drowned church

Moon

Truly, I am honored. So few of us get to take the Marrow’s message to the gods.

Ud’grr’Niight’s full eye quivers at me in the black sky, glints across the golden crown they’ve given me.

And they? Their robes are as still as the water. Their mandibles chatter joyously, and their tongues flick the air.

The Marrow steps forward, takes my hand, leads me into the great lake. “Remember you my words.” The voice is many, a whisper, a song.

I respond properly: “They are burned onto my tongue.” And they are.

His Arms grip me, lower me into the water. My grin spreads. I will not dishonor their choice through struggle, like the others.

toad

Lilian had seen it soaking in the basement of the drowned church when she was a child. It had the weight of five men. Mucus coated its round, dead eyes.

Leaning from behind the pillar, she watched the Marrow glide up to the great beast’s black pool. The priest bent his ear to the creature’s fleshy mouth as it whispered the names of the messengers. A beam of thick, white light illuminated them from a single window. “Ahhh,” hummed the Marrow.

Though the sight, the stench, the sound of its clear voice would haunt her till the end of her days, she did not yet run. Not until the handprint pressed out from its bulbous, liver-spotted throat. Not until the muffled scream emanated from within its swollen, shapeless body.

mask

The Marrow drifted across the lake, his umber robes unmoving despite his travel. Black tendrils shaded the moon. Gelatinous eyes bubbled to the surface of the water, watched the old one pass.

The lake’s pupil lay darker than the night. He stopped there, bent, and placed his palms on the water’s surface. Twisting his head low, he looked into his reflection.

The reflection looked back with porcelain skin. For a long time the faces did not move. Then the porcelain jaws split, and a tongue licked at rows of teeth.

“We have received them,” rasped a voice. “Yet we require more. Still, we grant you some respite.”

Black ichor clung to the mask as it rose from the water and attached itself to the Marrow’s face.

A New era of Lumen approaches.