I didn’t get a chance to read much of the note before Tammer swatted me away, but I did catch the end. What I read had me shaking with rage. Someone, probably a so-called prophet from an Abyssal cult, decided to impersonate me.
In much of the world Frya made, Abyss was the enemy in most theology and mythology. That, of course, meant me, despite the reality of things. In the early days of the world, I’d made a few mistakes and the humans caught on to what I was. I was strange, frightening, and the presence of the darkness meant that they were vulnerable to villains and predators. Some attacked me, most ran away, and it was from those moments that I was the ever-present monster in their stories.
It was irritating, sometimes funny, but most of the time their fear and hatred were completely harmless. However, every few hundred years or so, crusades to hunt and kill the Abyss popped up and those were not so harmless. Not to me personally; I’m an ancient being, a creature more than any god could even comprehend, but crusades were dangerous to other humans. Foolish and simple they may be, all humans are Frya’s. I’d put forth my best effort many times through the centuries to stop a crusade if I could, or at least cut it a few years short. Even so, crusades always ended the same way. I’d seen civilizations destroyed by others, people killed or forced into slavery where their culture slowly died. Famines caused by raiders taking everything from the native peoples whose lands they invaded, plagues following soon after. All in the name of some religion or king who could never be satisfied.
Abyssal cults were worse than the crusades. They were far more common, and though they didn’t kill as many people en masse, Abyssal cults killed more people than all the crusades that had ever been. Other than Alfreyad, there wasn’t a city in the world that didn’t have at least two or three Abyssal cults scheming away in the sewers. Cults were always started by a madman that called himself a prophet of the Abyss or Shadow King or Nightress. The prophet usually claimed that he’d been visited by his god or goddess, whatever that title may be, when in reality, he’d just become fanatically disillusioned with life and inevitably decided to indulge in his psychopathy. Many of these leaders were charismatic and found it easy to gain recruits from others who were just as let down with society, and so their cult formed.
Abyssal cults grew fast. The prophet never had to look hard to find new followers that were willing to follow him, but they weren’t afraid of kidnapping others to fill their entourage. Young girls taken to form their sick harems, boys sometimes, too. One prophet I came across in Baraland, a kingdom far to the south, had a collection of “mothers.” They were older women that he kidnapped from clans in the savannah to replace his dead mother. She had supposedly been taken from him when he was just a boy by the Nightress so his mother could serve in her black court. That, of course, made him heir apparent to the Nightress. I killed him by ripping the crown from his head, along with a few bits and pieces below it.
Cults popped up everywhere and anywhere and they all preached human sacrifice. Wherever a cult put down roots, despair would soon follow - people missing, rivers running bloody, fields drying up and dying. The lucky ones wke up one day to all their missing people suddenly returned, dead and rotting in fields or streets with body parts missing, eaten or sacrificed. Most never get to see their loved ones again.
They do all of this, so they say, in “my” name. They read from false books written by long-dead murderers and hold rituals that supposedly summon me to grant them power, each ritual requiring at least a child’s worth of blood.
The rituals do work, in a sense. When a cult catches my attention, I do appear, but the only thing I grant them is a quick death. I don’t like killing my sister’s creations, but the humans that end up in Abyssal cults pledge themselves to me, so they are mine to do with what I will.
I
them.
It had been a few decades since my last dealings with an Abyssal cult. I was in the slums of Adeba, a desert city close to the sea in the country called Syba, south of Alfreyad. I’d been there to see the auroras, a beautiful light show that painted the sky once every dozen years. I never missed them; they were my favorite thing that Fyra ever made.
I spent my days among the locals, trying to see if I recognized any faces from my last visit. I spent much of my time amusing myself in the usual ways - under the guise of a frail old man, I challenged a chieftain to a duel in exchange for a couple of his horses and won; I accepted a contract to raid some supply lines for an enemy tribe while disguised as a small girl; I tried and failed to learn how to weave rugs out of camel hair. Immersing myself in the cultures of different peoples was always a worthwhile experience, especially since they could change so much in such a short time.
I liked the people of Adeba quite a bit. In Adeba, hospitality was king, so even if they distrusted you and called you a to your face, they would still dine and share stories with you.
It was during one of those times where I heard about a group called the Darkened Locusts.
Earlier that day in my normal guise, I had met a good man named Massan. After a disagreement, he invited me to his home for an early dinner. The sun was starting to dip, a few gulls drifted on the zephyrs, and the auroras would appear in a few hours. I had just torn into the bread that my new friend’s wife had cooked that day when my friend said to me, “It is good that you are here for the auroras, Abel, but you must promise me that you will leave tomorrow.”
