part 1.
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“Come den, it’s time.”
The thing in the cell blinked sheepishly, and then it grinned. It’s teeth brought up thoughts of sharks and other more savage-minded creatures with no prerequisite for avoiding the consumption of sentient flesh. It’s mouth seemed altogether too big for it’s head, which itself had a certain, rounded quality to it. Despite the shape, the features of the thing gave it a certain squashed look about it’s person. The lack of anything which
could pass for a nose certainly did nothing to help either.
“Don’t be so eager to see me go, friend.”
There was an altogether different terror about the voice than the eyes. It was low, grating, and had a discordance which left a residue of tingling suggestion in the listeners ears. And yet there was something larger there, a god-awful sense of burden, as if every single word carried a little biting edge to it, stinging and tearing. It suggested an endurance, a vitality, but also a indifferent sort of cruelty, as if the speaker had seen more
than it had deserved to. Some would not consider it a terror, that voice, those dispassionate fools who have gone past the point where their mental state about them can sense such a truculence within, but the sheer apprehension, the chill that flowed with it, the sense that one simply wants nothing more to do with that voice, would haunt any other. It was like being bludgeoned, there was a daze and a confusion, and a brief moment
of that horror which comprised it’s own woeful genre, a terrible avalanche from a unexpected quarter.
Both guards clutched feebly at their war-axes and stepped away from the door.
“T....time for den trial, git moving.”
The thing stood up. In a swift movement of shadow it was standing in front of the guards.
The thing was short. Undeniably short. In fact its head was only barely level with either of the guard’s chests. Yet it loomed, it’s presence seemed to suggest a greater avatar following close in step behind. With an elegant spin the thing turned down the tunnel and raised a hand toward the far off and minuscule stairwell.
“Let’s go, I want to get out of this place.”
The guards began to lead the thing down the tunnel towards the far off stair. That is to say, the thing strolled along ahead with a casual gait while the guards fought to remain behind, but not too far behind to fail in their duties or too close to run the risk of being turned upon and massacred.
“It’s not polite to stare, ya know.”
The second and considerably dimmer Salidian guard swung his gaze away from the back of the thing’s head and became very preoccupied with some startling and thought provoking discovery on the lower hilt of his war axe. In the deathly stillness of the air the only sounds that could be heard were the footsteps of the three and various unsavory noises of the angry, fearful, dying, and utterly insane coming from the cells lining the walls.
And then it began to sing.
There wasn’t any fear in that tune. None of the terror that seemed to clutch so tenderly to every other aspect of that aberration. It was a sad, grim hymn which had something of a marching beat thumping methodically within it. There was an elegiac quality that seemed to permeate every moment of that song which made the listener’s chest heavy to hear such a sound, a sense of remorse for some unknown. But there was a glory there, a heart and a meaning, a kinesthesia of an uncompromising strength, a demagogue within that praised and exalted and chanted that there was better reality, of a garden beyond the wastes of pain where the gates were not guarded by a seraphim with a flaming sword.
The Salidian guards didn’t understand a single word of it. But here, so close to the rhythm and noise, not muffled behind the enormous steel door where it was until that point trapped, that anthem was the most wonderful thing they had ever heard.
“What lenguage is dat?” interrupted one of the guards.
The thing cocked it’s head ever so slightly. For a moment there was only the sound of the thing thinking very, very hard. It scratched thoughtfully at it’s chin, and there was the sound of a quick exhale of air.
“I don’t remember.”
“Whut?”
“I jus’ don’t remember. I don’t remember alot of things.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I never have. Not even sure who I am.”
“Come on den. Liar. You cannae forgot. How could ye, thats the onlie song I’ve evar heard like dat.”
“Me too, that still doesn’ change the fact. I don’t know much of anything at all that there is to know ya know. It doesn’ bother me though. By the by, where am I anyway?”
“Yer in da city of Derrazanul, secund capitul of de Salidian kingdom, gretist empire on da continint of Nerashek.” the first said proudly.
“Oh, sounds quite nice. Where am I specifically speaking? This seems a bit...” the thing waved a hand languidly at the walls around him. “...disgusting. The atmosphere in this place feels like the rock around is clutching at you, just trying to reach out and kill
you, doesn’t it?”
The guards glanced around apprehensively in case the creatures suggestion might give the limestone rather un-rocklike ideas. The thing’s stream of consciousness strolled on without a care.
“The smell also innin’t anything to be proud of. By gods, it utterly reeks in here. Whatever happened to cleaning for guests? Seems awfully, I dunno, rude-”
“Now wait jest a damn minnite!” the first guard spit, grabbing the thing by the shoulder and bodily spinning it around. As the red eyes locked with the guard he, for a moment, regretted his hastiness, and then realized he was holding a large axe, and away such thoughts went.
“Your no damn geest! Your about ter go on trial fer da murdur of innercent lives, and wi’ll burn ye before de end!”
The thing’s face tightened. It took several slow, cautious steps backward, and began to very slowly teeter as if it was held by a string. The thing lowered it’s head and began to mumble to itself, a incomprehensible mantra under it’s breath. With calculated slowness it brought it’s hands up near it face, and stared blankly at them.
“...”
“Whut?” The second guard had taken a step forward.
“Whut are you muttering!? Dammit, you madmun!” The guard brought up a fist the size of a ham and sent it rocketing towards the muttering monster.
“NO!!!”
The first guard recalled thereafter seeing the other’s fist somehow miss the thing’s skull, how that terrible being seemed to defy logical movement, how it had ducked and flowed like water under a swing of the guard’s mighty war-axe, and how with such utter ease the second guard’s skull seemed to crumple like paper under the force of a blow which rocketed out of the ether.
He remembered that the thing began to gibber and whine uncontrollably, clutching and scraping weakly at it’s face, leaning stupidly over the corpse which was slowly dribbling blood onto the stone floor. He remembered how it cast it’s gaze over him, and he saw it again, that madness which had greeted him when he first opened that cell door.
He promptly soiled himself and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could.
The thing dropped heavily to it’s knees and it’s insane ranting died down to a dull murmur. With childlike movements it gently laid it’s hands in the pooling vital-fluid and proceeded to smear it’s lower arms with the spilt blood.
As the thing’s hands moved and danced joyously of their own accord amidst the tiny pond of gore it’s eyes rolled upward to a small plaque nailed into the stone above one of the endless cells. Chiseled roughly into it was one word, “Jarrus”.
“Jarrus...” the thing coughed.
Thoughts contorted and weaved.
“Jarrus....”
Things which looked so much like memories unearthed themselves momentarily.
“Jarrus!”
Something terrible happened.
“Jarrus! Jarrus! JARRUS!”
The thing pulled itself into a standing position like a broken marionette.
“JARRUS!”
The thing broke into a sprint. It was a low, predatory rolling gait which seemed strangely second nature. In a minute it had reached the endless stairs, a spiral of steel spinning heavenward towards a tiny celestial prick of light at the point where the twisted metal disappeared beyond any natural field of vision.
“JARRUS!”
The thing leapt onto the stairs and began it’s climb, towards the far off speck of radiance.
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