Orok and the Orchard

---

Orok and the Orchard

The helicopter blades began to slow as Varis exited the vehicle onto the dusty plain, several dozen yards away from the boundary marking the containment area. Following him was the giant Klavigar, Orok, standing nearly two and a half meters tall, wearing a thick robe wrapped tightly around his hulking body. Horns sprouted from his forehead, and his skin had a shade of pale reddish tinge. Behind him a disheveled man in a Hawaiian shirt carrying a shotgun, and a muscular woman with top knot, tank top and jeans exited the helicopter.

“Ugh. At least is not visiting in summer. Would be unpleasant,” Lucretia Popescu said as she scanned the area surrounding the olive grove.

“Well, it gets hot in Syria,” Clef said. “Speaking of which, things are hot around here in different ways these days.”

“We are far from any fighting out here,” Varis said. “But we will endeavor to be quick.”

“Look, here come your Foundation pawns.”

“Orok, we’re not the… oh forget it,” Varis said as he waved to the approaching MTF agents. Three armed and armored men were walking from the perimeter of the fence where a checkpoint guarded the only entrance in the fence.

“Good morning, sir. Director Varga called ahead and let us know you were coming.” The man wore a mustache peppered with grey.

“You’re MTF Ψ-7, right?” Clef asked.

"Fumigators, yes sir. We guard the fence line and patrol within always keeping twenty meters between us and the anomaly.”

“Not much has changed for you since the switch to Vanguard, has it?” Varis asked.

“No sir, not much. We still can’t let anyone in here. But with the conflict still raging in other parts of the country, we haven’t gotten much in the way of requests for research parties or dignitaries.”

“Let the brass worry about that, Agent,” Clef said.

“You know why we’re here, yes?” Varis asked.

“Yes sir, your… party is going into the anomaly.”

“That’s right.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it, sir. Any time spent inside will almost certainly begin to affect you.”

“Not with me here.”

“That’s right, Agent, we are fully prepared,” Varis said.

“Very good. We’ll open the gates for you, give me a moment.” The agent walked back to the gate with his colleagues.

“What is this anomaly affecting?” Lucretia asked.

“When an individual enters the area, they begin to change in subtle ways,” Varis said. “First, a fascination with the area, and the constructs within, then eventually worshipping it. The personnel within were lost entirely during a series of explorations and containment breaches more than five years ago. No one goes near the area now.”

“Well! This should be fun,” Lucretia said.

---

Varis sat heavily onto a couch in a breakroom of Watchtower-91. Clef poured himself some coffee and sat at a table. Lovataar was pacing around the room.

“Please, you’re making me anxious,” Varis said.

Lovataar looked at him sharply but sat at the table with Clef, who offered her a cup of coffee.

“I’m a bit too wired as it is, thank you.”

Clef shrugged and sipped at his cup.

“What has you agitated, Lovataar?” Varis asked.

“The whole flight back from Romania I was thinking about all the things we need to do. You’ve gotten the ball rolling with the gathering of minds but we need to reach out to communities outside of Europe and America. There’s the Adytite Republic of Polynesia for one, and several other communities in Asia and Oceania.”

“We just got back from a mission; can’t you take a breather?” Clef said.

“I have been waiting for some forward momentum for centuries. Since He left, it feels like I’ve been wandering. This has been a wake-up call.”

“You needn’t have waited for me to start this process.”

“I know, but I have been uncomfortable leading since the war with the Mekhanites. I’ve had followers here or there over the centuries, but anytime I had ambitions to begin building again, I would think of all the things we lost during the war and since. And I would deflate.”

“Adytum.”

“Yes. And the scattering of our people.”

Varis stood from the couch and walked to her side, placing a hand on the Klavigar’s shoulder.

“We will bring them all together.”

“And the city?” she asked.

“I want to find out what happened, but first I would like to–”

A ruckus from the hall beyond the breakroom doors interrupted him. Shouting could be heard as three Vanguard security agents barged into the room, walking backwards while trying to hold back a single muscular woman.

“What is the meaning of this?” Varis boomed.

“She just won’t stop!”

