Precipice to the divine parish

District of Guidance, Fifth Ring

Ever since they left the temple bridges and crossed over into the massive hall, Tharia felt watched. There was silence all around them and even their own steps were muffled by the dust the wind had carried inside. It mixed well with the abandoned temple gates and the broken statues that framed this place. Rows of tents blocked their path. Those they had passed so far, had all been devoid of human life. Tharia double checked her wheel-lock pistol. Both chambers were loaded and the fuse-lids were closed with black powder inside. She held the weapon at the ready.

Annabelle walked in front. Tharia allowed herself a moment to observe the weave and bounce of the silver hair. Her friend looked more confident now, but to her it seemed a thin veneer. Maybe this Dreamreaper really had influence over the goddess. On the other hand, her brother had never needed a mythological beast to indulge in his violent compulsions. No monster lured her father into greed, no demon made her sister a lusty cushion plaything. In a way, they were like children to the true horror in their family: A cheerful woman that had learned all these things and became something rotten. When Tharia noticed Annabelle looking at her, she gave her friend the widest of smiles. Annie was the only one that got to see the honest ones.

“You’re radiant”, Tharia said out loud and meant it. The goddess smirked and they both refocussed on the scene at hand. There was something creepy about perfectly fine tents being abandoned without a trace of struggle. These must have housed hundreds of people, yet none of them could be seen. The dust from the cloth creatures the false star had killed made it hard to gauge which dust was old and which was new, either way, this place was abandoned.

“Are you sure the essence is near?” Tharia asked. Her friend gave the answer by pointing towards the door at the end of the tent city. They continued in silence with Annabelle using the Scythe to open up the tents in their way and to check if something was lurking in the dark corners. She noticed that Annabelle had a weird twitchiness going on. Something at the far-off corner caught her attention before she could delve further into that.

“That’s the same Sigil as the boy had. Reckon these are their tents over there?” she said and pointed towards the end where a bunch of red tents stood. A rose had been painted on their sides. Their positions around the massive door behind them gave the impression of guard posts.

Once they were in reach, Annabelle raised her scythe and cut into the cloth. Several tents gave way until a metallic clang stopped the movement. Not even a breath later, a metal gauntlet the size of two heads punched through. Annabelle let go of her scythe and jumped back. Tharia moved to the side for a better shot, took aim and then let loose a single thunder. Even just one barrel of the pistol sent her to the floor from recoil, where she skittered across until she came to a stop. Tiny red letters glowed along the length of the weapon as heat dissipated from it. At least the impact was appropriate for the absurd amount of recoil. Pieces of armor were sent flying and revealed sickly skin underneath with pins sticking out of it.

It was only when the knight stumbled back from the impact, that she realized it might have been a human. The knight tore the tent cloth in two. A swollen face pressed out of the closed helmet, its mouth was wide open with an impossibly long tongue strangling its own neck. The eyes bulged forward, they were bloodshot. Gargling sounds came out of its mouth. Even without a weapon in hand, this knight was an imposing figure. It lumbered forward with surprising speed. Why wasn’t Annabelle attacking yet? The pale woman just stood there with her body frozen. With the knight this close, Tharia didn’t have a clear shot anymore.

“Gods be fucking cursed”, Tharia screamed and scrambled back on her legs. She unwinded the firing mechanism to prevent accidental misfirings and then switched the pistol for the long axe. One step, two steps. Pain. Who cares. Faster. She slipped on a piece of cloth and caught her balance just in time. Intense pain. Who. Cares. About. Pain! She clenched her teeth. Another step – then yet more steps. By now Annabelle was on the ground and staring up at the ceiling, while the Knightmonster hammered her with the gauntlet.

Tharia knew she didn’t have enough strength in her arms for anything like a decent slash. She jumped in an attempt to give her weapon more bite. Tears obstructed her vision. They were caused by the anguish in her lower half and made it hard to see, but she wouldn’t need to. She felt the axe smash down into something metallic, it was but a moment’s obstruction before the weapon bit into flesh. Her feathery weight and that of the weapon carried her forwards, driving it deeper into the knight.

She blinked her vision free and saw the head of the knight split open. It toppled to the side and collapsed on the ground at roughly the same time that Tharia paid the price for her reckless actions. She tried to roll like she had seen Annabelle do but lacked the experience. Her body smacked on the ground and she once more skittered along it. This temple ground really was too slippery for her tastes.

Annie was still frozen, so Tharia got back up again. The first couple of steps were wobbly. Unimportant. She stumbled towards her friend and double-checked her surroundings for other creatures. With her hand to the neck of her friend, she let part of the spark work its way towards her friend.

“Minimal damage... bruises, scrapes. You’re going to be sore in the morning”, she said and then, while once more checking her surroundings, Annie grabbed her by the shoulders and started dragging her away from the tents.

