Tales Of Grimea, page 3
When Claudis awoke, everything was strange. Something about her body didn’t sit right, and her head was strangely turned sideways. There was no pain, but when she tried to push it a little straighter her arm’s movement was strangely shaky. She stood in a grassy place filled with boulders, and could not for the life of her understand how she had come to be here. Furthermore, dull silence echoed in her ears, as if they were covered. Eyes scrolled downwards and she realized that something was horribly wrong. Her legs were bent wrong, and they should have screamed in protest. All the right one did was flop, and the woman knew she should be in terrible pain. Still there was nothing. All around her people slowly got to their feet, and she wondered why they had been sleeping on the ground wherever this was. An older lady made her way towards her, and Claudis assumed she must have been injured too, for the woman walked a pronounced limp. In the gloom a child hopped slowly, as if it were difficult.
Then dark clouds unveiled the pale moon and she gasped in horror. This was not a garden or a park, but rather her town’s graveyard. The boulders were tombstones, and what she had taken for small houses had been mausoleums. Even worse, the old woman limping towards her was partially decayed, flesh falling off her like pieces of horror. The young child was actually barely more than half a skeleton, hopping upon its midsection. How had she gotten here?
Suddenly Claudis felt her ears pop and sound burst to life. Three tones she heard. The first was an incessant whisper, gliding like oil upon water or a bird with too few feathers. The second was a female voice, ringing out in prayer like a clear bell. The third was a scuttle beneath a nearby tree, and it was to this closest sound she turned, putting the two others behind her. The whisper called to her very being, speaking of dark things and maggots, pulling at the strings of her being. She ignored it, and a dull throb began to mount in her head. Instead she focused on the scurrying man. He was terrified and yet instantly recognizable. “Markus? What are you doing here? What’s going on? Claudis meant to say these words, but only managed to gurgle. She found it unreasonable to address the scene around them. Part of her discredited it entirely.
“Claudis! Oh Claudis, what have they done to you!” He began to back away, and the woman realized that she was walking towards him in a fearsome manner. She began to reassure him, then to stop, thinking it best to stay still with injuries like the one on her right leg. She was unable to stop. Unbidden, feet shod in black moved on regardless of her will. With horror, she realized that there was no control in her. She began to drool, yet could not stop it.
“Now,” hissed the sinister voice that had been whispering, “Go forth and kill the human, my undead beauties. Feast on flesh fresher than yours, feel jealousy ferment in you.”
Undead? That couldn’t be. Just now, Claudis had been going to get some honey. Then her arms raised involuntarily, and she saw three things. Firstly, the Markus backing away from her, leaving his hat behind on the grass near the tree, was older than she remembered. Second, she was the only one going towards him, with everyone else heading somewhere behind her. Lastly, her flesh was rotten with maggots where her hands should have been human and rosy. She still didn’t understand what had happened exactly, but the woman tried to get her head around it.
She was dead. A dark force was using her body against her will, and it had managed to give her wrong directions. Instead of going after whoever owned that clear bell like voice, she was going to kill her husband. Something clinked, and Claudis realized that there was a white ring still around her death infested neck. Ever practical, she focused on the task at hand. No.
With everything she had, the woman tried to fight the voice’s control. It hissed in delight. Behind her, she could hear the two voices clamoring against one another.
“Your gods do you no good here, girl. You should have given up last time.”
“Merla guide me, take my hands. Slim lights grow bright when they know what has been done and what is to be, for the river flows towards good and the depraved shall seek nothing but love.” This was a prayer of a goddess outside the niners, rarely worshipped in this part of the country. The woman who stated it did so with conviction, and lights shone from behind Claudis. White and blue, it was. It brought warmth and pain and strength. She could hear fire and blades and bones being crushed while sighs filled the air. The old man’s voice gained urgency, and he focused on his spells. Thus the two battled.
