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The Shattered Oracle

Glimpses of Things to Come

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Seemingly malevolent shadows danced across the jagged and organic ornaments of the walls. Every inch of the place seemed to be alive, slick, and shiny with some sort of living substance. All of it looked like some hybrid of living tissues, metals, bones, and unknown gems.

The air inside the room was cold and moist. The illumination within was both dazzling with its shimmering colors and dim enough to strain an average person’s eyes making it impossible to focus. It was too much to take in with the limited senses of a mortal. Due to these unceasing strains, Merithault was beginning to suffer the early effects of vertigo and madness.

She cautiously stepped forwards with her hands lightly tapping some of the outcroppings in front of her and to her sides. She had to ground herself while moving forward as if blind. She did not trust her senses as they were constantly assaulted with maddening and shifting sensations. A feeling of slick mucus with one touch. A feeling of cold metal with another. A jolting pain of multiple sharp points penetrating skin with one. A sickening ecstasy of the finest silks brushing her skin with the next.

She could see before her some sort of dark obsidian outcroppings jutting out haphazardly from the flooring beneath her. Every touch sent her dizzy with sensory dissonance. Her eyes told her one thing and her touch another. Her ears were ringing with a cacophony of sounds; insanely blaring trumpets and the frantic roaring of a tempestuous sea. At the same time, it felt deathly silent as if she hovered inside of a vacuum. Her ears hearing nothing, but the sounds getting through and ripping into her mind, despite.

Her nose and her mouth were assaulted with sickly sweet smells of death and putrefaction, but as soon as the smell of decay became overbearing — choking — it would quickly morph to that of the finest bouquets of flowers and herbs. Her tongue felt alive and slithering inside of her skull. Constantly twitching and wanting to break free to experience all the dissonant flavors it could capture. The pressure in her sinuses was unbearable, reaching from the bridge of her nose across to her ears and down to her jaw, like some immense pressure ready to pop her skull apart.

Above and in front of her within the swirling masses of glimmering colors and insane hallucinations — in the center of the room — was a large dais. That is, what Merithault thought with all the disorienting glimpses her eyes were assaulted with would seem like a large dais. Above it, vortexes and fractalized patterns of light moved in organic ways shifting between colors, tastes, smells, sounds, and horripilating sensations. The light closer to the elevated area was a shimmering white with stripes and ribbons of color that looked very much like the auroras that continually encircled the Scintillating Crown of the World. A sight that she had seen many times in her travels abroad. Encircling the illuminated platform were metallic and organic reliefs raising up like scoured and glistening gums topped with fangs and juts of jagged bone that looked as if they were made of solid mercury.

Before her seemed like only a stone’s throw distance to the dais, her destination in this mind-shattering place. Every step forward seemed like an eternity. Merithault felt every jolting movement as if it was a step through time itself, backward to the very origins of the world. She pressed forward, even as every instinct flaring off in deepest recesses of her mind screamed for her to run back the way she had entered. She felt like she would die, or suffer some far worse fate once she reached her goal, but with every shred of willpower she could muster, she pressed forwards.

She reached out with her arms, feeling as if the dais were within reach. Her muscles were tensed and sore, her fingers numb with sensation. As the tip of her right hand seemed to press forward coming within distance of the surface before her, she had to recoil.

All around her, the sounds without source began to pitch to even higher and more frantic tones. The myriad trumpets began airing their cries louder, and faster beginning to take on a steady rhythm. The crashing of waves seemed to slow, becoming a deepening rumble that shook the bone and tissues of her skull. The tones melted together, becoming like that of a heartbeat. Each moment the heartbeat grew louder, faster, deeper, and more intense.

Through squinted eyes, she could see the light from the dais grow ever more frantic and blinding. The lights and sensations deepened. Instead of shapes and vagueness, they seemed to coalesce into shards of memories forgotten to time. Ephemeral figures flared up out of the light, taking form for only the briefest of moments to give out a scream of primal horror, a moan of depraved lust, or declare some alien epiphany in a language lost to time, then fade away into nothingness.

Merithault closed her eyes against the onslaught of visions. She grabbed at the sides of her skull pressing at her ears to try and vainly stop the sounds that ripped into and through her. As soon as she felt like she could take no more there came a sudden shift or an internal popping like something had ruptured inside of her. With that came a silence, an absence of sensation. The feeling of vertigo mounted until she surrendered to it. Feeling as if she were free of the world’s weight. As if she were flying above the world, or falling into the deepest abyss.

She opened her eyes at last and saw only a brilliant white light. She lowered her hands from her ears, looking down to them. Her hands were coated in some strange humor. A clear mucous substance, filled with black veins, pulsating. The veined mucus was mixed with crimson blood. Perhaps her ears had ruptured finally and this mixture of humors was the result, or perhaps some transformation had occurred within her to cause this. She began to panic, but felt an immense warmth inside of her, and as quickly as the feeling emerged, it was washed away by a feeling of detachment.

She let her hands drop to her sides, the blood and mucus dribbling away below her into an illuminated chasm of nothingness. Her feet were free of the ground, as there was no longer anything below them. The fabric of her clothing whipped around her in a torrent of wind that seemed to not exist to her tactile senses. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out, nor breath for that matter. Here, her previous feelings of madness and terror were slowly turning to a blissful feeling of peace and comfort, as if she were curled up in her bed, thousands of miles away, lost within a most pleasant dream.

The sense of time in this place was distorted. As soon as Merithault’s mind could seize onto a memory of a moment passing, it slipped away, seeming to fall and stretch out infinitely. The moments of life felt less like a trickle of sand passing away as each grain broke free and plummeted into nothingness, like that of the normal world, but more like the endless flowing of water into a great precipice. Stretching and contorting with an elastic quality that made it impossible for a mortal mind to form or recall any memories, at all. If this was what death felt like, she felt like she could exist here, forever, in peace.

As she began to finally surrender all of herself to this peaceful void, about to close her eyes for what could be the final time, the peace was broken. It started as a shimmering ahead of her. A dimming of the brilliant light. It moved towards her like waves. Stuttering blackness, rippling towards her, shredding the light apart and seeming to reveal the light for the deception it was. A white room given the illusion of depth, encircled by a great black void beyond. A black void forcing its way through, ripping the illusion of light away. Freeing Merithault from a prison of peace, and into a liberating void of fear.

Every ripple and tear at the light was accompanied by an immense buzzing. A sense of time and place returned, and with the last shreds of the light being ripped away, the feeling of floating turned to that of perpetually falling. Falling through a void of darkness.

That is when the voices began to speak.

The voices formed out of the waves of darkness. The buzzing became the howls and cries of innumerable voices slamming into one another. Female, male, old, young. All different languages and dialects. Snippets of known words, ancient tongues, and forgotten ramblings. There were cries of happiness, cries of sorrow, screams of pain and heartfelt laughter. The voices were in disarray, becoming a cacophonous mess, soon taking order. The voices layering on top of one another, harmonizing and then blaring words as if they were a command from the gods themselves. These words being understood on almost an instinctual level.

“Little… Soul… Seeks… Wisdom.”

It took several moments for Merithault to collect her senses enough to realize the voices were speaking to her. The black void around her felt both tightening and exposing at the same time. She raised her head and looked forwards, what she thought was forwards, into the great black abyss.

“Yes.” Merithault took a deep breath and was surprised that her lungs were still able to draw in what felt like air in this alien place. “I seek to know wisdom and understanding of what is to befall my people.”

The void around her seemed to shift, ever so slightly. Dim points of light began to pierce the unending blackness, like stars revealing themselves slowly during a sunset. The points appeared randomly, starting slow and growing in speed until the entire void was filled with glittering points of light.

“Then… That… Is… What… We… Provide.”

There was a delay that only lasted a few moments between the last word the voices spoke, to when all forms of madness began to break loose, once again. The points of light, now revealing themselves to be distant stars, began to slowly move, gathering speed and then whirling around at a dizzying pace. The glow of the stars began to shift and change, turning red, then blue. The lights moved in patterns and flows that overwhelmed Merithault’s eyes. Shifting nebulae appeared out of the void and took on organic dances as their colors changed and their dimensions twisted.

That is when the first of the visions tore through into her mind.

***

The chittering, eyeless beast before her pulled back its lips into a snarl that resembled the rictus grin of a rotted corpse. That snarl revealed, beneath withered and almost transparent lips, the long, yellowed, razor-sharp teeth the creature held between its oversized jaws. The teeth were covered in a glistening, thick, greyish saliva that vibrated and sputtered out from gaps between its fangs as the beast hissed and roared all its menace at her.

The space in the beast’s skull where its eyes should have been were replaced with mottled bulbs of tumorous flesh that trailed, on each side, around its bald skull in tear-drop shapes. Its jaws were immense and distorted to accommodate the fangs within. Bony protrusions, some spiked, some dulled, others shattered, erupted along the edge of the jawline and up around where the ears also should have been, to a ridged crest at the base of its skull.

This hideous head, a nightmare of the humanoid form, pivoted and moved side-to-side like the predatory weavings of a cobra about to strike. The point of movement being the creature’s thin and sinewy neck. Nothing more than strained muscle, and jutting lumps of spine, all covered in almost transparent, sickly skin, coated in the same rancid slime it drooled through its teeth.

