4 - 2 [Magus] Tehlos, Arisen from the Cold Below

Barry left the cave, slowly making his way towards Berrowden. At first, he couldn’t really tell how he knew where it was. He just knew, trusting his Inner Shadow—the body inhabiting his own.

Though, as he trodded on, Barry came to know what guided him.

Invisible currents caressed the skin of his dark spirit and the essence-flesh of his conjured limbs. It ebbed and flowed like a child of wind and sea, fluid like water yet intangible like air.

A tide of spirit, coming and going in waves.

Barry followed the denser flows of essence that came his way on the invisible winds. His spirit was a sail that brought him forth.

As Barry walked, he looked down at his shadowy hands.

What a strange sight.

Their edges were both blurred and sharp at times, with tiny, writhing tendrils of darkness. He could command them just like any part of his body, no thought really needed—they just went where he willed. Moving them was natural and effortless and had come with an instinctive sense of location. Even with his eyes closed, he could touch his shadowy hand to his face just like he could with his former fleshy limbs.

Whenever he touched something with his spirit arms, he felt their smoke-wrought surface harden. It felt eerily like skin even though it had no right to, with writhing darkness in the place of hair. Barry's feeling of touch was heightened beyond normal, even touching his hand to his face felt overstimulating to his newborn limbs.

Gods, that tickles.

Barry swiped at a tree with his blurry fingers. They hardened at the last breath, gaining more substance and sharpening. Four shallow nicks were left on the tree’s bark. He swiped, again and again, feeling the shift right before his talons connected with the bark.

Can I do this at will?

Barry focused on his hands, spreading his awareness through the spiritual-made-physical. With a flick of his waking will, the darkness became dense and solid, talons forming atop his fingers.

Good, I can do that at will. It seems that most of this is instinctive, but I can wrestle control from it at any time I want.

Kinda like breathing. It just works without needin’ any orders. But if I focus, I can control it.

A dead and hollow branch fell down from the trees above, two span away and behind Barry.

His right shadow arm reflexively caught it, the speed causing him to start. Though mostly insubstantial, his magical appendages were as fast as a coiling serpent.

A small grin crept upon his face but was ultimately turned into a frown.

How am I going to get into town with these arms?

I have no magicking license. The townfolk would probably tie me to a stake and burn me alive for foul magicks. They’d think me a warlock or some such.

Best I find a way to hide ‘em.

Barry focused on his Inner Shadow, looking over it for some method to hide his spirit limbs.

His spirit had recovered a good amount, its channels no longer frayed. Though, Barry felt his Inner Shadow was still considerably weakened. The spirit-flesh that made up most of its mass was porous and not as dense as it should’ve been.

Huh, kinda ‘minds of watered-down ale.

The base of his spirit, the cavern that lay at his navel, tugged at the invisible current of essence around him. It drank the Tide sip by sip, desperate for the sustenance.

Oh, me spirit’s hungry. Never knew a spirit could feel hunger. Maybe it’s all that magick I’ve been doing. Probably taxed it too much too fast. It is a reflection of the flesh though simpler, so mayhaps it follows some of its rules too.

With his will, Barry opened the flood-gates of his spirit.

Viscous dark bled from his skin and swirled around him. His Inner Shadow became a hungry vortex, the invisible tide around him flooding his very being. When his spirit became like a waterskin bursting at the seams, Barry closed it off from the world without.

Now, how do I hide these?

Barry once again delved into his Inner Shadow, taking stock of how his spirit was bound to his shadow limbs.

The arms were spirit-made-physical, and thus were wrought of its substance insubstantial. The veins that ran through them were the same as his spirit’s invisible channels, coinciding and coterminating as one.

So, if this is just me spirit, maybe I can pull it back in? Like sucking yer gut back into yer breeches afta’ a feast.

Barry imposed his will upon his limbs, pulling them back into his spirit proper. They heeded to his command, unraveling into mist and slithering back into his stumps.

Feels bloated with ‘em in ‘ere, Barry thought with a wry smile, not risking a full chuckle. Any movement of his lungs was sheer pain. Especially after his wanton usage of the Flowing-River Breath.