“You know if your fainting and randomly dying continues, I’m going to need to look into creating some form of carrying solution for you. Maybe a wheelbarrow. Maaaybeeee”, the sudden twinge in her stomach cut her sentence short. She felt Annabelle’s hands on her wrist and looked down on her friend.

“I’m alright”

“Gods be cursed you are!” Tharia snapped back, “Shut up, I’ll drag you someplace safe and we’ll try again in the morning”

Annabelle wrested her hands aside and then stood up on her own. She headed back towards the door.

“You don’t get to blank out in the middle of combat and then just walk away from it. Annie, wait for crying out loud”

Inside the Precipice

District of Guidance, Fifth Ring

“Avert not your eyes, Death comes to all. Be god, be king, be child – you fall. Bring out your bones to ground, put dirt on them, they shall be found”, Tharia said with a low whisper. It was part of an old macabre lullaby from her childhood. The girl could do little else but follow in the path of destruction laid out before her. She didn’t know whether five minutes had passed or hours.

Her eyes witnessed a monster. At first glance, it seemed like a doll with a face too beautiful to be real. She had lifeless eyes, an expression without emotion, pale skin without a single blemish and all these were framed by silver hair that reached as far as the bottom. Specks of blood had reached the monster’s face and the scythe dripped as well. The monster really quite looked like her Annabelle.

The goddess swung the scythe to deflect the blow of a halberd, she then stepped in with the same motion and summoned a war-fan with the end directly appearing through the helmet of her assailer. The armored creature died right there. Annabelle tilted her head just a bit. Tharia had to watch while Annabelle quietly pulled the war-fan out of the helmet. It had gotten stuck and why her friend didn’t just resummon it outside, she didn’t know.

While Annabelle was busy with her grisly display, Tharia kept her covered. The loaded pistol felt heavy in her hands by now, so she propped it up with her other arm. These hallways were supposed to be a sort of spiritual pilgrimage, yet she couldn’t help but notice the many booths for memorabilia. Every purchase was marked as a donation to the gods, yet she had overheard her father mention these were essentially bribery booths. The relationships with the gods had already been strained before all this had happened.

With a metallic clang, the armored knight fell to the ground. Tharia averted her eyes from what was left of the face. Part of her tried to rationalize this as them not being human anymore. She tried to accept that it was okay to do this to monsters. Yet they looked human enough to make her stomach rebel. Tharia was all ready to kill monsters at a moments notice, even the human ones – but to do that? When she finally got her stomach back under control, Annabelle just vanished through one of the doors at the side.

“Annie”, she said. That single name carried with it an ocean of emotions. Most of them had the bitter taste of having lost something precious. She really didn’t want to lose her again. Yet she had obviously lost control. She quietly followed after Annabelle and entered the staircase. It was one of the winding ones that led deeper underground. Every few steps, she had to climb over a dead body. Many of them looked like Annabelle wanted to make sure they’d stay dead for generations of potential reincarnations.

When she finally reached the end of the stairs, Annabelle held up an unarmored man. His mouth had been sewn shut and a badly stitched wound covered his stomach. This man too no longer was human. No human one could survive with several metal rods sticking out of their head. The silver-haired woman suddenly leaned in close and sank her teeth into the man’s neck. At first, Tharia thought she had turned into a fabled bloodsucker, but really, she simply tore out the flesh and spit it aside. Annabelle then threw the quickly dying body aside and continued deeper into the room. Another guard walked up to them. This one had no more stomach to speak of. A strange web-like substance kept the knight standing upright. Its young face showed a frozen look of terror that would not move no matter what. Not even when Annabelle cleaved his head in two with the blade of the scythe.

Tharia followed with a queasy feeling in her stomach. The voice of a man came through a door at the end of a corridor.

“They say evil lies in the eyes. Yet even without them, your face is still so hateful. Oh well, another failure. Throw him to the others. Bring me that girl over there. The crying one. Make sure to collect the tears, they’re precious expressions of honesty”

Even just hearing about what transpired behind the door got Tharia in a mood not unlike what Annabelle looked like. There was no more time to feel human herself. She repressed the nauseating feeling, bottled up her sorrow for her friend, put aside her doubts and squashed the empathy she felt for things that had stopped being human. Her fingers touched the corners of her lips until she felt the sides start to curl up. A bit more, just a hint. Wonderful! That was a convincing smile. You’re cheerful. Strong. Nothing can knock you down. Your family tried – yet here you are.

Tharia wrapped her fingers around the weapon and then closed up to the growling Annabelle. There was little human left about her friend, but any doubt found itself quickly tossed away. She was Tharia. Strong. Cheerful. Smile, girl. You should smile, they had said in the old days. Carefully keeping her distance, she waited until Annabelle opened the door and then quickly stepped inside.