The monster was clothed in nothing more than ancient, threadbare rags that did nothing to give its hideous form any sense of modesty or protection. The tatters were draped seemingly out of habit, or perhaps mockery of human coverings, not really for any actual use. Each segment of cloth looked like a patch or a stain of mold and grime, soaked through with blood and filth.

More pressing than any of the details of the creature’s form, and only slightly more threatening than its chittering maw, were the long, sharp, and gore-encrusted claws on its long, spindle-like fingers it held in a neutral pose. The beast’s claws were jagged, dirty, covered in blood and rancid chunks of meat. Each one was almost twice the length of the average fang in its skull. It held its hands at its sides, bony elbows jutting forward and bent, keeping its hands in front of it, threatening with them while also providing protection for itself.

Merithault could feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, screaming and howling like a waterfall of blood-lust. Beneath the desire for immediate action, was exhaustion, every muscle groaned in pain, every nerve was firing at once, and every strip of flesh on her body felt like a gaping wound. As she moved into this body, feeling all that it said to her, the myriad chorus of pain, blood-lust, frenzy and fear, she also began to feel ecstasy. To the body she now inhabited, this was life, constantly on the verge of death.

She could feel her teeth clench, blood mixing with saliva, pressing through them and over her bottom lip. She felt a howl grow from inside of her, the muscles of her abdomen pressing tightly, her lungs ready to press out the air inside of them. Her hand, white-knuckled, seizing onto the hilt of a blade, pointing downward and raised above her head. The leather wrapped around the hilt, feeling like they could give away in a snap beneath her grip, the metal, hungry for blood and sweat.

With one fluid motion, she felt her body shift, her hips turning away from the beast before her. Two quick steps backward, as if she would turn her back from the creature and run away. A moment of panic, and then a moment of cold, hard, certainty.

With the first pivot and step, the creature shoved its arms forwards, grasping out at her to rake at her exposed flank. With the second step, the creature dropped its hands, just a few inches lower than before and took its own first step to run after her. This is all that she needed, the slightest exposure, and she gladly took it.

The motions were deceptions, taking advantage of the creature’s limited senses. With the last step, Merithault turned on her ankles, feeling a muscle scream in her thigh under the strain, she used her hips to turn, sword still raised in her left hand, and her right coming up to palm the pummel for leverage. She used her right arm now to twist her sword, hand pushing against hand, as she slid her sword down to her left at a slight angle to her target.

The murderous dance was almost completed, every action prepared, every muscle straining against one another, and she let it go in one satisfying motion. The sword pulled rightward across and forwards, the end of the blade piercing into the monster’s flesh just above the collarbone. The force driving the sword brought it harder and further behind the creature’s breastplate, piercing internal organs until it found its way towards the heart.

The creature raised its clawed hands in desperation. The creature’s right claw was useless and too far away now from Merithault to be of any danger, the left claw, however, limply tore into the exposed shoulder of her body. Her nerves slowly filling her mind with red hot whispers, finally turning to brilliant lightning flashes of rage.

In this moment that slowed down almost to stillness, Merithault soon realized she was holding her breath since her first pivot and step. The howl within her was reaching a point that it could no longer be held back. Like a pack of frothing and baying dogs on a leash, in a frenzy to be loosed at their prey, she let the dogs free. She let all the rage inside of her free in the form of sound. The creature howled back, the chittering turning into a mewling cry of pain and fear. The last scream of a being realizing its own mortality, and knowing it had been bested by a superior predator.

Now Merithault could feel her body shoving hard, back to its original position, and with this leverage, her right hand shoved her sword harder and deeper into the chest cavity of the beast. Thick, black, ichorous blood began to well up from the wound. The howling of the creature became a sputter, as blood and slime welled up in its throat. The creature gave four more hard gasps, moving its face towards her own, almost if they were lovers embracing. Then, the creature’s head went limp, falling forwards. Its right arm dropping, its left sliding from her shoulder, with thin strips of her flesh trailing from her wound, and new daubs of her blood now painting its rancorous claws.

Although Merithault had never known this kind of primal satisfaction before, the body she was in loved every second of it. The sensations felt as normal and as pleasant as anything she had ever experienced. The only drop in sensation came when she found herself still holding the short sword in her left hand, backing up, slightly. She let the newly dead corpse of the beast fall forwards, collapsing like an abandoned doll. With that, the realization that the blood-lust had stopped, and the tiresome work of freeing the blade now must begin.

***

The vertigo was overwhelming, and Merithault could feel her senses slowly returning to her again. Feeling like she was pulling her head up from a pool of water after having her head forced downwards by some intensely powerful force. She could feel the strained muscles of her body calming, the blood-lust seeping away back into peace. The memories of the body she was in fading away.

Her mind began to reel and search for answers into what she had experienced. Whose body was she in. Why would these entities show her such a scene. What was there to be gleaned from the memories she now had instilled into her mind.

Just as Merithault drew in breath to speak a question, the vast entity she was currently communing with seemed to pick up on her very thoughts. Before the first syllable could pass by her lips, she was plunged downwards once again. Thrust through time into what felt like the same body she had just moments ago escaped.

***

She was chasing the shadow, running forwards and soon engulfed in a curtain of supernatural darkness. Merithault was following after, trying to catch up. Her feet padding silently on strange and seemingly hollow sets of stones beneath her. The stones, through leather-strap sandals, felt like they were made of obsidian, slick to the touch, glassy, yet textured just enough to allow her to run headlong into the darkness ahead of her.

The sensations of intense emotion pounded in her mind, the body she now inhabited was conflicted, weakened and maddened. The figure that disappeared into the shadows, that she was chasing after, was familiar. More than that, the figure was someone that this body loved as if they were a sibling or family member. It was a mixture of genuine concern and playful rivalry that only siblings or close cousins could hold for one another. It was that concern and love that drove her forwards, despite the danger of the shadows that seemed to pull at her, and the dark chasm that snapped at her heels beyond the thin bridge she ran across.

There was something else in this body, not just her. It was something sinister. A creeping madness had taken hold of the body she was in. The sensation felt like dark, cold tendrils wrapping themselves around her, leeching away her humanity. Replacing it with something twisted and perverse.

Just as quickly as the feelings of concern for the person she was chasing had come up, they were doused out by this other thing inside. Feelings of resentment, rage, frustration and disgust welled up, quickly. She soon began to hate the form she was running towards. The form of a disgusting coward, a simpering fool, a liability who got everyone killed.

She could feel the tendrils grow tighter and tighter with each step. Something was outside of this body as well as inside. Out there in the endless dark, and this body moved closer to it with every step.

A memory flashed through Merithault’s mind, quick glimpses and images followed by distorted feelings. It was the face of the young man she chased after. The boy had a startled, fearful look to his wide eyes and blood spattered across his face. He was hunched over, sitting on stones. He was staring downwards at a sword on the ground, looking at it like it would reach out and hurt him.

She felt the body she was in talk to him, first calmly, like a family member who was concerned with his well-being, then quickly turning to rage and disgust. The body called him a coward. Told him that all the death was his fault. He was useless and a fool. He would never pass his rite of adulthood. Unless he was unable to pick up that damned sword right now, he might as well impale himself on it and save this body the trouble.

As soon as the rage bubbled up, confusion took hold. The body fought against the alien feelings in the only way it knew how. It kicked the sword to the young man and ran away, headlong into the dark to find new creatures to kill. She could feel the body’s fear, the feelings that jumped from one extreme to another. It was the outside influence, cajoling, nudging and twisting every emotion this body had. Every memory in this body’s mind. The other thing wanted this body to hate this boy, and it was winning.

The chase had now ended, and the body Merithault was in had caught up to the young man ahead of her. He had stopped on a platform made of the same obsidian as the bridge that she had just crossed. The shadows were broken slightly by a cold, indigo and silver shimmering that was coming off of a great, jagged outcropping suspended above. The jutting thing before the young man was shaped like an inverted pyramid that stretched off into the blackness above. The thing was immense and although the outside of it glimmered as if it was made out of ice or gemstone, the translucency of it revealed some gigantic, living form within.

The sensations and memories from the body became heavily distorted at this time. Something from inside that great monolith was directly influencing the body Merithault was inside of, almost as if it was trying to push her out. The young man spoke words in a primal tongue that seemed almost like the language Merithault herself spoke, but not quite. The roots of the words and meanings were there, but many things were lost in garbled translation. The boy said something about treasure and then the memory jumped away.

Blackness and the screaming of something monstrous filled her mind now. Amber eyes peered out to her from that blackness, drawing closer with every heartbeat. Tentacles reached out and Merithault could feel them entwine around her, some of them seizing onto parts of her skin, others glancing across her as if playfully. A glint of light played off of teeth in a mouth that opened mere inches away from her face. The mouth stretching upwards into a sadistic grin that extended far more than any human face could naturally stretch.

She was thrown back into the body she was in, the memories were no longer distorted. It felt like the clarity and ecstasy that the body had felt when killing that creature earlier. It was a sensation of immense satisfaction, almost like joy.

She looked downwards and saw the gaping, startled eyes of the young man that this body was emotionally attached to. Behind those eyes was fear and conflicted thoughts desperately trying to understand a deep betrayal. The young man choked hard, as frothing blood sputtered over his lips. She looked further downwards to the sword that was impaled, down to the very hilt, into his chest. Wrapped around that hilt was the body’s fingers.

A voice soon bubbled up out of the body that she was in, a voice that was cold and alien. “…We are free.”