“Yes, there being no reason for me to stop,” the muscular woman said as she pushed the three agents away from her, sending one onto his ass. She pointed at Varis. “You. I will be speaking with you.”

Varis looked sympathetically to the agent as he helped the man up.

“Sorry, sir. She’s very strong.”

“That’s alright, Agent.” Varis looked into the woman’s eyes. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“My name is Lucretia Popescu, and I am agent too. What do I want he asks! I want to know what you think you are doing with Black Hunter Lodge.”

“I am not doing anything with them.”

“Wrong! I read reports from Moscow, you give all Hunter Lodge amnesty!”

“Not all of them,” Clef said.

“I am not speaking to you, Mr. Hawaiian shirt. I am talking to the Karcist here.”

Clef laughed.

“It is faintly ridiculous you wear that, Clef,” Lovataar said. “And young lady, I think a modicum of respect when talking to a Karcist of Varis’ experience would go a long way.”

“Oh, yes, I respect very much. No end of respect for big man deciding all the water under the bridge. Who cares what Lodge has done to people over the years in name of Orok. All the blood and tears and bodies in the tunnels under Moscow, forget all that. As long as we have ancient family together, everything peachy and keen.”

“A significant amount of the criminal organization has been dismantled and many of the worst offenders have been turned over to the Russian authorities, actually.” Varis could not help smiling at this woman who had a solid foot on him and looked as if she could rip him in two. “You sound like a bad cartoon, Agent Popescu.”

“Well, not all of us having time to learn all the languages, Mr. I-Have-Been-Alive-for-Centuries. I spent childhood in Lodge’s tender care, grew up with the blood in the fighting pits, and then I get contained by Foundation and recruited after several years in cell. So, no, I have not mastered English to level you would like. My girlfriend is teaching me, I am working on it.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m very tired.”

“I do not care if you are tired, Karcist. I care about atrocities in name of Orok. I care about thousands dead. I care about the years I spent with Lodge and all the scars I would have if not for abilities.”

“As I said, we are screening those within the organization to weed out those responsible for the most heinous of crimes: slavery, murder, kidnapping, etc. We are doing this with the aid of Orok himself, who did not condone the activities of his followers during his long sleep.”

“Oh, Orok is doing what? Exit interviews?”

Clef and Lovataar laughed. Varis tried not to but could not help but continue his smile.

“I think you’ll find that we are making a lot of progress. And there’s bound to be growing pains, but I have recently decided to bring the majority of Nälkän communities under the auspices of a diplomatic collective, and that does include some amnesty for activities that would be frowned upon by the outside world. So many of them, including most of the Lodge, were only doing what they needed to survive during the long years of diaspora.”

“Well, then, I guess I need to speak with Orok then. Where is?”

Varis smiled as he looked over her shoulder.

“Is right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Lucretia turned to look at the imposing figure, towering over even her nearly two-meter height. She stood up straight, placing both hands on her hips.

“Brother, hello!” Lovataar ran to the giant and leapt onto him, wrapping her arms around his tree trunk of a neck.

“It is so good to see you!”

He twirled her around and kissed her on the lips before placing her back on the ground.

“I thought you left, Klavigar,” Varis said.

“I remained to see if you brought another prodigal home.” He looked down at Lucretia with a stern look. “But I see you have brought home two.”

“I am not a prodigal, I have been here longer than you.”

“We were just getting introduced to Agent Popescu. I believe she’s one of yours.”

“No, unless you mean blood slave, I am not one of his.”

“What Varis said before is right, I did not have any influence over the Lodge during my long sleep. But, and although I appreciate the benefit of Varis’ charity, I would have endorsed such behavior in the time before my sleep began.”

“Then I have my bone to pick with you!”

“Really, brother? Slavery is not a good look,” Lovataar said.

“Am I not the Prophet of Conquest in the verses? Years ago, the world was different. We are, or it is better to say, were a conquering people. But the world has changed in many ways. Had I been awake, and in control, my opinion would have changed with it. I will not pretend my hands are clean in the days of battle over the countless centuries, but I see now that the conqueror should have no place in the world as it exists today.”

