It is twelve years since his second birth, since he was taken from his life on the sea, and only his hair remains unchanged. Beneath his armour, Samael’s skin is bone white, fossilised into a mockery of cracked marble. Unlike the rest of him, his hair is full of life. He wears it tied up, a horses tail that flows from a slit in the top of his helmet. A vanity he knows his creator would disapprove of. The thought brings a shudder and a smile.
Of course, his creator, the commander, was destroyed by the Malice, along with the other Knights of Jade and Ash but that doesn’t stop Samael thinking about him. Or seeking approval. He wishes it were different.
The armour he wears is a collection of mismatched plates, dug up from the battlefield and roughly beaten into shape. The result is ugly and ill-fitting. It feels right. A second skin he has made for himself. Wearing it has become habitual. Of this at least, his creator would surely approve. He hopes so but cannot be sure. Since the commander’s sudden end, he has been left with freedom and too many questions.
A fresh wave of essence bubbles from the Breach. Once, the chasm could not be seen from this hill and a village stood between his vantage point and the great crack. The village is gone now, swallowed by the earth, sucked down to other unknowable realms, deep, beyond the Breach.
Samael does not know how he knows this, but he does. He remembers buildings, faces, their hope fading as he passes them, leaving them to die. This flash of memory that is both his and not his goes as quickly as it arrives, leaving behind a cauldron of unprocessed feelings.
Grudgingly, his mind returns to present.
This is where the demons find their way in. He cannot change what has been done to him, cannot stop the infernals further north from plaguing the world, but here, he can make a difference. Here, he can at least stem the tide.
Clouds of unborn essence begin to form on the Breach’s edge, along with a host of skittering, hungry scabs, the lowest of the infernals. The scabs spread out, hunting for food amidst the dirt. The unborn spirits search for a way into the world, needing host bodies if they are to remain.
Samael smiles, knowing they will fail.
The few remaining corpses he cleared years ago, those not already claimed as hosts, condemning any new infernal to haunt the Breach’s boundary, dissipating slowly, horrific concepts never finding expression.
He has watched this sight countless times but it never fails to please.
Something is different this time, however. A second wave of unborn clouds confirms it. His half-breed eyes read the patterns in their essences. They are desperate, yes, this is common, but the flavour of fear in their smoky swirls is new. It is not the hostile world they have arrived in that scares them most. It is something else. Something behind them.
They are running away.
A rumble passes through the earth, radiating outward until it shakes the metal hill. Samael throws his arms out, balancing, riding the shockwave until it has passed. Another rumble comes quickly, and the sound darkens the sky, essence spewing from the Breach, thick and black and purple.
Samael is thrown from the hill, landing heavily in the dirt. The half-breed pulls himself up quickly, untroubled by physical pains. The ground still shakes, constant now, as the Breach heaves, trying to dislodge its burden. Earth trembles, gives, and reality retreats a little further north.
The thing that emerges is too big, stretching through dimensions even Samael cannot see. It is both great and small, contained and limitless. But more than that, it has purpose. Without a host, without a birth, it exists.
The Yearning has come.
Samael does not need a second look, the first has already found a permanent place in his consciousness. He falls back on another old habit, and runs.
*
Far to the north, across the sea, in lands of waning green, lies the Shining City. An invisible field defines its boundary, tuned to the infernal taint, ready to burn. Within this field windows peek from grassy hillsides, hinting at the tunnels, pods and infrastructure hidden within. Pillars of silver punch towards the sky, landscaped gardens attached to their sides and tops. Within the circles of hills and spires is a grand open space. At its centre stands a set of steps, polished, dazzling. They climb fifty feet straight up, ending in nothing. A further twenty feet above the top step, a giant cube of metal floats, turning slowly, colossal, held by invisible strings.
The cube is packed full of secrets, with its own hierarchies and troubles, both above and beyond the world below.
At its heart is the sanctum of The Seven.
Even here, in this haven, miles from any infernal, they feel the quake. Even here, behind walls of denial and power, platinum and energy, the shift in earth and essence stirs them.
Alpha of The Seven is the first to wake. His eyes open, matchless orbs, sparkling with the wisdom of his maker and a thousand years’ experience. They sweep across five other alcoves, each a home, a tomb for the immortal within.
Heads turn slowly, moving to meet his gaze. Stone flakes fall from faces as they emerge once more, tentative.
No words are spoken, no songs are sung, not yet. Their power is there, waiting to be called but there lacks the will to call it.
Alpha feels the question in the eyes of his brothers and sisters. A new trouble has presented itself. They want to see his response. He flexes fingers, freeing them from their stony prison, and looks towards his sword. It is buried, a barely discernible lump, shrouded in grey rock. His siblings’ swords are no better, covered in tears of stone, wept in the years of grief.
It is time to take them up again.
Alpha lifts his hand and the others inhale together. Five hands tense, ready to take action.
An invisible force draws Alpha’s eyes to the third alcove, the empty one. Once their sister, Gamma, resided there. Now there is nothing.
She is lost to them.
Lost.
That which they thought immutable was brought low, broken by the Usurper’s power. If they go to war, will this new threat claim another? Even the idea is too much to bear.
Alpha stills his hand, lowers his head.
Five other hands relax and six minds retreat, returning to darkness and sweet oblivion.
A few miles away, hidden in darkness, wrapped in cloth, wrapped in wood, wrapped in dust, an eye opens.
*
A bird drifts in the sky, lazy. A worm dangles from its beak, frantic, hopeless. With a flap of wings, it ascends, riding the currents, spiralling around a great pillar. At the top sits a gleaming sky-ship and cradled within its turrets are a number of nests.
The nests should not be there. The workers should have scrubbed them away but there have been no inspections, not this year, nor the four before that. Nobody can see the top of the sky-ship from below, so the workers don’t clean them. An indulgence that goes unnoticed. There are others. Tiny flaws in the slowly rotting Empire of the Winged Eye.
Shrill voices penetrate the air, begging for food. The bird ignores them, moving towards its own offspring, letting the worm fall towards a trio of gaping beaks before diving away, carried by currents to new adventures.
Far below and several miles distant, a girl watches the bird through an old, battered scope. Her name is Vesper and her feet itch to travel to the pillar, her hands to climb it. But the pillar, along with everything else around the Shining City, is forbidden. They are but images, only dimly understood, no more real to her than Uncle Harm’s stories.
She tucks the scope into a pocket and looks around, seeking inspiration. None