-CHAPTER ONE-
The Immolation
The people of Iliad Lam were an old, odd and superstitious lot who believed in a number of old and odd things. They were proud and arrogant, and it was these qualities that won their tribe universal recognition as the 'blindest' lot there could ever be, for they would neither see nor believe what they didn't want to.
They believed in the severest forms of self-mortification, which, according to them, was the only way to Heaven. Anything less meant 'the rotten' snake's life the next time.
This tribe – like every other tribe in the world - had its own rules and regulations. Three of them were regarded as God's Words.
Firstly, strangers were strictly prohibited in their land – especially those who held little or no regard for their traditions. Their children were trained specially to avoid such men, for they feared that they might get lost in the outer world and doom themselves to their permanent destruction. Anyone found assisting an outsider was labelled an outcast.
Their second most important rule was to follow the tradition, no matter what the circumstances. Anyone who failed to abide by this rule was a traitor and a lifelong blood-enemy.
The last and most important law stated that penance was a must for every single living creature. Anyone who showed disregard for this law was immediately 'dispatched' from the world.
Guided by these three basic rules, the villagers lead the most miserable and low-down lives.
In order to atone for their sins, and to please the Gods above, they did the cruellest and most monstrous things to themselves - like imbibing the deadliest of poisons, or beating their heads brutally with heavy bats till they lost conscience and a healer had to revive them just before they died.
The worst of all was what they called Blood Beseeching.
Every ninth full-moon-night the village would gather in one of their the farms and collect their own blood and some part of their bodies – whether hair, or the index finger - in a huge chalice that, along with a snake sacrifice, was sent to the church high atop a cliff in the surrounding forest.
Ancient and highly unpopular as it was, Blood Beseeching had been embellished and modified in so many places and in so many ways that the villagers had eventually come to believe that it was to prevent the Devil from raining fire instead of water and destroying the whole world. This, they believed, was the price they had to pay for the abasements they had failed to demolish.
But how could have they ever known that their little village was not going to end in fire, but in wind?
*
It was a cloudy night and a bright full moon illuminated the entire forest through the clouds with dull a silver light. The wind whistled and howled ominously, blowing harder than ever, savouring its freedom. Lightning streaked across the sky occasionally lighting up the land with brilliant white light, followed by thunderous rumbles.
High on the edge of a cliff stood a tall, hooded man in a black leather cloak that billowed vigorously behind him. A transparent amulet with thick metal chain rested on his chest, and though his face was hidden beneath the shadow of his hood, his eyes could be seen clearly - eyes so terrifying that no mortal being could have survived under their deadly gaze.
Five men stood behind him, all clad in the same attire except the amulet. They stood perfectly still - like dark, grim statues in the gloom, oblivious to the raging storm around them - watching as the wind slowly blew away with it the forest's life, waiting for the worst that was yet to come...
Minutes ticked away into hours as the tempest blew incessantly with a fiendish, unabated strength, unleashing all its fury on the forest. Every now and then, the hapless mewling and whimpering sounds of dying animals and the creaks and thuds of crashing trees punctuated the hum of the roaring wind.
It was almost midnight and the moon was almost at its zenith, when the man with the amulet finally broke his state of absolute stillness, slowly raising his arms sideways and looking up at the sky. Then, in a dead cold voice, he intoned, "Wlemor anha voie hierta".
He stayed still for a moment as nothing happened, but when it did, it was almost sudden, and yet gradual.
His eyes and amulet began to glow, emitting a cold electric-blue light that strengthened with every passing moment. When the light was bright enough to appear white, a wave of energy burst forth from his amulet, instantly silencing the tumult in the forest.
The wind came to an abrupt standstill. The clouds veered and swirled dangerously, dwindling rapidly before disappearing into thin air. The man's eyes and amulet had shone for just five seconds, but when their light had faded, the storm had abated.
