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Content warning: child endangerment, body horror, violence against children and adults, gore.
Chapter 23
It strains to look around. At its feet, drawn in excruciating detail, is a mandala that covers most of the floor. Iron stakes stick up between the flagstones at six equidistant points from the ones binding it. Kilieteria is the only other person in the crypt, and she has its leather contract case in her hand.
“What are you doing?” it demands. “Why am I here?”
“The Houses wish to renegotiate their deal with the demon,” Kilieteria says. “They want a contract with six Houses, instead of seven.”
“Then why the fuck do you need me?” It twists its wrists, hoping it can stretch the ropes enough to escape. “I’m just a servant.”
“Relax, little Death,” Kilieteria says. “It will be over soon enough.”
“Fuck you.” It keeps trying, but the ropes don’t stretch and the iron stakes won’t move no matter how hard it pulls. It hears wailing and strains its neck to see the stairs. The sounds grows louder and six pairs of Deaths come down the steps, holding scared, struggling children between them. Like itself, the children wear only loincloths, and unreadable writing covers their torsos. Most are crying, some screaming. It recognizes them from when it helped pull them from their homes.
They’re going to do it again.
The Deaths handle the children with brutal efficiency, tying them to the stakes around the mandala and leaving them there to wail and cry. When they are all secure, the Deaths file up the steps. A pair of men and and three women it doesn’t know come down, followed by one man it does. A faint, desperate hope ignites inside it.
“Ralleen!” It realizes it’s screaming, and forces its voice lower. “I’m a servant, not part of House Kilcharni. The demon won’t care about me.”
Ralleen doesn’t spare it a glance, and takes his place. The child below him calls his name and begs for him to untie them and let them go. The other children old enough to do more than scream in terror do the same. The adults—young adults, it realizes, none older than thirty—don’t look at them.
They’re the Dirarchs and Mirarchs of the Houses. The older scions are dead.
A butcher in a bloody leather apron, with four knives sheathed across his belt, comes down next. He looks at the screaming children without expression, as if he cannot see their tears or hear their pleas. Behind him come six elders, their steps slow and careful. Each leans on the arm of a Death, their free hand pressed against the wall for fear of slipping or losing their balance. They take up places around the mandala, standing behind the young men and women, their Deaths beside them.
The Litarchs and Girarchs. How come they’re alive?
“Gag them,” says the Litarch of Felcina, and the Deaths step forward to stuff knotted scarves into the children’s mouths. Kilieteria kneels at its head. It pulls its face away in a futile gesture of resistance. Kilieteria punches it hard, making its skull bounce off the flagstones. In the moment it’s dazed, she wraps the scarf tight, leaving it barely enough space to breathe through its nose. It glares hatred at her as she stands up and resumes her position.
“Let us begin,” the Litarch of Felcina says.
One Death walks the circumference of the mandala, placing a candle between each child and the adult standing over them. A second follows, lighting them. A third uses the flame to light thick sticks of incense and place them before each candle. Once they are lit, and the incense’s stench fills the air, the Deaths extinguish the crypt’s lamps and return to their places behind the elders.
The six young heads of the Houses and Master of Death Kilieteria take out the contracts and raise them. Seven young ghosts appear, all skinned from the hips to the armpits, their bare muscles glistening wet in the dim light. They see what is happening and wail, the sound high and terrified and piercing its eardrums like needles. It twists it neck to look at Kilieteria. The Master of Death’s expression doesn’t change, and her eyes are on her Litarch. The old woman raises one finger, and the seven Mitarchs and Dirarch inhale. She lowers it, and the seven begin chanting.
The words they speak are harsh, atonal, and arrhythmic. Fear makes it shiver. It contracts its muscles, putting all its strength into creating the slightest bit of give in its bonds.
The chant stops, and the butcher in the bloody apron steps forward. He draws a knife and cuts a line in the forehead of the closest child. The gag muffles the child’s scream, making it no louder than the wails of the dead. The chanters repeat the words they said before, and when they stop, the man cuts a second child.
