[center][h2]Depths of Hive Cluster Zattdrok[/h2][/center] [i]It was dark. Here and there, scant patches of luminescent lichen dimly glimmered overhead, but their feeble glow was no more than a scattering of small islands amid the black ocean of subterranean shadow. The daylight had remained far behind - hours, days, maybe years. Nothing here could so much as remind of it; certainly not the patches of lichen, which were unfit to be even a bleak imitation of the sun. But nor was the darkness akin to that of night. There were no stars, no moon, no light, fresh breeze. Worst of all, there was no sense of rest or safety. This was not the darkness that offered a long-awaited moment of respite from toil in the fields and the vexations of the master. This was the stifling black breath of another universe, crawling and festering beneath the earth; a world that, in Justinian’s righteous rule, should never have left its foul lair. But it was not the darkness that was most terrible in that descent. It was the silence. In the real world, the one that was not clearly a loathsome nightmare come to life by some sorcery, captives were escorted by files of men-at-arms with clattering weapons and crackling torches, who spoke and laughed among themselves, cursed and spat at their charge, even sang if they had had enough ale beforehand. Here, there was nothing of this sort. Only the scraping of a claw on stone now and then, and the low whistling of giant feelers sweeping through the air before his face. And yet, it could have been far worse. Justinian be thanked, he had never fully seen the monsters. All he remembered was that the ground had shaken and rumbled, someone had called out from behind the rows of wheat, and hard, cutting manacles has closed around his wrists and ankles. Then something behind him had pulled down, towards the soil, and there had been the dark. He was beginning to doubt whether any of that had ever happened, whether it was not that that was the dream and this reality. For indeed, this had to be a dream, a foul vision brought about by the tales of the old men and a tankard too many at the inn. The things from below had not come to his village in many years, if they existed at all. What were the odds they would just appear like this, all of a sudden? Besides, he could not even say what they looked like. Was this not proof that none of this was true, and that he would soon wake up on his bed of straw, pale after the fright the nightmare had given him but ready for the new day’s work? They came to a bend in the tunnel, and the claws dug painfully into his flesh as they tugged him sideways. Warm streams trickled down his arms, and were lost among his rags. No, this was not the dream. Nor had been his life in the fields, distant though it seemed now. All was damnable truth, and the grip of the inhuman limbs on his wrists was too painful for him to be capable of being truly frightened. He thought he would never be able to move his hands again, but that remark led him further into what he would certainly never do again, and he threw it away with horror. In spite of himself, his body drank in the noisome sensations that surrounded him. There were darkness and silence, occasionally broken by a glimmering stain or a scratching of monstrous paws on stone; there was also the feeling of the coarse soil he was being dragged over, and the thing that was holding him. The warm, unpleasant taste of blood in his mouth. And there was the stench. It was not only the damp smell of the deep earth, the rot and all the filth that grew fat over it; the monsters also had theirs, and it was unlike that of any animal he had ever seen in his life. Dry, sharp, bitter. It could not belong to anything that was good. It was known to all that dogs and horses hated the things from below, and now he clearly understood why. Further and further down he went, carried by the invisible and noiseless procession. There had been more bends and twists than he knew how to count, and still they bore onwards. It occurred to him that, while the things did not think like men or other beasts, even they must have had their home, and they were taking him there. He did not like the thought, but there was nothing else left to him. At last, there seemed to come from somewhere far ahead a red glimmer, spreading over the walls of the tunnel. It was weak, but grew ever stronger as it approached, and he closed his eyes so that he would not see what was swinging its feelers before his face. He could still see the light shining brighter, now a lurid glow made even more blood-like by his eyelids. Suddenly, he felt that he was no longer moving; then, he was roughly turned about and pushed forward by something sharp, managing by some miracle to land on his knees. He did not want to look, and, clenching his hands, fought with the rising urge that was rising to overpower him against his best reasons. It was too great. His eyes agonisingly pried themselves open, and he saw.