Hért Rhinéguąrd stood upon the cusp of foreboding demise and at the edge off utter loss of body and soul. Standing in the tumultuous middle, he looked at the growing deluge fast approaching from the frigid north sea. The way he came was barred by pursuing ships, the Masked Empire he went out to meet in the open waters had devastating his fleet.
High Lord Admiral of all Brinearch, he had led his salt knights to a slaughter, a disgrace which would see him beheaded on the scarlet salt block.
Such was his grim mood and dire heart, he would’ve had a knight’s courage or a warrior’s boldness, if he didn’t receive a notice days out to sea.
A missive that was squire didn’t hand to him before they launched, a black envelope, the traditional relic meaning death.
Opening it, he learned his wife, the Pallid Queen Of Rivers had died of illness. Too deep in the thick of war to return, he suffered since imaging her pale face rotting, ivory flesh becoming gray, then green, as her porcelain flesh turns to wet clay.
Tearing at his platemail vestments, he exposed his boney, gnarled muscle chest to the incoming storm, and let out a heretic cry.
‘If God wants my head for the scarlet block, I’d see it drowned first.’ Pushing aside the captain, he grabbed the wheel and steered it into the savage waters of the storm.
Plunging the Flag Ship, Starleen into the chaotic waves, sail shredding winds, and spine shaking thunder, as earthy darkness takes ahold of them. Lightning flashed showing the nine war galleons have followed them, their intent to see the eradication of their nemetic fleet.
Volkstɇil, the dreadnought led the chase, piercing through the rising waters, and splitting thunder as it sought after the silver sails.
Through tidal and flotsam it flattened the waves, and severed the winds as its colossal wedge shape hurled itself across the waters towards its quarry. Skies darkened, lightning brightened the heavens, and from the turmoil in the chaotic squall came a wicked violet illumination.
From a swirling mass of clouds in the sky, a cyclone reached out of the glowing abyss, as if it were the finger of some hideous giant. Touching down upon the water came a swirl of violet colors, foaming waters, and a spire of dark winds, all blinking in unison. From that madness Hért Rhinéguąrd and the men under his command bore witness to the Ultäâlʉs.
Wretchedly it intertwined with the winds, and clouds, the mass of purples and pinks, eyes and faces of the evil damned. Nearly as unknowable as the Face Of Christ.
‘We steer right into the Devil’s Tempest. Steel yourselves men, we die in Hell!’
Just as the Starleen pierced in the multi-colored haze that polluted the raging sea water, a terrible gust of wind came, bringing a forceful gale that tore the High Admiral from his wheel. Scores of his men were swallowed by the all enveloping cloud, as the tornado carried Hért to the violet heavens, before dropping him to the watery underworld.
Crashing into the black waves, he was submerged in a realm of utter darkness, a abyssal flood that deprived him from air and want. Sinking into the colorless abyss, he found neither the power neither the will to wrestle free from his leaden plate armor, and instead fall into a welcoming void.
***
Resurrecting in a murky cavern of brine and shadows, Hért spat out lungs full of water, the taste of salt burning his mouth. Awakening to slaps on his face, he realized he was in a domain of fantastical darkness, drowning slowly with puddles deep of water. Smells of stagnation and vile oils lay in the air, and all he could comprehend were the pygmy mutants wandering about, their hairless bodies, moving as if they were de-evolving into apes with every pregnant eternity.
Standing on his feet, he found something else was in the cavernous chamber, among the natural rock, stalactites, and sludgy water, lounged near unmoving was the Black Crab, Cancer.
‘Christ preserve me!’ he cried in the darkness, seeing those familiar formless eyes from all the idols he toppled. Erected by the Cancer Cult, he was no friend of the stagnating false god, in fact he was their mortal enemy. Hated, reviled, his crusades had stained the salt waters a dark crimson.
‘Preservation is my everything.’ Cancer’s voice spoke in a thunderous yet muted echo. As if it was spoken more in Hért’s imagination, than actually hearing the voice. The mouthless crag, squid chimera beast, covered in a rainbow of blacks clapped its many claws.
‘You are evil. You’re business is to taint the souls of mankind.’ Hért found his courage to speak against the thing he reviled, despite being in its domain. The smells of the dank prison became more unbearable, but he held his ground.
‘Evil is in the eye of the beholder. The hands of man made evil, I am what your ancestors needed. Wanted. I am absolute, permanent, cancerous.’