There was absolutely no reason for her stomach to protest at the side, her state of mind told her. Every temple cellar needed a pile of corpses. Or several dozens of them. Hundreds, really. As many as the tents had housed. Naturally, cages belonged there as well and look, some captives even lived although they looked a bit broken on the inside. Tharia gave them her widest smile and they recoiled in horror, safe for an old crone in the last of the cages. The crone replied with a toothy grin. What an odd sight she was, her coat looked like it had been made out of grass and bones.

Tharia was cheerful. Powerful. She let her gaze wander and paid little mind to what Annabelle was doing. Probably killing the guards. There had been a few more just moments prior, so that was probably what had happened. The middle of the room belonged to a stage of sorts. An altar stood in the middle, but it had been turned into an operating table. A morbidly obese man in an elegant suit stood hunched atop it. A young girl, barely 10 years old, rested on the altar. She was crying while servants with frozen looks of terror on their face collected the tears with tiny vials.

“Tell me, where is the root of evil?” the man said.

“Lord Farian, I beg you!” screamed an older looking woman in the back. The man paid it no heed. His eyes stared down on the girl.

“Tell me!”

“The soul”, the girl said whimpering.

“The soul, the soul, how am I supposed to take out the soul? Are you mocking me?” Lord Farian punched a fist down onto the Altar, “Stupid thing! I’m helping you. Why do we remove the evil? So the goddess returns to us. She told me she’d only meet me again if the evil inside of me was gone”

The girl couldn’t answer anymore, she was shivering and whining. Tharia had it with the act. She brought up the pistol, took careful aim so that the center of the shot didn’t get too close to the child – and then brought the thunder. Twice it roared in the small room and twice it just barely hit its mark. Lord Farian was still thrown aside from the power and little Tharia found herself on her bum again. She would need something to stabilize the firing process. Not least of all because she started to suspect the weapon had a bit more punch than was normal. Immediately after, she searched for Annabelle and found her friend soaked red in the middle of dead guards. She looked unharmed in body but broken in mind. Lord Farian got back on his feet. It was hard to gauge just how badly she had hit him. By his mannerism, not too much. Judging by the blood, quite a bit. His eyes locked onto Annabelle.

“Your divine mistress, you have returned! I’ve succeeded!” he said with a relieved laugh.

“I’ve worked for you! Humans are tainted with evil! After you told me my tongue holds evil, I realized you were right! Tongues! But not just them. The stomach, the eyes, teeth, and fingers - evil hides in many places. I tried taking them out, Mistress!”

Annabelle closed in on the man. The greasy looking Lord got down on his knees and looked at the goddess with wide open eyes and a frozen laugh.

“Save us from evil”, he called out with a wavering voice. The goddess swung her weapon once. It cut straight through Lord Farian and ended his life right there. That was anticlimactic. Tharia just stood with her mouth open. She had expected something different. The battle with Eleanor had nearly cost Annie her life, but this? This was just ridiculous. One quick and swift execution for an immensely broken man.

And then Tharia saw Annabelle focus her eyes on the child. The scythe hovered just above the kid, blood from the blade dripped down on the crying girl. No. No. Just no. No matter how much she tried to look away, this she could not tolerate. Her shaking hands brought up the pistol. She dropped one shot, then another into the barrels and pressed them down with a metallic stick. She could never shoot her friend but maybe it would scare her away. Even her own mind wasn’t sure why she suddenly muttered the second verse of the lullaby.

“Don’t close your ears, Death comes to all. By foe, by luck, by friend – you fall. Bring out my bones into the ground, put dirt on them, they shall be found”

Something got into her eyes. Tharia reached up to brush it out and suddenly found earth on her fingers. She blinked again. Her surroundings had taken a strangely grey taint. Nothing moved anymore, not even the candles dared to flicker. Time stood still. The raspy voice of an old woman reached her ears.

“A song not sung in many years”, the voice said, only to suddenly sound very young in the next moment, “Has she yet learned its meaning?”

Tharia tried to move, but her body wouldn’t listen. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the old crone approaching. She had somehow gotten out of the cage on her own. Her coat really was made out of dirt with grass that had grown on it and bones sticking out. The voice changed yet again, this time it was a woman of adult age. The crone looked younger too like she was anywhere between thirty and fifty now.

“We know this one. That we do. She’s important, that she is”, the woman with the earthly coat said and suddenly appeared right in front of Tharia. She felt like she had suddenly stepped into a wide forest, fresh after a rain.

“Let her move?” the young voice asked. The crone’s face was now that of a child.

“She will need to, for what is to come”, the old one replied.

Tharia felt an ache in her arms and lowered the gun. The room still stood still around her, but it had changed. All the dead bodies had rotten away to the bones. The living ones were transparent enough to see their bones underneath their skin. Even Tharia could look straight through her arm.

