The Reward of The Oolyay (9 page)

“I am The Master, called Quantelenk.”

The Seeker, Inlojem, thought of these things as they climbed the path to the origin of his faith. The first time he had lost his faith torment had ensued, and he believed it to be his punishment. The second time he lost his faith he realized that torment was a fact of life; it had surrounded him for as long as he had remembered. The gain that Quantelenk had promised him had come from the experience of a life lived, and from those around him. It came from preserving his society and persevering it against continuous torment.

The torment had never stopped; he had just ceased to recognize it, to believe it was there. Yet he knew that it was, and had fought to quell such torment for his whole life. Through the tending of plague victims, fighting against the Uyor, and the sacrifices of countless old Vesh that asked him for release. He knew deep inside that torment was still a part of his life. Only once he released his faith did it come crashing down, flooding his soul as though it washed through a breached dam.

The faithless were not tormented more than those with faith- they just opened their souls and allowed that torment to flow into them directly, to accept the world as it was. The faithless recognized that they were not as important as their faith had led them to believe. He could not reconcile the idea that his one soul’s faithlessness had brought about Armageddon. He was an old man, from a small province in the North. He was not of such great import that without his belief, the world would come to a halt.

Iquay halted in her tracks and looked back at the others with apprehension contorting her features. They approached her position and helplessly looked where she looked until she extended a hand to show them.

“There, up ahead. My people are scalped and on pikes,” she said flatly. There was no terror in her voice, because Inlojem suspected there simply was no terror left in her. The old Vesh narrowed his eyes and peered through the thickening fog and snow to spy the narrow black body-sized shapes silhouetted by the distant path torches. Teftek’s young eyes could already tell that they were dead bodies

“I should have known. I should have known!” Teftek spat, angrily, his constitution starting to break.

“It may be nothing. Maybe they’re profligates who tried to defect from...“ Inlojem started.

“Nonsense!” Iquay corrected him. “My people are not
savages
.”

“Yes, they
were
,” a voice retorted from out of the steadily heavier snow-fall. They raised their weaponry and their eyes darted to and fro. Inlojem’s knife came to his ready; he recognized that voice and knew that it brought darkness. It was the voice of that foul Hagayalick who had broken Inlojem’s Temple and trampled over the ways of his home, under the guise of a shared allegiance. This voice belonged to Ilquast.

The face emerged. The narrow-jawed, young face of a Royal bred blood-lust-addicted fiend challenged the face of Inlojem through the thick tufts of snow that fell around them. Black and gold cloaks abounded as several other Hagayalicks surrounded the travelers and Ilquast himself, with modern projectile weaponry and wrinkled in brows that implied a sense of fatality. The stalking Hagayalick Necrologist moved around them in a pacing circle, sizing up his catch. His dark crimson eyes scanned each of their bodies from head to toe, catching the woman’s frame specifically in his focus.

“What have you done to her people, Ilquast?” Inlojem asked.

“I’ve sacrificed them, that much should be apparent. We’ll do much the same to the four of you. One at a time, in procession, in order to show Ihio our love for him. There was mention, from those that were sacrificed down there, that there is even a portal to the Nothingness below this site…perhaps we can step into the Nothingness as well.” Ilquast explained.

Iquay spat at him and pulled her knife out, about to engage Ilquast, before Inlojem wrapped his burley arms around her, hearing the clicking of guns like excited Iju snakes behind him.

“It’s not worth it now!” Inlojem soothed her.

“That portal is
our portal!” 
she screamed. “Why would you sacrifice those who are unwilling?! That is execution, not sacrifice!”

“Execution of heretics
!”
Ilquast replied. “Besides, there is nothing that you can do now except watch. I have a very special sacrifice to show you, Inlojem.”

The other three travelers looked at Inlojem with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity in their eyes, as the guns of their captors prodded them up the rest of the path. As Iquay drew closer she recognized the eyes of many of her people, drooped, dead and widened, looking up to the sky. Inlojem sympathized with her, remembering the destruction that had befallen him and so many villages around him as the wars and conflicts between the Oolyay, the Uyor and the Hagayal ravaged the North. He always wondered why the Hagayalicks were so obsessed with putting people on pikes, so obsessed with forms of sadism and execution.

