Book of The Dead

Chapter 34: Whispers in the Dark

A cold feeling settled in her stomach as she took in the increasingly familiar surrounds of these ancient woods. It took her a long moment before she realised that her emotions and thoughts were not suppressed as they had been in the past. She was here as her normal self.

The change gave her courage, but also warned that something had changed, so it was with a wary eye that she glanced around the foreboding trees and looming shadows.

"Welcome child," a whisper slithered out of the darkness before the Messenger appeared.

Wreathed in shadow, their features concealed, the chosen spokesperson, or spokesthing, of the forest cast an unknowable figure, their shape almost human, but something within told her that was simply a mask that it wore. A long tattered cloak covered it's frame and hung low over its face, though two points of dark light stared out of those depths at her.

She stepped away from the unknown entity and folded her arms across her chest.

"What do you want?" she said. "Why are you bringing me here every time I sleep? What do you want?"

Her voice had started calm, but became strained at the end. Being here, in this place, in her right mind, everything felt so much more eerie and oppressive than before.

"I have never lied to you, young one," the Messenger said, "far from it, my words have always been the truth. You are in the Dark Forest, a realm held between the waking and the dreaming world. It is here that the fears and thoughts of those that fill this world filter through to feed creatures far beyond their understanding. The Old Gods, not I, have called you here. As for why, that too I have told you. They desire your veneration and service, your devotion."

"They want me to worship them?" she said slowly. "I have never heard of them. I don't know if this is even real."

"It is very real. I think you know this. As to why you do not know them, well."

She could hear the revulsion that crept into the voice of the Messenger, as well as his anger.

"The false idols, creatures of mortal birth that you call gods, have ensured that you would never learn of those that they deposed."

"What are you talking about? Everyone knows that the Five Divines began as mortals and that they ascended through the aid of the Unseen."

"Oh did they?" the Messenger said contemptuously. "Is that what they would have you believe? That if you accrue enough levels, you too will achieve apotheosis and rise to stand at their side? I think not. Those with power seldom share it, young one, a lesson that the five knew very well, since they wrested it from those older and more deserving than they."

The creature gestured to her with a hand to follow as it turned and walked away into the trees. She was reluctant, but she followed. What else could she do, trapped here in this dream?

She stepped alongside the Messenger as they moved between the trees and stepped over the gnarled roots that carpeted the ground. They walked in silence for a few minutes and more and more she could feel the woods pressing in around her.

"There was a time, on this world, before the rifts, before the Unseen, when Awakenings did not decide a person's fate."

"This is heresy," Elsbeth gasped.

"This is history," the Messenger corrected her with sibilant hiss. "In that time, in ages past, gods were not made, they were born. In the deep and dark places of the world, three such beings came to life. Existence was primitive and desperate in those eras and the Dark Ones were gods to match."

They fell silent as she digested what had been said. She'd never heard of any such history, the Divines had been worshipped for over five thousand years. The calendar and the church had been founded in that year as the gods had made themselves known and lent their aid to push back the rifts. As far as she knew, there was no history from before that time. The ascension of the Five had marked the moment civilisation had stepped out of the shadows.

"The truth that they have hidden so desperately, to prevent others from following in their footsteps, is that their godhood is a stolen thing. With the aid of the Unseen, they came to this very forest and took from the three a portion of their divine nature. Only then were they able to achieve their aim and supplant their betters. Then they spent a thousand years stamping out all memory and sign of the gods who had come before them. Even so, the memory and worship of Old Gods persists even to this day."

Elsbeth shook her head.

"How am I supposed to believe you? What you've said is directly contrary to everything that I've ever known. Perhaps this place, this dream is your own invention, and you've abducted me here for your own amusement. You cannot expect me to accept anything that you say after what I've been through. This is the first time I've been brought here without you suppressing my mind! I have no trust toward you or anything you have to say."

She gathered steam as she spoke, the anger building in her chest and beating back the cloying stench of old magick that clung to the trees and the fear it inspired. The Messenger listened to her speak with patience, but she felt a sly amusement from the creature as her accusations mounted. When she'd finished, the Messenger halted their walk and indicated a new direction for them to travel, to the right of their original heading. After a pause, she followed.