***

Merithault was thrown back to her own body once again, her head coming up for gasps of air. Her whole body shaking violently. The memories that the entity was assaulting her with were too vivid for her to handle. It was hard for her to separate herself from the feelings she felt while inside that body. The violation of one’s very soul as something dark and otherworldly wormed its way in.

She closed her eyes tight, clutched at her head, curled into a ball and began spinning forwards in the void around her. It felt like the dark thing that had latched onto the body she had inhabited had followed her back to her own space and time. That the tendrils of darkness still reached out at her. It took a few moments before she could fully sever any connection to that thing in her mind, realize who she was and in what chaotic space she was in.

She opened her eyes, feeling more resolved than before. She reached out with her consciousness, not saying a word, and let the entity know she was ready. Immediately, before her thought could be finished, she was thrown through time once again.

***

The smell of burning bodies was overwhelming, choking and covering the area in a sickly, rancid haze. Piles of stripped corpses were being torched by garish silhouettes, and others built, as more shadowed forms pulled bodies from the rubble of the nearby citadel. Some of those bodies weren’t quite dead yet, struggling in vain against the shadowed horde, their screams echoing throughout the still night.

Merithault was not in the body she was in before, this was someone wholly different. A completely new set of memories and sense of being. She did not feel as close to this body as she had with the previous one, and the personality of this individual was more independent from her perceptions.This body was built for warfare but did not delight in slaughter and violence. This body belonged to a man that upheld peace above all else. A man who was frightened, alone, desperate and exhausted beyond what his body could sustain.

She felt love and longing in this body for someone very dear. She felt fear that the person this man loved might be one of those bodies burning in those heaps, or one of those wounded few, screaming, fighting against the shadows that held them, killed them, and dragged them into the fires.

Every time that fear and worry flared up inside of this man, it was doused quickly by personal resolve. This man was adamant that his lover was not among the suffering or the dead. The woman he loved had gotten away and was doing her best to protect some person of standing. He knew this lover was unafraid, stalwart and devoted to her duty. This man must be the same, unafraid, unfazed by the carnage around him, devoted to his cause. To get out of this madness and alert his country to these unknown invaders that had taken a fully outfitted citadel in a single night. These unholy abominations sweeping through his people’s lands like a great wave of pestilence and filth.

This man welled up with resolve, goading his mind with a sense of duty to the point that he wanted to run headlong into the army ahead of them, and scream out his courage. He did not, he was rational and quickly composed himself. He looked down to the molded brass armor he wore. It was too reflective in the fires and in the moonlit night. He slowly took off his chest plate, his gauntlets, his helmet that had protected him for many years. He shrugged off the symbols of his station and his duty with great reluctance. He had upheld his role during many great battles, but this battle was lost. There was no sense in keeping up his station any longer. His duty was now higher than that of a mere soldier, his duty was to his people, and the only use he had was to survive.

He took advantage of his darkened hiding place to hide his armor, clothes, and his weapons, which had served him well in surviving the fall of his home. He kept only his underclothes, his leather boots, a small belt worn as a bandoleer, and a dagger for protection. He must travel light and unnoticed. He must get out of this place before more of the shadowed beasts would uncover any other hideouts he could use. He would have to use the preoccupation the monsters had with gathering corpses for their fires to take leave immediately.

He leaned to a shattered windowsill within the ruined foundation of a small hermitage he was using to hide. He looked out into the flames, the chaos, and the landscape of death that surrounded him. He leaned to his left to get a better view, and realized, thankfully, he was only a few minutes hard run from the tree-line. He was well outside the walls of the citadel, but the area between him and the forest’s cover was littered with bodies, with prowling horrors, and with the invading group’s armed soldiers.

He would need stealth and luck. To keep to the shadows and take every advantage he could to get out of this place. He could run headlong for the trees, but he would be seen, he was sure of it. One well-thrown spear, a readied arrow, or a single trip on a rock that sent him tumbling to the feet of an armed beast would be the end of him in short order.

Panic welled up again, his body cried out in pain and exhaustion. He took a few deep, prolonged breaths, steadied himself, and with a quick curse to his gods, he ran. The first few steps were hurried and he almost fell over some debris by the destroyed doorway of the darkened hermitage. He caught himself with a slide right at the door’s edge.

He pushed his body up against the stone of what was left of the wall by the door. He took a quick glance outside and to the left. A pile of rubble and a shattered wooden support blocked most of his view, but there seemed to be no activity around that area. He took another quick glance to the right. There was a fire nearby, mostly just brush and tinder that some of the invaders were clearing up, and getting ready for corpses they found around the hermitage. One shadow stood by the fire, wearing rags and a stolen helmet. It was a sentry, but a lone one. The rest, it seemed, were a few dozen feet farther away, picking through debris.

He waited there in the doorway, assessing his options in his mind. He didn’t want to be noticed, even one lone sentry who was alerted to where he was, could call to others, and a search party would be on his heels for days or longer out in that forest. He needed a clean break.

He continued to wait, every muscle of his body tensed to the breaking point, ready to run at a moment’s chance. That chance finally came when he heard a deep grunt from far to his right. The grunt was followed by a woman’s scream. Someone had been found hiding nearby in the debris. This scream caught the sentry’s attention and the shadow left the fire to assist its compatriots further away.

With a great launch, the man Merithault was inside of, threw himself forward. He kept his shoulders down, throwing most of his force forwards with his hips, using the weight of his upper body to carry himself with sheer momentum. His hands were low enough to almost drag on the ground and his legs kept pumping forward with every bit of energy he could muster.

Two more screams cried out into the night, one of the woman that had been found, and another belonging to the child she no doubt was hiding with her. The child’s was more of a mewling cry than a scream of mortal horror. No doubt too young to understand just how short their life would soon be.

He was just a short sprint from the tree-line now, a mere few yards away. He ducked behind a large rock for three quick moments to gather his breath and make certain that he hadn’t been noticed. He listened intently and did not hear any footfalls nearby. There were sounds of struggling still, as the shadowed figures were pulling the woman and child away from their hiding place. Two more grunts and a shrill pleading from the female voice.

Now was his chance, he jumped to his feet and bolted towards the trees. One step, a second, a third, he was almost there. Almost to the shadowed wall of trees and the pitch darkness beyond. He couldn’t see beyond the trees, and he didn’t want to. He knew his freedom lay in that darkness and each footfall brought him closer to it.

Six more steps and he was finally free. His eyes were still focused on the darkness of the tree-line. He hadn’t heard any alarum or noise from the nearby shadowed figures. His mind filled with uncertainty, and he began to doubt himself. After all the previous fighting to stay alive, after all, the horror he had witnessed, to get away so quickly and easily. Something didn’t feel right.

Three more steps away, and he had to turn his head fully around. The uncertainty was overwhelming, he had to see what was going on around him. He almost stopped mid-stride. His feet sliding on the rocky dirt beneath his boots. He turned his whole torso backward to take it all in, one last glimpse before he fled for his life.

Behind him he saw six shadows holding the struggling woman in mid-air. She fought against them, straining, and gave out one more long scream. A seventh shadow, off to her right, not assisting the others, lifted a glittering blade from a scabbard on a cloth belt. The blade had a signature backward and abrupt curve. This man’s mind remembered that image in his memories. The angle was that of the kaymalna swords used by the Tehall-Shelorra. These strange men, cloaked in shadow, their features twisted as monsters were members of the elite guard of the Shelev Empire. The man gasped, his mind reeling with incredulity and betrayal. These weren’t some unholy monsters sent against his home, they were warriors sent on a vile act of genocidal war.

He hadn’t fully realized he had stopped in mid-stride. His realization was still sinking in. His mind whirled with the political and moral quandaries that a soldier of his station must try to wrest with. His thoughts were quickly cut, just as the woman’s throat was cut by the blade that he focused on. Her scream was muffled, and as her life’s blood flowed to the dirt beneath her, the other six figures let her body drop to the ground.

The figure with the blade drawn now turned away, focusing its attention on two other shadowed forms who held the child by the arms, suspended from the ground. The child’s eyes were wide with fear, and his mouth agape, slowly opening and closing in confused spasms. No doubt, he wanted to scream his fear out, as his would-be guardian had done before she was dispatched, but the fear was too much for such a young mind to handle. The boy had gone completely catatonic.

The figure with blade drawn soon blotted out the vision of the child from the man’s eyes. Adrenaline surged through his veins again. His mind reeled still, wanting to do something to help. His morality told him to fight, but his instincts told him to flee. And flee he did. He turned on his heels and strained his legs to bolt towards the trees while he could.

That is when he saw the black shoulder of the warhorse before him, blocking his way. This vision of his route being cut off, the quick thought of panic. Then the black, jagged, gauntlet-covered hand of its rider, reaching down to seize him by the neck.

***

Merithault was thrown back to her own body once again. She was slowly beginning to get used to the sudden bursts between inhabiting another person’s body and returning to her own. It was still hard, as she needed to remember to breathe once she got back. This last surge of memories and experiences was more detached than the previous two. She felt a severe distance between her own consciousness and that of the man she was inside. Her mind questioned this, and as soon as the thoughts formed, the entity spoke, once again, in that piercing and halting set of voices.