The night air was cool, calm and deceptive with no trace of its recent fury. If not for the forest's appearance, it could have been another peaceful night; age-old trees lay uprooted and lifeless, entombing the animals they had sheltered for centuries like proud soldiers. The animals - skinned alive, crushed, drowned, suffocated - all dead, in pools of their own blood mixed with the rainwater and mud.
It was a pathetic sight - like a scar on the face of the earth. Dead and deceased as it had become now, life had forever forsaken the forest. A place that was once full of life and activity had now been reduced to a massive graveyard.
"It is time for the world to be destroyed by this storm" said the man with the amulet icily and slowly, "and for a new world to be reconstructed from the ruins."
A wolf howled in some distance, the last howl of its life.
*
They say that after a storm comes a calm. They also say that before a storm, there is a calm.
Despite the fact that Dzomgar was half-awake and fully terrified, he knew that this calm linked both the storms. And he knew that the impending storm was going be worse than the one that had just died out.
Shivering – because not only was he soaked from head to foot in ice-cold water, but also because the dread that filled him was threatening to overwhelm him – he struggled against the ropes that tied him to the archaic monolith, but in vain; he was too weak.
Let me go...
The scene he saw barely registered in his mind. It seemed as though he were deep underwater where little light reached and everything was dark blue. He thought he could also hear the sea, but knew very well that he was not underwater for apparently he could see, hear and breathe quite normally.
He was in an ancient church whose roof had been torn apart a long time ago. Its massive fifty feet high walls were cracked and crumbling in places and the once-magnificent bay windows were coated with thick layers of dust even after the rainstorm.
Vegetation had taken toll on the entire place; weed, grass and plants had grown all over the floor and ivy hung from almost all of the walls. Moonlight filtered through the torn roof and the windows, bathing the entire place in sick and creepy grey light.
Directly ahead of him stood a twenty feet high wooden door ajar, its polished wood gleaming in the faint moonlight. An unnatural soft, white, knee-high mist drifted beyond the door. Above it was pure black darkness. A darkness that was sinister in itself.
The brown of the door was perhaps the only colour apart from the grey moonshine that existed in this dead and decaying place, but that did not help alleviate Dzomgar's fears.
Let me go... before it's too late…
A sudden movement caught his attention; something was out there in the mist.
No. It cannot be... Let this not be...
The fear, the horror that filled him the most heightened and his heart started hammering in his chest painfully. He could not see the figure, yet he knew it was out there, lurking in the dark, looking straight at him, waiting for something...
And then he could hear it moving towards him, slowly, ominously.
No... No! No! No!
He screwed up his face and closed his eyes tightly.
It's just a dream. He told himself. It's – just – a – silly - dream. Any moment I'll be awake and safe in my bed.
Yet as he opened his eyes, he couldn't help noticing that figure was drawing closer... closer... and closer...
And then it happened; the figure emerged from the dark with a low growl. Dzomgar stared at it for a long moment, then heaved a sigh of relief as he saw a wolf limp into the moonlight looking him straight in the eyes.
The animal was in a terrible state; its right shoulder had been ripped off completely, exposing the bones within. Its face was bloody and wet owing to a missing ear and a punctured eye. The very sight of the creature chilled Dzomgar's bones, but even so, he could not help pitying the creature for having met such a cruel fate.
A whole minute passed as the two stared at each other – Dzomgar panting heavily and the wolf issuing low growls from between its exposed fangs – when a sudden thought occurred to Dzomgar: this was an omen. An animal so dead, so miserable coming up to him when he himself was so close...
He tried to shoo the creature away but it did not move.
Scared as he was by this new possibility, Dzomgar did not want anything as awful as this animal near him – even if this was a dream. May be scaring it away would help him awake.
'Get away from me you fowl creature!' he shouted, half-annoyed, half-hopeful. At this, the wolf went very still, as if it had frozen to death. Then exposing its fangs and staring angrily at Dzomgar, as if he had affronted a deity, it let out a growl louder than usual and moved forward.
