Chapter 14: Noam's Awakening

Written from Noam’s Perspective

A crashing wave of white terror swept the parade street, and slammed into the enemy lines with a terrifying screech. A wail so loud and cumbersome to the ears that the drums therein violently bled, excreting rivers of blood that stained the stones their bodies stood upon.

Originating from the summons of three of our best reality-benders, manifesting raw, encircling, tearing, and ripping dread was no minute feat. Rather, a score of paternal-death proportions, with clunks and bangs unmatched in their vibrational intensity. So intense, in fact, that the ground beneath our own feet shook, and rocked loose the mould holding each rock together, leaving our boots dusted grey.

Their shield wall broken, and their defenders rendered deaf, I stood on high atop a makeshift barrier, and shouted soundly “Charge!” and propelled myself forward with a single push. Leading from the front was a necessary burden, for achieving such a marvel as the unification of the barbarous countryside of Juhasz could not be achieved by a seat-of-the-pants minister, nor by a strategist leaning by day over maps, and by night buried in their own skull, nor so on and so forth… and certainly not by cowards.

So many cowards, fretting about the back line, asking to be casters. “No.” I said to them, firmly, for I was sure that I needed as many bodies as could physically carry swords, and don armour. “No!” I repeated, louder, commandingly, barking the order into their faces, scaring the fear from their flesh.

I would not suffer a weakling; never would I suffer the yellow. For a mission of such heights as that set forth by the Mother herself to be hindered is incomprehensible. Entrusted with such magnificence as a position of command thereupon was an honour unparalleled, and one to be taken with the utmost seriousness.

“There! The windows!” I said, pointing up and to my left, directing my grenadiers to blast out the fourth floor suite of an adjacent flat. “There! There again!” I subsequently said, this time to the right, referencing an entrenched spot atop the ruins of what was once a general store, protecting a caster of their own.

Rather a primal fellow, dressed in cloaks and furs, wearing the skull of a stag with nine-point antlers, screaming out directions and inspiration in a tongue so foreign to my own as to be naught but blabber. “Death! Death to the daemons!” I myself shouted, and charged headlong at their position.

Screaming bloody murder, I catapulted myself over the half-wall and landed atop the caster’s guard, driving my sabre through his chest, spinning the blade a quarter way, and then tearing it up and out, through the shoulder, to sever the heart and take as much with it as possible.

He hardly gurgled before succumbing to quietus, leaving me alone with their bastard, encircled by the ensuing battle. What emotions tingled on his aura, I do not know, for the vast and warping chaos depravated me sensorily. No matter, for scrying was of little use in the heat of combat.

Merely, I swung and slashed, stabbed and charged, and he and I exchanged blows for the following four minutes. His swordplay was weaker than my own, but he carried himself courageously, and fought with intensity expected, and admired, in one fighting to preserve their birthright, and their culture.

However, I refused to acknowledge that birthright, and refused to acknowledge that culture, rife with evils and curses and banes, the seat of the Anti-Mothers, rich with hatred for the one true goddess.

It was this, I fundamentally believe, this honest and excellent force that provided to me the might and luck to overcome the caster that led, finally, to the tip of my sword’s grazing his neck. The pain faulted him, and that opening left me with a singular option: kill. And so I did, slaying him in a single follow-up, a stab through his side, through his heart and lungs.

I withdrew my sword then, cleaning the blood on my cape, and returned from that fortification to my men. My appearance caused a sudden surge in their morale, cheering, even in the midst of matches, and together we carried onward, down the street, to its demise at the stairs of their holy temple.

“Fire, fire, fire!” I yelled out, alerting my archers to fulfil their duty. In a moment, a soaring darkness blotted out the sun, and replaced it with one of our own making. Fire of our own design, carried at the head of a thousand arrows fastened especially to carry such delicate cargo to its destination.

Those blazes rained down upon the roof of the unholy cathedral, and set alight its thatch protector. In moments, the flames spread from the roof to the walls and the steeple, and invaded the interior, causing calamity to befall those taking refuge within–those last few hold outs, those last few enemy combatants thinking they could outlast the Mother’s army.

