Of Dark Above
12th of January 2007 A.D.
As you and Lydia head back to the inner chambers of the temple you consider the wounds the idol had already dealt you, not perhaps with as much concern as Tiffany would prefer, indeed not as she would do at all. You are no healer after all, but you do know what it feels like to be Molly Carpenter and not in pain, all ribs in their proper place.
Willing myself to be... to Be... Whole. Essence shifts and flows under the skin, through muscle and bone, through rushing rivers and cold stone.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 4/15 (EIPP)
"What was that?" Lydia frowns as she looks you over. "Felt like an earthquake, but not in the Earth."
"Healing," you consider your dwindling reserves against the fact that you do not know when the thing under the city will break loose. It is all too easy to imagine soaking in a bath when the stars start going out. So you flip open Clippy to an image of a smiling dark haired woman you had once called friend, gone to the moves with and confided fears and secrets in, someone you hadn't known at all.
When does she think her plans will come to fruition?
The answer rings like iron upon stone, like war drums calling:
Two nights hence at the stroke of midnight.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 3/15 (Crown of Eyes)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 5/15 (Urge of the Forbidden)
"Worst fairy godmother ever," you mutter under your breath, pushing down the fear. "Midnight on the fourteenth, that is when Sandra's planning to move. Not sure how yet, but t least we have some time."
Your friend nods as the two of you walk in to... rapt attention, awe and fear in every gaze, the proportions varying wildly. Truth be told you are struck at just how normal everyone looks, young and old men and women wearing what you would think of as Sunday best, a little rumpled maybe like they had been up pate and running off coffee and snacks, not what one would imagine waiting for revelation to be. Lydia speaks to the spirit, her words clear and resonant, beseeching but not commanding, questioning but not begging, her language definitely not English. First one head answers, then the others, hissing sibilant tones filled with heavy pauses, until at last Lydia seems content with what she had learned.
"The vampire who was here, the one who called himself Nathanael Cobbler, the spirits knew him, he was among those who unearthed the idol back in the Eighteenth Century and part of the cabal of sorcerers who awoke the spirits, who awoke
Sekmet. Most of them died, though it was not the intention of the spirits for them to perish and so onto the survivors a boon was promised for the loss of their companions and for bringing the disk of Red Dawn back into the light. Cobbler never cashed his in, said he had 'a cat's lives and a rat's luck'. They are... unsettled that he ended the way he did because they are not sure where the debt went. Maybe it's just gone with him beyond the Heart's Judgement and out of sight or maybe it got inherited by the Thing that twisted him, the Old One. That would be
bad, they don't want to encounter the Old One and I don't blame them," Lydia chews on her lip nervously. "The other option is that the debt is now owed to you since you consumed him."
"What do you mean they are not sure? Don't they know their own nature?" Self-knowledge after all is one of the things deathless spirits take for granted the way mortals take free will.
"They say that above all debts they are beholden to 'the king', the word they are using is really a suffix so it could also means the line of kings, all who have borne and will bear the title. They were bound long ago, shaped long ago but as old as these stones are they are as young as reeds upon the banks of the Nile compared to the disk and the spear, these they say were not made, but dredged from the depths pieces of the world before the
Flood. The word choice is odd 'hai kekewey', descending darkness or formlessness. Floods are not that bleak in Kemetic, even when they are ill timed and kill people, manifestations of cosmic chaos they are not associated with empty darkness."
Empty darkness... empty night... "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," you quote softly Genesis 1:2. "That kind of water?"
She translates back, obviously choosing her words carefully. "Yeah I think we are getting somewhere, dredged from the dark
above, I think the black ocean may be..." she waves her hand above her head. "Outer space and the dredging was done by star people... star sowers, someone who had to to with stars called the disk and the spear down, they are the ones who bound them."
Starborn, you conclude, though not aloud. "We need to get Harry to talk to this thing, not me." Fortunately you can arrange for him to speak the tongue this idol seems most comfortable in conversing.
Thus Harry Dresden, wizard, warden, starborn is faced with the stone idol Adkin not half a step behind looking like nothing so much as a man dying of thirst suddenly faced with an oasis. Fortunately you manage to convince him to clear out the others as you reach out and grand the gift of tongues... and the gift of not bleeding from the ears while thus conversing.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 4/15
"[State your Purpose]," words cruelly resonant emerge from Harry's mouth. Not the most diplomatic way he could have started this, but being fair to him this is not a language meant for diplomacy
"[To Guard the Way, to Elucidate/Rekindle/Restore the old light when all other light has failed]," comes the reply.
"[To Keep Back the Dark/the Maw/the Void]"
"[How do you know when the Dark comes,]" Harry presses. [
Possession of Prophecy thread/understanding?]
"[Darkness follows light/Night follows Day]"
Well that is clear as mud, you think annoyed.
Maybe this thing just isn't very clever, not every voice out of the deep past can be Usum.
Harry's eyes narrow in sudden suspicion: "[Clarification, Dark is kept back by rekindled Light?]"
"[Negative, Old Dark follows Old Light, Reason for containment. Yet when the Pattern/Circle/Walls fail necessity impels. Night follows Day]"
Now alas you are starting to see the shape of things. If this thing gets loose, something else does too and Shadow-Ra sounds like something the Elders of the Black Court would have affinity to. Maybe Cobler wasn't just here to stop this Exaltation, but to use its connection to find another, the shadow to its light.
What do you do?
[] Ask if there can be light without shadow
[] Ask where or into what the shadow is bound
[] Write in
OOC: So yeah... ever wondered why someone would bind a solar exaltation behind 'only in case of Major Incursion break glass?'.
