Deathless Reign: Ch. 09

Reign was surrounded by darkness, a hollowness of everything as his spirit drifted into the endless expanse of this void. He could not move an inch of muscle as he was a helpless audience in the darkness of his own mind. It was a horrid experience, to be made prisoner by this stifling darkness. But its grip on him was not absolute and eternal, as he drifted, he grasped instances of momentary freedom, able to move a finger here and a foot there. He did not give out hope, prying for any weakness in this dark prison whenever he could take it. He only had to wait, vigilant as its solidity flickered and faded as time went on.

A deep, quaking rumble began and with it his prison began to collapse. He rallied whatever strength he could muster and as the darkness that held him fell, he reached out his hands outside his prison, blinking and opening his eyes, his real ones, once more to the waking world of the living.

Reign rose from where he lay, surveying the all that was around him. He had half expected things to be in shambles, the last thing he recalled before being imprisoned by the darkness was the Whispers crept from the darkest depths of Reign.

It was the same shrine of the Goddess Nyella, the abode of the acolyte Ayleth. Fire crackled somewhere. And a familiar coldness of his undeath was trimmed to the edges on what he can only recall as warmth. It reminded him of the remains of an ember. The moon's clear light fell from the ceiling's opening and mantled the shrine of the Goddess in ethereal light. Beneath the statue of the goddess knelt the form of the Acolyte.

She had swaddled herself in thick wrappings made of animal fur, bulking much of her feminine grace in a bulbous wrap to abate the winterlaced wind that found its way within the shrine.

"Ah, you're' awake," she said without turning her head. "But I must ask, where have you been? Being dead and all, I doubt you have need for sleep," she inquired calmly the tone of her voice in conflict as to when she saw her last, quaking and afraid as the Whispers overrode Reign's own body.

"What happened!? Are you well, acolyte?" Reign ignored the question, eyes cast out for any harm he may have caused.

To this frantic questioning, the acolyte merely sighed. "To put your mind at ease, no one died" she simply said. Reign sensed more in that and waited for a continuation. He felt like he did something. A cold blade driven in his conscience but could not find the handle to.

"But...?" he reached out.

A moment of silence passed. Ayleth still knelt piously before the Goddess, not facing Reign, as if she was musing something before speaking.

And finally, she spoke.

"What's important is no one perished. No, your other half did not rampage through the village--" She stopped herself, garnering breath into her lungs before continuing, as if she had trouble wording the next words, "I......managed to restrain him, within the shrine and away from the villagers," she gazed towards the statue of the Goddess. Reign felt like she was not telling him something.

The man sifted through his mind, trying to peer into the memories that had transpired of The Whispers but found only nothing. The cruel thing still nestled inside of him, tired and spent but still very present. What power did the acolyte call upon to restrain such a beast?

"Let's continue this somewhere else, this room is...stifling," she said, casting a look around, an expression Reign could not discern as she rose from her kneeling, the cumbersome coat she wore appeared heavy but showed no sign of difficulty as she strode out of the low door of the shrine. As Reign followed her lead, ducking out of the mound of the shrine, the husked remains of the once thriving village greeted his gaze.

Only a handful of houses were truly occupied and of these few, fewer still retained their lights this late into the night as most have gone asleep. Lookouts amongst them stood or kept watch close to the windows. Blanche herself was awake, club and bow at her side, along with a handful other women-watchers for the night as they sat on the porch of one house.

"Walk with me, there is something I need to do," Ayleth simply said as she led the way. Reign walked some step behind her, feeling the gaze of those still awake turn to him. He saw them grip ever so slightly closer to their holstered clubs of wood. He didn't blame them.

Blanche was fletching arrows as Ayleth came to her. Words were exchanged and Blanche gave her nod at something, although it required a momentary thought from her and a look towards Reign. Their conversation done, Ayleth broke away from the group of women and took towards a path that led off to the sides of the houses, gesturing to Reign that he should follow. Their eyes trailed on him as he rounded the corner and followed suit. The path bended out of the houses and into a small bend around two modest hills.

