Thank you all for reading along with me so far.
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Chapter 28
Entreyu screamed in frustration as he brought the hammer down again. My knuckle shattered and pulped under the blow, and I could feel the shards of splintering bone cut into my flesh, ripping it from within. The pain was intense, but distant, separated from my mind by the insulating effects of shock.
Even with my hazy and distant thoughts, I laughed. His impotent rage was hilarious, even if my amusement was layered in hysteria.
"I'm sorry," I gasped between fits of laughter. "I just can't take your tantrums seriously!" My deranged cackle was more like a scream, and I just couldn't make it stop.
"You will tell me what Ensu wants to know!" Entreyu's eyes were wide as he screamed into my face, his spittle spraying over me. The hammer rose again, and I just kept laughing as he destroyed another of my digits. My left hand was little more than a fleshy bag of gravel. The entire arm felt distant and disconnected. As though it were someone else's appendage just sewn to my shoulder.
I had a sudden, visceral urge to tear it off. That, more than the pain, almost shattered my remaining lucidity.
"Master!" Myta was suddenly kneeling by my head, cradling it. I blinked at her blearily, another fit of laughter coming over me as confusion hit. I couldn't catch my breath, and tears streamed off to the sides of my eyes as I jerked against the chains that held me down.
"I failed," I whispered to her. A hole opened up in my chest, as the sight of my love did what Entreyu's hammer never had. My resolve broke, and I began to sob.
"No, look at me." Now Sati was there, her hands cupping my face. She was standing in front of me but.. that didn't make sense. I was chained down to the table, wasn't I? I curled the fingers off my right hand, letting my nails scratch against the bloodstained stone.
"This isn't real," Sati's voice pushed through the haze. She sounded calm, but her eyes were wide with fear. Myta stood behind her, and I could feel her horror. It made me angry. No one should hurt my vas, both of them were mine.
"This is a dream," Sati continued. "A memory pulled up by my father's aspect. You just need to wake up. Please, wake up."
I pushed back my fear, and my rage. I could remember now. This room, this table, they had been destroyed years ago, decades. I'd helped to destroy them, but despite my efforts and my suffering, I knew that I had failed. Myta and Sati were proof of that.
With a sob, I pushed the memory back and away, revealing my sanctum. My inner world was in tatters, the ground rent, the trees burning. My temple was a crumbling ruin, scorched by fire and stained with smoke. Myta and Sati both pressed close to me as I set about repairing the damage. I wasn't ready to speak yet, and they waited with a surprising amount of patience for me to gather myself.
"I haven't thought of that place in a long time." Even here, in my inner world, my throat felt raw and dry. "No, that's not quite right. I have avoided thinking of it as much as I could. I put it away, as though it were a book that could be set aside and ignored."
"Many people hide away from their pain." Sati's musical voice was soothing, and Myta sat beside me on the stone bench I'd created, cuddling against me.
"It's not the pain that I was avoiding." I took a moment to organize my thoughts. "It was my shame. When Mithal fell, those of us who survived tried to stay together. To recreate some of what we had lost. One of my brothers rallied us, but he... became obsessed. Unhinged. I helped him, for far too long, before I realized the depth of his depravities."
"Ensu, you've mentioned the name Ensu before." Myta's voice was filled with rage, and though it was not directed at me, I felt the guilt rip through me.
"Yes," my voice croaked, rasping out like a death rattle. "The Pure Way was founded by the Mithali diaspora. Ensu became fixated on gaining power and control over others, though he never saw it that way. He wanted to 'purify' the world. To purge it of what he saw as unclean thoughts and ideals.
"The slave bonds that are so widespread today are based on our work. I helped to create them. That was bad enough, a perversion of what I thought we were working on, but we never finished his larger project. Ensu damaged himself in an experiment, and Entreyu was not so good at hiding things from me. When I realized what we were doing, the atrocities we had committed, I refused to assist any longer."
"These crimes, they happened in Metic." Myta was still angry, but she continued to press close against me. Sati kneeled at our feet, resting her head on my knee. I found myself petting her hair, and the feel of her silky black curls under my fingers was soothing.
"That is why the Pure, and especially those few Mithali who remain, are called butchers by the clans." I heaved a great sigh. "They have every right to hate us. We tortured and mutilated the spirits of dozens of their people to pursue Ensu's mad dream."
"Was Entreyu from Mithal?" Myta's tone was thoughtful, and I could feel her mind racing. "Does he have the skills to develop sorcery like that?"
"He was an orphan from Ootrin that we adopted," I replied. "Ensu wanted to continue our culture by taking in children and raising them in an approximation of the way we were raised. He even renamed those children.
"As for his skills, I can't say for sure. But, fifty years ago he had neither the inclination, nor the temperament to do anything as complex as this." I held up the seal on my hand.
"But someone did," Sati added her voice to the conversation hesitantly, as though she were waiting to be chided. But after a moment she forged on. "You said this Ensu was damaged, but not dead?"
I thought back to the last time that I had seen my brother. His skin gone, nothing but charcoal falling to the soiled silk sheets he'd rested on. Golden light spilling from the cracks in his blackened shell.
"He was badly injured, insensate. But no, not dead. If he has awoken, we are in terrible danger. But the power he was attempting to channel was immense. I think if he were awake and active, all the shattered lands would know. Even the empire across the inner sea might feel it.