With a flick of his will, shadows bled from his stumps and returned to the semblance of arms.

As Barry walked, he grew curious and prodded at the air with the skin of his spirit. It was not overwhelming like his earlier experience, though he did not know exactly why.

It’s like puttin’ yer hand in water. Ya can move it and make it splash, but without a cup o’ sorts, ya can’t contain it.

What can I do with this sea of spirit?

As his attention to the invisible tide grew, his attention to the visible ground wavered. Barry tripped on an errant root, having to brace himself on the closest tree, lest he fall fully. The pain in his chest grew as the bone burrowed deeper still, leading him to dry heave nothing but blood and bile.

The movement of his stomach and heaving guts exacerbated the agony further, like adding oil to flame. His breath turned ragged, liquid filling his lungs.

In his moment of pain and weakness, sheathed trauma came to the fore. Like was wont to be attracted to like, commiseration bringing about devils of the heart for a drink amongst fell friends.

Visions of death came like glints of naked steel under the moonlight. Each and all of them were the blood-soaked kind of demise, not the sleep-away into the night kind.

They were violent and gruesome ends. And they all met his friends, his bandmates. His second family.

Taken in front of his eyes and he powerless to stop it.

Weak, his own mind spat with no small amount of wrath and self-loathing.

Barry remembered the helplessness before the fate of his comrade in arms, Rodrick. The horrid death that befell his lover. His head crushed like a rotten grape.

And his inability to fight to the death. To die with some dignity. To avenge his band.

The shame was drowning and the regret like an atlassian stone upon his shoulders. Guilt burned inside his heart as his throat turned dry.

Endure, he told himself.

He put one foot in front of the other. Slow and unresponsive his muscles and flesh were, the pain taking hold. The pain pleading for rest. But no respite could be had, for if Barry did not walk, he would drown in his own blood.

Endure, he yelled inside his own mind, churning its greyen waters.

His steps turned surer as each pained breath was given back to the world without. From stumbling feet to stonebound step, Barry breathed in accordance to the Flowing-River Breath.

Following the Tide, as he called it, the mercenary trodded forth unto where he thought Berrowden lay.

Barry fell to the ground, his knees buckling. His spirit limbs dissipated in a puff of smoke, leaving him crippled.

Weak as the day he was born.

His face lay on damp and cold earth. The frigid winds of the month of Last Frost cut through his tattered clothes. With his chest bare, the cold took hold.

He willed his muscles to move; nothing.

He willed his shadow limbs to reform; nothing.

He willed his spirit to move his body for him; nothing.

Move, he pleaded to himself.

Nothing.

Move, he yelled into the black of his mind.

Nothing.

Barry looked for the thread of his soul, of the power unbeholden to the world.

Nothing.

Despair took hold at the pit of his stomach. The fear was all-consuming, yet Barry had rallied against fate and death many times afore.

He could do so again.

In the quiet cold, Barry found comfort; familiarity that beckoned slumber. And yet he dared not close or even blink his eyes.

This was a sleep that once taken he would never wake from.

Rise, he commanded in his mind as darkness crept along the edges of his vision like wolves awaiting their prey to fall limp and exhausted. Awaiting their feast of quivering flesh.

Nothing.

“Rise.” He murmured in between bouts of blood. His lungs spasmed as his exhale was inundated with the froth of his own veins.

A single wave, like a pebble dropped into the center of a pond, rippled throughout the greyen waters of his mind.

“Rise.” He commanded with the voice of his soul.

Ash and dust and mist the color of shadow shed from his skin in droves, crackling and chittering like mites. His spirit grappled onto the Tide and drew itself up, sailing on winds unseen.

As above, so below, his soul said, voice like the darkness that lay at the bottom of the Hells. At the Pit where the Void met the Inverted Spire.

Barry was dragged up in twain with his Inner Shadow, floating untethered to the earth. After a breath, his power waned and returned to the source, leaving him standing on two shaky legs.

Barry shook himself from his stupor and summoned his shadow limbs once again. The cold bored through his flesh and into his bone, causing dull aches to spread all over.

If he had fingers of flesh and bone to lose, he would’ve lost them now in the dastardly frigid winds that cut through his bare skin.