“Who are you?” she asked. It wasn’t the most pressing one, but her mind was still trying to catch up to what was happening.

“I’m the Grandmother of Bones”, the childish face of the crone said.

“I’m Mother Bone”, the adult woman added on. Before the crone could speak, the earthen cloak shifted around her. It hugged closer to her shape.

“I’m what you will have become – many eons ago”

“Well, I’m Tharia. Nice to meet you and if you don’t feel like making sense soon, you can piss right off”, Tharia replied with glowing hot anger in her stomach. That was the downside of setting aside all those important emotions. At some point, there was no more room to do so and it all just spilled out.

“Tsk”, the crone said and the young one continued, “She has been listening to him, hasn’t she?”

Once the hag showed the face of the adult woman, Tharia observed more closely and a sinking feeling told her, she was looking at an older version of herself. The adult woman leaned in close until she could see every detail on her. A bony finger reached up and plunged into her ear. Tharia yelped out at the gross invasion and tried to pull back, but found herself unable to move again. Cold shivers ran down her spine as the bony finger was pulled out again and with it came something frigid and slimy.

With the face of the crone now, the strange figure held out a tiny snail in front of Tharia. Oddly enough, quiet music came from the shell. It was the song of the muse.

“Naughty boy”, the young girl of Mother Bone said.

“We must deal with him”, the adult woman added.

“We will have done so, won’t we?”

Tharia glared at the snail. That melody did weird things with her mind. Now that it had become weaker, she noticed just how unbalanced her feelings had become. It felt like a layer of rage lifted itself from her and revealed the pure chaos underneath. She suddenly felt so very frail and when Mother Bone crunched the snail dead, Tharia fell to the ground with a shock of emotions washing over her.

She felt strong arms tug her under the earthen coat. All around her was the calm scent of trees and a soft summer breeze with just a touch of rain. Tharia felt herself calm down immediately. All weariness drained from her bones.

“Now then, you have a question to ask of us, don’t you?” the young girl said.

“She will have done so and it will hurt her greatly”, the old one replied. The adult face appeared with a smile.

“Let’s not pre-ordain what must be done. Tell yourself. What is it we need to know?”

Tharia pulled herself out of the earthen coat. Part of her longed to be there, to just lie down and exist until she didn’t live anymore. She was weary and so were her bones. Yet there were things she had to do. Tharia fixed her eyes on Annabelle.

“Can you help her?” she asked straight away.

The hag suddenly disappeared from sight and emerged right next to the frozen Annabelle. The young face of this strange being looked directly at Tharia, however.

“We can not”, she said.

“But we can give her time”, the middle one added.

“We will have helped her in the end. If this is what we wished”, came the part of the crone.

Tharia gulped and nodded. Part of her warned her to not ask strange things for help, yet on the other hand, she felt safe and comfortable in the vicinity of this strange thing.

“I can do that”, the young face of Mother Bone said. The creature in the earthen coat suddenly stretched itself – it was only now that Tharia noticed she was a bit smaller than her friend. Soft lips planted a kiss on Annabelle’s forehead.

“I can do that”, the adult version replied and planted a kiss on the left cheek.

“I can do that”, the crone added and planted a kiss on the right cheek.

“I can do that”, Tharia suddenly heard herself speak. She stood right in front of Annabelle with a heavy earthen coat on her shoulders. All around her was creation itself: Lush forests, rich fields of grass, ample life wherever her senses dwelled. Her lips found those of Annabelle. It was the kiss of a friend, a lover and so much more. Once the kiss was sealed, the earthen coat sealed tight around her body. It felt like a second skin – and then it was suddenly gone again and she stood slightly off to the side of her friend.

“Seek the Dreamreaper soon”, the crone said with four voices, one of it was her own, “Until then, a price must be paid and you shall hate us for it”

Tharia once more stood frozen and alone. She watched the crone approach the child on the altar and hold a clawed hand to her throat.

“The price is the life of the young one. It shall distract the Dreamreaper until you can face him. It is a price most fair, but it is one that will weigh heavy on you”

She looked at the child and closed her eyes. What a glorious bundle of hypocrisy she was. Moments ago, she had pointed her weapon at her friend to prevent her from killing the girl and now she stood there to be judge and executioner. Her mind burned every detail of the frozen child into her mind. The tears, the despair, the horror at being threatened with death. She saw the face of the mother, the pleading, the hope, oh how she wished to get her child back.

“Do it”, Tharia said.

Why’d you say that, her mind screamed at her. Because you love Annabelle and can’t bear to lose her again, the subconscious replied. Hypocrite, years of repression and self-loathing snarled inside her mind, you’d do so much worse than that and smile while doing it.

Well. Smile, she did. It wasn’t quite honest – but the world needn’t know.

End: Bring all your bones | Coming up: Paths not taken