The full-bellied moon spilled its light readily through high-etched windows past the wooden rafters holding up the cut stone in its reaching, sprawling construction of man’s greatest precision. Senma found that few things here where not the doing of man, and thus the Music was damped, warped. They say the Song leaks from the world with each day’s passing, but she heard it easy enough. Even here, far from home in a land where she didn’t belong.

The rhythm of it guided her. Her feat tapping along the floor in her own pace, one only Senma could hear, for it was her own song; an ever-flowing stream of words ushered into the living realm, slightly twisted for the wood-cut face she wore.

Painted red for blood and white for bone, black for wrath and yellow for soul the devil’s face snarled into the night, baring its pointed teeth and spitting tongue. A most sinful demon indeed, all just as well for it was committing the gravest of sins.

Felt the grain of dark wood, long dead and deep polished against the thin soles of her footwear. She knew the bright people to be savages, but for them to use wood for nothing but steps and floor was past her reasoning. Even if she had kissed the aged boards before treading upon them, the grimace hidden behind her Face did not fade.

But the song was growing louder as she drew closer to its progenitor, though the notes were all wrong, and the tune hurt her ears, she recognized it none the less. Had her scowling, no doubt looking just like the Face she wore to hide her own.

She neared a corner, but the flow warned her and she twitched back; had the spear’s shaft follow its gleaming tip before her narrowed eyes. Her blade lashed out, cut the haft into splintering halves. Left the Bright man with a broken stick is his paws. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do.

Senma breathed another line and then her blade drifted as if afloat, sent the man’s head spinning into the black bowels where the moon’s light did not reach, heard the blood tap against her mask. Red blood onto red paint; All the same to her for she was ready to spill more of it.

Footsteps echoed along the hall, hammering through the stretching shadows; or perhaps the stretching light. They knew she was here, which did not surprise her. But there were many, and so she would resort to other means.

The body was still brimming, coiling with Song from its innards, still warm from when they had a purpose; from the blood, yet hot from when it was needed; from the soul, for it was bound to her now. And the corpse’s notes were added to her own.

Her lips moved, a low whispering against the howling wind, drifting slowly through the stone before growing and building and swelling with her surging breath and then she was almost screaming the lines, her hand sinking into the corpse’s yawning wound, preparing herself for the demon would commit another sin, no less grave than the last.

The crush of spears and shields spilled from the great arching doorway framed by dark wood, their armor clattering with a thousand sounds to join a thousand more already swimming in the cool night together with Senma’s chanting.

There was a stab of light, pure and white which burned at the eyes, and then the wood around the tangle of men burst apart in a boiling tempest with splinters as daggers, digging themselves into the disbelieving bunch.

Senma wasted no time lamenting the shattered wood and dashed forward, feet following the Song’s rhythm. Many were unable to respond and simply clawed at their ruined face, now so horribly cut open and torn apart. Her curved sword made quick work of those.

Three more remained standing, wrapped in iron plate, they fanned out left and right before their short spears whipped out at Senma. A storm of thrusts whistled through the cold air, trailed by red cloth tied to the blades’ base, all to hide the metal tip and confuse Senma. But their conviction was in vain.

Their spears stabbed at her, their shields swung at her, but she was made of wind and shadow. Of mist and mirage. Easier to cut the flickering flame. Quicker to catch curling smoke. She moved between them with a drunken swagger, as if dancing to a song only she could hear. They could not guess where she would step next, let alone swing her warped blade.

The spear hissed past her face and she twitched aside, pushed the shaft with a guiding hand and it dug straight into the other’s guts. Had him look up mighty confused before letting a sputtering gurgle which blubbered off into silence.

The man who just lost his spear fumbled for the dagger in his belt, but his fingers were panicked and all he could do was yelp before his throat showered Senma in his warm blood. And now there was only one. Stood there with his spear held far before him, eyes hard behind the helm’s slits. Hands bunched around the haft, wringing at the wood. Feet planted square onto the tortured boards.

Tip, tap, the blood dripped onto the floor, adding their noise to the song trailing off Senma’s lips. There was a pace to it as well. You could hear it, all you need is to listen; listen close. Everything had a song of its own, eager to be heard. This was a dark one. A low creeping like that of a spider looming to its helpless prey. And Senma would have it honored.