The mercenary stumbled and ambled along on his shaky legs and frail body.

The forest became thinner as he followed the invisible tide that guided him, torchlight appearing amidst the trees. Warm light became beacons in his grey-dull vision. Once he got close enough to see the entrance to what he assumed was Berrowden, Barry crouched and waited under the shadows.

He could distinctly tell apart what was shrouded and what was visible. His uncanny sight was more like a layer interposed above his normal vision. It gave him the ability to discern what would be visible and what would not.

The air around Barry thickened, shadows coiled around his body, blending him into the safe darkness. The world without came to fulfill his silent and unuttered plea, shrouding him from sight.

The phenomenon almost came and went unnoticed as his attention lay plastered to the settlement beyond the black.

The town of Berrowden was surrounded by a wall of stone, its entrance an imposing monolith carved from rock and then set brick by brick with mortar.

A crowd was gathering at the gate. Common folk armed with pitchforks, and guards with imposing polearms sported the town’s colors.

Like a spider in the midst of a web, there was a common point that united and bound them all. And it was no less insidious.

They surrounded a robed man.

Black robes with a red cross. Dammit! Of-fucking-course a priest of Oriath is here. Those bastards are easy to anger and quick to kill. Especially if they think warlockery is afoot.

Barry felt his Inner Shadow squirm under his skin as he gazed at the priest, the man’s danger apparent to his spirit.

The intangible winds around the black-robed clergyman were sharp like a razor's edge. Barry prodded at the skin of the priest’s spirit with his own, cautiously testing at its edges. The act came naturally like a swimmer dipping their toes in a body of water to test its warmth.

A wolf-fish caught the appendages of his spirit.

The priest’s eyes locked onto his own.

“Who goes there!” Exclaimed the priest, his staff set ablaze in heliotropic flame. “Show yourself or face the Divine Light of the Seven.”

Fuck.

Barry felt his heart pounding against his ribcage, sending rippling pain as the bone dagger squirmed to the beat of his blood.

The darkness around Barry coalesced into his arms. His shadow limbs became more substantial and corporeal than before. His hands became actual hands, shadows dancing around them. His nails expanded into jagged talons of obsidian, and his skin darkened into umbral blue—the color of a corpse. Barry hoped he would not soon become one as well.

Come on, git. Go back in.

No matter how much he pleaded with his Shadow in either will or mind, his arms would not rejoin the rest of his spirit. The panic further agitated his limbs, making them grow obsidian spikes and ridges.

The tip of the priest’s staff burned brighter and blinding in the night. The dandelion fires licked greedily at the air, burning the sea of spirits in twain.

Nine-damned Fortuna. I'll either burn, or bleed out by the time I explain I’m not some monster.

Barry sighed and took in a deep breath.

No other choice. I can’t run with these lungs. And if it comes to a fight, I’ll call on me soul.

Barry slowly made his way out of the dark, limping, and slightly slumped. He made sure to keep his arms low and out of sight.

He felt the disdain of the priest’s eyes on his skin.

Fuck you. Of course, I’m gonna limp. I’ve been through a godsdamned battle with a nine-damned warlock and lived to the tale! Well, maybe I’ll live.

Probably not.

“I mean no harm!” Barry said in a pleading tone, his voice raspy and strained. “I survived a battle not far from here, and my wounds are great.”

Barry felt a knot forming at his throat, his mouth drying like old leather.

“Approach, boy,” Said the priest, his tone like that of a master to his hound.

Barry felt the invisible currents around him swell as he approached the robed man. The Tide around the priest was a serpent’s den, tendrils of waking will prodding at the air.

“Stop.” Exclaimed the priest, “What happened to your arms, boy?”

The priest lifted his staff in the direction of Barry, its light exposing the mercenary’s monstrous arms and blinding his eyes, be they of flesh or spirit.

“Boy.” Spat the priest, voice dripping with disgust. “Explain why you have those things in the place of your arms. What sort of witchcraft have you been toying with?”

Barry swallowed the knot at his throat and tried his best to bury the anger boiling up in the pit of his stomach.

I’ll rip out your throat, old man.