“Massan, you wound me. I thought we were getting along now,” I said, breathing deep of the warm nutty aroma wafting off the bread.
“This is not because you stole my chickens, you swindler.”
“I didn’t steal anything, I won them fair and square.”
“You cheated that hand, and you know it. And even if you didn’t, there was no need for you to give them to that worm across the street.”
“He seemed low on chickens, my friend. Besides, what was I going to do with them? Tie them to some strings and fly away?” I smirked through a carby mouthful.
“I’d rather that than what you did,” Massan said, glaring at me with a heavy brow. “But no, that is not what I’m talking about. Adeba is not safe. It hasn’t been for a good while now.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Massan shook his head, spreading goat butter across his bread. His wife, Yusa, took her seat beside him. “The Darkened Locusts,” she whispered, then looked over her shoulder as if they would appear right behind her at the mere mention of them. “They appeared a couple seasons ago, and they are only getting stronger.”
“Who are the Darkened Locusts?”
“A cult of the Black One,” Massan spat. Yusa made a protective hand gesture and looked over her shoulder once again. “Every night they take another person, and that person is never seen again. Sometimes we’re lucky and their families find a single bone to bury, but mostly they just, poof.”
The Black One. That was Syban for the Abyss. Me.
All of my anger welled up within me. I turned my gaze to my plate so they wouldn’t see my eyes shift to black. It took all my self control to keep the dark swirling mass that was my true nature hidden within my chosen form. “They take someone every night?”
“For the past week, they’ve been taking more,” Yusa said. “No one we know, thankfully, but friends of ours, they have had neighbors just vanish. They think that if they spill enough blood for the Black One, it will have enough power to stop the auroras, and if the Black One can stop the auroras, then the Black One will have enough power to destroy the sun.”
Did they now.
“So they’re here, in Adeba?”
“Almost certainly,” Massan said. “No one knows where, exactly, but they leave their mark any time they take someone. A crude locust carved into their home or in the street.”
“My sister thinks that they are somewhere in the aqueduct district,” Yusa said, reaching for the bread herself. “She said she gets an eerie feeling over there.”
I nodded and took another bite of bread, but I couldn’t taste it now. After I forced it down, I adopted a much more lighthearted tone. “Well, I’m sure that they’re full of it,” I said. “You’ll see. The auroras will go on tonight just as they’re supposed to.”
“You’re awfully confident, my friend.”
I rolled my eyes at Massan and smiled. “Do you really think that these people will be able to blot out the auroras? The ”
“Not them, no, but the Black One is capable of anything.”
“If the Black One could do that, then it would have by now,” I said. “It doesn’t need some silly nobodies to help it along.”
Massan chewed on my words, but Yusa looked terrified. Her bright eyes were rimmed in tears and she held her slender hands to her mouth. I took that as my queue to leave.
“I should be going,” I said, standing and grabbing my knife and bow. “I thank you for the meal, Yusa, it was amazing.”
Massan stood and saw me to the door. “You are welcome to stay here with us, if you wish,” he said, uncertainly. “I have no more animals that you can steal from me.”
I laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you, but I should be going. There’s a favorite spot of mine where I like to watch the sky and I want to claim it before someone else does.”
Massan hesitated, but then he gave me a smile. The poor man really did think that the sky would be dark tonight.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
When I left Massan’s home, the streets were unusually quiet compared to twelve years ago. Then people tittered around the streets in anticipation of the auroras, laughing amongst themselves and buying food and wares off of street vendors. Now not even stray dogs were out.
I readjusted my bow on my shoulders and tapped my fingers on the string. Alone in the streets of Adeba, I found it harder to control myself. Just a little while longer…
I headed to the aqueducts.
As soon as I came into the district, I felt the pull. Since the creation of this world, Abyssal cults have used snippets of an ancient language - the language of Fyra, myself, and our parents - to use in their chants and rituals. I had varying theories on how they actually learned these words, but no hard proof. In their minds, these words are ones of power and will control me and force me to do their bidding. That itself is a great insult worthy of my retribution. In reality, though, the language is only that - language. And they always butcher it. They think they’re saying, “Lord God Abyss, heed my cry and answer my call,” but they’re actually saying, “Abyss Lord, cry heed me calling.”
All the same, the language draws me in. Not because of some mystical power it has, but because it’s language. A language that I haven’t gotten to speak in eons. I am a creature from the beginning of time and space; my hearing goes well beyond what a mortal can comprehend, and my ears are particularly attuned to my language. Which was all the worse for the Darkened Locusts.
