Don't you hear the coughing and the screams? Don't you smell the stale piss and vomit? They're burning the bodies, stacked like wood in the morgue. The young are bleeding from their eyes and mouths, and the old are setting their children and grandchildren on fire. I saw a war veteran scarred from battle who wept on his knees with his daughter in his arms. Yes, like him, I know now why the light of Saint Iranol flickers so. My dearest wife, cover the doors in goats' blood, for the father of plagues was born on this day.
21
Velbrava pushed the jagged white steel of his coalesced soul through a sticky mucous membrane. He could see a faint light from the other side and knew he was getting close. Another slash of his blade and the skin finally parted with a sickening, wet slap. Then came a rush of blood and viscera as his body spilled out onto the sands as if newly born. The locusts, his signature design, were dashed across the ground, still chewing on the fat between the intestines.
Velbrava staggered to his feet, the sound of a raging furnace in the distance. Icarus's twin-headed serpent would burn its wick at both ends until the fire finally went out. An eldriatus without its master was more ephemeral than a hut made of paper.
"I didn't think"—Icarus spit up blood, his head shaking in the dark as his fingers turned to sand— "you could do it."
The old engineer lay sprawled across the desert, his insides out and red ichor pooling beneath his head. Yet, still, there was a glint in his eyes—a flash of lasting satisfaction that betrayed his condition.
"Don't lie to me," Velbrava said, tapping his steel under Icarus's chin. "This is what you wanted me to do! This is what you expected me to do! So how can I call this victory?!"
Velbrava pushed the dagger into his brother's neck and cut wide, a river of fluid staining his toes.
Icarus reared up, pushing Velbrava away as his body convulsed. The wingless dragon bent backward, fingers and toes twisting sporadically, tail curled, and maw split wide. Then he roared. The sound broke Velbrava's ear and whipped the sands into a frenzy. He covered his face as the harsh grit of the desert sands scratched his eye. Last came a low rumble, a guttural moan that came in waves like a hiccup. Icarus was laughing.
"What is so funny!" Velbrava shouted.
The world shook: his mother's hard and soft palate quivering as if she too found humor in his efforts. Then, finally, Icarus's vibriatus went silent, head crashing into the sand with his tongue hanging below his jaw. Then came a flash of light, blinding Velbrava as Icarus's soul leaked out onto the plains of Kath'le Kal. For the first time since his ensnarement, he saw the full breadth of his brother's spirit.
Deep within the dunes of the mother of gluttony lived a fallen star—one whose light sputtered on the surface but held such luminosity that shadows couldn't live within. The length of Icarus's soul was more vast than an ocean with many pores, like a wheel of cheese. Across his mane raged a tempest of cracking thunder and lightning fed by immense heat and pressure. Conditions so extreme that gases existed as liquid metal, forming a reflective surface, the core of Icarus's soul. Velbrava could see a thousand pits in a sea steel with room yet for a thousand more.
"If this victory displeases you," said the voice of his slain brother. "Then next time, do better."
Finally, the light sunk beneath the sands of Kath'le Kal until not a flash remained. Icarus, at last, returned to the sunken plain.
Velbrava curled his fingers into a fist, his knuckles turning white as he bit his tongue. Then he heard a cracking sound like the splintering bark of a falling tree. High above the desert sands, the stalk of the tonsil broke free and crashed down, tail whipping across the dunes. Finally, that teardrop of flesh settled upon the desert and opened like the petals of an iris. A flood of white milk poured out from the open pod and coated the desert like glaze. He could feel the substance flow between his toes, a dense liquid like melted butter.
It took everything he had not to dunk his head in the river of milk. Oh, but how badly he wanted to. His fingers twitched as saliva slipped from his chin, his teeth chattering. Then he lifted his fingers and let the white substance drip from his nails.
What he wouldn't give for just one taste.
Velbrava closed his eyes and stepped away from the bounty of nectar and towards the core of the tonsil. Since birth, he dreamt of this moment and the sweet taste of Pallid Throne. No, better not to ruin his memory by tasting the sour fruit of false victory. Next time, he would do better. Next time, Icarus wouldn't have to hold back. Next time, the nectar wouldn't spoil.
Velbrava reached the top of the dunes and stepped onto the open white pedals of soft flesh to stand before the fruit's core. Within the tonsil was a gnarled forest of bleached ribs adorned with thousands of fleshy pods, the next generation of vibriatus. He peered within one of the clear sacks and could see a tiny larva spinning within. They were his children, and he would raise them, giving each but a taste of the throne's nectar. Such was the duty of all reigning monarchs. In time, they would grow strong, chitin thick, and talons sharp. Velbrava would make sure of it. His brothers and sisters would wake to worthy vessels.
Breaking off the loose branches of white bone and calcified stalks, Velbrava pulled free a red walnut no larger than his palm. The scarlet seed glowed in the dark and felt warm between his fingers. That was the catalyst, the source of their ceaseless conflict. When the time was right, and the vibriatus were eager to start the nameless war, he would bury the seed into his mother's soft palate. The fruiting body would take root there, spreading deep and forming a clump of white flesh, the next tonsil. How long would it take for the rains to return? A decade at least, plenty of time for him to plan and what plans he had.
Velbrava laughed, tendrils of his spirit slipping out of the back of his skull. Green, porous digits that snapped with bolts of lightning, a piece of Icarus's spirit.
"It appears a part of you now lives within me, brother," Velbrava said, rolling the tiny red seed around his palm. "Sleep well, Icarus. Wait and see how my spirit grows. When next you wake, even your mane shall shudder before mine. I want you to look upon the monster you created and weep. For I am the one who shapes what you cannot see."
Again, he scooped up the sugary glaze and saw his reflection in the puddle of milk. Then, holding his tongue and wiping the drool from his cheek, Velbrava teased at the corners and shaped, his stomach growling, the first engineer ever to restrain his gluttony.
"Wait and see what I have in store for you," Velbrava said, flattening the white fluid and pinching the corners into small feet with a diamond cap. "I will usher in seven plagues built not of red clay but white milk."
And so, within the mother of entropy, was born the shadow of a fallen star—a shadow who developed a core of liquid steel marking him as a greater name. Thus did the endless white sand cry out: All hail the Leech Sultan Velbrava, Plague Father, and Patron Saint of Cannibals! And upon his throne, Kath'le Kal weeps rivers of red blood, for the horrors of the past will pale in comparison to those yet to come.
YOU ARE READING
The War For The Pallid Throne
HorreurThe world trembles as the Leviathans stir from their slumber, and the scholars of the sunken valley preach of the coming storm. Felix, a thief on the streets of Bruma, begins his journey to the Astralarium as, deep with the Great Devourer's belly, a...