The Gathering

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Chapter Thirty-Seven

     The two glowing spheres quickly materialize into humanoid figures then touch the cringing ground with surprising nimbleness and begin toward the pyre where human sacrifices burn in their names. The first to touch is a massive being with slouched over shoulders where two sets of arms hang from his sides. The top two arms are massive, muscular forms that are worthy of his grandeur. Yet, the bottom two are awkwardly tucked beneath his armpits and are much smaller and more deformed then the top. The fingers droop from the knobby masses of hands like gnarled, rotting twigs. His head hangs on a slanted neck making his head tilt to one side, but his eyes have adjusted to meet the angle. His plagued face is a mixture of leprous skin sags, boils and minute thorns exfoliating from pores that appear to continuously bleed. The humps on his back are perpetual wounds where it appears to heal, then boil with massive puss sacks. The sacks then explode, releasing rancorous blobs of slime that quickly form into snake shaped bats and stream off into the night, screeching like banshees. One of these bats' aims toward the damned and enters one among them through the chest, with the poor human riling from the pain. The body suddenly erupts into a frenzy of epileptic quaking where blood and mucous issue from every orifice. The body crumbles to the stone floor as it continues its decadent dance and rolls into the fire where it becomes a burning, screaming mass. Then dies.

     “Kurse!” She utters the name under her breath, where it becomes more fear than bane. Sam pauses to watch the intrusion while rendering the petite frame in his hands to mush, with blood pouring out of the body like water from a sponge.
     The second form is that of a young woman, whom she did not know nor recognize. However, the image of beauty and power resonate within her eyes and being to rival god above gods. She is a fraction of Kurse’s size and demeanor yet the permanent blue aura that burns around her denotes an elevated inner strength and potential energy level. She stays behind him as they approach the altar with him spewing his viscous demons every few steps or so.
     “Finally...” Sam hisses, his anticipation bears agony as he watches the approach and holds forth the now glowing amulet in his left hand. The god’s eyes immediately fix upon the amulet and a twinkle of recognition resonates within them. Sam quickly approaches him, with haste in his step and concern in his eyes. Carter, watching from a distance, faces a grouping of children and attempts not to inflict permanent damage. However finds it difficult where they are not equipped to withstand her level of destruction. One crumbles from her blow and falls to black. She questions his motive and the glowing object in his hand. Then, sudden recognition bereaves her, where she now begins to understand his true motives for following them on their quest. He was intending to meet the god, greet the god, and become the god. But why? One of the children kicks her in the abdomen sending a ripple of pain through her. Sobriety becomes her release, where she looks upon the grinning child who holds his motives with true faith. His is a wicked heart, sick and diseased from the rotting hate for something he does not understand. The thought of killing abhorred her, yet the continual barrage of fists, stones and wood is proof enough that their intent is malice, true and to the bone. She begins to spin in place, gradually picking up pace, to the point of rupture. A sudden surge of low pressure sweeps through the proximity of where she spins, sucking in the nearest of children into her artificial vortex of colliding currents. The whirlwind carries them up, higher and faster as they ascend then lose pace until the vacuum ceases and they descend again, slamming hard into the ground. Yet, death does not become them, only unconsciousness. These ones, she will have to address later, if the time presents it self.
     The mucous green glob approaches, twirling and spinning in a frenzied flight. As it nears, it transforms into a bat like serpent where the tail stems behind it with slithering motions. It spits from its body and tail squirts of its malice in form of stink and slime that ignite into blue flames as they hit the ground. Screeching, it approaches selecting its victim in Deano Bravo. Deano watches and times the approach. Within that moment, he coils and leaps into the air, kicking his legs before him and strikes the demon spawn, sending it splashing toward the trees to his left. Still in mid leap, he shifts his body, pulling at his abdomen muscles to continue pulling his legs over his head and right his body until his feet hit the ground. Landing, his momentum takes him to the ground yet he maintains his balance, touches the grass with his hands then stands erect. Upon the altar, human slaves are still being sent to their deaths without opposition.
     Kurse stops his approach as he reaches the amulet and looks upon the beholder. Sam straightens up in anticipation for the coming, the gift to the one who holds the amulet, promised to him by an old priest. It was a rainy night and he needed shelter from the elements, for it was going to get worst before better. As he walked, he began to hear the mad chant of a man, singing as though praising an unknown lord, over the cracks of thunder. When he approached the origin of the singing, he found a single person standing before a stone obelisk that was surrounded by many stone pillars just as high as he. In all, nothing was on the grand scale. However, it was impressive all the same. He figured a shrine for a deity where the words and name were inscribed upon the stone faces. But, he was not interested at the time. Upon hearing his approach, the man turned to face him. It was a wonder he could see or hear him for that matter, for his eyes were seriously cataracts. His breaths were heavy, as though his lungs were plagued by disease.
     “Why are you standing out in the rain crazy man?” Sam had asked him, at which he simply offered a sheepish smile in return.
     “I pray.” His voice was old and carried the syllables as though speaking to a child. Sam did not like his tone and wished to no longer be in his presence. However, something beckoned him as though being drawn by some charismatic weight of importance and wisdom. “You are in need of shelter.” The question sounded more like a statement as it probed for the truth.