Dzomgar held his breath; it was surely going to attack him... and come closer to him. However, quite surprisingly, instead of pouncing on him, the wolf detoured about the statue and was out of his sight.
Even if he had known what was going to come next, Dzomgar could have never been prepared for it. He heard the wolf climb up a window and then -
A loud, mournful howl filled the air, a howl that contained ages of mysterious grief and fear of the harsh, miserable end, the end that had come alas.
It was gone as suddenly as it had come, followed by a soft thud that told Dzomgar that the wolf was gone forever with that howl still ringing in his ears.
It was not a howl though; it was a call of death.
*
He looked into those eyes, those terrifying, deadly eyes that belonged to the tall hooded figure that stood before him with a gleaming sword in his right hand. A transparent amulet rested on his chest. Why had he not succumbed to death under that fatal stare?
Five other men stood around him precisely at the points of a perfect pentagon. They were all dressed in black cloaks like the man in front of him, only they were not wearing transparent amulets.
They were singing something in a language he did not understand, but whatever they sung bewitched him and filled him with awe and, somehow, mad bliss. It reminded him of the mysterious gothic songs he had heard when he used to be a child and almost made him forget about his surroundings.
He wanted to sing with them, to shout out loud, to roll his eyes in their sockets and laugh out loud. But he couldn't.
Somewhere deep within him he knew that this was the end. Not just his own, but also the end of the entire world. His heart hammered painfully in his chest as he once again – not knowing how he could do it without dying - looked into those cold, merciless eyes of Zinnad.
*
Zinnad looked into eyes of Dzomgar, his last prey. The last victim of this war. The last immolation. He could see his confusion mixed with the unfathomable fear on his face. It pleased him.
Everything was as it should be: the ninth full moon was right over the amulet, the immolation right in front of him, and the Kardhs were in their positions forming the traditional pentagon, singing the powerful sacred enchantments that had been lost for centuries.
It would be over in a few minutes. He would be victorious.
As the Kardhs sang, beams of light began to appear around Zinnad and Dzomgar, enveloping them in a luminous dome of soft azure light that intensified with every word sang.
It had cost him several years and immense pain to reach this stage, and he was eager to get this finished, but it would not do well to lose control now. He had waited much longer than this, and he could wait a little longer.
Half an hour passed as the Kardhs continued to sing when without any warning, pure white light burst forth from Zinnad's amulet for the second time that night, though this time, the light was bright enough to blind anyone within horizon. Slowly, the beams around Zinnad and Dzomgar solidified into a single, magnificent electric-blue dome.
Within the dome, Zinnad raised his sword and slashed at Dzomgar - who was yelling in terror -, beheading him in a single stroke. The final blow had been delivered, but that was not the end.
The moment Dzomgar's head touched the ground, Zinnad's feet left the ground and he was raised three feet into the air.
Pain, immeasurable, searing pain filled him. It was like being pierced with a thousand red-hot knifes. His blood itself was on fire. His ribs were squeezing his heart, and his eyes were being stabbed from inside - as if someone was trying to pull out his brain through them. It was devastating. It was going to destroy him.
An immolation always caused pain, but this was beyond anything. This was unbearable. This was not good. This was not how it should be.
Time seemed to have stopped dead; every single moment seemed to take years to pass, but the pain in his body only increased. He could do nothing to stop it. No one could. He was helpless.
Even as he howled and yelled in his agony, he knew something had gone wrong... terribly wrong.
Outside the hemisphere of light, the five Kardhs stared at the magnificent display of lights, but none of them could hear the agonized cries of their master. For them, everything was perfectly normal; a grand ending to a grand mission.
Eventually, the light began to fade, bit by bit, first the white, then the blue. The Kardhs allowed themselves to step forward to greet their master as the last vestige of the glow quenched itself, and they had to walk only two paces before they realised what had happened.
It was over. The immolation had been completed, the ancient spells enchanted, Dzomgar was dead, and the lights had all gone... and so had Zinnad.