Does a God Dream? [M]

[Tearen Wover]

As the days went on, more and more of the jackal folk were taken by the crystalline invaders. Their primitive weapons and rudimentary tactics were no match for the Shards' coordinated and perfectly synchronized raids. The jackal folk begged and pleaded to their beautiful goddess, and yet received no succor in return. Their numbers dwindled until there were just a little over a thousand left, cowering in their thatched mud huts with spears clutched in hand. Great fires were lit at night, in the hopes that they would be able to see the extra-dimensional horrors before they were upon them. One jackalfolk in particular, Arrat She, one of the few remaining warriors, was on guard the night the land of Laren ceased to be.

The star motes had just finished scattering to their resting places among the heavens, and the great fires had been lit. Arrat She said farewell to his mate and two sons before venturing out into the hastily erected towers around the Delta City. All reports from scouts venturing into the hills always returned with messages of ghostly horror. Abandoned houses, dry wells, and withering crops. Tools and baskets of food just dumped on the streets, as if the small populations of each nomadic camp had just vanished. They were all that remained.

Arrat She considered saying a prayer to Kuolema, but figured his time would be better spent keeping his eyes on the dark skies, the place from which the glinting horrors always emerged. The cool desert wind blew in from the north west, and Arrat She took a deep breath of the lush air. Somewhere a woman wailed in song to their lost god, a final plea for mercy. There was a heavy tension upon the night.

It happened shortly after the fourth hour of Arrat She's watch. As he idly picked his claws clean from atop the tower, there came a winking from the sky. Quickly, he let out a long, keening howl, which many of the other watchmen joined a moment later. Muffled screams and sobs came from the city as the first Shards slowly descended to the ground. With haste, Arrat She bounded down to the ground and charged at one of the black monsters with a loud snarl. With a quick sweep, he tripped the Shard with his spear and pulled a large, copper sphere out of his pack. Lifting it high in the air, he smashed the metal orb into the construct's glimmering, featureless face until it shattered into pieces. With no time to rest, he ran towards another, eager to send the creature back from whatever nightmare it emerged from.

The battle went on like this for an hour, but despite Laren's best efforts, many lives were still taken, spirited away into the swirling voids that the Shards always came and went through. Arrat She was beaten, sweaty, and bloodied from a litany of cuts and pricks from the Shards' vicious, cutting limbs. Still panting, he looked off to his right and saw one of his fellow warriors pinned on the ground by a group of Shards. With a mighty hurl, he pitched his orb at one of the crystalline figures, shattering its glowing head outright. The other two Shards looked up and turned slowly to regard Arrat She. Deep inside him, he felt panic. Despite her damned absence from their lives, he could hear Kuolema calling him to the Shade. Tears streaming from his eyes, Arrat she belted towards the invaders with his spear held high. He battered one to the ground, and was about to rear around and ground the other when there came a white hot pain in his mid section. Immediately he fell to one knee as he saw the black glass spear jutting from his gut. The other Shard that he had just knocked to the ground stood up and held him tightly in its cold, sharp hands as the one that had impaled him approached him, hovering just inches off the ground.

He knew what was going to happen next, but in accordance with what remained of his faith, he was determined to look his death in the eye. Alas, the Shards had no eyes, only those damnable, swirling motes of color within their heads. The second shard pulled its arm back, its right hand coalescing to the form of a long needle, poised to pierce his skull. He was shivering, but still he bared his teeth and flared his nostrils.

Just as the shard was about to claim him, however, the other warrior he had rescued recovered his poise, and surged upwards, snatching Arrat She's orb from the ground and smashing the shard's head in similar fashion to how Arrat She had saved him earlier. Sparing no time, the other warrior surged towards the Shard that held Arrat She and took it to the ground, hammering its face with his bare fists until the head cracked and its light was released.

Arrat She clutched his gut and looked to his new friend. He recognized the warrior as Yntha, a younger man than he, who had no mate nor territory to claim.

"Eternal gratitude, Yntha..." Arrat She grunted. He tried to rise to his feet, and Yntha helped him up with one arm around around his shoulders.

