by Rob J. Hayes
I almost tripped over the first body. I was too busy looking up and around, not at the ground. The rags made it obvious he was a scab, though I had rarely seen clothing bloodier. The man was covered in thin gashes all over his arms, face, and chest. He might have had a look of fear frozen on his face, but it was hard to tell under the wounds and blood. The one eye that was still intact stared up at me, pale and sightless. In short, the poor bastard was a right bloody mess.
It was the first time I had truly seen the handiwork of a creature from the Other World. I had summoned creatures and set them on my enemies, or lost control of monsters so that they escaped into our world, unbound. Yet I had never seen up close what those creatures could do to a person. I saw it now and I didn't look away. I deserved to know what sort of horrors my callousness was visiting upon the world.
I realised the dark was closing in around me and looked down to see my lantern as bright as before. The darkness was a thick, cloying thing that drank up the light and left only black behind. I wanted to scream, panic and fear mixing into an unbearable energy. But I couldn't. I couldn't scream, couldn't move. All I could do was watch as the darkness swallowed me up until it was complete. Then came the icy cold fingers of a real monster.
Terror froze me to the spot, made me rigid. I was so scared, I couldn't even tremble. There is a strange response in animals when confronted with something terrifying and beyond their capability to understand. They just stop, as though if they remain entirely still nothing can see them. I learned that day that terrans have the same response. I have the same response. It was a revelation and not a welcome one.
I could feel the lantern in my hand still, yet there was no light or heat. Trails of ice drew up and down my skin, leaving frozen pain in their wake. I remembered the dead man on the ground and the wounds he had, hundreds of thin slices all over him.
Fear and terror are strange things. They can paralyse the body, yes, but they also often paralyse the mind. I've known people far smarter than I, turn into babbling fools once fear sets in. I have used the trick many times to my advantage. I may not be an Empamancer, but these days, I know how to instil fear into people.
I closed my eyes and swallowed down the lump in my throat, trying desperately to ignore the icy trails along my skin. The creeping sensation of the grave yawning open to swallow me whole. It dawned on me then just how fucked I was.
I am the weapon. That thought, that mantra drilled into me by the tutors at the academy lit a spark of anger in me. Anger that I was in a situation so far beyond my control all I could do was wait for death. Anger, not at the arsehole of a monster trying to eat me alive, but at myself for not being bloody-well strong enough to fight back. "ENOUGH!" The word erupted as a broken scream torn from my mouth. I was quite surprised when the trails of ice stopped. For a few moments, silence held. Then I heard something move behind me. It sounded quite big.
"What are you?" I asked of the darkness. I thought myself quite knowledgeable back then. I thought I knew most of the secrets the Other World held. I know now just how much of a bloody fool I was. I knew nothing.
There was no reply, only a noise like metal tapping against stone. "You're no ghast," I said. Now the icy trails were gone from my skin I could feel hot, wet blood oozing out along the little cuts. My arms, chest, and legs all stung from the wounds. A ghast couldn't have done that to me; those horrors have no physical form.
Most of the things from the Other World don't have names other than those we give them. Some, however, are quite different. Some are older than the others. Old even as the world they come from.
"Ssserakis." The word whispered along the ground in front of me like snakes slithering closer before finally hissing out in front of my face. I felt an icy claw close around my chin, the cold of it burning my cheeks. I opened my eyes again, but still there was only darkness. I wonder if that is how blind people live their lives. Feeling a foreign touch upon their skin, and not having the ability to see who or what it is. The thought of that scares me more than I care to admit.
I shook my face free of the hand and it vanished, like smoke on a breeze. It was strange, but knowing the horror could speak, hearing its voice like glass shattering, I was free from the paralysis. I craned my head around, towards the door out of the cavern.
The horror laughed, a croaking sound like old men wheezing out their last breath. "They can't hear you. Can't see you. No one can help you now."