‘To why did you bring me then? To judge me for my crimes against you?’
The walls shuddered as if they were inside of a giant’s stomach, filling slowly with mild acids and vile stenches.
‘I brought you here to act as my champion. My emissary. My Messiah. You have been blessed in the waters of my baptismal oils. You are drowned but living, you breathe in salt as you do in air. None shall impede your quest.’
Anger flushed Hért’s face, as he reached for his sword, but found it disintegrate in his hold. The salt had eroded his weapons, and his armor, down to the rusted chainmail undercoat, and salt stained raiment and clothes.
‘Do you wish to strike me? I am not some leviathan you can smite, or mortal you can burn on your crusading fires, I am the God Of The Nothings. Constantly. Eternity.’
‘You are nothing!’ he shouted back, rage filling his futility as he tried to search for stones to strike at the behemoth of black and oil. ‘I will never give in to your demands, to this I spit on you wretched thing!’ he spat as close as the black mass as he could launch.
‘Your mere existence fulfills my wants. I grant you eternity, whether it be a blessing or curse I care not. For you, your continued existence fulfills my agendas. For you were conceived not by man’s seed, but by my salt, my brine fed into your mother, and you were born, baptized in my oils. Hért you are my Ultima!’
Truth or a falsehood, Hért felt conflicted either way, as even if were a devilish deceit, hearing those claims felt as if a crab crawled in his ear and was pinching his brain.
‘Silence! I’ll hear no more of this inanity! I’d rather plunge a dagger in my heart than have anything to do with your evil!’
‘Then do so, and bleed my black oils. Be enjoyed in my proclamation, my Ultima, for you wake, emerged from the womb of the sea. Finding victory at hand. Now wake.’
Everything faded in a slow, moving slower than a near endless eternity, in waves and ripples as a living dream becomes a dark reality.
***
Hért was pulled from the water by his crew. Hoisted up by hopes, he awoke finding himself in clothes darkened by the water, as shreds of his armor felt off to the heavy salt water. Wearing darkened clothes, he looked as if he fell into a puddle of pitch.
Lifted onto deck, his hair was darkened, his eyes were shadowy and sinister. Face paler than salt, he was nearly believed to be a different man, if not for his Noble Blood Ears, he would have been believed to be a animate corpse dredged from the sea.
‘Look admiral!’ called one of his officers, pointing to the mass of Ultäâlʉs who had came upon the Masked Empire’s fleet. ‘The cancerous leviathan as taken on our enemy. We are in the clear, and our enemy will surely perish, it is a blessing indeed. By God we have victory.
It seemed that way, as the dark clouds parted, and a bright, pale sun beam shone on the Starleen. The waters became gentler, and the winds were limp, leaving only enough gust to give flight to the ship’s sails, that despite the tearing carry them towards home, the Alkaline Castle. ‘
The men were relieved and jubilate to be alive and victorious, but Hért was tormented by the haunting dream. Watching with dark eyes, and blackened thoughts as the leviathan buried itself on each of the Masked Empire’s ships. Men on board melted into brightened gore mush to be absorbed into the Ultäâlʉs.
Metal, wood, and even stone was broken down in its mass. Overcome by terror, many tried to flee but the lifeboats were absorbed, and the men were crushed in their imploding ship. Those who dove into the waters in vain hopes of swimming away, were swallowed by an submerged sea serpents, their fins briefly poking through the waters surface.
Crimson mixed with the black briney waters, making it a dark crimson. Hért overcome by disgust from witnessing the inhumanity vomited on the deck of the ship. As every last of his enemies perished in the nightmarish massacre, he dislodged pints of fluids in his stomach.
To his and his crews shock and fear, he vomited a gross amount of oil, salty, slimy, black sludge that stained the deck of the ship. No one spoke, fearful fo witnessing such a display of a cancerous omen would do to their careers and livelihoods. Hért Rhinéguąrd despite his perceived curse, was still above them all, a mortal god to be adhered to as if he were a direct offspring of God.
‘Steer the ship home, I’ll be in my quarters.’ he told one of his officers, as he retired for the day, feeling as if his heart and insides were being slowly turned into blocks of salt.
***
Immediately after docking at the harbor of Alkaline Castle, Hért was ordered to attend a immediate audience with the king. No delays were permitted. No chance to wash away the brine from the sea, or put on presentable garments, he was taken into the custody of the Black Guard.