"Come, let us go to the mother of medicine. She will see you through the night." the younger jackalfolk said hastily, dragging Arrat She through the streets even as the screams escalated all around them.

"No...no. Take me to my den. Kuolema is beckoning me, Yntha. I...agh...I wish to be with my family before I travel to the Shade."

Yntha paused, but let out a short sigh.

"Very well, it is far, but-"

Yntha was cut off as there suddenly came a blinding light from overhead. A massive swirling portal, bigger than any Shard had ever made, ripped open the sky above the Delta City. Doom followed shortly after. More Shards than could be counted descended from the whirling breach, and Arrat She could see a dark sphere in the distance, beyond the approaching horde. Arrat She had seen this in his dreams before...a black sphere with a crystalline, four winged crow atop it. As if responding to his recollection, there descended the crow, its four wings radiating a swirling light. Around its beaked head there were four halos of winking beautiful color. There were no words that could be said.

Even as a dozen shades descended upon them, Arrat She and Yntha watched as, with an ear-splitting shriek, the gleaming, giant crow cast a harsh light upon the center of the Delta City. They watched as their monument to Kuolema, an enormous bronze statue, well over fifty meter high, was pulled into the air. There, as it hung impossibly among the rain of Shards, the effigy shattered to a million pieces, unleashing a shockwave that tore up buildings and trees as it approached them. Houses were disintegrated in the blast, and Arrat She stared his death in its face.




Arrat She, The Shade


His soul coalesced slowly, perhaps over hours. The transience of travel to The Shade did not lend itself to concrete measurements of times. But, as promised, Arrat She was brought into the Garden of Shadows, where pitch black trees stretched eternally into the purple, star speckled sky. He looked at his own hands, translucent, and radiating a silver light. He knew that he must travel to the center of the Garden, to come into the embrace of Kuolema herself. Arrat She wondered to himself if he could even feel any fealty to his god, who had done nothing for them in their hour of doom. All the same, he was here, so he might as well. Arrat She found Yntha a little further down the path, and they spoke of their lives and what Kuolema might think of them. Arrat She's mind was elsewhere, though. It was terrible to fathom, but he almost wished that he would come across his family among the umbral trees.

Finally, after what seemed like days of traveling without rest (for spirits had no need of such things), Arrat She arrived at the Garden of Shadows. What he saw explained much, and would leave him with as many questions as it would tears. There he saw his goddess, Kuolema, and she was beautiful. No sculpture nor fresco could ever dare to come close to her radiance, despite the fact that she looked almost nothing like a Jackalfolk. Her flowing green robes lifted and swayed in the ghostly breeze of the Shade, and her flaxen hair spilled from her crown like golden wine from a gilded jug.

That was not the horror, however.

For in her beauty and transcendent majesty, Kuolema's body hung limp from the extended spear of some...unspeakable monstrosity. Its form was hunched, and its skin carried a blue pallor that denoted cold, senseless decay and death. Over this decrepit form was plastered that damned, unspeakable black crystal, which coated the creature's body like scabs over dried skin. A long, needle-like spear was extended from the gauntlet of said armor, as an unsightly, clawed appendage hung, outstretched, from the monster's bloated body. The spear pierced her radiant skull, and a green light seemed to be siphoned from her beautiful frame.

This all appeared as if it had just happened, for Kuolema's holy sword, Wrath's Splendor, suddenly fell from her grasp with a loud, resounding clang. The spear was retracted, and the unspeakable horror stooped low to pick up the weapon in its heinous talons. All spirits present were completely silent, and no sound passed through the Garden, save for the delicate whispering of the breeze amongst the trees. And then the beast turned its head towards Arrat She. It's lifeless, featureless, hollow face. To gaze into this...orifice of madness...was to gaze into something too alien to fathom. But Arrat She knew. This beast was the master of the Shards. This beast was responsible for the sundering of Laren. Arrat wanted answers, yearned to sink his teeth into its flabby, grey neck. But the only thing that the beast said was...

"All the new melons, they cannot stand the test of time. Better a dead fossil than living."

And with that, the creature was gone, vanishing back through a Shard portal without a sound. Back to its damnable black sphere. Back into Arrat She's nightmares.