Exul’tul.
...
Exul’tul.
I know not that name.
But you do.
...
Zeb’s eyes fluttered open, his nostrils flaring, hackles raised. Smoke from the party’s campfire billowed around him, yet he found himself alone.
Nearly.
Malar has betrayed you, and you him. The Beastlord with his actions, you with idle thoughts. Notions of... abandonment. Would you deny this?
Zeb looked around, trying to gain his bearings. An encroaching haze shrouded a vague presence. Distant, yet closer than arm’s reach. An omniscient force of overwhelming and unfathomable power. It uttered its will into Zeb’s being, an echoing cacophony through his bones, neither mortal man nor mortal woman, silent yet deafening.
Heed my call where the land is unspoiled, untarnished, untethered. Amalgamate my followers where the rivers weep the lifeblood of the unchained. You are bound by no god to follow a path that ill-befits your station.
Who are you?
A challenger to Malar’s throne.
Zeb awoke in a cold sweat, the frigid night air cut by the taunting, flickering flames. Bonie slept soundly beside him, her supple form caressing his body for warmth. Instinctively, Zeb reached out to Malar, seeking a conversation with his deity.
Before the Beastlord would answer, sleep took him.
The remainder of the night passed in a fitful, perhaps even involuntary, restless unconsciousness. When Zeb finally awoke, he lay still, taking in his surroundings. Bonie's scent was foremost in his mind, accompanied by the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she slept beside him. Outside the cave entrance was the scrape of booted feet--one of the Tunterhorns, by the sound of it, finishing the watch that would see everyone awakened by the rising of the sun. From the cavern and tunnel beyond, the sour stench of decay. Nothing untoward, though that did not make Zeb relax, nor to feel any better about the dreams...nay, the visitor, for lack of a better word, that invaded his consciousness as he slept.
ReplyDeleteThe intrusion wasn't the worst of it--indeed, it was cause for alarm. Wherever the demon had been spawned, someone...or more likely, something...had taken notice. Zeb didn't want to alarm the miners and engineers any more than he needed to--the creature was a horror, to be sure--but the otherworldly nature of the creature, and its presence in the mine, gave Zeb pause.
No, it wasn't the intrusion at all...it was that it knew. Zeb hadn't even come to terms with the feelings that had been assaulting him the last several weeks, and he had never voiced--not even to Bonie, nor to Audric--the doubts he had been struggling to evade during his time in Fireshear.
The adrenaline of yesterday's kill had pushed those doubts aside, but whatever it was that spoke to Zeb in his dreams pierced all defenses, drove straight to the heart of Zeb's self-doubt...and addressed the very secret that Zeb had been struggling to suppress.
Stalking silently to his pack, Zeb examined the collection of trophies and fetishes that adorned his gear. Each had meaning--whether it was the dried, unrecognizable strip of flesh that was once the tongue of Korvich, his former master, or the string of large claws that had belonged to the bastard Crahdorn, may his soul rest forever in torment. Sweeping them aside, Zeb plunged his hands into the pack, feeling around its familiar contents, withdrawing a pair of objects.
The first felt familiar in his hand, its edges smoothed by years of handling. It was his symbol to Malar, a bit of horn from a dire elk he had stalked and delivered unto the Beastlord with naught but a heavy dagger, a kill worthy of the Black-Blooded One. It had been carved into the shape of a crude claw, a form holy to his patron.
Zeb frowned as he withdrew the second item--its weight unfamiliar in his hand, its surface rough- carved and unfinished. Closing his eyes, Zeb ran his fingers over the wooden medallion, the poor facsimile that Zeb had tried to reconstruct from memory. Though poor in its workmanship, the significance of the item, and its implications on Zeb's future path were profound--it was at once a great source of shame and exhilaration. None knew of its existence, not even Bonie.
As if burned by the item, or ashamed that he might be discovered with it, Zeb shoved it back into his pack, tying it shut once again. Beads of a cold sweat had formed on his brow, symptom of his stress and inner turmoil.
Zeb suppressed the urge to entreat Malar; it was an automatic response, formed by years of patronage. No...Malar could not, likely would not be of any use here. Whatever it was that initiated contact last took advantage of fractures in Zeb's faith.
"Whatever you are, bastard, I am not interested," Zeb growled to himself. Zeb hadn't intended to vocalize his thoughts, but so great was his spiritual torment and anger at having been invaded that it escaped unbidden. Nearby Bonie stirred awake, a questioning look on her brow.
"It's nothing," Zeb growled again. "Go back to sleep."
Zeb did not wait for a response, instead turning his back to stalk out to camp and make his morning patrol. He wore an expression that silenced any he passed, while inside his head Zeb's mind raced, struggling to make sense of the torrent of warring emotions.