“Sat, seeking attention from teacher, infants, children. Are any among you of character enough to commit yourself to task, or do you seek only recognition in the face of what you believe you do?” Her words came across more pointed than she had anticipated echoing from the chamber walls. Then silence as each looked toward her momentarily before returning themselves to task.
“Master Arlandus, it is quite alright, poor Dupree here has been through quite a trauma, it is my assessment she cannot be in her right mind, perhaps she still feels some pain from the healing and is yet to return to her faculties” the high priestess smiled momentarily at the young acolyte, her blue robes clung tightly to her skin. Warm in the darkness of the temple. “It is the only reason I can think of, logical or otherwise as to why, returning to the temple in failure, one would then come to the seat of those who hold her fate in their grasp and commit oneself to such an outburst.” The words fell upon her, a crushing blow. Failure. The showing had been a failure. She'd known this before entering yet full of narcissism she'd marched in, disregarding how the council felt about her. Disregarding their perceptions of her and presenting herself as more unready than perhaps they had believed her to be. Several smiles spread across the faces of her previous detractors. To know you had been right about somebody, how nice it must have felt. In embarrassment and sudden reverence she bowed.
“It is nice to see the proper ways upheld” commented the priestess warmly. Armatrine’s knees pressed against the cold metal of the copper disk on the floor. Even her chafing new leathers were not enough to stop the temperature from dropping. Armatrine remained low, deference her defence, after her failure and then tantrum she knew better than to arise before the proper moment.
Good, Dupree. This will help. Arlandus’ voice rang inside her head. A comforting voice of support in an otherwise crumbling situation. Let them see you know how to bow and scrape, show your humility, remember who they think you are.
“Your mission, your showing. It was of some import. Not only to yourself, but to the Order.” Continued the high priestess. “Suffice to say your inability to complete this has now caused a greater complication within the fabric of the universe. But be troubled not, child. For it is the work of your elders to traverse this bridge... and yours to follow” Her words cut like a blade against the ego she'd once held. Anger.
Remain calm, accept what comes and we’ll move forward from there. Armatrine gave heed to his instruction, certain that to fight would be useless.
“What of personal consequence?” She asked, somewhat anxious. A silence fell about the chamber. Even with her head held low and eyes turned to the floor she sensed their discomfort. An unspoken truth between them, something she was missing.
“The artefact you lost was of some great value, not for any kind of power or real value, but there are those who think our pursuit of religious artifices is overzealous” she spoke dryly, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
Those who argue that we hold the power for ourselves, like brother Mitrick. Those who argue that we hold back what rightfully belongs to humanity as a blessing of the Three. Those who would argue that and exploit the power of the Three for their own gain. Arlandus again.
She continued, “The map which had been taken, the map which you lost, which you failed to retrieve when you were bested and fell gave the location to the secret places we hold. The secret places we keep ourselves and some of those artifices. Your failure has singularly plunged Neta to chaos.” Her words chilled Armatrine to the spine. The life's work of priests through the ages, wasted at her hand. She squeezed her hands tightly, nails digging half moons into the newly formed flesh of her hands. “Fortunately for Neta, Dupree, the map was outdated somewhat, any map is only as useful as where it leads to, the Order has already started moving items of great power and danger forcing raids, when they come, and they shall, upon empty temples. Upon bounties of nothing. For the most part Neta will be safe.”
A strange relief smothered her. Brace yourself. The next part will be difficult.
“As for you Dupree. You have cost us dearly, more so than any among us may like to admit.” Fear grabbed her now. “Several hidden places of power have been revealed to dangerous factions and potentially that equates to further danger for the Order” she let out a momentary pause. “Yet it was I who was a fool to trust the task to you. Unwilling to hear you were unready. That cost us greatly, yet it cost you more. Were it not for the pool, we would not be having the conversation we are. When we found you, you had already left this realm, it is by the grace of the Three you are back. For how long they will loan you, none among us can say. Yet know this. What has occurred is a punishment enough.” Her words echoed resolutely around the chamber. Then a sudden quaking interrupted.
~ Temple of The Three~
~ Fifteenth of the Smith, Song of Joy~
Hark the burning,
Thunder abroad the bow,
Raise a toast my love,
To the shaking of the world.
- Master Apolanius, Three centuries prior
Dead. The temple shook around her. Dead and all the world had known but her. A strange taste filled her mouth, somewhere between bitterness and pain, it bordered on the obscene, iron and blood. Dead. The quaking and chaos continued. Hold yourself steady Dupree. Arlandus, what could he possibly say to make anything different? She'd died on their orders and now in a twist of the fates oh so cruel the life she craved dangled before her, never hers but never out of sight. Dead and there was no way of stopping it. Around her the high council scrambled and blustered for escape, those with lives left to lose scrambling to save them as though they were crazed rats trapped in a maze. Their hypocrisy awed her, saving their lives while allowing the young to die in the name of the values the Order upheld.
Around her debris crashed. Falling from the chamber ceiling high above. No mere dust but enormous rocks and struts. Pieces of ancient and ornate formations clattered to the chamber floor, as beautiful as they were deadly. Again the distant ring of gunfire burst through the air. Deafening and dangerous. The temple shook. The formation of the Three, carved by ancient hands into rock, stricken by the belching of angry lightning.
