw nothing more than a fellow classmate out for a walk. “Why hello Faakir,” he said. “Nice night, isn’t it?” The bigger boy brushed past him without a word, and staggered off among the kaelrams. Oh well, Alim thought, he must not have heard me. No one noticed Niri was missing until the afternoon of the next day when Father Abri convened his class for the afternoon. By that time the caravan was miles past the spot where the two boys had had their fight. No one seemed to know anything about where he had gone. A bit of a search was organized, but found nothing and the caravan couldn’t stop just to search for one missing boy. The Grand Scrutator was giving an important speech in Imer and it was a matter of piety that they all be there on time. Niri lay unconscious in a small depression in the brush until midmorning. His hair was matted with blood on the spot Faakir had hit him with the rock. When he woke up he had a terrible headache and the scrubland swam before his eyes, looking like some strange, dry ocean. He staggered to his feet, trying to gather his thoughts. How far he was from the trail he didn’t know. The caravan was gone and Niri squinted at the ground around him, but there were no wheel ruts to be found. The effort of looking down made him dizzy and he nearly fell over. What options did he have now? The caravan was probably well ahead of him and he would never catch up to it on foot. This area of the Protectorate was nearly empty of civilization, with only a few nomadic Idrian tribes scattered about. Standing out in the open wasn’t an option; although it was still early the sun already beat down intensely. By noon it would be unbearable without some kind of shade. Niri covered his eyes and looked out across the barren landscape. The problem was, there wasn’t anywhere to be seen that wasn’t out in the open. He grimaced, touching the wound on his head, and silently vowed that if he ever saw Faakir again he would make him regret his actions. Then, hunching his shoulders in a resigned manner, with a prayer to Menoth for some way out of this predicament, he began to stagger forward along the trail. In only a few short hours, his situation was getting desperate. The dust of the wasteland that formed the Protectorate seemed to be everywhere. It covered his skin and clothes, crawled into his nose and mouth, choking him, and saturated his hair and eyebrows. The sun was directly above and the heat pounded down on him on waves. In the glare and the dust he couldn’t even be sure he remained on the trail. Continuing to put one foot in front of the other took every last ounce of Niri’s will. His parents had died in battle against the enemy, would it be his fate to die alone out here in wastes, falling to no enemy but the elements. He quietly prayed to Menoth for deliverance. The wound on his head pounded and his mind wandered, leaving the struggling young body far behind. He was back in Sul, a child barely old enough to be off of his mother’s skirts. He and his mother were crouched, hidden outside the Menite temple among piles of debris and wreckage. On the steps of the temple, a thin line of flameguard stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, shields locked together, spears pointing downward. At the bottom of the steps, standing nearly eye level with the flameguard was a monstrous Cygnaran Ironclad. Smoke belched from the twin smokestacks protruding from it’s back. The huge warjack advanced, a single step at a time, making slow, deliberate swings with his massive hammer at the Menite warriors. The flameguard were managing to stay out of its reach, but were steadily being forced backwards into the temple. Their spears flashed out repeatedly, scoring long gashes in the Ironclad’s blue paint, but did no real harm. Layers of soot and grime from battle accentuated the lines of worry etched across Niri’s mother’s face. “It must not be permitted to desecrated the temple,” she said, almost to herself. Then, her careworn face peered down into Niri’s. “We have to stop that warjack, Niri. You must be brave. “When we get close enough, we’ll hit it with these,” she said, her hand resting on one of the globes of Menoth’s Fury strapped to his chest. Then it’s right back to cover. You must run as fast as you can. Menoth will protect us.” Niri swallowed. “Move, sweet one. Now.” She heaved herself out over the rubble, looking smooth and capable. Keeping low, she rushed at the jack on the temple steps. Niri followed as best as he could, trying not to stumble over the oversized coat of mail he wore. In seconds, they were so close to the metal behemoth that he could feel the heat emanating from the huge, steam-powered beast. “Throw, Niri! Now!” his mother shouted, pulling a globe free of her chest straps and releasing it in one smooth motion. Niri fumbled for a moment, then threw his as well. The two globes arced through the air with an eerie grace, sailing towards the Ironclad. The sun sparked off