Chương 105: Delicious Dinner

Blue petals drifted up and down, circling around the seated Giant in a slow, almost hypnotic dance, rising high above the blooming meadow before settling again, catching in the grass and gathering on the old man's broad shoulders like a fine bluish dust. The same suspended, timeless silence still hung over the place, so familiar to it by now — no wind, no footsteps, only the faint rustle of wings from the glowing insects circling somewhere near the ground.

Hector raised his eyes to the pale, lifeless sky stretching above the meadow, an unbroken canvas across which not a single cloud had ever appeared, as though the sky here existed purely for the sake of form rather than as anything real. He paused for a moment, studying that artificial emptiness, then let out a slow, tired breath without turning his head. — Come out already.

His voice came out even, without the slightest trace of surprise, as though he'd sensed the other presence long ago and had simply been waiting for the right moment to say so aloud. And indeed, from somewhere behind Hector, out of the dense shadow of the palm leaves, another voice answered — silky, faintly mocking, carrying that particular, almost theatrical inflection of someone used to being the center of attention. — Well, I wouldn't expect any less from the Commander.

The blue petals that had been swirling through the air all this while suddenly rushed together toward a single point, clumping and interweaving, forming the outline of a human figure, then just as swiftly scattered again in a fanning burst. But now, standing where a moment before there had been only empty space, was a man in a long red robe, lazily, almost playfully fanning himself right beside his face.

Hector turned to him with a gaze that had suddenly gone heavy and serious — all his earlier good-natured eccentricity, all that booming, rolling laughter that had accompanied him the entire evening, vanished without a trace, as though it had never existed at all, wiped from the old man's face as easily as dust off smooth stone. — Why are you here? Ara wrinkled his nose in displeasure, the corners of his thin, painted lips drawing downward into an almost childish, petulant pout. — I hope you haven't forgotten...

His voice suddenly rose, breaking almost into a shout, echoing across the entire meadow and making the nearest flowers flinch as though startled. —... that this is my territory! Hector looked at him in silence for several long seconds, his gaze remaining heavy, unmoving, then slowly turned his eyes back to the lifeless, expressionless sky above, as though the conversation had already begun to bore him.

Ara, getting no response, went back to lazily fanning himself, the silk of the fan producing a light, rustling sound with every sweep. — Not that it really matters right now — let's just get straight to the point. He snapped the fan shut with a sharp, practiced motion and pointed it toward the far edge of the meadow, toward the spot where one of the failed Players had sunk into the ground not long ago, leaving behind nothing but flattened grass and a scattering of blue petals still settling to the earth.

— Why didn't you let him through? The boy had every chance of becoming a worthy Player. I would have thought his type was right up your alley. Hector let out a heavy sigh, his whole massive chest rising and falling, and spoke as though forcing the words out, reluctant, each one clearly costing him some effort. — The boy is blind. A warrior...

Ara cut him off at once, not letting him finish, an almost bored expression crossing his face — apparently he'd heard quotes like that from the Old Giant more times than he cared to count over the years. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. — Yes, yes, I've heard that a hundred times already. A warrior without a clear purpose is nothing but a vagrant with a weapon. That's not an answer to my question.

He went back to fanning himself lazily, his gaze drifting off somewhere past Hector's head, as if he'd already sized the old man up thoroughly over all their years of acquaintance. — Without a good guild he won't get very far. He'll spend his life scraping by for pennies — I doubt he'll even make it to the second stage. The corner of his mouth twitched into a short, almost cruel smirk. —...

And if he's one of those reckless types, he'll end up dead in some ditch, in some dungeon, having wandered in a level or two above what his sense should have allowed. The old man kept staring silently at the sky, as if waiting for something, and only after a long pause did he finally speak again, his voice steadier than before. — Maybe you're right. Right now he's damn weak, hardly the best rookie I've seen over the years. Honestly, I doubt he'll even crack the top thousand.

There have been far more promising candidates, but... A familiar, genuine smile suddenly spread across his massive, wrinkle-carved face — wide, reaching all the way to his ears, as though that heavy, almost frightening seriousness from a moment ago had never been there at all. — I wouldn't count him out just yet.

Ara studied the old man with a long, appraising look, as if trying to work out whether he was joking or being completely serious, but finding no answer written on that weathered face, he simply scoffed and returned to fanning himself, dissolving back into blue petals just as suddenly as he'd appeared — his form scattering into dozens of tiny, swirling particles, carried off somewhere toward the palm thickets, leaving behind only the meadow's familiar, ringing silence.

In a golden hall, bathed in the warm, flickering light of hundreds of candles, an entire family sat around a long table. The walls were hung with expensive paintings in massive frames that seemed cast from solid gold, every detail of the room — from the carved cornices to the heavy velvet drapes — radiating that particular, ostentatious opulence available only to ancient, unimaginably wealthy bloodlines.

The long table groaned under the weight of exquisite, costly dishes, arranged with almost artistic precision, while the soft candlelight threw strange, writhing shadows across the walls and ceiling, lending the whole scene a deceptively warm, almost cozy atmosphere. There was, however, one small but deeply significant detail about this otherwise picture-perfect scene. Every single one of them was dead.

The man at the head of the table, still seated bolt upright in his carved chair as though glued in place, had lost both his eyes — in their place gaped two dark, wetly glistening hollows, out of which thin, pale tendrils writhed, something distantly resembling plant roots grown straight into the bone, wound through the skull from within in a tangled, living knot that continued to pulse faintly, rhythmically, in time with some unknown, alien beat.

Beside him sat a woman in a dress that had once been magnificent and was now hopelessly ruined — her hair had long since fallen away, the skin of her scalp crusted over with dried, blackened blood, and the heat that had once burned her alive had drawn the thin skin at her temples so tight it had split, baring the yellowed, glistening bone of her skull beneath, so that she seemed to wear an eternal, lipless smile for everyone present.

The man further down the table had no skin at all — it had been removed with careful, almost surgical precision, leaving exposed the dark, purplish-red muscle beneath, patches of it already dried and drawn tight, cracked like old earth after a long drought, and on the table in front of him lay his own skin, rolled up into a neat, disturbingly even cylinder, laid out like a tablecloth specially prepared for the meal.

At that same table, among the other corpses, sat the children too — two or three of them, the exact number already hard to make out — and they were, if anything, worse off than the rest. Inside their bloated, gray-toned bodies squirmed hundreds, maybe thousands, of small, fat maggots, busily and hungrily devouring what remained of the flesh, producing a wet, rustling sound that filled the whole hall with a disgusting, unceasing hum, drowning out even the faint crackle of the candle wicks.

At the very far end of that long, opulent table, where the candlelight's shadows pooled thickest, barely letting any light through, sat the Creature.

It was eating unhurriedly, with clear relish, the dishes this long-dead, silent family had laid out before it, delicately, almost elegantly licking its long, slender fingers after every bite, while somewhere in the darkness behind it, in a place not even the boldest flicker of candlelight could reach, something else stirred faintly, rustling — something that had not yet found a place set for it at this golden, opulent table. (End of Volume One — Birth of a Player)