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'L-lord! lord, he was going to kill you!'
'I needed him! I needed the name of his master! You killed him!'
The claws of his free hand ripped forth, light motes scattering across them. He pulled them back from Chia
The Corona Nox. That was all that mattered. And she had taken it from him once more!
'I know his master!' she screamed, eyes rolling, spittle flecking her lips. 'I know his master!'
Sahaal paused, eyes narrowing. He wondered how he must look without his helm, how his sallow countenance must horrify her, and indeed her bugging stare roved across his face with disgusted fascination.
Look upon your so-called 'angel', little human...
'You lie,' he hissed, unimpressed. 'You lie to save your life.'
'No! No, look at him! Look at the robes!'
'What of them?'
'The crest! The coat of arms!'
'Explain!'
'My lord... it's the heraldry of the hive itself! The Noble House Zagrif! This man was in the employ of the governor!'
Mita Ashyn
The elevator seemed to ascend forever. Mita settled herself into a corner, cross-legged with her back pressed against the bronzed interior. It could hardly be likened to the comfort of her old meditation cell on Safaur-Inquis, nor even to the ascetic simplicity of the chamber the governor had granted her here on Equixus, but she was too exhausted to crave the comfort of fine things. The ability merely to sit, to close her eyes, to not spend her life glancing over her shoulder, that was enough.
As the minutes dragged on and a modicum of her energy returned, she found her mind wandering, rising on wings of thought, and a strange sense of prescient pressure — like a slowly building mass of water filling the spaces of her head — came over her. She recognised it, of course. It was the preamble to the furor arcanum: her senses' crude way of letting her know that a prophesying trance was forthcoming, should she choose to indulge it.
At first she resisted, choosing to take the time to settle her mind, to restore her strength, to prepare herself for whatever tests and feats awaited her at the apex of the elevator shaft. But the uncertainties that clouded her thoughts could not be so easily placated, heir exhaustion had become a curious constant that required no salving nor assuagement, and how could she prepare herself for the unknown? Indeed, only by accepting the visions that the trance offered could she have any hope of anticipating what lay before her.
She surrendered to the pressure with a quiet sigh, closing her eyes and clearing her mind, and the visions of future madness poured into the cavity of her skull like a plague descending upon unwary heads.
First, there is... altitude.
The same old vision, then. Just as before. Always the same.
Coldness assails her, and though she is unsure whether she is truly a part of this vision at all, or simply watching events from some remote 'beyond', she feels nonetheless that she is naked: that ice is forming on her skin, and hot vapour arises from her mouth with every breath.
To every side the world is an abyss. She stands on a monolith of metal, a great cactus-spire that threatens to cast her off, to send her tumbling along its steepening flanks with whichever tawdry zephyr seizes her. She cries out, afraid, nauseous, although she has seen all of this before.
This is the fourth time she has witnessed this vision.
And then there seems to be something in the clouds before her, some unseen presence that breaks the squalling ice, that shifts like a shadow upon a pearl, drawing near.
And just like before, she knows what it is.
It is herself. Held aloft by a beast of smoke and shadow. Dressed in rags, hair cut and unkempt — and in some distant part of herself she recognises changes that have already been wrought, and realises that this scene, this awful tableau created before her, must be almost upon her.
But there is more to occur yet.
Her reflection's arm is gone. She bleeds like an endless river. She tries to see the monster that holds her up and it is indistinct... but already she knows what it is.
The Night Lord carries her into the squalling snow on wings of darkness and smoke, and it seems to her that for an instant there are shapes below it — bright-knuckled beasts that reach out with claw and tentacle to snare him — but he is too fast. He is too agile.
He is gone, and her doppelganger with him, and Mita is left to tumble from her impossible vantage down into the dark, where hate and anger boils around her. She has seen all of this too. She has experienced all of this before.
Except...
Except this time the trance-vision is different. This time there is no hag. No fat-bellied witch tumbling down on contrails of blood and fire, and she thinks to herself:
That was the indicator of another event, then, something that has already occurred...
The Night Lord's arrival. The hag was his vessel. Her bloated belly ruptured and spilled-out the prize that he had come to claim. That is the way of the furor arcanum: half truths and twisted versions of reality.
This time is different. This time Mita's fall from on high is interrupted. This time she is caught in mid-air, buoyed up by a steely eagle, lifted in its wake like a leaf in the pull of an engine. This time she is there to witness the endgame.
The eagle returns her to the peak of the metal mountain. It circles and swoops, and fixes beady eyes upon the turrets of the city's crown, where it has business to attend. It can sense something it wants inside. It tilts wings of jetair and fuel towards the monolith, and races down to shatter its beak across the steely surface.
And then the horizon is no longer dark. The endless night is on fire.
And the sky fills, from edge to edge, with the shrieks of hawks and the blood of the ignorant.
Mita awoke in the elevator with a gasp, thick bile pooling in her mouth. She spat and choked, clutching at her belly.
The pater donum descended on her like a pleasant breeze, a cloying luxury that tweaked inside every muscle and every bone. Her tutors had taught her to relish it, to enjoy the one luxury her curse'gift would ever bestow upon her. But not so now: seated and nauseous within the cramped elevator, the pater donum could give her no comfort.
She slipped into a faint with inexpressible relief, and in her mind the screaming hawks that lit the sky plunged deeper and deeper into the surface of her dreams, plucking flesh and sinew clear with each swoop.
They flocked above her. They flocked above the world. Her last conscious thought, before sleep claimed her, was: They are coming. They are coming for us all...