Darkness, sweet, sweet darkness enveloped the child once more. Darkness was good, darkness was nice, darkness meant that the fancy man wasn’t present, darkness meant that the fancy man wouldn’t hurt it.
But how long would the darkness last? How long until the fancy man returned with his invisible hands, knives and other tools. How long until the world turned white and the fancy man arrived to once again carve its flesh, dismember its limbs and babble insanity at it. The child didn’t know.
On the ground it curled into a ball, a safe, calming shape that meant all was good for the time being. The feeling of its missing limbs had long since stopped bothering the child. So too did the missing chunks of its flesh and jagged cracks in its body start feeling normal even natural despite the pain they radiated.
The child began dreaming, dreaming of the jungle, the ocean and everything it had experienced up until this point. The bad times before it had really figured out what was going on, stumbling through the jungle and getting regularly mauled. The good times when it had learned how to thrive in the jungle by usage of its power. The wonder at the different sights and sounds it regularly got to experience like the flower and the ocean.
Had any of it even been real?
The child didn’t know. It didn’t really know anything about anything. It felt so long since the last time it had seen anything other than an empty void and the fancy man. The child felt sick even just thinking about the fancy man. It felt ill and weak and faint just thinking about the fancy man. The knives, the force, the pain–
It forced its mind to dwell on happy things. The feeling of sand underneath its feet, and water lapping at its skin. Its discovery of the underwater world and how it was interrupted by the arrival of men and not long after the fancy man who took it here and hurt it and hurt and hurt it and—
The child curled tighter. It didn’t need to think about the man, it should think about something happy. What was one of its happiest thoughts? Ah yes when it had first discovered its power. With its power it was free and strong and things were good and then its power was sealed and then it was trapped in the white and black room by the fancy man and then it was tortured and tortured and tortured—
The child forced its mind to try to think of something happy, but anything it thought of always brought it to the same screaming, painful conclusion. Every happy thought just reminded it that right now, there was no happiness to be found anywhere.
Why was it that things were so miserable?
The child knew thinking about why accomplished nothing. In fact, thinking in general had accomplished nothing. All its scheming, thinking and trying had failed. Every trick it had ever used and a plethora of new ones did nothing to better the situation. Its powers had failed it completely, its body shifting had failed it completely and even its mind had failed it completely.
It felt so tired, so very tired of everything. Thinking was tiring, every thought it had simply circled back to what would undoubtedly soon happen. The fancy man, the blades, the force, the feelings, it was all too much for the child’s mind to handle at the moment and so the child just stopped thinking.
If it wasn’t thinking then it didn’t need to worry, to be hurt, to fear what the next moment might bring. No need to expend the energy of thinking only for that thinking to be rewarded with disappointment, sadness and pain. No thoughts allowed it the luxury of time passing with nothing unpleasant being dredged up from its mind to bother it.
With a flash the room turned white and the fancy man came back. The child suppressed the thoughts to fight, to run, to do anything. They were all useless, wasteful expenditures of energy. It had long since learned that opposing the fancy man was a bad idea. The only thing fighting did was lead to more pain.
“Hello there seventeen, holding up well? I can’t have you dying on me now. I am in need of your presence. My theory is being discredited by those idiotic sycophants in the royal palace. Such a situation is unsurprising, it is the nature of the weak minded to try to drag down their betters.”
The child didn’t react, its mind forcefully blank.
“Staying still again are we? You know despite looking like you may possess some intelligence you are pretty stupid. Ah well, it's what I get for trying to speak with a stupid demon. Sverodo, Derzhat.”
Like so many times before, an invisible force carried the child into the air, and the child prepared itself for another round of painful experimentation, pushing out any rebellious thoughts until nothing remained in its mind.
However, today was different. With a pop the child was brought out of the accursed room to somewhere else, somewhere new. The white void that had surrounded the child disappeared and was instead replaced by walls of stone and the flickering glow of torchlight.
A twinge of hope filled the child’s heart. Was it going to be free finally? Would the pain finally end? The child crushed the hopeful thoughts. What good was hope? Its hopes would never be answered. All hope would lead to disappointment in the end.
