Outside Influences

She paused at the bottom of a ridge, bent over and breathing heavily. A flat expanse of rock extended to her east and the ridge rose over her head to the west. She didn’t see anyone, although she was sure that the cultists must have been exploring the ridge. She’d just run through it, taking advantage of the sparse forest of scrubby coniferous trees for cover. If they were still looking for a cave in there she guessed that it would take them a while.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll find a real cave system and spend all day wandering around in them, lost.

Bel caught her breath and stood up, surveying her options. There weren’t many, but she decided to run east to take advantage of the flat terrain and put some distance between herself and the scene of her attack. Without their ruined dowsing rods she could hopefully slip away from the trackers, at least until they got another set and a person who could use them to track her. If she was lucky, she would find a way back into Satrap by then.

Bel headed off to the east at her fastest stumble, cursing her tight and cramping legs as she went.

It was only a few hundred strides before she found came upon a steep incline in the rock. Bel glanced back, verifying that she hadn’t attracted any pursuit, and half-slid, half-walked down and out of view.

She straightened her back and stretched, popping a few of her aching joints.

“You little shit.”

Bel spun, slashing with her stolen knife, but the stranger calmly caught her arm. He squeezed until she gasped with pain; her dagger fell from her numb fingers, ringing like a bell as it clattered away, leaving her once again defenseless.

For a moment Bel thought that it was Nebamon, but he was either dead or stuck on the other side of the Barrier. Her current adversary could have almost been his twin, though. He was missing the mustache, but he had the same self-important smirk on his face.

Bel knew it was hopeless, but she went on the attack. What else could she do?

She had regained enough mana for a quick glare, which she followed up with a headbutt to man’s nose. He grunted, but the ringing in her head made Bel think that she’d come out worse. A quick application of minor body modification and her coagulation abilities staunched the flow of blood coming from the forehead.

“Stop,” the man snarled, but Bel swung her left fist at his face.

He shoved her backwards, forcefully enough that she barely stayed on her feet. Running would be pointless so Bel stepped forward again.

The Nebamon lookalike hopped backwards, easily dodging the awkward swing of her fists. His leg flashed out, catching her in the shin and sweeping her leg from under her. She fell to her knees and cried out in pain as something tore. Bel looked up at him and hissed, her snakes joining in to create an intimidating chorus of hatred.

In a single spinning motion, the man drew his sword and slashed it through the air. It moved like a flash of light, faster than she could track. Bel felt pain explode across her face. Several somethings fell across her hands as she clutched at her left eye.

“I only need you alive,” the swordsman spat, “not unharmed.”

Bel through her right eye at the severed heads of three of her snakes, numb with shock. Blood ran down her face, and her vision blurred.

No, I can’t just roll over here.

She grit her teeth and stared up with an expression full of determination and righteous fury.

Her attacker struck her in the side of the head, hard enough that she saw stars before her vision went to black.

Time passed after that, but Bel had difficulty keeping track of it. She was moving, but not under her own power. It was too difficult to think of anything, and things were changing too quickly for her to follow them anyway.

Or maybe I’m passing out too often to follow what’s happening? she wondered groggily.

Eventually, she was tossed into the sand while several people paused to have a loud conversation. Their words were like the grinding of a millstone set against her head, slowly wearing her down. She cracked open her eye – the right one – and saw that she was in the desert, at the base of a small mountain.

She stared, waiting for her vision to focus.

No, not a mountain, a pyramid.

James had told her about shapes. Pyramids were a shape. Bel tried to remember anything else about them, but her mind was too busy spinning. Instead she stared at the layers of shining metals that wrapped around the highest points.

She was just starting to feel like she had to throw up when someone reached down and hoisted her into the air again. She passed out from the sudden motion.

Bel awoke to a haze of pain. Had that Nebamon clone… killed her?

Bel reached up to feel her head, but her arm stopped partway there.

She looked down to see that she was restrained, her arms bolted to the floor. Her eyes were sticky with dried blood, so she tried to force them open, but squeezed them shut instead when her left eye burned with agony. She slowly opened her right eye instead, but a crust of something still covered her eyelid, obscuring her vision. Her hands were both shackled, so she blinked furiously to clear her sight.

A whimper of pain escaped her lips as she attempted to shift her position. Her ankles were also bound, and her muscles were cramped from her unnatural kneeling position. Her vision finally cleared enough that she could look around, but the sight made her wish that she’d stayed asleep instead.

She’d been caught by the Dark Ravager’s people and dragged back to the seat of his power. She was sure of that, because a creature that had to be the Dark Ravager himself scuttled around before her. He wasn’t insect-like; he was simply an insect. A large one, as large as a riding lizard, with a dark, iridescent carapace. His mouth parts moved continually, dark robed priests swaying out of his way as he moved about the room touching and stroking glowing symbols with his forelegs.

Bel could feel his power from several strides away, the world seeming to bend towards him like he was the most important thing in existence. Kjar’s Vision made him glow like a deep sea creature, as if the goddess wanted to be sure that Bel noticed how wrong and guilty he was.

Thanks Kjar, but there’s not much I can do about it.

Bel watched numbly as the large insect went about his work. After a small eternity of suffering, he turned to her.

“Ah, you are awake little spirit,” he hissed. “Feel jubilation! You shall complete my ascension to godhood!” His carapace fluttered with excitement.