“So, it is only old you I have problem with,” Lucretia said.

“You are a brave thing, standing in front of a Klavigar and demanding justice.”

“I have faced down gods and the warping of reality since joining Foundation, I do not think you are so scary as that.”

“Vanguard, if you please, Agent. We are not the Foundation anymore.”

“Yes yes, whatever. Time it will tell if that is so accurate.”

Orok turned towards Varis. “I have something I must speak to you about.”

“Another mission, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Fine, but I am going to take a shower first. Clef, don’t let them kill each other while I’m gone.” Varis walked out of the room.

“What the hell am I supposed to do about it? Shoot them?” Clef called after him.

“I would not suggest that.”

Lucretia laughed. Bone shed from her skin and wrapped her knuckles; her stature grew with additional muscle. “Yes, don’t be shooting me, Hawaiian Shirt.”

---

The agents had opened the gate and the four had proceeded to walk easterly towards the center of the olive grove hiding the anomaly.

“Where did Lovataar get to?” Clef asked.

“She is working with Dr. Low to formulate a diplomatic mission to our Asian communities,” Varis answered. “Besides, this felt like something we needed to do with Orok present.”

“Seeing as I brought it to your attention.”

“I had it on my list of things to address with you. As you can imagine, bringing together all Nälkän people is taxing.”

“You both read the files, right?” Clef asked.

“I know what is inside. Or at least, I knew what it was when I was last here.”

“What about you?” Clef asked Lucretia.

“Skimmed it. Blood and bone trees. Big muscle men with teeth. Make us all crazy in love with trees and him.” She hooked a thumb at Orok.

“Great.”

“These things were set about by my hand. They will listen to me.”

“Let’s hope you’re right, my friend,” Varis said.

They walked along a dirt road through olive trees in the crisp November night air.

---

“What are you proposing?” Varis asked.

“We go to the orchard. Bring them to heel, whoever is in there. Bring them into the fold.”

“This isn’t like your Lodge,” Clef said. “Everything alive in there is not even remotely human.”

“Whatever they are, is on me.”

“Four-meter-tall flesh colossi, humanoids with vertical mouths, and some abominable intelligence that proclaims you a patron of betrayal and loyalty.”

“Yes, well, it has been a long time since I was there. They are rudderless.”

“No offense, my Klavigar, but this is becoming a pattern,” Varis said. “You set these things in motion and they grow into something dangerous.”

“Am I not dangerous, Varis? Am I not war personified in flesh? It is as it should be. They are dangerous because they must be.”

“What happened there?”

“It was after the war with the Machine cult, and after Adytum vanished. Ion was gone. Lovataar, Nadox and Saarn were I know not where. I needed soldiers. So my Karcists and I went about creating an army. Then we marched east into what was not then known as Russia. I was so sure Adytum was destroyed by what was left of the Daeva, I needed an army.”

“And what? You left monster maker grove still running?” Lucretia asked.

“Daughter, I will say this one more time, show me res–”

“I. Am. Not. Your. Daughter.”

“My followers formed the Lodge and gave you this life. And look at you, so strong you would face down a Klavigar. You should be proud.”

“Your fucking Lodge killed my parents and kidnapped me, turned me into slave fighting for fucking amusement. They made me this to make fights more entertaining. Everything I have lost, is on you. Don’t call me that.”

“Understood,” Orok said. He smiled. “I like you. Come with us.”

“Yes, well, let’s get back to the subject at hand. How do you propose we go about this, Orok?” Varis asked.

---

“We will approach on foot, and when we are addressed by the thing inside, I will speak to it.”

“Why?” Lucretia asked.

“I am its maker. It will heed me.”

“From the files, it sounds like they worship you like a god,” Clef said.

“Be silent, little man. I am no one’s god.”

“Agent Popescu makes a good point. You should be prepared for the possibility they do not kowtow before you,” Varis said.

“What about the cognitohazard?” Clef asked.

“We should be able to adjust our systems to keep the vector out,” Varis answered while looking at Lucretia.

“Yes, of course, I can do this. Feel it at the edges now.”