"Good." I put as much iron into my voice as possible and stared straight ahead. I knew the thing could kill me like it had the workers lying at my feet, but I wasn't about to go out mewling in fear and crying for mercy like those poor bastards. "You're not like the others. You're not some mindless beast an Impomancer can control. You're..."
"Older," whispered the voice. "In a world of nightmares, I am what the darkness fears." I felt a rush of air and knew the monster was moving around me, studying me from different angles. I had intrigued it by breaking its hold. That, and I think it may have grown bored with murdering terrans. We were too easy a prey for it.
It was my first encounter with one of the ancient horrors and I was inexperienced. I believe I danced to Ssserakis' tune like a puppet with her strings pulled.
"Are you corporeal?" I asked and in response I felt a glacial air breeze through me. Not around me, but through me. I have to say it was a fucking unpleasant feeling and chilled me to my core.
Most of the horrors have bodies. Bodies make them easy to kill, they give us something to aim at with magic or steel. Some are more like illusions, ghosts drifting through the world. Some are stranger still. Ssserakis is one of the latter.
"How did you get here?" I asked. "Who summoned you?"
"Questions. Questions. Questions." I heard the slither of something fat and wet behind me, writhing on the ground. It took a lot of willpower not to turn and stare into the darkness towards the sound. But that is how Ssserakis works. Distractions and fear, killing its prey inch by inch, second by second. A thousand shallow cuts all designed to make us piss ourselves in terror. "Perhaps I've always been here. Perhaps you summoned me."
Again, I felt an icy razor leave a trail along my skin, this time it started on my neck and trailed around my jaw and up to my ear. I felt blood leak down into the collar of my rags.
"Fine." I gritted my teeth against the stinging pain. I was still scared, but the terror had left me and, in its wake, it left a blazing determination. "You can answer in your fucking riddle all you want. Or you can tell me what do you want."
The trail of ice stopped again and I felt Ssserakis drift away from me. While the horror considered my words, I lifted the lantern up and felt the warmth coming from it. The flame was still burning, but the light was gone.
"Home." The voice was a whispered wail of longing and despair. "Where the light doesn't burn. Where I don't have to hide underground. Home. Where I was strong."
"I can help," I said quickly. I think I wanted to get the words out before I realised what I was saying. "If I can find an Impomancy Source I can send you back." I sounded very confident. Yet I didn't even know if such a thing was possible. Impomancers could send back the horrors they summoned themselves, so long as the Source was still inside of them and control had never been broken. I had never heard of a Sourcerer sending back another's summoned creature.
For a long time, all I heard was the darkness swirling around me. I felt myself trembling, the cold of Ssserakis' presence seeping in bone deep.
"Why?" Came the voice from behind, so close it was only a whisper though sounded like a thunderclap.
I decided truth was probably the wisest of options. "Because I need you to leave this place," I said. "Either you kill me here, or the others kill me out there when I can't get rid of you. Either way I'm fucked." I knew it was true. Deko would either murder me himself or hand me over to Prig the moment I stopped being useful and this was my very first chance to prove I had any use at all. Talk about setting the bar high. It's like being told to go c
atch a fish and landing a whale. There would be nowhere to go but down from there.
"You have seen my world?" Ssserakis asked. I felt icy hands close around my head, sapping the heat from me, driving icy spikes of agony into my mind.
"Yes," I said through chattering teeth. I couldn't stop the trembling. Couldn't stop the cold seeping into my limbs. I honestly thought I was dying, that I'd said the wrong thing and that ancient horror was tearing apart my soul.
"You will carry me there?" I could hear the hunger in its voice. The longing so deep it made my own heart ache.
"Yes." It's fair to say that was an agreement I came to regret making. Yet I would make it again a hundred times over.