“I’m not really a spirit,” Bel croaked.

The gigantic beetle made a horrible, ear shrinking noise that Bel realized was his version of a laugh, if laughs were built out of fingernails on slate and the suffering of small children.

“I can feel the blood of a greater spirit in your veins, little thing. I can nearly taste it.” His mouth parts moved hungrily before he turned from her and gave instructions to his clergy in a horrible, grating language. Bel wished that she could simply pass out again, but her biology refused, her mind forced to full vigilance by a pulse of adrenaline.

The moment she laid eyes upon the Dark Ravager she knew that she was meant to kill him. Just as much as Technis, the giant insect was guilty and deserved death.

Bel wanted to laugh, but instead she slumped forward, her weight restrained by the shackles that bound her to the floor. Why would Kjar – she had a feeling that all the judgement and death in her thoughts were Kjar’s doing – why would the goddess of corporal punishment send Bel after an unascended god? What could happen other than Bel getting herself captured and killed?

Now she was obviously in some kind of ritual sacrifice; a ring of glowing green symbols radiated from her position out to a four sided figure etched into the stone floor. Red lines cut through the shape, forming a triangle that divided the other shapes into four regions, and surrounding it all was a circle of purple flames. The priests stood on the outside, some passing various tools to the Dark Ravager while others poured different dusts and liquids in to the ring of purple fire.

It was all very dramatic. She was sure that her brother would say something about special effects.

Bel withered. Would her brother even know what happened to her? Would Beth? Would the Dark Ravager destroy everyone when he ascended? Or would he be barred from affecting the mortal world directly? She hoped that whatever rules prevented her patrons from handling things themselves would similarly restrain the evil insect.

“Sorry for the delay, but the gods forbid this type of thing,” he explained jubilantly. “I’ll accept their complaints in person soon enough. They expect us to be patient, but I, I am a creature of action!”

His body remained eerily still as the giant insect examined her. “If you understood anything at all of the work around you then I am certain you would be impressed by my ingenuity, little spirit. Luckily for me, my carapace is mirrored enough that I may see my own beauty without the need to rely upon another’s eyes.”

His carapace split open and his forelegs spread into the air; lightning spat from his limbs into the floor, flowed along the red lines and into Bel’s restraints. She screamed as the power coursed through her. It left her body just as quickly as it entered, leaving her a quivering mess. The energy leaped into the air above Bel’s body and ripped reality open as easily as a knife parting flesh.

The beetle opened its mouth wide and shouted into the abyss, “I shall consume both you and your progenitor! I will ascend to the space beyond worlds!”

The tear exploded into chaos; flames arced, ice blasted, sand poured, water whipped, and more, but none of it could leave the angry red lines inscribed into the floor as Dutcha’s form manifested from the chaos. Bel couldn’t perceive the body of the divine spirit, but instead saw hints of her outline by way the elements flowed around her shape. Bel recalled her vague impression of the spirit from her fragmented memory, gleeful and wanton while they were discussing Bel’s contract. She seemed angry now, her mighty powers insufficient to break from the Dark Ravager’s cage.

The evil beetle cackled. “Excellent!”

Dutcha’s body condensed into a figure of burning stone, three strides tall. “Oh wow,” she said. She sounded cheerful to Bel, her attitude completely incongruous with their situation.

The Dark Ravager flitted his wings in triumph. “I will–”

Dutcha held up a burning hand. “Sure thing, buddy! But first, this is sure a nice summoning circle you’ve got set up here. You wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it, wouldja?”

“What–”

Dutcha leaned down to Bel. “Sorry baby, this is gonna sting.” The spirit formed a long blade from one of her fingers and sliced into Bel’s arms. A steady trickle of blood drizzled onto the stone floor.

The Dark Ravager’s limbs twitched with undisguised rage. “You dare–”

“Oh, hush. Don’t yell at me; this was her auntie’s plan. Take it up with her.”

Dutcha swiped her hand through the pooling blood and used it to draw a circle in the air faster than Bel could blink. The circle ignited and enlarged to fill the height of the chamber. The burning circle bulged and warped, and the world seemed to pause for a long moment. Then a figure emerged from its center, growing larger and larger like they were rapidly travelling from a great distance.

Bel immediately felt a pressure form around her head as the figure pushed through the surface of the portal.

Moments before she had thought that the Dark Ravager had a pull on reality, but the feeling she felt from the new figure was orders of magnitude greater. The air moved, light bent, and Bel even felt herself pulled toward the open portal the moment a sandal-wrapped foot pushed through.

Bel slowly looked at new arrival. She had a body clad in glowing red and gold armor and the head of a beast, a predator with sharp fangs and golden eyes that blazed with righteous fury.

Bel recognized the goddess: Kjar.

And her aunt? Apparently?

Kjar seemed to be savoring the moment, waiting for the Dark Ravager to twitch before she made her first move.

One of the Dark Ravager feet slid backwards, the scrapping noise breaking the ominous silence.

Kjar grinned, barring her fangs. “You are guilty,” she hissed. “You have defied the Divine Treaty and interfered with the balance of spirits that supports this world.”

Dutcha made an exaggerated expression of shock behind the goddess, clearly enjoying herself.

“You will be punished,” Kjar declared.