Resources for Exalted Second Edition
Please note: You must create separate user accounts for Lore 5 and the ECR forums.Hush
By Cthulhu_Wakes
Submitted on 09 Mar 2008 at 11:24:21 PM EDTLast updated on 16 Mar 2008 at 01:01:45 PM EDT
Category: Fiction
A huge revision of the last version of Hush. Good God, what a pile of crap that was looking back. Seriously, I wrote it in Note Pad, that alone tells us how bad it was. Yet, you all liked it, so I wanted to do it justice by revising it. And one cannot say that a writer doesn’t become better over time. I think this is a serious improvement over the older version. I shall let you all be the judge.
The man in the shredded cloak paces up and down the line of chained humanity. Truly, they were the most pathetic rabble he’d seen yet. Those in line gave nothing but whimpers and tears, keening for home and a warm bed. The man offered no sympathy to the few quiet pleas that went out to him specifically, nothing but a cool gaze at those that even dared to grab his hand, begging to go home.
He inspected the ones that reached for him.
Deft fingers check to see if their flesh is supple, their limbs flexible and the like. The master would be ill-tempered over a lacking product. From how they looked, broken in spirit as they were, chained as they were, they would suit the man’s, and ultimately his lord’s, purposes. All was well. The road they stood near was black, only the moon’s light illuminating the plains for miles around. Not a thing moved. He would have heard it.
A crisp night air brushed his cheeks. Wonderful. Though his cloak was shredded, the cold bothered him not. The supple coat of mail beneath his cloak gently moaned when the wind brushed it, boiled leather and woolen pants kept him warm, and leather boots were shinned to luster on his feet. Links of soulsteel glimmered in his mail shirt in the moonlight, almost absorbing it.
The man tightened his moleskin gloves as he strolls another time before the line.
Pale lips curl into a grin as the gentleman listens to the mewling of his little prisoners. Such sweet children. It was almost as sweet as hearing the jittery whispering of the slavers who brought him his prizes.
Turning with a flourish, The Shivering Blade of Ten Agonies, Cerannos the Surgeon to his mortal acquaintances, leveled his gaze upon the slavers. They stood next to Cerannos’ contingent of wraiths, standing like statues, dressed in the ancient regalia of armies they had served in life. With but a flick of his wrist, they’d tear everything around them apart.
One of the shaggy men set his eyes firmly with the deathknight, trying to still shaking hands. “So,” the quiet voice of the deathknight broke the stuffy silence, “you assure me that you were not followed?”
Igniz, the lowly Linowan slaver nodded quickly, his greasy hair stuffed in a half-assed topknot. His filthy garb clung to his smelly form like oily skins. The pathetic creature disgusted Cerannos. He had no love for the Linowan in the first place, being of Sijanese stock, he’d had more than enough experience with the barbarians of the northeast plains. For now, that didn’t matter. The transaction was all that required attention.
Cerannos went on, “Are you absolutely certain? These children will be searched for, and the hunters have methods much like I to find them. And if we were to wake one morning to find the Hunt bearing down on us…”
“I tell you, deathknight, my men and I fled the city without being found. We had to stall the meeting because we took two extra months on the road to get ‘ere. You know this! They may be children of the Blooded, but they weren’t lookin’ for us.” The slaver huffed, his motley band nodding along with him.
- He is a liar -
Allowing a snort, Cerannos peered back at his prizes. “Yes, and you know this: if we become engaged in any of this baggage by your just happening to give the Hunt the slip long enough to have them find us, know that I will find you and each of your families, one by one. I will add your faces to the wall of my sepulcher. That do I promise.” The men paled in the white-red hue of the moon overhead.
Cerannos waved for the ghosts. They moved past the band of slavers, bringing up a covered wagon that had been just a ways down the road they stood on. “Ten talents, jade, as promised. Take it, and get out of mine sight.” The men stood in place for a moment, then leapt for the silky appearance of milk-colored jade sheets. The horse wuffled and reared a little as the savages piled in, turned about and quickly disappeared off into the night. Cerannos shook his head, mildly irritated by the creaking of the wheels and the laughing of the men as they celebrated.
Mortals were an irritating nuisance, no matter how vital his master made them out to be. He shrugged; it was not for him to care. Master would send The Umbral Shade in Garments of Putrescence to silence them and reclaim his monies.