them and they seemed for a moment to be almost beautiful, belying their destructive nature. The impression shattered instantly as the globes struck, and two great gouts of flame soared up into the sky. Niri’s throw had gone wide, striking the steps near the warjack. Its legs were enveloped in flames, but they seemed to do no real damage. His mother’s globe, however, had directly struck the plating covering its shoulder joint. Along with the explosion there was a loud scream of steam erupting, like the teakettles in a dozen Cygnaran noblewomen’s parlors coming to boil all at once. Along with the hissing steam, there was the screech of sheets of metal tearing apart. The Ironclad turned to regard Niri and his mother, half of its face torn away, the hole revealing the magical flames of it’s furnace burning deep within. Glaring at them with one baleful, red eye it slowly began to move toward them, raising its hammer arm menacingly. Niri stared, wide-eyed and unable to move. Then, with one final, jarring shriek, the Ironclad’s arm pulled free from its shoulder, spitting steam from the socket where it used to be. The massive quakehammer clattered uselessly to the pavement. The flameguard, seeing that the jack was so terribly crippled, rushed down the temple steps. In concert, their spears struck hard at the places where the armor had been torn away by the blast, revealing the Ironclad’s sensitive inner workings. Its great frame shuddering, it turned back to face them, trying to fend off their assault with its one remaining hand. “Thanks be to Menoth,” said Niri’s mother. “Now run!” She hastened toward the mouth of a nearby alley with Niri following close behind. Just before they reached it a figure emerged from the shadows of the alley. It wore a long dark coat and its face was hidden in the shadow under the brim of a tri-cornered hat. Deliberately, it raised one hand. In the hand was a strange looking pistol, covering with some kind of glowing writing. Niri’s mother shouted something, and tried to push him aside, but the figure pulled the trigger, and a glowing blue projectile went screaming through the air, striking her full in the chest. Niri howled as his mother fell to the ground. Tiny arcs of blue lightning scrambled all over her body and she shook uncontrollably. He sank to his knees next to her, sobbing. Blood ran freely from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Niri looked up at the figure, mouth twisted in pain and rage. The man in the coat advanced purposefully. Fumbling for a firebomb, Niri peered into the shadows under the figures hat, wanting to see the face of his mother’s killer. But where there should have been a face, there was none. Instead was a swirling mass of tentacles, stretching, and reaching, and grasping. There seemed to be thousands of them, and they filled Niri’s vision, twisting and snapping hungrily. There was no more temple, no more flameguard, no more mother or man in a coat; there was only the tentacles, reaching and reaching until it seemed they would consume all the world. And then suddenly Niri was back in the wasteland. The sun was sinking below the horizon, staining the landscape a deep red. His head spun. What had just happened? His mother’s death at the hands of the Cygnaran gunman was familiar; he relived it almost nightly in his nightmares. But that thing at the end; he had no idea where that had come from. It had been so…hungry. He could almost still feel it twisting at the far corners of his mind. He peered around him with eyes almost glued shut with dust. His lips were cracked and bleeding. The desert still stretched on endlessly in all directions. Niri swallowed, or tried to anyway, but his throat was so parched that what should have been a swallow ended up as a dry, painful cough. He legs kept moving almost automatically. If he stopped, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to get going again. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Menoth leave him to die out here like this? He knew the Creator was all knowing, and allowed nothing to happen without a purpose. Niri would have gladly laid down his life for Menoth in battle against any foe. But to just slowly fade away out here, flickering out like the last ember of a fire; it was unbearable. It couldn’t be. There had to be some reason for what was happening. “There is no end,” he forced out, leaning on the tenant of his faith as if it was a physical crutch. And then suddenly the endless flatness of the horizon was broken by a thin stream of smoke, curling up into the sky. He stared hard at it, afraid to trust his eyes, afraid that it might disappear as quickly as it had come. But no, defying all logic the smoke continued to spiral into the evening air. Someone nearby had lit a fire. Half stumbling, half walking, Niri staggered towards the smoke. It was further away than it had at first appeared. By the time he approached its source, the sun had long since