“He… Was… Not… Of… Your… Blood…”

She scrambled at those words for a moment, but the meaning became clear in time. The previous two prophetic flashes were from the same person, a young woman. The memories were vivid, blurring the lines between Merithault’s own consciousness and that of the woman she was inside. If the entity was correct, that would mean that Merithault had jumped into the body of someone she was related to by blood. It made sense then, that such a deep and profound connection would blur those memories and emotions so heavily. Two kindred souls inhabiting the same vessel.

This man she was just in, was a stranger. His consciousness seemed detached from her own. She felt less like a participant and more of a voyeur peering at the world from behind his eyes. Her mind began to cling to thoughts, to try to make sense of more of this.

“Do… Not… Question… Simply… Understand…”

She quieted her mind for a moment. Questions could be asked later, now was the time to experience all that this entity could give her, so that she could find wisdom, and then rummage through it all in good time. She calmed and focused.

“Good… We… Continue…”

***

Blackness and peace, that is all that Merithault could feel at first in the next body she jumped into. A serene peace, that felt very much like when she was in that illuminated illusion when her senses exploded at the beginning of this prophetic journey. That desire to surrender to that peace, where time, space, thought, memory and mortal existence curved away into an infinite loop of nothingness.

There was more than just the dark and the serenity. There was a feeling of warmth, as something thick, wet and slick was poured, covering whatever body this was that she had moved into. As she began to reach out to the body, she could feel the same kind of distance she felt in the previous one. This was not someone she was related to by blood. Moreso, with how languished the thoughts and feelings were, and how endless the memories seemed to be, vast vaults sealed off from her prying. She felt like she was not inside anyone that was human.

She could feel the endless flow of memories, most of them far more deep than any memories she knew in her own life, or in those of previous bodies she was in. Years upon years, centuries upon centuries. The memories of others bubbled up like a froth of waves on a rocky shore when she experienced them. This creature she was in, the memories felt more like a vast palace, with many locked doors, traps, hidden passageways, and darkened mazes. A vast labyrinth that would seal upon her should she dare to travel down any of it. So she stayed in the moment, this languid, wet, thick torpor that this creature existed in at this time.

The eyes that Merithault floated behind slowly opened, and with the first hazy glimmerings of light, she was overwhelmed with sensory information. She could feel herself being pressed backward against this expanding consciousness, thrown into some half-state behind the power that this being held. Every rush of light to this creature’s eyes flared up imagery and intense flashes of memories that she could not morally handle, and which, overwhelmed her with stark violence.

As the eyes adjusted to the dim light around it, all that could be taken in was a mixture of crimson and gold. The gold was from the skin of this creature, a light brown that shone with traces of gold, like a continual halo or fine coat of shimmering dust. The crimson was from the pond-sized bath of blood that this creature reclined into. Servants loomed over this creature, pouring brass decanters filled to the brim with warm, thick, blood over it.

The eyes flicked to the face of one of the servants, a young woman in robes of white silk, stained on the sleeves and at the knees with blood. Her lips were full and colored with that same blood, that shone in the light of the hazy sunset that penetrated into this abattoir from a window off to the left. Her cheekbones were high, her skin was milky and almost translucent. Her hair was jet black, folded into cascading braids and pinned in place with an emerald scarab. The beauty of her was only marred by the thick, black stitches that held her limp eyelids closed over empty sockets and the thin, segmented, golden collar that was melted into the very flesh of her long, gazelle-like neck, just above her bare collarbone.

The eyes moved once more to a decanter that another of the servants was in the midst of pouring over this being. A soothing feeling rang through this form as the warm blood cascaded over its shoulders and down its back, mixing with the immense pool of blood that already enveloped this creature’s body.

The servant pouring this decanter was a small boy with skin the color of obsidian. His hair was pale white, trailing over his small head to his shoulders in straightened and jagged shapes. He had dark freckles over his face, which made him seem all the younger than his tender age already was. His eyelids too were missing the eyes beneath them and sealed with the same thick black stitches. The same golden collar was melted into his flesh as well. He wore only a white cloth diaper, pinned in place with the same emerald scarabs as the first.

The eyes moved again, flickering to the sunset for the briefest of moments, filtering in through rich wooden, and shining metallic, door frames. Then, they moved across the blood pool to a great jade statue at the far end of the immense and well-appointed room. The statue itself was ancient, carved from a single immense slab of green jade, with thick, black stripes and golden flecks running throughout. The figure in jade was that of an alien and horrifying being, perhaps some long-forgotten god.

The head of the figure had a long snout, like that of a wolf, five immense eyes in a long half-circle arch from three small, protruding, spindle-like tentacles on each of its cheeks to the crux of its sloped forehead. Each eye was a separate and varied gemstone, the left side being onyx and ruby. The right side being emerald and sapphire. In the middle a large amethyst. The jaws of the head were serpentine, with a dislocated, and separated set of jaws, equipped with large fangs made of diamond, affixed to a golden mouth. Around the head were seven large tentacles, each side growing smaller, the final one at the center of the head, the largest, trailing back and curling upwards like some tribal head-dress.

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The body of the thing was attached by a gold encircled neck, to a large, salamander-like body. The fore-claws were prominent, raised upwards like hands in supplication, palms up, presenting a twisting sword whose blade was carved out of ruby. The body trailed downwards to a second pair of claws that looked like the fore-claws of a lion sitting attentively. The body continued backward to a final set of large, powerful legs, bowed out and supporting the creature’s weight. Behind it, a long tail stretched out and upward, curving and twisting into a partial symbol of infinity.

On each side of the statue were a queue of supplicants, each of them having the same sealed eyelids and golden collars as the active servants around the bath. Unlike the ones that poured fresh blood over the creature that Merithault was still trapped within, who were younger and more supple, these other servants looked to be in their second or third decades of life. Many of them still hale with health, of exquisite beauty, adorned scantily with bloodstained silks, near-to-transparent robes, or molded metal accouterments that accentuated and emphasized portions of their physique.

Before those lines of aged servants, on each side of the statue, were two wizened, old women. These women were sitting upon carved, pink, marble slabs. Holding large and immensely sharp crystalline daggers. The hilts of each dagger wrapped in tanned leather. Each woman sat with her weathered and drooping skin on full display, holding nothing back of modesty. These two crones, instead of having empty, sewn-shut eye sockets, each held orbs of the finest-cut amber within their sockets, their eyelids long-ago peeled away in some grisly rite.

Calmly and with a relaxed, but efficient pace, the queue of aged servants would move forward, the ones on each side at the head of the line would bow down before the crones, kiss their hands and lean forward over large brass disks. Within these disks were carved ancient runes and deep grooves that trailed downwards into spouts suspended over empty decanters. Once the next servant had leaned forward, their neck exposed over a support at the top of the disk, the crones, with a precision and force that belied the old women’s age, would quickly draw the sharpened blades across the servant’s throats. The first stroke, across the far side of the neck, towards the old woman, then upwards. The second, was a penetrating stroke through the meat of the neck, followed by a quick pull downwards, ensuring that both carotid arteries were severed and that the blood flowed cleanly into the disks.

As the life-blood of each servant would be drained away, the next servant and the crone would hold the body up, until the last few dregs had been spent and the body went limp or convulsed. Then the body would be allowed to slump to the side, where a younger and still prized servant would drag the body off to a disposal chute behind the statue.

The inhuman creature that Merithault was inside of watched these actions with a sense of purpose, the particulars of the task seemed boring and routine to the being she was in, but the creature became excited at the image of freshly spilled blood. In the mind of the being, an almost youthful excitement crept up. This was some ritual of significance, one that happened only at set celestial intervals. The age of the creature made it almost seem like a daily chore, given the immense catalog of memories that were stored away like secret things inside of this mind. To those of mortal age, however, this was a ritual of a lifetime.

The creature leaned back in the pools of blood, letting its body raise up and flounder elegantly near the crimson surface. Rivulets of blood drained away from brown and golden skin. Only a few coagulating clumps stuck stubbornly here and there. It was at this time, with portions of the body exposed that Merithault realized she was inside a human woman.

A woman of immense size, much taller than any of the mortals under her rule. Despite her size, her proportions were quite aesthetically perfect. Her legs were long, slender and with the correct amounts of muscle. Her body was taut and looked as if she were crafted by the greatest artisans ever to have lived, out of the finest of gold. Her entire body was hairless. The only accents to grace her unblemished skin were golden serpent bracelets and golden accents littered across her body. The very gold seemed to be part of her body, or expertly melted into her very flesh and bone. There was no scarring where flesh met with precious metal.

This perplexing creature, immortal and human at the same time, leaned back in the blood. One more servant had fetched a newly filled decanter and took her time pouring the still warm blood over the fiend’s face. The creature wanted to return to her relaxed and torpid state, lost in darkness, with all the sensory details lost save for the feeling of blood on her skin. That is, she intended to, until there came a hard knock at a nearby door.

The woman closed her eyes for a few moments, feeling the blood flow through her long hair. She felt it cascade down her neck and over her shoulders, slowly and eagerly meeting with the rest of the blood in the pool around her. She wanted for all the world to ignore the meddlesome knocking. If she waited a few more moments, perhaps it would go away.

The knocking at the door returned. A hard double-rap, this time, was more authoritative and against the golden metal that adorned the dark cherrywood. One more breath and the knocking commenced again, a single, hard knock. All of the servants, eyeless as they were, stopped what they were doing to cast their empty gazes towards the door.