She stalked forward to the Bright man, her body swaying left and right, bursts of speed and sudden halts, a spastic flicking of her wrists along with the world’s beat. No doubt he tried staring into her eyes hidden within the Face’s shadows. No doubt he would find them strange; yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Not of the likes he had ever seen before for they belonged only to those beyond the Sea of Sand. Where the earth was ash and the trees of stone.

She took another step and he roared so loud his voice was grated raw half-way through, then dashed forward, the spear’s tip a glint in the night. She dodged the first thrust, then crouched low and spun behind him and as he turned, his arm was sent twirling round and round, a trail of blood following behind, hand still clutching the shaft.

Unlike the others, he pressed through with a throaty growl and a hissing. His round, rimmed shield went for her, but she staggered aside and then her blade was wedged into his neck with a wet thud.

“Gueh.” He sputtered before sagging sideways onto the old boards, but whatever he tried to say was lost to her. Not that it mattered, anyway.

If it had been a plie for help; then he was way past saving. Were he casting her into damnation, then she would accept his contempt for she had plenty of her own for him. Perhaps he was begging for forgiveness, which Senma could understand; for here they were committing the gravest of sins. One that had the demon breaking all the rules she was raised by. But they say there is a time for the breaking of every rule, and if this was not such a time, then when was?

She grabbed the first body she saw and threw it out the window down into the gorge yawning below, binding its fall to her lips with a whispering. Then rushed further, leaving the lamenting over broken bodies and shattered lives to the moon and wind for she had more pressing matters.

The Song was now a white pain, stabbing through her head at a steady, unceasing pace. It was the worst breaking of Song, the likes of which Senma had never heard before; only been scared by as a little girl by the Elders, told around the licking tongues of the evening fire as one of their many lessons.

She climbed a twisting staircase, swiftly running up the wooden steps with a strange lightness for she was still singing; releasing the reverse binding and adding the stored momentum to her own.

She fled from the stair’s top and dove into the looming chamber, walls beset by laving crystals glowing with a ruby light and veins as lightning crawling along the stone-cut floor’s etchings. Senma would breathe easier for she was no longer threading upon wood, but every part of the room sang vehemently and worked on her sensitive hearing.

Her heart bled for she knew how these crystals had been made; born from Blood. Another breaking. Another most sinful deed. This would not be forgiven. Senma would see to it.

More bright men came for her, but by now she was a walking, breathing storm and had no more stopping to her than death itself. She called another binding into the world, a direct one. The stowed force of the fallen corpse latched itself onto the men’s guts and they were harassed by a sudden nausea, had their knees shaking while retching bile onto the polished tiles.

It was difficult to bind so many, as Song was lost as its medium with every passing moment. But it was enough to dispose of these men, unknown and inexperienced with this use of Song. Never mind that Senma was good, dangerously so. Her blade darted out; lashing, hacking, ever-flowing with the world’s rhythm.

The last fell crumbling, life gushing from his inner thighs where a great slice was carved from his leg. Senma glanced around but found the windows too high up the reaching chamber walls to throw them from, so she would need do with what was left. Pathetically little, being honest. But there was no helping it. Nothing to be done other than continuing her singing while the halls and rooms passed her by as she ran.

And then the ever-moving moon’s light spilled in no more. In the darkness there was now only a gloomy, reddish light released by the irredeemable crystals. She came to a sudden halt as a dark smear appeared standing in the foremost doorway, giving an abysmal emptiness shimmering around its hunched frame. About the figure there was no music. And when it moved towards her, the crimson light near it flickered, waned and then faded. Senma wondered if there were nothing but sinners past the Sand Sea. Then wondered what that meant for her.

The man’s lips moved but here was no Song, only hard words forced to do his bidding. There was the squealing of metal and a cold tugging. She slipped aside before rock rained down from the shattered ceiling, cutting along her body with a flint-like sharpness.

She stole the song from the tumbling rock, watched the mans flapping robes, light as any mage would like, whirl around him as she released another binding at the cloth. He wailed about, blinded by the torrent of robes but his hand became freed before she reached him and fanned a clap of fire at her.

