A/N:
To Ellie: i hope you got my meaningless ramblings:) hope you keep reading&reviewing:D i'm full of hope today:D
To HopeK: you're the best, you know that?
To FitMama: thanks a bunch:) your encouraging reviews mean a lot to me:)
To Maria: actually i'm a little scared myself:D thanks for the great review;)
Wow, you guys are actually liking this. Thanks to all the readers and reviewers...your support keeps the muse on track and the chapters coming. Chocolate bunnies for all to munch on while R&R-ing! Enjoy!
P.S.: I get not men...and i write crappy fight scenes...life is sad...
Some say that the rite of passage is one of the most formidable experiences the human being can undergo. But it is death that our faith considers to be the greatest transformation of all. Life is nothing but a dark, absorbing vortex of anguish and despair, filled with brief intervals of false hope and empty joy. Life is an accident, an error bound in flesh and saturated in blood. It is antagonistic and vain. Death…eternal and absolute. Inevitable and final. And towards this final end we drew now closer. I had accepted the poison accelerated destiny the woman of the Mark had imposed on me. With my Necromonger soul, I embraced the vision of the other 'verse and the reality of our last transformation.
However...
There was no flash of light in which I could recall the events of my prior existence, meaningless as it were. No faces of the crying victims – of the unfaithful – that I had brought under the sword of my newly acquired religion. No judgement. No soul-shriveling regrets. Not even all consuming pain. I did, however, envision the questioning face of Lady Gwendolen , her blonde kitty-like face that my wife abhorred so much. My wife… Her voice had faded in me during my transgression. My body, lax from the poison, could not now remember her fiery touches. Nor did my soul long for her. It was…as if I never even existed. Death was dull.
At last, after what seemed a lifetime of excruciating non-existential boredom, there was a light. My whole being soared to the opportunity. I dutifully followed the beacon signalizing the much craved for experience…only to find it haling the ship's incoming descent. Much to my chagrin, I was alive upon my wakening. And so were the two Breeders aboard the small vessel. The emergency system that had fished me from the depths of my uneventful slumber had apparently activated when the previously plotted course was no longer sustainable. So much for our smooth transition to the Dark New Worlds. We were literally crashing into the Underverse.
There was a lot of commotion that I could detect as I lay half awake, but preternaturally aware of my surroundings. The Breeders were fastening seatbelts, hitting buttons, running diagnostics and checking trajectories. The woman seemed erratic in her movements, almost on the brink of a full-fledged panic attack, but I knew enough of Breeder pilots to interpret her actions correctly. Instinct increases efficiency. Automatic responses mean less time to think about the impending collision. A good pilot knows it is not the fall that kills you…
"It's the sudden stop at the bottom."
That rumbling voice shall haunt me till Underverse comes. I prayed for the ship to crash faster. But I could not refrain myself from saying:
"Are you a mind reader, Lord Marshal?"
Might as well find that out, before I die.
"Heh. It's been known to happen."
Between the executions of two rather pointless commands, the woman, Carolyn I think was her name, addressed me in the same condescending manner as before:
"Well, it's nice to see you made it, Commander. Sleep good?"
I was lying on a cold metal floor with blood flowing from me and poison coursing through my veins. My stiff body growled of its own accord.
"Apparently not as good as you." Riddick muttered silently.
There was a rather abrupt left turn I thought the ship wasn't even capable of doing anymore. I almost toppled over to the other side and connected my skull with the hard wall. I cursed furiously under my breath and verbally lashed out at the mad pilot.
"Woman, were did you learn to fly like that?!"
"Why, Vaako, am I scaring you?" and she turned her eyes to me.
They captured the metallic, grayish reflection of the ship's inner walls and the light flickering off my armor. Her hair was ablaze against the reddish flames licking at the main viewer as the ship sped up and burned in the atmosphere. Stormy blue and liquid gold. A sickening combination. And, for a moment, nothing was said, nothing was heard. Truthfully, she was scaring me.
