11-08-2016, 11:58 PM
[It was a good post]
Armande stretched out his arm, shifting his fists up and down, forearms tightening and loosening, and felt the taut pull of the second skin, its thin flesh-colored covering pulling where it adhered to his natural skin. He shrugged his shoulders back and forth, feeling his trapezius muscle flex and relax, bent his neck from one side to the other until he heard a pop. The air felt cool against his washed chest and legs as he continued to stretch, continued to test out his body now that it was finally clean and treated, arms and torso, quadriceps and back each getting their turn.
The pain pills had done their work, enough that he no longer bothered to separate that part from his consciousness. Curiously, after so long muting his body's physical demands, he luxuriated in the absence of pain and instead marveled at the play of warm and cold that seemed to alternate in the air over his damp skin. Indeed, a wave of sensuality washed over him as he at last felt restored to his former self- at least to a point. The scars on his left cheek and down his neck would remain even after they healed, though no longer the travestied twisting of melted flesh and mottled skin that used to be the fate of burn victims. His hair he had razored short to near stubble and his face was washed and cleansed though he had no doubt there were bags of exhaustion under his eyes. He could sleep later, though.
Matvei and Timur had watched assiduously as he showed them what he did and had helped when he had needed it, particularly the peeling off of his burnt clothing. Thankfully, his mesh armor was still intact and had provided some shielding from the heat. It was the extremities that had borne the brunt of the burns.
Matvei spoke at length through the process while Timur was silent. The man was careful with his words, though. "Father Regus, "
- his voice no longer hitched over the term though he suspected that was a calculated choice on his part- "five generations we have waited. Five generations it was that your then dreaming self led us down here and prepared us to wait. We have waited faithfully. We have purged ourselves clean of filth and impurity."
The irony was not lost on Armande, given the dirt and grim however they tried to be clean. He was speaking of the metaphysical.
Indeed, he gestured at Timur and the man- more a youth, really- opened his robe and lifted his girdled cloth to reveal a naked torso covered in matted hair. For a moment, Armande tried to understand what he was being shown until he noticed what was absent. Noticed because it was crudely displayed. The youth's scrotum and member had been cut away. A wonder the boy hadn't died of infection. He eyed the vats of liquids. Perhaps they did have some skill.
Even so, he felt disgust well up into his throat though he allowed his face to show nothing. Mortification of the flesh was a necessary though limited tool for growth. Mortification of the spirit was far more painful, in the long run, and yielded far better results. "Each of us was Awakened, purging ourselves of that which weakened us."
For a moment, the man's eyes seemed sharp, as if probing, watching for his reaction. It was a test. Disgust turned to contempt. He'd seen butchery before. His own hand had been been glued to the handle of his sword by the gore and dried blood and fat of those he'd killed many times.
He fixed Matvei with an icy stare. The man wanted an outburst of a sort. Some chink in the armor of his....well it wasn't his claim. His imputed position. No. The man had not wanted to see his own prophecy fulfilled. Better to be the messenger and spokesman for their silent god than to have that god actually speak for himself.
"The flesh is but a vessel, Matvei. A tool we ride in this life. I am not a slave to my body. It is my servant." He stretched his arms again, making the second skin clear. During the entire process, he'd made not a single noise of protest in pain. The man's eyes followed the movements for a moment. Perhaps he understood. Perhaps not. It did not matter.
"Tell me of your relationship to the Eye. Two powerful positions. The Hand acts only after the Eye sees." He allowed the insult to linger for a moment before flipping it. "It is the Hand that acts, while the Eye merely sees." His lips quirked in a smile and he nodded respectfully.
Matvei's rheumy eyes narrowed. Slowly his reedy voice began. "Before your sleep, you fathered sons and daughters, both literal and spiritual. We are your children. But some of us are of the Blood- your Blood. Your gifts run in our veins. The Eye- the current Eye, Valeriya- is my grand-niece. Her mother was Eye before. I myself was found to be the Hand of the Khylsty when her mother was only newly blooded and my mother was the Eye."
There was, perhaps, a touch of venom, at the end. Armande smiled inwardly. Undercurrents indeed. Blood only made the feuding that much more deadly.
Timur handed him a long shaggy robe of fur and he looked at it for a moment, seeing a smooth lining of skin on the inside. It had been cured properly and, though not soft, would not be leathery and chafing. Despite his willingness to suffer pains as part of his work, he was no Archbishop Becket to wear a hair shirt in penance underneath his clothing, an admission of unrelenting and daily weakness. He slipped it on and tied the sash about his waist. It was strangely cool to his skin and not at all without pleasure.