Dead yet among the living she made a decisive action. Her choices were clear, give in and die or rise and live. It mattered not how long that she was here, only that she was. For the present, that was threatened. She could mourn herself later. Sidestepping a piece of ceiling that would surely have crushed her she made her way toward the door with the others. Not frantically sprinting as they did, but slow and composed. Putting thought before haste she made her way. Not unafraid, but determined. She was already among the dead, what else had she to lose? Around her pieces of ceiling stone fell, crushing those unfortunate enough to be standing or moving directly below. Some were dwarfed, crushed entirely by the cascading rock. Others, less mercifully had only been partially crushed, remaining conscious as death fell around them while others ran. Some cried out for help, none came, each among them desperate to secure their own survival.
Good, you’re moving. Arlandus echoed in her head. Above, the light of ever burning twin suns cascaded through the cracks in the quickly collapsing temple roof. The dome would not hold its integrity for long. Make haste Dupree, time is of the essence. She held her pace, around her the dome began to crumble. The high council had evacuated the chamber and would nearly be clear of the temple. She wondered how many had been slaughtered by foot soldiers. Clearing her mind she attempted to jump, to anticipate what she might find. There's no time for that, hurry! The voice in her mind held about it an aura of panic. Whatever was occurring the situation, she realised, was more desperate than she had thought. Dodging one final piece of debris she made her exit from the now unrecognisable council chamber. Behind her the ceiling collapsed entirely, sprinting the winding staircase she wondered if what Arlandus had supposed about the extra stairs being added to force young acolytes to work harder to reach the top to be true and cursing the existence of wh
atever master had tried it.
Below was carnage. The second dome had held and yet it would not be long before it too came crumbling down, crushing whomever it fell upon. Panicked priests and acolytes bounded across floors and rooms unused to the likes of such violence. Suddenly a figure came to her side, Arlandus, moving decidedly faster than he'd done when taking her upwards from the pool.
“Who would do this?” She asked only half not knowing the answer.
“Is it foolish to lose a map to the place you call home then wonder who is attacking it?” He answered shortly. “Now come on!”
Around them the temple shook as it became hit by a third and fourth volley. He led her through the crowds, sidestepping the violence. “Master, are we not leaving?” She asked as he led her in the opposite direction to where the majority of the brethren headed.
“Indeed we are, you’ll see.” He led her through a narrow doorway, one she swore had not existed before. As they passed the threshold they became enveloped within chaos. The quaking grew as the temple shook with increasingly violent intensity. They ran now, haste on their side. Him leading. Her following. As it had always been. As it would always be. Winding left, winding right, dodging debris and blocks too heavy to move and the whole time running. Moving forward to save the life she had lost already. A passion plea for the departed, oh anthem of her soul. Finally light made its presence known when she felt they had run for centuries, perhaps they had, who could tell her otherwise? It grew at the edge of her vision, growing larger until finally it engulfed them, the ground beneath her feet changed and they had escaped the collapsing temple.
Not safe yet she surveyed the area, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the invasion of light, she squinted as the scene around became clear upon the threshold of her vision. Acolytes were firing longbows upward toward a monstrous ship. The largest Armatrine had ever lain eyes upon. Its enormous emerald sails full with the force of the wind as it made rotation around the temple, now almost entirely collapsed. A few struggling souls could be heard from the inside as the ship's guns rang out louder now, almost bursting her eardrums. A barrage of further cannon balls screeched through the air, striking true in their race to crush and destroy the temple. The attack was well coordinated, no sooner had the final cannon rang out than a new, more ominous sound could be heard. The sound of men, falling in their dozens from the ship's rigging toward the ground. Opening chutes to brace themselves from the fall. Armed to the teeth they advanced. Upon the already injured order survivors. A bloodbath intended. It would not be what they achieved. Gritting her teeth she unsheathed her weapon, the biting steel blade that she had lived and perished by. The edge caught the light of Neta’s second sun. Ephemeral the light, a diamond glow bearing the sharpness of her intent. These people may have left her to die alone for the sake of a ritual past its prime, they may have caused her to bleed and perish at their behest. Yet it was she who’d gone willingly. The folly of her hubris clear in her mind. She'd believed in herself too much and her false belief had caused others to misplace their trust. The gravity of her demise only intensified her heartbreak. These people were wrong on so many levels, of that she was sure. Yet they were her family, all she’d known. They had brought her back. To falter now in the face of their destruction, unthinkable betrayal. Nobody would rob her of her opportunity to rise again, not Arlandus, not the priestess and never a filthy sky-pirate!
