The Breath of Babel

By: Talonia Posted on: April 29, 2012

A lone wax candle shedding a small sliver of light over the desk was the sole source of illumination currently present in the brooding and melancholy office of Amunet Viatrix, the Demiurge of the Great House of the Occultists. Though present, that great worker of eldritch feats paid no attention whatsoever when the candle’s flame reached the end of its wick and met its demise, cheerfully following the dictates of Oblivion. The Demiurge slumbered on, curled up in a semi-sentient armchair which sat under a regal portrait of the late Imyrr Rousseau, portrayed presiding over some mind-numbingly vapid state function of Ashtan.

The room rested in perfect darkness for a full twenty minutes before Amunet was roused by the sound of a bird ruffling its feathers. She opened her weary eyes and was met by a raven wreathed in a sickly, ethereal green aura. She rose and dusted off her robes. It was time to do His work, evidently.

Winding through the murky bog that hid the Caverns of Enheduanna, she couldn’t help but notice the usual fetid stench was particularly potent today. Amunet reached the ominous iron door and stopped for a moment to contemplate it. Strings of green-grey moss hanging from the skeletal trees surrounding the door swayed slightly, as if encouraged to dance by the eldritch energy emanating from the entrance. A feeling of profound loneliness crept upon her the longer she stayed. Finally, she smiled and pushed open the door. It felt good to serve this ancient and hateful deity. Oblivion was where she belonged.

A nearby bog hound peered with curiosity into the Caverns. The door remained open precisely long enough for the mongrel to catch a glimpse of Amunet joining a gathering of five or six robed figures. The cultists were excitedly discussing something and gesticulating at a parchment held by one of their number. Then, the door slammed shut with a groan that resonated in the very bones of the bog and its creatures, and the hound scampered away in fright. Not a single star showed in the sky that night.

---

Father Garron did not look up from his prayerbook when he heard the chapel door open. “I’ll be right with you, just as soon as I finish my devotional psalms!” he exclaimed in a bright voice. There was no response. Slightly unsettled, Garron raised his head – and almost wished he hadn’t.

At the entrance to the chapel stood five cloaked figures. In their lead was the infamous Flair Ze’Dekiah, arch-ritualist of the Babelonians, grinning wildly and emanating a toxic miasma. Garron could not keep his hands from shaking, but mustered in a steady voice, “Ah. The enemy.”

The voice of the warrior Sohl Vallah slipped from underneath his hood, filled with a venomous honey. “Shaitan and Apollyon are your enemy. We, friend, are your release.”

A purple tendril composed of auric energy lashed out from a young occultist Garron did not know. The priest would have surely perished had his angel not acted. Quickly raising a shield around her charge, the angel snarled with righteous anger at the interlopers, and a bright light momentarily surged through the chapel. Rebounding off the nearly-invisible protective field, the chaotic tendril snaked back into the palm of the occultist.

“His will shall not be so easily denied,” snarled the young ritualist. “Behold the power of Talonia Ze’Dekiah!” A barrage of tendrils of every color snaked out from her hand. The other Nihilists soon joined in, and the shield was splintered. One more strike, and the hapless Garron fell before their recondite power.

The ritualist who had identified herself as Talonia removed her hood, revealing the beautiful features of a young siren, with the glaring exception of the jagged black Mark of the Twin carved gruesomely into her forehead. Kneeling beside the body of the priest, whose angel was now nowhere to be found, she pulled several flasks from the pockets of her robes and began to anoint the corpse in preparation for her diabolical work.

“Hurry,” urged Sohl. “My spies inform me that the Jaruvians have reported strange happenings in the chapel to the Guard. We have limited time.”

“I do not need long,” murmured Talonia as she rose to survey her work. She pulled a tattered notebook from her backpack and read briefly from it, then raised her hand and motioned for silence. The chapel fell deathly quiet as the five cultists surrounded the body in a circle. All of a sudden, a deep rumbling came from Talonia, and a voice not her own spoke even as her own mouth silently spoke the syllables of the incantation. She was a puppet of the Mad One.

“Vast powers who besiege the living
You who lay low mountains tall
Feast upon what we are giving
Heed my supplicating call!”

Eldritch whispers came into the hearing of the assembled ritualists. Garron’s corpse twitched slightly, and Flair grinned diabolically. The voice continued its chant:

“Here as tribute – flesh unwilling
Sacrificed by our devotion
Descend to do your rapid work
And set our dark plans into motion!”

Garron’s corpse began to decompose rapidly. A foul smell permeated the chapel and sunk into the very bones of the building. Sohl barked an eldritch phrase, and Amunet and Flair began to sing a horrific hymn. The floor of the chapel cracked and the eldritch mists of Glaaki burst forth from the bowels of the earth, producing a deep, choking fog that overwhelmed all light there.

“Sparing none from your consumption
Fill this realm with more decay
Cast this village into night
And herald here the end of days!”

Talonia’s hand crackled with purple electricity that danced and played over the corpse of the deceased servant of the Te’Serra.

“Where we’ve extinguished guiding light
Aid our work to worlds unravel
Grant us thy unholy sight
Share with us the breath of Babel!”

At the last words of the incantation, a holy light shone forth from Garron’s eyes, and a righteous voice boomed throughout the chapel, “No. This one, and this place, belong to Me.” A burst of azure light blinded the ritualists and restored light to the chamber, and the voice possessing Talonia gave a roar of fury before dissipating, leaving only the young priestess babbling incoherently in her own voice. The doors of the chapel burst open, and the dwarf Templar Draekar Rian yelled, “Release – arrows!” A volley of arrows streaked towards the occultists. Seven or eight struck Flair, causing him to crash to the floor, merely an inanimate pincushion, if a monstrous one.

Snarling, the other occultists disappeared with a series of loud cracks, taking the astral form.

“All clear here, sir. Looks like we didn’t get here in time to save Father Garron,” remarked Sir Autio Corso somberly.

Draekar nodded solemnly in response. “We will pay our respects, of course. But we all have our duties, soldier. He carried out his.”

A raspy voice emerged from a heretofore unnoticed raven perched in a corner of the chapel. “And I will carry out Mine.” The assembly shuddered, and the raven disappeared, as quietly and as little noticed as it had come. It left a single black feather on the floor below, which slowly faded from view and then similarly vanished.