"You seek evidence of my claims. This is a sensible request. Of course, I will prove to you that what I have said is true, in a way that you cannot deny. You will feel it soon, and I ask that you heed this request, if you are overburdened, tell me, and we shall turn back. This is not something your soul is able to bear."

As he warned her, the Messenger turned his face toward her and for a moment she glimpsed the shifting mockery that could not be described as a face that was concealed beneath his hood. Then he straightened his posture and the sight was gone, though it remained with her for a long time afterwards. No longer did the two speak as they travelled, for long minutes that dragged on they picked their way through the overgrown forest. The shadows seemed to shift and dance as they travelled, turning and bending in the corner of her eye even as the roots and branches themselves groaned and sighed at their passing.

It was unnerving, but soon a new feeling blossomed that helped to chase away her unease. Holiness. Divinity. She could feel it, here, for the first time. That sensation she had longed for but been denied in the temple was here in the forest! Her feet moved quicker almost unconsciously as she began to speed toward the source of that bittersweet ache that sang to her very soul. The Messenger easily kept pace at her side, his speed rising to match hers as she began to stumble in her haste, but she didn't care. She needed this.

The faint glow of divinity strengthened as she drew closer, until it had become a piercing ache, as she were a moth that had drawn too close to the flame. She pressed on, determined to reveal the divine in its full glory, to embrace that which she knew, which had been a part of her for her entire life.

All the while the Messenger moved at her side, watching.

She burned. The power that radiated in front of her as bright as the sun, as endless as the sky and it burned her, but she could not turn away from it. It sang to her, and she was powerless to resist that call until the Messenger reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Enough," he said.

"But.. I…" she gasped.

"Any closer and you will not survive, your soul will be extinguished. It matters little, you can see him from here."

And with a wave of his hand the trees bent out of the way and she could. Despite the distance, the face captured her attention first. Perfect, angled features, crystal blue eyes and long blonde hair that cascaded over his shoulders and down his back.

She knew that face. She'd seen it so many times before.

She fell to her knees as she stared uncomprehendingly at the impossible vision before her eyes. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real. But she could feel it, even now that form radiated with such irresistible, painful power.

Robes of gold and white encased the still form of the figure, the embroidery so familiar to her that it didn't matter if she couldn't see the details, she knew them anyway. And the staff, the eagle-headed staff with its azure jewel of purest magick that throbbed with power, warping the very air around it.

"Tel'anan," Elsbeth choked out and began to hiccup with broken sobs as she knelt in the sight of the fallen god of magick.

The Messenger knelt with her, keeping its hand on her shoulder as it helped to protect the fledgling soul he had brought here. She couldn't say how long she remained there, how long she cried as she mourned for a Deity long dead. She only knew that she had been brought to an unspeakably holy place, and that she was not worthy. Eventually the Messenger pulled on her shoulder.

"Come, you can remain here no longer."

"No…"

She gazed longingly toward Tel'anan but the strength of her companion could not be denied and he drew away. They retreated until the pressure on her abated enough that she could resist it without aid and the Messenger spoke to her once more.

"The fallen god of magick," it intoned solemnly, mockingly and she glared at it in fury.

"This place is sacred!"

"This place was sacred for ten thousand years before your divines ever drew breath," it rebutted, "but you have asked for evidence and so I have provided it to you. Compelling, was it not?"

She drew back from the creature.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

It was hard for her to think, to process what was being said. She had just witnessed one of the divines with her own eyes. Tel'anan! That was Tel'anan!

Anger tinted the tone of the Messenger as it rebuked her.

"Focus your mind, or I will be forced to suppress you once again. I am loath to do it at this juncture, but will if you cannot listen."

Her mind recoiled at the memory of that fuzzy, indecisive and controlled state. She tried to calm her hammering heart and settle her mind.

"You can hardly blame me -" she began to say.

"I can and I will," the Messenger returned smoothly. "Though mighty, the figure beyond holds no great meaning to me. If your thoughts are clearer, then look again, more closely."