[/i] The Prophet had bid it, and They had come, for the will of the Prophet was that of Vex’xalar. All of Them, great and small, swam in the great stygian ocean that was the One Mind. The Prophet had swept a limb through it, birthing many small waves which flowed along with the mighty breath of the divine tides, and all those who were close enough to be caught in them heeded their call. Great and small, through earth and water, the bodies of the Swarms had crawled, dug and swam to join the sacred ceremony of veneration, to celebrate the One Will that moved all of them, and they had brought an offering. They were massed in a great vault, swarming over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, suspended in the air, looking out of the many tunnels that opened into the chamber. Between and under their creeping black shapes, meaty red fungi spread their sanguine glow. The cavern seemed a gargantuan stomach, through the walls of which filtered the distorted rays of the sun. The charnel light shone over the assembled masses and a point, near the further end of the chamber, where the ground sloped down to a lower height, or a greater depth even than the rest of it. It was there that would be the focus of the rite. The Prophet stood, great, dark and swollen, before a wall adorned with the signs of the ceremony. Twisted symbols of the olden writing of Zattdrok, harsh and misshapen by civil standards, but far less dry and angular than those of Kralhk. They had not been used in their full capacity for centuries, but, so ran the thoughts of the Prophets, it was therefore that they had never been as holy as they were now. And the Prophets could not be wrong, for all thoughts had but one Source. In the midst of the sacred writings there was the effigy of Vex’xalar, and below It that of the potent unmaking; They awaited in hunger. Before the Prophet, two warriors flanked the offering, a soft-skinned being of the surface, servant of evil. It would bring satiatiation. The Prophet raised its claws, and all was silent. They waited. Then, They began. [i]“One Below, One with Us. We conjure strength and summon life to be unto You.”[/i] rose the clicking, screeching accents of the Prophet. [b]One Below, One with Us. We conjure strength and summon life to be unto You.[/b] They repeated in Their second voice, which was manifold. [i]”We are the Swarms, as one with You. Your life is Ours, Our strength is Yours.”[/i] [b]We are the Swarms, as one with You. Your life is Ours, Our strength is Yours.[/b] They chanted. [i]”The will of the All is worked through You, who grantest Us the true sight of what must be made, and the guidance to make it. You bear the great gift of the One from the sky and the abyss. None is as powerful as Us who bear it. The earth is Ours, the world is Ours. Bear Us in the journey of the soil and the motion of the hunt, in the cunning twisting of artifice and the unbroken lavine of war, and We shall conquer as One.”[/i] [b]The will of the All is worked through You, who grantest Us the true sight of what must be made, and the guidance to make it. You bear the great gift of the One from the sky and the abyss. None is as powerful as Us who bear it. The earth is Ours, the world is Ours. Bear Us in the journey of the soil and the motion of the hunt, in the cunning twisting of artifice and the unbroken lavine of war, and We shall conquer as One.[/b] [i]”Your body is vast, Your hunger unending. We bring the blood that feeds into Our fold.”[/i] The two warriors seized the offering’s arms and hoisted it up. Akin to a snake, the Prophet’s head darted forward. Its mandibles bit into the soft, exposed throat, and a stifled gurgling rose from it. Then the head spun aside, tearing out the chunk of flesh it had seized. Dark, thick blood spouted from the gash, splattering the wall and covering the effigies and part of the inscriptions. The Prophet intoned: [center][i]Tkra nakk voskr’ar tkra Atk re vakkar skor’tro Itk Vex’akkir tvak ro Kor’akkr ikre skor’kra[/i][/center] This was not something the walls of the vault had ever heard until recent times. It was the speech of deep Kralhk, one that had not been heard on the surface since those Riglir tribes, who now were Riglir no more, had carried it deep down with them. They had become the Abominations, loyal thralls of Vex’xalar, and their words spelled out the divine mystery. [center][b]Tkra nakk voskr’ar tkra Atk re vakkar skor’tro Itk Vex’akkir tvak ro Kor’akkr ikre skor’kra[/b][/center] Their words, chanted in perfect unison, echoed between the bleeding walls, slithered up the tunnels, through the darkness and the silence that had accompanied thousands of doomward journeys. And the earth trembled.