Madregal

Chapter 2: Venym

Skyfire falling. A charnel chorus drowned in molten slag. Voices indecipherable in all but anguish. Corpses of monitors and umbor receded in great heaps unto a horizon dark and diaphonous as a burial shroud. Madregal fell to his knees with a shuddering gasp. Soma sublimated in numb terror. “What is this?” He asked on impulse, expecting no reply. Smoke gathered, thickened, heavy with the scent of burning flesh. Tenebrous forms moved behind all objects and erupted to consume every ambit. From stygian vault, a vast violet eye opened and its iris were as a cosmic glyph that appeared as trident-and-bird-in-flight. It swiveled upon the despondent with terrible intensity. An invasive voice thrummed as if from every crevice, from Madregal’s very marrow. “A future probable. Shorn of my design.” Pinholes split the shroud. Eyes beyond count unshuttered skies without time.

Wind serenaded stone. Scent of sweat. A smooth voice crested wasteland’s keening. “What do you think it is?”

Rough voice replied. “Could be a spiritdoll. Chief says he saw one once. In the Barrier.”

A scoff. “A prank. A jest. But what is not?”

Madregal opened his eyes as the figures before him continued to confer and gesticulate in his direction. They were ghomon, clad in bleached robes set with stoneslink scales and broad thin hats of pale green pulp. Each carried a spear of bone. The smooth voiced one was small and wiry, while his companion was large and broad. Madregal shifted upright and found his movement obstructed by a chest high mound of sand windpiled in his slumber. “It moves,” the wiry one warned, drawing back. The broad one raised his spear toward the outlander. Madregal swept a portion of the sand free with one hand and rose from the dusted wall. He tested his injured leg and found it pain wracked yet sturdy. “Stay back,” the broad ghomon growled, jabbing air before Madregal with his weapon. Madregal raised his left hand and pushed quivering speartip groundward. “That is unnecessary. I seek the Barrier. You spoke of it.” The ghomon shared surprised glances and put aside their weapons.

“You speak well. Come you from Warren or Maes?”

“Smogsea.”

The wiry grinned. “Sure. And my friend can lay eggs.”

Madregal shifted his gaze to the broad ghomon. “Its somatic architecture renders egglaying impossible.”

The ghomon shared looks of confusion. The wiry one laughed as the broad one spoke. “Wherever he’s from, its not the Warren.” He gestured to blood speckled bindings at Madregal’s leg. “What happened to you?”

“Sciomaw ambush.”

The wiry chuckled and turned to his companion. “He is full of jests!”

The broad one shook his head. “If you were struck by a sciomaw, we would not be speaking.”

“The Barrier. Tell me of it.”

“We have no words for liars.”

“Why not? I lie all the time and you’ve plenty of words for me.”

With haggard rasp Madregal turned from them and limped over a broken segment of the wall, to the decimated tower in which he had spied Farer artifact. Burrower’s venom had progressed far, he required haste. Once within the derelict he inserted left arm to a hollow grounded tube, spiral set about his forebearers’ chrysalis and of samespun material. His gauntlet genoscroll blinked with words. Tynekey authorization registered. Strands comprising the chrysalis’ outer shell peeled as a flower in accelerated bloom while coriaceous filaments swallowed the wanderer. The ghomon stared in awestruck silence as the alien artifact closed upon itself. Dark facade shifted and lay pristine as before. For a moment neither spoke and wind whispered through abraded edifice.

“Did you see it too or have I gone heatmad?”

Broad brandished his spear. “I lost my standing, not my eyes.”

Eyes to spear, a frown. “You don’t mean to confront it?”

“We must try.”

“You’re mad, Ashraker.”

“As you are callow, Stiltwalker.”

Each issued name as curse. Gazes clashed with ire. As Stiltwaker opened his mouth to speak, Ashraker rushed black cocoon and loosed warcry and lancing strike. Bone spear bounced harmlessly off chitinous material. He backed from the structure and braced for a counterattack. When none came he delievered another thrust effective as the first. “Its no use fool,” Stiltwaker proclaimed. Ashraker twisted about at his companion’s fretful grip. “He’s gone. The beast languishes in digestion. Let us linger not, lest we be next.”