They moved through Terminus' gargantuan pyrix gate, an ominous Vesh-made arch with green burning torches on either side standing out of the unpolished pyrix cliffs on either side. Hung from the gate were clusters of skulls from those who had approached Terminus before the Hagayalicks had ever arrived. They were a warning for the faithless who dared to try overthrowing Terminus. Inlojem was, in this moment, impressed and angry with Ilquast for performing such a feat.

“How did you do it?” Inlojem asked Ilquast as they passed through the archway. “How did you take Terminus?”

“Air transports,” Ilquast replied.

“Air... the Hagayalicks don’t just have a hidden supply of air transports,” Teftek spat back.

“We killed
your
soldiers and took them from Qol while our masters invaded from the skies,” Ilquast replied. Teftek stared at him like a rabid Kyrun, madness taking over his eyes.
Our masters,
Teftek thought on the words that had come out of Ilquast-
he actually believes those aliens are sent from The Void.

The pyrix cliff sides dissipated and the flat, carved ground of the pantheon arose, giving way to the grand city of Terminus; it was a symmetrical masterpiece that tore out of the jagged points of mountains around them. One huge Ulgayir jutted up in the middle of the city - a colossal ziggurat hewn from the pyrix itself. Flat stone and teeming gems were abundant and of the sort that Inlojem had never even seen. Hordes of Hagayalicks, dressed in robes and jeweled cloaks, were gathered in the middle of the city as Oolyayn Vesh dressed in tattered rags worked around them, under the constant guard of the Hagayalick warriors.

Inlojem’s eyes widened as he took in the incredible sight. They moved forward through the crowd until they were at the very front of it and standing at the base of the Ulgayir. Inlojem could almost feel its power as the dark clouds of night overhead lingered and blocked out the stars. A chattering of lightning and thunder could be heard from far off, deep within the recesses of far off mountains. Pink and violet blood flowed down the steps, and Oolyayn bodies lay piled at the base of it. The victims were mainly Necrologists and mostly males - the female Vesh having been relegated to slavery. Yet among the dead Necrologists, Iquay spotted the body of a female Vesh she'd known and loved intensely. She broke from their ranks and moved to the bodies, inspecting them with her hands. Grief overwhelmed her as she touched Vesh she knew and once loved.

“My…master,” she sputtered as she touched a very old hand of a lifeless, headless female Necrologist in front of her. Iquay sat down next to the bodies, consumed with sadness.

“And there is yours,” Ilquast snickered to Inlojem, directing his hand toward the top of the Ulgayir. Inlojem’s eyes followed the steps up to their terminus, and under the archway that stood at the very top of the stairway was an old giant, a hulking Necrologist in robes made from many Shades; Quantelenk. They looked into one another’s eyes for the last time, as Inlojem accepted what was about to transpire. A circular, body-sized axe raised about the ancient behemoth’s head, and then swept it away in one swift motion, sending it spiraling down the side of the temple. Then the body was pushed from the top of the temple and tumbled down the stairs to take its place at the base with the other Oolyayn bodies.

The little boy in Inlojem’s arms gripped his muscle and told him,

“Please…do not break. Please, not now.”

             
Inlojem lowered Iogi to stand on his own and walked away from the boy, leaving him next to Teftek. Inlojem felt his knees collapse and his body give way to gravity, slumping down next to Iquay to grieve. Teftek noticed some of the fatigues of the bodies piled at the base of the Ulgayir. Pilot uniforms from transport ships.

“I thought you said you killed those soldiers in Qol.” Teftek queried cautiously to Ilquast.

“Oh, there were more transports near here when we arrived. We’ve destroyed them all,” Ilquast noted casually.

“You... you destroyed the transports? The extra-atmospheric transports?”