There it was again. Curious. From one extreme to the other. A pendulum swinging. One moment, divorced from his body so as to keep moving and fighting and surviving, his mind riding it like a beast. The next, now reunited with it, as if he had slipped into a fresh set of cool linens and could again know what it was to feel. He felt the familiar contempt of weakness and banished the sensations that came to him, rose above himself. And yet for a moment, he smelled the salt mixed with sand and that of old parchments and a faint perfume.
The memories dispelled as if fog. Matvei opened his mouth to say more when there were footsteps at the entrance of his room. The hooded pointedly bowed low to Armande and then stepped to one side. He looked at Matvei expectantly. The man took a moment to respond, as if he were considering what he was about to say. "It is time for Revelation."
открытие, discovery. Armande could guess what was going on.
He turned abruptly and headed to the robed man, his shorn head and clean face clear in the flickering firelight. He would not cover himself. The man led the way and he strode confidently through warren of passages until he entered the source of the sound of cascading water he heard earlier, the chamber that had been adjacent to the one with the wall carvings. The waterfall cast sprays of misty water in the air while the pool on the ground bubbled with hot water. The air seemed to quiver, alive as the currents of air swirled, hot with cold, differentials that produced breezes. Against his now near naked scalp and neck it felt...curious.
Lights blue and green glowing from torches held by men cast eerie shadows on the walls. The room was filled with robed people, their shadowed forms and height indicating men, women and children. They all faced him quietly, expectantly. But a figure in black, back to him, stood in front of the waterfall, near to the water itself. Droplets seems to shimmer in the strands her long braided hair, glittering with the blue and green light. There appeared to be other things knotted into it too. Strangely, she also wore a what seemed to be a dress, though the shadows only hinted rather than made clear what it was made of. Not leather, not with the way the mist seemed to cling to it so airily, reflecting the torch light.
He looked around and none of the men spoke. Matvei and Timur had followed behind, but remained silent, though not without a frown spoiling Matvei's face. The cascade of the fall seemed to get louder in the silence and Armande had had enough.
His strong sonorous voice boomed as it filled the room. "I am Armande Nicodemus. Regus of the Atharim." He would not claim to be more than that. He would accept honor and power from this people if they chose to give it. But he would not deign to pretend that he needed to be more than he was to receive it.
Edited by Regus, Nov 9 2016, 08:21 AM.
Armande stretched out his arm, shifting his fists up and down, forearms tightening and loosening, and felt the taut pull of the second skin, its thin flesh-colored covering pulling where it adhered to his natural skin. He shrugged his shoulders back and forth, feeling his trapezius muscle flex and relax, bent his neck from one side to the other until he heard a pop. The air felt cool against his washed chest and legs as he continued to stretch, continued to test out his body now that it was finally clean and treated, arms and torso, quadriceps and back each getting their turn.
The pain pills had done their work, enough that he no longer bothered to separate that part from his consciousness. Curiously, after so long muting his body's physical demands, he luxuriated in the absence of pain and instead marveled at the play of warm and cold that seemed to alternate in the air over his damp skin. Indeed, a wave of sensuality washed over him as he at last felt restored to his former self- at least to a point. The scars on his left cheek and down his neck would remain even after they healed, though no longer the travestied twisting of melted flesh and mottled skin that used to be the fate of burn victims. His hair he had razored short to near stubble and his face was washed and cleansed though he had no doubt there were bags of exhaustion under his eyes. He could sleep later, though.
Matvei and Timur had watched assiduously as he showed them what he did and had helped when he had needed it, particularly the peeling off of his burnt clothing. Thankfully, his mesh armor was still intact and had provided some shielding from the heat. It was the extremities that had borne the brunt of the burns.
Matvei spoke at length through the process while Timur was silent. The man was careful with his words, though. "Father Regus, "
- his voice no longer hitched over the term though he suspected that was a calculated choice on his part- "five generations we have waited. Five generations it was that your then dreaming self led us down here and prepared us to wait. We have waited faithfully. We have purged ourselves clean of filth and impurity."
The irony was not lost on Armande, given the dirt and grim however they tried to be clean. He was speaking of the metaphysical.
Indeed, he gestured at Timur and the man- more a youth, really- opened his robe and lifted his girdled cloth to reveal a naked torso covered in matted hair. For a moment, Armande tried to understand what he was being shown until he noticed what was absent. Noticed because it was crudely displayed. The youth's scrotum and member had been cut away. A wonder the boy hadn't died of infection. He eyed the vats of liquids. Perhaps they did have some skill.
