| Midnight. Esurient, the moonless sky swallowed the night whole, and darkness prevailed as king. In the center was a fire, diminutive under his wrath, secretive to the eyes of inhuman spectators. Death engulfed the clearing, whispered in the breeze, caressed Her worshippers. The Goddess was dead. Around her funeral pyre they turned, widdershins, the direction of decrease, their chants weaving a web so potent the night king trembled in awe. The Goddess� flesh crackled and screamed, matching their pitch cry for cry. Before the fire the new host stood, enshrouded in a mantle of black silk and fox fur. Dark gleaming eyes presided over the spectacle with an air of detached supremacy; the child without a name, without a face- her fate had been determined long before she was born. A host cell has no identity to the phage that infected it, that was nature�s way. They had come to reestablish nature�s law. Out of the fire a presence grew, its radiance an ample substitute for the hidden moon. The circle halted, tense, afraid to breathe. She glided from the flames, back arched in the ecstasy of unrestrained existence. Her dark eyes were on the spectral figure, watching, waiting. The world was nothing the instant the Light crashed into her form, drawing the life breath from her and filling her something stronger. They set upon the two merging figures like wolves, daggers grinning cruelly in the reflections of the firelight. She had no voice to scream but the one they gave her- silence. *** *** *** Abigail sat in the dark, long ebony hair matted, skin slick with sweat, listening to the sound of her own choked breathing. Her mind reeled, blood-soaked black images collided violently within her, painting a picture that seemed to sear the depths of her psyche each time she tried to closed her eyes. Every night the visions grew stronger, voyeuristic hints of a secret that she wasn�t sure she was supposed to know. Her body tensed as the curtains flapped and fluttered, whispering in a tongue frightening alien. They were watching her, and they would come- the Eudor. *** *** *** She was falling, weightless, free of all restraints, feeling everything and knowing nothing. She was the Darkness and the Light, child and mother, omnipotent and caged. Was she God, or something much more terrible? The taste of blood on her lips hinted at the terror of her own power, diminutive as she appeared. How she thrived on the acrid smoke that filled her lungs! She was Siva, the Dark Goddess, Child of the Earth, Harbinger of Death, elusive and all-encompassing. She was alive. The ground surged with power with each step she took and she thrilled in the drunkenness of simply existing in a tangible form. Siva had not seen the sky in nearly seven hundred years, whilst her submissive mother had sat idly by and allowed herself to be slowly murdered. They would pay for their wanton cruelties, of this she was certain. This time there was no one to stop her. Ani�eriden slept with her, feeding into Siva�s wrath with her own quiet rage. Those who opposed her burned that night. Ashamed, the night king wept. |