One of the caveats of being dead, he couldn't feel the wind even dressed as he was in a tattered tunic.

"Where are we going?" He asked as he followed her along the path.

"You'll see. It's not far but it'd be better if you are with me. And should anything happen, it's not too far for you to go back to the village posthaste," she replied not turning back. She would look up at the clear skies, at the light of the moon the sound of the gravel beneath their feet.

They walked in silence. Not a cricket nor a whisper of the wind as they followed the slight curves of the path. As Reign rounded the last of the corner, a familiar noise reached him. The peaceful lapping of water against rock filled his ears as they finally got around the last of the small hills. A low stream of water ran the course of about five yards wide and as far into the rolling hills of the distance.

The villagers had made a pool of sorts here, damming a bank of the river with rocks as the current would sweep in and water would amass, forming an improvised pool as deep as the shoulders of an adult.

"Tell me, what happened?" A brewing of relief and suspicion swirled within Reign's spirit. Relief for no one died and Suspicion that there was more to those moment in his mental imprisonment. He wanted to leave these people alone, not wanting to be a bother and quest for a way to fix himself of this undeath malady. To think that he was responsible of unletting the horror of his darker half, already put a strain to his already weary soul.

His body didn't feel the cost of a mortal's physical woes but his spirit on the other hand was an entirely different matter. The young man he had once been relished sitting by a river close to their home, soothed by the gentle lapping of the rushing water against stone. He would sit at hours on ends at times at the sound. He'd breath if he could, to take up some of that scent of the gentle stream.

He pried his eyes away from the stream and towards the young woman, and much to his surprise, Ayleth had loosened her hold on the thick fur cloak. If he had been alive, blood would've surged to every extremity on his body.

She had worn nothing but a loose undergarment of flimsy wool as drawers that did little to hide her sex, a modest mantle of hair visible amidst the translucent cloth. Her chest was bare flesh, the curves accentuated and made dangerous turns that swerved the young man's mind into its natural instinct. Waist that could draw upon the eye as much as her buttocks hoisted upon milky white thighs. Plump as a turkey and just as delicious. A hungering rumbled from the deepest part of him, and the Whispers once more sent echoes of its wants and desires as Reign's eyes glazed upon the young woman's supple body. Her breasts titillated, not egregiously big but more than enough that should a hand cup them, an excess flesh would spill. The pinkness of her nipples tilted into fine contours of their protrusion towards the night sky.

His spirit had the urge to gulp but to an undead body, his face was still as stone and just as emotional.

As he laid sight on her frame, he saw discoloration against the fairness of her flesh. A purplish-dark intrusion in an otherwise untainted pinkness of her skin. As he kept on looking, the more and more of those dark marks were on her person. Reign was suddenly assailed by a lightning strike of images and sensation.

The aftershock of a rumbling hunger, Whispers stirred within his darkest depths of his mind, longing to reach out once more. But its will was too weak and Reign had little trouble smothering him back into its shadows once more. Things fell into place for Reign. He has no clear memory but he could surmise just enough.

"W-what have I done? What did I do to you?" He stared at his own hands, the hands of a monster. A cold pang of guilt split into his soul's core. An alienation as to what he did. Somewhere, someplace, He could hear the faint scornful laugh of the Whispers in his mind.

"You remember?" She inquired, worry in her voice and brows furrowed. She was ankle deep at the mouth of the pool.

In life, Reign remembered much as a loner, though eager to help and be useful to his parents. He didn't want to be a trouble to people. But the things he had done, it stoked a sickening cold grip in his spirit.

"It was a mistake to come here. I must leave, I cannot in good conscience allow you to be near me," He burst out speaking, about to take a step away from her, from everyone in the village. Away from this.

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" Ayleth's voice stilled him to the spot. It was a voice enunciated down to the spirit, subduing his body to be rooted where he stood.

