Null and Void
By Joseph Milam
Chapter One
The Prophet
The flaring sun blistered the endless dunes and pits of the Shurima Desert, the dunes that seemed to rise and fall like the waves of an angry ocean in a howling gale of fury. The strong winds blasted streams of sand across the air and kicked up small rocks and pebbles and threw them in every direction. These uncharted and ancient deserts were avoided for a reason. Some said the sands were alive and fed off of the flesh of those who wandered to far into its midst. Others said the sands were only there to conceal a monstrous beast who hunted and killed adventurers and travelers alike without mercy.
What ever the sands concealed it did not matter to him. A young man, born in a small village bordering the harshest part of the desert, gifted with the power of prophecy. His brown hair flew wildly to the side as a gust of wind and sand flew at him with unnatural fury. Underneath a cloth covering his face lied a mouth set in stone with an expression of grim determination. His gleaming sapphire eyes shined through the darkness of the desert dusk and he continued to press on, clutching his massive brown cloak about himself.
The days in the Shurima Desert lasted for almost seventeen hours. It was not a natural occurrence either, the young prophet knew as much. He had read many books and reports about the area over the course of his life, but he never thought any of that would come to any use until the last few days. After a grueling two hour dusk the sun finally set and the young seer could finally rest. He sat down and brought his cloak in close for the temperature was dropping exponentially. He closed his eyes and fell asleep shortly after.
"Feed me..." said a voice, a raspy and distance voice full of menace and spite. The Prophet was not surprised by it and called back to it coolly.
"Where are you taking me?" he inquired but he received no logical response. Instead the voice uttered high pitched groans, moans and screams. It sounded almost mechanic and the Prophet felt like his ears were going to start to bleed. He placed his hands on his temples and pressed hard making any attempt to get the sound out of his head, but to no avail.
"YOU DARE TRY TO ESCAPE ME, MALZAHAR? YOU ARE TRAPPED HERE FOREVER!" the voice screamed over and over until the young Prophet fainted. He woke up then. He gazed up at the moon and noticed he had only been asleep for a few minutes. He realized that the voice in his head did not want him to sleep and he stood, and kept walking.
The Prophet named Malzahar did not remember much about his past, not with this voice in his head. It drowned out all of his memories that did not relate to it accomplishing its own sadistic task, reaching a place that never existed. With all of his power Malzahar had never seen a vision of such a place as Icathia, not until the voice appeared anyways. He had heard rumors of an old ruin that laid deep in the bowels of the desert, surrounded by mystical rocky spires and vengeful spirits and beasts. Now one of the few things that occupied his tortured mind were the sights of ruined pillars and fallen down buildings with words in a long forgotten language barely retaining their form upon them.
Another thing, and perhaps what tortured Malazhar the most was the thoughts of death. He was never a violent man, not ever causing physical harm to anyone in his entire life until the days that the voice came. He could endure it at first, it was an annoyance and a good bit of mediation could ward it off. It only could pester him greatly when he was asleep. It grew stronger day by day though, and on the day that Malzahar left for the desert he plunged a dagger into his own mother's throat the moment he saw her that morning because he thought the voice was coming from her. And once the deed was done the voice laughed at him and called him pathetic as he wept over the corpse of his beloved mother. It jeered and jeered until Malzahar exploded, even worse so than against his mother. He ran into the center of his village and cut down a pair of innocent children who were frolicking in the street. That is one thing he remembered. Stabbing the knife through their throats and watching the blood bubble and spill out of their mouths. He savored it then, it made the voice happy so it made him happy as well.
A villager attacked him and called him a mad man, and as the fist blows rained down upon him Malzahar, completely oblivious to the pain, thought aloud. "I am the madman? What have I done wrong?" Malzahar looked at his hands and then to the Villager who was now backing away slowly with wide eyes. "Hey, I'm not a madman HA! You are the madman! You did this!" Malzahar cackled as he smiled at him and charged, stabbing the man in his portly belly. The man gasped and then screamed as the dagger ripped up his body and through his ribs. "Shh. Shh. Everything will be okay." he whispered in his ear as he tore the dagger out of his chest. He fell to the floor immediately afterward.
Malzahar left soon after, he did not kill anyone else that he remembered, but he did know that he had blacked out a few times between leaving for the desert and that moment. Had the voice taken control? He thought. He stopped thinking, thinking was not safe anymore. The voice said it will leave when he gets to Icathia. He must find Icathia.