“The non-believers are so anxious to leave, but this is
THE END,
My child!” Ilquast yelled triumphantly. Inlojem stood up, gripping the boy for leverage as he stood, his bones aching from their journey and his body weak.

“How pitiful, to hear you call him a child,” Inlojem sneered. “
You
are the child. You are a puny, selfish child, whose heart is only filled with hate. You make Vesh like him into disbelievers. You’ve even sucked the faith out of me. You are a welt on the face of your religion and a thorn in the side of mine. You are an ill-fitting cloak that is tainted by disease, and you have worn down your host until there is barely anything left of him…and yet, to you, this is victory. The ascension of pain and agony over the joy of life is your eternal calling. Every Vesh outside of our faiths believes the Oolyay to be brutal and unforgiving and, yet, the only unprovoked brutality I have seen in this world has come at the fingertips of the Fio Rij Hagayal. How much longer will your disease plague our land? If this is the end, then I am glad for it, that I never have to look upon you again.”

Ilquast struck Inlojem with the back of his hand so hard that the old Necrologist faltered backward. Iogi had to struggle to keep the old warrior from falling. Ilquast neared Inlojem as the old Vesh breathed heavily, his rigid body flooded with exhaustion.

“How does it feel, old Necrologist, to be at the mercy of a child?” Ilquast grabbed Inlojem’s throat and put a knife to it, his teeth gritting with anticipation. Then he laughed and slid the straight-blade back into its holster.  “Which one of you would like to be the first to be sacrificed?” Ilquast asked, facing directly toward Inlojem.

“I’ll do it,” Teftek answered, stepping out in front of Ilquast. “You seem to think we’re such cowards. I’ll show you that we can face death.”

*  *  *

The Oolyayns were being kept in a hole in the ground, normally used for livestock; just deep enough that one could not climb out, with smooth stone sides. Inlojem and Iogi were brought to the rope ladder that led into the pit and then forced down into it. Iquay stayed with Teftek as the two were guided toward the temple.

“So, this is it? You’re just going to throw me up on the chopping block and be done with it?” Teftek asked Ilquast.

“Not quite,” Ilquast responded calmly. “We will give you a last meal…a feast, really... and time to prepare.”

“How pleasant,” Teftek remarked to Iquay.

“Yes, it is, in fact,” Ilquast retorted. “We could just execute you, but you have taken the honor of sacrifice, which means that we will give you feast, wine and pleasures of the skin.”

“Pleasures of the skin,” Iquay repeated with disdain. Ilquast turned to her and grabbed her by her hair, as one of his Hagayalicks held her back.

“Something you’ll soon learn to appreciate,” Ilquast sneered. She seized his cheek in her teeth and ripped the skin off the bone, sending him shrieking backward as he pried himself off of her death grip. She felt a swift blow to her stomach, which forced the piece of flesh out of her mouth onto the ground and dropped her to her knees. They lifted canes and fists to beat her, but Teftek placed himself in front of the angry Hagayalicks.

“Don’t, please don’t hurt her,” he pleaded, waving his arms at Ilquast, who held his bleeding cheek with fury pumping through his hand in the manifestation of his own blood.

“Get out of the way, blasphemer!” Ilquast yelled.

“I choose her as my mistress. Please, as long as I’m alive, just let me have her. It’s all that I ask,” Teftek stated, recognizing how seriously the Hagayalicks took last wishes. When Ilquast looked with anger at his confederates they glared back at him, expectant. He sighed.

“You wait until he’s dead, little whore. I will strip the life off your bones one bite at a time,” Ilquast growled, his right cheek vacant from his face, oozing blood all over his body. He whipped around and stormed off.

The other confederates brought Iquay and Teftek to a small, cozy room with a well decorated dining table and several dishes of food  prepared ahead of time. Some of the dishes had already been picked clean, and as Teftek entered the room, Oolyayn servants were shoved into the room and forced to replace the dishes with new meals. The meals were all of a Northern variety;
seasoned Urio and fresh Kinterquoth with olsjet yams and trensolim sauces
.