"Good."
The engines roared in my ears once more and my bowels would have emptied but for the hollowness of my being. Riddick was the patient observer of all of this. To my altered train of thoughts, his body had been molded as a giant recorder, an organic depositary of minute details he could wield gently or use lethally. He sees everything…
We crashed.
Cryosleep is so underrated, I thought as I woke for the second time around. I could distinguish a steady thumping in my ears that I identified as a pulse…and then two…and then…three. The sharp click of unfastened seatbelts was a million heated metal shards through my skull and every breath had a gravel-like quality to the sound.
Things are real only if you believe in them.
Pain is real only if you believe in it…
But so is fidelity…
Loyalty until Underverse comes.
Someone opened the hatch and my avid nostrils took in the scented air coming in. Musk, sweat, the sweetness of decrepit flowers and something that smells like it crawled out of a swamp. Very…earthly.
Carolyn makes firm contact with my armpit where the armor is vulnerable. The tip of her boot is insulting.
"Wake up, Sleeping Ugly!"
When I finally open my eyes, her upright figure is larger than life. There is a fresh cut across her chest. It bleeds in solitude, uncared for. Suddenly, I am hyper-aware of her every bodily odor…and surprised to find out she has virtually none, but for a vague intake of antiseptic and the hint of rusty copper her blood gave off. There was a tightening in my muscles that she must have caught whiff of 'cause she jumps back with pred-like ease. How curious that the fear should only graze the surface before it completely leaves her features alone, supplanted by a mock grin.
"Whoow there, little pup!"
I spring up and move threateningly towards her retreating figure. This is my territory. I am a Necromonger of the Underverse. I am The Necromonger. She catches on to that thought and inexplicably smirks. There is a side of her that would gladly watch me die by her own hands and yet she backs off and stays her weapons. We are on the ramp, her retreating, I advancing. There are voices outside that I do not bother to hear. But her voice forces itself upon me:
"You know what they say, Vaako, if you can't lower heaven…Raise. Hell!"
I lounge at her with a feral cry, only to stumble into him.
"Riddick!"
We are both too close for comfort. He has fathomless quick silver eyes. But I have an armor.
The two of us bitter men on the darkest side of the 'verse, he, an animal, I, not quite human myself.
I had once admired his flawless fighting style. Fluid. Unstoppable. Unmovable. Precise. Instinctual. Intelligent. Deadly. What a paradox this man is. Still…
I think…I think I'm going to enjoy this.
Among the Necromonger warriors I was a feared and respected fighter. My superior strength was however an asset I preferred not to use in combat, unless a dire situation called for it. Unlike for the others of my faith, it was still an acquired trait, something foreign that I had yet to master completely. It was like a skin I could not shed and which thickened with every brawl. Weapons were of much greater use. I was an excellent marksman and axe-wielder. But this was not an armor-burdened Necromonger, nor a panic-stricken opponent, fueled by pure nerves only, that I was fighting. Riddick was a wild animal, a predator by nature, a killer by design. He was manipulative and would most definitely twist my advantages to his use. I had witnessed his prowess during the fight in Necropolis, when he delivered the final blow to a beast I could have only wounded. And there was, of course, the other issue…
"Come on, boys, put on a good show for me!"
And the words seemed to come from a thousand Carolyns around us. The fetid air and yellowish fumes cleared the stage for our performance and the Hunter who chanced to be a Breeder was our thousand-faces audience. I could feel Riddick closing off to her resonating presence. This was not her fight. She would not intervene.
