God Within Us

The Apostle surged forward with a contemptuous snarl, moving faster than Yesugei imagined. Moving by Alnayyir's borrowed instinct, he thrust out one hand and swept it through the air. The scattered flames about the ground kicked up into a high curtain of fire before the charging Apostle, but Unukalhai simply exploded through, emerging in an angry shower of twisting firebrands.

The Apostle whipped the black chain around in a blur, and it was all Yesugei could do to throw himself to the ground. The chain whistled overhead, then clanged loudly against the crystal walls. When the Apostle yanked back the chain for a second strike, Yesugei followed after it, and he saw Unukalhai's expression twist into one of surprise as the nomad princeling came at him with the flaming blade. His sword and Unukalhai's chain-wrapped arm met with a high, unearthly wail - the clash of terrible, spiteful souls - and then Unukalhai began to step back.

Yesugei did not give the Apostle any room to breathe. He came on in the sword dance, taking all the ground Unukalhai surrendered as he slashed wildly with his sword in search of an opening, filling the air with the screeching melody the chain and sword made in the clash. His blade left an arcing trail of flames every time he carved it through the air, and soon he was in a cage of his own making: a cage of fire, a whirlwind of arcing slashes that came high and low, left and right. The cuts came faster than even Unukalhai could dodge them, and soon his blade found its mark.

The flaming sword blurred through the Apostle's form as if it were made of water, but the wounds he carved were real, and they did not close. Soon it was the Apostle's pitch-black blood staining the ground, weeping from a dozen ugly wounds that left them staggered and slow. Whenever the chain came soaring through the air in a desperate counterstrike, Yeaugei danced away and around to slice at the Apostle from another angle. He felt as though his heart was aflame, and the biting agony in his chest drove him to move faster and faster each time, burning brighter and hotter with the fire consuming the chamber.

"Enough!"

The Apostle's shrill cry was like a thunderclap, and in the confines of the chamber Yesugei felt his ears and eyes suddenly pop. For a moment all he saw were drifting pinpricks of light, and when he blinked the stars out of his vision he saw Unukalhai slam a fist into the ground. The Apostle's flickering shadow grew darker, and then it detached from its owner. The living darkness thickened, becoming like dark tar as it flooded up the walls of the chamber and gathered into a great, roiling cloud overhead.

Finish him, you fool! screamed Alnayyir's voice in his mind. Yesugei ran forward, his sword raised, but then he saw Unukalhai was smiling.

"Fall."

The word came out as a whisper, yet it cut like a knife through the din of the roaring flames. As Yesugei rushed to take the Apostle's head the air around him thickened, pressing against his skin like an invisible hand. His steps slowed, his legs straining as if his body had grown triple in weight. Then suddenly, the world tilted and blurred, driving him downward with unbearable intensity. His knees buckled, slamming into the stone, arms flailing for balance, and then he was forced flat against the cold, unforgiving surface.

Towering him, a ragged chuckle rumbled from Unukalhai's throat. "Alnayyir, how long it has been since I have seen you. How is it that you seduced this vessel into continuing this pointless struggle?"

Yesugei's eyes darted about the darkening chamber - the flames were beginning to die down, fading with his strength as he struggled to rise. Then the black chain fell in front of his face, clanging loudly against the floor. The sigils.

"Never mind," mused Unukalhai idly. "It does not matter. You should be honored - you will be the first to know the Vessel's embrace."

Yesugei bit down the urge to scream in frustration as he struggled against what felt like the weight of the world, all to lift a single finger from the ground. Then the even greater monumental effort - tracing the sigil, the astral sign...

"Is that not an honor high and noble for a son of Gandroth?" said Unukalhai. Then suddenly, there sounded the hiss of arrows, and Unukalhai’s focus turned from the nomad princeling to the Modkhai shaman, just beyond the corners of Yesugei’s sight. It could only have been her. Foolishness! Get out of there!