I felt the cold rush into me again, but this time it didn't pass through. It wrapped itself around my heart and mind and stayed there. The unnatural darkness lifted in an instant and I could see the cavern again, lighter than before. There were three bodies scattered about the stone floor and one more draped over the rock-hewn throne. My lantern cast a hazy beam of light forward and I stood alone in the cavern. Ssserakis was gone. Even as I thought it I knew it wasn't true, but we terrans are good of convincing ourselves of convenient lies when the truths are too hard.
"Hey. You done, girl?" Deko sounded impatient.
I turned, shining my lantern back towards the entrance where Deko and Horralain waited. Apparently, the darkness had fallen like a blanket almost as soon as I entered the cavern. Now it was lifted they could see me again. I approached slowly, my limbs feeling numb from the cold.
"Slithering shit," Deko cursed as I drew close, his eyes widening. "What happened to you?"
I was covered in hundreds of tiny cuts, each bleeding only a trickle. It was Ssserakis' way and the first of so many injuries the horror dealt me.
"I fixed your problem." My voice came out as stammer and I very nearly collapsed. I was weak and weary beyond belief. Worse than the pain or the exhaustion, though, was that I could feel something foreign and terrible inside of me. Something living inside, feeding off me as it waited for a chance to escape home.
"Yeah?" Deko asked, taking the lantern from my trembling hands. "What was it?"
I just shook my head at the man. Maybe it was the look in my eyes, or the blood leaking from so many cuts, maybe he just didn't care, but Deko never asked again, and I never told anyone of the ancient horror I kept inside.
Chapter 18
In our second year at the academy we made a game of getting each in trouble with the tutors. They were harmless little pranks for the most part. It was a foolish thing, but children can be both foolish and wise in equal measure. I always tended towards the former.
One time, while learning letters I created a small portal behind Josef's head, reached through and flicked his ear hard enough to make him yelp. Tutor Ein was furious at the interruption and made Josef stand in the corner, facing the wall for the rest of the class.
The next day, in retaliation, Josef used Kinemancy while we were out for the morning run. Tutor Gellop was a taskmaster when it came to exercise and anyone who fell behind was punished with a second run all on their own. It was hard not to fall behind with a constant psychokinetic push against my chest. I remember it felt like trying to run through water.
But there was one time, Josef took it too far. Empamancy is a subtle school of magic. That's probably why Josef found an attunement for it and I did not. I am rarely subtle. I much prefer grand gestures. Empamancy is as much about reading a person as it is about manipulating their emotions. Josef always excelled at reading me.
It was during a meditation exercise by Tutor Bell. She taught us to breathe properly, drawing in strength and exhaling weakness. She taught us to centre ourselves, to let go of physical needs and focus. Each day, Tutor Bell would lead us all through a complex series of movements, often instructing us to hold a position for so long I would start to sweat and tremble. I still move myself through those positions sometimes to keep both body and mind limber. Only down in the Pit, during my darkest times, did I forget them entirely.
After the series of movements, the tutor would get us to sit and clear our minds. There, we would meditate, concentrating on breathing and letting the subconscious take over. One time, Josef used his Empamancy on me. I remember a great sadness washed over me and dragged me out to sea. So much pain and sorrow, I thought I was drowning in it. Before I knew it, I was crying, bent over and sobbing into my hands. My eyes blurred as tears rained onto the mat beneath me. I had no focus for the emotion, no memory within which to ground it. I drowned in it, unable to find the surface, unable to breathe. Then Tutor Bell was there, gathering me up into her arms and holding me tight. The wave of emotion passed and left me feeling raw inside. I could remember the sorrow; even now I can remember it, but I no longer felt it. That was worse. The absence of it left a pit inside of me that couldn't be filled, a yawning void of… nothing.
Tutor Bell never spoke of it, never even realised it was Josef's fault. She just called an early end to the session and hugged me again before I left. I went from feeling a sadness so profound I struggled to breathe, to feeling comforted and safe. I burst into tears again at that. Strange how pain and relief can cause such a similar reaction.