“Of course.”

“And me?” Clef asked.

“I believe, much like the effects in that Massachusetts community, it should have no effect on you because of your anomalous immunity.”

“Very reassuring.”

Lucretia pointed ahead down the road at a tree made of bones and red, wet foliage.

“Looks like we’ll see soon enough.”

They continued on in silence for the next hundred meters until they were fully inside the non-Euclidean space of the orchard. Large white maggots crawled along the earth and through the bone trees. The trees were more like large, vibrantly white spines and the branches like strings of finger bones. Viscerally crimson berries hung from the trees, sometimes large enough to fill the palm of Lucretia’s hand.

“It is beautiful in smelly way,” Lucretia said.

“It does smell like something died,” Clef said as he trained the shotgun around the trees to either side of the road.

“Remember, do not damage the trees. The guardians are docile unless the orchard is hurt.”

“We remember, Orok,” Varis said. “But speaking of the guardians, here is one now.”

A towering giant, almost twice as tall as Orok emerged from between two of the trees. Bulging glistening muscles shone under the moonlight, as the giant lacked any skin. It approached the four and stopped only a few meters away. Even at rest, the sound of its breathing rasped so loud as to be a car engine.

“Who brings me the sweet smell of betrayal this night?”

“That didn’t come from this thing,” Clef said.

“No, it did not.”

Orok looked around them for a moment, but finding nothing tilted his head upwards.

“I am Orok. Your maker. We have come to see your progress.”

“Orok? Is it you?”

“Yes, my creature. I have returned from the wilds to bring you into the fold. We are building a new empire with all the children of Ion, you should not be out here in the dark all alone.”

Varis looked askance at Orok as he said “empire.” Orok shrugged.

“Alone? I am not alone. There are many of us here, one who says he is Orok. My maker would know that.”

“Two millennia ago, I came to this valley with my Karcists. Seeding the orchard and tending it. I grew my army and marched East, as you knew. Things happened there and I have been waylaid. But I am here now, to see how you grow in my absence.”

“They said a pretender might someday return with claims of kinship. They said you would come. I name thee falsehood.”

“How dare you?! I am your creator. I can rend this place from the earth as surely as I sowed those seeds! Show me your respect.”

“This is not the way to handle this,” Clef said.

“In the years since Orok walked this valley, we have been visited by the Ozi̮rmok. He told us that we must grow strong, for a time of reckoning is coming to all those who would undermine his works. You are not Orok. Orok would not defy the Ozi̮rmok. Orok would not deny our work for the Grand Karcist.”

“Ion was here?” Orok met eyes with Varis. “Could it be?”

Varis was shaking his head as the voice started again.

“I name thee pretender, not-Orok. You will feed the garden.”

“Listen to me–”

“Time for talking is over, big man. Even bigger thing is angry!” Lucretia said as she stepped out to meet the flesh colossus. The colossus stepped forward and swung its fist at Lucretia in a backhand motion. She pirouetted, barely glancing off the swing, and leapt between its legs. Varis and Clef tore through the trees and cut around, following Lucretia into the underbrush of calcium and blood. Orok grinned and crouched, dug his hands into the dirt and flung nearly a hundred pounds of moist red earth into the giant’s face.

The behemoth howled in pain, digging at its eyes, as Orok swung in a circle around the struggling thing. He followed the others until they were all out of sight.

“We need to get moving before more of them come.”

“Where we going?” Lucretia asked.

“There’s a temple further in,” Varis said.

“And what happens once we get there?”

“A reckoning.”

“Terrific. Really glad I came with. Is like party.”

---

The four hurried down the path, hiding when one of the giant guardians passed close, and before very long they could see a black stone temple complex down in the center of the valley. In roughly concentric circles, the bone trees bent down towards the floor of the valley with the temple waiting for them. The ground around them was moist with blood and viscera, the air smelled of copper and cinnamon.

“There,” Varis said while pointing.

“Sorry, but did thing just pop up?” Lucretia asked.

“It did.”

“What did you do here?” Varis asked.

“I needed an army.”

“So you said before.”

“Armies need time to grow.”

