Chapter Text
It was not a violent rebirth.
There was no pain and there were no cries – at first there was no sign anything was wrong at all. Yet, as soon as he emerged from the light, he knew that something was wrong. He didn’t know what was wrong, he couldn’t know what was wrong, his thoughts were like vapour, and he couldn’t string them together.
The ground was cold and hard beneath his feet, and he felt heavy, unnaturally heavy. Trying to move one leg forwards, he lost balance and fell forwards, instinctively putting out his hands in front of him to break his fall. His teeth cut into his cheek and the stone floor chilled his flesh like ice, making him aware of how thin the soft fabric of his robes truly was.
A moment later, someone tripped over his legs and fell upon him, then another and another, until he was surrounded by squirming bodies, all gurgling, hissing, and groaning – the sounds of sickness and pain.
Something was terribly wrong.
He grabbed and pushed one off that had their elbow lodged painfully in his neck, his body trembling with the strain of the movement. Then he began to drag himself away from the squirming pile of bodies using his hands and elbows, his legs heavy and useless behind him. Everything felt so heavy, his limbs weak, his arms shook and shuddered him as they bore his weight.
‘Where am I?’ The question overwhelmed him. ‘Who am I?’ Once a distance away from the others, he pulled himself up until he was sitting, his head swaying from side to side as he tried to focus. He had a name, he knew he had a name… so what was it?
The light in the room began to dim. The column of light he had emerged from now faded from existence with its source, the light bounding off numerous glassy reflectors vanished leaving them in relative darkness. He looked up at the many reflectors with a vague sense of recognition, as he slowly regained his senses, he at last remembered the miracle contraption.
Memories were slowly coming back, his thoughts were becoming clearer and sharper. He sat still and forced himself to focus.
This was the Chamber of Life. And the light that had faded had been that of the Crystal, held in the Crystal Chamber high above, the light reflected down the open shaft below it to be concentrated here. Three suns, the Great Conjunction, the reflectors, the ritual that would purify them. It was coming back now.
As his vision adjusted to the darkness, he could see the others now, each still glowing faintly like the embers of a dying fire. Many cowered in fear as they staggered and crawled around in confusion. Some using walls, and even sometimes each other, to get to their feet, but they all appeared to fear one another. Disgusted at each other’s touch, they pushed away as soon as they were standing, only to stumble and fall again in their panic and confusion, before repeating the process.
“Is it done?” a gruff voice called out, startling him from his observations.
He looked back and saw a distantly familiar face. Aughra waddled out to them, deep grooves appeared in her furrowed brow, despite the look she sounded unsure. When she had spoken, she hadn’t address any of them directly, instead she looked around as if searching. She didn’t recognise them.
“TekTih?” she called. “Are you here?”
One scrunched up form crawled out from amongst the others. He watched, disgusted and horrified at this abomination, blue stained skin covered in patches of feathers and hair, robes torn from where they had been stepped on. It dragged itself across the chamber floor towards Aughra, too many limbs, all in a tangle.
“It’ssss donnnnnnnne,” the sickly creature hissed at her.
Realisation was sinking in, ‘I am UngIm,’ he told himself but could not bring himself to look at his own hands.
Aughra frown only deepened as she leant down to help TekTih-creature to his feet.
“This is what you wanted? I will not pretend to understand, old friend, you do not look well,” she scoffed irritably, but he could hear concern there too.
But UngIm felt uncertain that this WAS what they had wanted, something still felt very wrong. His memories were returning now, but not all of them, something was missing, and he could not figure out what it was. He looked around at the others, trying to figure it out.
Nearby he saw the tallest of the creature was now crouched, its eyes darting wildly as it took in everything as well. He would not have recognised SoSu if not for the sceptre he clutched, which he used as a prop to sit upright. The only other he recognised was OkAc-creature, as the only of the Urskek to lack a stole. The rest of them might as well have been an amorphous mass of shining eyes, teeth and limbs.
“Excisssssssssssed,” TekTih-creature continued talking to Aughra. “Look!” and pointed one skeletal finger in the direction of the other half of the Chamber of Life.
It was only then that UngIm noticed that they were not alone, virtually invisible in the darkness there were 18 further creatures there, crouched close to the ground and so slow in their movements that they appeared to be almost completely motionless. Their eyes were dark and empty, their pale hide was bare and emitted no light, still as they were they appeared more like rock than living flesh.
“Gonnnne,” TekTih-creature continued, gesturing to the room at large excitedly. “Darkness excised!”
But no one seemed cheered by this motion, some looked between each other in bitter understanding, others still looked too confused to understand. Staggering to his feet, SoSu-creature glowered, breath ragged at the effort of the movement.
“Crystal Chamber, now!” SoSu-creature growled, wielding the sceptre above his head before leaning upon it once more, and staggering out of the Chamber of Life.
The others scrambled after him, stumbling and unsteady as they were, no longer pushing each other away they worked together to follow after SoSu-creature, formed small huddles they to supported one another. UngIm found himself walking with the support of what had become of NaNol and HakHok. NaNol was the smallest of the three and struggled to support their weight, yet ironically he was practically dragging them forwards, grabbing impatiently at HakHok when he nearly fell, and ignoring the hooked teeth that were bared at him in response.
