The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

HELL'S AVATAR -- PART SIXTEEN

"Stand down. All of you," a stern masculine voice commanded harshly. "If there's any killing to be done, we'll be the one's doing it."

The Wenkrang lingered for a long and ominous moment, the light reflected off from their many feline eyes going from yellow to a deep amber color, hinting at a growing blood rage. Then the speaker for the feral collective spoke once again, but in a clipped, seething tone.

"So, the Usurpers have come to protect their own. Fragile little pink slugs imagining they are men. And all the while pretending they have dominion here, in this place. You know better. What you have is what we allow. You are fools and you are outnumbered. But we will not contest this point with you today. You stupidly bring The Pilgrim into your den. He is a sword that cuts the wielder as well as the target. Your regret will be written in much blood."

And with that the myriad legion of baleful, staring eyes in the gloom began to disappear. In mere moments, they were all gone.

The lead Ashen Brood commando-monk looked down upon Forynnuhr and Harqwenne with undisguised distaste.

"Is what that loathsome beast said true? Is one of you he who is called The Pilgrim?"

Forynnuhr smiled frostily and executed a mock bow to the grizzled warrior. Harqwenne held his tongue and shook his head exasperatedly. This entire affair was supposed to have been simple and it was slowly turning very bad. He again mentally cursed the Guild of Black Gauntlets for involving him.

From atop his hovering aerial platform, the man's expression became even more hostile. "This day gets worse and worse."

He sighed and then reluctantly waved them to follow. His air-sled began to hum softly as it glided away towards the location of the arcane and unseen Duskhelm Priory.

"This way," he instructed. "I suppose the Abbot-Commander and the Grand Tekk-Mechanus will want to see you..."

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The Priory was anything but what they had expected. Because of its shielding by the Cloak of Unknowing, the building was masked by an enclosing dome of distortion rendering it mostly invisible to the human eye, even to an eye with cybernetic enhancements. And though its external architecture was, on first examination, interpreted by the mind of the observer to be predominantly archaic and typical of pre-Emperium citadels, decorated as it was with ornately sculpted masonry, bas reliefs of dead heroes and statuary representing war-like pagan deities, there, too, were strange alien motifs represented in the stonework. The Duskhelm Priory was an amalgamation of the influences of the antiquated and the otherworldly.

Once past the distortion field and through the twin two story-tall stone doors, a colorfully-tiled, semi-circular foyer led to a long, vaulted corridor, its span broken up by pointed arches and ribbed vaults, that held several skylights in the ceiling along its length. The skylights looked up on a blue-black, starry vista beyond that of the normal lower atmosphere. Looking upwards, one saw past the edges of the planetary atmosphere into the far frontier of Space itself. Along the length of the corridor, several hallways branched out through and into wide doorways bracketed by tall brass and ivory figurines atop pedestals decorated with ornate arabesque patterns. Various large tapestries of great antiquity were hung on the wall space lining the corridor, most depicting scenes of sovereign coronations and wartime pageantry, and macabre torches, stylized and elongated human forms cast from a gleaming dark metal, lit the interior with a hazy blue light. Several small groups of Ashen Brood soldiers, a mix of both sexes wearing strange, unconventional armor and animal skin robes wandered through the halls on their way to various destinations within the martial and monastic fortress-abbey.

Passing a solemn sextet of dark-garbed men and women emerging from a stairwell leading up to a wire-suspension mezzanine, Forynnuhr and Harqwenne were led into an odd, saucer-shaped assembly room. The chamber was architected like a pair of platter-like shallow disks were set one atop the other, open face to open face. There were exposed arching beams made from an alabaster stone rising from the floor, then tapering off like elephant's tusks towards a circular reflecting dial set into the center of the ceiling. On the tiled floor was a mosaic design of a winged raptor, its wide wings extended, feather tips meeting over the mighty bird's triangular head. A series of openings that perhaps had once held large bay windows ringed the chamber, but the rectangular openings held no panes of glass and now looked out upon a series of anterooms and library dens ringing the larger room. The aerial platforms on which their honor guard rode, slowly lowered to the highly-polished floor and the armed soldiers stepped from off them with practiced grace.

The entourage was greeted by a single individual. A bald man with a whitish-blond beard and mustache, his naked scalp tattooed with dark scythe-like tribal symbols. He was an unusually tall man, far exceeding normal human height, and he was as broad as a bull with bulging musculature barely concealed by the black leather tunic he wore. What little flesh was exposed by the cut-outs of the tunic he wore, was a very pale gray in color. Multiple straps with metal buckles stretched across his wide chest and torso and a line of metal medallions ran down the outside of each leg of his trousers, which ended in thick, dull-hued metal boots. On each heavily-muscled arm were banded gauntlets made from some sturdy neoprene-like material and attached to the outer forearms of the gauntlets were a set of coiled black tubes that ran to a small hard shell pack strapped to each hip.

The rune-covered shaft of a massive, double-bladed battle axe was tucked into a lacquered sheath running diagonally across his broad back. The axe-blades were suspended on a circular spiked ring circumscribing a sculpture of the skull of some ancient feral predator.

Behind him, atop a knee-high platform, lay a pool of silvery-blue liquid from which a slowly swirling cascade of mist rose.

"So am I to take it that you're the man in charge?" Forynnuhr said. There was a growing surliness in his manner that was making Harqwenne ever more uncomfortable as the day continued.

"I am Qazeem Nei'Wrenh, the Abbot-Commander of the Duskhelm Priory, First Among Brethren, leader of the Ashen Brood," the big man answered in a deep voice that surprised the two travelers with its brittle breathlessness. As imposing a figure as the man was, Qazeem Nei'Wrenh sounded as if he were burdened with respiratory troubles. "I was told to expect your arrival by a representative from the Guild of Black Gauntlets."

"Really," Forynnuhr said, allowing his impatience to show.

Qazeem waved away the small contingent of soldiers accompanying Forynnuhr and Harqwenne. The men wordlessly re-activated their lift-platforms and left, gliding away down a hall that curved out and down, away from the central corridor down which the group had just traveled.

"I imagine the Scribe delivered the parcel to you, yes?" he said.

Forynnuhr hesitated before answering. "Before we go into any specifics about who gave what to whom, why don't you explain to me why I was summoned. We both know I am from the Upworlds. I am not a native to this planet or even to this solar system. I don't know you. I have never had any dealings whatsoever with this Guild of Black Gauntlets. I don't know anything about your so-called Brotherhood. And what's more, I don't see any reason, at least not so far, to involve myself in your affairs. What is it exactly that you want from me?"

"It has been rumored that you are a being of great power, that you can access and control dark, eldritch energies no human on Teshiwahur could hope to. We have need of that power. We need you to help us kill a God," Qazeem answered simply, his manner reasonable despite the impossibility inherent in his words.

"Kill a God?" Forynnuhr repeated.

Qazeem nodded.

The Pilgrim smiled. "Well now, things are looking up," he said brightly.

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