Exeunt, the Kobra
Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2003 2:14 amAYAN'TE MAELHIM vs KOBURA
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The void welcomed him.
He remembered. Remembered spending time at the tavern; innocent of his past, of his destiny. He remembered Quincy; he remembered Angilena and her little dragon Trip. He remembered the paper dragon he'd given the young girl; how her terror had changed to surprise in eyes that didn't see.
Happy. He'd been happy.
But that had changed. His memories lay fully, briefly, within his grasp. Oceans of time stretching out into the infinite; he could not see to his beginnings. But he knew what he saw.
Misery. Pain. Death.
Billions of deaths his eyes had seen. Worlds he had seen crumble, countless races driven to extinction. Consumed by that engine of cataclysmic horror that was the Dark Triad.
And the Maelhim. Their unwitting servants; drawn by the essence tantamount to their own existence to follow Them and seek Them as though They held some cosmic truth. But the Triad were destruction absolute, beyond the minds of flawed deities who wept at the mere concept of Them, for they knew, or thought they knew, what the Dark Triad meant.
And he had stood against Them. He had fought at the side of angels. He had drawn his steel back to back with gods. He had journeyed galaxies unbidden; he had stepped across the threshold of planes. To Sigil he had been no stranger; the Lower Planes he had traversed when the Maelhim had brushed through them unnoticed even by the demons that dwelled therein; Krynn had made him welcome. Earth had been his sanctuary. Distant Canathari he strode upon and the wondrous secrets of Enkara he had seen at the behest of its serene caretakers.
He had been the wanderer of a universe plagued by primordial evil and defended by valiant good. But he remembered the name, now, of the place he called home. Where it had all begun; where, should he fail, the final battle would be fought and lost and all would come to an end. The world to whose soul he was bonded. He remembered Arcanos.
The crimson eyes grew moist with an unexpected and rare emotion, for him; homesickness.
He stirred, gathering the bedouin robes about his battered form; floating foetal in the amorphous, shadowy ocean. He knew this realm, for he had been here before.
It was the netherworld in which the Hidden Ones lurked like blind fish at the bottom of a depthless sea.
With many implements he had hunted them. He wondered where they were now; where lay his ancient blades whose pristine steel had drunk greedily of the blood of foul Things spawned of stolen flesh. Where was the cloak Shadowveil whose hood had shrouded him for countless centuries, adding to the natural stealth that had become legend? And where was the Orb of Khantaroth, whose mirrored sphere contained the trapped spirits of evils beyond number? He knew not.
But he knew how he'd gotten here. He remembered his fall, his near-death at the hands of the nameless Maelhim, the mask-creature that had impersonated Mephisto. He remembered its clever little ruse well.
He remembered his capture, his self-induced state of apparent death to fool the Enemy; they valued his corpse too highly to dissect and defile him as they would any other. He had counted on it; and his banking had paid off.
But after such a time of existing, barely, on the faintest pulse of life, his brain had been damaged; his memories locked away, his keen, cold intellect dulled.
He had become aware of himself, wandering the woods near Myrken-town, near the Broken Dagger. He didn't even remember how he had been freed; only that he was hungry. He'd crawled through the tavern's window, smelling the warm bodies of rodents crawling therein.
That's where he'd met Quincy.
Flashes of memory came and went. He recalled Tyralor and Katalin. He recalled -warning- the man, etching that dreaded symbol into the tabletop, writing the word - Maelhim.
The bastards were here.
A thin, whooping pulse echoed out in the sea. He drifted, his garments floating in the airless ectoplasm; his head turned and he saw the shapes forming themselves out of the elemental darkness; he saw their bulbous heads, their slimy, spindly limbs; their swollen eyes glowing either side of their slitted mouths, their wet black lips. The Hidden who had taken him waited.
He recalled, too, how he had come to this deplorable situation. He recalled making another paper dragon, thinking of giving it to that nice girl with the little dragon. He recalled the tall form entering the inn; a man from the gaol, the night he had killed the Hidden One who had been sent to murder Quincy in her cell.
He had not been thorough enough. The creature's fetid essence had escaped and found another host. Kobra realised that when he recognised the man at the door; his soulsight had picked up the Maelhim within him.
He recalled the Thing-in-man-skin and how he had tried to warn the others - Katalin, the elf Aeri, even the menfolk who'd blundered in gallantly with no clue of what they faced.
They'd run; the Hidden had followed and he'd found in the woods they fled into that there were many more Hidden; a colony of Hidden in the forest. Spies.
Hidden in such numbers meant only one thing.
A Spawning Pit.
A spawning pit meant more than Hidden and Boschians; it meant Tahdanmoth and Zevulites and Slaurhacons; it meant Maw Fiends and Flayed Ones and Unspoken and Pazhirim. It meant an endless, self-perpetuating army of horrors ripped from the tormented minds of its own victims; from the collective nightmares of all who had met their end within the steaming depths.
But he'd been unable to warn anyone; he'd been overwhelmed by their numbers, dragged into their shadow-ocean behind the wall of the Real...
Lazily, like eels, they slithered forward, swimming weightlessly in their insipid phantasmal soup; their pulsing cries gibbered excitedly on the outside of his consciousness. But the serpentman -remembered-, now...
Even as their slimy forms wrapped about him, even as his limbs struck and broke their hideous bodies only to be enveloped in clammy shadows; even as they raped his mind and mangled his thoughts into twisted nightmares, he clung to the hope of escape...