The fancy man carried the child through a series of winding twists and turns. A tiny rebellious part of the child’s mind that still wanted to escape, to fight, to rebel mapped out the path in the case it ever managed to escape the white void. Although the child knew the thoughts were useless it couldn’t suppress them. It seemed that a tiny part of its mind still believed that maybe it could escape.
As the fancy man carried the child up higher the curious part of the child’s mind that still remained stirred. It wondered how there were walls all around it and how they had carved it out of stone. Stone was hard so carving stone must be hard as well and carving so much stone must’ve been even harder.
Eventually, the tunnels ended and the pair emerged into a dreary and overcast sky. It was a new sight to the child, neither sky blue with a shining sun nor jet black with bright stars and a moon. Instead, flecks of snow lazily fell, burying the ground in thick sheets of white snow. Everything was white, not a single sign of green or brown or blue in sight.
The only thing that broke the monotony of the surroundings was the shine of a few armor-clad soldiers camping around a fire, their tents partially buried in now. Upon noticing the fancy man emerging they moved to speak to him..
“Boyar Sviatoslav allow us to escort you to the—”
The fancy man cut them off. “Shut up and leave.”
The squad of soldiers began to protest and their leader stepped forward to stop Sviatoslav.
“The council of 400 sent explicit orders that we are to escort you and ensure your safety noble one.”
Sviatoslav scoffed and turned to address the soldier who had spoken to him. “Is that what they told you? Bloody counsel, pain in my ass. Listen carefully, fool, what's your name?”
The soldier stuttered. “Um I’m Dmitry—”
“Well I don’t care. Listen, closely you filthy serfs, if you continue to bother me I'll kill you, your family, your family’s family, anyone who sold your family food, anyone who sold your family alcohol and every village you’ve ever lived in. Are we clear?”
The soldier paled “Y- Yes, noble one.”
“Now piss off.”
The soldiers retreated, scurrying away and disappearing into their distant tents. Sviatoslav, the fancy man, ignored them and began constructing an elaborate diagram, using his bare fingers to draw lines in the snow.
“Bloody council, leave for a month and they forget everything you’ve done. Bah, I’ll teach the lessons that their fathers and mothers neglected to teach them as children. Sverodo, heel.”
A light flashed and the invisible force that held the child turned visible, revealing a massive gray human-like hand holding it. The child followed where the hand came from up to the sight of a massive hundred armed, hundred winged, hundred legged and hundred headed monstrosity. The beast towered over the snowy landscaped around it, easily the size of the black bird if not larger.
Fear filled the child as it stared at the horrifying entity that held it. It shivered, not able to suppress the terror that the sight of the abomination brought.
One of the many arms lowered itself to the ground, letting Sviatoslav step in its palm before lifting him and placing him gently on top of one of the many heads of the horrifying entity.
With the beating of a hundred wings, the monstrous abomination propelled itself skywards, Sviatoslav and the child being carried with it. The beast Sverodo pumped its hundred wings and sped off to somewhere the child didn’t know at terrifying speeds.
In just a few moments, the wintry landscape disappeared behind them and was replaced with green pastures and not long after the sight of a walled city appeared. Shouts of terror rang out from the citizenry at the sight of a terrifying flying monster bearing down on their city and guards scrambled to their stations, manning their posts on the city’s walls to defend their families.
Sverodo ignored them all, instead focusing on the largest building in the city. The building was a huge palace with countless colorful towers capped with even more colorful spires. Massive sprawling gardens neighbored the site containing plants of all colors and types. The child only was able to briefly glance at the view as Sverodo barely slowed down, crashing through the roof on one particularly large spire and into a wide council chamber.
Bricks and debris rained down from the ceiling, injuring a few unfortunate council members as Sverodo landed at the center of an ongoing meeting. The child glanced around at its surroundings, noting ascending circular rows of seats filled with the faces of terrified humans dressed in some of the fanciest clothes the child had ever seen.