“Foolishness indeed!” shouted Unukalhai. The arrows were plucked out and clattered to the ground. They did little - but perhaps they did enough. Yesugei’s finger completed the trace, and then there was a bright flash of light from the floor.

The trace of the guardian glyph shimmered gold in the dying light of the flames, and as it disappeared Yesugei felt his body lighten. Unukalhai gave a cry and jerked backwards, chain raised above their head for the killing stroke, but the nomad princeling moved faster.

The Apostle's cry died in their lungs as the flaming blade sheathed itself deep inside black, supple flesh - then there came a pained whine as Yesugei twisted the blade through Unukalhai's chest, watching the flames take root inside the Apostle's heart. Red-orange rays of light flared through the cracks of Unukalhai's skin, and Yesugei beheld the flames in wonder as they traced along the Apostle's black flesh like veins of fire.

He pushed off of Unukalhai's pierced chest with a grunt, and watched as the Apostle stood hunched, seeming shocked at the three-foot long blade of fire stuck in their chest, burning them, eating them alive from the inside. It seemed almost pathetic, to see such a powerful creature reduced to such a miserable wretch.

Indeed, came the voice of the heart of fire. Put this one out of their misery.

Yesugei closed his eyes to the Apostle's feeble writhing, and reached with his mind into the flaming heart. He felt the dancing fires and the heat - they were an extension of himself, his own blood was the kindling, his own soul the spark - all a part of him as much as his scarred hand. His hand, yes! He called the flames engulfing the chamber back and into his hand, and when he opened his eyes the fading inferno lining the chamber now twisted to his will. From all around, the flames swirled in a great vortex that poured into his palm, gathering to form a burning sphere. A miniature sun swelled in the palm of his hand, red and roiling with hatred. Hatred for the Apostles. Hatred for Jirghadai. Hatred for himself, and the inescapable doom written in his every step.

Let them all suffer, every last one. Without a second thought, he swung his arm around and hurled the sun made manifest at Unukalhai.

There sounded an ear-splitting scream - his own or Unukalhai’s, he did not know - as the sun exploded in a great wash of flame, casting Unukalhai like a shadow upon the wall with its blinding glow. A wave of heat and cinder washed over Yesugei, and he threw up his arm to shield his eyes. When the wave passed and the flare died down to a dim light, Yesugei saw the Apostle of Vraactan lying against the cavern wall, shattered into pieces like a broken porcelain doll. The black chain lay a heap of scattered slag, joined by the remnants of the Apostle’s limbs which were taken off by the blast. A spider's web of cracks adorned Unukalhai's face and dismembered torso, severed in twain, and from beneath the cracks there now shone a pale, trembling light - vulnerable, and filled with promise. Starlight. A living star.

Unukalhai's lips moved - soundlessly at first, but then the Apostle found their words once more. The voice that floated out from the torn throat sounded almost human, robbed of its proud divinity.

"Oh, son of Tsaagandai," spoke Unukalhai softly. "There will be no flame at your end. Only life, and sorrow."

"Then let it be mine all the same," Yesugei said through gritted teeth. He bent down over the shattered Apostle and took hold of the hilt that remained jutting out from their stony breast. For a moment he thought to end it - to put his blade through the damned creature's throat to end it all - but then another thought came to pass. He tore free the hilt of the extinguished sword and tucked it into his belt, looking down the hallway where Unukalhai had stood guard.

The Vessel. Vasilisa. He still sensed her presence permeating through the halls.

He stepped forward, but before leaving, he reached down and grabbed Unukalhai by the hair. The Apostle's head lolled to one side, eyes dim but still flickering with faint starlight.

Recalling the others in the company, Yesugei turned once more to face the others, and he felt sudden relief come to his heart when he saw Tuyaara and Stavr standing by the doorway with Kargasha’s unconscious form propped up between them. Their faces were drawn with concern, no- it was fear. Fear of him. They looked upon him differently, as though-

As though you are one of our kin, sneered Alnayyir. We are of one blood now, halfling-prince. They have seen your hatred in those flames, and mine. They fear you as they fear us.

