Chapter 83: Arguments and Death-Wishes
The creature, a pillar of animated funeral shrouds, drifted closer, and a sepulchral chill radiated from it, causing the torchlight to gutter and dim. I wasn't even sure it was a living thing; it could have been a ghost, a specter of the grave. All eyes turned to the cackling madman. No one spoke up for him. No one pleaded for his life. The shrouded specter drifted to the madman's side and, with a great, silent inhalation… I heard no sound, but I saw it—a shimmering, translucent phantom, a ghostly echo of the man himself, was pulled screaming from his body. It was his soul, I realized, a luminous, terrified thing being drawn from its mortal shell.
“Haha! He comes! He comes!” the madman laughed, even as his soul was being drained away. “If you serve Him well, perhaps He will not eat you! Perhaps He will let you be the seeds of the next world! Ahahaha…” His voice grew fainter, smaller, until it vanished completely. He died too, his body slumping to the floor, the second death in this unholy conclave. The beings here, they were all murderers, every last one of them.
“Well?” the others asked, turning their attention to the specter. “What did you see?” But the specter itself began to twitch violently, spinning in the air. I thought for a moment it was transforming.
“It’s true! It’s true!” the thing shrieked, its voice now filled with the same manic glee as the madman’s. “I have seen Him! I have seen the Lord! Ahahahaha!” The others watched, their faces a mixture of fear and anticipation. The specter’s ragged shrouds were suddenly torn asunder from within by a dozen giant, black, twitching insect legs, waving blindly in the air like the limbs of some monstrous, buried god. With a final, wet pop, the creature exploded, a shower of tattered black cloth fluttering to the ground. This was the third death I had witnessed in this dream, and each was more absurd and grotesque than the last. The creature had no solid form. The black mist simply dissipated, leaving behind only the tattered rags and the severed, twitching legs of a giant fly, which lay scattered on the cavern floor.
The cavern was silent, the air thick with a new kind of fear. “I warned you,” the Pope said, his voice calm amidst the horror. “Not all are strong enough to bear the full glory of our Lord. To gaze upon His true face unprepared is to invite madness and oblivion. But their fates, at least, have proven that I speak the truth.”
“It seems… that is the only possibility,” one of the figures admitted, though his voice was laced with a grudging reluctance. They were all intelligent, cunning beings. They did not wish to share the fate of the fools who had just gone mad or exploded.
“The coming of the Lord is a joyous event, of course,” another voice interjected. “But… have you truly summoned all of His faithful? We were once a great, proper church, a million strong, before the heretics drove us into the shadows. How have we fallen so far that only this handful remains?”
“I have told you,” the Pope replied, his voice taking on that familiar, condescending tone. “The Lord’s summons is not for the masses. It is for the worthy. Your presence here tonight is proof of your devotion, of your exceptional contributions to the great cause during these long, dark years of our persecution.”
“Oh? So we should be honored, is that it?” a voice sneered from the shadows. “Because I see some here who are clearly not worthy. That madman, for instance. And these… beasts.”
“Who are you calling a beast?” a hulking, horned figure growled, his voice a low rumble of thunder.
“Enough!” the Pope commanded, the dark power of his crown once again silencing the dissent. “Do not argue amongst yourselves. This is the will of our Lord, and I am merely His humble servant. Perhaps these… others… have a part to play in the great cause. Did the madman not also see the face of our Lord?” The two antagonizing people fell silent, their anger still simmering.
“Perhaps,” another voice, this one calm and strategic, suggested, “before we discuss any 'great cause,' we should first ascertain who is who in this room. We must establish a chain of command. An order of precedence.”
Comments (0)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.