We circle around each other for a while, to buy some time to think. My mistake. In a fight, hit first and hit hard. The slightly coiled close quarters stance Riddick was sporting generates a powerful strike. The animal is gaining in on me, cutting up little pieces of its prey, even as I sway and turn with ever increasing speed. To let the spirit take precedence over the flesh could be my salvation now, though I am countering every offence. We are well into our first minute of fighting and I haven't connected with his body yet, while his attacks grow stronger, faster, more aggressive. Brutality is however kept at bay. He deems me not such a worthy adversary and that thought alone enrages me enough to draw his blood. The force of the impact leaves both of us a little unbalanced. We stop long enough for me to acknowledge that there is no respect between us and fear is one-sided. And that he is in complete control. Of body and soul. Both of which are mine.
His flickering eyes hold a grip more vicious than any imprisonment.
"Just for the record, Vaako, I ain't the one who's not committed to our little one on one."
Why, the insolent son of a….
Something erupts out of me, sheds its stiff confinement and lounges at him, quartering my opponent into a more defensive stance. My hands have him before my flesh even touches his.
"If you're so smart, how come you're dead with me on stillborn planet?" I grit between clenched teeth.
In my grasp, the Breeder snickers:
"Sex deprivation…"
Riddick has me flat on my back in less than five seconds. The blow he administered could do fatal damage to my nerves if he keeps applying pressure.
"But you…you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? My guess's you're getting a lil' too much of that fine scaly ass! Everyone has the right of being stupid, Vaako, but, truthfully, you abuse the privilege!"
And just as fast as he overpowered me, I was let free.
"Never should've bowed to a man who has all of your lives to risk! Now get up and wise the fuck up!"
My mind is once again assaulted by the memory of Lady Gwendolen's determined face and the words that marked our last encounter:
"We will be different men upon our return…"
"You will have returned to a different place…"
Surely, her support of Riddick as Lord Marshal did not go that far...surely she was no match for my wife. Our plan was most carefully devised. She assured me that upon my return from the Hollowed Grounds, the faithful will side with our cause: a Breeder that inspires Fear could only smother our Holy Faith. We do it for the Faith…were her very words. And those who would not join forces would be shown no mercy. There is no mercy for the weak…those were my words. Could his power be so great that he could deal a fatal blow to our religion even from light years away? I was in awe.
"What are your intentions?" I rasp out.
"Say something badass, do something badass and get the fuck outta here. Why, what are yours?"
He is sly. He would have me torment myself over the true meaning of his words.
"Stay alive."
I mean that. He should know.
"First you gotta get a life."
And this, coming from an outcast, a hunted man, ushered into adulthood by the countless bodies he left behind. I would laugh, but I fail to see the sense in his words. I always have, ever since I was a child, unable to comprehend the pleasure those around me shared in living in quiet desperation. My loyalty had a palpable God. My God had traveled to the gates of the Underverse and returned the Holy Half Dead. Riddick is no God. And, yet, he kept what he killed.
"Your life is with those you know. My life is with the one I love. None of us can change that." I say as I finally stand up.
He looks me dead in the eyes and rumbles:
"Both of us got somethin' to lose. So you better know who you got left behind. That's Death Row out there" he says pointing towards the darkness ahead of us "and if you're not ready…you're no use to me."
"And if you're no use to him, then you should get busy dying. In the most extraordinarily stupid way. He might actually like you then."
The woman has returned. The crimson mark on her chest is beginning to annoy me.
"Look to that, will you!" I mutter as I pass her by.
"He's just jealous mine's bigger than his." I hear her impart to Riddick behind my back. "By the way, where is his?"
So it was Riddick who did that to her… Wonder why he didn't finish her off…wonder why he didn't finish me off… Afraid he might actually do it next time… when we are not being of use to him…
You know, there is a face looking at me. It looks like a Quasi-Dead. There are more of them. Looking at me. At us. And I find myself strangely drawn to their familiar faces. One of them actually blows a kiss at me. The great puddle of darkness around us shimmers and the fumes dance around their rakes like wet shrouds.
"Wondering …
…about us…
…resisting…
…trying to shut us out…"
"Wondering …
…about us…
…resisting…
…trying to shut us out…"
Over and over again.
Kill The Breeders!
I shut my eyes...