Terry C. Simpson
Ashes and Blood
Prelude to Ascension
Vast nothingness. That’s how inside the chamber felt to her. If it even was a chamber. Thinking of it as such kept her sane. She saw no walls; neither could she make out a beginning or an end to the dark stretching in every direction. No sky. No horizon. The only breaks within the black monotony were from pools of torchlight so bleak they gave the impression they were dying. What she and the room’s numerous occupants stood upon made her think of a bottomless pit. She shivered with the thought of what would soon breach the endless night.
A hum like a blade slicing the air resonated from the platform near where she stood. Similar noises mirrored it. Her heart hammered in her chest. The murmurs from the other patrons immediately ceased, cut off as if those honed edges severed their throats.
She recalled a time when hearing a portal’s formation did not cause her to panic. A period when traversing from one point to another was as simple as a thought. Of late, even opening her own sent her insides crawling up her stomach. She clutched her gray robe for what would come next before slowly releasing its folds.
Showing fear will be my undoing. Showing fear, not fear itself, is a weakness. Fragility leads to death. She frowned, wondering where she had heard the saying.
The hums continued, each one faster than the next. Too many to count. Her heart outpaced them, beating so hard it felt as if it wanted to leap from her chest. She conjured images of an army shrouded by shade stepping from the portals.
Master your fear. You control it. It doesn’t control you.
To find comfort she reminded herself that in reality creatures this powerful could not have crossed from the Nether. Not as yet. Or at least so she hoped.
You belong here. You were summoned for this meeting.
She inhaled deeply, seeking that part of her far inside where calm resided. When she found it, she became one of the summoned: composed, able to ignore the flutters in her gut, and the hums from the opening portals. Not realizing she had closed them, she opened her eyes.
The creatures arrived at the gathering within the featureless room as they always had. A slit etched the air from left to right, turned with slime’s sluggishness, and opened into the shape of an eye positioned vertically.
Wreathed in oily smoke, many-faceted eyes reflecting the torchlight, tentacles blacker than midnight, they stepped through the portals one after the other without so much as a thud of a footstep or clink of armor. Their eyes protruded on stalks. Each had at least eight horns on their head-quite a few more than any she encountered in the past. Chitin of ebon steel glistened where it covered their chests and the four disproportionate appendages they had for arms. Darkness caressed their legs and feet. Hundreds of their wriggling, eel-like minions appeared as if from nothing.
In all, there were nine of them, each at least twenty feet in height. Nine netherlings. The Nine. Praise be to them.
Despite the fact that her dream, that dreams in general, were supposed to have no physical effect on reality, she still cringed at their presence. However, the rule had no bearing on the miasma emanating from the Nine. It seemed real all the same. Death, decay, the perfume of fresh blooms, and the smell of wet earth after new rain, intertwined with the northern chill and the burning heat of the lava-filled chasms in the Broken Lands, making the air thick and palpable. She tasted sweetness and rot as each odor and sensation overrode the other for scant moments. With an extreme force of will, she suppressed the need to retch.
Packed to overflowing in the vast chamber, the folk called to the gathering shied away from the Nine. Although light and shadow shrouded the people’s faces and made their forms near insubstantial, she knew they were rulers, nobles, merchants, teachers, philosophers, historians, soldiers, and even Denestia’s poor. Everyone had representation tonight. She could not discern their expressions, but the gasps and whimpers told their own stories.
Many wore their sect’s colors on their arms. White, Shadow, or Gray.
She almost spat on the umbra below her where there should have been a floor. Those in white or black were supposedly spies among the councils, but the thought, and worse yet, the sight of their colors, brought on a loathing she found difficult to contain. She calmed herself with the knowledge she had garnered this night by simply watching for telltale nuances. Each revelation made her lip twitch.
One male had a habit of stroking the corner of his mouth. A woman, whose robes clung to her every curve, sniffed at what had to be a scented cloth. Another female drew her hands to her hips as if attempting to grasp something, deflating every time she realized whatever it was did not sit there. The room’s meager light reflected from one man’s head, the sheen and his baldness causing her to assume he might be Banai. Knowing their religion, she might have been surprised to see one of their race numbered among those who served, but the Nine had proved long ago how far their influence stretched.
“The first is almost to the boy.” The netherling’s voice was as blank as her surroundings.
“The era draws nigh when the Annendin will come to judge all he created,” another intoned, each of its eight milky eyes looking in different directions.
“The gods die; the world remade; new gods ascend.”
As often as she’d attended these gatherings, she still found the singularity of their voices disconcerting.
“You have all done well to guide the world as needed for this to come to fruition.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. The netherlings’ eyes turned toward the disturbance. Space cleared around a lone male, his clothing one of shadow. He stepped forward.
“You bring news, young one?”
She sucked in a breath. Only another netherling would dare approach as this man did, head held high and absolutely fearless. She frowned. They hid themselves even among the common people?
“Yes, masters. I have discovered a place between the worlds where Prima lives. An Entosis. It is beyond what we may have anticipated.”
“Nothing is outside our calculations, young one. Not even this Entosis.”
For the first time, she noticed a definite scoffing edge to the answer. The netherlings had always been implacable before, devoid of emotion. Agitation among them was worth remembering.
“Those who oppose us know of its existence,” the man said. “One of our own has been within its borders. It is he who sends warning.”
“Yes. We are aware. What you must understand is that the one we chose unleashed Prima into the world. The guardians are drawn to its power as they are to his. Allow the first to secure the boy and teach him to use his Gift. Without him, the unsealing cannot occur. His siblings are ready. He is the only one left.”
“Yes, masters.” The man bowed from the waist.
“The same goes for all of you. The young one must accomplish his purpose. See him safe until he does. Then, and only then, may you kill him and his mentors.”
Licking her lips with a measure of fear and anticipation, she woke from her dream to the familiar walls within the Iluminus. She had been a Listener for years. The time had finally come to act. The promise of a war to end all wars was coming to fruition.
Chapter 1
A glint. Nothing more. But he recognized metal when he saw it. They’d tried to hide the signs, but this was the place. Odd, their level of intelligence.
Cloak hanging limp from his shoulders, Ancel Dorn stopped where crimson tinged the white fluff near the trap. A drop here, a drop there, before they increased in regularity. The spots became spatters and then lines of red meandering to the distant tree line where snow dressed the forest in white as if preparing it for the long slumber. A satisfied smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.