Ash and Memory

[Teron_Ashfiend]

The shadows carried their master in irreproachable obedience, silent and dark, towards his lair. His summons had been quick and undeniable, the arcane commands tinged and colored with the glittering remnants of fresh pain. It was a pain, the Ashfiend considered, that was nearly forgotten to him. It was the pain of true life.

A heavy, worn boot touched the chapel's stone floor upon the edge of an enormous soot circle long since baked into the unyielding surface. Yet despite the weighty ruined armor he wore, the creature moved in perpetual, hushed silence. An armored wraith, he commanded the shadows to depart upon his arrival and approached the altar with a few long, hesitating strides. An evening wind sifted through the cracks that ran down the surrounding walls as dry riverbeds, teasing the tattered black cloak about a broad, metal-clad back. Though the Derry-dead awaited his commands, the lingering, prickling pain within each gauntleted hand still ensnared his attention - pain delivered through Alastir's vengeful promise.

Reaching the heavy, flame-licked altar he slid a thumb beneath the first gauntlet and pried his hand free. As the gaping maw that encircled his wrist tipped floor-ward, a thin rivulet of blood dribbled in a slow, thick stream to lay along the altar's breadth. The blasphemous, bloody rope of morbidly repaired flesh and humour collected like a coiled snake and, as his extremity met the stale air, his simmering gaze softened in wonder and fear.

The hand before him should have been skeletal and lifeless, cocooned in a thin sheaf of translucent and occasionally charred flesh. It still was save for the great, elliptical patch of raw flesh painted with burst blood between his thumb and forefinger. As he slowly turned his hand, examining through narrowed crimson slits, he beheld the patches had crept down into his palm where they seemed prepared to join together.

Each finger curled of its own accord, tugging upon the restored flesh that began to darken with black, corrupted veins burrowing beneath. A brief intake of air stirred the dust in shriveled lungs with the hot, biting pain that lanced each fingertip and the center of the hand. It bit more deeply than his flesh, taunting the ancient curse that chained raw fury to his very core with the mockery of its abolishment. A vengeance for each life the Ashfiend took, Alastir had claimed through his broken lips and twitching jaw. A vengeance to be repaid in the restoration of his humanity.

"You think I cherish this, that your punishment would be an attempt to silence this curse," he rumbled into the darkness. As the syllables greeted him in every echo, he heard the hollow tone of his sepulchral voice and paused.

Quiller had agreed to acquire what he sought, Teron reminded himself, at the cost of sparing the healer and of not punishing Uriel for his loyal service. Soon he would know the High Constable's method of searching for him and he would therefore know how long he had to prepare himself. It should not take long, he considered, as his crimson gaze once again fell to the flat, cold altar before him. The freed, bloodied hand followed his gaze, impressing a bloodied imprint against the lifeless stone. With the forceful gesture, the restored flesh began to buckle and slough away in visceral strings. Life could not triumph over hateful death, he thought, before turning away from the altar.

Yet the hand print would remind him, for the duration of his stay amongst the fire-blackened ruins, of Alastir's vengeful promise and its possibilities. A five-fingered, scarlet key to the memories of an upright man whose voice occasionally echoed within the dusty battlements of his aged soul.