Barry let out an exasperated sigh; it did nothing to placate his worries and mounting frustration.

“I have not done any witchcraft.” Responded Barry in a slightly annoyed tone. “Me and my band, the Red Sparrows, were issued a bounty to the bandits at Tregthekkar’s Keep.

“Instead of a motley o’ cutthroats and rapists, we found a charmed corpser the size of a barn and a warlock.

“It was a slaughter. I managed to escape because I awoke some middling magicking in meself.

“I need a healer’s touch. Me flesh and spirit are ragged and weak.”

Barry waited in anticipation for the priest’s rebuttal, his mind racing like hunting dogs let loose to come up with answers, explanations, and justifications.

Anything to survive.

His sight was obscured by the light pointed directly at his face, making It impossible to see the expression of the priest.

“Very well, you may enter.” Said the priest in a surprisingly calm tone, tucking his staff away at his side. Only a wisp of citrine fire danced atop it now, no longer blinding as before.

Barry still felt on edge, the singed hairs at the back of his neck on end. The priest’s words and even body language were calm enough, but the invisible presence around him said otherwise.

Serpent poised to strike.

Barry limped his way towards the gate, all while his shadow limbs were held low lest they scare the townsfolk. Though, all the gesture served to accomplish was make his monstrous nature more like the contour of a dagger hidden beneath a sleeve instead of a blade held high and brandished.

Either way, a blade's a blade.

As he got closer to the black-robed priest, the waking will around the clergy-man writhed in anticipation, like a hound held back from wringing the neck of a fowl.

The tiny wisp dancing atop the priest’s staff swelled, bursting into the size of a pyre and shooting forth an arrow of stars-flame. A small bolt of yellow-white fire sped towards Barry, the heat abounding like an open oven.

Oh motherfu—

Barry felt a tug at his being, the thread of his soul coming to the fore. Whispers he once thought eld caressed his thoughts. These were not the words of a ghast, but of himself.

Take it for thyself, Child, murmured his soul, the voice like a snake licking at the air. That which once slumbered came awake to devour its prey whole.

Silence the light. Snuff out the noise.

Bring about the dark, bring about the quiet.

Break apart its bones and suck the marrow dry.

Tehlos.

Barry headed the call of his soul, letting the cloak of night spread over the shoulders of his spirit like a chill of winter gust. His Inner Shadow turned cold as death, yet did not freeze over.

It ran deep like stillwaters, depths unfathomable.

His eyes were drowned in darkest dark, turning entirely black with no glint whatsoever.

Lines circled through his body, markings of tar in both sharp angles and circular glyphs. His navel was a pure black orb, waiting in blind joy for the end of all things.

The air around Barry writhed and churned, a whirlpool coterminating at his navel.

His spirit-wrought limbs turned into insubstantial shadow as if they were a candle, being snuffed out into inky smoke.

The bolt of heliotropic flame was sucked into the pure darkness of his navel like a leaf into a whirlpool, settling into the base of his spirit.

Silence reigned, as violent as a strike of lightning. And as such, it heralded the pail of thunder.

In a corruscating burst of heliotropic fire, Barry was clad in a shrouding of stars-flame. Yet he did not burn.

He looked down at his conjured limbs and marked body in awe

Unscathed, he thought, confusion apparent.

No, he realized this was no simple resistance, but something greater. This was subsummation. This was the devouring of spirit.

Empowered, he said inside his mind, voice like stone.

The skin of his arms were lit up like a starry night sky, with small motes of yellow and white intersped in their celestial tapestry. A layer of yellow fire danced around the edges of his smoky hands and body wrought of flesh, lighting them aflame.

His eyes and markings were coated in stars and constellations the color of burning dandelions.

Barry could feel a warmth inside his Shadow, beckoning to be called forth. He willed it hither, letting loose that which dwelt inside.

Twin orbs made of stars-flame burst into being on both his shadow-smoke palms. The spirit of sun and star made physical, burning with the primal fire of the beginnings of creation.

Seedlings of worlds, whispered his soul.

Mature into fruits, they doth.

And from their corpses cometh the maggots of Tanahrus.

Worms crawling upon the bodies of slumbering divinity.