Varis looked around at the trees surrounding them, the pulsing leaves of blood and flesh at the end of the calcified branches. As the wind rustled the trees, they gave a crackling groaning noise.

“So I made them a place where they could grow strong, away from prying machine cult eyes, or Daevite assassins.”

“And then you left it to grow,” Clef said. “For centuries.”

“I was diverted.

“Why did you begin your long sleep?” Varis asked.

“It was–”

“Get down!” Lucretia whispered fiercely.

One of the flesh giants was getting closer scanning the trees and ground, back and forth. Lucretia, Varis, and Clef backed away behind a thick copse of bone trees. Orok did not.

“Hey!” Lucretia hissed.

“No more hiding.” Orok crossed his arms in front of his chest as the skinless fist slammed down and sent even him sprawling.

“Хуй!” Lucretia howled as she ran out towards the colossus from behind.

Each step she took she grew, filling her form with muscle and stature, covering her skin with bone plates, little protrusions of spurs extruding from her knuckles and spine, ripping through her tank top. She swung her hands in a double fisted hammer, striking just below the knee. An impact like a cannon shot echoed down the valley. The colossus’ lower leg folded in half, the creature struggling to keep its footing.

The colossus roared in pain; its wide mouth full of teeth bared. Orok roared back at its face. The Klavigar vaulted towards the thing’s neck, his fingers ripping into the exposed muscle for handholds, and swung around to its large back. The colossus swung its arms frantically for the Klavigar, but he ignored it, bracing his feet against the spine and pulling backwards on the neck just below its jaw.

“For Adytum!”

The spine cracked like a tree trunk being split under its own weight. The colossus made a faint whimpering sound as it collapsed in a twitching mess. Orok leapt free from the falling guardian, landing on his feet a few meters away from its quivering body.

Orok turned as a loud boom echoed through the trees. Clef was standing over the giant’s head with a smoking shotgun, the ruptured cranium spilling wet brains over the orchard’s ground. The maggots rushed across the crimson stained earth to climb into the newly formed cavity in the skull.

“Just in case.”

Lucretia scanned the trees around them. “Come on, come on. Let’s keep moving, yes?”

Orok nodded and started running towards the temple. The others fell in line behind him. They weaved between the bone trees, crushing the worms into the wet earth. The sky took on a yellow tinge and the howls of their gargantuan pursuers echoed through the trees. After a few hundred yards, Clef started to huff.

“This isn’t as easy for us normal humans!”

Without missing a beat, Lucretia swooped down, threw Clef over her shoulder in a fireman carry, and continued running. Another hundred meters and the temple was growing larger in front of them. The space was playing tricks on her perceptions as it seemed they hadn’t made much progress into the valley, more like the temple was moving closer to meet them halfway. The air lost the smell of cinnamon and just smelled of stone dust and moist copper, hot and tangy on the tongue. And then, they were in front of it. Hundreds of meters just melted away and suddenly, the four of them were in a courtyard in front of the black temple. She blinked and looked around.

“Uh, guys… things just go wibbly wobbly.”

“It is the nature of this place to obfuscate reality, but this seems more like a welcome than a deceit.”

“If it is a welcome, I would bet real money there’s a bear trap under the mat,” Clef said as Lucretia put him down.

The stone temple rose nearly twenty-five meters in the air, forming a ziggurat with a U-shaped protrusion at its peak. The material at first glance resembled obsidian but was warm to the touch and vibrating.

“Like shell of bug. I hate it.”

“Whatever it is, we need to get inside and away from them,” Varis said as he looked back the way they had come. A dozen of the gargantuan skinless entities stood in a semi-circle around the courtyard.

“At least they are keeping the distance from us. I don’t think I could fight this many at once.”

“Speak for yourself child.”

“Yes, big Orok is man. We are all very impressed,” Lucretia responded as she started climbing the stairs.

Orok sighed and looked towards Varis who shrugged. “You may not have personally offended her, but she has plenty of reasons to be cross with you.” Varis headed up the stairs after her.

“She has many!” Lucretia called back down the zigurrat.

“I like her,” Clef said.