They were further away now, how far it was hard to say, the air itself appeared to warp as she looked once more at the form of the fallen god. It was more obvious now, somehow, than it had been before, but he was obviously no longer living. Those eyes that seemed so bright and glowed with such energy were sightless, staring at nothing. His body, so majestic, hung in the air, suspended by gnarled roots that stretched from the trees around him to curl around his limbs and pierce his flesh. She hadn't seen it before, so blinded had she been, but the expression on that perfect face was heart wrenching. Overwhelming sorrow twisted the features of Tel'anan, such that it pierced her heart.

"Yes. You see it now, don't you," the Messenger hissed. "Not all is right with this picture, is it not? How did he die? Why does he mourn so? And how came he to be here, in the realm of the Dark Ones? I think the truth is beginning to touch you? Hmmm? Can you sense the truth of your gods yet?"

She continued to gaze upon the suspended form of the lost god of magick, her emotions torn between devotion and curiosity. The spell was abruptly broken as the Messenger began to drag her away, roughly now, by the arm.

"Hey. Let me go!" she demanded. "You're hurting me."

"Then keep up," the creature said, "and listen."

She was forced to do just that as the divine radiance faded into the distance behind them while the Messenger ranted, seemingly not caring if she heard it or not.

"They came like skulking thieves, dancing around the edges as they pushed the boundaries. The Old Ones were amused at first. Entities of endless appetite, they crave stimulation, and the arrival of the rifts along with the influence of the Unseen had changed everything. Suddenly the mortals were more interesting, more powerful, than ever before. Locked in an endless struggle against the maddened creatures who tormented them, the gods grew fat on desperate pleas and sacrifice, but soon even this bounty began to bore them. The five were something new. Something different. Mortal creatures, humans, who had risen to such a precipitous height, such an apex. Like children who had risen to toddlers, the three were intrigued by these strange new creatures. Until finally the five grew powerful enough that they were able to enter the dark forest, and finally they set foot here, in this world, and for the first time they felt the direct touch of the divine."

Real anger boiled from the Messenger as he continued to drag at her arm as it strode unerringly through the woods. She tripped and stumbled often, pulled forward by the creature's irresistible strength.

"They did not seek an audience with the three, but once they had felt that power, they were addicted. Like dogs they sniffed around the borders of creatures who were far greater than they. Testing, probing, endless stalking. They thought they were clever and quiet, as if they could hide from gods. They tried to conceal themselves, to amass yet more power amongst themselves as they sought desperately for a way to snatch that which was never destined to be theirs."

Elsbeth may have been rejected by her gods, but she could not stand to hear them disparaged in this way, described as thieves and cowards.

"And yet they are divine, aren't they?" she retorted as she used her free hand to clamber over the roots and correct her balance. "Whatever happened between them and the Old Ones, they won."

To her it sounded as if the Five Divines had done everyone a favour by banishing these older gods from memory. They had fought to liberate humans and all mortal kind by their actions, much better than these fickle and uncaring existences.

"Won?" the Messenger gleefully cackled. "I suppose you might describe it that way," the creature went on, and her righteous fire was instantly quenched.

"Not even a god has endless patience, much less the three, and they grew tired of this skulking game. With their combined power they dragged the five before them and pressed them flat into the ground, demanding that they speak their desire and be done with it. It was Selene who replied, she who demanded that the three surrender a portion of their divinity. Orthriss was less strident, begging that the three use their power to intercede on behalf of the mortals against the rifts, to save the people who suffered. The three had no desire to do this. They had love for mortal kind, but it was cold and hard, as that was how they had been made. If the mortals were to be saved, then they had to save themselves. If they failed, they deserved to die, and the three would fade with them. Tel'anan tried to use his magick against the three when they refused, but it faded before them like drops of water before a raging volcano. The Dark Gods are of this world and their beings are woven into its very fabric. Magick is not of this realm, a thing of the rifts, it can have no effect against them. The three laughed then, laughed in the faces of the five who burned with anger but where helpless to act."

A hint of bitterness had entered the voice of the Messenger as it went on.