The long days and short nights did no favors for the young Prophet who grew more haggard and weak as the days went on, weeks it had been since he had last eaten or drunk and by some mystical driving force he still carried on, but that force had come to its end. He saw a rock up ahead and thought to himself, what a nice place to lie down and die. He heard the voice laugh at his weakness but he did not care anymore. Its taunts were ineffective now as Malzahar placed his dried up hands on the surface of the rock. He collapsed and looked up towards the sun, his eyes burned but he felt no pain. Only the sweet relief of death coursing through his veins could be felt. He laid his head on the sand and faced the rock once more.
He felt something then, something he never felt before as he realized that upon this rock was written a word, a word in a language he had never seen before but somehow understood, it read: Icathia.
A new energy infused within him now, an energy so strong and powerful that he was quite literally lifted off of his feet, it was the voice in control now. Malzahar could only watch as he floated his way over, through the ruins of a once great Cyclopean city, to a building that oddly still stood quite steadily. It was painted with hues of purples, greens and blues. Mostly in the darker shades with lines, shapes and words formed out of black. The voice carried him to the doorway and gave him back control over himself.
As he stood he flexed his fingers and arms. He felt stronger, strong like the day he left for this forsaken desert. He raised his arms to the heavens and stretched, finally free again. He looked down and noticed a circle with a multitude of smaller circles carved into it, each circle itself being carved out of hundreds of other circles. The effort that must have been put into such a design must have been incredible and he was about to kneel down to admire it when the vile energy of the voice came back to him and Malzahar turned to himself with fury.
"Foul demon! Why do you still haunt me? I have done as you asked!" he shouted out his contempt. Inside of his head the voice laughed and the young seer felt a pressure rising up his throat as the voice tried to speak out of his own mouth.
"YOUR DEED IS NOT YET DONE, SLAVE." it shouted with all of its grim, metallic wrath. Malzahar felt himself losing control again as his own body turned against him. His arm grabbed the dagger at his waist, the dagger he personally slew his mother, two children and a man with, and brought it up to his wrists. Malzahars mind twisted and writhed but it had no effect upon his body. The dagger swiftly cut at the protruding blue and green veins that stuck out noticably on his pale skin. His mind screamed in agony, a searing agony more painful than anything he could ever have imagined. But when he put attention back to the wound, he realized it was not bleeding. It never was. Instead, a black energy was dashing back and forth between the circular pattern on the ground and his cut. The agony continued to grown stronger but Malzahar used all of his consecration to keep himself from succumbing to it again.
He watched as the energy stopped moving between the two and just began to pool up on the ground, he watched as a black tar enveloped the terrain around him for yards in each direction. The spreading suddenly stopped and just as suddenly the tar rose up and collapsed upon the immobilized Malzahar in a single swift and synchronized movement. He did not protest, he simply accepted it this time, for he knew he had no control.
But as seconds went by he realized he was not dieing, but being reborn. He felt raw power jolting through his veins and dark magics gripping his very soul. He embraced it, for he knew each surge of power that was brought into him took him one step further from the voice inside of him which he could no longer feel. Malzahar regained control as the last of the black tar was absorbed by him. He stood tall, taller than before and glanced out into the distance. His senses were much keener now, he could see for miles beyond the sight of the common man, it was as if he could see around the curvature of the continent.
He looked back for a moment, feeling some kind of connection to the city, and discovered that the building behind him was no longer colored, all of the color had been sucked out and absorbed into the robe which he now wore, a beautifully embroidered purple robe that brandished streaks of blues and greens with a black trimming. He decided to look inside the building, for the doors were open and he was curious of not just the city, but of his new self. He levitated himself off of the ground with no effort at all and floated to the entrance. Inside laid a portal, a purple and black swirling vortex of malevolence and hatred. Just the sound that the portal emitted was music to his ears. He decided to reach in. He reached around a few moments before he caught hold of what felt to be an arm.
As he pulled the arm revealed itself to be a giant red shaft connected to a gnarled and jagged scythe blade, he pulled harder and the vortex groaned and expanded and suddenly a giant red beast busted forth from it and plowed straight through the wall. The beast was red with black spots here and there, he had man arms and legs and an almost ant like anatomy. His head was long and his mouth was huge and lined with sharp jagged teeth and a long malevolent tongue. The beast turned to Malzahar and bowed itself as best as it could.
"I am Cho'Gath of the Void, and I am humbly at your service."