Ontogeny

Chapter 15b

     Malone and the Brigadier saw the column of smoke two days before arriving back at Mekrol.

     It was a thick pillar of elephantine grey whose source was lost beyond the horizon but which reached high into the sky before spreading out to cover the entire western horizon like a funeral shroud. There was the barest hint of movement as it rose, giving the impression of colossal size, and occasional flashes of lightning lit it from within making Malone and the Brigadier feel small and insignificant with its terrible power. They guessed what it was immediately, but it wasn’t until they crested the last hill before the town of Tollbine that their fears were confirmed. During their absence the volcano had erupted, and everything within twenty miles was covered with a deep layer of fresh ash, still hot and smoking. The town was unapproachable. The ash was too hot to walk on and the air was thick with acrid particles that burned their lungs and forced them to retreat.

     Feeling sick with horror, they’d continued through Tollawen to the town of Faslich where, struggling to make himself understood with the few words of pennygab he knew, the Brigadier had learned that Parcellius's dig site had been near the centre of the area buried by ash. The archaeologist was missing, presumed buried somewhere in the ruins of the old city he'd been exploring.

     There was a merchant in town who traded with the northern territories and who spoke nortine passable well. “Clearly, the people of Tollbine were lax in their sacrifices,” he told them. “The northern archaeologist angered the Gods with his digging. The townspeople failed to appease them sufficiently well and the Gods punished them appropriately. This is what you expect when you fail to give them their proper respect.”

     “We saw them performing a sacrifice!” protested Malone. “They killed a man...”

     The Brigadier put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “No doubt you are right,” he told the merchant. “Were there any survivors?”

     “One woman. A goat, only half human, barely able to speak. The child of a shopkeeper and his wife who’d sold logging supplies to the surrounding tree farmers. Too young and innocent to be blamed for the sins of her parents, which is why the Gods spared her. She told some fantastic story about Radiants. Clearly she was too shocked and traumatised to understand what was happening.”

     “Could we speak to her?”

     “Why?”

     “She may be able to tell us whether Parcellius survived, and if he did, where we can find him.”

     “The place where he carried out his profane work was buried and so was he.”

     “We don’t know that. He may not have been there when it happened. We know he came here on occasion, to store artefacts and records...”

     “They will be found and destroyed, to show the Gods that we revere and obey them.”

     “Of course. But in the meantime, if we could speak to the girl?”

     The merchant eventually agreed to translate for them, in return for a modest payment, and he led them to the town's hospital where the girl was being cared for. The tale she told, faltering and hesitant and difficult to understand with her only half developed vocal chords, stunned the Brigadier and his loyal batman. Radiants had appeared, she told them. Hundreds of them, falling out of the sky like large, lethal snowflakes. They’d lashed out with curses that threw townsmen in their hundreds back to their former animal forms, while others were seized by their long, serpentine tentacles and pulled to pieces before the horrified eyes of their families. They’d chased down every last villager, pursuing them for miles across the open countryside. Only the goat girl had escaped, by hiding in a woodshed, and had only dared venture out a full day after the massacre.