Days passed like boiling molasses upon the soldiers. Each excursion a struggle, each encounter with the unknown seeding their hearts with fear. Sitting on the stump of a long ago cut-down tree, mindlessly watching the sun set upon the horizon, he rested as Gleur and a couple others made the preparations for the ritual. Twenty-six misshapen awaited their fate inside the cages. Ald wondered which one would Father consume first, and this wasn’t an unbiased thought. He had hopes. The one that had killed a team mate by decapitation, a collection of transparent bone blades with greedy mouths at the ends of each one. All these blades converged in the center of this cylindrical abomination, showing its beating, misshapen heart that had way more chambers than any animal needed. A heart that doubled as a stomach, judging by its connections to the mouths. Ald wanted this one to either die first, or whenever it would suffer the most.
But tiredness was becoming a heavy burden to bear. His task was concluded, Gleur had said so. Yet his eyelids were screaming for relief, his mind slower than usual. Not even the rousing effect of Tereptes made a dent on this sleepiness anymore. And yet he had to see the task concluded. He had to witness this horrid undertaking that was the summoning of Father. To feel in his own flesh this atrocity he was helping to commit. It was only fair.
He stood from the stump and paced a bit about. There was a pond not far from this clearing in the forest, and maybe the cold water would help him give a last push to his slowed-down mind. “Be right back, people, I need to stretch these legs a bit.”
“You are free to leave, as is everyone else. No need to announce your departure.” Gleur said while he painted the runes over the ground, not dedicating even a brief glance to Ald.
Gleur didn’t want them, the tree of his helpers this day, to be there. Ald, Halge, and another one of the male soldiers, Gesselt. All the others had gone home: they wanted nothing to do with the whole business anymore. And while Gleur appreciated help setting the rune work, lighting the torches and securing the perimeter beforehand, he wanted to face Father alone. Some wanted to do so out of greed or secrecy, such that they would be the only one to ask him questions. Some wanted to do it out of shame for what they had done to the brothers and sisters fed to the beast. None of these was the case of Gleur. He had seen the summoners of Father fall prey to panic before, panic that led to them leaving the protective circles, becoming indistinguishable from another offering. Once the ritual had started, he would be unable to protect the others from themselves, and he worried for Gesselt and Halge. Not for Ald, though, as Unkindness would not let his little new toy break so soon. Or, rather, he worried for Ald the most, despite knowing he would get through the ritual alive. There was no fate that he knew of that could be considered worse than being eaten by Father. Yet there were bound to be many known by Unkindness.
“I am just going around for a little walk by the pond, Gleur, I’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Ah, don’t drink that pond’s water.” Headed with a less serious tone, never stopping drawing the runes for the main containment circle. “I had soldiers that were forced to make a temporal dwelling out of the bathroom after doing so.”
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Ald chuckled at this, and then yawned. “If the water is clear enough I will use a bit to wet my cheeks, see if the cold wakes me up. But drinking? Don’t fear me drinking water that has gone stagnant. I am not counted amongst the few select enjoyers of insect larvae for dinner.”
Then Ald parted in direction of the pond. Soon night would fall, and night among those trees was the kind that absorbs and asphyxiates, the kind whose shadows hide the monsters Felsians merely feared finding in every other shadow.
Turning left by the old forgewood tree, Ald found the pond, merely a few hundred steps from the clearing. The water was crystalline, and on the pond’s bank, a lizard sated its thirst. The little animal paid Ald no major attention has he approached, for he had things to do. A lizard’s life wasn’t in any way simpler than a Felsian’s. He had to bathe in the morning sun to be able to move comfortably, he had to hide for the night so he would not end up as a snack for the things that in it lurked. During the hours of daylight, he had to hunt some beetles, not to starve, and the tiny buggers were tricky, fast, even harmful on occasions. And much more that Ald didn’t think about as he envied the lizard’s apparently careless life.
Ald approached the pond from the side opposite from the animal, given it ample route for escape. The thing didn’t care. Felsians were big and fast compared to them, but only the odd brother or sister had been fond of reptile meat. The lizards of the forest were probably used to seeing trueshapen felsians pass by without minding them, like pigeons in the city square.
Deciding to not mind the little one anymore, Ald crouched in front of the water, seeing his reflection on it. he reached for his dirty cheek and stared for a second at the similarity between his dark nails and his eye bags. These last days had been unkind to everyone involved in the excursions, and given he had only gotten scratches and little cuts, he had been lucky. He cupped his hands and gathered some water to throw on his face. After the refreshing splash, he opened his eyes, and, as the little waves on the surface settled, against the tiny pebbles on the bottom, an image of a woman with a mesh of ravens for hair was projected. The birds were deformed, with eyes and beaks flowing along the feathers and wings at seemingly random intervals.
“If you expect for Kali to meet Elvisat in the afterlife one day, you will have to cross the Worldvein.”
Ald clawed the waters, if just to disperse the image, but Unkindness seemed imperturbable, to be painted not upon the surface of the pond, but in spite of it.
“Shush, Unkindness. We are going to summon Father and will know how to return the rains.”
The image on the pond shook her head as her hair cawed and screeched.
“If you meet your father today, you are not my disgraced chosen one.”
“Then I am going to meet my father, if you excuse me.” Ald said, standing from where he was, his heart filled with doubt. Unkindness never lied, Gleur had said, but the powers of Father were bound to be incomparable to any of its children, even a Masterwork. Father would give them a solution, perhaps one that required sacrifice, but sensical in the end. Unkindness just spouted out riddles and mockery. Unkindness promised paths to damnation in the words she didn’t say, in the loaded questions she didn’t ask nor answer. Father would accept damnation of a few as currency to buy the salvation of the many. Father was outright evil, Unkindness perhaps benevolent. Unkindness had a promise; Father was a certainty to obtain a result, a, if one wants tragic but needed, result.
Ald spat on the pond, and the image of Unkindness was instantly replaced by his own reflection. He had to return with the others: the ritual was bound to begin soon, and he didn’t want to miss it.