"This was when the three offered a bargain. This was their way, capricious and chaotic in nature, they would often act against their own interests. They agreed to part with a portion of their divine spark, but in return, the five would need to sacrifice one of their number. They agreed so quickly. Then the three revealed the full fate of the sacrificed one, and they were no longer so eager. Nevertheless, they still agreed. It was Tel'anan who drew the short straw, though he too was able to touch divinity before the forest claimed him. The others were banished, never to return and though they try, they are yet to step foot in the Dark Forest again."

Suddenly, the trees were gone as they stepped into a wide clearing, in the centre of which stood three massive stones at the points of a triangle. From her current angle, she could only see the face of one stone, on which she saw an elaborate carving of a figure that she couldn't quite make out.

The Messenger turned to face her once more as he finally stopped pulling on her arm and grasped her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up into his hood.

"Ever since that day the divines have meddled, interfered and stifled the mortals who worship them. They give aid, just enough to hold against the rifts, but they crush any who would strive to reach the heights that they themselves have achieved. Even now they stalk the borders of this place, desperate to prevent any from doing as they did and rising to glory. Anyone or anything who brushes against their true nature, even unwillingly, is rejected utterly."

She shook her head numbly.

"I can't take this in," she stammered, "it's too much, I have to think."

"You no longer have time to think," the Messenger was remorseless. "For this has impacted you directly. The Five Divines have rejected you utterly, yet Selene was the first to turn her back. Why?"

"B-because…"

"Is sex forbidden to those who serve Selene?" the Messenger's eyes bore into her own, seized her focus and refused to let it go. "Is celibacy one of her divine commands?"

"N-not ex-explicitly," she said.

It was true. Celibacy was not a requirement to serve Selene. As the goddess of purity, her followers were encouraged, strongly encouraged, to reflect her nature and restrain themselves, especially before and during their training. But it was not a hard and fast commandment.

"You think your dalliance with that fool boy have defiled you in some way, caused the goddess you served so faithfully to revile and spurn you. Oh yes," it grinned as she turned away, embarrassed, "I know what has happened to you. You are wrong in your assumptions. So very wrong."

"You mean, it wasn't… Rufus?"

"No. It was Tyron."

"Tyron?!" she said, shocked. "He didn't… I mean… he didn't do anything!"

"I know. Nevertheless, he has touched upon their real face, their true nature, and they cannot allow it. Since you were close to him, they have ruined you as well. That is all."

"That. That can't be true. Can it?"

Bewildered she felt the storm of emotions inside her rising ever higher to the point where she felt they were no longer in her control. She swayed on her feet but the Messenger steadied her and drew her to the centre of the three great stones.

One depicted a woman, young and beautiful whilst aged and hideous.

One depicted a bird both wise and cruel.

One depicted a tree bursting with life and decay.

"Crone, Raven and Rot. Serve them, if you wish to see the truth. They are not kind, but they will never abandon you if your service is faithful, in this, I do not lie."

She looked up at her guide, shocked by the hint of kindness in its tone. Was it a trick? Was everything else a lie?

"Tomorrow night, a merchant will come to the outskirts of Foxbridge. If you choose to serve, you will leave with her and you will not return."

She awoke.

Drained and shocked, she lay in bed and stared at the roof for over an hour. When Megan came to check on her, she apologised numbly and ate as the worried woman watched over her. So many thoughts and emotions rolled through her that she felt as if she could never focus on one long enough to deal with it before another leapt the fore and stole her focus, leaving her dazed and distracted. She went through the motions of helping at the Inn, tidying up and cleaning her room.

After lunch she found herself staring at the door of her family home. She knocked. Her father answered. His eyes widened as he saw her standing on the step and she watched as several expressions flickered over his face before he settled on disapproving.

"Are you sorry?" he said.

"I am. Are you?" she replied.

For an instant, she felt he might say yes, then his face darkened and he growled.

"You can come home when you are ready to show proper respect," he said and shut the door in her face.

She stood on the step for a minute before she turned and walked back to the Inn. Once inside, she walked upstairs to her room and performed the status ritual for the first time since her awakening. That night, she walked to the edge of town where she found a lone wagon hitched to two horses who stamped the ground impatiently. A woman stood next to the wagon dressed in simple clothes.

"Let's go," she said.