Unto Winter Eternal
@Magebird @SirenCymbaline @ChristenedPages @soundofmind
Falling like ashes from a grey firmament, snowflakes fluttered in pirouetting patterns to alight on once-verdant loam paled by hoarfrost. Even the turkey-tail that had always sprouted from that crack in the abutment of the western wall and the southern one had succumbed to the White Empire’s eternal winter—for seven long years, Abzu was trapped in this ghostly reflection of its vibrant former self. It was a world known for its great oceans. Now, the ice caps to the north had thickened to such proportions that they flirted with tundra and rocky boreal plains not so far from here.
The doctor, a man of below-average height and above-average girth—a consequence of a stocky, lean build, not of over-indulgence—regarded the sloping hill outside his window with distant eyes. His irises were a shade of umber so deep they were often mistaken for black until light struck amber flecks spotting them, and the hair he kept short in a hail back to his days in the Nercean military was of a similarly near-jet hue. Presently, a cigarette hung loosely from between the two forefingers of his left hand, and the incandescent tip of it was so overcome with a line of ash that the dull glow was nigh-imperceptible.
For forty days and forty nights, the ancestral flood that made Abzu this ocean-bound planet supposedly raged centuries ago; for forty days and forty nights the lightning broke the skies into spattered fragments and those holes, unable to fully heal, became stars. Forty days and forty nights that no man but Noé himself saw. Forty days, forty nights, until the Wildbull’s, God’s, first merciful grace to humankind.
“Oy, doctor.” The woman who addressed him had a slight figure characteristic of the forest-dwellers to the northeast, with a shock of white hair shaved on one side and cobalt eyes shining brighter than the most vibrant sapphire. “We’re almost ready. You going to be good to go?”
“Of course, Miss Diamond.” With one finger, the surgeon extinguished his smoke, and pocketed the dogend. “You have the amulets already?”
“Yessir. They should work just fine until we can get a few folks who can translate the older languages for us. At least get us in contact with the Last Circle. I just finished testing the last of them with Carter.”
“That is a relief.”
“Sure.” A few beats of silence ended when the physician drew himself from his reverie, and in so doing turned to face his interlocutor.
“Well, if that is all, then now is as good a time as any,” he supposed, and she nodded in agreement before he lifted the key from his pocket and led the way to the basement.
The stairs were precipitous and the low-ceilinged chambers below, tenebrous. With only an oil lamp to illuminate the room of smooth stone, shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs. They seemed to breathe with a life of their own in the flickering firelight. An altar—one the house’s current master could not bring himself to desecrate in spite of its perturbing nature—was upon a dais in one corner, watched over by a bovine skull with great horns and adorned with intricate designs carved into it. It was large enough for a goat, or perhaps a child, to be laid comfortably upon. Blood still stained grooves in the dais itself.
Hedging about the thing, Noah—for this was the doctor’s first name—placed the lamp on the ground near a circle Diamond had drawn on the ground. It dominated the better part of the cellar, and aside from it and the altar, the chambers were bare: no weapons or boxes were stored here. Only one door could be found underneath the stairs, but it was stone and its seams blended masterfully into the wall so that one who didn’t already know of it would have some difficulty detecting it.
Carter, the only other person who dared descend the stairs behind him, closed the door at the top of the stairs and then came to his coworker’s side. He was a full head taller than Noah and of mixed descent, his skin a middling tone of tawny-brown and hair several shades darker than Noah’s own. An air of seriousness had settled between the trio.
If this failed, then it could mean their executions and the end of this branch of the rebellion. If it succeeded, it could make the difference between the next generation living under the Winter King’s tyrannical reign or their great-great-grandchildren still toiling in a snow-covered land.
“Amulets,” Diamond said, and handed Carter a small box. He took one of the pieces from it and then handed it to Noah, who took the next, threading it around his wrist instead of dangling it from his neck. She replaced the box into Noah’s pocket—he was the only one of them wearing a coat, and if one took any notice of his rattling breath and haggard look, the reason why was clear—then stepped forward into the circle and closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a language forgotten by most mortals. Then, in a dim pulsing, the circle began to glow and brighten with each chanted syllable.
It was a series of instants so swift that their sum might equal a few seconds. She closed her hands; the light became blinding; there was a great and thunderous roar that trembled the foundations of this ancient homestead; something sent a frigid draft through the cellar that was rank with rot; silhouettes became visible in the white brilliance. Then, as soon as it formed, it was collapsing with an awful sound that had the same quality as nails on a blackboard, grating and violent, before suddenly the room was dark again. Scattered around Diamond in the center of the strange circle, hurled to the ground by the portal’s force, were several humanish forms that had been caught in the portal’s unexpected flurry and brought to this place. Its immediate implosion closed their only way home—and all too quickly, it was dawning on doctor and his partners that they were most certainly not the Sukurians the trio had expected.
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