The aqueducts were well maintained. Away by the coast of the sea briny water was funneled into large vats and dried in the sun. The evaporating water was caught and siphoned away via the aqueducts to the other Syban desert towns, and the salt that was left behind was exported around the world. I stepped into the aqueduct, the smell of the ocean mingling with the sun-warmed clay that formed the pipes and walls.
The water swirled around my ankles, and over the soft trickle, I could discern something else. Voices, footsteps, heartbeats…
My fingers itched and my form shivered. A grim smile tugged at my lips.
The Darkened Locusts gathered at the convergence of four aqueducts, split onto the narrow, ridged walkways lit by lanterns. They dressed in cloaks of black leather, impractical in the desert heat. On their faces were ornate masks shaped into bister carapaces. They stood tightly packed, quietly shifting, the rustling of their cloaks against the stone echoing against the chamber, forming a cacophony not unlike a swarm of the vermin from which they took their name.
I abandoned my human shape and faded into my shadows, watching from all angles. I could kill them outright here and now, but there was no justice in that. For all the people they slaughtered, they didn’t deserve to die so quickly.
After a few minutes, the Locusts stilled. From one of the pathways, their leader emerged, followed by two more cronies carrying a gagged woman and a swaddled baby. The woman had been knocked unconscious, but the baby squirmed and whined uncertainly.
The leader stepped into the light, his mask bejeweled with black opals. His followers threw the woman down in front of him and then laid the baby on top of her. The woman groaned but didn’t wake.
The leader raised his hands like a preacher would to his congregation. There was no sermon, no speech. Instead, they started chanting in unison, the language of my youth becoming a perversion. Their syntax was broken, but I could parse it.
It started softly, but grew into a fever pitch, echoing off the walls until it was all but unintelligible. The Locusts started to sway and gesticulate; their shadows writhed in the lantern light like gigantic beasts. The baby started to cry, but its screams couldn’t rise above the hateful choir. The woman started to stir.
At some unspoken queue, the leader extended a hand to his attendants behind him. The taller of the two withdrew an elegant longsword and gave it to the leader. It was a beautiful design, but cheap make, easily traded for in the bazaars. The steel was bloodstained and a few strands of hair were caught on the hilt. The leader held it aloft and took a step closer to his sacrifices.
As loud as their chanting was, I could make the darkness equally deafening.
I unstoppered my fury, and the shadows seeped into the room, drowning the lanterns. The chanting stopped as the Locusts clustered closer together in fear and awe. They looked this way and that, blinded, but I could see them just fine. I made the darkness heavier, thicker, a sludge so thick they pulled at their collars and some took off their masks. They panted as if they had run to the sea and back.
The leader’s arms dropped to his side, the tip of the damned sword tinging against the ground. The woman was properly awake now and she was shrieking against her gag, struggling against her ties. The baby had fallen to the side as she fought and its cries were the only thing I allowed to pierce the veil.
Now was the time.
I created a human form that they would be able to see in the blackness. It was the only thing they could see. Abyssal cults have certain expectations of what the anthropomorphic manifestation of a god of darkness and evil should look like, and I had no problem obliging them. I became a tall, slender woman, skin as pale as the moon, eyes and hair as black as the depths of the sea, no garment on my frame except for a dress woven of soft, undulating shadows.
I was awesome and terrible, a spider queen among the insects.
The Locusts froze, but one by one, they fell to their knees. The leader alone remained standing, perhaps thinking himself an equal because it was his tiny greatness that managed to summon me. “B-Black One,” he managed to stutter, his voice rough from years living among the windy, sandy dunes.
I looked at the would-be sacrifices. The woman was no longer tearing at her restraints, but tears poured silently from her eyes. The poor thing. She thought she was staring her death in the face, the death of her people and the whole universe. I knelt and picked up the baby, who was still crying. “Shh,” I cooed, mimicking what I had seen mothers do over the years. “It’ll be alright. Hush now.” I bounced the baby a little and it quieted.
I turned my gaze to the leader and shot him my coldest, widest smile. “And what do we have here?”
The leader bowed his head, but still stood. “I am the one who summoned you,” he said, “Xernat. It was I who created the rituals that gave you the power to manifest.”
“I was talking about these,” I said, shifting the baby and nodding at the woman.
“Gifts for you, Black One,” Xernat said. “It is written that the blackest of nights is created in blood and on blood you must feed. These are our final gifts, forty-four in total, as it is written.”