Damned fools were probably followed. Ah, well, their Dragon-Blooded saviors wouldn’t dare put the children in danger. They could follow him into the Shadowland if they were mad enough.
Enough. He clapped his hands together, moistening his lips in anticipation, “Well, now, we’re all alone.” Silence like a tomb’s. Making a fist, his knuckles popped, and Cerannos waited for one of them to lose their inhibition. A few of the males even deigned to give him defiant looks. Cute. A design for a battering ram entered his mind and left just as quickly. He chuckled, looking at those few stalwart lads, imagining those grim faces, full of piss and vinegar, screaming slurs at their countrymen and fathers from the head of a battering ram made of muscle and sinew, tainting the very earth. Knock, knock, anyone home?
Suddenly, a soft, shuddering sob broke from one of the little girls, her clothes soiled and dirty, breaking him out of his daydream. A porcelain doll clutched almost fiercely in her little fingers stared out into the night with black eyes. A mirthless smile spread across Cerannos’ lips. Kneeling before the weeping adolescent, Cerannos silenced her with a finger. Pressing ever so gently on her lips, she froze, looking at him like a caught animal in a snare.
These children were fragile, even for exalts. They were barely a season or a few winters into their power. Maybe they sensed they were merely lambs in a cage with a lion. Gods in the dark, he hated children. Maybe that’s why he relished his work so much as his lord’s High Surgeon. His musing was cut short when he remembered his finger lingering on the lips of the girl. He sighed, “Worry not, little one, what is thy name?”
“Melissa…” Cerannos smiled at her squeaky voice, at the red-rimmed eyes, the tear stained, chubby little cheeks.
“Don’t worry, Melissa, soon, your eyes will be as glossy as that doll’s. You shall not feel a thing as you slip into a feeling not unlike warm milk. You’ll sleep for a while; then you’ll wake up and not remember a thing. Take heart!” He laughed in her face, new tears slipping from unbelieving eyes. The medicine man stood and clapped his gloves together, waving on his wraiths. “Now…march. Oh, and don’t worry about screaming, we’re leagues from anyone who will hear your cries.”
A thick, wet glob of saliva smacked into his cheek. A delighted, half-sob let out from one of the taller males. The Abyssal smirked as he whipped the phlegm from his cheek and spat himself. “Defiance in youth, always an admirable trait.”
The line stopped, Cerannos raised a hand to still his wraiths from dealing out punishment on the boy. “I was defiant once,” he went on, his eyes leaving down the rivers of time, “a child by the well of the Void, I stared at death and the End once. Much like you all right now looking upon me.” Pausing, gaze sweeping over his captives, his tools, he went on, “I stared deep into the black. There were things down there, writhing, terrible, glorious things. They lie deep in the Underworld, the rime of the Void. And in that unknowable blackness, they touched me, filled me; became part of me.
- We haunt souls -
“And so touching me, I drew back, screaming, even while my body was stilled by the hands of my master and soon your owner. They entered me and filled my mind with such wondrous things. I have seen worlds boil over and blacken like pitch, I watched babes torn from the breast of their mothers and cast against stone walls by freakish, golden beings! I have seen a sun in the sky grow dim and heard the calls of the usurpers baying for blood. I was defiant! The defiance was life itself and my audacity soon bled away…” His fingers tightened, moleskin gloves taught over his skin as he began to look across his frightened cattle. “Then the silence…that amazing…horrible silence. I recalled when I awoke, near the Well, what filled that silence.
- And what was that child? -
“The audacity to believe that being alive, that truly being alive, and not passing myself along quietly into the night was some how the better course. No, my children,” Cerannos closed his eyes and heard the soft gurgling sound rising up and up from the depths of his mind, “give in. And…never fight what you can never escape.”
The choking pissant clawed at the Surgeon’s iron grasp. Eyes bulging, the boy whimpered, hacked and coughed up spittle all on the moleskin vise. Cerannos smiled wickedly down at his pray, his fair visage pulling tightly into something horrid and seething. In his free hand, shadow coalesced, elongating and softly sighing into existence as a sharp blade. Releasing the boy to gasp for air, the vise clenched the nape of the youngling’s neck. The blade went to work with a sure hand behind it.