Ashraker allowed himself to be dragged from the cocoon with grave expression that wended to horror as they found themselves encircled by white and red cloaked ghomon. The cerise sign emblazoned on the entrants’ capes was familiar to the duo. They were Cerqet, scrapbinders and slavers of nomadic persuasion. Each carried calivers and heavy packs of treated animal skin, save one, ailing, dragged upon a sled. First among the Cerqet to speak was a dark haired rust eyed female of melodious voice. “Kilnkeepers, far from home?”

“Ull knows it. We are kin of Gratemaker,” Stiltwaker replied from bravado’s mask.

“Affiliations matter little to us. Everything here belongs to the shoal. What belongs to the shoal belongs to us. Including you, should I deign.” She pointed to the cocoon. At this the duo bristled but held their tongues as cerqueters shifted their armaments. “We came for the oddity. Do you know what it is?”

“Some kind of beast,” Stiltwaker replied.

To duo’s surprise the cerquetleader laughed.

Ashraker frowned. “It ate a traveler.”

“Your companion?” She asked.

“No. He was here before us. You mustn’t draw near.”

Cerqueters restrained kilnkeepers as the female strode cocoonward with an expression of exaltation. She reached into her pack and produced a saltbox from which she withdrew an arm severed at the elbow, covered in hard white material. To the kilnkeepers’ eyes it appeared similar to the armor of the swallowed wanderer. She held the limb to a long raised protrusion along the floor and the tendril parted like unnatural vines to embrace the offering. Fast fading silence. Then symbols writhed along grim trophy’s plating beyond the ken of the assembled. Cocoon disgorged a writhing black mass and all backed from it with horror. The cavity borne was clad in chitinous plate and inset at spine with a mass of tubelike protrusions that disengaged and snaked to chrysalitic interior. Female gasped and cupped hands to mouth, shocked as delighted, while her men raised weapons at the eldritch disgorged thing.

Madregal shifted obscured gaze to severed arm clutched in the stiff tendriled matrix then the female. She grinned and tilted her head in fervid inspection of his frame. “A live umbor. This is a rare treat. I am Seira, Dai of Cerquet. Who are you?” Madregal surveyed the cerquetmen form a loose circle around him, calivers primed. “Can you talk?” She prompted with genuine curiosity, shaking long dark locks free of her headress. Madregal spoke, tone flat as sand beneath his soles. “Where did you acquire it?” His head swiveled from Seira to severed limb and back.

“That’s my secret.” Her smile faltered when Madregal seized her forearm above the elbow. So rapid had been his movement that reaction was impossible. Cerquetmen reared their weapons and barked orders as she instinctively attempted to pull free. “Release her at once!” Madregal remained focused on the female. His voice did not waver. “Where?” So terrible was the umbor’s strength that tears welled in her eyes. Her struggles were as flesh against cenotaph. “Release her now or we will fire!” One of the ghomon unloaded its weapon, the projectile ricocheted off farer’s faceplate. His head tilted marginally at the impact. “No!” Dai screamed, covering her face with her free limb. All tensed as Madregal turned his plated visage to the assailent, who recoiled behind his comrades. “Easy!” she urged much to umbor as her men. “Easy.” With reluctance, her men lowered their arms and exchanged harried glances. “I did no harm to your kin. I swear it. I purchased it from a northern trader. Said it would open farer structures long as I kept it perserved.” Her words came in harried rush, trembling as radiated limbs. Madregal issued an unsated hum and fractionally loosened his hold. Terror ill evinced earnesty. As much Monitor had scribed in his flesh. She continued. “I don’t know how he comes by his goods. He never tells, I never ask.”

“What was this trader’s designation?”

“His name? Carus.”

Madregal released the Dai and tilted his head. Tension twisted his tones. “Car-us. You are certain of this?”