Then Claudis focused on her own battle. She let the large one behind her rage one, praying for the priestess to vanquish her foe. The wind howled and lighting appeared out of nowhere, pitting light against dark as it sheared the world in half. Still she tried to stop moving those murderous limbs of hers without success. In desperation, the woman focused on her right arm, willing it to hold on to a nearby branch. The strategy succeeded, but only momentarily. Her husband was dazed with shock, and tripped with a crack and a cry. He crawled for dear life, but she would catch up with him. Scenes of their happy life together flashed, and the woman realized that for this man, she’d give up…. Yes. Exactly like he’d said the night before, although it must have been years ago. He still came to visit her, and she still saw a ring upon the terrified man’s finger despite the ashen streaks in his hair. He still came here, when the moon shone bright. She knew it instinctively, as if her cold body had remembered. For him…
As the fighting behind them intensified between priestess and foul magician, Claudis focused on her arm again. Every struggle against the forces holding her in their grasp caused the pain in her head to blossom red and hot. Still she refocused the former strength of her happiness, shaping it into pure will. Her arm moved, picked up a stone from the ground when she next limped close enough. She took a deep breath, seeing how close Marcus was now. Part of her, unbelievably, was happy to see everlasting love in the despair of his expression. She swung, striking her right leg. A snap was heard, and she lurched but kept moving. The incantation took on a lighthearted tone, as if mocking her efforts. “Ah, a feisty one. And going in the wrong direction, no less! Oh, oh, I see! Well, now then… I took your feelings out of mercy, hurmph! Let’s see what happens when I give them back, shall we?” Instantly, a gnashing within her bones almost caused Claudis to black out.
“What drivel do you speak, old one?” demanded the priestess.
He cackled. “None of your concern, child of light!” With that, the battle continued.
The two fought. Their songs clashed, flames of dark and glowing blue blades facing off amidst behind the woman. From the bangs and lights, Claudis was sure that the priestess was surrounded but advancing, wreaking havoc on the sorcerer’s undead army. She was sure that the havoc within her was worse still. Her brain felt like sea froth. Crushed lungs struggled to gather something unneeded whilst her bones grinded against one another. Even the falling skin and tunneling of insects could be felt. More than once, Claudis knew unbearable pain. At the same time, she did not give in. She knew that her husband could not move faster than her, and to give in was to doom him. The rock was still in her hand, and she swung again, fully shattering her right leg with an inhuman cry. She fell to her knees, and the undead within her began to crawl. She kept swinging again and again. The physical torture was nothing compared to what would happen in her undead heart if she killed Markus.
When the battle ended, the priestess in her white and blue garb was victorious. With an unholy cry the magician fell, along with most of his army. She lifted her black candle and mace, one in each hand, allowing a final songspell to leave her lips. Just then, the sun was peeking over the horizon, attempting to dispel the night’s terror. It revealed a mangled undead minion, barely more than a torso, kneeling just a foot away from a man shocked beyond belief. “Oh, my darling,” he murmured in a torn manner, trying to keep himself strong. She’d hated it when he cried. “I wish you’d let me join you.”
Claudis was in the throes of a sweet void then, offset by a single pinpoint glow. She could see nothing else. The light beckoned, and she was almost ready to go. She heard footsteps behind them, but the priestess remained silent. “I…” Claudis started in a gurgle, then struggled on. “I… you s… solemn… moon… ring….let…ppy…” She hoped that he got her meaning, for there was no strength left in her broken form. As she let go, content that her love had survived, the priestess offered a long slow prayer.
Whispers of insanity:
Year:822 Post Kerallus. 230 Pre Adventus
The following is an excerpt from the diary of Mardow Grame, a prisoner and one time apprentice of Krulov Gregerovitch, who would one day lay waste to cities numerous and wreak havoc over the eastern continent of Jerr. Eventually he would be stopped far west, at the gates of Lor, but not before he even managed to force Haq Ramad, the shadow spear, to slit her own throat.
Today, I heard a tale that caused my stomach to churn. Abused from the tender age of three and turning to crime earlier than I could walk, I had thought this tired heart incapable of sympathy, but the master’s story was unusual in its simplicity. My very heart cringes at the memory, and I pray never to become like him, for it was not the circumstances of his tale that spoke of woe, but rather the very destruction and depravity evident within mind and soul. I know now that the man, if unleashed, could cause the very world nausea.
