Chapter Four Hundred And Fifteen – 415The whirlwind of obliterating grime tore at him, shredding his battlerobes, and Atar was nearly thrown from his feet. Instead, he fetched up against the piling ash and bones of those that fell before him and he gasped, once, his mouth filling with soot and dust. At his feet, where the flask had shattered, his boots withered and broke apart.
The curse!
Atar kicked off his boots, shoving his feet into the burning ash with a strangled crybut it wasn't enough. The curse had already seeped into the flesh of his heels, and veins of its dark influence crept steadily up his calf muscles. The pain was far worse than the burn of the ash and metal basin. Wherever it traveled, his skin and muscle and even his clothing withered away. His trousers unraveled, their color bleached by the curse's touch, all of it turning to stiff, crumbling dust.
ATAR.
All at once, the pain stopped, as did the horrific winds and creeping pestilence. Atar hung above the basin in a bubble of quiet, lifted bodily by flaring tendrils of pure, unadulterated flame.
I SHALL CLEANSE YOU, PACTBEARER. DESPITE YOUR TREACHERY.
Those tendrils of flame delved into him, stopping his breath and scorching his channels as they went. An awful, somehow healing pain seeped through his Body, coiling around his burning core before pushing deeper. An intense smoldering ripped at his legs, and Atar's legs below the knee caught flame. Dark corruption hissed and steamed, attempting to push beyond the delving fire, but at each turn it was burnt away. All at once, the pain vanished.
Atar gasped, lungs unlocked. He took in huge, greedy mouthfuls of air before hacking it back up. Spit-wet dust flung from his lips, and Atar glared at the plume of flame before him. The pain had vanished, but the fiery tendrils had remained within his channels, lurking as the curse tried again and again to spread. Instead it was burnt away...but never completely.
"You can't eradicate the curse?" he asked. He was still held aloft by the Urge's power, but Atar saw no reason to be polite. "Cleansing suggests you remove it completely."
The Flame twisted. Only a small piece of it stood outside the whirling maelstrom of the duststorm, and it flickered repeatedly. As if it were on the edge of extinguishing. THE FLESH CURSE OF A PRIMORDIAL IS NO SIMPLE THING...AND YOU BROUGHT IT TO ME, ATAR. A FOOLISH CHOICE.
"You're killing people! Did you think there weren't going to be consequences for that?" Atar demanded.
DEATH IS BUT A FACET OF LIFE. THE WEAK PERISH TO PRESERVE THE STRENGTH OF THE MIGHTY. BUT YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME AN ABOMINATION OF CREATION. A CURSE THAT I CANNOT END. NOT AS I AM. I NEED YOUR AID, ATAR V'AS.
Atar squinted at the Flame. "No." The flame shuddered backward, as if surprised. Atar said it again, more forcefully. "No."
The tendrils within Atar's channels flared to an excruciating degree, searing him from the inside. Atar screamed.
THE STORM CANNOT BE BORNE! THAT WHICH WAS SHACKLED MUST REMAIN! YOUR ALLIES DIE EVEN AS WE SPEAK! I AM TRYING TO AID YOU!
"You're simply trying to survive," Atar gasped. "And if you do, those people will die anyway right?"
The storm around them howled and lightning sheathed them in a blinding shell of yellow radiance. The Flame flickered, thinning and thickening in a gale Atar couldn't feel. What he could feel, however, was when the tendrils of power pushed inward. Into his core space.
"What are you doing?" Atar demanded, and doubled over as the tendrils stabbed into the liquid fire of his core ring. Atar convulsed, the orange fire flaring until it dominated his core space. Skills flickered, their altars creaking from the force of it all, while indescribable agony lanced through Atar's being. He opened his mouth, but neither breath nor scream could escape.
THE STORM WILL RAGE, AND THE BEAST BELOW WILL AWAKEN. RIGHT NOW THE TERROR OF HUNGER CLAWS AT ITS CAGE! THE BEAST BELOW IS WAKING! THEIR DIRE CHOICE HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE, AND OUR ONLY CHANCE FOR SURVIVAL IS TO WORK TOGETHER.