The orange cloud of flame roared as it came for Senma. She cursed underneath the devil’s Face, touched the cool wall, ushering a direct binding between hot flame and cold rock. The sundering curtain went out with a cough of dark smoke that caught in her throat.

Her pulsing hand left the hot stone, aching as if it had touched a boiling kettle even though her palms and fingers were wrapped in cloth; just as her arms, her calves, and her torso. She did not have to rely on thin robes like the old man before her. Though she preferred herself as weightless as possible none the less.

The black curl of smoke grated at her lungs, had her coughing between lines of Song. The man grinned, seeing his chance, and the gold and silver bangles along his arms shifted and clattered under his wide sleeve as he started reciting another barrage of cold words in his gravel voice; more of the red light fading away as he pulled the Song from it.

His face was split for the wide grin he wore as he finished his spell, but the joy was short lived. Senma willed the last bit of song shimmering around her and bound his tongue to his lips in the opening that always presents itself after the spell’s calling and before its coming.

His shriveled eyes widened with disbelief as the last word turned a lisp, the Kaude ruined and thus uncontrolled fury was born into the chamber; spitting drooling flame before erupting with a call of thunder in the man’s outstretched hand.

Senma turned away from the explosion, covering her ears from its booming, felt hot air blow around her to rustle her clothes and countless braids. A sharp ringing resonated in her skull, the room a blurry smear of hollow dark and faint red and falling dust that had her coughing something fierce.

She tried blinking the confusion away, internally cussing the fool to have poured as much Song into his spell as he did. And when the ringing faded there was a bloodcurdling scream. Senma watched the old mage clutch at his mangled elbow, the ruined flesh around a poking shard of bone.

She went for him, fast as she could with the world still lurching for the hammering in her head. But the man was quicker to find his balance and spat a simple line into the world while brandishing an intrinsically decorated card. The square slice of crystal beamed an angry red, and before she could react, a hard thud sent her sprawling backwards, then sliding further along the floor; all breath expelled from her.

She heard the man’s footsteps echo away as he fled while she squirmed on the tiles, grasping at her aching chest. No doubt broke a couple ribs then. She growled against the pain, flicking bloody spit with her rattling tongue, clawed herself upright against the wall’s polished chunks of rock, and started limping towards where the man had fled.

She staggered after him, his pained groaning an ever-present noise during her struggle. At the end of the hallway a door stood flung open to her right. She knew him to be there; weakened and wounded. But the room sent a sickening rill up her spine that set her scalp to tingle and her knees to shake.

She licked at her lips, suddenly nervous. Scared. For what sinful deeds hid within the frame’s black maw? She wanted to turn back. Felt bile rushing to her lips and spill onto the floor with a gurgling. She heaved, sweat sliding from her face and clinging to the wooden Face. Narrowing her eyes, she bared her teeth in a furious snarl.

Senma took a step forward. She would not stop. Not ever. She leaned against the wall, fingers curled painfully around the hilt of her worn blade, easing closer to the black bowels from where the cries came. She suddenly realized they where not the man’s making.

Wet crying, broken and forever ruined. Animal cries, distorted and warped, frighteningly alien. Dampened and torn, low and high slobbering its constant fear and agony. Tortured sobbing of the damned, told to be eternally chained to Hell’s Hollows. Senma gritted her teeth and entered the room with her sword held firm.

What revelation?

Not any of her teachings could have prepared her for the sight within the dark chamber. No nightmarish story had driven her this far. This close. Teetering at the edge of madness.

A dozen children where nailed to the walls, upside down, skin torn from their naked bodies and hung by rings, countless tubes and tools buried into their exposed innards. Eyes wide and glazed and bulging from their sockets lined with dried and yet flowing blood and it bubbled from their ears or ear-holes, eyes or eye-sockets, mouth or simply a maw carved crudely in their face.

Some missing fingers, others missing entire limbs; bare bone sticking from chopped flesh and thin metal rods inserted at the ends. Senma’s wide, frightened eyes followed the tubes and needles from the children’s bodies to where they touched the ceiling before flowing down into a basin filled with the spilled blood. Saw the old man grasping in the red water with his remaining arm, frantically searching for something.

