The city of ghosts retreated from view as a gas lantern sputtered to life. Ruby light swam outwards from within the iron and glass enclosure, struggling for every inch of agency against the hellish downpour. In the dim haze, he was barely able to make out a door fighting bitterly to remain on its rusted metal hinges. He stepped forward, feeling his bones rattle as he seized the handle in his free hand and wrenched the aperture open. His flooded boots smacked against the wood grain as the door violently screeched close behind him.

He grimaced, draining the water from his boots between the one of the many rotten holes in the floor paneling which, he decided, was far more trouble than it was worth due to having to juggle the lantern and the boots between his hands, and then shed the slick leather rags that had made a miserable attempt to keep the deluge at bay.

That done, he lifted his lantern and squinted his eyes at the shadows that danced along the walls of the dimly lit hovel in cadence with the drum of the rain. He flinched instinctively as a sudden, incomprehensible murmur rattled from the corner of the room. Without a thought, he pivoted on his heels with all the grace of a dancer until he was squarely faced with what he knew to have been the origin of the sound. In the corner of the small chamber was a box, or perhaps a cage, masked behind a lattice of writhing metallic bands twisting in impossible geometry that scraped at the back of his eyes.

A ghastly cackle arose from the box, and he stifled a shiver.

“Damian… it’s so wonderful to see you. From whom do I owe the pleasure?”

Damian took a step forward.

“The sanctum sent me.”

“Oh? Always sending a meddling butcher when things start to become interesting! kehehe...” Came the disembodied voice. It seemed to speak through him, as if it were conversing with his shadow. The voice was old, primeval even, yet belied in its derisive rasp a former nobility.

He felt a sudden wetness... it was drool. He wiped his lip and bit his tongue until his mouth tasted of blood.

“How many came before me?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The cage glowed softly, “Three.”

“Survivors?”

“Not for long.” It cackled.

He knew if it weren’t for the mechanisms keeping the disembodied consciousness sealed within the cage that merely being in the same room with it would have had him raving mad in short order. Even still, locked away as it was, he could feel the astral tendrils of the thing’s subconscious begin to invade and violate the farthest reaches of his psyche.

“And my tools?” Damian spoke with a glance of contempt. He did not wish to be here any longer than was necessary.

“In a rush? I suppose you would be… Wouldn’t want to find your companions in pieces now, would you?”

The silence lingered.

“Bah, fine then... Your tools.” It spat.

The pale glow surrounding the cage grew as the darkness came alive. The shadows coiled like a pit of snakes, pooling into two silent maelstroms that rose from the floorboards. The shadows tightened, congealing together as if to clot a wound. As the veil surrounding the core withdrew, the figure of its creation took shape.

The first was a single glove that drank in light like a pit into the void.

The second was an unremarkable metal ring with four equidistant trigonal indents.

In the next instant both the ring and the glove were attached to Damians hands, the glove on the left and ring on the right, and with them came a phantom pain as if they had swallowed his limbs along with it. He flexed his gloved hand and, though he felt the muscles spasm under the effort, he could not confidently state that it was his hand and not some hole cut out of reality. He had been trained in the ways of mental sovereignty for the past decade in preparation for the use of the protean cleft, but now he was faced with the thing itself. He could feel it wrap around his thoughts like a lead blanket and burrow its way into his subconscious.

He could hear it. Whispering to the very root of his existence, clawing for agency over his mind. It was quiet enough now that he could maintain control easily enough, but even so, almost imperceptibly, he could feel it begin to germinate. A strand of a will greater than his would undoubtedly unravel his own, in time. The only salvation was to finish his work before it was allowed to root. For now, however, it was a necessary risk.

The shadows withdrew back into nothingness, and an oppressive air settled on the room. He realized that the rain had stopped. He turned away from the cage and grabbed his long coat.

Damians skin prickled as if doused by ice water: its attention was focused on him.

“Until our next meeting, butcher... I look forward to seeing what you become.”

Damian threw his coat over him and stepped out into the moonlit night. The ghosts awaited him.