Orok looked around the crowd of fleshless constructs as if considering getting in a fight with them rather than climbing the stairs. But eventually, he followed.

---

Twenty meters up the rough stairs on the outside of the ziggurat felt a lot longer than it should have to Varis. Twenty minutes passed and they still were not at the top. To make matters worse, each step vibrated beneath their feet, clearly alive. He looked up the staircase to the U-shaped protrusion which was easier to perceive at this angle and distance. It looked like as if through accretion, the ziggurat had grown itself a crown. The air was hazy yellow and there was a tone in the air like the distant ringing of a bell that paused mid-note and just stretched out to infinity. It was giving Varis a headache.

He turned and looked over his shoulder to the courtyard now seemingly much more than twenty meters below them. The giants stood there still, faintly visible through the haze and howling into the air. Clef came up beside him as they slowly trudged up the seemingly endless stair.

“What is the plan here, chief?” Clef asked.

“I truly don’t know. Orok is sure he can talk sense into them, but it seems unlikely given what communication we’ve already had. We need to be ready to make a quick exit if possible or fight our way out.”

“I’m always ready for that. But I don’t like our odds given the documentation in the file. Those researchers who made it this far saw a damn army of entities within the temple.”

Varis nodded silently and looked again up at the protrusion at the peak.

“What is that, anyway?”

“Reminds me of an antenna. But what would this place need to receive or send messages from or to? Besides which, it is clearly organic like the rest of this building.”

Finally, they reached the top and saw there was a door into the interior beneath the protrusion. Clef examined the giant U-shape as Orok steadily marched towards the door. Varis looked over at Clef, indicating they should follow.

“I’ll catch up.”

Varis followed Orok with Lucretia down a short flight of stairs to an organic portcullis that was steadily opening as they approached. Orok seemed uninterested in the structure, powering through and down into the temple.

“Was this place like this when you were first here? Did you build this?” Varis asked.

“No. They have been productive.”

“Please tell me you have more of a plan than that this entity surrender to your will.”

“It attacked me, its creator. This is not a moment for surrender.”

“Finally, you are saying things I like,” Lucretia said.

“Listen to me, Orok. We cannot just march in and start a fight. These constructs have been building and biding their time for millennia. We are wildly outnumbered.”

“I am aware. And I have a plan.”

Orok continued his brisk pace, quickly pulling away from Varis.

“And what would that plan be?”

When the Klavigar did not respond, Lucretia laughed.

“Inspiring leadership. I feel like Russia was a good place for you to be. Is like good old bad days.”

Varis sighed and then rushed to follow the Klavigar. In short order they were in a grand open auditorium space, surrounded by four sets of amphitheater style seating and centered on a grand daïs carved from bone and hosting several stone altars large enough to let a grown human lay down lengthwise. The amphitheater seats were full of dozens upon dozens of humanoid entities nearly two meters in height, their heads twisted to the side giving the appearance of vertical mouths filled with teeth. Many had grown chitinous armor plates covering their limbs and torsos. Varis saw quite a few had horns growing out of the crowns of their heads, resembling the U-shaped protrusion at the top of the ziggurat. Most of the crowd were armed with various bladed weapons apparently grown from their forearms.

The entire crowd droned in old Adytite, with an accent Varis could not quite place. They sang of the Ozi̮rmok vanquishing the Archons and ascending through the layers of reality to face against the Devourer. And they sang of his return nearly a century previous.

“That’s the second reference to Ion returning that’s been made,” Varis said.

“What do they mean? If Ion had come back here but met with none of us… unless he came to Nadox or Saarn, without coming to Lovataar or I.”

“If he had returned, he would have come to you. That is beyond debate. But this is not the first time I’ve been told Ion returned by a delusional entity.”

“What?”

“Karcist Karvas. Or the man who named himself that, in Massachusetts. He said that Ion had given him the mission to convert the town and changed him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because he was so insane, he once tore off his arms to get out of some restraints,” Clef said as he came from behind them. He looked around at the dozens of entities. “This is not good.”

“Of course, is not good. What about this day has been good? Хуй,” Lucretia said as she scanned the singing crowd.

