The shame of Peregrinus was
in his inability to live a normal life.
* Nostradamus Chasing his Eye: A Painting.
Mere sank into a deep trance, surrounded by his Hands and their pairs, and his pair, he thought he could feel a sliver of the Calm. It slipped away even as he caught its scent, disappearing like a dream, he didn’t bother chasing it. Today they were going to make history, build a new dream.
“Well, this is it” May started, then turned to him “Fuck it.”
Taking in the expected faces of the seven surrounding him,Mere shrugged “I’m terrible at speeches, you already know that.”
“You could at least try.” Heuri mumbled.
The aptly named MourningStar began announcing their orbit entrance. That was his cue, with a flourish Mere got up and walked to one of the port doors as the others did the same, the long tubes that masqueraded as the ship’s wreckingball spikes were insertion points, ready to drop Contemplatives from any direction. Mere stopped, turned and ginned “I hope some of you read some interesting novels, it’s going to be avery boring time otherwise.” then he dropped through.
Before he hit outer space proper, he was Contemplating. Sinking into his Inner World he saw himself for what he was, a raging wild fire burning emerald green across a landscape so hot and scarred it boiled, then he manifested it. His entrance boiled away the top atmosphere bringing death on any non-Contemplative within his reach, which he smiled, was a lot.
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Still the priests of the Wakener cults were the ones gathered here, and they were Contemplatives, He slammed into earth and there were cries of pain for half the globe. His World lashed out, imposing itself on reality and tearing it into a new world, one where everything burnt.
A thousand Worlds attacked him, a jumble of wells so deep no light reached their bottoms, dreamscapes misty and populated by ghosts, skies filled with clouds intensely torn by lightning strikes. They were inconsequential, some clashed and cancelled each other out, the rest, he burnt. He understood himself, more than they did, He was Fire, a consuming terror and hey would not stop him. The extraction points on the ship opened as he withdrew his World, letting soldiers fall like seeds, amidst that flood he felt seven other minds reach and touch his own. It was a poor thing for the soldiers who would be trapped here, but Mere didn’t think like the council, he didn’t think on terms of surrender and redemption, he wouldn’t wait for their souls to be harvested and given another chance or worse be lucky and float off into the void.
He tapped into their minds and there was a calm, before the storm unleashed. A sickening, drowning pressure called at him, pulling him into its depth. He was stuck in the misty clouds choking on air because there was a lot of it and he couldn’t catch any. Ablock of stone weighed heavily on his shoulders, crushing him beneath it, finely grinding him to dust. Mere asserted himself, he was Fire, pure rage at anything and he would burn. The mindmeld was instant, a flood of memories not his own, entering him and changing him, he reached out with the will of four. Four Anchors, Four Sources, each perfect and. a prodigy. He reached out with the will of four and changed, the world resisted but the force of eight Inner Worlds combined was not nothing, they chained the souls on land, in sky, in swirling depths where nightmare fish tore and attacked without respite, barely letting grow before resuming. HE-no, THEY reached through those souls and found the right links, found the right souls bound by oath and trust and promise and belief and wrenched them through bringing them to suffer a fate worse than nightmare. Time didn’t exist here, but there was change, sudden and violent as souls were shunted from one hell to another, an unending roulette that bordered on the mind-breaking.
It was Revenge.