Atar could see nothing but dust and fire, hear nothing but the crooning voice of the Urge. His Skills frayed, their altars and flames guttering beneath the Urge's potency.
SAVE ME! SAVE ME SO THAT THE LIGHT OF THE SKY NEVER FAILS. FOR IF IT DOES, THEN RUIN WILL BESET US ALL.
"Hhow...?" Atar forced the words through shallow breaths and a cracked and bleeding throat.
IT WAS WRITTEN, IN AGES LOST TO TIME AND MEMORY. A TRUTH I GLIMPSED IN THE VAST FIRMAMENT. THE BEAST BELOW, THE TERROR, THEY SEEK TO TWIST THE FABRIC OF WHAT IS, ATAR. TO TURN ASIDE THE LIGHT OF THE SKY. ME.
IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. JOIN ME AS YOU MUST, FOR OTHERWISE ALL IS DOOMED.
The grip of fire on his core lessened slightly. Enough to give Atar the space to breathe. The Flame waited, watching him.
"I cannot accept what you have done," Atar said.
IN THE NAME OF SURVIVAL, WE ALL DO AS WE MUST.
"No. No you don't get to use that excuse," Atar hissed. He shook his head and lifted a trembling arm up, placing his hand just above his navel. He could feel the excruciating heat even through his flesh. "You don't get to decide who lives and who dies, Urge!"
YOU FORGET WHO GAVE YOU YOUR BLESSINGS, CHILD. WITHOUT ME, YOU WOULD NOT BE.
"Maybe, and without people like me, you'd have guttered out. No. No I'm done here. In the words of a friend," he said, clutching at his belly. "Fuck off."
You Have Rejected The Blessings Of The Highest Flame!
WARNING!
Skills Tied To the Highest Flame Will Be Sundered And Lost!
You Cannot Undo This Choice!
Continue?
Y/N
STOP! STOP, YOU FOOLISH CHILD!
"Yes! Cut Her off!" Atar spat, just as the Urge pulsed its wicked tendrils. Fire burst and surged within him, an inferno under his skin, and his voice turned to wordless torment. A scream that felt like it was tearing his lungs apart.
THE SKY MUST NOT TARNISH! IT MUST NOT!
"Shut! Up!" Atar howled.
The pain mounted as Atar's core space began to founder. Altars of flameSkillsbegan to sputter and fail while orange sigaldry broke apart. The ring of flame flared one last time, spreading outward in a destructive explosion before collapsing inward.
The charred earth and sky tried to crush everything that was Felix into paste, driving him to his knees and bursting blood vessels across his Body. Nightmarish figures stood in the heavens, a moon among their tangle of limbs and joints. An aura of dark power hung around them all, restrained by its unseen chains but mighty regardless. Yet Felix's Will was not so easily dominated.
Title: Born of Will is active!
You Are Your Own Maker!
Title: The Call of Defiance is active!
+25% Willpower Against The Divine!
Beneath the collective glare of the gods, even he could not force himself to his feet...but that did not mean he couldn't give them a dour stare right back.
"You should not be here, child," said a calm voice. It sounded as if it was whispered into his ear, but it radiated from the sky like a proclamation. A silver moon shimmered and burned in the dark Void. As he stared, it flickered, turning from a moon to a vast and endless bundle of woven threads. A spider at the center of its web. "You should not have seen this."
"He should not exist," scoffed a second voice, this one a harsh, guttural hiss. He could smell a fetid stench from its breath, for all that it spoke to him across an endless horizon. A bronze moon hung low, pock-marked and wan and...not a moon at all. But an infinite bog of boiling foulness and withered plants. "A Primordial Unbound is not allowed!"
"Primordial, Nym, and a touch of the Divine," chortled a deeper voice. It sounded like nothing so much as a kindly old man...and it came from nowhere at all. No moon shuddered in his strained Affinity, and there was no figurative, godly hallucination.