“Where is this man?”

“In a holding cell, in Massachusetts. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is we have someone going around claiming to be the reborn Ozi̮rmok and encouraging Nälkä communities into violence.”

“You’re right. That is a problem. But it is not a problem for right now, I think.”

Lucretia pointed at the altars. “Who is to get sacrificed?”

The entire complex rumbled with the voice as if it were coming through the walls.

“YOU ARE.”

“No, that is not what happens today.”

“Anyone noticing is louder here?”

“Whatever this construct is, it’s in the body of the temple,” Clef said.

“The structure came alive through our holy work to provide the soldiers of Ion.”

“You didn’t think to mention this before?”

“FALSE FATHER. NOT-OROK. YOU WILL FEED THE HALKOST.”

“If I am about to die, tell me of this Ion that visited you.”

“HE GAVE US PURPOSE AFTER SO MANY SEASONS OF FALLOW FIELDS. GROW, HE SAID. GROW AND BE STRONG. REACH OUT TO THE OTHERVERSE. TOUCH THE NEVERMEANT.”

Electrical current flowed from the many entities in the stands, sinking into the structure and visibly travelling up the inner surface of the ceiling to circle the peak. The humming sound of the U-shaped protrusion increased in volume, vibrating the entire structure.

“What is happening?” Lucretia asked.

The ceiling of chitinous material writhed in electrical jubilation, tearing itself open to the sky beyond. But instead of the protrusion on the roof of the temple, they could see a starry night sky. Stars the wrong color, a deep and yet bright shining crimson.

“It is not being night yet!”

“That’s not our sky.”

“What is this? What are you doing, creature?”

“TOUCH THE NEVERMEANT. EMBRACE THE PROGENITOR.”

Orok met Varis’ eyes, who shook his head. “It couldn’t mean…”

“WE HAVE FELT THEIR AGENT HERE IN THE WAKING WORLD FOR MANY SEASONS. WE SHALL OPEN THE WAY.”

“Clef.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stop playing the fool. I know why you lingered. Do it now.”

“Orok, what?” Varis asked as Clef brought out a small radio transceiver, roughly three inches long with a stubby antenna.

“You’re sure?” Clef asked.

Orok nodded, not taking his eyes off those bloody stars above them. Clef depressed a button on the side of the transceiver, immediately setting off a series of explosions muffled by the chitinous building’s structure.

The ceiling collapsed in towards them, Orok shielding Clef’s body with his own just as Lucretia grabbed Varis and leapt backwards up the stairs. The structure’s voice shrieked, echoed by the dozens upon dozens of vertical mouths. The wet, organic rubble fell down onto the amphitheater seats, crushing many of the entities.

Orok lifted Clef and ran for the entrance.

“FATHER?.”

Orok spit over his shoulder, slamming into the organic portcullis that had shuddered free of its mooring. Another shrieking sound, followed by the sound of bones breaking, by the sound of a crushed insect under a boot, multiplied by orders of magnitude, causing even Orok’s ears to trickle blood. Lucretia and Varis were following closely after, both a bit battered from the explosion of living building. As they emerged into the hazy yellow air, the ceiling collapsed fully, the U-shaped protrusion falling within still humming.

As they ran down the stairs on the outside of the temple, the gargantuan entities clutched their heads against the chittering death screech of the building and whatever waited through the gate. As one, they rose up from their knees and screamed at the four running down the stairs.

Clef opened fire on the nearest, taking out huge divots from its chest with his shotgun shells. Lucretia leapt onto another, sinking bone talons nearly twelve centimeters long into the cranium, its mouth giving a wet gurgle as it fell.

Varis reached out with both hands made fists, dragging them in a sharp downward motion. Two of the flesh golems fell to their knees, eyes and tongues bursting violently. Orok roared wordlessly, shouldering the leg out from under one of the remaining golems and then ripping it free. He continued to roar as he beat two more to death with the severed leg the size of a tree trunk. Clef made sure each that fell did not get back up with a point-blank blast of the shotgun to the backs of their heads.