I had gone within his cell, which was the only one beside mine perpetually unlocked by prison wardens, in order to bring the man some soup and stale bread. He sat there upon cracked stone, weathering whipping wind laced with ice. The window next to him was unbarred, for none could climb down the mountainside in such freezing condition. Not that he would try. Kurlov Gregerovitch was here of his own volition, though naturally the mind controlled guards treated him better than most. That was why I found him wrapped in a course blanket, shivering contently. I’d found out early that the master enjoyed having pain inflicted upon his body, as long as he could control frequency and intensity.
“Master,” I said to him by way of greeting, to which he nodded at the hot bowl of soup in my hands. I handed it to him, accompanied by a loaf of bread. Ignoring its greenish hue, the brown skinned man set upon his meal with the grace of a noble. Dipping chunks delicately into the murky liquid with two of his fingers, the man said, “Say, Mardow, how fares your training?”
“It’s not faring at all, Master. I am no closer to leaving my skull.” The words were spat out, for it had been a month already since the man accepted me as his pupil in psionic, and the only thing he’d told me was to try and leave my skull. It was less of a technique and more of a described state, according to his explanation, where the mind can come in touch with what is beyond it. “I don’t understand. How does the brain do something like that?”
“Not the brain, boy!” snapped Master Kurlov in annoyance, his beard and wavy hair seeming to writhe. It seemed to cause him frustration as well, and I wished there was someone else I could ask. “The mind is different from the brain. The second is housed within the temple, but the other wanders freely around it like a cloud or a soul seeking salvation.” His words made no sense to me, but that was the paradox of attempting to learn something completely new: The action never makes sense until you were already able to act it out. Thus I kept my peace and let the man speak. Outside the wind howled agreement and the drop beckoned as it always did. “To leave is to find enlightenment and awareness. You begin to understand truths and touch others.”
“But how, master? How do you reach that state? Is there a mental trick or exercise or-“
“I don’t know!” His eyes shined, and I could tell that he was thinking so I let him at it. It was frustrating to be stuck at the doorstep of knowledge for so long, and so my temper fumed. As he thought, two prisoners powerful enough to be allowed out the cell walked around, although they gave Krulov a wide berth. Had I been alone they would have bullied me, but I was with the master. I pulled a hair out of my grey beard, placed it on my palm, and blew in their direction. Scret hissed quietly but the other pulled him along.
“The key isn’t to think hard, but rather to think wide.” The master had oily hair, and now he brushed the straight length with his dirty fingers. He was dressed in a coat and cotton gloves, and I wish I knew what color they’d originally been. There was an emblem at his chest, stitched out, but the thing was so faded that I could not for the life of me make it out, and he’d never told me anything about himself. “You let your mind expand and at first it stretches you thin then you understand that thin is relative because space is for physical things. When you’re there the understanding from your mind will touch things and tell you things relative to what they know back home. Ah, but the selves won’t match at first because the me and the I only exist as me and I in the center, and when the world is the world and not what my world then what I see of me isn’t what I see but what the world sees and things become as they are. Thus one touches the all and begins to understand with a new sense…” At that, his lapsed off into another fit of drivel about colors and compounds and different frequencies of mental chirping and spectacles and towers of the mind. I could make no sense of what the dark haired man said at all, and so sought to distract him before I lose him completely.
“A lot of the prisoners here are insane,” I said, and the man stopped talking, looking at me as if I had interrupted something vital. “I think it’s the system here. The guards seem to enjoy letting prisoners run free and wild, but they also want us locked up and quiet. Men turn into beasts easily when in a caged jungle.”