The children began screaming, high and terrible. All for naught. Blood seeped down the patient’s neck, staining the already dirty tunic the highborn was wearing. With a deft cut and quick work, the boy’s screams were no more, only thin whispers shouting every now and then from the knife as the Surgeon pulled back. Pleased with his work, the Abyssal banished his knife back to the nether of Elsewhere, along with the boy’s voice. “Remember, pissant, your parents taught you be silent and respect thine elders, consider this a…reassurance and affirming of their noble ideals.” Messing up the boy’s hair, he saw the dim look in his eyes and the blood leaving the wound. A glance told him everything, cut too deep, nicked the artery. And all he wanted to do was sever his vocal chords. He was getting rusty.
Cerannos sighed, “Pity.” A wraith appeared beside him. “Throw him in the other wagon, let him bleed out. I may use his skin for the master’s new riding reins. What a waste.”
The dull eyes of the other fifty-odd children watched the defiant child be dragged to the other wagon on the road. He was almost lifeless, dragged like a sack of so much grain. A thick trail of blood, flowing from the wound, seeped into the dirt. Some of the kids began to sob, while others began dry heaving; some of the older children quietly whispered prayers to whichever of the Dragons would hear them.
“Once more.” Dozens of pairs of eyes looked to their tormentor, “March.” And so the slaves did. It had been midnight when the delivery had occurred, the Maidens were arching across the heavens with streamers of blue and red following them. The stars are gods, Cerannos was once told in his early teachings with the master. He wondered if the babbling little fools who were praying knew the Gods had absolutely no love for the Terrestrials. The benefits of a “classical” education, he mused. Better to let them have some hope, another lesson. The defeat of the mind and soul is a key step in conversion to the philosophy of the End. To embrace the Void wholly is to know nothing living can save you.
His mind wandered. As they walked, the butcher began to observe his cuts of meat more closely. Some of them had excellent muscle mass and builds despite their youth. Perfect for living battering rams or vozhds. He’d use a number of the girls for Bellows. Their little lungs would put a deep, black fear in the enemies of his lord well before battle was joined. Their voices will rise to glorify the Void and sing anthems to his lord, The Walker in Darkness.
Except perhaps one.
The idea filled him a private joy, an almost erotic elation. He shivered at the thought of being in his workshop again. The halls would report with the dull screams of mortals being torn from their useless flesh and being thrown headlong into a wondrous afterlife. He would forge beautiful, alien implements of war from their flesh and bone and tie their souls into a glorious mantle for his king.
His gaze wandered to the sky. The change had already started; green and yellow stars were taking on alien and otherworldly constellations above them. As they walked, the Maidens vanished. Bands of spectral green streaked the sky like banners in the wind, dark thunderheads roiled in the east with violet lightning scorching the earth.
The shadowland waited with open arms to swallow them up. Cerannos stilled his quivering body, feeling detached from the living world to the home of the dead.
A hunter’s moon greeted them, blood-red and shrouded with tatters of thin clouds masking its countenance. The soil became barren, rough, and as ash. Wind whipping from the east blew dust in their faces, the Surgeon covering his face with a kerchief. The plains gave way suddenly to dank, stinking moors. Every so often a flash of green would burst forth from that wasted land. Dead lights, they were called, gases from inside the moor. Only the causeway was safe for now.
There was more to worry about out there than the fear of falling through the peat. Barghests roamed in the murky black. And worse, as a sudden shriek from deep in the moors told, the Ghillies were out this eve. The party walked on, the children almost beginning to run in blind fear. Shapes moved in a growing mist here and there, strong and powerful. Ghillies loved lean meat. Their pungent, rotten-egg scent filled the air.
Thick fog soon blanketed the elevated road. Some of the prisoners began to cry out in fear, the wraiths moving closer in formation to keep them on the road and the Ghillies from dinner. After a mile and a rest, the Ghillies vanished with the fog, leaving the party on the causeway. The moor was silent, fireflies danced in the distance weaving in and out of the dead lights.
They walked. A barghest’s howl pierced the night. The village was quiet when they came upon it. A palisade wall kept the creatures of the moors at bay, sullen guards in mail let them alone as the deathknight ordered the gate opened. The children cried out for help at lone faces peaking out onto the street, only to have shutters close in their face. Cerannos smiled; at least they had some spirit left. Besides, these people would be damned fools to betray their liege lord. They had been broken years ago.
And so the village passed, onward and onward into that cold night. The deathknight nodded to himself when the lands began to slope upward, almost as if they were walking up to the moon. The Bloody Huntress stared down at them with her milky eye. A glow seemed ignite on the horizon, like a furnace being stoked back to life. Life’s end was over this hill for the kiddies and he felt no pity, only anticipation. His fingers would soon be plying their trade in sinew, muscle and flesh.
