A/N My submission for Syvia's fic-challenge. My challenge was to write about evolved Dumah and to make particular reference to the sense of smell. Somehow, given the subject matter, I think doing a comedy might have been easier Anyway, here is my take on why the humans were able to overpower the Dumahim and why, when Raziel finally gets to his stronghold in Soul Reaver, he finds no front door.
Disclaimer: Dumah belongs to Crystal Dynamics and I get nada out doing of this, except for fun. Reference for Dumah's appearance taken from pictures of the unreleased prototype figure on the excellent Lost Worlds site, whose address stubbornly refuses to appear.
Descending into Hell
Captured. Caught fast by one of the stone-men. You struggle desperately, like a mouse caged in a fist of granite, until the fist closes and you can struggle no more. Roped together, you are led back through the mountain pass.Red eyes glare at you from the rough-carved faces, guttural cries issuing from mouths like fissures in the rocks, but the words make no sense to human ears. They drive you up the path to the fortress, the forbidden place that no one has ever seen. The place where death awaits.
There is no door into the Dumahim City. Its walls rise high and featureless, their polished surfaces impossible to climb, though surely, no one would be so mad as to seek entry to this place. The legends say the Lord had ordered the doorway blocked up, his vampire warriors smashing the gates and hauling great lumps of granite across the threshold on the very evening they broke all the crystal and cast the mirrors out. All through the night they had toiled, the mountains echoing with the thin, brittle sounds of their destruction and their wrath, and then, silence. Acres and acres of broken glass, a frozen sea of crystal set lapping at the blank walls of the vampire fortress. By day, no human could bear to look upon it, the light of the sun so blinding that the fortress could not be seen, but it was still there, and deep inside, cloistered within its walls, the Lord was still hungry. Every night, they came to raid the villages and every night, they brought their prisoners back, the sea of glass, shimmering before them, like water under the cold winter moon. The tinkling, crystal fields reflected everything, the anguished faces of the captives who trudged across it to their doom and the hideous faces of their captors, who, the legends told, had once been beautiful. They had made them crawl then, the condemned, made them crawl into Hell on bleeding hands and feet until eventually, the sea of glass was turned to red and the reflections were no more.
But that was long ago, so long, that now, no one knows if it is even true. The path you tread is velvet, dappled white with snow and grey with ash. The black and white flakes fall softly all around you and twirl together in the frigid air, until you are so hypnotized by their dance that you forget to be afraid. That's when you smell it, the first, faint tang that tells you something unspeakable lies ahead, a cloying stench that even now, is poisoning the sweetness of the mountain air. You can't identify it at first, or perhaps, your mind is seeking to protect you, refusing to identify it. For surely, there could not be so many dead? Closer you trudge, and even in this frozen waste, the stench of the charnel house reaches out to greet you. Stronger and stronger it grows, making you gag and retch as you are marched finally, to the base of the fortress walls.
And the legends were right. There is no door.
You look up, amazed just as you are suddenly seized and thrown over the shoulder of your captor and the ladders are lowered to let them in. The first few prisoners are simply thrown from the top of the wall. Mercifully, you cannot see this, but you can still hear their screams and the sickening crunch as their bodies hit the ground below. Your heart is in your throat, and you struggle in desperate panic as your captor reaches the top of the wall. The order is given to stop. That, you do understand. The prisoners are not to be broken. Not yet. The Lord wants his meat alive.
In the courtyard, others are waiting, every bit as monstrous as the fiend that caught you. They look unreal, their bodies hard and jagged like stones, as if some giant hand had hewn them roughly from the mountain and then lost interest before the work was complete. They are lumpy and shapeless, with no discernable difference between the males and females. As one, their heads turn to follow you, their eyes burning red in the darkness as you are led slowly past. You are not for them. Their mouths open slightly, and as the gates start to close behind you, they let out a soft groan, a mournful sound full of hunger and of loss.
You are led further in and the stench grows worse. You can see what causes it now, the rotting corpses, hung from every golden gate and railing, the stagnant pools of blood that deface the fine carvings on the floors. By the time you reach the throne room, your senses are overloaded and the stench has gained an almost physical presence, tearing at your mind as you try not to comprehend what you have seen, try not to think of the fate that lies just ahead.