"I PUT NO FAULT UNTO YOU, REIGN." Her eyes were staring right deep into his soul. Greater Power was at work here. Power she wielded.

"The fault lies on your darker half, an almost separate entity in of itself. Do not bear the guilt of his sins, for to doubt now would just sully the sacrifice I have made," she said calmly, resolutely. Her gaze bartered for no disturbance or protest on Reign's part. Those crystalline blue eyes of hers were two swirling tempests of power and authority.

Had she always possessed these qualities? Something had changed within her.

He could only surrender his guilt to them, uncaring of what he feels. Still, the phantom pain of his sins lingered none the less.

Ayleth's shoulders eased up as she strode deeper into the pool, her slender flesh still quite visible through the disturbance of the rippling waters.

"If I hadn't been there, it would have been the dozens of women you would have harmed. To fight this thing with violence upfront is a grievous mistake. With a body built to crush walls. Arrows and swords would be utterly useless. The only way for the beast's rampaging would be to expedite that Light of Death within," she continued as she cupped water in her palms and showering herself in its cool.

"It would be a battle of attrition and if any company of men would dare face you in that form, they would be utterly slaughtered until you exhaust your power," She surmised, now taking to washing her dandelion-colored hair, strands of which clung to her breasts. Reign controlled himself to look her in the eyes.

"I am consoled that no one was harmed by the fiend. Despite the gruesome nature of it," she stilled sitting amidst the water. The pale reflection of the moon settled beside her as the water calmed.

"Except for you," Reign concluded. This moment of peace beside a gentle stream of water, in a clear night was a deep conflicting contrast to the images he had in his head. One of utter brutal fornication. His eyes crumpled shut at the maelstrom of emotions that left a hollow pain in his soul.

He could feel it. The joy and pleasure The Whispers had in defiling Ayleth. Almost as if it was his own. The decent and the depraved clashed within him.

The young woman sighed, bringing Reign's attention once more to her bathing, "We all must make sacrifices. This is mine." She turned her calm blue gaze unto the undead young man.

"Do not fret. I do not hate you Reign, rather I pity you. Unable to move on from death itself and a monster dwelling within," she says this with utter composure despite the nakedness of her form, so different when they first met to that manic ranting of a pious woman.

"I feel like I should just bash my head in and be done with it," Reign replied trying to make a smile of his dead features. He remembered that much when he was alive, to smile when admitting mistakes. It makes it easier to move on in a sense of humor rather than muck in misery.

"And surrender now? No. that will not do. You may be a monster but a monster that we need. Deadwinter is soon upon us and with it the Season of the Dead. We are in dire need of a guardian. An almost indestructible force of undeath," She drew up closer to him, rising from the waters like some nymph reflected by the moonlight. Water dripped in rivulets across her nubile form. Blonde locks sprayed on the luscious mounds of her breasts.

Her eyes resolute with calm will, devoid of any hesitation or religious passion.

"Do this and I will return the favor in my power as a Chosen of Nyella. I will aid your revival of your Mortal Shell into its former life, mend the sundered spirit that you possess." Reign was rapt in the blueness of her eyes at the promises she made. He was a lost soul, eager to put a step forward but unsure of where it would lead. To her words, he found guidance.

"And if you are rendered immobile and unmotivated by your guilt, then I will use that guilt to hasten you into action. It is a despicable act but one I would force to stomach," she grimaced into saying, her eyes never once leaving his as water dripped to a pool at her feet.

"Do we have an accord?" Ayleth reached out her arm, palms open.

Reign did not answer, merely standing mere feet away, rugged expression unreadable.

Then he went past her, towards where her cloak lay crumpled atop the river rocks and knelt to pick them up. He returned and draped the cloak on her damp shoulders, turning to face her once more.

"We do," the undead answered truthfully.

A small tug of Ayleth's lips rose into a small smile.