set. He followed the smoke as a slightly deeper darkness in the brilliant violet sky of the Protectorate night. Its source was, as it turned out, nestled in a small cluster of boulders dotting the landscape. Nearing the boulders, Niri began to hear a strange howling. It sounded like someone blowing on a tuba that had been beaten to death with a dwarven hammer. At times it would nearly fade to nothing, only to rise again, wailing out into the night. There was an urgency to the call, as if it were demanding the desert itself to take heed. Firelight flickered out from the circle of boulders. As Niri approached the boulder nearest him a loud slow pounding joined the howl, like someone beating on an immense drum. He leaned against the huge stone, relishing the feel of the cool rock against his skin. Slowly, he crept along the rock, doing his best to brush the dust from his face, and peered into the center of the circle. What confronted him was a scene out of a nightmare. Great shadowy figures clad only in think strips of animal skins, thrown about them more as decoration than clothing, moved in a slow, pounding dance around a large bonfire. There skin was a deep, ash gray, and they were covered in knotted muscles with great tusks protruding from overly large mouths. Trollkin, Niri knew, although these looking almost nothing like the trollkin he had seen on his few trips into Caspia. These were wilder, much more animal than man. Behind the bonfire, stark in its harsh light, stood a large stone, thrusting vertically into the sky. At the foot of the stone stood a female trollkin over twice Niri’s height. She was covered in the skins of various reptiles and feathers from the birds that dwelt in the wastes. Back arched, her throat large and distended, she emitted the strange howl Niri had heard before. In one hand she clutched a frighteningly sharp looking curved knife, stained in blood, in the other, a massive axe that would have taken three of Niri to even lift. There was another trollkin bound to the stone next to her by thick, twisting strips of some kind of strange black rope. It was naked, with deathly pale skin and eyes that stared far off at something only it could see. Its entire body was covered in thin, seeping lacerations, and every few seconds it twitched, pulling hard against the ropes that bound it. Painted on its chest in a thick, dark paint was a strange symbol made up of jagged lines knotted together in a rough spiral that seemed to go endlessly. As Niri’s eyes locked on this symbol the hungry presence that had been lurking about the edges of his consciousness since the vision earlier in the day surged forward again. The symbol seemed to twist in on itself before his eyes, and everything in the center of the ring appeared skewed, as if being drawn into it. The tentacles writhed in the back of his mind, threatening to engulf him entirely. Like all young Menites, Niri had witnessed countless public burnings of heathens by the priesthood. He was no stranger to torture, or the smell of burnt flesh, and like most people living in the Protectorate, it would take a great deal to repulse him. But the scene playing out before him and in the deepest places in his own head appalled him. It was so completely wrong in every way something could be wrong, that it made the scrutator’s work seem pleasant in comparison. However, despite himself, Niri found that he was being drawn forward into the circle. That symbol seemed to pull him in as easily as it pulled everything else with its incessant, ravenous hunger. Almost without knowing what he was doing, he stepped into the firelight. The female trollkin at the base of the rock was the first to notice him. Her howl stopped abruptly and she pointed at him with a cry of what might have been pleasure. The dance stopped abruptly as the other trollkin turned to see the small boy emerging into their midst. Immediately the ritual was forgotten as they turned on Niri with a frenzy that was terrible to behold. Their brutish features outlined in the firelight, they cried out with abandon and leapt at him, teeth bared, and clawed hands outstretched. The strange urges within him immediately gave way to an overwhelming fear, pure and acute. He turned and ran from the circle of stones with an energy his didn’t know he still had. The trollkin bounded wildly after him, spurred on by the savage cries of their leader. Behind them, still strapped to the central rock, the forgotten trollkin shrieked wildly it’s lifeblood slowly drained away. What followed was a nightmarish chase through the wasteland, a hunt where the Niri was the frightened rabbit, and the trollkin, monstrous hounds. Without knowing how he did it, the boy managed to continue putting distance between himself and his pursuers. They didn’t seem at all concerned by this fact, reveling in the excitement of the chase. Several times throughout the night Niri found a ditch to duck down in, or a patch of scrub