“My most supreme.” There was a muffled huffing and wheezing for a moment. “My greatest, immortal, most lovely, lord of lords. I, Toteichal, do beg an audience, concerning a matter most urgent.” There was some scuffling from beyond the door, the sound of an old man fumbling with his staff.

“Ah, Toteichal, I do thank you for letting me know of whom to kill for this intrusion.” The female creature pushed backward, pressing her back against the exquisitely tiled edge of the bath. “You do realize that it is the time of Phoenix’s Consumption, and you are interrupting my ritual of youth, yes?”

There was more fumbling behind the door, followed by a cough and another wheeze. “Yes, my most gracious. You may have my life, as you have all of our lives, to dispense with as you please.” There was a groan of tiredness now. “I do humbly request that you forego my most necessary death, for causing this disruption, by but a few moments, so that I may tell you of a matter.” The staff was kicked out by a foot and collided with the door making a loud thud. “A matter that will affect the entirety of your grand, glorious and beautiful empire.”

The woman gave a hard sigh, clenching fists beneath the surface of the blood. As if in response to her very mood, the blood in the bath began to ripple out from her, boiling erratically in areas. Several of the servants pulled back from her, prostrating themselves on the floor of the room, arms and legs crooked, face flat to the side.

A quick hand motion, speckling one of the nearby servants in the face with blood. One of the crones dropped her crystalline dagger on the seat of her marble slab and ran, her aged feet padding across perfectly shaped marble floors. She ran to a nearby stand, fetching a great and long silken robe. The silk itself seemed to be spun of golden weave and embroidered with emerald jewels across the edges.

The woman got to her feet, rising an entire horse’s height higher than anyone else in the room. She made her way out of the bath with only a few steps. Her body glistening with blood and gold, in what remained of the scarlet and purple sunset outside.

She leaned forward, crouching slightly, turning her back to the crone holding the silk robe outward in her arms. She grabbed the edges and lifted it up over her body. The silk matted to her skin, the blood staining through the fabric quickly. She covered herself and twisted a clasp on the fabric around her waist, holding the gigantic curtain of a robe onto her securely.

“Do not cease the ritual. These older servants have been waiting for their release for quite some time. Keep severing their necks. They are eager to go to Gholestra, where their souls will be entwined with me as their goddess for all eternity.” She didn’t look down to the crone she was talking to, but the old woman nodded, silently. “I will be back shortly, once I attend to whatever…” The great creature gritted her teeth in agitation. Several of the hanging braziers in the room began to waver and spin slowly. “…Pressing matters that this doddering old fool must pester me with.”

With a flourish of robes and a gentle spray of blood droplets, the great creature moved forward, towards the door. Each footstep felt and sounded like thunder as if the very marble slabs of the floor would shatter and crumble to dust beneath her. It only took her a dozen steps to reach the opulent and enlarged gold trimmed, cherrywood doors, and with a single, graceful gesture, she had both doors open.

Outside of the room, in a hallway lit only by smoldering lamps and hanging braziers stood the tiny and hunched form of Toteichal, one of the eldest, wisest and most devoted vizers that this creature had known. He stood, gently shaking under the strain of his own decrepitude, his head bowed down in deference. A great, crystalline staff held in his hand, supporting his body and giving him an air of station, despite his old and threadbare robes.

“What is so pressing, old man.” The great creature stepped through the threshold of the doorway and closed the doors immediately behind her. She dwarfed this mortal by over twice his height. She could see his eyes raise slightly, to take in the lower portions of her form, barely concealed beneath her robes.

“I come with most unexpected and grave news, my God-Empress and holy matriarch.” The man gave the slightest of bows, not out of any insult, but merely because his old joints could no longer afford him any more movement. “It would seem that your mighty kingdom, the lands under your divine will, are at war.” The man kept his eyes lowered, taking two slow and ponderous steps back. He began shaking all the more. He was afraid.

“War?” The shoulders and chest of the great woman lifted and lowered quickly as if she would give out a laugh. “I am the supreme will of all those mortals beneath me. I have given no order for warfare in over two centuries.”

The man took one more step back. His eyes quickly darted upwards, making contact with those of the living god for a brief moment. “That is precisely the reason this is so concerning.”

The God-Empress crossed her arms, lifted her right hand and idly began to stroke her cheek with a single, sharpened, black claw, the size of a fighting man’s dagger. “What are the details of this. What areas are affected. What foolish upstarts dare to enact my will without it being given?”

“The affected area is the south and east coasts of the Alwhedein Empire, my glorious.” The old man gave a hard and phlegmy cough to clear his lungs. “It is unknown who caused it, or from where, but they declare themselves as Tehall-Shelorra, your finest army, in your service. ” He gave a quick stop to catch his breath and wait for a nod from his divine ruler to continue. “It is reported by the Qlyth Taleum spies, ever vigilant and devoted to your service, which armies have invaded, sacked and razed six primary citadels, eight townships, and put three Shulanti lords to death.”

“Well then…” A smile crept across the black and gold lips of the immortal fiend. “For a group of unknown, usurper dogs, they do seem to be enacting my will quite well.” The claw stroking her face moved slowly towards her chin. “I have longed to put those primitive fools up north to the test beneath my blade for some time. I would have preferred a more tactical approach, but I can capitalize off of this chaos.”

The old man gave another bow, his staff skittered slightly on the black marble floor. “I will dispatch my spies to gather more information for you, my supreme.” The old man lifted a single sandal-clad foot as if to turn and leave, but waited for response.

The woman laughed, a slithering, cruel act that held no joy or mirth within it. “Oh no, dear Toteichal. You needn’t send any more of your precious spies.” She lowered her arms, reaching out as if to grab the old man by the shoulders, but stopping halfway. “I will go there myself. I must see this with my own eyes. It has been centuries since I rode into battle and tasted death on such a scale.”

She lowered her arms, then lifted her right hand with a single finger pointing outward. “Get my personal guard set. Once my ritual of youth has finished.” She glared hotly down at the old man, who cowered before her. “Without further interruption.” She gave that sickening smile again. “We will ride across the Salt-flats of Keziak and meet these charlatans face-to-face. They will see my real Tehall-Shelorra at work, and feel the divine wrath of Shenikyrr, God-Empress of the Shelev Empire.”

***

Merithault was thrown back to her body once again, this time with extreme pain, as if her skull might rip apart at any moment. The sensory overload, so many memories flashing up at once while she was inside of the last body were too much for her body to handle. She was merely a mortal seeress, unable to fathom the complexity and overwhelming madness that an immortal’s mind contained. She had only lived a scant three decades of life, she was not prepared for what it was like to remember centuries upon centuries.

She took several long, belabored breaths, pressing on the sides of her head for a few moments and then crossing her arms over her chest. She gave a quick, muttered incantation of healing to calm herself and let her get through the rest of this trial. She closed her eyes when she had finished. She began to breathe hard, fast and through her mouth until the pain began to abate. Slowly the flashes of violence that overwhelmed her mind dissipated.

A few moments more, she reached out again, and before her thought had finished, she was plunged through time and space into the next body.

***

The air was sweet and thick with morning dew. The dampness clung to the furs and clothing of the body that Merithault was now in. The body was chilled to the bone, but through adrenaline and exhausted activity, was warming steadily. The sensations were alive and on fire once again. This new body she was in was of her blood, but not the young woman she was in before, this was that of a young man.

She could feel the soreness in his hips and legs. The exhaustion in his arms as he seized tightly to a set of leather reins with his left hand, and clutched a javelin, to his side below his knee, in his right. He had been riding hard for hours, he was exhausted, his horse was exhausted, but he had to keep moving at full pace.

She could feel that he was in a strange place, somewhere he had never been before. Thick grasses insulated his horse’s gallops as they tore forward into the unknown. To do otherwise felt like certain death.

She looked behind her, feeling like she was in control of the body. She saw that behind them was a company of six warriors, also on horses, in hot pursuit. Four of the warriors were women, two male. All of them were grizzled from war, all wearing a mixture of hodge-podge armor, most of it being furs, bone, and leather.

One of the women, a mass of lean muscle, flaxen hair, and murderous attitude lifted a great longbow from her waist height to her shoulders. She held it lengthwise, and with a single fluid motion notched an arrow and let it fly. The bare muscles on her arms rippled as she did so. Leather straps, covered in bone shards, flexed and tightened, looking like the quills of a porcupine as it moved. The strength it would take to draw such a bow was more than the young man’s body could have accomplished. These were experienced hunters, indeed.

She felt the body flinch as it readied for the arrow. He clung tighter to his horse and slightly let the side of his javelin jab into his horse’s knee. He horse reeled against this and slid on the grass for a moment, turning hard to the right. This was just what was needed to allow the arrow to pass by a scant few inches to the left. It was a close call, and the hunters behind were beginning to catch up.

She looked up and forwards to take in all of the setting around her and the body she was in. They were in high grassland, small pockets of fog clung to the ground in odd patches. Here and there, ahead and to the sides were small groves of trees. The trees had curled, long leaves, on high and sprawling canopies, but most of their bodies were winding trunks.

Ahead, on the horizon were great, snow-peaked mountains. Their rocky reliefs framed just above the horizon by what looked like a great and still sea. The skies were cloudy. Forwards, to the right, dark clouds filled with snow and rain loomed ever closer. Upwards, to the left, what felt like west, the sky was illuminated by two suns.