“Forty-four,” I repeated.
“The sacred number,” Xernat continued eagerly. “It gives you the strength to devour the night lights and then the daylight.”
“You mean the auroras,” I said. “And what then, pray tell, would you do after I did all this hard work?”
“...Black One?”
“You are human, Xernat,” I said, pacing. My bare white feet poked out from beneath my shadow skirt with each step. “No matter what you believe, the human body thrives under certain conditions. Sunlight, for one. To grow your food and find your way in the world. Fire to cook it and boil your water. After I devour the light, what then do you expect to happen?”
“We will ascend as knights in your eternal kingdom,” he said, straightening his back.
“Just like that? I have no say in the matter?”
The Locusts shifted uncertainly, but Xernat had the audacity to look offended. “You wouldn’t be here if not for us. You owe us our dues.”
I smiled. Oh, how I hated this man. I was going to enjoy this.
I turned and walked away from him, back to the woman. At a twitch of my finger, the shadows hardened and sharpened. It shot forward and cut through her gag. She spat out the rough cotton and gasped for air.
“What’s your name, love?”
She hadn’t stopped crying. “Bantee. My name is Bantee.”
“Bantee. Is this child yours?” She shook her head. I clicked my tongue. “Xernat, where did you get this child?”
Xernat huffed, clearly annoyed at my lack of appreciation for his dedication. “An orphan, Black One,” he said. “Does it matter? Is our gift not satisfactory to you?”
I turned slowly to face him. “I am...far from satisfied, Locust.”
Xernat paled. His cult grew so still, they might have turned into statues. I grinned at them.
“Bantee,” I said, using my shadows to cut through her remaining restraints. She rubbed her arms to get the blood flowing again. “Do you have the means to care for this child?”
She sobbed. To her credit, she nodded. I don’t know how truthful she was being, but she would say anything to see the sky again.
“Good.” I pulled her to her feet and put the baby in her quivering arms. “Now go.”
She nodded, gave a clumsy curtsey, and . When I could no longer hear her footsteps, I turned back to Xernat.
He now had an idea of just how badly he fucked up.
“I
people like you, Xernat,” I said quietly. “You didn’t summon me here; your silly ritual does nothing. The only reason I’m here is because you got my attention. came to . Want to know how you got my attention?” I whispered directly into his ear.
He swallowed. A bead of sweat rolled from under his mask.
“I found out about your ‘gifts.’ All the people you murdered...forty-two of them. Forty-two people whose families don’t get to lay them to rest. Almost forty-four.”
I stepped away and addressed the Locusts as a whole. They still couldn’t see anything but me. “You are not the first cult I’ve come across,” I said. “And every single one of you has two things in common. The first, you seem to think that you all know exactly what I want. The death of all light! The return of absolutely darkness!” I let out a barking laugh. “None of you know a about what I want.”
Xernat managed to find his voice. It was shaky, but with a hint of defiance. “And the second?”
I was so glad he asked. I turned back to him and smiled. “The second…” I pulled back all of the shadows into a condensed ball. The Locusts took a deep breath and look at each other, but a moment later, the shadow ball exploded into hundreds of thin spikes, impaling each one. Each one, forty-four times. They didn’t even have time to scream.
“You’re all dead.”
The darkness faded away, and the Darkened Locusts fell to the ground. Their blood pooled within the ridges that lined the walkways - not a single cursed drop made it into the water.
That was the last time an Abyssal cult crossed my path. But now, here in Linford, someone was claiming to me, and they could pack a punch. They didn’t just have pretty words - there was a power there, one that I felt, a power that rippled. What was their endgame? If they just wanted the One Fire, there were so many other ways to go about it than pretending to be the ancient Abyss. This person was either incredibly arrogant or incredibly stupid.
I thought about following the imposter and killing them in the most creative way I could think of, but I didn't. I had a plan of my own to get to the One Fire, but so did this person. If my way failed, well, it never hurt to have a backup.
I suspect we want it for very different reasons, though.
I quickly changed to a falcon and followed Tammer’s people from high above, letting the roiling clouds obscure my silhouette. I would stick close to him until the games. Of all the Alfreyadans I’d met, he was the closest person to the royal family, so he was the best option I had for learning more about the One Fire. Which meant he was also the best person to help me figure out why some other little pissant would be so eager in taking it for themselves.
I turned my gaze back to Linford. With the destruction of the gilded flame, the town was nearly impossible to see among the hills. The rain started to fall, and soon even the hills faded away into the mist.
