He had slipped in through one of the many side doors that lined the edges of the hall. Specifically, Bromme Sol had chosen the one dedicated to the mystic glyph urtop which, in accordance with the belief that it could heal mortal wounds, was stamped on the tools of every self-respecting doctor or medic. He himself had seen enough men brought back from the brink on the battlefield to believe. His interest had been twofold: the door was both at the back of the densest part of the crowd and he had always been rather taken by the glyph's unattractive name which seemed at odds with the elegantly curved lines radiating from its axis.
He leaned to his right, trying to catch a glimpse of the prophet himself, but caught a sharp elbow to the gut.
"Where the hell have you been?" hissed a furious voice in his ear. Undoubling and sweeping his hair back from his face, the lector found himself standing directly beside the poet-attendant Rhithas.
Eyes wide, he strove to stammer out an excuse. "I- I was assisting with the new-"
"I know exactly what you were working on; the question was wholly rhetorical!" Anger flared at having to explain such a simple-minded thing to a mere lector, "Your tardiness is utterly inexcusable. You are to report to the catacombs as soon as these proceedings are finished." By then, several of the penitents had turned to see what the fierce whispers from the back were. Shethiid felt as though his ears and face were about to combust and hunkered down inside his cowl as though he might disappear.
"Yes, master poet," he whispered with full sincerity. One of the first lessons he had learned upon joining the order was that protesting only resulted in more suffering later. It was hardly fair though; the project coordinator was responsible for holding him late. The injustice might sting, but he'd do well to simply endure it. He tried to push it out of his mind and turned his focus to the prophet and the ceremony at hand.
The fourth and final songbird's wings had just been cut off and its blood was draining into the basin in front of the thrones. Although the heresies of Ior had given the mantle of truth over to false prophets more than sixty-four generations ago, the rightful place of the second prophet was kept in the hopes of reconciliation. For now, it stood empty even as the prophet Crameq bore the mantle of faith seated wearily on the other. His long, dark beard flowed through the gap in his high collar and down the front of his robes. It matched the pitch black of his shoulders and melted into the pattern of geometric red splashes and rivulets that started at the breast and transitioned in to bleach-parchment white at the feet. What little of his face could be seen between the beard and mantle was heavily lined and worn.
He inclined his head and the blood was permitted to drain from the reservoir into the patterns of religio-grammar etched into the dais. Black ichor spread slowly through the white limestone channels as the choir in the balcony above chanted the appropriate liturgy. Bromme Sol always loved this part best: lifeblood offered as ink to complete the designs that permit true prophecy.
The droning of the choir ended. Automatically, Rithras and Shethiid along with most of the pilgrims folded their hands into the appropriate positions and bowed deeply to the pair of thrones. When they and the rest of the crowd lifted their heads again, daylight had dimmed and a gentle glow was coming from the dais.
Crameq was now standing, rigid but swaying slightly. Despite his stature and build, the heavy robes of his office almost seemed to be propping him up. The concentric hemicircles above his temples, previously rotating slowly and together, now sped round reversing directions and moving freely of each other. The single ring suspended vertically above his head was the source of the light bathing the center of the otherwise-darkened room. Although his vision was totally obscured by part of the silver mantle extended as a featureless surface skirting his temples, following the lines of his cheekbones, and reaching from forehead to end of nose, Crameq's head turned as though searching the crowd.
The poet-attendant shifted uncomfortably. Something was wrong. By now, the prophet should have begun to speak the words of the Scribe but he still said nothing. Bromme Sol looked to Rhithras for reassurance, but the master wouldn't meet his eyes. Soft murmurs from the crowd began to fill the room, breaking the reverent silence.
Suddenly, the prophet's head snapped to his left and he extended his arm to single out a man working his way forward. Shouting in ancient Urchellic, understood only by a few of the clergy, he cursed, "You shall be unmade! Your bones shall be erased from the parchment of time itself! Your endeavors shall fail and none will recall what you once were!" The voice carried a deeply unsettling resonance, but the man forced his way to the edge of the crowd undeterred.
He sprinted towards Crameq, drawing a pair of ornate cylinders from within his vest and raising them above his head. Shethiid instinctively threw himself to the ground as the man let out a surprisingly shrill shriek. Through the thick material of his cowl, Shethiid was still temporarily blinded by a flash of green light and felt a rush of chill mountain air tear over him towards the prophets' thrones. He lay motionless listening to screams of panic until he could see again and sat up.
The center of the audience chamber had vanished. A hemispherical crater ten meters across was all that remained with a circle of sky now formed overhead. For a few meters beyond that, everything was, as far as he could discern, foamy. Blood was everywhere. The many unfortunate enough to be within the blast but outside the crater were porous and spilling even as they struggled to hold themselves together.
Glancing over, he saw the poet-attendant clutching his arm. The lector recognized what must have happened: the poet-attendant had thrown up his hand to shield his eyes and been caught in the edge of the blast. Now, seeping blood, his face was growing ashen. Shethiid quickly whipped off the cord around his waist and tied it around the base of the ruined forearm.
"Take deep breaths, master poet. Try to stay calm." The man nodded weakly, still clutching the remains of his arm.
A rumble and crack from the ceiling caused him to look up. The limestone had already been weakened by over a thousand years of tundra seasons but those paled compared to the effect of half its bulk being unwritten. "Drag whoever you can to the edge of the room!" he tried to call over the din of suffering. A few people nearby heard and started moving victims as quickly as they dared. A glint at the bottom of the crater caught his eye.
Bromme Sol hesitated only long enough to shift the Rhithras to between two pillars. The man was edging on shock, but had a good chance of survival. He dashed forward and skidded down the crumbling crater wall. The mantle of faith was—unlike the recent prophet—miraculously complete and unscathed at the bottom of the hole although it was as dull and still as any other piece of silver. Snatching the mantle without losing momentum, he kept running and clambered back out to safety.
As he stumbled to a stop he noticed that the mantle was stirring. The rest of the scene slid away as though receding into fog so that he could perceive only himself and the relic. Shethiid was dimly aware of the thunder of debris and cloud of dust from the collapsing roof, but he held no real concern for them while he stared at the construct in his hands. On compulsion and against his judgement, he found himself lifting the mantle onto his head. Terrified, he tried to stop but could only slow his hands as they crowned him. Once he felt the ring of metal settle around his skull and its faceplate had embraced him, his hands dropped. A terrible weight and fantastic lightness came over him obliterating whatever protests or resistance he had.
No comments:
Post a Comment