Merithault felt a great sense of unease and disorientation seeing the two celestial bodies through the eyes of this body. The world she knew, and the world she should be experiencing these prophetic visions, only had a single sun in the sky. The great sun god known as Daulmyr.

The world she experienced through this body was familiar. The grasslands she was now traveling through, she had been to before when she was a young girl. Her people called this place, Issithal Caelta, or the Glimmering Coast. It was a rich and fertile set of highlands just south of the Crown Sea. The far mountains this body was running towards where the rocky shores of the Barrier Lands near the Scintillating Crown of the World. How could it be that there was another sun in the sky, such a thing would be completely impossible.

The memories and sensations began to distort. Merithault could feel herself being pulled away from the vision by her own incredulity. It was a sensation of being lost, out of body, trailing after a landscape filled with flat images. She had to push through it, she had to simply accept it or she would lose her access to the experiences she needed to have. She pushed through, calmed, and the visions returned to their same intense clarity.

As she began to feel anchored into the body again, another arrow shot by the head of the body she was in. This one had nearly killed the young man she was in, and her heart began to pound. Any sense of dissonance was now gone, lost in the haze of survival instinct.

She could feel the body strike the flank of the horse with the dull end of the javelin. The young man did not want to hurt this horse, they were connected through years of kinship. This was his soul-bond. His will and the horse’s were one. He had to keep the horse running, he could feel it flagging from exhaustion. He had to keep the creature focused as well, otherwise, it might buck in fear of the arrows flying by, and the sharp strike did just that. The horse was now resolute and its gallop increased slightly.

The young man passed his hand through the mane of the horse, both in apology and concern. The riders behind them continued to close in, the archer’s aim would be getting better with every second, but he was still too far to make use of the javelin he held at his side.

Moments went by, two more arrows and two more near misses. She could feel that the young man was pressing his luck, but there was nowhere to go or to hide in such an open place. If they stopped, she knew, as he did, that this war party would kill the young man outright. The memories he had of them were violent, murderous, and filled with rage. They had taken something or someone from him that was very dear to him. They had destroyed all of his plans, threatened his life, betrayed his people, and now were screaming at him in some barbaric language about how they would tear him asunder like the pitiful coward he was.

She wanted him to look back, to take in the faces of these hunters one more time, and he did so. One of the riders was close now, he was whipping his horse harshly, driving it forwards. His sword jostled in its scabbard and once he was close enough, the young man knew he could use this.

She felt the man’s grip on his javelin tighten, now was his chance. He lifted his right leg out of his stirrup, moving his hip and pressing down with his other foot. One fluid motion he was able to turn almost completely around on his horse, using the momentum to bring the javelin up, above his head in a readied position.

He only had a few seconds before the other rider knew what to expect. He let the javelin fly, but he did not carry through with the throw. He let the weapon drop, the sharpened end dipped towards the ground just ahead of the hunter and impaled itself at an acute angle into the soil.

That was exactly what the young man wanted, and the hunter could not react in time. The javelin hit his horse in the face, causing the creature to pull upwards against its reigns. The rider was thrown from the saddle, the horse flipped backward, shattering one of its hind legs.

Merithault could feel satisfaction grow out of the young man. He wanted for all the world to watch that hunter die in a horrible way. To suffer as they had made others suffer, but survival was more important than revenge at this point. There were still five more closing in. With the loss of one of their own, their rage and their determination would only grow.

She could feel him return to his correct position in the saddle, giving one quick look back to those who pursued him. The flaxen-haired archer had leveled her bow once again and was drawing another arrow from the quiver that was tied to her leg. Behind her, another woman let out a piercing howl of rage, lifting her free hand to her chest and hitting it repeatedly, hard, working herself into a frenzy.

She had to have him turn back to his way ahead of him, he needed to be able to react quickly. A few seconds and another arrow would be loosed, his good fortune was beginning to be strained. That is when she saw that a great cliff was right before him and his horse.

The young man had to make a choice, a very hard one. If he turned to either direction, the long loop would allow the hunters behind to catch up with him, finally. Banking would give the archer behind the perfect shot. If he drove forwards, there was no certainty that he would make it, and he knew that even if the shores of the sea were within reach, his horse would surely suffer.

She could feel his sorrow and panic take hold. His horse had been with him since he was a small boy. He had raised it as a faun to the hearty creature it had become. The young man had lost so much and was now about to lose the animal half of his soul. She felt the horse’s neck muscles stiffen slightly. The creature was beginning to pick up on the hesitation and panic that man had within him. That was when he focused hard, forwards, becoming resolute. He must not let his horse panic or doubt him. He drove them both forwards with a hard slap to the horse’s flank.

She heard clamoring from behind them, the remaining male member of the hunting party had noticed the cliff. He called out to the others and the young man knew that the archer would wait before she loosed her arrow. They wanted to see which direction he would turn. He heard their horses slow slightly.

The man pressed forward, another snap to the flank. The horse saw the cliff edge as well as the man. Beyond it, far below, waves pounded into jagged rocks and cascaded off of pebbled shores. The horse’s mane stood on end, its eyes went wide, but it trusted the young man, feeling his resolve and continued forward at full speed.

Hooves broke from the ground, a great jump, the furthest that the horse had ever performed. The whistling of chill winds mixed with the crash of waves, and a cry from one of the hunters behind. The young man and his horse were in air, falling faster and faster, down the immense cliff to the waters below.

The young man held the horse closely, he whispered a farewell into its ear while drawing forth a silver dagger from a belt on his back. He could feel the fear growing in his soul-bond, shoulders, and neck stiff as wood. He moved his left hand to the horse’s jaws, cradling it gently. He lifted his dagger in his right hand and quickly plunged it into the base of the creature’s neck. There was a grinding, as metal clashed with bone, the young man knew he had severed the spine. He pulled the dagger out, pushing down with the knuckles of his right hand into the creature’s back, pulling towards him on the jaw. The neck snapped quickly and cleanly. He could feel the horse’s body go limp. He did not want it to suffer, as it would not survive the fall into the waters below.

Sorrow took hold and overwhelmed Merithault, but she knew as did the young man that he must survive this ordeal. He pushed from the saddle, one of his feet getting caught for a moment. There were only a few moments left before the shore caught up to them. He pushed himself, upwards and forwards, away from the body of his companion. The horse would fall on the jagged rocks below, but the added push from the young man’s legs would carry him forward into the waves.

She felt him go taut, falling feet-first towards the water. The last of his resolve left him and panic completely swept through his body. He knew he had to remain rigid, to pierce the water as he was taught to do when he was young. A wrong angle, from the height he fell from, would kill him. He saw the waves rushing up at him, hungry to quench his life.

The water hit and he went under. The arctic water rushed in and pressed at him from all sides. For a few moments, she felt his disconnection from his body. She could feel his consciousness scrabbling to get back to him. She knew he was still alive when overwhelming pain tore through him, making him want to scream out.

He hit the surface of the water at a slight angle, and several of the bones in his left leg had been fractured. As the young man began to sink into the water, ribbons of blood rising up to meet his eyes and block out the deep blues and turquoises of the sea. The man was in shock, his arms feeling like lead, and the immense pain in his ruptured leg robbing him of its use.

She could see the darkness of the deeper water looming closer as he sunk further and further. Two arrows pierced the water above, but they bent in the current and soon stopped due to buoyancy. The young man was too far into the water now to be threatened by the hunters and was falling towards his icy death.

***

Merithault was again back in her body. Her mind reeled with too many questions for her to fully feel the disconnection between her and the young man. She could still feel phantoms of the pain in her leg. Still feel the freezing water draining the life from her body. Still feel her survival instincts flaring rapidly.

One question shot through her mind like an arrow of clarity, it concerned the presence of the second sun in the sky. Were these visions to be trusted, or was this entity deceiving her. Was all of this some grand illusion, or some bout of madness, like all the conflicting sensations she endured to get to this point. She grasped at conclusions but could not understand what it was she was being shown.

“Do… Not… Doubt…”

She could feel rage growing up inside of her now. She wanted to speak out, to interrogate the source of these voices. The source of these conflicted visions.

“We… Do… Not… Deceive.”

She stopped, her jaw slack for a moment. How could a star come into being in such a short time, the greatest sages she had consulted with all stated that the great god known as Daulmyr, the only sun in the sky that she had ever seen, was countless millennia old, surely, these visions were wrong, a star cannot present itself in just a mere few years or decades.

She wanted to know more. She wanted an explanation. Enough with the cryptic visions and glimpses inside of other people’s skulls. She wanted the truth of what would befall her people. She wanted a concrete prophecy that she could act upon. That she could share with others of her culture, to expand their wisdom, and prepare them for any travails that might befall them.

She breathed in deeply, her mind grasping and running through countless questions that might help her get to the bottom of these visions. She floated there, ignoring the void that she was plummeting through. She had to find a way to get the entity to focus and show her something more meaningful.

“So… Be… It…”

***

Flashes struck at her all at once, like shards of memories rushing forwards at her from some great explosion. Each flash sent her mind spiraling into some barely understood set of experiences. Within a moment she would be back to her normal consciousness only to have another rip through into her and send her reeling once again. The whole thing was painful in the extreme and if the previous experiences she had thus far weren’t enough to send her careening into the abyss of insanity, this was enough to do so, all on its own.

