The Child of the Void
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Chapter One: Void Flower
She had been a babe who had seen divinity, had felt the frailty of lords, the might of men; had seen the truthness of history and met the benevolence of God himself, all at the age of one year, still in her cradle, bare save for a silken shroud to lie under the celestrial chart of a new year sky.
She had seen beyond the lustre of her ritual tapers and the seremonious whispers of her sisters, while her mother had carved retched runes unto her skin - of rats and plague and blood. The girl had seen death and smiled, had seen birth and wept. Her sisters had chanted for hours, raising their arms and bowing their heads to the mother of the covern, who carved a part of the babe's spirit from her heart to feed the essence of the divine.
Her innocence had ended that night, when her hair had lost its silken blonde to a withered grey; when the blue of her eyes had faded to the current of the river, to be cold and void and white.
She was to see what others could not, to see the very stars themselves fade from the horizon once a century had passed, to eventually step into the very Void itself, for that was the intention of her covern.
And so the young babe had flowered to see the northern and southern isles of the world in a foreign light: to observe reality pouring into the shattered reflection of the Void. She had learned to witness the evil of the world and accept it, saw men drowning in the rivers of the city and felt their last breath as her own. She tasted the blood of the poor in her wine and found whale bone in the nets by the southern piers, that sung in forbidden magic.
Yet after two decades of lordship then poverty, when her father had fell to dust and bone and her fortune had been taken away, she saw little use of her sisters or their rituals, deciding to fade from the world to her own fate, remembering and then forgetting what she had seen, save for a few broken words in the night - the words of a God in her ear.
But He had never left her for long. In the plague-ridden districts of Dunwall several years later, she was found lying in a ruined apartment, buried in frayed curtains and old riverboat sails, alone and far away. And when she slept, a voice called to her, one of command and severity upon the tongue. She had gotten used to His presence, had spoken to him since she was young and small. She remembered first observing his long face that never aged and the darkness of his eyes - coal that never faded, even if burned.
Her second shadow, she had often jested.
But that night he bore no smile, said no pleasentries. He spoke in vague riddles and hurried ramblings, as he paced from one end of her dream to the other, saying words she scaresly understood.
"This world tilts into the very edge of the Void," he had said, "it is becoming tainted, spoiled, as parts of the Void sink into the seams. You have seen it yourself, the frayed edges of reality, falling through your fingers like ash. Something is… coming, and you and I may change with it."
She remembered the coldness of his fingers when he drew her hand to his chest. She felt nothing. No heartbeat, no warmth, just the idle stillness of a dead man, but with it, fear.
"There is word of a woman to the south, red-eyed and searching. She goes by the name Billie Lurk. Find her before the world crumbles beneath your feet."
By dawn the child of the Void had fled the flooded districts of Dunwall to the eastern harbour, hiding the whale bones tied to her waist-belt with a long navy coat and smoothing the folds over the dirk along her thigh. With her hound by her side she boarded a passing vessel and journeyed to the isle of Serkonos to follow a rumour of an old Whaler, who searched for her lost mentor.
The rumour had led her to many places, from the marketplace of Karnaca to the mining districts, the Cyria Gardens and even to the grander tiers of the city, yet the fruitless spoils of the wealthy eventually led her to the end of her journey - to the forgotten mines of Shindaerey North Quarry.
She had heard of the mining town from her sisters, once, of the Eyeless Order that guarded the ruins with creatures born of foul magic. Only what she found were husks, corpses left to rot in the sun and to be chewed on by the rats. She regarded the dead with little interest, for men died like flies to rain, and no weeping would have brought them back.
After searching the many passageways she happened upon a peculiar sight: a statue, held in what may have been a library to the Eyeless Order. Only the statue was no ordinary statue, but that of an eye, a god, crystallised in a moment of time, never to change, and in it, the searing red blaze of power that she could not help but reach out and touch.
In an instant her vision changed. Heat stung her flesh, then receded, and all of a sudden she was transported to a place she knew all to well.
The Void.
No word within the modern tongue could do it justice; no description could render it accurately; no painter could replicate the blues of its vale, nor the shades of violet in its sails; no mistro could imitate the heart-rending moans of a leviathan song so perfectly than the Void itself, for to do so was beyond mortal capability. It remained the most beautiful wonderment that mortal accomplishments would never meet, a place rarly seen by the living, only by the dead.
But Francesca had seen it, had witnessed the canvas of ocean starlight and gleaming lanterns, of the violet shrouds flowing from floating isles in a windless current, and the stolen moments suspended in time, all in her dreams.
Yet, the Void she was in now was nothing like her dreams.
Walking that she was, she could sense that something within the underworld was different. Nothing so simple to point out but there was something amiss.
The images the Void projected were arbitrary, it was true, but the very weight of the gravity, usually a light, fleeting feeling, was heavier, harsher.
The air was far colder than it should have been, drafty in fact, as if she were placed inside the mouth of a cave. It set the hairs on the nape of her neck alight, far different to the instant drowsy indolence that the realm mimicked to any who came upon it, usually by soft tones or the deep moans of the sea.