Afterwards, Josef admitted what he had done, and I was angry. How could I not be? Empamancy is the manipulation of thoughts and emotions within a person. It's an intrusion, a violation of a person's mind and heart. And Josef, the person I trusted and loved most, had been the one to violate me. It was a betrayal. His first betrayal. I should have known then that it would only be the first of many.
I stayed angry for two days. Seething silently while echoes of the emotion he had inflicted upon me drove me to fits of tears. But I am a determined woman and I wanted to find a way to protect myself from Empamancers. By then, the library was open to us and I stole every minute I could to research the school of magic. I found no way to shield myself, but I did learn something important. Empamancers cannot create emotion from nothing. They can impress their own emotions on others, and they can amplify emotions. That is when I realised the sorrow I felt was not my own. It was Josef's sorrow over the things he had seen before coming to the academy, and over the loss of his family at the hands of the Terrelans. He might have amplified it as he pressed those emotions upon me, but they were his. The pain and sorrow were his. I forgave him there and then. I simply couldn't stay angry after knowing how much pain he was in.
When we made up, Josef promised never to use Empamancy on me again and he almost kept that promise. Of course, he had, unfortunately, shown the bitch-whore a way to get to me, and Lesray Alderson was more than happy to violate my emotions. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I fucking hate Empamancy.
I was always cold with Ssserakis inside of me. It was a chill that went deeper than the skin, down to my bones. Perhaps even further than that. It was a coldness that infected my very soul. I could be standing beside a fire, so close the flames could reach out and lick at me, but still I would shiver.
The nightmares were also a gift from the horror. I dreamed of things that had me waking up in cold sweats, or sometimes I screamed myself awake. Those close to me never learned the whole truth of what had happened to me down in Deko's palace, or the deal I had struck with Ssserakis. They only knew what they had to. I showed no fear while I was awake, but the things that horror showed me in my dreams were the very essence of terror. I learned about the Other World in those dreams. Maybe too much.
I stopped digging. I stopped going with my team to our tunnel. Prig no longer had any power over me, not while Deko's protection was in place, and I had secured that protection. He called upon my knowledge two more times, but Deko no longer sent me to deal with the monsters alone. I identified the creatures and told Horralain and his thugs how best to kill or capture them. The rest was up to the giant.
I didn't forget the day Horralain strangled me, almost killed me. I've never forgotten it. But I learned to live with the anger of it. I learned t
o respect his strength and skill. No amount of respect could stop me from hating him, though. I've always been one to nurse my hatred, feed it on the fires of past wrongs and forgotten slights. While others might let a thing go, I hold on tight. My grudges are mine, they are a part of me, and I don't let anything that is mine go without a fight.
Each day I would wake next to Hardt and be gone from the cavern before Prig arrived to corral his team. I hated that he might think I was scared of him, but the old saying out of sight, out of mind holds some truth. Prig was less likely to take his anger over me out on the others if I didn't shove my protection in his face. So, I chose to avoid him for the sake of my friends.
I spent my days watching the tunnel as Tamura widened the crack that I hoped would lead us to our freedom. Crazy, the old man surely was, but he's never been one to shy away from work. Sometimes I think he understands others perfectly, but words get jumbled between his brain and mouth. Maybe not. Maybe he thinks in the same codes and similes that he speaks in.
A few weeks after Prig cracked my rib, I thought myself strong enough to wield the pick without doubling over in pain. Unfortunately, by that time the widening crack was too high up for me to reach. I have never been the tallest of women, and I was just fifteen at the time, and still growing. The truth of that was apparent every time I looked down at my rags and saw my ankles. There was, of course, a constant stream of new clothing being sent down, but most of that went to Deko and his captains. I could have asked for some, and Deko might have obliged, but I didn't want to owe the bastard any more than I already did. I've always hated owing people or asking for things. Pride is a damned thing that stops us from doing so much that is good for both us, and for the world. It's also something I have in spades, and believe me when I tell you sometimes I wish I didn't.