The shards kept hitting her and ripping away portions of her humanity. They swarmed her faster and faster until it felt like there was nothing left of her remaining. Numbness took hold, a detachment that helped to insulate her from all the emotions, all the pain, all the suffering that she was exposed to.

Another flash hit, larger this time, and she felt herself rushing through time and space as if she were falling through the furthest point of the sky, downwards and over the soil of the world-god Myrris. She was rushing northwards, some terrain she could recognize, but so many other things were entirely alien to her. Those same twin suns shone in the sky as if cruelly mocking her.

She rushed over the glittering Crown Sea, over the rocky and barren Barrier Lands, she could see the cascading greens, blues, purples and oranges of the great Scintillation that framed the northern-most part of the world. She was heading to the land her people knew as the Kethyran Mountains, but there were no mountains there any longer. She was thrown, headlong into a gigantic maelstrom of darkness. A smoky, churning, oily blackness that ate up the entirety of the northern lands ahead.

She felt a deepening cold, not as much a physical sensation as a spiritual and emotional one. Time seemed to slow down, what wane light was perceptible within this darkness began to distort heavily. The light of the suns in the sky seemed to be draining away within this dark fog, bleeding northward like trails of blood in water as it did while draining away into a hole.

With one more great flash, she was anchored within a body. The body belonging to the young man she was in before, the one who should have died in the deep waves of the arctic sea. She could feel his fear and his determination wrestling like enormous serpents in his mind. He had suffered much, endured much, lost much, sacrificed all that was left of his life to reach this forsaken, cold, and otherworldly place.

The cold wind whipped at his body, chilling him to the very bone, and no attempt at pulling his furs tight assisted him. The screaming wind around him, the very shadows that crept like phantoms, all seemed to drain the heat, life, and will from him. Any source of light from within or without the great storm all bled in faint trails around him, gathering in front of him before being sucked into some greater darkness ahead.

He stood on ground that was nothing more than bleached, rotted and chalk-like rock. Nothing grew in this place as far as his eyes could see. The last living thing was miles behind him, and the memories that boiled up to Merithault were that of a nightmarish twisted wood, a day’s travel behind. There were monsters that almost took his life when he traveled through that area, and this young man no longer had the strength to return through that area. He had resolved that once he had found what he was searching for, he would make this place his final rest.

He moved forwards, limping, his leg had healed wrong and every step was filled with pain. He forced forwards, over rock that cracked and shook beneath his very feet. He wanted to die, he wanted to be free, to have his suffering end at last.

One more step, then another. That is all his mind was capable of doing at this point, to force his body forwards. Small bits of debris and ice tore at his haggard, bearded face. The leather of his armor, cracking and aging as if he were some immortal wight woken from a bygone age. The furs he wore were frazzled, matted through with blood. The clothing on his legs seemed to age with every moment, becoming more threadbare and rotted through.

Finally, he stood upon a small rise and looked out to the final destination he had traveled so far to find. He was on the edge of an immense precipice. All around him, for miles, to the very horizon and beyond was nothing. Before him an abyss that his mind could not fathom. Below was nothing but darkness, howling winds, and faint glimmering trails of light spiraling into infinite nothingness. On all sides, the land curved around to the horizon. Sections of ground crumbled and groaned, breaking free to fall into the abyss below. Some of those chunks were only a scant few yards, others were sizes of entire cities, breaking off and plummeting from the very world to some unknown realm below.

At certain points, along the crumbling edges that encircled this ever-growing maw, there were towering, jagged spires. The spires seemed to reach upwards out of the darkness below. Each spire was at some severe angle, jutting up from rock, and each shaped differently. Some merely peaked over the edge, and others towered up to rake at clouds that were being pulled into the maw’s center.

The young man squinted his eyes and focused on one of the closest spires, to his left, rupturing out of a rocky chunk of land where the waters of a massive river fell into a waterfall over the edge. The spire was made of some black, metallic substance and was shaped like a long obelisk. It was hard to guess at its size given its distance and how perception was so distorted in this area. He would have to guess that the average width of the spire was larger than any building he had ever seen. All along it there were massive sigils and runes that glowed shades of orange, silver, and indigo in erratic patterns. He had never seen such a language before. The images would have been beautiful if they didn’t seem to carry some strong feeling of dread that reached into his mind like icy, cold daggers.

Merithault was trapped behind the eyes of the young man, she could feel everything he felt, experience it all with tremendous clarity, but she was exhausted. None of this made sense to her, none of what this man was seeing could possibly exist. She had been to the furthest north when she was young, there was no maelstrom, no crumbling world’s edge, nor strange obelisks jutting up from the edge of the ground. She didn’t have the strength to fight or question any longer, she just let the visions continue.

The young man looked back out to the abyss before him, making a cautious push with his right foot to get as close to the edge as possible. Sections of the rock he was on cracked and shot up small trails of chalky dust. A small voice, his own dark instincts, tickled at the back of his mind, telling him to finally be done with this life and jump headlong into the dark below. He wanted to give in, to finally have peace, but he must try one last thing.

“I, Jykal kolst Wyrmsthraul, have endured much to get here. I am blood of the ancient Hoelath people, guardians of this land, supplicants of the ancient Kethyran Temple. I am blood of the forsaken oracle, Merithault Haullpent, the devourer of children. I am blood of Gaereth the Mad, dark conqueror of the Hoelath. I am blood of the betrayer, who freed the Algumonis, Ghelta kolst Wyghtsmourn.” The young man could feel the rock beneath him shatter and a portion give way. He took a few steps back to another secure area and continued. “I beg of you an audience with one of the stormchildren. I seek wisdom on behalf of my people. I must know how to right the wrongs of my blood.”

The pain in the young man’s left leg was too much. He dropped to his knees, looking out to the storm around him. He watched intently for an answer to his calls. He could hear and feel the tremors of another immense section of the world fall away into the void.

Merithault had noticed, intently, the mentioning of her name by the man she was now in. Her mind was red hot with anger at being referred to in such a way. No doubt the entity was trying to punish her by corrupting this vision in some form. She knew that she was not forsaken, and she had yet to earn the title of oracle. She was a humble seeress of her people, devoted to her cause. The entity was playing off of her fears, as she was the mother of two children when she was younger, and recently mothered twins in the last two years. This entity was cruel, and she knew now that it must be deceiving her in subtle ways. Playing off of her fears, taking advantage of her vulnerabilities, perhaps testing her in some malicious way.

Moments passed and the man remained still. He could feel his limbs turning to ice, flaring with pain. Fear continued to gnaw away inside of him, doubt followed soon after. Perhaps he was wasting his time and all of this was a fool’s errand, told to him by some crazed old shaman a year ago.

The man stood up, slowly, the searing pain in his leg returned and he could feel bone grinding on bone. He looked out to the wind-whipped darkness once again. A far off chunk of the world, far out of sight, made one last groan before it was wiped away.

The young man turned his back on the precipice, taking a step away. This was all in vain, a waste of time. He would go to a safe place for the night. He would try once more after some rest, a chance to heal his wounds, tend to his severe frostbite, and strengthen his mind. Perhaps if this failed once again, he could finally be done with this life. Perhaps one of the beasts from the tangled wood would find him and kill him in his sleep. He took one more step away, then he heard it, a small whisper on the howling wind that echoed towards him, soon becoming great waves of sound.

“Jykal… of… the… Hoelath…” The man turned on his heels, pain shooting through his leg again. He took a few steps back to the precipice. “We… Hear… You… We… Offer… Wisdom…”

The man was elated, the insane old shaman he had talked to was correct. It remained to be seen if what these stormchildren would tell him was worth the sacrifice he had paid to get here, but this was something at least. He waited quietly, looking frantically in all directions, trying to pick out any form he could focus on.

It began as a shimmering of light coming upwards and towards him from the dark. Slowly the shimmering took form, that of a robed figure, almost translucent, floating on the wind. The figure neared to him, more details of its feminine form coming into focus. Bare feet trailed behind it, its face and body hidden beneath large, trailing robes made out of glowing silver light.

He pivoted on his leg to stop the pain from drawing his attention away. He looked forwards and saw glowing blue eyes from beneath a robe’s edge drawn over the floating woman’s face. As he focused his eyes, he saw a thin, exposed hand reach up and pull the robe away from its face.

The man dropped to his knees again, crying out in despair and loss. He hit the rock beneath him hard with a fist that he used to steady himself. He broke eye contact with the woman before him and tears trailed down his cheeks, quickly turning to ice.

“How dare you use her form! Why do you taunt me?!” He looked up to the woman again, half shielding his vision of her with his left hand. “I seek wisdom, not remembrances of who I have lost.”

“We show you one we have gathered to us, Jykal. We give her form to you so that you know what we will show you is truth.” The floating woman’s voice was exactly as the young man remembered his lover’s voice being. The sound of it was bittersweet to him. To hear her voice again filled his heart, giving him strength, but it also tore at his mind, making him fully feel all that he had lost. “We want you to be resolved. We need you to be whole. You have much yet to do, and there is much we must have you understand.”

He turned his face to the side, looking off at another of the great jagged spires far off in the distance. He slowly moved his sight back to the woman before him. “So be it.” He gave a long and deep breath, almost choking on the blistering wind that roared into his nostrils. “What will you have of me?”

