I feel like your prompts are hinting at something again, but I'm not sure I know what. Or... is this blog how you communicate with your handler? Are you asking for help leaving the zone of your last assassination? Aha! now it all makes sense :) Still, the prompt (for me) seems to point in the direction of you wanting a tale about dentistry... maybe it's time for Aubergine and Adrian to come back?
The extraction Labdaris stepped through the Gate. As he did so he felt the structure of the Gate change, not changing the direction of travel, but adding to it somehow. There were pulses, not exactly painful but not welcome either, from the gems set into his flesh, that seemed more organised than random, but when he stepped out of the Gate at the other end, arriving in the very last place he could have expected, he collapsed to the floor and screamed. Yellow smoke rose from his skin as the gems shed some of their stored power and within the strange spaces that the Gates used to construct their conduits, a new corridor opened up and stretched away in an indescribable direction, reaching out like a neuron trying to make a connection to the rest of the brain. The extraction of the King in Yellow's power from his body hovered in the air over him in a formless cloud, and pain shot from his head to his toes in a rhythmic pulsing.
Lord Derby saw the men at the top of the steps point at something, and then start to hurry down. Relieved that they were at last on the move he looked to see what they were pointing at, and then squinted, wishing that the light here was less erratic. Were there suddenly more people in the quarry? He gritted his teeth, trying hard to work out what he was looking at despite the strobing actinic flashes like lightning and the constant occlusion by moving darknesses and transient nebula. Was Grace animating the slaughtered corpses now, building herself an army?
Memnith looked around and then started patting his pockets. Elizabeth crouched, and cursed. "What is going on here?" she muttered, sounding angry. "The Power is being tossed around like there's a storm going on. I can't get a proper grip on anything." "Ritual magic," said Memnith. His hands slipped inside his robes, now patting inside pockets. "Crude stuff, but effective. We should probably teach more about it but everyone like the modern shiny theory so much that it usually gets stuck in one lecture at the end of term when three-quarters of the class don't turn up. And yet, only a few years ago there was a case that Lord Derby knows all about, up in Edinburgh, where ritual magic was right at the heart of it all. Ah!" He pulled a pair of silver spectacles from his pocket.
Samual reached the bottom of the steps and stopped, puzzled. The spear in his hands was growing warm.
Labdaris howled in pain again, but already he was using the Power to halt it, to feed energy back into the gems and stabilise his body. It wouldn't last, he knew that, but lying here in the Elizabeth Tower, the one place in the whole of London where a Gate definitively couldn't be opened, while helpless was terrifying. He forced himself into a sitting position, trying to understand what was happening.
The changes to the Gate completed and the Gate connected to a third endpoint -- the Temple of the King in Carcosa.
The spear in Samual's hands suddenly glowed a deep yellow like the amber of a lion's eyes and he tightened his grip on it. To his astonishment it lifted him off the ground as though he weighed nothing at all and sped through the air, the point leading the way as though thrown by a giant.
Memnith slipped the spectacles on and looked around the quarry, which now seemed well-lit and calm. By concentrating he could still perceive the flows of Power that were as turbulent as water cascading down a waterfall, but now at least he knew what he was looking at. Lord Derby was visible against the wall; the soldiers descending the steps were clear. Grace was now obvious though she'd hidden herself half-inside a pile of bodies, and- "Well that's odd," said Memnith thoughtfully, but even Elizabeth could see the bright-yellow arrow-like streak of the spear disappearing with Samual dangling from it.
In London, the cloud of yellow smoke swirled into the shape of a man wearing a hooded cloak and solidified, and Labdaris wondered if he should try and kneel.
(Though you know I'd never say no to more Aubergine...)
Hoooooly jeeze. Business, as some might say, is certainly picking up.
The king has arrived in London, which can't possibly be good. Memnith, Elizabeth, and Derby are all in the same place at last, though there's enough chaos flying around that I'm not at all certain that they'll manage to get together. And poor Samual...