Charging them down the adrenaline rush was almost more than she could handle. Every nerve ending of her revived body alive with the heat and excitement of raging battle. The handle of her sword gripped tightly in her hand. The drawn twin dagger in the other. Screaming she pierced the heavens as she punctured the heart of the first man she reached. Blood, crimson and slick burst forth from his chest covering her in its warmth. Drenched she ceased to exist as she had before, no longer Armatrine Dupree the quiet obedient acolyte but Armatrine Dupree a vengeful warrior spirit, ready to battle down hordes of foes and take down any who saw fit to make her blood their business. She twirled and swung the twin blades, duel wielding death itself. Storming tempest of ire she became, dancing a morose ballet of violence and crimson. So embedded within the berth of her rage she became that she could not tell where it ended and she began, at one with the teachings of the masters, at one with the fierce vehemence in her heart. Around her others able to join the dance did so, less ably. Her affinity to the battlefield surprising even herself. Where had this raw fire dwelled when she'd needed to dispatch the boy? Her confusion spurred her forward. An unstoppable force of calamity against the oncoming brutality. Onslaught her mistress, her master, her one reason.
One man, thrice her size, saw her coming. His ugly bearded head marked with the scars of many skirmishes such as this. A story of bloodshed carved upon his face. An ornate work of rampage. Raising an enormous war hammer he brought down a blow she'd barely time to dodge. The ground crashed around her in a crescendo of rippling shockwaves almost knocking her to the floor. There was no time to allow herself to become used to the trembling ground as he struck again. As hard as the pounding of cannons the sound rang out, from the floor to the sky it echoed. A drum beat to march to the parade of death. Again she dodged, as quick as lightning, as deft as the most savvy of warriors among them. Ducking, she struck the back of his legs. Not enough to amputate the limbs but to simply crack the bone and send blood gushing in scarlet waves. As he stumbled and fell she finished his life with a nimble stroke, beheading him. She moved onward, the dance continued, in her ears sweet music of her own making. The ring of steel upon steel and the wet padding of blade upon flesh. Screaming the lyrical accompaniment to her destructive concerto, foes fell before her blade, unable to land a blow upon her. She felt it upon her skin. The power of the Three. It lingered from her time in the pool still. Its purple tinge still fresh in her mind and evident on the aura of her body. It would not last for much longer, yet it would not need to. It would only need to last long enough to bring enough of them down. There were children among the survivors. Those innocent to the world and its cruel ways. A victim of that cruelty she may be yet she would protect them with all she had.
A mighty sound rang from the great ship. Cataclysmic. The loudness of horns among the heat of battle. In the burning fire of the temple ruins, the stench of crimson and the stench of brown filled the air, intermingling to form an acridity of such offence to the nostrils she found herself struggling to refrain from vomiting.
“Sound the retreat!” Around her they shouted. The horns rang louder, deafeningly persistent.
What was left of the attacking force became the defending as they fled, taking whatever they had looted, whatever they could carry from the battle, not mere trinkets from what she saw, but items of great value and power, dangerous in the wrong hands. Dread filled her. This is what she had wrought upon those who cared for her. This is what she wrought upon Neta.
Around her bodies lay strewn, both Order members and pirates alike. She had served as a piece of a greater machine, for that she felt some worth, yet so much death lingered, so much for which she was responsible. The maimed and those left standing could only look at her. Staring with the wild eyes of amazement.
A commotion behind her drew forth her attention unto itself. “We have one!”
A survivor! A prisoner! Amazement filled her mind.
She ran to where the sound emanated to stare upon a familiar face. Finally, she lost her bile.
~ Netan Royal Palace~
~ Seventeenth of the Smith, Song of Joy~
Keeper of secrets and secret himself
A dark in the light
A shadow in the summer sky
A blight in the eye of his creators.
-Mad mutterings of Jezebel Crane, witch, fortune teller and housewife
Through new eyes all the world glistened with gold, opulence and opportunity. The chances never taken in life so clear to him now in death. No, not death, that was wrong, but it wasn't life either. Not in the sense he'd always known.
Not as he'd understood it from his birth to his end. Something else, something he'd learn. A midpoint between the light of existence and the darkness of the vanquished. The touch of the goddess still lingered on his new skin, fresh with the energy of youth, all ailments cleared, all lingering conditions diminished. He wondered if this was how things might have been, in the time before. If he'd lived as a different man. There would be no use dwelling, of course his mind would take him from time to time to that grey place, where mired with self-doubt he'd stumble, questioning the parameters of her orders. Yet nay, here with a mission he was, so his mission he'd fulfil. That would be the expectation, that was why she brought him back. A man such as Mitrick Tenebris could not, would not, allow himself to dwell upon what he could not afford to be morose about.
He carefully fingered the pewter bottle hanging at his neck. Ornate scratchings carved upon the soft metal surface, depictions of runes. Cold to the touch it rested between his newly formed collar bones as a reminder of who he had become, and the purpose of it. His mind turned to the murder. Sweet and innocent she'd come to his bed, willing and reckless with the excitement of youth. Thunder in her veins as she submitted to his charms. A spiral to the throes of wanton ecstasy, and her demise. Her soul left her body as he'd slit her throat, so slick, so sweet. Her stifled cries of horror. His soft hand against her mouth as he'd finished. Her life force leaving her and entering the bottle. Now it belonged to him, how he possessed it! Possessed her for all time. It was as Beocantes told him it would be, as she had promised, oh his sweet dark love.
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