Yet, there was no gentle lustre to the realm, only rough detail, accompanied by unsettling silence. The grim-lit flagstone she walked - the twisted passageways she wandered were but a pale imitation of what had been a great temple; nothing other than cracked flagstone of a rippling memory: black, grey and faded at the edges as the Void attempted to fill in what it could not bleed from time.
She followed the tracks of another, used the bones of whales as her guide. Each time her steps were led astray, the thrum of the bones would die on her belt. But when the bones sensed the presence of the Other, her chest would flutter in an unsteady beat, and the runes dyed into the ivory would glow from the black ink like a beacon, highlighting the stairways or inclines… up and up… to the Whaler.
She bounded down vacant roads, up winding stairways and even higher cliffs, her white hair uncurling from the bun, flaying like thick strands of rope caught in the wind. The bone charms rattled like a tiny storm had been captured inside each one, conflicting with the rapid rhythm of her heart, beating her breasts black.
Despite the pain the witch surged onward, scrabbling up the missing broken bricks of a long, shattered wall, the smaller rocks digging into her knees. When she finally reached the summit, she found her breath stolen and returned in ragged gasps, her chest heaving and sweat smearing the dust from her brow. But no feeling she felt could have rivalled the view before her.
She stared with hooded eyes into the land lain beneath the ridge - straight into the horizon, where there was the scorched corpse of a city, suspended and ancient, forgotten and lost.
How clearly she saw it.
The sundered towers were the pointed pinnacles of the ribs, the wooden ramparts were the rotting muscle - black and festered; the great metal machines were the armour, protecting and constricting the unnecessary, shedding flesh. It was all bound tight under an arched roof of stone, holding the ruin and all the lost souls contained within.
Light bled from narrow apertures within it, but instead of bathing a honeyed radiance, it provided a sullen, unfeeling haze that merely parted shadows. She cast her hand out upon one such light, only to find that she felt no warmth from it, only a sickening cold that had little rival. Her white eyes barely adjusted to the corners of darkness away from such light, spotting the edges of her vision.
When her sight had adjusted to the difference, she saw them: cultists of the Eyeless Order, true in their form, not rotting meat sacks. Yet again, even in the Void, most were not alive but dead; soulless husks left as statues all throughout the ruins. A few fortunate lay snoring in quiet coves far from the path. The rest had been inbedded into the rock faces, their blood left to seep into the floor.
She did not look at them, could not stomach the sight of their unblemished faces even after death, or their fine suits, frayed at the seams but other than that fine detail, utterly unspoilt. Even the air smelled of lavender perfume with a hint of oxrush flower. It only brought up memories she had preferred forgotten.
That was until she saw the boy.
He was a small, scrawny thing with barely any clothing on his back to be anything different to the rats by his feet. How they found refuge in the Void at all was beyond her, but the boy must have used that same way.
Bending over slightly to see him closer, the witch frowned upon spying the many scratches covering his arms: bloodied and bruised under the flickering radiance of ritual tapers. He continued to rock in the corner of his rusted cage, knees tucked to his chest and a tuft of dark hair shrouding his face from sight.
She quietly knelt to the floor, touched the ground with a finger. She closed her eyes and felt the form of the boy react to her magic; flickering, fading at the edges. He was a memory.
The boy shivered, then slowly peered up.
There was a darkness to his eyes, one that swallowed the entirety of them save for a dim, white shine.
"Do I know you, boy?" she whispered, tilting her face ever so slightly to see him more clearly.
Yes, she did indeed know him from somewhere, yet found it difficult to put a name to the face. Rat Boy may have been appropiate, considering the thin, pointed nose, jutted cheekbones and taut jowls he had. He only needed whiskers and a tail, the ears were large enough on their own.
The Rat Boy did not respond with words. Instead, a small white rat scratched its way up his torn trouser leg, faltering at the cap of his knees where it waited for his hand to pet it. The boy stroked it behind the ears before reaching through the iron railing of his cage, rat in hand. It was there he kept his hand still, often glancing between it and her, as if in offering.
The witch hesitated, halfway reaching for the boy, then pulling back. After some thought she cupped her hands, bridging the gap between them and allowing the rodent to pounce over her fingers. Once on her, it curled its long tail around its body and sat on its hind legs, still staring unquestionably at the boy, but nestled rather comfortably on her.
The Rat Boy smiled at that, cracked teeth not quite reaching the cheekbone. His small hand drifted west and the rat's focus shifted. He did not need to speak on the gesture. The witch understood.
She regarded the child one last time with a wry smile and placed the white rat on a stone step, leaving the Rat Boy in his cage to follow his pet through the Void.
The rat guided her through old houses split open like river crusts, the rifts between so narrow that even slipping through sidewards barely made much of a difference. By the vales of translucent webbing and ancient marks enscripted into the stone, there was no mistaking the fact that no one had trodden through such a place in a very long time. Most would have been suspicious.
