Nathaurus's mango-colored cape billowed in the breeze as she stood dejectedly before the conclave of Sulukridger survivors on the peaks that loomed before the Seal of Demons. "My decision is final," she asserted once more. "My connection with all of you has clearly loosened greatly since the rise of this year. When Count sacrificed twenty healthy Sulukridgers in the Waise Wells to forge the Kyson Sphere, my opinion was unmoved, maintaining its lean towards your general direction. But the pseudo-Sulukridger of Hendera was captured, your command regarding his own tricks and traps -- then vested in me -- was still operational, effectively forcing me to join the conflict retrieve him for our own purposes. At that point, however, my role had ceased in his involvement, and Hendera was severely weakened by our arrival. It somehow dawned upon me that in order to save the Sulukridgers, it was necessary to save Hendera first, however unlikely it may have seemed."
"Nathaurus," a raspy-voiced, sandy-white-haired figure in a similar cape (this one of a cyan hue) stepped forward to challenge this. "If you attempt to interpret Hendera's pleas for mercy from us, and use it to defy our interests, that would be lower than the level I was brainwashed enough to even consider reaching several years ago when I contemplated my idea to quash the Crusade and grant it a true purpose, in thinking so realizing that my potential system of governing would be superior to that of the foolish Kurst's, which continues to this day. Aiding Hendera with the addition of 'another' Sulukridger would give them the edge, a phrase I admit I never thought I would utter. This will escalate should things go any further, perhaps to the destruction of Sulukridger-kind itself. Face the truth, and do not betray our institution of dozens."
Nathaurus struggled to muster her words. "...Die in a hole, Ivel," she bellowed. "It will matter little. The Sulukridgers will fade anyway, as the generations who witnessed the initial Fviron landing firsthand die out. Casting me out of this order as it seems you were planning to, however, will require a pact."
Nathaurus inched away slightly as the dozens of caped ones surrounding her peered up in chagrin, Ivel at the crowd's head. "You must all vow to me," she negotiated, "to cast nineteen of you along with me from this peak of irrational minds. Then, to satisfy your own wishes, I may leave you my permission to tamper with my brain once more, as my punishment. Any one of them will be worth the revival of Hendera, even if we lack the capability of the Rift-bending elite. I am not wishing the demise of the Sulukridgers, but I am wishing the demise of our adversity to one another."
Ivel glanced around the mountaintop for a moment, aware that Nathaurus -- who was practically their ruler, with the lack of a Sulord -- was forcing herself and nineteen others from the order to serve under Count's authority. Using a moment to register this, Ivel and some of his most faithful scrawny Sulukridgers donning gloves, coats, and capes of various distinguishable hues seemed to near-instantly telepathically message one another about their say on Nathaurus's proper retribution. Nathaurus mentally intercepted their exchange as she stood gravely, her back to the edge of a sharp dropoff on the mountain.
Amnesia it is, she drew a deep breath as Ivel and company snapped their fingers in unison, facing their former leader with vaguely malicious intent. She hardly had time to realize the significance of that thought when it was torn from her memory, literally cast from the rest of the Sulukridgers in a cruel act of forgetfulness... down the Henderian side of the cliff, followed by nineteen others.
YOU ARE READING
The Sketch Rift: The Eternal Crusade
Fantasy{Book Two in the Sketch Rift Trilogy} Samuel Lawrence, or Soal, is revolted by the mere premise of returning to the bleak metropolis of Hendera. But these hopes are laid to rest when sentinels of the enigmatic Charles Hemingway draw his reentr...