“You…” Senma muttered, unable to perceive the horrors she had seen. Was still seeing.

“What have you done!?” She screeched, gesturing at the children hanging round the circle room. By the Sands, she felt sick. “Why!?” How could anyone go this far? She could not understand. Not this. Not ever.

“Don’t you want to know?” The man gurgled, deep-stained with the children’s blood; their weak cries ever-present. “Know why the flowers bloom? Why the wind churns? To delve within the earth’s hollows? To see the Other Side?”

Senma took another look around, feverish eyes darting, creeping from body to body, child to child; one chopped and sliced to less than another. Saw now that only one was still somewhat whole. Missing all fingers on his left and half of his right, cut lips hiding bloody gums lined with broken teeth, bald except for some thin plucks of hair patched around his skull. No tubes were inserted into him. Not yet.

“Sacrifices have to be made, don’t you understand?” The mage growled, now having lost his fear and growing angry as if it was Senma the one committing the sins.

“They’re children!” Senma screamed, feeling a cold spreading through her. She drew closer, teeth groaning for the pressure of her jaws. The man gave a grating, dry laugh.

“They’re just flesh, now. Still alive as it is needed for the cause.” Alive? He called this alive? Bodies mounted and molded and inhumanly abused? The children looking at everything and nothing with their gleaming, popping eyes.

The cold kept growing until it filled her with ice. Her shadow loomed over him, still splashing around in the blood searching for whatever he deemed worthy of working such horrors.

“You wouldn’t understand.” He muttered, still not looking up. Around her sounded the mindless slobber and wailing of untangled words and cries of the tormented.

“Indeed, I would not.” Not ever. And she snatched the man by his shoulders, pushing his face underneath the water’s surface. He tried fighting back, arm flailing, stump waving, legs struggling. But her grip would not relent. Not ever.

More sputtering, writhing. Bubbles broke the surface, coiling around the water as foam before lessening and then there were none. Senma stood there frozen, still holding the body fast, the room now so very quiet. She dropped the man, whose name she hadn’t even known, and found that the children had died. Silence now claiming the room.

Whatever had bound them to the realm of the living seemed to retain them no longer. Senma slowly walked over to the bodies and quietly started unhooking each and every one of them, closing their lids though some had no eyes. Crossing their arms, though most missed those, too. For the first time in years, Senma found herself crying. It was a quiet, wet sobbing at the nightmare of man’s own doing. The cruelty these children had underwent.

She stumbled to the last child, her vision swimming for the salty tears teeming, and reached out with her wrapped arms and plucked the child from its constraints. Held the little boy close to her chest, ignoring the pain thumping at her ribs, and hugged it as tight as she could.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered brokenly. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

But then she felt something. She looked up, dazed, at the child’s chest. No mistake, he was still breathing. Other than the rest of the children, his innards had not been carved open. The breathing was faint, but there none the less.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, drawing closer. Heard armor rattle.

“Don’t worry.” She whispered to the child. “It’ll be alright. You’re under my protection now.”

The figure of a guard appeared in the door’s opening, but he was different then the rest. She knew him.

“Senma, we need to…” the young man trailed off as he looked upon the room. “By the Gods…” He hadn’t even seen the worst of it for the curtain that was draped upon the ruined children, now little more than a pile of meat.

“Senma, are you alright?” He asked, worriedly. Then saw the blood on her, then the tears streaking her face, then the child she was holding. He paused, then swallowed heavily. “Who’s that?”

“My child, from now on.” She responded, wrapping the boy in a patch of the mage’s robe. The man winced.

“Do you think we can take him with? He’ll slow us down…” Her eyes flared up with a wrath worse than a thousand raging devils.

“He’s my child now, and I would rather tear the skin and flesh from my bones than see him abandoned.” She snarled, snatching the dropped Face from the blood-stained tiles.

“Then we’ll need to hurry.” The disguised Roag begged. “More are coming. Much more.”

She pulled the devil Face back on, finding she and it were much in the same mood, much with the same purpose in mind.

“Let them come.” She hissed, and Song shimmered around her again; coiling, boiling like Hell’s infernal wrath. “I’m am prepared to Sin.”