Somewhere beneath the earth
The darkness in the cave is not silent. It breathes—a slow, viscous rhythm of inhalation and exhalation that seeps from the depths of the stone. The Dark King sits motionless upon an overturned tree root, the Alchemist's fingers—his fingers now—interlaced beneath his chin. He waits. Or rather: he allows himself to be found.
"Step forward," he says into the black. His voice sounds weary, unsurprised. "I can smell you. Smell... something that reeks of burning ivory."
Silence. Then: a giggle, wet and hollow, as if someone were laughing inside a bubble.
Red eyes open in the darkness. Not in pairs—a full dozen small, circular pupils ignite, scattered across a narrow, elongated, hammerhead-shark-like skull. Malcephar slips from the shadow like a birth from black water. Ivory-white. Too slender, almost skeletal in build. His wings—fans of bone and sword-blades threaded with red veins—vibrate almost imperceptibly, producing a humming whine that aches in the teeth.
"Brother," Malcephar hisses. The word ends in a sibilant.
The Dark King raises an eyebrow—a gesture inherited from the Alchemist, along with the spotted hands and the heavy gait. "Brother?"
"If you wish to call it that." Malcephar tilts his hammerhead skull. His claws—fifteen centimeters, razor-sharp, too many joints—click rhythmically against the stone floor. "We serve the same Father. Does that not make us family, do you not think?"
"I have no family left." The Dark King stands. Slowly. The old body cracks, protests the movement. "I had one. Once. You have not earned their names."
Malcephar's red eyes narrow to slits. "How theatrical. Father said you would be... dramatic."
"The Devil." Not a question. A sigh.
"Call him Father." A command, wrapped in honey. "As befits him."
"He is not my father." The Dark King steps closer. The Alchemist's body is small, hunched, harmless—but the aura behind it makes the air shimmer. "He is my employer. My... buyer. And buyers should not believe they have purchased love."
Malcephar laughs—a sound like breaking glass tubes. "You are no Champion, Dark King. You are a tool. A very loud, very slow tool."
"Then I am no Champion." The Dark King turns, prepares to leave. "Piss off. Crawl back into your hole. I have work to do."
"Work?" Malcephar's voice cuts through the chamber, suddenly hard as his claws. "Father is displeased. He sends me to test your loyalty. And do you know what I find?"
He drifts closer. The wings vibrate faster, the whine becoming a scream in the ultrasonic range.
"I find a man who hides in caves. Who speaks with dead Alchemists. Who—"
"I serve the Devil." The Dark King does not turn. His voice trembles—not with fear. With rage. Suppressed, ancient rage that remains fresh after decades. "I serve him alone. But I serve in my way. Not his. Not yours."
He turns now. The Alchemist's eyes—milky, old—suddenly glow black. "His four Champions failed. Does he remember? Four of them. All defeated. All. Does he want that again? A swift defeat? Or does he want a slow victory?"
Malcephar freezes mid-movement. The red eyes blink—once, twice.
"Quiet and secret," whispers the Dark King. "No fanfares. No Champions posing in sunlight. Just... ash. And the smell of burning villages on the horizon."
Silence. The whir of wings falls still.
"Very well." Malcephar makes a gesture—unnecessarily theatrical, the Dark King thinks. A tear rips open in the wall. Not slowly. Violently, as if reality itself were screaming. The tear burns, grows larger, becomes a gate. Beyond: nothing. Everything. A vacuum that devours light.
"I shall convey your... devotion... to Father." Malcephar drifts toward the gate. Pauses on the threshold.
The Dark King watches him go. Something gnaws at him. Something...
"Wait."
Malcephar turns his head—180 degrees, too far, utterly relaxed.
"The heart," the Dark King says slowly. "That I heard. Was that... yours?"
Malcephar grins. His mouth is too wide for his skull, full of needle-teeth, and the grin does not reach his eyes.
"Guess," he whispers.
Then he is gone. The gate closes with a sound like extinguished fire—dangerous, sudden, absurd.