to dive into in the hope that the trollkin might pass him by. Each time his ploy seemed to work. The trollkin would disappear into the darkness ahead, and he would sigh with relief and try to rest. But no sooner than he seemed completely safe, the beasts would appear again and he would have to run once more. As sure as it seemed that some force was lending Niri strength, keeping him moving swiftly across the rough ground, it was certain that his pursuers were equally driven, unerringly tracking him wherever he tried to run. The hellish flight continued throughout the night, with no real ground being gained or lost, until the sun burst over the horizon and set the landscape aflame with morning light. Niri was half running, half staggering through a group of low hills, with the trollkin barely a stone’s throw behind. They were foaming at the mouth, no longer enjoying the chase and worked almost to the point of exhaustion. Their eyes rolled wildly in their sockets and those who could still find breath to speak swore of the terrible things they would do to this demon boy once they caught him. Niri, for his part, was more dead than alive, and his mind had ceased to function on any level other than continuing to place one foot in front of the other. He was cut and bleeding from scrapes and cuts accumulated from repeated falls over the course of the night. Barely able to stand, he gave the impression of a ragged marionette being dragged across the stage by a puppeteer who no longer cared to give it the impression of life. Suddenly, before him rose what looked to be the entrance to a cave, set into the reddish stone of the hills. He veered into it without thinking about why, only desiring to do everything possible to throw the trollkin off of his course. Inside was a long passage, cut too evenly to have occurred naturally. The floor was made of some sort of crude sandstone tile, and at regular intervals there was the ruin of what might once have been columns stretching up to the rough cut ceiling. It went by Niri at a blur, as he pounded down the hall, searching in vain for some sort of side passage to duck into. He could hear the ragged breathing of the trollkin echoing close behind him. There was a small flight of crude steps, and the passage came to an abrupt halt at a blank wall, partially obscured by rubble. Niri skidded to a halt, prevented for the first time in the chase from moving forward in any way. With no hope of escape left, all the energy left him, and he collapsed to the ground in a small, defeated heap. As he lay there, in a daze, waiting for the trollkin to catch up and finish him, he gazed up at the wall that blocked his way. His eyes roamed over it, detecting a slight depression, like a carving long faded, running over its surface. With a sudden jolt of surprise, he realized that set in ever so faint relief against the wall was the symbol of the Menofix, the representation of his lord God. At the moment, the trollkin caught up with him. The big female was in front, and with a bellow of victory she snatched Niri up off the ground by his hair, holding him dangling well above the floor. He swung precariously, and, just for a brief second, his hand brushed against the carving on the wall. There was a crack like that of a thousand scrutator’s whips striking all at once and the cave was suddenly filled with flame. The trollkin’s mouths opened in horror as their flesh burned away, but there was no air for their screams to emerge into. The leader dropped Niri to the ground and fell against the wall, her eyes popping as they melted away. Niri felt all the pain of the previous days seared away and the burning cleansed the awful presence of the night before from his mind. His flesh was untouched as the flames raged throughout the cave, leaving the trollkin as nothing more than piles of charred bones. Niri felt invigorated like he never had before, and in the flames before him there seemed to be a great, masked figure, reaching out a hand towards him. As it grasped him, he was struck with a pain like he had never felt before and the cave melted away into darkness. It was a brief two days ride outside of Imer that father Abri found Niri’s unconscious body laying in the middle of the trail when out for his early morning prayers. He was astonished, as they were many days ride from where he had been lost, and the boy had long been given up for dead. Niri was welcomed back to the community with open arms and there was much praising of Menoth for his deliverance. He could remember nothing of what had happened to him after the fight with Faakir, which he kept silent about. The bigger boy, terrified of what might happen should Niri confess his knowledge, kept well away from him. Life continued for Niri much as it had before, but sometimes, when Father Abri looked into his dark eyes, he swore that he could see flames burning deep within. | |
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