I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I found I could see through Ssserakis' unique night sight. The ancient horror was a creature of fear and cold and darkness, so it was no surprise that darkness held no secrets from it. The world around me appeared in sharp detail, but without any colour. At first, I believed that to be just another part of the location—we were deep underground—but I know better now. Ssserakis could not see colour. The ancient horror viewed the worlds only in terms of light and darkness. I think that was what hurt Ssserakis so about Ovaeris. It was not the light or brightness as the horror claimed, but rather it was the inability to comprehend colour that caused it so much pain.
We were in a tunnel, like those I used to dig down in the Pit, but much larger. It would have taken four of me to reach the tunnel roof, and twice that many to reach from one side to the other. All along the tunnel floor were little grooves of moulded stone, as though tiny rivers regularly ran through the tunnel, carving the rock into miniature valleys. The rock walls were jagged and uneven, as though mined by dozens of different people, each with their own ideas of how wide the tunnel should be. I could see two more tunnels branching off on my left side, disappearing at an angle, at least one of them sloping downward. To my right was nothing but rock. And over it all I heard the scratching sound, still growing louder, or perhaps just more intense. There was something underneath that too, an echo that pulsed like placing your hands over your ears and listening to nothing but your own heartbeat.
"Where are we?" My voice sounded loud and foreign down there in the tunnel. A place no terran had ever seen before. I have ever been a pioneer in my studies of Sevoari. The first to bring an Abomination across. The first to actually step foot into the Other World. The first terran to raise an army there.
Close to home. On the border of Norvet Meruun's territory. She is closer than she should be.
I knew the name, Ssserakis had uttered it once before. "Norvet Meruun. One of the lords of Sevoari?"
The beating heart. The creeping doom. One of the nine, yes, but unlike any of the others. Norvet Meruun is the death of my world made manifest in putrid flesh. She worms her way through Sevoari, devouring all. Growing ever larger. I, alone, held her at bay. As much as I could.
The mother of Abominations, Norvet Meruun. I had brought an Abomination across once, many years ago, my very first time summoning a creature from the Other World. I thought it a small thing, slug-like, and no larger than a cat. I couldn't have known the truth, no other Sourcerer had ever seen one of the monsters before. It stole the Source from my stomach as I brought it across, severing the connection between us and my hold over it. If I close my eyes, I can still taste the grey, pulsing flesh of it. Like maggoty meat, writhing and unnatural. Fucking disgusting. As soon as the creature was out of me, it began to grow. Flesh expanded and tentacles grew in every direction. It flattened a building and killed six people before the tutors of the academy brought it down. The Abomination was put on the banned list after that, a warning circulated to all corners of Ovaeris, and, as far as I am aware, it is one warning that has been heeded by everyone. Even me. The Abomination I brought across was small, perhaps still young. Norvet Meruun was anything but small.
"What is that noise?" I asked my passenger. The scratching was a continuous thing, growing more and more persistent. I couldn't tell if it was close or far away with the echoing natures of the tunnel.
Even Norvet Meruun has minions, Eskara. All creatures of power draw those without the wit to take their own.
I looked around for Ssserakis. The horror usually manifested in some way when we visited Sevoari, but it remained tight inside this time. Perhaps because I had no shadow down in the dark, with no light to cast it. As I searched for the horror, I saw movement down the tunnel. A blur of grey legs and screaming mouths, frighteningly terran. Whatever the thing was, it noticed me somehow and turned my way. It was at least twice as tall as I and had a tube-like body, segmented all along its length. At the middle of each segment, long thin legs stretched up then pivoted sharply down on a joint. On each joint was a terran face, frozen in a moment of pain or fear. As the creature turned towards me and came on at a rush, I noticed it had no face itself, no real head at all. On its front-most segment there was just a mouth, an opening with huge blocky teeth jutting forwards. The monster rushed toward me, teeth gnashing, feet scratching at the stone beneath, and terran faces drooling some sort of viscous grey matter as they screamed in silence.
While in that state, somehow both in Ovaeris and Sevoari, I could not draw on the Sources I held in my stomach. I had no magic to fight this monster, and no weapons to wield against it. In the Other World, I was as helpless as a babe.
"Ssserakis?" The horror inside didn't answer, and the segmented monster continued to bear down on me. I took a step back, almost falling as I tripped on one of the ridges of stone that lined the floor. Then I planted my feet, faced the monster and shouted. "STOP!"
A well-intoned command can do a lot. Some creatures, and some people, are given to following commands regardless of the source. They respect the authority, whether real or implied, and react accordingly. I had authority in my tone, an iron will and the casual expectation that my orders would be obeyed. It was not something I gained from my time in the Orran military, I had an honorary rank, but that only extended as far as the soldiers assigned to protect me, and even then, they would ignore my orders if my life was in danger. My authority came from Hardt and Tamura and all the others who followed me, expecting me to lead. The truth is, I had become accustomed to being in charge, and that became apparent in both the way I held myself, and the tone of my voice. That being said, regardless of any inherent command in my voice, I was still quite surprised when the monster slowed to a stop a mere arm's length away from crushing me.
Up close the creature was even more hideous. It resembled a spider, or perhaps a dozen spiders stuck together. Its gnashing teeth were grinding up rock, cracking it apart, and the faces on its legs weren't just screaming, they were chewing also, mixing the rock with sticky saliva and then letting it drool over their chins in thin streams to the ground below. It towered over me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't trembling at being so close to such a thing.
Ssserakis laughed inside. I can feel your fear, Eskara. It tastes…
"Just like your own!" I hissed the words through a clenched jaw, but the truth of it was plain for both of us to see. I could taste my fear as well, more of a feeling than an actual taste, really, but it carried a unique flavour. It was the same flavour of fear I felt when Ssserakis was being picked apart by the monster beyond the portal. I wondered at what that meant, that we were both so similar.
The monster in front of me kept chewing on the rocks in its mouth, grinding them up until they were nothing but dust. Then it turned its head and gouged a section out of the nearby tunnel wall. Still it stood in front of me, as though waiting for orders.
I stepped aside, pressing myself against the wall of the tunnel so I was out of its way. "Go." And the monster did. Without hesitation, it started forward, legs scraping across the ground, mouths chewing, screaming, and drooling. I watched it go, segment after segment after segment. It had close to twenty, each one with two spindly legs.
"What was that thing?" I asked once it had vanished into the gloom beyond the range of Ssserakis' night sight.