“Well,” said the master whilst eyed one of his gate’s bars. He stood and went to look at it in interest for a while, then put his hands on the thing and tried to bend it. He struggled for a full minute valiantly with the desperation of a man requiring release, pulling and pushing and tugging with all of his weight. His grunts were loud and his face was flushed with effort. Foiled at last, the prisoner went back to his spot, ignoring the open door completely. “There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of insanity.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it has its uses. To be insane is to ignore reality, whether it be painful or angry. To be insane is to see with new eyes and be free of the world’s shackles. That is how I gained my powers, after all.”
“Truly?” It was true that the master had his moments of nonsense, but I had thought the man was mostly coherent. “So you’re insane?”
“Not right now, no. But I was for a moment, and every now and then I would embrace that sweet freedom and see colors that shan’t ever exist. That’s when I know the ultimate cruelty of existence, crystallized in its own perpetual nature.” He was beginning to lose me again, and so I decided to seize the moment. I asked, “Master, how did you gain your powers?” If he was able to tell me that, perhaps I could recreate the experience.
I assume he knew my intentions, for Krulov’s eyes glimmered and he smiled in deceitful innocence. And then he told me his heinous tale. “When I was younger, I was a noble in Xera of no real consequence. Versed in etiquette and knowing it was my destiny to become an official, I submerged myself in studies and found I had a roaring intellect. Soon enough I rose and was able to hold position, and that was when my father did the sensible thing and forced a woman upon me.”
“Sensible, sir?”
“Indeed. In Xera most would disagree, but I believe that if the person is indifferent enough and agreeable enough, there is nothing wrong with having a future partner decided for him or her. But there was a twist in my case, because despite being convinced that it did not matter who was chosen, I was infatuated by Helia upon our first meeting. We both agreed to marry readily and enthusiastically. She loved to enjoy her time more than I did, and despite a quiet nature had a way of being heard. Her hair was honey, her skin was milk, and every second with the girl filled my heart with such warmth as to make me walk the streets of Xera with no regard for ice or cold.”
I wondering where his story would go, but had I known what he would say, it is likely I would have asked him to still his tongue and spare me his teachings. The man’s voice gained strength, although he still spoke in a whisper.
“One day, she and I went to see a play. Upon leaving, I realized that I may have had a cup of wine too many, and had chosen a roundabout manner of reaching our manor. Of course, at some point she tried to warn me, but the man I was didn’t listen. There was too much love, if you could call it that. I just wanted to impress her, and in my pride ignored any indication that I could be wrong, ignorant, stupid, stupid stupid!” That last word was exclaimed with venom, and I had to calm the furiously whispering man, cooing and shooing as he babbled. When he’d calmed down enough to be coherent, he moved away from the window, where he couldn’t be heard as well due to the icy wind. Naturally, I was bewildered by the master’s fits today. He is prone to them, but rarely and only when teaching something complicated. Today, the revolved around a single recollection and the core of that iron will of his. Part of me dreaded the knowing, yet allowed him to press on. “Thank you, boy.” He always called me boy, despite being twenty years my junior. “So, where was I? Ah. My pride took us in a route next to one of Xera’s rougher neighborhoods. Now, being a criminal yourself, I’m sure you’re away of that city’s rougher area, home to thugs, rogues and mercenaries. In fact, since Greta to the north fell to some unknown calamity, only the roughest there had survived and made their way to our city like beasts. But I digress: they came and so Xera had become worse than ever, with gangs like the Reds and Fingers. Well, that day we went through and there were seven drunk men awaiting on the icy road. One called out, for my lovely was fairer than they’d ever seen, as nobles only could be when compared to the mongrel whores such men are used to. There was a light of fire far behind them, and we made for it as they leaned against a wooden back of whatever tavern it was and watched us. The tavern’s wall was of dark brown wood, which I remember clearly for whatever reason. The ice was white, although her skin was paler still, and her eyes were captivating.” My fists hardened at the dismissive manner he used when addressing those of my ilk, for my own mother had been forced down unfortunate paths and I knew us to be no beasts. However, I kept those fists firmly against the cold, chipped stone floor. The master could doubtlessly sense my rage, and could force me to jump through that window towards a cold death in an instant. I had seen him do it before.