“Quite. Why?”

He hefted preserved appendage from cocoon’s tangle. “Mummified. Armature abraded. A crude salvation. What is not preserved cannot be dissected.”

“Even so it is yet mine.”

A heavy breath issued from umbor’s light sensored helm. She was unsure whether it was a gesture of frustration, exhaustion or centered contemplation. Farer handed the grotesque relic to Seira. “This Carus, where does it reside?”

“I don’t suppose you would give me access to your,” she gestured to the cocoon. “Cache in return for this information?”

“It is to remain for those after me. What the Monitors provide, we do not barter. Unless instructed.”

“No matter.” She threw her hair over her shoulder and caressed the valley of her bosom. “What else do you have to bargain?”

He looked to the cerqueter laying on the sled. “Sciomaw?”

She followed his gaze and nodded gravely. “Luckily was a young one otherwise he’d be long dead. But his condition is worsening.”

“I can provide an antidote.” He removed a small cartridge from a beltlike protrusion about his hip and held it to her.

“I don’t believe it.”

“You needn’t believe. Verify.”

She looked skeptically between cartridge and its maker before taking the medicine. It was sealed, inside, a pale gelatinous substance. “Rub it into the wounds,” umbor instructed. She moved to sled bearing delirious quartermaster. Upon attempting to ply the ointment the quartermaster shook his head. “Keep that monster’s poison from me.” He flailed and screamed despite gnawing pain as Seira bid those close pin him and expose his wounds. When the quartermaster was held fast she applied the antidote along ravaged left arm and torso and stood back. His breath steadied even as his fear remained. Soon he slumbered. Cerquetmen looked to one another with celebration. Sleep had eluded him since the incident. Seira turned to the umbor and shook the cartridge. “How many?”

“One for every member of your troop, should you take me to Carus.”

“Throw in the recipe and you have a deal.”

“Very well.”

“Among my people it is customary to look one in the eye when making a deal. That each may see honesty reflected in the eyes of the other.”

Some cerqueters nodded with masks of reverence. Others sneered. Madregal looked at the female a moment then methodically reached to slender breach at base of skull and peeled his dark helm free with a muted hiss. All present turned their gaze upon the umbor’s ashen visage. His short hair was silvery, matted and below it a sharp face inset with narrow eyes like flouresced wernerite. He blinked and twitched with discomfort at the dimness of the ruin, to him, a scalding brightness, and attempted to refocus attention on Seira. She drew her arm up, coat sleeve riding back to reveal a thick wristbound device and from it a quarrel. Madregal staggered back with a metal bolt jutting from his right eye. Some of the cerquet gasped while Stiltwaker covered his face and Ashraker rushed to interfere and was bludgeoned by the nearest cerqueter. Stiltwaker watched the violence with wide eyes and gibbering maw. Terror raced the throng as Madregal took a step forth, left arm extended, and grasped at the quivering female form reflected in his intact eye. He caught only air, sunk to his knees and slumped to his side. For many breaths, none dared approach until an aged eyeglassed cerueter cut the crowd and knelt beside the fallen umbor whose face was slick with black blood. The eyeglassed cerqueter turned upon his leader and his voice trembled as he spoke. “Why have you done this?”

“The Archand will pay well for such a specimen. Have you forgotten why we came?”

“To salvage not to butcher.”

She sat panting on a strut that had fallen from the ceiling and repacked the severed arm as she gestured to the body with her chin. “Quit babbeling and bring the stoneslinks round. Get our specimen in a saltbath. I want it well preserved for dissection.”

Eyeglassed cerquetman frowned and turned his attention to the kilnkeepers at ruin’s entrance. Thin one on his knees, hands upon his head, the large one, groaning on his side, bleeding from his pate. “What of them?”

“For now nothing. We have lost Yurl and I’ve no idea how long Carcr’s recovery will take. We’ll keep them until our supplies run low.”

“And then?”

She shrugged. “Carve them for meat.”