Not her. She rarely gave her trust to men, but to rats, she trusted the vermin completely, following the white one as it scurried along the cracked brick and hollow drain pipes scattered across the flagstone, until they finally met the light on the other side.
And at the heart of that light was a stairway, high and crumbled, but raised in such a way that mere mortals would tremble upon its sight. There were bodies petrified by the first step, fools who had sought power from the divine, only to find eternal imprisonment.
She knew she was different.
She walked towards the stairway but the rat did not follow. Francesca wished to bay it goodbye, but when she turned, she saw the Rat Boy smiling in the distance, with his pet perched happily over his left shoulder.
And so she dared to follow the stairway into the light, feeling a cold weight release its clutch from her soul, only for a colder, harsher weight to replace it. The foreign view before her only unnerved her more.
The Heart of the Void: the heart of time was a sea of decay with leviathans drifting in the sky. There was everything but there was also nothing, grey mist drowning the horizons, with only a kingdom of stone crowning the centre. It was the resting place of a God, yet the God was a thrall to it.
Everything was created from here, she realised, peering down at her own reflection in the murky water. Kneeling down, dipping her hands into the surface, Francesca pressed the cool liquid to her lips, only to spit the substance out, having tasted the horrid tang of warm blood.
The Void is wrong here. This isn't how it should be.
The bone charms began to hammer her chest in a much harder, erratic rhythm. Knowing she was close, Francesca wiped the blood from her mouth and descended into the water, purging through the ocean towards the kingdom of stone.
And when she finally reached the epicentre, her feet faltered. Her lips parted for a quivering breath.
A man. A body. A being lain across stark stone: his hair ash, his skin pale sand. There were shards, glimmering like mirrors scattered all around him. It reminded her of a summoning, a ritual, only lacking candles and the moans of the damned. It was beautiful.
The witch peeked around the stone hall, finding only weeping spirits in her wake. She gingerly took a step forward, then another and another, closing in on the foreign man who became ever more familiar.
"By the Void," she whispered, falling down upon the earth and folding her arms around him. She drew his head onto her knees and begun to stroke prescious locks from his cheeks. It took her a moment to realise that something was amiss.
He breathed, chest rising and falling in time with the currents of the bloodied ocean. His snores were that of the deep, rumbling like the leviathans guarding such a sanctuary. But magic did not radiate from him in a tingling warmth.
There was warmth to him, but it was… mortal.
He was Mortal.
"So, you're the one who's been following me."
In a sudden motion, a blade had been unsheathed from her thigh, glinting silver in the shadow. Along the chest of the man the blade rested, but in the reflection was a whaler dressed in a crimson raiment.
"You're from the isles of Pandyssia," the witch murmured, tilting her dirk to catch the whaler more clearly. "Everyone from there is the same, hum of old magic. You carry history on your back, possibilities on your breath, hopes on your tongue, but you know this world will never grant you tranquility."
She frowned, sniffing the air. "You smell like death and sea. You carry the murk on your boots, you hold the eye of the god of old. You are the whaler I have come for, Billie Lurk."
Francesca peeked up, finding the whaler had drawn her own sword, dipping it under her chin. "And you've been following me. How long?"
"Long enough. But I'm not here for you anymore," Francesca said, frowning down at the man in her arms. "You know who he is. The Outsider. He appears the same, feels the same, but he is… changed, weaker. What have you done to him?"
Billie Lurk for a moment did not answer, dadding to stare down upon the god with a flicker of pity. She withdrew her sword, allowing the blade to rest by her thigh. "I gave him what no one else could. I gave him peace."
"Peace?" Francesca blinked, the concept foreign to her. "He was a God. He sewed the very foundations of magic, he breathed truth into a world too lost to accept such a gift. He was knowing and wise, and you made him into… this?"
A tear slipped down her cheek, fresh and salty against her quivering lip. "He's a god no more."
"And he's better for it," Billie whispered, folding her arms. "He was never given a choice. All people die eventually. I think he knew that, probably better than anyone else. At least he has a chance to live as he would have wanted. Not many get a second chance."
"He will die on his own. This world is poor on those that have been apart from it. It would have been better if you slit his throat."
"Sometimes mercy cuts deeper than any knife."
From her lap the once-god begun to stir, raising a hand to his brow and groaning. When his eyes parted, Francesca saw mortal brown, not an opal that consumed centuries. Her heart stung from such a sight. Her fingers twitched against his hair, feeling nervous, shaken.
The Outsider smiled, a wry smile that did not quite reach hollow cheeks. His hand reached up, curled around her own cheek, wiped a tear from her eyes.
"Do not fear," he mouthed, curling a white strand behind her ear.
He was new to her, similar and foreign. A man who once knew the hearts of the cruelest of men. A man who once knew the futures of many. And yet his smile was genuine, free, wise but careless for he no longer knew the future, no longer knew her fate.
Francesca closed her eyes, caging any emotion that dared the surface. "Then, what do we do now?"