3 comments:
I feel like your prompts are hinting at something again, but I'm not sure I know what. Or... is this blog how you communicate with your handler? Are you asking for help leaving the zone of your last assassination? Aha! now it all makes sense :) Still, the prompt (for me) seems to point in the direction of you wanting a tale about dentistry... maybe it's time for Aubergine and Adrian to come back?
The extraction
Labdaris stepped through the Gate. As he did so he felt the structure of the Gate change, not changing the direction of travel, but adding to it somehow. There were pulses, not exactly painful but not welcome either, from the gems set into his flesh, that seemed more organised than random, but when he stepped out of the Gate at the other end, arriving in the very last place he could have expected, he collapsed to the floor and screamed. Yellow smoke rose from his skin as the gems shed some of their stored power and within the strange spaces that the Gates used to construct their conduits, a new corridor opened up and stretched away in an indescribable direction, reaching out like a neuron trying to make a connection to the rest of the brain. The extraction of the King in Yellow's power from his body hovered in the air over him in a formless cloud, and pain shot from his head to his toes in a rhythmic pulsing.
Lord Derby saw the men at the top of the steps point at something, and then start to hurry down. Relieved that they were at last on the move he looked to see what they were pointing at, and then squinted, wishing that the light here was less erratic. Were there suddenly more people in the quarry? He gritted his teeth, trying hard to work out what he was looking at despite the strobing actinic flashes like lightning and the constant occlusion by moving darknesses and transient nebula. Was Grace animating the slaughtered corpses now, building herself an army?
Memnith looked around and then started patting his pockets. Elizabeth crouched, and cursed.
"What is going on here?" she muttered, sounding angry. "The Power is being tossed around like there's a storm going on. I can't get a proper grip on anything."
"Ritual magic," said Memnith. His hands slipped inside his robes, now patting inside pockets. "Crude stuff, but effective. We should probably teach more about it but everyone like the modern shiny theory so much that it usually gets stuck in one lecture at the end of term when three-quarters of the class don't turn up. And yet, only a few years ago there was a case that Lord Derby knows all about, up in Edinburgh, where ritual magic was right at the heart of it all. Ah!" He pulled a pair of silver spectacles from his pocket.
Samual reached the bottom of the steps and stopped, puzzled. The spear in his hands was growing warm.
Labdaris howled in pain again, but already he was using the Power to halt it, to feed energy back into the gems and stabilise his body. It wouldn't last, he knew that, but lying here in the Elizabeth Tower, the one place in the whole of London where a Gate definitively couldn't be opened, while helpless was terrifying. He forced himself into a sitting position, trying to understand what was happening.
The changes to the Gate completed and the Gate connected to a third endpoint -- the Temple of the King in Carcosa.
The spear in Samual's hands suddenly glowed a deep yellow like the amber of a lion's eyes and he tightened his grip on it. To his astonishment it lifted him off the ground as though he weighed nothing at all and sped through the air, the point leading the way as though thrown by a giant.
Memnith slipped the spectacles on and looked around the quarry, which now seemed well-lit and calm. By concentrating he could still perceive the flows of Power that were as turbulent as water cascading down a waterfall, but now at least he knew what he was looking at. Lord Derby was visible against the wall; the soldiers descending the steps were clear. Grace was now obvious though she'd hidden herself half-inside a pile of bodies, and-
"Well that's odd," said Memnith thoughtfully, but even Elizabeth could see the bright-yellow arrow-like streak of the spear disappearing with Samual dangling from it.
In London, the cloud of yellow smoke swirled into the shape of a man wearing a hooded cloak and solidified, and Labdaris wondered if he should try and kneel.
Greg - ha ha, funny man :P
(Though you know I'd never say no to more Aubergine...)
Hoooooly jeeze. Business, as some might say, is certainly picking up.
The king has arrived in London, which can't possibly be good. Memnith, Elizabeth, and Derby are all in the same place at last, though there's enough chaos flying around that I'm not at all certain that they'll manage to get together. And poor Samual...
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