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 Post by Garvey on 04/30/2004 at 18:53:41
by SisyphuxX and Garvey The Black Road was quiet and still. It was in the later days of the Patternfall War. Eric had been slain some time ago, but now Amber was marshalling all of its' allies, former and current, against the forces of Chaos. Caine was giving Caliban missions of the utmost importance - scouting missions and strikes against forward positions of the Chaosian troops. But now, Caine had given a mission to Caliban that was daring to the point of lunacy. Caine and Caliban knew the ways of the Pattern very well, and how one might use it to manipulate Shadow in a variety of ways. Caine's observers had spotted a Chaosian army advancing at great speed towards Amber. The trouble was, the troops that were being employed were of a kind that required a magical sustenance to maintain their energy. Consequently, Caine reasoned, there was a Chaosian noble of some significant ability at the heart of the army, keeping it fueled and moving efficiently. If that noble could be...removed from the equation, the troops would wither and die within a day or two, and the threat would be surgically removed. The plan was to use the information on the movement of the army to deduce where the army would camp for the night, and to create a pocket Shadow there to conceal Caliban's pack. Then, after nightfall, the pack would emerge, silently move through the camp, find the noble and slay him. Then, they would have to quickly re-enter the pocket Shadow, as they would doubtlessly be standing in the center of a vast Chaosian army that would still have plenty of time to butcher Caliban and his packmates before withering away. It required timing, nerves of steel, and the ability to concentrate and utilize the Pattern under tremendous stress. Caliban was entrusted with this special assignment. It had been a hastily assembled mission - Caliban had led his pack in Hellride through Shadows off the Black Road and then back on from a more lateral approach. They approached the dreaded malformation of Shadow quietly. They guessed that it would be dark in two hours or so, and that the Chaosian army would arrive in four. Plenty of time. The Black Road was quiet and still. Caliban was mentally preparing himself to create the pocket Shadow. Fiach was becoming familiar with the surrounding terrain, should they not be able to leave the Shadow immediately upon the completion of the mission. Cahir and Jana stood watch on the physical world, and Brona sung quietly, apprising a Singer far-off that the insertion was complete. Molan stood with Caliban. Caliban's eyes were cast up at the red sky, the last rays of the sun dying in the heavens. His eyes were unfocused, though, looking past the clouds at nothing. "Everything alright?," asked Molan. Caliban's mind came back to reality, and he looked at his pack mate and noded. "Just thinking. I was wondering if this was how my mother felt when he went out on these missions. I always knew when she went on a particularly dangerous one, because she would come and spend extra time with me before leaving. She'd just sit and watch me sometimes, as though she was trying to capture me in her eyes. If she were still alive, it would probably be her here instead of me." "Don't let the others hear you so depressed. They are nervous enough as it is. Besides, you have skills that even Singers such as your mother lacked. I've seen how you've ripped through shadow when you are pushed - no Singer could ever do that." He laughed then. "And never forget, you have me by your side. How could you ever lose?" His grin was infectious and Caliban's sadness soon faded liked the light of the sun. Then, the time had come - the preparations were complete. Molan called Fiach back, and summoned Brona's attention to the physical world. Then, Caliban mentally exerted himself, folding and twisting a portion of reality back on itself in a most painful way. Gradually, a near-black oval spawned in front of Caliban. He concentrated on fixing and stabilizing the new mini-world, and then opened his eyes. He gestured to Molan, who led the way in. Brona entered next, then Cahir and Jana. Finally, Caliban strode forward, into the black gateway. The pocket Shadow was dark, little more than a featureless plain. The entryway back to the Black Road looked positively warm by comparison. Brona had a pained look on her face, and Cahir was sweating. Jana paced nervously, but Molan stood bravely. Caliban looked at the five packmates he had chosen for this mission - all trusted and brave warriors, skilled beyond their brethren and fiercely loyal. "Now, we must wait. It will be three hours in this place until we are ready to re-emerge." "It's so quiet..." Brona whispered. "It's always quiet on this road. No birds, no bugs, nothing," replied Fiach. He was lying on the ground, looking too relaxed, scratching fiercely at the back of his head. He always starts itching when he's nervous, Caliban noted. Everyone else knew it too. They had been on too many missions together not to know each other's tiny quirks. "It's not the road. It's this place," Brona snapped back. "The songs are all gone. I can't hear any of them. Not even echoes. Even on the road, the songlines still hum. It's never been this quiet before." "This isn't a place." Caliban said calmly. "We are between places now. If I let in any of the songlines, then there would