The pale horse’s peace of aftermath, the quiet and solemn atmosphere of the post-battle streets, left me lingering on my own wounds. My mind’s gifts didn’t last, and I stood in the centre of a field of corpses feeling hungry–a hunger unfamiliar, begging to sate my many wounds.

The caster was good, I had to admit, better than I was expecting. My overconfidence, a natural accompaniment to my impetus, left me open far too often, and so I stood, leaking red from about forty lacerations.

“Captain! Captain!” A familiar lieutenant called, rushing over to me with a look of concern plastered across his visage.

“Calm, calm brother. Brother of the light, rest now.” I insisted, thrice, and put my hands upon his shoulders, smiling gleefully. “We are victorious! I still stand! Fret not and celebrate!” And I spun him around, letting him go with a gentle push in the right direction. Any direction away from me.

Celebrate as he may, with whatever assortment of nostrums and booze define that end, I had a mission of my own to complete. For, the battle was won, but the Mother’s commandment couldn’t be fulfilled without the destruction of that artefact of darkness, the battery for evil from which their casters commanded such wicked manipulations and influence as the generation of titanic illusions.

Following Her path, that shone through clear skies, rays of sunlight illumined a wispy path forward, up the stairs of the ashes and wood, stone and brick, over the smouldering trunk of the church. It ceased at the centre, at which point I began to clear away the lingering damage to reveal the original floor.

It had been scarred black, but retained its sturdiness, necessitating my prying up a few boards with a small dagger, nearly cutting my hand in the process. Thereunder I found a trapdoor, unlocked, which I opened and passed through.

A short ladder led to a platform, and another, longer ladder opened into a small natural cave. Its vaguely roundish features gave off an air of rightness, as if it had always been this way, but my curiosity prompted close inspection, and my eyes revealed marks, the signs of great labour.

Its naturalness had been faked, and with no door in sight, I promptly assumed it was a repetition of the same, silly trick. Hiding a portal in plain sight. A mere seven minutes of searching passed, spent spying little details, feeling for cracks or dishevelled surfaces, and finally I pressed in just the right spot, and heard a sound click emit from the wall.

This allowed me simply to push, and the wall gave in and crumbled, opening into a crypt shrouded in sheer darkness–and yet, through that blackness, that blinding air, obfuscating all, all but the gem, the sign, their vessel of power. I knew what had to be done… destruction awaits.

#

Written from Jack’s Perspective

“Who are you…” I muttered, staring intensely as the years on this man’s face reversed before our very eyes. Wrinkles faded, and the flesh became taught, bags receded, and exhaustion vacated his eyes, and muscle tore itself asunder, and strength returned to make him robust.

“Careful now.” Lorena advised me, “If he wakes up, and sees you staring into his soul, he might get pissed.”

“Oh, yes. Laugh it up.” I replied, sporting a smile as Lorena chuckled at the thought of my potential embarrassment. “It’s been three hours. At this rate, I reckon he’ll be returned to some prime state within… oh… now?”

I glazed over the man, and Lorena, and then María Christina who looked up from her paperwork and new notes to meet my gaze. Then, as if aware of peaking scene tension, a low, throaty grumble emitted from the man. In unison, his fingers began to flex and draw inward toward his palms.

I watched from a new perch, overly heeding Lorena’s suggestion, standing beside the exit with my arms at my sides, and a slight bend in the knee. María occupied the opposite position, albeit still seated, and Lorena lorded over the man, with her sword drawn.

A forehead pressure mounted as minutes passed, and our collective sweat beaded up, wetting our cheeks and dripping onto the floor. Was it… yes, it was literally getting hotter in the chamber.

I saw it first in what I disregarded as a trick of the brain. The opposite wall seemed almost to shift, subtly, as if distorted–like anything distant on a hot day.

Ultimately, however, I noted, as I was pulling off my scarf and untucking my shirt to relieve myself of the mounting heatwave, that it was, in fact, just that. “Wake up… wake up!” I spat in some show of frustration, the latter utterance spiking in volume, almost to a shout, which won me some disdain from my dungeoneering mates.

“Jack I wouldn’t…” María began to say, something akin to horror awash on her flustered complexion, which shot at incredible speed to the slab when a louder thud vibrated through the room.