     “That’s correct.” He had answered, unknowingly stepping into a trap, which will forever influence his life.
     “Follow then.” As the old man walked away from the shrine, the rain falling harder then it was earlier.
     They had walked for a half hour before reaching the confines of a small stone fence courtyard. The single rot Iron Gate hung upon rusted hinges and stayed permanently open, allowing free access to the wonders within. The courtyard was massive and well kept, despite the haggard appearance of the stone fence and rots iron gate. The rain became contained by the leaves of a massive orchard that greeted them as they emerging through the entrance. They walked a gravel path that lead toward a massive stone building, which resembled an old castle or Roman Keep. However, one of the wings had collapsed years ago and the debris still remains where it had fallen. The old priest walked up to the massive wooden doors and opened one and walked though, singing to an unseen spectator as he faded into the black beyond. Sam apprehensively followed him into the darkness and found the area beyond mired by the sent of burning wood and stewing food. It was warm within, despite the reek and this he appreciated for it beat the cold rain. “Enter, enter...” The voice continued to sing. He walked in and entered a study at the front, where a small fire roared within a stone hearth. The logs were dying and needed replenishment. The old priest heeded their call and selected two massive timbers from a pile that sat beside the hearth. Within the fire hung a small urn with a lid and spoon hanging out of the side. He assumed the old man’s dinner, which was the origin of the stench. The study brimmed with books, tomes and artifacts that were chaotically placed on shelving that buckled by their sheer weight. Sam could not help notice the volume of books this man had within the dying walls of a castle. In all, the place was comfortable and welcoming.
     “Did you read all these books?” He questioned, sitting on the cold stone floor.
     “No. I just have them to impress my friends. What do you think?” The man spat, his voice sarcastic and demeaning. He removed the urn from its hook and placed it on a wooden slab, which rested on the floor. He removed the lid, filling the space with its acrimony to allow the stew to simmer and cool for consumption. The old man ate without inviting Sam. This annoyed him, yet he really was not hungry at the time and hoped that he was not going to be asked if he wanted some. But the idea of common courtesy would have been appreciated, for the most part.
     The old man sat and spoke of many things, the origins of the castle, locale history and lore and the amulet. This was an in depth tale about the gift from a god that brought the possessor of the amulet much power and title. Sam had listened intently to the story, the lore of such an amulet that existed somewhere within the dimensions of another world, held for auction by ones who do not know of its properties. Yet, if it were to fall into the wrong hands, someone would stand to receive the gift and will be unfitting for the power. This convinced Sam that it was his duty, his responsibility to recover the amulet and hold it for presentation to the god, upon the night of the ascension and receive the girt. The ultimate power offered from it.
     The trek was long and difficult, yet here he stands before the god, who will be his release, his savior from his curse and be forever free from the negatives of his rebirth. His life goal stands before him in the presence of the deformed and grotesque god.
     Kurse stops and stands feet before him, the woman mere feet behind him. She carries a slight smile over her lips as she checks Sam over with intrigue and interest. Kurse simply looks upon the glowing, burning amulet as it dangles extended in his left hand. Kurse takes a deep, lung full breath and holds it. His back ignites, sending out a swarm of his spawn that find flight toward the human sacrifices. Suddenly, a solemn mist begins to form around his feet and seeps outward, toward Sam and the encircling area. He had no clear image of how it would be, yet he knew it was not this. As the mist hits his feet, his body falls under stillness, where numb legs and unresponsive feet fumble beneath him with his undulating weight. Following the numbness is weakness, where his strength begins to seep from him like a drying plant under a desert storm. The lost of strength had no pain other than a light tingling in his body, an experience compared to inebriation where his head fills with heaviness and body trembles with miniature quakes. His sight begins to haze and shrouds Kurse under a veil of disorientation, this propounded by the mist, which thickens as it extends further. The children begin to fall in succession, clasping at their throats in torment as the life seeps from their pores. Sam looks around him with blinding eyes and sees the fog that inhales the life energy of all living things around him. This is not a gift, but a curse convinced to him in confidence and now it has become his betrayal. However, the amulet is only but a means to an end and the road to that destination has many avenues. Refusing to yield, Kurse withdraws his attention from the dying and focuses on the man.
     “This... one... is... strong.” His alien accent is a rasp that scratches at the back of his throat with an agonizing effect - then puzzlement, as he looks at Sam’s expression change from concern to deceit. His arms slowly fold toward his chest with an effort that tears at his muscles. Yet it is the smile that overcomes his lips, at the realization that this can be defeated, that the god can be defeated for he, it is not that strong. Not as strong as he that is. Suddenly, his fists smash the envelope of time and collide with Kurse’s jaw, snapping his neck with the delivery. The ensuing thunderclap rattles the dense filled heavens with gravity, forcing Kurse to take two steps back to maintain his balance. Sam pushes forward, continuing to lay devastating blow after devastating blow onto key joints and bare muscle, wherever the most damage can be inflicted to take down a god.


