Squib Ep.38 - Authority
(Start at the beginning here)
The images inside the pool faded as the answers to Squibs inquisition were fully realised, yet Bandana was anything but done with the pool.
“No, wait!” She blurted as her eyes roamed the water's surface finding only the pools bottom in all its serene beauty. She shifted sideways, pushed Squib from his place, positioned herself as he had so that she occupied the pools attention. “I want to see more, how do I work this?” She looked at the Dryad.
“The powder may still be in effect.” The Dryad replied nonchalantly. She raised her arm again, pointing to the center of the pool. “Gaze deeply, focus, but be warned, you may not find what you’re hoping.”
The warning might as well have fallen on deaf ears for all the thought Bandana gave it. The process seemed harmless enough and besides, seeing something of her sisters again felt more important to her needs than the ill portent of seeing something unfortunate. She turned back to the pool, sat staring as Squib had done, and found without delay the visage of the Silkwood appear through a shimmer.
Only unlike Squib there was no history past. Instead her eyes met a sweeping vista of the present, of a hundred trees whizzing past, the view flying beneath their canopy, branches soaring overhead and scraping her peripherals. Below the water and mud, the mires and hillocks, then faces, gaunt and rotting, marching on broken gaits, pitted eyes and hollow torsos. There came an army of undead spreading forth in a great migration, heading south as though nature were calling, heading toward the town of Silkwood.
Yet the pool was taking Bandana away from there. Over the shoulders of the undead and on deeper into the swamp, the familiar sight of the sunken ruin suddenly occupying the pool. The place was obviously important, far more important than Bandana had realised to get so much attention. For there a figure crept, shrouded in wisps of black with long spindly limbs. It lurched closer to the entrance of that place, where Bandana had entered with her sisters, where Squib had snuck through to find her. The creature straightened before it, coming to its full, oddly tall height, and revealing the gleam of a thinly crafted five pointed crown with tapered peaks atop its head. It stood for a moment gazing into the darkness, Bandana feeling a sense of familiarity at the sight of it, then plunged forward from view leaving her with the nagging feeling she knew something of this being but couldn't determine why.
The image whirled causing Bandana to feel suddenly ill. Southward the visage flew. Over the mud, through the trees, soaring past the backs of the walking dead as they marched. On through the serenity of the yet untouched swamp, still teeming with living creatures, their habitat yet to be sullied by the coming plague. On through the gates of Silkwoods Town, into the depths of the towns square, and finally to the familiar faces of her sisters. Jules and Annie stood talking, looks of consternation marking the tone. Try as she might, Bandana could not hear what was being said, but it hardly mattered. She knew the discussion was not a merry one, knew that some debate raged that no doubt involved her. Yet witnessing what she had, knowing what was heading their way, it was Bandana who was truly troubled.
As though the pool were reading her thoughts, the visage of her sisters turned suddenly sour. The colour of the image sapped much of its colour, Annie and Jules skin became pale, their eyes turned to ash in their sockets, their features became gaunt as time and decay appeared to grip them, and all around the town of Silkwood became withered in dilapidation, decrepit in age. The sight was shocking, a jar to Bandana’s senses, great anguish to her soul, and tearing to her heart. She watched as the pool turned suddenly black, a shade so deep it appeared less a pool of coloured water and more an unholy depth she could stumble into and be lost forever. The glade around her grew dark, the ambient light of the glowing foliage dimmed by some oppressive force. The creatures from the glade shrunk from view, the trees themselves groaned from a commonly shared agony felt among all the living things. The Dryad stepped suddenly eastward, rising in opposition toward a force yet seen. Ringing keenly in Bandana’s ear was the sound of an unsheathed dagger which she glanced to find brandied in Squib’s hand.
Heavy metal footfalls coupled with the laborious scraping of a large object preempted his arrival. The foreboding presence of the Dark Knight washed into the glad, a sense of dread vibrating on the close woodland air. Nature seemed to detest its coming and yet could do nothing to stand in its way. Bandana got to her feet, shrinking a step behind the Dryad, cowed by the shocking imagery of the pool and the arrival of the dark foe. Her intuition told her the two were strangely yet obviously linked. That’s when she saw the slits in the Knights helmet, the empty black depths therein, a darkness that gave her a sense of vertigo as though standing on the edge of a cliff. The same or near similar sensation as standing too close to the edge of the pool.
The Knight came to a stop beyond the tree line, let go of what it was dragging, straightened to its full height as a heavy breath wheezed through the grate in its armor.
“Greetings and salutations,” The Knights voice came as a dark thrum, low in volume but ever present to those in its hearing.
“Trespasser!” The Dryad decried and raised her hands as though summoning the earth to rise. The roots of the trees burst from the ground, the bows of the branches creaking as they swung low, and all around vines lunged forth to attack and ensnare.
The Knight raised his hand. “No,” and at once all nature came to a halt, a tangled mess suspended between the two commands. Bandana looked from the Dryad to the Knight and felt every bit as afraid of one as she was the other.
“By what authority do you resist this decree?” The Dryad asked, curious yet unperturbed, or so Bandana surmised of the strange, otherworldly creature.
“My purpose is purely diplomatic. You have no grounds for quarrel.” The Knight crossed its breastplate with its hand and bowed its head.
“Present yourself!” The Dryad demanded, the sound of authority ringing true in her strange voice.
“I am Envoy of The Dark; Vassal to The Ancient Black Order; Voice for The Crippled Curse; Herald of The Most Powerful of Omens; Speaker for His Dread of the Four Kingdoms of the Age of Opulence; I am The Coming Fear to Swamps and Glades; I am Defiler of the Most Sacred of Pools; I am The Beginning of What Is To Come; I am The End of Those Who Would Oppose. I am Nothing, and No-One of Mine Own Accord, and here to offer terms. I have brought tribute in good faith, to show we can speak in an agreeable manner.” The Knight gestured to the ground with his hand.
The Dryad waved her own hand, the branches, roots, and many of the vines returning to the places from which they came. Others stretched further to ensnare the Knight’s offering, and began dragging it forth.
“I know nothing of the one of whom you speak, except for their most recent invasion of my realm. What terms do you so haughtily propose after already defiling my home with your plague?” The Dryad asked accusingly.
“His Dread demands fealty of you and your realm. In return The Dark will allow you to retain dominion over his swamp, and will spare it the worst of his coming age.
“Your Master has no claim to my domain, nor those who dwell within it. My ties are to the earth, and all that has grown upon it is mine own. My claim predates every living thing that exists here and now.” The Dryad rebuffed as her vines set the Knights offering at her feet.
“Then The Most Powerful of Omens stakes claim to the barren waste that predates your coming. This land once had a master, and that master has returned. You are found as nothing more than a squatter, and deemed wanting at best.”
As the Dryad looked down, Bandana realised what, or rather who the ‘tribute’ was. “Herule,” She whispered and looked back for Squib. The Goblin was gone, nowhere to be seen.
The Dryad bent over and grabbed Herule by one of his limp hands, “Wanting?” She asked scathingly. Bandana watched as the same radiant energy she’d been imbued with passed from the Dryad and onto Herule. “Rise,” She intoned, and he came to with a heaving breath. The Dryad pulled him smoothly to his feet, a dizzying look of confusion in his eyes. Comprehension gripped him, surprise sobering his senses; where he was and who stood before him causing a flurry of emotions. He dropped to one knee.
“Forgive me, Grove Mother.” He said, humbled for the first time in Bandana’s eyes.
The Dryad stared at the Knight. “You can tell your master, another rules here.”
(Continue to Ep.39)
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