Interlude: Cries from Afar

“I seem to recall a certain ‘conqueror’ who fought an endless war with fury and passion, despite disagreeing with his own cause.”

 

“Papa!” the girl said. “Papa, please, don’t do this, I promise I’ll be good, I promise! You have to believe me!”

“Yes,” the man said, “I’m sure you will, dearie. You’ll be very good for me, won’t you?”

“Y-yes! Yes, I swear!”

“Unit is stable,” the man said, glancing off from behind the half-mirrored glass. “Begin the procedure, if you will.”

“Yes, my Lord,” another voice said.

“No!” the girl screamed. “No, no, no! Please! Please, I’ll be good! I promise! Please!”

The device lowered, and the needle began to etch deep lines into The Stone.

“No!” the girl cried, straining against her bonds, feeling every inch of her body rending apart, reforming, then splitting into ribbons of unnatural matter. Infinite, unending agony that transcended time, flowing through boundless eternities of warped time, perverting her essence. No amount of anesthesia would make a difference. “No, NO, PAPA!”

“No, no,” the man said. “A Kteki rune, I think.”

“Absolutely, my lord.”

As the girl shrieked once more, the man frowned. “Odd,” he said. “It’s always the Knowledge… What did he do differently?”

“The True One worked from a superior base, my Lord.”

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“Yes, yes,” the man said. “But we’ll use with what we have.”

“Perhaps an Alruonic subject might fare better for our next trial?”

“Too valuable.” The man waved a hand dismissively, watching the girl’s body dissolve, before resurfacing from the void, far less human than before. He watched her soul expand, then frowned as it collapsed in on itself yet again. “No, humans will do for now. The principles should be the same—Creation and Ascension are universal properties, you see.”

“Indeed, my Lord.”

“Bah. She’s beginning to fray. Pull back and get her into the enhancement room for surgery.”

“Of course.”

The needle retracted, and the stone cooled to a white-hot glow, searing through what little of the girl’s mortal flesh remained. Bitter tears flooded down her stiffening cheeks. “P-Papa, I’m s-sorry, I’m so s-sorry, P-Papa, please, I’m s-so s-sorry.”

“It will be okay, my Little Sin,” the man said with a soft smile. “You did a good job today.”

“I-I d-did?”

“Oh yes,” the man said. “You survived.”

The girl managed a smile, her contorted features warping into dimensions normally inaccessible to her kind.

“We’ll just see how you do tomorrow,” he said. “Then, you can make Papa even prouder.”

 

I don't even feel like making a joke or hawking my Patreon on this one. There's some deep pain going into this book, man.

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