“Greetings rats! It is I Sviatoslav and I have heard concerning stories of foolish men trying to disprove my brilliant theories.”
The gathering of fancily dressed council members froze and could do nothing but stare in sheer shock at the monster underneath Sviatoslav and his audacity to barge in part way through a meeting then insult them all.
“Well? No objections I presume?”
The councilors glanced at each other before finally, one of them spoke up.
“Boyar Sviatoslav, we simply cannot embrace your theory. Although you bring up much evidence to support it, we have yet to see this “anomalous creature” that you’ve spoken of and therefore cannot in good conscience endorse your theories.”
The massive gray hand that clutched the child opened showing its form to the councilors of the room.
“You want evidence of this anomalous creature? Here it is.”
Awkward silence filled the room. The councilor took a moment to compose himself then cleared his throat before speaking once more.
“Ahem. Even if that thing was a demon it might well be that the demon was summoned to Novayazem by an outside force. It’s hardly definitive evidence. For that reason and many more we cannot endorse your theory or your request for another expedition when considering the results of the last expedition and the non-definitive evidence.”
“Councilor, are you a coward?”
“What?” The councilor was completely taken aback.
“Look at Sverodo, my Kontraktniki and the power it possesses. Look at yourselves and the amount of power you get from contracting Sverodo. An expedition to Zelenyad could give us so many more creatures like it to contract. Instead of fighting with one another to contract the few willing and powerful beings in our domain we’d have access to an entirely new and potentially larger source of beings that could be contracted. We might find one strong enough to kill that godless bastard Kasmir and rid ourselves of that affront on our borders.”
Uneasy muttering from the councilors before one of them spoke up.
“Boyar Sviatoslav, this could very well be a wild goose chase. The consequence of your expedition have not been negligible I hope you understand tha—”
Sviatoslav cut the councilor off.
“Councilors, how many of you have formed contracts with Sverodo?”
Silence filled the hall.
“If you continue to deny my theories and deny me the resources to prove my theories then I’ll be removing any contracts you’ve made with Sverodo.”
A torrent of angry shouts, from every councilor in the hall erupted, all aimed at Sviatoslav. A shouting match began and soon nothing but chaotic screaming filled the hall.
“Silence!” An artificially enhanced voice reverberated through the room, bringing order to the anarchy and quieting the whole hall.
The child glanced where the voice had come from, its eyes settling on a woman. On the top of her head she wore a golden and silver crown inlaid with shiny, valuable looking rocks that glittered in a rainbow of different colors. Below that lay long raven black hair framed a pale and beautiful but cold looking face partially covered by a black feathered fan. Covering her form was a purple dress that was so elaborately inlaid with gold and silver patterns that the child was reminded of the urn in its vision.
The woman snapped her fan shut and spoke to the gathering.
“Sviatoslav you will do no such thing. The council of 400 cannot afford to lose such power in these times. Your expedition will not be allowed and that decision is final.”
“The potential of such an expedition—.”
“Stop Sviatoslav. Your last expedition was nearly wiped out to a man and on top of that also brought back a plague that is killing thousands of our people as we speak. I will not gamble the lives of our Empire’s citizens on maybes and probablies.”
Sviatoslav moved as if to retort but then stopped himself.
Sviatoslav bowed his head respectfully “Yes Tsarina Constantina. I understand.”
Rain began trickling down from the hole made in the ceiling, dripping down on the councilors arrayed before turning into a full downpour.
Testily, Tsarina Constantina spoke once again. “Everyone is dismissed.”
Heeding the Tsarina’s word the hall emptied out as the councilors left the space one by one. Sviatoslav made to leave as well but was stopped by the Tsarina’s voice.
“Boyar Sviatoslav, I am willing to overlook today’s events so long as they are not repeated.”
A sour look came over Sviatoslav and he grudgingly replied. “Yes Tsarina Constantina, today’s events will not be repeated.”
With the whirring of a hundred wings Sviatoslav left the damaged council room and flew back to the cold winterlands from which it had come, the child, who was extremely confused as to what had just happened, clutched in one of Sverodo’s many hands.