Visions that spanned eternity passed through his sight in a blink. Of heavenly dust in the expanse of an infinite void, coalescing into stars. Of stars dimming and spreading their lifesblood far. Of celestial corpses nurturing maggots.

No, he realized. These were not worms, but beast and plant.

Barry shook his head, dispelling the visions of god-spheres and celestial bodies. He looked at the priest, pale of face and clammy of skin, his staff’s light dimmed from roaring pyre to harmless firefly.

The clergy-man’s spirit shivered like a beaten pup.

The armed commoners and guards were behind him, cowering like sheep behind a sheep dog when the wolves came.

Barry felt a smile creeping upon his face.

I could burn you lot to cinders.

To hold so little sympathy for one with a foot already in the Pale River.

I should burn you all to ash.

With the utterance of the word “ash”, images came to mind. Of ash blotting out the sun. Of a battlefield scorched a strewn with the bodies of loved ones.

Of a world broken.

Barry realized he was drunk on power. This was no foreign presence changing himself to its whim, but he himself letting his own emotions hold sway.

Stregors words came to the fore.

Anger is fine, lad. Anger is a spark, it can be useful. A spark can light a fire.

A blaze is uncontrolled. It will consume all in its way and leave nothing but ash.

Do not let your heart burn uncontrolled. Channel anger with shackles of breath, lest it be your funeral pyre.

Barry breathed in accordance to the Flowing-River Breath, letting go of the power resting atop his shoulders. The wrath still burned in his chest, spreading heat through his blood, but it did not hold sway.

It did not hollow him out and puppet his limbs.

He focused on his Inner Shadow, opening the flood-gates of his spirit. The cowling of celestial flame was devoured whole and imprisoned at the base of his spirit, waiting to set loose.

The motes of light on his body disappeared along with the markings, leaving only his spirit limbs behind, bereft of starry night.

“You snake-tongued, conniving swit.” Spat Barry, his voice indignant.

“You invite me to enter your town and then stab me in the back while I limp towards the entrance?”

The mercenary let out a frustrated breath before continuing with a much more amicable tone.

“I could be dangerous, yes. Yet I am no mad dog that cannot be reasoned with. I really meant no harm, and still do.”

His shoulders slumped and the various scab-covered wounds and bruises were made much more apparent with the glint of torchlight.

“I have fought long and hard. My life hangs on by a thread… Each word. Is a struggle. I am drowning in my own blood.

“I need a healer. I need help.”

I sounded just like me mother. Gods, help us all if I start mutterin’ on ‘bout me pa’s bristly and unkempt beard.

The priest, caught off guard by Barry’s tirade, shook his head. The skin of his spirit no longer cowered nor prodded, keeping a cautious distance from the mercenary.

“Apologies.” Said the priest, gaining back his scruples. Though, Barry reckoned he had none.

“I thought you corrupted by the Dragon Below—a warlock; a practitioner of foul magicks…

“The battle of which you speak of, we need its location. A purifying ritual must be done, the air writhes in agony to the slaughter that has been commi—”

A priestess, as equally old as the priest, pushed and shoved through the crowd until she stood near the ornery bastard. Her robes were white with a dark blue tree and accents etched upon them. Feathers alighted her shoulders as were paper scrolls and talismans hung on her holy vestiments.

Her staff’s tip was carved in the likeness of an owl.

A priestess of Mahna this far from the Highlands? And with a priest of Oriath at that? This sounds like a common jest. A priest of Oriath, a priestess of Mahna, and a magicking cripple walk into a bar…

“Bernie!” Yelled the woman, her voice equally as indignant as Barry’s was before. “What have I told you about magicking first and asking questions later? This is the third young man you’ve shot at with those lily-livered flames of yours, you swit.”

A kindred soul. Har. Har.

The woman berated the priest like a stonefall. Every time he dared to retort, the priestess went on another quick volley of words.

“Eric, Randy!” Bellowed the woman. “Help me get this man to the church, we need to tend to his wounds. Immediately.”

Barry finally felt most of the tension in his muscles disappear. His lips curled into a smile. He quickly, and blissfully passed out as soon as someone came close