As they left, UngIm noticed that Aughra held back TekTih-creature, and the two did not follow, as did the horrible slow creatures. All 18 of them were careful to keep as far away as possible from those bare skinned, black-eyed castoffs as they left, each taking turns to look back at them with suspicion and fear, until they disappeared out of sight around the bend in the corridor.
When they reached the Crystal Chamber it was almost a surprise that nothing looked out of place. In its centre, the Crystal hung omnipotently, motionless and emitting a soft light from the now disjoined three suns above. High above the three suns were still visible through the portal, now slowly drifting further apart.
For a long time, they simply looked at the Crystal, as if expecting it to grant them answers. Many looked to SoSu-creature standing closest to the Crystal, but he offered no answers either, he would not even face them. Eventually, they began to talk amongst themselves, words slow at first but gathering speed as they gained control over their voices.
It was clear that things had not gone as planned, they should have still been Urskek, with all the power that entailed and their darkness burned away to nothing. In this new form UngIm felt heavy and weak, once he had been weightless, now he could barely stand. No Urskek would recognise them as they were now, they would not be welcomed back, the hierarchs would not even speak to them, they would gaze right through them and with a flick of the wrist they would be turned into dust, and all the centuries of work and suffering would be gone in an instant.
So, what had this all been for?
He felt the familiar scalding warmth of anger beginning to spread like a fire in his core, burning in his heart and mind, and in this form he felt too weak to ignore it. If this was what they had wanted, then they had never known what they wanted.
Who was to blame? SoSu-creature for getting them into this mess? TekTih-creature for having made his miscalculations? Each other for having contained that same darkness?
Accusations began to be made, and blame lain at one another’s feet. The anger radiating off the others was palpable.
Quickly, fights began to break out.
None of them had ever fought before, but they no longer felt the same restraint. They struck, kicked, and clawed at each other, stumbling, and falling, and yelling and cursing.
UngIm-creature found himself fighting off a large individual who blamed him for something he did not understand, words garbled beyond recognition through the anger and fang. Not recognising them, but filled with anger, he fought them too. But through all of this, he saw several of the others converge on SoSu-creature. SoSu-creature fought fiercely, with a sureness to his movements that the others still lacked, but even he could not tackle multiple enemies at once, and in the chaos ShodYod-creature managed to wrestle free SoSu-creature’s sceptre.
ShodYod-creature began to swing wildly with his newly acquired weapon, he tried to hit SoSu-creature. But barely able to stand, let alone aim, ShodYod-creature’s aims all missed. Snarling in frustration he tried to hit the others involved in the skirmish, but they were too quick for him.
And then it was he set his eyes upon the Crystal, even from a distance UngIm could have sworn he saw the white light reflecting in his eyes. As if transfixed, ShodYod-creature charged at the Crystal, bringing the sceptre above his head.
And struck the Crystal.
In an instant they were blown off their feet.
UngIm-creature hit the floor and instinctively wrapped his head in his arms as a terrible chiming shriek filled the Crystal Chamber. No matter how he tried though he could not block it out, the sound reverberated through his very bones, the floor itself shaking with the force of it.
After what seemed an eternity it faded, leaving them all with ringing ears, and shaky limbs, struggling to rise once more.
ShodYod-creature had fallen with a gurgle, he lay motionless upon the ground, having been hit the hardest by the cracking. SoSu-creature was one of the first to recover, struggling to his feet he stalked over and yanked his sceptre out of the ShodYod-creature’s hands. All looked at him now with fear, what had once been a symbol of wisdom was now a weapon, and in that moment he looked as if he might kill his downed comrade.
“What happened?!” Aughra’s voice cried, she appeared hurrying into the Crystal Chamber, out of breath and cursing to herself. “Oh!”
She let out a cry of anguish on seeing the Crystal, where it had once been clear it had now darkened to purple sheen. Aughra began to wail, and curse even louder, throwing her hands up and shaking in disbelief. The magnitude of what had happened had not quite sunken in for the rest of them, and they looked between themselves uneasily while Aughra continued to lament and howl.
Eventually she stopped and looked around for the culprit, her eyes narrowing as she saw SoSu holding the sceptre.
In a moment of almost comedic childishness, SoSu immediately pointed accusatorily at ShodYod who still lay twitching on the floor. Aughra looked between them and the Crystal, and then back again, now muttering curses in aughrish beneath her breath.
"It did noooot go as plannnnnned,” SoSu-creature managed to gargle after quickly recollecting himself, and he grasped at his chest emphatically. “This, is not right!”
“And that means you all start flailing about like angry infants?” Aughra was furious. “You cracked the Crystal! You are lucky it did not break entirely! The whole of Thra might have gone then! Many other worlds might have!”
There were no apologies, SoSu-creature merely looked around the room uncomfortably and angrily, as if daring any of the others to blame him. The others averted their eyes, some looking at ShodYod-creature, who still lying motionless on the floor.
“Where is TekTih?” he growled eventually.
“Elsewhere,” Aughra replied curtly. “Thinking is what is needed now, not blame.”
“And the castoffs?”
“They’ve already left,” Aughra said dismissively, she waved a hand in a vague direction away from the Castle. “They will not cause you harm, I do not think they are capable of much at all.”
She looked between all of them now, no longer mumbling to herself, she clasped her hands decisively.
“Come now, tidy yourselves up,” she walked towards them, pausing occasionally to help those who were still down. Small as she was, she was Mother Aughra, and they had always regarded her as a wise friend. “Perhaps it’s not so bad, perhaps things can be fixed.”