The Exile

Scarlet rivulets ran down the exile’s back as he staggered, weary and scarred, behind the procession of gossamer-clad figures. His flagellated flesh was laid bare to the torment of salt-laden winds as he surveyed the pallid figures of Hierarchs driving the carriage along. Behind him stood the imposing walls of the Hegemony’s highest citadel, overlooking the Desiccant Basin with scorn. Each granule of salt carried upon the harsh, scouring wind stung against the exile’s gaping wounds, a potent reminder of his crimes—petty thievery, a singular sin for which the exile had been excised from the Hegemony, his scars the flesh- bound proof of misdeed and dissidence. He could still feel the cold, raking caress of surgical implements upon his skin, exposing a scarlet network of raw musculature beneath. He recalled how those pallid, white fingers scraped away the cartilage in his knuckles and joints, stripping the ligaments and jabbing unbidden utensils between the bones. His skin had been forcibly abscissed, yet in time, salt and torment would make for natural substitutes. The exile’s thoughts hemorrhaged into one another, each forced step forward infected by agony. His soles left acrid pools of blood behind in his footsteps.

Dawn settled over the Desiccant Basin. Beams of sunlight ruptured through swirling clouds as the sunrise’s warmth lit the basin aflame with a vermillion hue. Scarlet blood sizzled under the oppressive heat of the Desiccant Basin, the red-hot sun scorching the valley’s saline bed. The salt beds began to sputter as the sun warmed the basin’s surface. Geysers of steaming brine erupted in gaseous discharges, gurgling up from fissures in the basin, hissing out steam and salt. There were no oases to be found in this desert, only scalding jets of effluvia. Occasionally, the exile could glimpse the skittering, mercurial movements of something black and inky below the basin’s surface, yet the captors did not stop to investigate. They were uninterested in the creatures that made their home in this place, assuredly moving the carriage along to some pending destination. The Hierarchs poked and prodded along the path forwards, testing the ground for cracks and weaknesses. With each snap of a whip, the procession sharply turned, the carriage’s vermin-beasts guiding the procession along.

The exile’s body strained against the taut chains which bound him to the carriage ahead. Rusted shackles chafed against his wrists, each abrasion of skin splattering blood onto the stark-white soil. Each wound inflicted upon his body caused a sorrowful cry to escape the exile’s parched throat, yet he expected no sympathy from the uncaring procession of Hierarchs which bound him. His presence, in fact, barely even seemed to register to them, staring coldly ahead through the slits of their ivory masks, charting a vigilant trail through the Desiccant Basin. Their eyes were focused solely ahead upon the ivory peak peering over the basin’s edge.

The Hierarchs worked judiciously, galvanizing the carriage along as the sun gazed scornfully from behind, leering over the alabaster walls of the Hegemony’s citadel. Staving off the pain with curiosity, the exile turned his attention towards the coruscating implements of his captors. Wriggling and chittering at the front of the procession, two fomorian silverfish pulled the carriage along, their insectoid limbs scuttling forward at a remarkable pace, slightly slower than a horse’s trot, yet rapierlike with incisive turns. They poked and prodded with long, spindly limbs, testing the unstable, saline earth for fissures. Sturdy, metallic harnesses secured the monstrous vermin within the procession’s clutches, not unlike the exile’s own shackles. The Hierarchs were accustomed to the beasts’ unsettling movements, expertly conducting each skittering turn as the vermin lurched onward, their gargantuan, silver-plated carapaces gleaming blindingly in the daylight. The Hierarchs, too, gleamed brightly underneath the vermillion glare. Their pristine, gossamer-white raiments scintillated gloriously amidst the glittering salt flats, each garb consisting of a hooded robe bearing intricately woven tapestries. Amidst the myriad tapestries interlaced upon the raiments, silver threads coalesced into exotic creatures, reverent figures, and towers curving impossibly into the sky. 

Most resplendent, however, were the elaborate masks that each Hierarch reverently wore. Carved from ivory, the masks seemed to act as both a veil and an instrument. A mechanical tube extended from the bottom of each mask in the mimicked shape of a proboscis, such that each word uttered by the Hierarchs trilled out into melodic tunes. Ivory tubes probed outward into the open air, whistling against the savage winds. Each terse command incited by the procession conducted itself in melodic fashion, various voices harmonizing and echoing out over the barren landscape. The Hierarchs stood tall as conductors of the basin, the holiness of their procession emanating in a melodious chorus. The group was almost saintly, looking as elegant as can be in the inexorable, relentless heat of the desert. Yet trailing behind the brilliant procession, a trail of heretical, sizzling scarlet dribbled to the parched earth. 