Yesugei opened his mouth to speak, but when he saw Stavr draw slightly back he hesitated. Tuyaara looked at him with a mix of fear and strange fascination, as though he were some alien thing. Except they themselves now somehow felt alien - Yesugei felt Alnayyir’s own senses tingeing his, and from it came the same sense of strangeness and disgust that the Apostle felt for the frail, weak, scared beings that ruled the world.

Yesugei shook aside the thought before it could lead him to some darker intention, and he called to the others, “Leave this place! Find your way back to the surface! There are things here that must not be known, must not be remembered! I will find her, this I promise!”

Then, dragging the broken torso of the Apostle behind him, Yesugei marched deeper into the Hollows. The sound of Unukalhai's body scraping against the stone floor echoed ominously in the confined space, and as he went on he saw more shapes awaiting him in the darkness. The huddled, burnt remnants of Unukalhai's raised abominations looked up at him with almost childlike wonder, but Yesugei paid them little mind. Some of the creatures followed him from behind at a distance, grunting and crawling on all fours behind the dismembered Apostle as if in mourning, but they did not follow him for long, and eventually returned to their small nooks.

The heaviness of fatigue weighed Yesugei's every step, but he forced himself on all the same, trailing after the faint signs of the Vessel that lingered in the story of the ground, the air. Where the tunnel walls had once been orderly and structured, the passages deeper in gave way to the wild once again as thick roots and vines punched through the carved stone. Brambles and thorns appeared underfoot, and no matter which way he turned, the undergrowth grew ever thicker.

The realm of Vaal, spoke Alnayyir. We approach its heart. See those roots? They once fed the immortal trees that grew out from the hill, before they were spoiled by men who hewed them down for their halls and their bastard fires. But they did not uproot the trees entirely, so their roots continue to grow. Follow where they are thickest, and you will find the Vessel.

Yesugei moved deeper, the roots twisting and thickening around him. The brambles and thorns began to rise higher and higher. Soon he found himself squeezing through the narrowing passages, the many sharp spines taking their toll in pinpricks of blood as they snagged and tore at his robes. He considered burning the brambles, his hand instinctively reaching for the warmth of Alnayyir's flame within his chest.

No, Alnayyir interjected, and Yesugei sensed a hint of fear in the floating voice. Your blood is a token of your passage, do you not recall the words?

Accept my blood, my spirit, and my love, thought Yesugei.

You must give all three, in time. It begins here.

Reluctantly, Yesugei let his hand fall. He pushed on, wincing with every bite and sting of Vaal's toll - a cruel mother, if ever there was one. As he moved, the air began to change. It became chill once more, fresh with the feeling of water nearby. Hastening his pace, he tracked after the roots that grew larger and larger overhead as he passed by, and more numerous until all the cavern walls were obscured by a myriad of creeping fingers, all of them leading to...

Yesugei's breath halted in his chest when he saw it. The Bottom of the World. A great vastness lay before him, a chamber like the hall of a great king, or a god, and littered with many skulls. When he looked on, he saw a grassy knoll upon which sat a dead, petrified tree, and beneath the tree, a pool of water. But where was Vasilisa?

The chamber's air was dense with an eerie silence, the only sound the distant, faint dripping of water. Yesugei descended from the precipice of the tunnel carefully, half sliding, half climbing down to the floor as his eyes scanned the area for any sign of Vasilisa. The roots here were like serpents, coiling and twisting around the knoll and the petrified tree, their tips dipping into the pool of water.

The First Spring. Suddenly the dread realization hit him, and Yesugei let Unukalhai's shattered form leave his grasp before rushing to the water. No, no, no.