The butcher works his way, child by child, around the mandala. It struggles in vain against its bonds. On the fifth round of chants, he draws the knife across its forehead, leaving a bloody line. When the seventh repetition ends and the butcher cuts the seventh child, the chanters breathe in as one, and call:
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm!
On the seventh repitition, the stench of acid and smoke fills the crypt and the demon appears in the centre of the mandala.
Its brand flares with agonizing heat. It clenches its teeth against the gag, refusing to make a sound. It will not give anyone the satisfaction of hearing its pain, even when they skin it alive.
“Great one!” Ralleen declares. “We appear before you, offering true sacrifices from the Houses of Glarin, Tralique, Paskoni, Darlona, Recinta, Flecina, and Kilcharni.”
It tries to shout that it isn’t of House Kilcharni; it isn’t even a person. But the gag blocks its words as easily as the children’s screams.
“We humble beseech you to accept our offer of a new contract,” Ralleen continues, pointing at the marks on the nearest child’s flesh. “We pledge you greater offerings for the same terms as the previous. But it shall be an alliance of six Houses, not seven.”
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm’s eyeless head does not change direction. It does not have a mouth to move, but guttural noises fill the air and scrape against the listeners’ eardrums. The language is the same that the chanters used, but spoken with its true sound. And amidst the grating words, one comes out recognizable: “Kilcharni.”
Ralleen swallows hard, but keeps his face stern and says, “House Kilcharni is no more. It can no longer serve you. All its scions are dead, from the oldest member to the youngest child, from the heir to the meanest cousin. Its last bastard lies here, and with its sacrifice, the old contract will be complete.”
The words pierce through its agony, though they make no sense. It saw the bastards of Kilcharni when it brought the other children. It cannot be one.
“Heed our plea,” Ralleen says, kneeling before N*klabl’ch^gik’dm. “Hear the terms of our bargain and accept them. We seek only peace, prosperity, and wealth. We offer fair and generous terms. Let this contract replace the old.”
A silence crackling with anticipation and dread fills the room. The children, terrified beyond thought, no longer scream or cry. Mirachs and Dirarchs hold their breaths. The Litarchs and Girarchs watch with sparkling eyes. In the mandala, N*klabl’ch^gik’dm doesn’t move or make a sound.
“N*klabl’ch^gik’dm,” Ralleen intones, “Give us your—”
The demon’s spiked tail slams into Ralleen, tearing through the flesh of his stomach and out the back, leaving a hole too wide to heal. The bound children scream again through their gags. The ghosts wail louder. Five tentacles lash out, sending the other Mirarchs and Dirarchs flying backward. One man’s head smashes against the stone and he lies still. A woman tries to catch herself, and it hears her elbow break. The others hit the ground, dazed and bleeding but conscious. N*klabl’ch^gik’dm rips its tail from Ralleen and charges, ignoring the mandala that was supposed to bind it.
It falls on the Mirach from House Glarin first, and she screams as the tail tears into her guts and rips its way out her neck. Kilieteria hauls Felcina’s Dirarch to his feet and drags him toward the stairs. The elders are stumble-running to the steps, and Kilieteria shoves them aside without thought for their health. Then N*klabl’ch^gik’dm’s tail spike smashes the through the Dirarch of Felcina’s skull, splattering the walls with blood and brains. Kilieteria drops the man’s corpse and sprints up out of the crypt.
The remaining Mirarchs and Dirarchs scream and beg as they die. The Deaths do their best to protect them, but they have only steel daggers that glance off the demon’s flesh. N*klabl’ch^gik’dm lashes out, smashing them against the walls, blood spurting where the tentacles’ spikes dig into their flesh. The elders hobble or crawl as fast as they can out of the crypt, fighting and pulling at one another to escape.
Five of the candles fall over and gutter in the struggle, sending the room into near darkness. The last Dirarch dies with the creature’s tail driving through his body and out his mouth. The last Mirarch falls moments later, her ripped guts spread across the floor. The demon circles the room, tentacles running over dead adults and bound children alike, bringing new screams and fresh blood from each child it touches.
N*klabl’ch^gik’dm vanishes, leaving behind the stench of acid and smoke and fresh corpses. And in their midst, still bound to the floor, lie the six children and it.
Chapter 23 comes May 9th!
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