The Korellian Odyssey: Requiem Read Free Page B

Korel touched the scepter he paused and drew back his hand. Yet at his touch the scepter fell, hitting the ground and shattering to pieces, painlessly taking with it a small piece of his index finger where he had touched it. As the scepter broke, the music halted, the light became dim, and the holy priest began to darken, his hair blackening and turning to ash, skin cracking and peeling to the floor, flesh falling in pieces and hanging in fetid ruin upon his skull and bones. Indeed, all those congregated seemed to become corpses of decomposed lineages of men, the flesh and greed of former glory hanging from them in tatters. Each had fire in his eyes and ash and lava tumbling from his mouth, and all came crowding nearer as the building began a ponderous crumbling within its brown and shabby walls.
    The priest spoke aloud through his scorched tongue and jaw, "You have touched that which is the pinnacle of the world and your blood is now ours. This you have earned. Enjoy it well!" The priest then removed a flaming coal from inside his mouth and pressed it to Korel's wounded finger as pain seared through his hand and wrist. In his agony, the priest placed the coal to Korel's mouth with new pain bursting afresh in gouts of spectacular agony. Somehow he spit the coal out of his mouth and stood tall before the crowd that reached toward him, a host of lust and hunger. With the breaking of the scepter his mind had begun to clear. Taking a half step forward, he said in a forceful voice, "I have touched that which is yours but was never mine. Though given, it was not received. I am not blind to your desire. Therefore, if blood and meat you crave, then blood and meat you shall have!" With that he drew the thongs of meat from his shoulder and threw them into the throng. A fetid riot of decaying bodies erupted, becoming a savage meat-seeking scrum as Korel broke into a run, vaulting from a wooden pew, arcing over the choir, and shattering through a stained glass window. As he looked back, the entire church fell in upon itself and slowly began to fade, leaving only the traces of a weathered stone foundation and a few scattered old bones.
    Korel watched for a while as the evidence of his encounter blended with the earth, making it nearly invisible. He turned toward the mountain but felt a small remnant of the coal passing down his throat. He had swallowed a tiny piece and it left a dull aching burn through the entire course of its passage from his throat, to his chest, and into his stomach. There the burn lodged itself, easing somewhat but taking up a persistent vigil of worm-like pain. As he continued up through the foothills with the sun rapidly sinking behind, a small, furtive movement occurred beneath the sand, the same ground where a small piece of index finger, lost upon contact with the scepter, had come to rest. The movements continued, becoming larger and scattering dust. But Korel did not notice. Having come face to face with the remnant priesthood of the Felorian and having lived, he climbed out and away from the plain of Decaneth, up into the hills at the foot of the eastern mountains.

Chapter 2
    T he eastern mountains of Nonym raised themselves up at the edge of the known realms of men. Korel had seen these mountains only on maps within the drafting rooms of the royal cartographers, and their histories and dimensions dwelt in obscurity. Some histories of the previous ages spoke of a time when a sea covered the plain of Decaneth, with a city by the water built by a proud race of men who peopled its shores. They were known as lords, a people with great lore and knowledge, men whose influence was powerful and their accomplishments in government, conquest, and architecture unmatched in all the known world. They built mausoleums under the earth and plumbed the secrets of decay, striving for dominion over the earth forever. But they dug too deep and plumbed too far, the lake filling their caverns of the dead, and in a great slide the