"Forgive me if I hurt you," Grace said as she pulled the girl free, "but I fear we have run out of time."
Amuné took a ragged breath and pulled away from the rock. She glanced toward the outside world, but really, would it be any better? The singer was the only one she could trust right now.
The child followed after the woman with the stone arm at a distance.
The girl stifled a scream of pain, and she clutched Grace like a lifeline, her head bent and eyes closed while she breathed. Her thin translucent hand scratched against the stone of Grace's arm, and her eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing. She allowed herself to be carried by the woman with the stone arm -- she weighed as much as a shivering leaf -- and she lifted her exhausted eyes over Grace's shoulder to see Amuné.
<
You understand me. > The girl's words were unintelligible gibberish to Grace, but Amuné would instinctively know their meaning. <
I failed to keep the gods at bay. I am sorry. > Her eyes glistened with tears; she wrapped her arms around Grace's neck for comfort.
Outside, everything seemed silent; the Stone had stopped crumbling, the birds had all been driven away. They could hear the faint echoes of a boy laughing somewhere near the doors of the Stone, but Grace's instinct took her in the opposite direction: through the high weeds, under the shade of the high cliffs that towered behind the Stone. The girl craned her neck, confused; she had no idea where they were going, and had never seen the outside of the Stone, but she instinctively trusted Grace.
As they moved, ahead they could hear the faint echo of Rose's shouts at the God of Disaster. To their left rose the stone cliffs -- and within them was the ragged entrance to a cavern, half-hidden behind a dry twist of bushes. Within the cave were scattered bones and rusting breastplates, shields, swords, muskets and helmets, some still wearing skulls. The cavern extended deep into the mountain and led far into the darkness.
To their right, across from the cave, was an overgrown courtyard nestled within the rear of the Stone. There were cracked benches, a broken statue of a dancing faun, and a covered well at the center.
"You have the venerable honor of being summoned by Ms. Rose Halwell, first class witch extraordinaire."
Lha-tak stared unblinking at Rose while she spewed her nonsense and expectations, and then finally an offer of assistance. The god flicked its long forked tongue, and the clouds over Rose's head gathered and darkened; rain plummeted down over her head, soaking the witch and nothing else around her.
This god did not speak -- but Rose had the privilege of a commune with it, as witches often did. She knew, instinctively, that Lha-tak fully expected Rose to become a devout of the God of Natural Disasters, to offer her efforts and energy in meditation or ritual to please it, and to fulfill Lha-tak's will. The god did not demand this: it simply understood that this was now the truth. After all, Rose had single-handedly summoned it into this plane, and so must be its worshiper.
She also realized, instinctively, that Lha-tak's sense of humor dictated that each time it was displeased with her, wherever she was, Rose would get drenched in a sudden downpour.
Lha-tak flicked its tongue again, and the rain stopped. Rose now understood something new: Lha-tak wished destruction upon the girl who had been singing. It would offer her its power in order to complete this task.
"Call me Rain. Nice to meet you, Mr...?"
"Rigby." The shaggy headed, blue-skinned boy grinned fangily.
"So yer not a witch, huh? And ya don't look like a snare. So ya killed somebody, huh? Pissed off the wrong people, huh? Aw man, you're a murderer huh? How d' I know you won't murder me, huh? Crazy psycho lady." He spoke through a grin, though, fishing for whatever might make Rain upset. He picked up a fruit from the pile beside him and chucked it with surprising strength over the bridgeless gap to Rain.
"How d'ya think I got here? I jumped. Because I'm awesome. You don't even have any powers. I bet you can't even work those machines inside the Stone, you're so useless. So who'd ya kill? What'd ya do, muddy them to death?" He shook with cackling laughter at his own joke.
While he laughed, he leaned back on his perch and happened to look up -- suddenly he gulped down a gasp, dropped his fruit and tumbled heels-over-head to the ground. He scrambled fearfully over the rubble and broken wood, sprinting away from the gap and the bridge and from what he had seen over Rain's head.
It was big as a fiery bear and sleek as a panther, peering down over Rain and Rigby from its perch atop the crumbled roof of the Stone, ten feet above Rain's head and behind her. There was no telling how long it had been watching.
Antlers,
Shifter_Master,
Neziul,
Iluvtoji,
IAmTheIsland,
Bugman,
Passable Writer,
Fetzen,
Not a Sayan,
Stanifly