Chapter Thirty-Eight

     “Ageless, still I am, and victory will still be mine. Puppet, come to my side and guide me to my god so that I can claim my place on his thrown, at his side.” Roth babbles as he lay on the crumbled ground, defeat his only truth where his paralyzed legs and arms find empty motion and still weight. Suddenly, shifting at his side as though a mad dancer shuffles as it approaches with schizophrenic steps. “Puppet, is that you?” He questions, his fused eyes look blindly into the heavens as he attempts to find the approaching madness. Yet, there is only silence to the exclusion of the steps.

     Deano quickens his pace toward the sacrifices as the lead’s, larger humans than the followers walk blindly into the massive supernatural flames that lick the sky with a decadent hunger. Their binding chain begins to tauten with the lead’s urging as the others wrestle against his uncanny, inhuman strength. Then he fades into the flames, drawing with him the next in line then the rest to follow. Deano outstretches a perfect finger and centers upon the links that bind and discharges an electric pulse of rippling, dense nothingness of random molecules, which ionize and gravitate toward the direction of his urging. Fragments of the atmosphere’s weight collide and bind to form a singular ripple that streams toward the chain. The ensuing effect draws in the metal from the links, severing the nucleus’s bonds by stealing valencies from the metal and giving them to the pulse, resulting in the dissimilation of the chain. The followers coil and fall from the release, uncertain of the purpose and event of their release. Suddenly, four males in their late teens early twenties approach and begin to reclaim the lost in Deano’s intrusion. One of the smaller women is raised from the ground with absent hands and thrown toward the flames of the pyre, she screams from the fear and fades as the heat incinerates her to black vapor.
     “Puppet, where are you?” He screams with non-responsive limbs.
     “I am here master.” His voice sounds less than enthusiastic.
     “Where are you? You sound. . . . Distant.”
     “I am here master.” He answers again, with the same tone. His voice falls upon Roth as though he stood at the High Priest’s head, watching down on him.
     “How goes our war? Hath our God defeated the heretics?”
     “Yes my Lord.” The voice answers with a light sound of metal against metal filling the under cast of his voice.
     “What was that?” Roth asks, looking frantically at the heavens though closed eyes. His body continues to refuse his demand for motion.
     “That would be one of the pagan’s falling my lord.”
     “Good... Very good. Then the gift will be mine puppet and you will have many...”
     “Yes my lord.” Then the crunch of Samiari-Roth’s chest plate as a blade from the crown of a golden scepter pierces his heart with a single downward lunge. Shock bereaves Roth’s expression as his back arches with the stab and his lungs exhale the caustic breath of his malefic life. The scepter ignites under azure arcs of pure energy as Roth’s life essence bleeds into the archaic rod of unknown power. The energy arcs quickly grow into full-blown lightning arcs that etch outward and consume everything within its diabolical path, sparking fierce fires from flammable materials that lay in chaotic formations about the altar. The dark form is that of an old, decaying male with a golden scepter in hand. He stands above the fading body of Samiari-Roth, where the glow, the hue of the energy radiates from him, centering and entering him and fills him with the essence of a once powerful deity.
     Deano watches the haze in despair. “Oh no you don’t.” He curses’ out loud, vehemently. “Not on my watch.” Heading for the grouping of children. One of the larger boys steps forward to greet his approach, outstretches his left hand and launches a grouping of boulders, from the debris made from his earlier assault. From his position, he sees the levitating boulders and jumps upon their descent. His running leap gives him the strength to ascend a fair 20 feet above the altar. This crested with a double axle somersault over the fleeing stones. However, they follow his ascent and steam toward him at an incredible 60 miles an hour. These children are not playing games. He lands 60 feet closer to the lead boy, which brings him standing before the child an arm’s length away. Deano Bravo has a trick up his sleeve, waiting to be revealed for his new opponents. He outstretches his left hand and begins to create a transparent ball of unnatural force at the tip of his finger yet, not touching him. The ball suddenly thrusts forward and hits the boy, for he was looking at the formation and lost concentration on his telekinetically controlled boulders. The child stumbles backward two or three feet as his flesh blindly binds with the force ball like anti matter. His body falls with his friends approaching in tow, their collective expression is that of dismay as their numbers begin to reduce with an opposition equaled to their strength and up to the challenge of their abilities. The three remaining young men instantly create massive Psi Swords and Shields from their hands and form a circle around him. The remaining adults flee at the distraction and fade into the darkness, away from the pyre.