be disturbances on the outside, and they might notice." "It's freaking weird is what it is." That was Cahir now, and he was quickly silenced by a stern glance from Jana. Cahir was the youngest that Caliban had chosen, and unlike the others, he had joined the pack after birth, as a teenager. The others had often questioned him as to why Cahir had left his old pack, but Caliban told them that Cahir would tell them when he was ready. Caliban knew the truth and his faith in him was unwavering. He had proven himself many times since joining the Shantallow. Trying to change the subject and keep everyone focused, Caliban turned to Fiach. "Fill us in on the surroundings, Fiach. What is the land like - any good refuges or blocked pathways?" Fiach stood up and started to describe the area, starting with a large rock formation to the east of them. Suddenly, and with a loud screeching, reality changed. The blackness moved suddenly close - the featureless plain was now no longer visible twenty feet away - just an empty void. The pack immediately formed a circle around Caliban. Molan spoke quietly. "Caliban, this is not good. I think we'd better leave, and take our chances with the army. At least they're just monsters." Then there came a terrible grinding and ripping sound, and a bright flash of blue-purple energy burst into their tiny world. It formed a circle, and then started expanding. And a chittering, clicking, horribly...alive sound came from within the circle. This was nothing Caliban had ever seen before - certainly not any normal Chaosian demon-force that might be used in the field. And a deep, smooth, lyrical voice came from behind the chittering. "Take two of them - any two will do. Slay the rest." The chittering moved forward and emerged from the circle. And it was grotesque - limbs and legs and torsos all moving independently, attaching and detaching as convenience dictated in their surge forward. It was all black, set against the dark light of the circle. The texture was grainy and bulbous, and the form constantly shifting. Caliban was concentrating on forming an exit from the pocket Shadow, but Molan knew that Caliban needed as little distraction as possible. So he pulled Cahir and Jana in front of Caliban, blocking him from seeing the advancing horde. Brona was singing at the top of her lungs by now, hoping desperately to escape this prison. And Fiach charged the advancing, chittering mass. Caliban never saw Fiach slash twice at an advancing arm. He never saw the arm sink a talon deeply into Fiach's side. He never saw the sudden stain of black that erupted on the borders of the wound. He did, however, hear a terrible scream, guttural and laden with bloody coughing, as Fiach fell under the weight of a torso and three legs, sinking into the chittering mass. Molan looked briefly back at Caliban. " DAMN IT!" he swore. "He needs more time!" He took Jana's sword, dual-wielding it with his own, and made a number of slashing moves designed to keep a foe at bay. Meanwhile, Brona was lifting Caliban and moving him backwards as he concentrated, with Cahir and Jana still between him and the mass of materials advancing on them. The dark, velvety voice emerged again from within the circle. "Pathetic. This material may not be suitable. I hope there is a greater robustness to be found. Take the gifted one as the second." Brona saw the eye-like appendages emerge from the back of the mass, and fix on her. She knew that if Caliban were to have any chance to create an escape, she could no longer afford to be near him. So she charged behind Molan, sword drawn, and started singing a war chant. The mass moved forward silently, morphing and changing and clacking and chittering. Molan's slashes were plainly ineffective as the formless crowd started to pierce his skin and spread the blackness into his body - he fell twitching and snarling. Brona howled and pushed the tendril away, but it flexed backward and wrapped around her neck. As she struggled, it hauled her deeper into the mass, choking and yelping and trying feebly to sing again... Jana picked up her sword from Molan on the ground, and Cahir stood with her in a desperate growl. The things advanced, and tendrils reached for all three of them. Cahir cried out as a spike entered his chest, and Jana's voice gurgled as a shapeless liquid sprung forth into her mouth and down her throat. And Caliban desperately completed a folding in his mind as the tendrils advanced on him. The Black Road was quiet and still. It was late in the evening - the tone of the night was available to any Weir as a clock, and suggested that it had been around six hours since they had left. There was no army here. The only figure moving on the Road's edge was Caliban. He was coruscating with a purplish-blue energy, and it was searing the flesh where it ribboned around him. His body was twitching convulsively, but Caliban's consciousness had long since fled, with the last thing to register the pained screaming of his packmates as the chittering consumed them. Within a few seconds, the tendrils of energy dissipated, leaving Caliban's body burned and twisted in the middle of an empty field. His natural regeneration would bring him back from the brink of death, but it would be a slow and painful journey, and his mind would never be free of the memories of the attack, or of the chittering horror that he had briefly seen. But now... The Black Road was quiet and still. |