We’d seemed all to have missed the sleeping man’s movements, as he sat up, and turned, placing his feet on the ground while remaining seated upon the sarcophagus’ internal base. As this realisation dawned on us, so too did the realisation that the heat had passed, and with it my headache, visual distortions, and anxiety.

Threaded through a clenched jaw, tight teeth, and a seething tongue, a slow release of air left the man, whose abdomen heaved, and shoulders rose, as he took a single, gargantuan breath.

“I have succeeded for you, Mother.” Were his first words, quickly winning my interest. Lorena, however, seemed less than intrigued, and kept the tip of her sword levelled towards his chest, prepared to pounce with a single, wrong move.

That moment nearly came to pass, as we witnessed a series of bright green runes alight along his exposed hands and forearms, and up his neck and cheeks, disappearing beneath his curly hair.

She jabbed immediately, sensing, I reckon as I did, the sensation of power, an Ascended manipulation of space, perhaps some kind of ward, or forceful expulsion. However, we saw nothing of the sort, as the runes, spoke-like in design, with less lines than those they contained leading off of the wheels, wrapping his skin and forming a convoluted web design, lasted as long as the golden flash of light did: an instant.

The man caught the tip of her sword with his right palm, which seemed as if to blink before our very eyes, moving at supernatural speed, allowing the weapon to attempt to break through his hand, and yet it failed to do so. As if it had struck a stronger metal, the blade didn’t even leave a scratch. Lorena was flabbergasted, allowing the sword simply to lower to the ground.

“Don’t drop that, dear. Its construction is sound.” He said, looking over her with a single, fluid motion, repeating that inspection on María Christina, and then on me, on whom he settled, looking a little silly as he had to twist to see me.

“Gr… erm…” My attempt at greeting him struck an invisible, mental wall. I couldn’t seem to get the right words out. My searching, my mental catalogue, came up empty. What an embarrassment…what a strange affair. It was as if his aura were so powerful as to form cracks in my usual gregariousness.

His eyes closed, and his head rose, slightly, aiming vaguely above my head. A couple silent seconds passed, and the wall I had been feeling vanished. Finally, the right words came. “Greetings, sir. Greetings to you. We mean you no harm, nor ill will.”

“Nor do I sense ill will on your breath, Jacobi.” Was he scraping my brain? An unlikely power, impossibly cast untraceably. I quickly backpedalled, and focused my collective attention inward, hoping to catch him in the act.

“You may all call me Noam, and first do tell how you uncovered my cell?” He expressed, bringing his arms to cross as he awaited a reply. Amazed, I must’ve looked amazed, because Lorena returned an equally awestruck look, and María merely sat, jotting down chicken-scratch on the first piece of parchment she could grab.

“We-uh we…” I stopped for just a second to catch my breath, collect my thoughts, and press on. He seemed calm, María implied he was a traditionalist, and given what we’ve seen so far, were he out for blood we’d already have been killed.

“…we were following up on an old rumour, to be exact, hoping to find an ally in you.” I attempted to keep it as brief and honest as possible.

He seemed to appreciate that as I watched his lips curl into a devious smile. Speaking, his voice grew ever less raspy by the minute as the final seconds seemed to be closing in on his return from corpse-like to prime, “So I suspected, having seeded doubts of my gone-ness into the neonates, the Mother has seen it fit that I should return again to aid my Veha.”

“Are you… you are an Agent?” I asked, directly and specifically, hoping he could catch my speaking of the position, rather than the word, definitionally.

“In a less precise way than I suspect you mean.” Noam replied, placing his hands on the edge of the sarcophagus to help himself off, and onto his feet. “Whoever was here before you showed themselves to be rather the dullard, don’t you think? Fifteen failed brutes, and they kept trying. Fifteen fried bodies, and they kept trying. No smarter than your average sewer rat, no?”

A subtle cackle and an ever-widening smile told me he was trying to make a joke, and so I chuckled along with him as he led us towards the exit. While his back was turned, and in between the continuation of our conversation, I looked back at Lorena and María who were rushing to pull up the rear. Together, they merely afforded me a cautionary, but agreeable look.

At present, following Noam seemed the obvious decision, albeit with an arm's-length between him and us ‘til some sound proof of his continued loyalty be shown.