Most of the things from the Other World don't have names other than those we give them. Some, however, are quite different. Some are older than the others. Old even as the world they come from.
"Ssserakis." The word whispered along the ground in front of me like snakes slithering closer before finally hissing out in front of my face. I felt an icy claw close around my chin, the cold of it burning my cheeks. I opened my eyes again, but still there was only darkness. I wonder if that is how blind people live their lives. Feeling a foreign touch upon their skin, and not having the ability to see who or what it is. The thought of that scares me more than I care to admit.
I shook my face free of the hand and it vanished, like smoke on a breeze. It was strange, but knowing the horror could speak, hearing its voice like glass shattering, I was free from the paralysis. I craned my head around, towards the door out of the cavern.
The horror laughed, a croaking sound like old men wheezing out their last breath. "They can't hear you. Can't see you. No one can help you now."
"Good." I put as much iron into my voice as possible and stared straight ahead. I knew the thing could kill me like it had the workers lying at my feet, but I wasn't about to go out mewling in fear and crying for mercy like those poor bastards. "You're not like the others. You're not some mindless beast an Impomancer can control. You're..."
"Older," whispered the voice. "In a world of nightmares, I am what the darkness fears." I felt a rush of air and knew the monster was moving around me, studying me from different angles. I had intrigued it by breaking its hold. That, and I think it may have grown bored with murdering terrans. We were too easy a prey for it.
It was my first encounter with one of the ancient horrors and I was inexperienced. I believe I danced to Ssserakis' tune like a puppet with her strings pulled.
"Are you corporeal?" I asked and in response I felt a glacial air breeze through me. Not around me, but through me. I have to say it was a fucking unpleasant feeling and chilled me to my core.
Most of the horrors have bodies. Bodies make them easy to kill, they give us something to aim at with magic or steel. Some are more like illusions, ghosts drifting through the world. Some are stranger still. Ssserakis is one of the latter.
"How did you get here?" I asked. "Who summoned you?"
"Questions. Questions. Questions." I heard the slither of something fat and wet behind me, writhing on the ground. It took a lot of willpower not to turn and stare into the darkness towards the sound. But that is how Ssserakis works. Distractions and fear, killing its prey inch by inch, second by second. A thousand shallow cuts all designed to make us piss ourselves in terror. "Perhaps I've always been here. Perhaps you summoned me."
Again, I felt an icy razor leave a trail along my skin, this time it started on my neck and trailed around my jaw and up to my ear. I felt blood leak down into the collar of my rags.
"Fine." I gritted my teeth against the stinging pain. I was still scared, but the terror had left me and, in its wake, it left a blazing determination. "You can answer in your fucking riddle all you want. Or you can tell me what do you want."
The trail of ice stopped again and I felt Ssserakis drift away from me. While the horror considered my words, I lifted the lantern up and felt the warmth coming from it. The flame was still burning, but the light was gone.
"Home." The voice was a whispered wail of longing and despair. "Where the light doesn't burn. Where I don't have to hide underground. Home. Where I was strong."
"I can help," I said quickly. I think I wanted to get the words out before I realised what I was saying. "If I can find an Impomancy Source I can send you back." I sounded very confident. Yet I didn't even know if such a thing was possible. Impomancers could send back the horrors they summoned themselves, so long as the Source was still inside of them and control had never been broken. I had never heard of a Sourcerer sending back another's summoned creature.
For a long time, all I heard was the darkness swirling around me. I felt myself trembling, the cold of Ssserakis' presence seeping in bone deep.
"Why?" Came the voice from behind, so close it was only a whisper though sounded like a thunderclap.
I decided truth was probably the wisest of options. "Because I need you to leave this place," I said. "Either you kill me here, or the others kill me out there when I can't get rid of you. Either way I'm fucked." I knew it was true. Deko would either murder me himself or hand me over to Prig the moment I stopped being useful and this was my very first chance to prove I had any use at all. Talk about setting the bar high. It's like being told to go catch a fish and landing a whale. There would be nowhere to go but down from there.
"You have seen my world?" Ssserakis asked. I felt icy hands close around my head, sapping the heat from me, driving icy spikes of agony into my mind.
"Yes," I said through chattering teeth. I couldn't stop the trembling. Couldn't stop the cold seeping into my limbs. I honestly thought I was dying, that I'd said the wrong thing and that ancient horror was tearing apart my soul.
"You will carry me there?" I could hear the hunger in its voice. The longing so deep it made my own heart ache.
"Yes." It's fair to say that was an agreement I came to regret making. Yet I would make it again a hundred times over.
I felt the cold rush into me again, but this time it didn't pass through. It wrapped itself around my heart and mind and stayed there. The unnatural darkness lifted in an instant and I could see the cavern again, lighter than before. There were three bodies scattered about the stone floor and one more draped over the rock-hewn throne. My lantern cast a hazy beam of light forward and I stood alone in the cavern. Ssserakis was gone. Even as I thought it I knew it wasn't true, but we terrans are good of convincing ourselves of convenient lies when the truths are too hard.
"Hey. You done, girl?" Deko sounded impatient.
I turned, shining my lantern back towards the entrance where Deko and Horralain waited. Apparently, the darkness had fallen like a blanket almost as soon as I entered the cavern. Now it was lifted they could see me again. I approached slowly, my limbs feeling numb from the cold.
"Slithering shit," Deko cursed as I drew close, his eyes widening. "What happened to you?"
I was covered in hundreds of tiny cuts, each bleeding only a trickle. It was Ssserakis' way and the first of so many injuries the horror dealt me.
"I fixed your problem." My voice came out as stammer and I very nearly collapsed. I was weak and weary beyond belief. Worse than the pain or the exhaustion, though, was that I could feel something foreign and terrible inside of me. Something living inside, feeding off me as it waited for a chance to escape home.
"Yeah?" Deko asked, taking the lantern from my trembling hands. "What was it?"
I just shook my head at the man. Maybe it was the look in my eyes, or the blood leaking from so many cuts, maybe he just didn't care, but Deko never asked again, and I never told anyone of the ancient horror I kept inside.
Chapter 18
In our second year at the academy we made a game of getting each in trouble with the tutors. They were harmless little pranks for the most part. It was a foolish thing, but children can be both foolish and wise in equal measure. I always tended towards the former.