Lucretia breathed hard as she and Varis faced the last two. She smiled and grew another five inches, sheathing her arms in bony spines and leaping into the torso of one. Her arms sank into the meat nearly to the shoulder, and as she withdrew them, dozens of yards of sticky intestines spilled out onto the already red earth. Varis merely willed the last to lay down, and then closed its eyes with a soft apology.

He turned to look at his compatriots, wanting to check if there were any injuries, when the building behind them stopped screeching and bellowed in rage. A crack began at the base of the ziggurat and sped up the side, splitting it in two. The structure opened like a flower, spilling organic rubble to the ground as it reared up, violently reforming into an approximation of a body. Dozens of arms with pincers thrust towards them, shaking with violence. The limbs lifted a roughly oblong body out of the red wet earth, as it lurched forward unsteadily.

“WHY?!?!.”

“Because you have outlived your usefulness. The moment you crossed the first tenet of Ion, your existence became forfeit.”

“I SERVE THE OZỊRMOK!.”

“No. The first tenet in our faith is: No Gods. You are apostate.”

The building-spider-thing ran toward the Klavigar, but he had already dodged behind the nearest spinal tree. It shattered into pieces. One of those bone shards, nearly six meters in length, Orok raised over his head as he bellowed: “NO GODS.”

The bone javelin flew from Orok’s hand like a cannon shot, piercing the center of the beast and blowing a hole nearly a meter wide straight through to the hazy yellow air behind it. They were all showered in viscera as the temple construct keeled over and collapsed down into the muck.

Orok approached the shuddering giant, gently batting away the pincer limbs as they weakly reached for him. He plunged his arms into the wound and began to pull his hands apart. The living temple mewled as he forced the wound wider and wider, until finally even its eldritch structure could no longer hold together. The sound of the construct ripping in two was like a wet explosion, echoing across the valley. The mostly severed two halves of the gargantuan entity shuddered for another moment and then lay still.

The Klavigar approached Clef and nodded, planting a wet hand on his shoulder and patting. He turned to Varis and Lucretia. Varis stared at the steaming wreck of the once living temple and swore in Old Adytite.

“Let’s be getting out of here.”

Lucretia headed off the way they had come, ignoring the shifting sky above her, the slowly fading haze, the shriveling bone trees. Orok laughed. He turned and looked down the length of the valley. He could literally see space folding in on itself, the non-Euclidean space losing its anomalous dimensions as the living landscape blackened in real time.

Varis walked after Lucretia, with Clef at his side.

Clef lit a cigarette. “Well?”

“I’m tired, Alto.”

“No shit. Me too. Not the point, though. What are we going to do about this?”

“Clean the valley, burn anything left for fear of its taint getting into the environment. Make sure we keep observation on the area in case something managed to get through.”

“No, I meant about this fake Ion. That’s twice now whoever he is has encouraged something like this.”

Varis nodded. “It’s a problem.”

“We need to find the rest of them. If anyone can sniff out a fake Ion, it’s the four Klavigars.”

“Yes. Saarn and Nadox must know something. They were always more connected to the world than I.” Orok followed them at a slow pace, his whole body covered in viscera and drying blood.

Lucretia looked back at the other three trailing behind her. She pointed over their shoulders.

“If you don’t want to be folded into neat little meat pies, it is time to be putting a fucking move on.”

The sound of the valley’s anomalous space folding in on itself, to be slowly overwritten by the olive trees that should have always existed there, was like nothing Varis could describe. The smell of wet copper and cinnamon faded, replaced with hot rich, black earth and the sound of leaves shifting in the wind.

As they reached the border of where real met the unreal, surrounded by drying corpses of maggots, Lucretia slapped the Klavigar’s bicep. As tall as she was, her head only came up to his chest, so she had to reach up and fully extend her arm.

“I have never been seeing something like that in all my years,” Lucretia said. “I am impressed.”

“Finally, some respect from you!”

“Don’t expect much more. You’re still a dick.”

An Assembly of Sarkics <<= Previous | Orok and the Orchard | Next => Two Sarkics Take a Vacation in Polynesia, Stop Me If You've Heard This One