Imperial Officers to the King, who forced him along, though he didn’t resist, they acted as if he would’ve, which made him nervous. He wanted to see his wife’s body, enjoy a bath, put on his best clothes, for he achieved victory, despite many losses.
Though he was treated he lost, and perhaps that was the case, Hért had suspected King Hɇctār Malamøn, selected him for the near suicide mission, because he coveted his wife. Openly his liege, his half-brother coveted his wife, the beautiful, enchanting Miranda. Formerly the queen of Salomyr Country, the Land Of Rivers And Lakes, she was betrothed to Hért and married before the King saw her in person.
Once she was presented to him in court, a madness of wanting came over him, and soon his own wife, the queen was found dead. Having plummeted from the high battlements of the castle onto the jagged, salt crystals that cover the castle walls. The entire realm resides on the island castle, and despite thousands of people living within, there was no witnesses on how the queen fell.
However after this, King Hɇctār, put his half-brother in more perilous assignments, each becoming more lethal than the last. This time Hért, despite his loyalty to the crown, had firmly believed he was meant to die, so the King could take his wife as his own.
Upon climbing the hundreds of floors in the castle, taking many elevators, they arrived in the throne room. Sparsely attended, only the King’s Council Of Five were there, and no other witnesses.
Hért felt his stomach churn as he saw his brother looking at him with a heavy brow, wearing the Crimson Salt-Crown, seated on the Blood Throne, as it was made of the salt that builds up on their island domain.
The Jester, the Chamberlain, the General, the Arch Bishop, and the Grand Wizard were all in assembly. Despite his blood relation and position in the King’s court, Hért was never given a position on the Council Of Five, and now he realized why.
As those dark, bloodshot eyes were upon him, Hért could see the jealousy, and unhidden hatred in Hɇctār’s eyes.
“You come here, a warrior, a victor, and for what?” that question was rhetorical but sounded as if it longed for a answer. “You passed by the crimson block haven’t you? On the way here?”
The crimson block, was a block of salt that over the centuries had been stained crimson from the blood of those beheaded who disgraced the crown. Former court members, treasonous criminals, and those the King wished to frame were put to death on there, and it was fully intended by Hɇctār to be his half-brother’s fate.
“You must be blessed by God.” Hɇctār sneered as he rosed from his throne, carrying the Salted Broadsword, Fɐlɐmɐx. For a brief moment the hatred melted behind his eyes, and a sincere moment of sorrow was there, as he truly hated himself for coveting his brother’s wife. There were friends once, true sibling love was once there, but then poisoned by carnal envy. “I love her you know. I married her when you left. I told her you died. I can’t have people know you came back.”
Hateful revilement filled Hért’s heart, salty malice formed there when he realized the message carrying news of his wife’s death was an utter lie. Used as a ploy to send him into despair so he’d more readily die.
Then he remembered the ways they took to the throne room, guarded, sectioned off, it was a coverup, all of it was, he ran to the balcony, and saw the bodies of his crew being fed to the sea. He was by all counts meant to be eliminated. Before he turned around, Hért saw the manipulative joy in the Councilmen’s eyes as they watched their King rush at his brother, and without warning or pause, shoved the pommel of his sword into Hért’s chest.
Being a large man, he easily knocked off Hért and sent him flying off the balcony. As he fell he looked down and with sorrow in his eyes saw the crystalline eyes of his gorgeous wife, look upon him with dismay on her face.
She had been climbing the stairs, wearing the black of a widow, watching as her husband was being thrown off from the castle, and sent falling down below. She rushed to the balcony to see what happened to her husband, if he was crushed on the salt crystals below, or swallowed by the sea.
Through the tears in her eyes, she saw neither his body in the water or on the salt.
***
Hért shifted dreamlessly into the currents of the undersea, and awoke having been thrown onto land. Coughing up brine, and black oil, he was not dazed, he immediately knew what happened, and with hateful eyes he looked across the sea.
Salt stung his eyes, but he saw through heated tears Alkaline Castle, standing erect, the pinnacle of his hatred. Gritting his teeth in pure rage, he felt his salted blood fill his mouth, as he plunged his fist into the sand of the beach he washed up upon.
‘Cancer! If you here me know this—no matter the price! I will kill my brother, and bring his realm to ruin! All to reclaim by wife!’
That vow whether it was heard or not was forever written down in the Book Of Fates, to be the start of a chronicle of hideous vengeance.
very imaginative