Infernal Directive (I)

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[151] Nymaya: Prologue - Infernal Directive
Sun Mar 14 22:17:51 2010
To: all Crelius ( story line ) imm Necrucifer
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It was in the wind.

The whisper that brushed through her hair, that soothed her senses and set the disquiet at deceptive ease. It was only then that she realized - she could hear nothing but that whisper.

The wind that had been gentle, carrying her through the depths of meditation and prayer, became something else. Something that resembled a thousand voices jumbled into one incoherent sound. She was becoming familiar with the sound of dissonance in its various forms.

She tilted her head back to gaze into the roiling shadows above. They moved with a live essence, as if someone had captured hundreds of uneasy souls and bound them above the altar.

You will join them one day

The dulcet tone moved through her like a shadow. It had an essence of its own and it recognized her. She was certain that she should have feared it, but she could not.

But you know that now. Its what you wanted, isn't it.

Not a question - a statement. She wasn't surprised.

Her limbs felt as light as feathers, it was hard to focus but centuries of merciless training of body and mind worked in her favor.

"Have you come to state the obvious" Her own whisper seemed to echo hollow in the dark of the church. "Or shall I call you Curious."

I come to collect a debt. It responded, failing to rise to her baited words.

A strange touch, emaciated fingers perhaps, trailed a tainted caress across the scar upon her throat and down her left arm, clearly outlining the individual scars that marred her. Her blue eyes shut as she fought back a shudder of revulsion.

While the cat is away, the devils will play

The whisper was so close to her ear that she might have jerked but she was bound before the shadows. A deep, sinuous laugh rolled over her then, forcing the shudder she had suppressed to slither up her spine. The emaciated touch settled upon her shoulders then, burning, and as the first serpentine tendrils of fear began to arise in her she realized - she was back in the Sands of Sorrow.

Fallen upon the ground, she gazed down upon her still form and saw for the first time just how close she had come to the mountains. She also saw what arose behind her and all the questions that had begun to plague her since that moment, all the things she could not remember, came back.

cont.