There stood Cerannos’ home, the Sepulcher of Twisted Designs. A gift from his master, an ancient factory-cathedral. It loomed darkly as the troupe crested the hill. The children started screaming as they came closer seeing blasted iron bent into cruel, wicked shapes greeted them. Huge iron gargoyles faced the flying-buttresses holding the gigantic structure aloft. Oily glass windows stretched high, over fifty feet, along all sides of the palace of art. Its bronze doors, the Portal of Thrall, alone were twice the height of the great Bonestriders guarding it. They opened with a gasp as the party approached.
The Bonestriders stood aloft, silent, ever watchful.
- Take them, their fear feeds us -
“Welcome to your new home, children.” Cerannos said silently, putting his arm around tiny Melissa. The fragile little thing was weeping, clutching that doll to her nonexistent breast. “Oh, hush, my dear. It won’t hurt much at all. Only light, sudden pain as you warm up and then fall into a merciful sleep. Then you’ll awaken again, someday, possibly back home, possibly in the chambers of my lord, whichever is chosen for you. Be grateful…” The Abyssal trailed off, the girl had gone completely silent as they had stepped into the echoing silence of the factory-cathedral. An ancient hall stood before them, clean and cool, but the flickering darkness before them stayed their feet.
“Now, now, fear not and go forth. You shall not be harmed.” A vile smile crept across his lips, finishing his sentence in his thoughts. The motley band shuffled inward along cool limestone floors polished smooth by the labor of a thousand virgins long ago, when this place was still sacred and under the light of the sun. A thick, almost palpable stench wafted down in a warm breeze. A guttural wretch came from the front of the line and a soft splish.
Cerannos ignored the bile when he passed it and ushered them on. Then they entered the grand hall, the Abyssal’s work chamber.
What he called the cutting floor. Cerannos took a deep, appreciating breath of the musk. It was good to be home.
All their little eyes were able to comprehend were tatters of flesh hanging from long chains on the ceiling, only able to absorb the fetid scent of clotted blood in giant iron tanks, of the excrement of the twisted creatures lingering in the shadows around them, only able to hear the tinkle of water draining in one of the many outlets in the floor, the flicker of the great braziers threatening to drive them into the darkness and of something breathing all around them.
They saw too. Gleaming motes of light hung in the air, blinking out and reappearing all around the shadows.
Cerannos smiled and walked forward, the wraiths jostling the children further into the depths of the cutting floor. They cried out as their feet stuck and slipped in pools of liquids most foul. Beyond the light of the braziers stood dozens of metal tables, lined in perfect order under a singular light somewhere high in the ceiling. Tall machines of unknown design loomed around them like quiet gods. The limestone floor was stained brown and yellow. The stench was so thick and horrible that two of the children passed out. They were thrown bodily onto tables. The rest began to add their tears and vomit to the stains on the floor.
Cerannos remained smiling, collected.
“Now, my little Dragon-Bloods, it is time for us to begin work on your union and ascensions to serving far greater powers than your pathetic Dragons.” He bid his little Melissa, his little doll forward. “Come, darling.” His voice resonated with Essence, his eyes luring her out of fear and toward him. The doll she held in her hands slipped to the floor with a crash. A porcelain head rolled near the shadows, snatched into the dark by a gnarled and clawed hand.
The little bastards began shrieking in terror. Something howled from the deepening shadows. The wraiths went to work—knocking them unconscious—taking care not to damage them too much.
Cerannos paid his lackeys no mind and saw that the children’s fear took root in Melissa’s eyes. She couldn’t move if she wanted to, anyhow. Those intelligent little eyes, darting back and forth, no doubt looking at Cerannos’ other creations that lurked in the shadows, suddenly focused on the shimmering object in his fingers.
A long, slender knife, carved with ancient and terrible sigils.
“A masterpiece I will make of thee.”
It hovered right under her eye. Her shuddering turned to sobbing as it came closer, closer…closer until it pierced quivering skin. Tears mingled with blood. Starting to convulse, her red-rimmed eyes rolled back in shock. Screams finally tore from her throat, choking, horrid screams. Music to the ears of the right hand of the devil.
Cerannos chuckled, “Hush, now, my little doll.”
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