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"No, you're not." came the distant voice "But you're on the way Quincy."
***
The sound echoed through layers of existence, a ripple of sonic distortion spat as if from the surface of water as heard from far below; in the depths, It floated, suspended in the fluidity of shadow.
Light was a thing far-off and weak, the glow of lantern and torch far too feeble to pierce the inky ocean that lay below the shadow. That flat shape, which flowed into the gaol through one barred window, which spread itself like a half-transparent puddle on the floor, blending perfectly with the shade of tables, chairs, was merely the gate to what lay beneath; but none would ever know.
And this shadow was one of lone presence but dissolved individuality; in Their natural state, if anything about Them was natural, They had no concept of self. What lurked underneath that flat silhouette was simply Other, as much to itself and its ilk as to the life it encountered, corrupted and devoured.
***
A Guard yawned, rubbing his eyes briefly, but remained alert; there would be no dozing off, not on his watch. There were important and dangerous prisoners here; there was trouble brewing, or so the word among the lads had been. Not that they didn't sleep a little easier knowing at least one rowdy inmate had been put to earth, no matter the cruel cost. Thorshu Vengaard would not be missed; neither, unfortunately, would the dead half-orc be forgotten. He'd left too many scars on too many of them for that.
It was a cold night. How it came to be so, with torch and firelight burning warm within the gaolhouse, was beyond the man. He gazed vaguely in the direction of the cell where the scrawny mop-haired woman - a pleasant sort overall - was being visited by that tall and dangerous looking fellow. She'd killed a Prince, they said. And not just any Prince...
***
A vague blue mass, a Kagen'te spirit shone above, housed in the flesh of a man; the guard oblivious to the shadow that swum beneath his feet, slipping swiftly across the floor to mould into his own; a blot of ink joining to a greater.
***
Further introspection was stillborn as a great shudder passed through the Guard; someone had for certain just walked over his grave. He brushed it off, and took a drink; he sighed, and furrowed his brows as he saw his breath uncoil in puffs of pale mist.
Something was definitely off.
***
The blot separated, flowed in silence further along the floor; past the guard, now, seeking not his end, for its purpose was otherwise here; it swum past the entrance to the cell block and in;
***
"Tha' must be why I'm still alive!"
The exclamation rang out in the stillness, stirring other prisoners to smirk and growl briefly before they sunk again into the background. None saw the motion, the slender shadow that flowed across the floor, undulating side-to-side with the sinuous motion of a swimming iguana; the silhouette of spindly limbs anda bulbous head thrust forward. None noted that there was nothing at all casting the shadow, that it moved independently of any physical object...
***
The cell block was a row of blueish blotches, thudding heartbeats and whispered breath, sound and scent all taking second place to that most supernatural of the Thing's senses. It saw the light of every soul, and saw at the end of the tunnel a great and burning spirit, clothed in humanskin but capable of showing forth its true potential. Standing beside the cell that was its target.
Somewhere in the dark between the stars, wet black lips peeled back from a mass of broken, crystalline razors.
***
Hjorl Pendrin, a great bear of a man who'd been dragged in here to cool down from a drunken barroom rage, stirred in his cell; a mass of furs and beard was he, and afraid of nothing in this world.
But what he saw gliding into his cell, rolling like a drop of oil between the bars, was not of this world.
***
The beacon of terror flared to light, awakening all of the fell senses of the Thing; for fear was its milk and its honey and its blood, and it mirrored the big man's thundering heartbeats, his suddenly rasping breath; it crept into his mind like ice water pouring over raw nerves and there it found him huddled as a child beside the remains of his slain pet hound, butchered by some other nameless dark thing that lurked within deep woods; it saw his mother's rape beneath the heaving body of a raiding marauder; it picked through memories and emotions and thoughts callously and without remorse. It dissected his self and his other, his id and ego, scattered the shreds to the wind, and reconstructed him in an instant; enough to summarise his being into something digestable to its alien intellect.
Then it struck.
***
None were looking in the big man's direction; none could see him in the dark, at any case; when the long, wet black arm reached out of the shadow and slashed his throat with narrow claws; when his twitching, still-living body was grasped about the ankles and drawn into its own shade...
There was no sound greater than the scuffle of rats' feet.
‘We have enough prisons of our own making Quincy, you are free to go from this one, they say, so do not stay here any longer than you must.’
Footsteps passed the cell. The great font of energy swept past the horror's hiding place - perhaps footsteps paused briefly, perhaps senses found something amiss, but by then there was nothing to be seen, save a thick, cobwebbed area of shadow in the corner of Hjorl's cell, and a large bundle of rags nearby.
The footsteps faded.
The horror began to draw Hjorl's body down into itself...
It came without warning. Hard, dextrous fingers lashed out and gripped the slimy nightmare's wrists, dug thin claws into blighted flesh; the Hidden gave a pulsing psychic squeal and writhed in the unyielding grasp of the other form;
It had not felt it coming
The bundle of rags in the corner was there no longer. It was up, moving, yanking the whole slick monstrosity out of its own shadow, peeling it away from the floor - severing the big man's trunk in doing so, half-in-and-half-out of the dimension of shade.
There had been no presence
Back there in the dark, a quiet scuffle was heard. A couple of the other prisoners stirred, peered after it. But there were no screams of pain, and most were more than used to odd noises from the other cells.
It felt an essence, then, a faint trace, of a being that should be dead.
Deep green scale flexed over taut muscle; from the hood, above the shroud, the eyes of blood and sunburst were resolute and determined. The horror was flung against the back wall, splayed; then the claws wrapped about its head and twisted.
The vile neck snapped; the brain separated from the rest of the carcass; the fetid soul-shard that animated the Thing gave up its host, and fled swiftly away; the corpse dissolved in moments into filmy threads of slime. Then flakes of black ash; then nothing.
For the big man nothing could be done. They would find him in the morning, throat cut and lower body inexplicably missing; the cut across his midsection impossibly clean. Doubtless an uproar would be caused; but the mystery was one unsolvable, without considering such outrageous paths of explanation as the truth itself was hidden in.
The hooded one crouched; in this moment, for this time, he had recaptured something of what he once had been. But the grasp was fleeting; in the morning he would not remember what had transpired. He would be once more vulnerable and innocent. But he had accomplished what he sought to; Quincy rested in the cell beyond, safely, mulling over the words of her enigmatic visitor. Why They had come after her, he did not know. But he did know he would protect her with his life - even if she never realised it.
The eyes of sanguine sunfire watched her sleeping face. The reptile withdrew, his limbs dislocating and his body flattening soundlessly to allow his passage through a barred window. A rustle of bedouin robe was all that marked his exit.
***
...disembodied, an echoed cry spilled forth into oblivion; limbless it flailed to seek purchase in flesh and soul once more; the parasite unfettered sought out the nearest wellspring, latched onto it, and began to feed...
***
In the next cell, Jon Sanitherus twitched in his deep sleep; beneath his lids, his eyes rolled and darted in the throes of Nightmare.