The Dark King stands alone in the cave. He places a hand upon the Alchemist's breast. Feels the slow, weary beating.
"Guess," he repeats quietly.
Then he laughs. Once. Briefly. Without joy.
Somewhere in a village in the realm of the Bairenmen
The tear opens in a hut built of clay and desperation. A Baitenger—young, not yet thirty, hands rough from labor—leaps from his bed. He tries to scream. The air is too thick. Too heavy. It presses into his lungs like wet sand, and his knees buckle.
The gate grows. Burns. Becomes a maw.
Malcephar steps through. He must stoop to fit beneath the low ceiling. His wings fold tight against his back, chiming softly like tensed sinews.
"What..." the Baitenger gasps. "What do you want?"
Malcephar does not answer. He merely looks. His eyes—red, circular, too many pupils—ignite. Not bright. Deep. Endlessly deep.
The Baitenger feels something click in his mind. A switch. A door opening. Suddenly the fear is gone. In its place: clarity. Certainty.
"You are chosen," Malcephar says. His voice does not come from his lips. It comes from inside the Baitenger's head, from the memory of his mother, from the dream he had last night. "Follow me. Meet your God."
The Baitenger nods. He stands. His movements are fluid, somnambulant. He follows Malcephar through the gate.
In the nothingness beyond, others wait. A dozen faces, from different villages, different lives. All with the same eyes. Empty. Devoted. Happy.
The gate closes. The hut remains behind, empty, the smell of scorched earth in the air.
Somewhere in Hell
The tunnel is a gullet. No construction—an organ. The walls pulse, sweat a yellowish fluid that smells like fermented blood. Everywhere, fissures where lava wells, but the lava is too thick, too alive, moves against gravity, creeps up the walls like hunting things.
Malcephar leads his group. The Chosen follow in rhythm, marching without marching, their feet barely touching the ground.
At the end: a wall of flesh. Veins, thick as arms, intertwine into a pattern that almost resembles a script of its own. Almost. If one looks too long, one begins to read. And if one begins to read...
Malcephar kneels. His bones clack against the damp floor.
"Father. I have returned."
The flesh wall opens. No door. No tear. It splits apart, reveals red interior, slime, something that resembles a massive, blinded eye. And beyond: Him.
The being that emerges has no fixed form. Sometimes six arms, sometimes two. Sometimes a face, sometimes only a mouth. But the voice—the voice is constant. Deep. Warm. The voice of a father calling his children to dinner.
"Speak, my son."
"Your decision was correct." Malcephar remains in his kneel, head bowed.
"Good." An arm—or something resembling an arm—reaches out, strokes Malcephar's hammerhead skull. The touch leaves a trail of heat. "Then we continue my plan. Have you brought what I demanded?"
"Only the best, Father." Malcephar indicates with one claw toward the group behind him. "The best of the best. The... most interesting."
"Kneel," Malcephar says. Not loud. Not commanding. Simply: a fact that has suddenly become true.
The prisoners' legs grow heavy. Too heavy. One by one they sink, not falling, sinking, like stones in water, until their knees touch the floor. None scream. None weep. They all smile.
"Hahaha." The Devil's laugh is genuine. Enthusiastic. Proud. "My son. My faithful son." He drifts closer to the prisoners, examines them like a merchant appraising fine wares. "So fragile. So... weak. And yet. And yet they possess something that astonishes us. Again and again."
He leans toward one of the prisoners, a young man whose hands still smell of earth. The Devil's mouth opens—too wide, full of layered teeth, like a pearl necklace of bone.
"Hope," he whispers. "Hope in the face of the inevitable. Is that not... delicious?"
The prisoners smile. Malcephar smiles. And the Devil as well.
The tunnel breathes.
And somewhere, far away, in a cave beneath the earth, the Dark King places a hand upon a dead Alchemist's breast and wonders whether he has just made a mistake.
Or whether he has finally found the only right path.