The stormchild before him slowly extended one of her arms outward, her hand upturned and she signaled him to get to his feet. The man did, and this time, the pain in his left leg was gone. The woman’s eyes shone a more vivid shade of blue, her hands coming up to make some gesture over her chest. Her eyes met his and burned into his vision. He felt himself being drawn upwards to her, despite his body remaining standing on the edge of the rock. Her eyes were like tunnels that pulled at him, brought him closer, filling his mind with light.

Merithault could feel the distortion taking hold, almost as if she was half inside the young man and half not. She felt like she was floating, as herself, behind him. She didn’t know what was going on, but perhaps this was an effect of her experiencing a prophetic vision, possessing someone, who was in turn, having their own prophetic vision.

The scene changed several times but she couldn’t grasp any of the details. She felt like the entity that was showing her this vision was fighting against whatever entities these stormchildren were. Events were going off, and memories were flying around, but she was outside of it all. She couldn’t grasp it, experience it.

A flash came, like lightning from a far distance. Another flash, closer, this time, tore through towards her. Three more flashes and she could see a trail of energy rippling towards her at great speed. The energy struck her in the chest, burning, crackling, and then she was somewhere else.

***

Merithault was in her own body, this time, floating separate from the young man she was in previously. She looked down to her hands and body seeing that she was translucent like the robed woman had been. Her feet floated a foot’s height above the ground, feeling somewhat detached, but otherwise, she could feel and perceive everything around her clearly.

Around her was devastation on a scale she could never have fathomed. The sky was a mess of darkened clouds, roiling over each other in different speeds and directions. On all sides at the horizon was that same sickly, cold, inky set of dark winds she had seen within the abyss earlier. In all directions, those same winds churned around the world slowly, as if the land she was in was the eye of some immense storm.

She was suspended above a floor made of ancient, cracked, and pockmarked marble. The room she was in was completely exposed to the world outside on all sides. Intermittently, in a great circle, on the edge of the room were great pillars that extended up into connecting arches. Above there was a former oculus roof, now with portions caved in, exposing the whole room to the fury of the sky above.

The room itself was the top of a great tower, giving a perfect view on all sides of a great, destroyed city below. The world below was barren, save for burning fires and corpses strewn about the streets. Merithault could see the ruins of several other great towers in different sections of the city below, most of them had caved in upon themselves, others were teetering on the brink of doing so.

Closer than the horizon, but off to her left she could see an immense mountain range, just a few league’s distance from the city’s now fallen walls. Plumes of black smoke and ash billowed forth from the peaks of many of those mountains now turned to churning volcanoes. The very air of this place was thick with ash, choking with a toxic miasma of death.

She floated for a few moments, taking it all in. She could not figure out what cataclysm had befallen the world to send it into such a state. Whatever had happened, this was the work of no mortal, only the gods were capable of this kind of fury.

She turned slowly to her right, seeing more of the rubble and ruin within the room. She beheld many corpses, most of their skin burned away, with exposed sections of bone. All of them looked like they had perished in horror and pain.

She continued to turn, seeing a pile of rubble building up behind her. No, she was mistaken, this was not rubble. She turned more and realized they were skulls and bones, piled up on themselves.

She turned fully now behind her and saw the face of the young man she was once inside of. His face was old, ancient, cruel-looking. Scars were etched across his furrowed brow and his jaw. His beard was trimmed tightly to his face, but he still looked haggard and withdrawn beneath the stains of blood and gore. His eyes burned a look of hatred, filled with glowing amber light.

Atop his head was a large, rusted, iron crown. Along the jagged edges at the top were human eyes poked through, or bloody goblets from where others had fallen from. Where the crude metal met the man’s skull, blood-matted hair met with a ring of dried entrails.

The man sat on a throne made of skulls and bone, wearing leather, furs, and bone across his body. He clutched tightly to a large sword made of black metal, with clumps of what looked like solid mercury trailing across its form. The blade was immense, its hilt worked from a single solid piece of bone, fused with metal, from some gigantic creature. The handle was covered in leather and cloth wrappings over what looked like vertebrae of a spine. At the end, upon the pommel was a large, perfectly spherical gemstone. That gemstone was black and seemed to siphon the very light out of the area it was in, like some hungry demonic force.

Merithault could feel horror sweep through her as she beheld this man. He was no longer human, and a strange sense crept at the back of her mind that all this devastation was entirely his fault. He was the bringer of pain. He was the destroyer of worlds. He was the reason this entity was showing her all these visions. He was the one her people needed to stop.

***

A quick and sharp flash followed by the sound of insane trumpets blaring over the rush of ocean waves. Merithault was thrown back, hard, all of her normal sensations rushing back at once. Her sense of body, her sense of consciousness, and the hard feeling of corporeal reality.

She skittered limply across the metallic ground until her head hit one of the obsidian outcroppings that framed the walkway she had just walked down. She was not severely hurt, but the waves of physical pain she felt were both comforting and jarring. She took a deep breath in, that of normal air once again. She could feel her own weight, feel the passage of time as each moment fell into the next.

She pulled herself up to her feet, shielding her eyes from the fractalizing light that still shone in strange patterns over the dais ahead of her. The strange sensations in this place seemed lessened somehow, perhaps by the contrast of experiences she had just endured. She took a step towards the glowing light at the center of the room.

“Is the entity still here?” Her voice wavered and creaked out of her mouth. She was not used to speaking. The rushing tempest sound seemed to drown out her words. She cleared her throat and spoke louder. “I have questions. Is the entity I spoke with still here?”

The trumpets and waves coalesced into an echoing and vibrating sound around her. “Yes… We… Are… Present.” The voice was different than she had experienced in that void, it sounded more hollow here in reality. “What… Will… You… Have… Of… Us.”

“The destruction you have shown me…” Merithault swallowed hard and lowered her hand from her eyes. “It seems to be caused by one of my blood. I must be able to stop this. I must be able to save my people from this cataclysm.” She took two cautious steps forwards and raised her hands in supplication. “I must know what I need to do to stop this. I must be able to take action!”

The room went deathly silent, pressure building up like a vacuum once again. The lights over the dais stopped their constant movement for a moment, then began to speed up to a fevered pitch. Crackling energy was building up in the room, small crackles of light jumping from one obsidian or metallic structure to another. The trumpets blared, the waves crashed and the voices spoke at once.

“If… This… Is… What… You… Seek…” The voices paused. The light in the room was burning, feeling like that of the sun itself upon Merithault’s face and body. Small jolts of energy pierced her flesh, causing her muscles to begin to spasm. “We… Shall… Grant… This.”

The pain that tore through her body was more than she could ever handle. It felt like she was burning in the fires of Daulmyr itself. Every blood vessel of her body felt like it would rupture out from her skin. Her eyes, wide open, felt like they were melting her her skull. The air in her lungs felt like burning metal, boiling up from inside of her, out of her mouth. The only thought she could hold inside of her mind was the realization she had made a terrible mistake. She should not have asked for action, that was not her place.

***

Merithault set down the gold-gilded skull on the stone shelf in front of her. There had once been wooden inlays over the stone, and a cloth pillow to protect it, both of those things had turned to dust ages ago. The gold of the skull had survived, but she knew that the bone within it would crumble to dust as well, were it ever exposed to air.

She set it down next to two smaller skulls, both of those were gilded in gold as well. Her bony hand, with what flesh still remained on it, glittered a sheen of silver as she lightly caressed the two smaller skulls on the shelf. As she glanced by, she tightened her hand into a fist. Looking down to it, a rage boiling up in her, she saw the silver glint she had grown accustomed to. A halo or fine dust covering her taut, aged flesh.

It had been over four millennia since she created those skulls in front of her. Since she had returned, transformed and insane, from her visions at the Ullthosian Temple at Oerstallus Neth. The first thing she had done was to travel south, to the ancient city of Morrthal. She did not eat on her journey, did not rest as she no longer needed to.

She had thrown open the doors to her house, scoured the place in a mad rush. Then seeing her lover there, in the courtyard, playing with her children. He had looked up to Merithault, his eyes glittering with love and joy, she will always remember that look on his face. That love quickly turned to fear, and that joy turned to pain as he, in a matter of moments, realized what she had become.

With inhuman grace and strength, she ran at him, and with a single hand, had ripped his head from his body. The children, her youngest, the twins, screamed out for their father. They ran way from her in horror, their clothing covered in the spatter of their father’s blood and gore. It only took moments and she had dispatched her children as well.

The eldest two were off at the collegium, they were warned about their crazed mother. They had gone into hiding, being smuggled away by their masters. Merithault had not been able to find them and had been suffering that failure ever since.

She pulled back from the shelf and looked around the dimly lit room she was in. It was a huge cavern complex she had used as her demesne since she had lost her humanity so long ago. Across the walls, from floor to the ceiling hundreds of feet up, and across the expanse she was standing at, to the doorway at the other shore of a great river of water, every wall was filled with shelves. Each shelf contained innumerable skulls, some intact and others fallen to pieces, or nothing but dust after the ages had ravaged them.

This was her home now, among the dead of her blood. She could not go out into the world, and no one heeded her cautions. They called her Merithault the Mad, the Hag of the Shattered Oracle, the bringer of death, the destroyer of the Hoelath Empire. They called her the devourer of her children.

Despite all the troubles, all the pain, and her unceasing immortal existence, the visions she had that day from that cruel entity were crystal clear in her skull. She must find those of her blood, and exterminate them. She must stop the one known as Jykal kolst Wyrmsthraul from destroying the world.

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