The caravan lurched against the sun-bleached basin, sending a sharp rattle through the chains. Suddenly, the silverfish skittered to a halt, and one Hierarch began to speak in an unfamiliar tongue, their mask distorting the sound into a guttural warble. The exotic language of his captors was only barely parseable, quavering out into abstruse homily. “Near… chrysalis… heretic… feed…” the words scattered throughout the procession, repeated by each Hierarch in turn. Heeding the command, a hideous mixture of smoked offal, dried guaraná fruit, and tallow was offered before the exile. The clump of sustenance wriggling in the oppressive heat. Within the pemmican, wrinkled fruits peered out at him like the reddened husks of shriveled eyes, their ebony cores engulfed in a swollen mass of putrescent sclera.

Gnawing hunger seized upon the exile’s bowels, yet he could not bring himself to gorge upon the desiccated scraps. Each attempt to shovel food into his gaping, scarred mouth was followed by an upheaval, his body discharging acrid waves of revulsion to purge the offending mixture. One Hierarch gave him a sharp kick, urging him to ingest the dry, gritty rations, but the strike only further agonized the process, mixing metallic ichor with the nauseous tang of bile. The exile heaved out a sickly trail of spittle, though there was no food in his belly to vomit up. Meanwhile his captors dined decadently, drinking deeply of marrow broth and slurping the juice from beady-eyed guaraná fruits through their ivory proboscises. The earth groaned, parched, yearning with every droplet of juice that spilled from the Hierarchs’ ivory tubes. A sweetly tempting fragrance wafted out from the procession, pervading the basin’s otherwise searing air, the honeyed aroma of marrow and fruit heralding the group’s arrival like aromatic incense. Tirelessly, the Hierarchs dragged the exile onward over treacherous salt flats, wrenching molten air from his wrought lungs. Their destination emerged over the edge of the basin. The ivory peak loomed into visibility.

Dominating the distant landscape, a tower of ivory extended upwards from the horizon. It loomed into view, rising over the mountainous edges of the basin and straining upwards against the vermillion sky. Like alabaster, it shone in an effulgent display of material wealth and purity, yet the structure remained bizarrely natural in structure. Cracks and creases rippled down the side of the tower, giving it more the appearance of bone than something man-made. The spire curved bizarrely, as though the earth itself had formed a spiteful talon to scrape the underbelly of the heavens. Awestruck by the ivory obelisk, the procession around the exile came to a standstill. Fluting crescendos of fervor whistled in the wind as the Hierarchs bowed deeply to the effulgent monument. Zealous figures composed an ode under the looming shadow of the distant tower, their voices humming in harmonized reverence.

Then, something cracked, shattering like glass. A cry broke out among the chorus of worship. A melodious voice had been transmuted into the gurgling sound of blood traveling down the trachea, spurting crimson liquid out from the proboscis. A geyser of salt and steam erupted from the earth, alongside the sound of something skittering from below. The figure in raiments groaned piteously as his throat was throttled by a serrated limb, black and inky. It crawled up from the fissure in the earth, standing tall. Centipedal, it stretched upwards, looming overhead. The Hierarchs ceased their chorus of homily, yet the creature did not halt its advance, drawn in by the scent of decadence. Its antennae probed over each Hierarch in turn, relishing the taste of guaraná juice, rich marrow, and sweet, sweet blood. As it passed over each figure in turn, the Hierarchs began to cry out, before their dissonant, anguished cries were cut short by serrated chitin. It caressed the mangled, retching remains, multitudinous limbs crawling over flayed gossamer and sloughed flesh. 

Then, the creature reached out towards the exile, black limbs crawling over the gleaming basin. Its carapace rippled like the surface of an inkwell, red eyes gleaming and peering directly at the exile. It drew closer, curling, serpentine. A forcipule reached out to caress the exile’s soft, salty flesh. The exile shivered in pain as the creature’s antennae flitted around him, stroking the exile’s body wherever his wounds festered most. Coated in chitin, the limb felt pleasantly cool. A rumble of satisfaction bellowed out from the centipedal creature, yet it did not strike. Slowly, sensually, it circled around the exile, sensing his hunger and abstinence. It positioned its head closer, the main body writhing as the centipede brought its maw to bear. Mandibles, slick with spittle, hovered close to the exile’s bound hands. In a single, visceral instant, the creature snapped forward, shattering the exile’s chains between its jaws. With deliberation in its lithe limbs, the centipede circled away from the exile, wriggling back into the salt-laden fissure from which it came, and writhing into the dark, clammy bowels of the earth.

The exile stood alone amidst a sizzling sea of nebulous meat. All around him, the ground was littered with the savaged remnants of formerly pristine raiments, each now defiled by an oozing deluge of viscera. The mangled remnants of the Hierarchs bulged and groaned from the excess air trapped within their corpses, whistling out a phlegmy death rattle through their ivory masks which lay unceremoniously crammed into each amorphous pile of bone, muscle, and sinew. Piping hot entrails bellowed with agony. As the corpses released their pent-up cries, strings of fleshy pulp gurgled up the tubes, hissing a tune around the chained, tortured exile. The carrion composed him a ghastly ode beneath the vermillion sky.