The hope of retaining Memorium.
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The void welcomed him.
He remembered. Remembered spending time at the tavern; innocent of his past, of his destiny. He remembered Quincy; he remembered Angilena and her little dragon Trip. He remembered the paper dragon he'd given the young girl; how her terror had changed to surprise in eyes that didn't see.
Happy. He'd been happy.
But that had changed. His memories lay fully, briefly, within his grasp. Oceans of time stretching out into the infinite; he could not see to his beginnings. But he knew what he saw.
Misery. Pain. Death.
Billions of deaths his eyes had seen. Worlds he had seen crumble, countless races driven to extinction. Consumed by that engine of cataclysmic horror that was the Dark Triad.
And the Maelhim. Their unwitting servants; drawn by the essence tantamount to their own existence to follow Them and seek Them as though They held some cosmic truth. But the Triad were destruction absolute, beyond the minds of flawed deities who wept at the mere concept of Them, for they knew, or thought they knew, what the Dark Triad meant.
And he had stood against Them. He had fought at the side of angels. He had drawn his steel back to back with gods. He had journeyed galaxies unbidden; he had stepped across the threshold of planes. To Sigil he had been no stranger; the Lower Planes he had traversed when the Maelhim had brushed through them unnoticed even by the demons that dwelled therein; Krynn had made him welcome. Earth had been his sanctuary. Distant Canathari he strode upon and the wondrous secrets of Enkara he had seen at the behest of its serene caretakers.
He had been the wanderer of a universe plagued by primordial evil and defended by valiant good. But he remembered the name, now, of the place he called home. Where it had all begun; where, should he fail, the final battle would be fought and lost and all would come to an end. The world to whose soul he was bonded. He remembered Arcanos.
The crimson eyes grew moist with an unexpected and rare emotion, for him; homesickness.
He stirred, gathering the bedouin robes about his battered form; floating foetal in the amorphous, shadowy ocean. He knew this realm, for he had been here before.
It was the netherworld in which the Hidden Ones lurked like blind fish at the bottom of a depthless sea.
With many implements he had hunted them. He wondered where they were now; where lay his ancient blades whose pristine steel had drunk greedily of the blood of foul Things spawned of stolen flesh. Where was the cloak Shadowveil whose hood had shrouded him for countless centuries, adding to the natural stealth that had become legend? And where was the Orb of Khantaroth, whose mirrored sphere contained the trapped spirits of evils beyond number? He knew not.
But he knew how he'd gotten here. He remembered his fall, his near-death at the hands of the nameless Maelhim, the mask-creature that had impersonated Mephisto. He remembered its clever little ruse well.
He remembered his capture, his self-induced state of apparent death to fool the Enemy; they valued his corpse too highly to dissect and defile him as they would any other. He had counted on it; and his banking had paid off.
But after such a time of existing, barely, on the faintest pulse of life, his brain had been damaged; his memories locked away, his keen, cold intellect dulled.
He had become aware of himself, wandering the woods near Myrken-town, near the Broken Dagger. He didn't even remember how he had been freed; only that he was hungry. He'd crawled through the tavern's window, smelling the warm bodies of rodents crawling therein.
That's where he'd met Quincy.
Flashes of memory came and went. He recalled Tyralor and Katalin. He recalled -warning- the man, etching that dreaded symbol into the tabletop, writing the word - Maelhim.
The bastards were here.
A thin, whooping pulse echoed out in the sea. He drifted, his garments floating in the airless ectoplasm; his head turned and he saw the shapes forming themselves out of the elemental darkness; he saw their bulbous heads, their slimy, spindly limbs; their swollen eyes glowing either side of their slitted mouths, their wet black lips. The Hidden who had taken him waited.
He recalled, too, how he had come to this deplorable situation. He recalled making another paper dragon, thinking of giving it to that nice girl with the little dragon. He recalled the tall form entering the inn; a man from the gaol, the night he had killed the Hidden One who had been sent to murder Quincy in her cell.
He had not been thorough enough. The creature's fetid essence had escaped and found another host. Kobra realised that when he recognised the man at the door; his soulsight had picked up the Maelhim within him.
He recalled the Thing-in-man-skin and how he had tried to warn the others - Katalin, the elf Aeri, even the menfolk who'd blundered in gallantly with no clue of what they faced.
They'd run; the Hidden had followed and he'd found in the woods they fled into that there were many more Hidden; a colony of Hidden in the forest. Spies.
Hidden in such numbers meant only one thing.
A Spawning Pit.
A spawning pit meant more than Hidden and Boschians; it meant Tahdanmoth and Zevulites and Slaurhacons; it meant Maw Fiends and Flayed Ones and Unspoken and Pazhirim. It meant an endless, self-perpetuating army of horrors ripped from the tormented minds of its own victims; from the collective nightmares of all who had met their end within the steaming depths.
But he'd been unable to warn anyone; he'd been overwhelmed by their numbers, dragged into their shadow-ocean behind the wall of the Real...
Lazily, like eels, they slithered forward, swimming weightlessly in their insipid phantasmal soup; their pulsing cries gibbered excitedly on the outside of his consciousness. But the serpentman -remembered-, now...
Even as their slimy forms wrapped about him, even as his limbs struck and broke their hideous bodies only to be enveloped in clammy shadows; even as they raped his mind and mangled his thoughts into twisted nightmares, he clung to the hope of escape...
The hope of retaining Memorium.