He reached the edge of the pool and peered into its shadowed depths. There, at the bottom of the dark waters, he saw Vasilisa lying curled up as if asleep, or dead - he did not know. Her stillness sent a surge of panic through him, and without another thought, Yesugei slipped into the First Spring after her.

The shock to his core was immediate and brutal. The freezing cold of the First Spring bit into him with a ferocity that made him gasp, sending precious bubbles of air drifting to the surface. It reminded him of the first time he had ever swum in the Valley of Milk, beneath the shadow of the Khurvan mountains. But those glacial waters, fed year after year with the summer thaw, could not compare to this. The cold was a living thing, seeping into his bones, scrabbling hungrily at his lungs to pull his breath away and claim another for the depths.

Then suddenly, the cold began to bleed away, leaving only a faint numbness which soon gave way to warmth. As he scrambled deeper and deeper into the yawning pit he felt the warmth from his heart spread from his chest into his limbs, his fingers, filling them with new strength against the encroaching cold.

This taxes even my strength, he heard Alnayyir's voice echoing in the back of his mind, sounding over his rising panic. Do not fail her now! Do not rob me of your undoing!

The closer he got, the heavier the water seemed to press against him, as if the First Spring itself were testing his resolve. The darkness of the water closed in around him as he drew closer to Vasilisa, as if it were a giant hand taking the two of them into its grasp. He thrust his hand out blindly into the sudden gloom that fell around him, and then his fingers brushed against an arm, clammy from the frigid waters. He grasped the arm tightly, then felt around for the bottom before kicking away, fighting his way back to the surface.

Breaking through, Yesugei gulped in the air, the icy water streaming off him as he dragged Vasilisa to the edge of the pool. He heaved her onto the grassy knoll, collapsing beside her as Alnayyir's flare of strength began to die away, leaving him trembling like a newborn babe in the darkness.

Yesugei fought his own body's lethargy, and rose at length, feeble and sodden as he was. He dragged Vasilisa's lifeless form upright, and his fingers trembled as he searched for a breath, a heartbeat—anything. But the princess' skin was cold as ice, and her chest did not rise and fall with the breath of life.

Panic surged through Yesugei's mind. The cavern around him, littered with a thousand skulls, seemed to suddenly grow very, very small as the empty eye sockets watched in their silent judgment. He glanced at the crystals in Vasilisa's chest, but within them he sensed no lingering life, no power to bring her back.

He held Vasilisa tightly, and for a long moment they sat there in the oppressive darkness at the bottom of the world. He wondered if his teardrops would fall like burning oil, but when they came there was only bitter sorrow, and ever more cold.

Why is it always so damn cold? came the thought. Summer has not yet passed. The Question has not been answered - you should still be alive, you should still be warm...

Memories of Vasilisa's warmth flooded his mind—the feel of her hands, her lips, the fire of her life. A sudden thought struck him - the words of the shaman, long dead. You, with your heart of fire.

Then there came understanding. All paths had led to this moment, led him here, to the bottom of the world. He recalled a story told by a merchant from the Sunset Isles at the Khurvan - how their folk were able to save those drowned at sea with a kiss, and a breath of life. There was little else he could do, alone in the darkness. A kiss of fire.

He pressed his lips to Vasilisa's in a final, desperate act. Her lips were ice-cold and blue, like those of a corpse. But then again, they had both died a long time ago in the Devil Woods - this was simply another beginning, another birth.

The flame in his heart began to burn hotter, as if his very soul were igniting. A terrible agony wracked him from the inside - like the claws of a thousand terrible souls struggling to carve their way free from inside his very heart. The agonizing fire spread through his chest, into his lungs, and into the kiss. Their lips parted, and he looked down to see the fire from his heart now blazed within that of the princess. From her chest the glow spread across her naked form until Vasilisa of Belnopyl glowed with a light to match that of the sun - it shrouded her, clothed her anew with warmth and life.

Then with a cough and a tremble, Vasilisa opened her eyes, awakening to the taste of ashes in her mouth.