James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

Moaning, Nesaea sat up, crusted vomit and dried blood flaking off her skin. Every inch she moved brought more pain, more weakness, but she fought it. Despite knowing he could not hear her, any more than she could hear what went on outside her prison, she cried a warning. The words, unintelligible, spilled off her dry tongue. She worked to bring saliva to her parched mouth, grimacing at the acidic flavor of old vomit. Clawing her hands over the walls of her tomb, she got her feet under her and managed to stand.

“Rathe,” she croaked, stomach lurching with a fresh wave of nausea. She pounded the transparent wall before her nose. “Rathe!”

Gathul hove into view, wearing its spirit form, a menacing darkness little more substantial than the wall of her prison. That was better than its bloated corporeal body of corruption, all of hanging male and female flesh. Sanouk and the god conversed, the lord’s face growing more fearful by the moment.

Nesaea ran shaky fingers over the stubborn obstacle to her freedom, seeking any means by which she could pry open the barrier. As ever, no chink showed itself. “Rathe!” she shrieked again. “Go! Run!”

Lost beneath a dirty sack, Rathe’s head turned toward Sanouk. He might have said something, for Sanouk looked his way, then glanced at Rathe’s frantic efforts to loose the bindings at his wrists. Without warning, the lord retrieved an urn and smashed it against Rathe’s head. Shattered crockery and sand flew as Rathe pitched over, rigid as a dead man.

“No,” Nesaea moaned.

Sanouk struggled to heft Rathe onto the greenstone altar, then dragged off his clothing. After he had his sacrifice arranged, Sanouk darted out of the chamber and returned a moment later with a tiny bronze brazier in one hand, and a dark flask held in the other.

With practiced efficiency, he kindled a small fire, poured bits of charred wood onto the flames from an earthenware pot. Once the coals went from black to a glowing, smokeless red, he settled the flask amongst them.

He conversed again with Gathul. Then, fingers shaking, he stripped off his clothing and began to perform the cleansing ritual. Blocking the chamber’s sole doorway, the god’s misty form roiled, a chaos of eager smoke.

Nesaea fell back weeping, fearing the manner of death Sanouk would choose to inflict upon Rathe. She slid down the rough stone wall at her back, her fleeting hope threatened by the madness she had kept at bay so long.

Rathe came awake, head splitting. He kept his eyes closed, listening to soft scraping sounds, smelling a sweet fragrance intermingled with wood smoke. Ropes still bound his hands at his waist, and he lay upon a cold surface that conformed to his naked body, and seemed to hold him in place like the mouth of a leech. Held though he was, he felt sure he could break free when the time came.

“As you are here already, master,” Sanouk asked in a quaking voice, “should … should I speak the words of summoning?”

“Speak them, human,” came a stony growl, “for they fill me with pleasure.”

Rathe dared not move his head, but cracked his eyelids. A rough stone ceiling vaulted over him, and a pocket of shifting blackness hovered at the edge of his vision. Tentatively, he tested his bonds. When the rope slid over the knuckles of one hand with little effort, he forced himself to stay put, knowing he must learn all he could of his enemy before he acted. Too soon, and any limited advantage he had would perish.

Sanouk cleared his throat, once and again, then cried out, “Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

Those arcane words cascaded around the chamber, gaining strength with echoes, and filled Rathe with a sense of utter loss and despair. He fought those emotions, trying to find courage, strength, fury, anything that might ward against a sense of absolute futility.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

A cold stirring raised gooseflesh on Rathe’s skin. Shadows multiplied and deepened. Fear, stronger than any he had known fighting on countless fields of battle, threatened to unman him.

Will you die here, unresisting, on this stone slab? Rathe’s heart jolted in his chest at the significance of that unspoken question. Will you be the calf to slaughter … will you allow your soul to be stolen? Denying the possibility, Rathe shook his head, and in so doing looked directly at the darkness he had previously seen from the corner of his eye.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”

That dark menace basked in the resounding wickedness of Sanouk’s incantation, a creature of lightless spirit. Rathe now knew that Sanouk had raised a churning ebon blasphemy from beyond the outer darkness.

“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” Sanouk cried again, building into a fervent crescendo. Neither the worshipped nor the worshipper were paying Rathe any mind.

With Sanouk and the deity distracted, Rathe heaved himself free of the table’s grasp, thinking only to find a means to escape. All that changed when he hit the floor and found himself staring into the bulging eyes of a young boy trapped behind an impossible wall of rippling water. The child showed no outward indication of being submerged, but his mouth worked as if drowning.

Thinking he had lost his wits, Rathe turned and found a charred figure behind a wall of roiling flame. Without question it was a woman. She flailed and screamed soundlessly, burning toe to crown … yet the fires did not consume what was left of her flesh. By all the gods -

The thought cut off. Trapped within upright tombs, more people lined the walls of the chamber, all held behind various barriers. Through a misty gray pane, a woman who looked vaguely familiar clawed at a rope around her neck; behind a wall of flowing blood, an old man bled from gaping eye sockets and from dozens of stabs and cuts.

Revulsion welled in Rathe, becoming horror as he took in more victims of what could be no less than Sanouk’s contemptible offerings to the monstrous god he served. His sweeping gaze halted on a staring figure beyond a wall hued after rank corruption. Nesaea?

Her eyes rolled, blinking dazedly. Unknown filth covered her face and breasts in crusted lines. Her hair stuck out in wild tangles. Madness and recognition battled for dominance in her stare, but it was Nesaea. By Ahnok, what has he done to you?

All the fear and hopelessness that had fallen on Rathe at hearing Sanouk’s vile conjuring became as oil-soaked tinder. Nesaea reaching out to him with trembling fingers served as the spark that ignited a murderous conflagration in his heart.

“Blessed be the Reaper of Sorrows,” Sanouk howled, “accept this offering from the hands of your imperfect servant!”

Rathe stood up behind the greenstone altar as Sanouk turned. He gaped at the man’s nakedness, wondering fleetingly what manner of madness had taken the Lord of Hilan. Before Sanouk could react, Rathe threw himself headlong over the altar and slammed into him, driving him hard against a wall. To one side the god boiled, a black and shapeless thing shot-through with agitated webs of crackling energy. The hair on Rathe’s head stood up when the creature loomed nearer.

Desperate to get clear, Rathe smashed a fist against Sanouk’s mouth and spun away, his feet tangling in the lord’s clothing folded on the ground. Next to the robes waited a scabbarded sword. Without pause, Rathe caught up the blade and slung the elaborate leather scabbard away. Naked and gasping, Rathe danced back, weapon at the ready.

Sanouk grinned, lips spilt and bloody. He spoke to his god. “Master, though he was meant for an offering, I beg your leave to destroy this wretched man.”