At last, you reach the golden doors, spattered with blood and streaked with gore, like everything else in this accursed place. Your captors pause and two of their number come forward to place their shoulders against the tarnished gold. Agonisingly slowly, the doors swing open to reveal the Lord himself.
Dumah sits upon his throne, dressed in his armour, as he always is, his massive helm laid down by his side.
You look up. Even seated, he towers above you. His face is different from that of his childer, for terrible as it is, it still bears some trace of his human origins. He even has hair, a tangled, matted mane that stands stiffly out from the back of his head. Upon his brow, the Dumahim symbol has been carved twice into his flesh, the blackened wounds streaked with ash and still oozing blood and soot. Dumah had been trying to remember who he was. He had written it, lest he forget. Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter now.
"Blood!" He roars.
And the windows rattle, shaken by the gale that is his voice.
"Bring… me… blood!"
You are pushed forward, and for the first time, you notice the fear in your captors' eyes. They step back hurriedly, and Dumah roars again.
"Stop!"
They cower before him and the stench of their fear assails you, a stench you realize, that had been there all along, strong and cold, terrifying, and more powerful even than the warm reek of decay that had enveloped you earlier, a chill presence that is all pervading.
Fear rules here.
Dumah sits upon the throne but it is Fear who is truly Lord.
Dumah does not see you.
He is looking around the room, eyes darting furtively into every corner, searching constantly for the threat that's never there, the threat he still feels, even though he has done everything to protect himself from them.
Them… They…
"Who is that?" He muses.
Who is it that haunts the edges of his dreams, steals into the shadows of every room and watches him?
"Who?"
Not Melchiah, the weakling, hiding underground for centuries now, peeling and pooling into a puddle of filth. Not him.
Zephon? Dear Zephon, caught fast in a web of his own making.
Or Rahab, the little fish? Locked in his fortress and circling his little pool.
No, none of them.
None of them has the power to hurt him.
Which leaves... Turel.
But Turel is gone. Vanished long ago and disappeared without trace.
Or has he simply learned to hide, cloaking himself in the shadows, so he can sneak and pry? Biding his time, until he can strike the final blow?
Turel hates him. Turel hated them all.
Dumah peers into the shadows, oblivious to the trembling courtiers and their meagre offering of flesh.
He calls out into the darkness.
"Turel! Is that you? Have you come to me at last? Come out!"
His voice echoes around the chamber and then dies.
Dumah's voice sinks to a whisper.
"Come out, I command you. I grow weary of this game."
The courtiers look down and shuffle. They have seen this drama too many times before, and still, they don't know how it's going to end.
And somewhere, wandering lost in the labyrinth of his memories, Dumah finds him. Drags his duplicitous brother out into the open and forces him to kneel upon the carpet at his feet.
Turel looks up, his eyes uncertain, that arrogant face just beginning to show the first faltering signs of concern and he asks the question, the one he always asks…
"Brother? … Are you… getting taller?"
And Dumah laughs a high-pitched giggle that is completely at variance with his massive form. He hugs his knees and he rocks, back and forth, like some huge demon-child playing on his father's chair.
Laughs at a joke no one else can hear, talks to a person no one else can see, and laughs, and laughs and laughs.
Of all the things Dumah has lost, it is his mind he misses least.
The laughter stops.
The vampire Lord stands up, towering over the prisoners and his assembled minions in unexpected pride and majesty.
He looks down at his misshapen childer and acknowledges them with a slight incline of his head. Then, he turns his attention to the gift they have brought him.
His eyes are alive now, intelligent and cruel. His senses restored, momentarily, by the irresistible compulsion of the thirst.
He looks down at you and his dark lips draw back into a smile, malevolent and hungry. He stretches out a hand, his massive claws, ivory once, now dulled and stained with blood.
His claw is pointing at you.
Dumah laughs, a low chuckle of anticipation that is now, horribly sane.
"Step forward, morsel."