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Chapter Thirty-Nine

     He concentrates solely upon the god who betrayed him, thinking to the old man who lied to have him serve as a puppet in a much larger plan. Served him right for not learning more about the old man and this god before accepting such a fool hearted quest. Still, the hope of change and its reward in the end brought him a new level of zest, which he relished for the time being. She twitches in his periphery and he hazards a look, a mistake but one he can easily handle. Her hands begin to wave as a deep haze of pooling dust enters her and builds up with her body and hands glowing with the hue of magic. Kurse’s back suddenly ignites then spews two spawns into the air and outward. As they ascend, they form into a bat like worms with streaming tails, every one identical to the last. Kurse lunges forward to wrap him with his massive arms. His clawed fingers from his deformed arms dance like mad spider legs twitching with the wind. Sam shifts and jumps to avoid the entanglement and to near one of the spawns. In his leap, he feels Kurse’s claws rake against the flesh of his lower legs, violently peeling the flesh as he pulls with his ascent. Suddenly, he kicks one foot forward and clips the spawn with the edge of his toes. The progeny detonates with the assault and jets toward the goddess. With dancing hands, she ignores the descent and catches the residual slime and entrails with her upper body and waving hands. With the distraction, her invocation fails with her cursing the assault. The second of the spawn’s finds Sam, a fitting host and directs toward him. It plows into him with a massive surge, Sam barely catching it with its collision. Tentacles suddenly spit from its fist sized mouth and adhere to his chest plate and upper shoulders. With the contact, the tentacles begin to eject a soft fluid that instantly begins to burn the flesh and melt through body armor. His nostrils fill with the material scent of his armor and rotting flesh. The attack causes him to land hard on his back, his head rushing off a skull size stone leaving his ears to ring with the insistent squeal of his parasitic intruder. Kurse nears with his female shadow in tow.

     The remaining children flee her grasp and regroup where she cannot reach them. With their collective strength, they attempt a long ranged attack. Yet find insufficient strength to maintain the level of offensive they’ve maintained to this point. The fight has gone on longer than their master’s estimation and now they feel a void where his voice used to sing at them in rage, with penance. The younger children break down and cry from the absence and the fear of defeat as they watch the woman approach with ardent hatred in her eyes. She has forgotten mercy, this they can see in her eyes.
     Between screaming fingers he squishes the spawn, his hands igniting under blue flames which is the last effort from the being as it crushes and crumbles under unwavering compression. He tosses the remnants toward the oncoming gods, they do not flinch as the remains fade and wither upon its approach. It falls to dust with Kurse laughing at Sam’s horror.