Even so, he felt disgust well up into his throat though he allowed his face to show nothing. Mortification of the flesh was a necessary though limited tool for growth. Mortification of the spirit was far more painful, in the long run, and yielded far better results. "Each of us was Awakened, purging ourselves of that which weakened us."
For a moment, the man's eyes seemed sharp, as if probing, watching for his reaction. It was a test. Disgust turned to contempt. He'd seen butchery before. His own hand had been been glued to the handle of his sword by the gore and dried blood and fat of those he'd killed many times.
He fixed Matvei with an icy stare. The man wanted an outburst of a sort. Some chink in the armor of his....well it wasn't his claim. His imputed position. No. The man had not wanted to see his own prophecy fulfilled. Better to be the messenger and spokesman for their silent god than to have that god actually speak for himself.
"The flesh is but a vessel, Matvei. A tool we ride in this life. I am not a slave to my body. It is my servant." He stretched his arms again, making the second skin clear. During the entire process, he'd made not a single noise of protest in pain. The man's eyes followed the movements for a moment. Perhaps he understood. Perhaps not. It did not matter.
"Tell me of your relationship to the Eye. Two powerful positions. The Hand acts only after the Eye sees." He allowed the insult to linger for a moment before flipping it. "It is the Hand that acts, while the Eye merely sees." His lips quirked in a smile and he nodded respectfully.
Matvei's rheumy eyes narrowed. Slowly his reedy voice began. "Before your sleep, you fathered sons and daughters, both literal and spiritual. We are your children. But some of us are of the Blood- your Blood. Your gifts run in our veins. The Eye- the current Eye, Valeriya- is my grand-niece. Her mother was Eye before. I myself was found to be the Hand of the Khylsty when her mother was only newly blooded and my mother was the Eye."
There was, perhaps, a touch of venom, at the end. Armande smiled inwardly. Undercurrents indeed. Blood only made the feuding that much more deadly.
Timur handed him a long shaggy robe of fur and he looked at it for a moment, seeing a smooth lining of skin on the inside. It had been cured properly and, though not soft, would not be leathery and chafing. Despite his willingness to suffer pains as part of his work, he was no Archbishop Becket to wear a hair shirt in penance underneath his clothing, an admission of unrelenting and daily weakness. He slipped it on and tied the sash about his waist. It was strangely cool to his skin and not at all without pleasure.
There it was again. Curious. From one extreme to the other. A pendulum swinging. One moment, divorced from his body so as to keep moving and fighting and surviving, his mind riding it like a beast. The next, now reunited with it, as if he had slipped into a fresh set of cool linens and could again know what it was to feel. He felt the familiar contempt of weakness and banished the sensations that came to him, rose above himself. And yet for a moment, he smelled the salt mixed with sand and that of old parchments and a faint perfume.
The memories dispelled as if fog. Matvei opened his mouth to say more when there were footsteps at the entrance of his room. The hooded pointedly bowed low to Armande and then stepped to one side. He looked at Matvei expectantly. The man took a moment to respond, as if he were considering what he was about to say. "It is time for Revelation."
открытие, discovery. Armande could guess what was going on.
He turned abruptly and headed to the robed man, his shorn head and clean face clear in the flickering firelight. He would not cover himself. The man led the way and he strode confidently through warren of passages until he entered the source of the sound of cascading water he heard earlier, the chamber that had been adjacent to the one with the wall carvings. The waterfall cast sprays of misty water in the air while the pool on the ground bubbled with hot water. The air seemed to quiver, alive as the currents of air swirled, hot with cold, differentials that produced breezes. Against his now near naked scalp and neck it felt...curious.
Lights blue and green glowing from torches held by men cast eerie shadows on the walls. The room was filled with robed people, their shadowed forms and height indicating men, women and children. They all faced him quietly, expectantly. But a figure in black, back to him, stood in front of the waterfall, near to the water itself. Droplets seems to shimmer in the strands her long braided hair, glittering with the blue and green light. There appeared to be other things knotted into it too. Strangely, she also wore a what seemed to be a dress, though the shadows only hinted rather than made clear what it was made of. Not leather, not with the way the mist seemed to cling to it so airily, reflecting the torch light.
He looked around and none of the men spoke. Matvei and Timur had followed behind, but remained silent, though not without a frown spoiling Matvei's face. The cascade of the fall seemed to get louder in the silence and Armande had had enough.
His strong sonorous voice boomed as it filled the room. "I am Armande Nicodemus. Regus of the Atharim." He would not claim to be more than that. He would accept honor and power from this people if they chose to give it. But he would not deign to pretend that he needed to be more than he was to receive it.
Edited by Regus, Nov 9 2016, 08:21 AM.