Sangre sonando
De rabia naci
The war never ended. It was interrupted, for certain, by the misguided of Udos, by the flayers, by the great migration of the uncaring court. Distractions. There was one enemy, two-headed. Often, literally.
Those who would betray.
Not individuals, not even the House. Not even the city over which the Reclusiarch and her progeny now watched. Punishments for all, as a matter of course. Meted out in secret or in the open, with the bored contempt of centuries at this work. No. Special care and attention went to those who betrayed the ilythiiri entire. Elves were, like the others, dealt with as need be: annihilated when necessary, a useful diversion, and occasionally decent practice. But they would all be handled when Her kingdom came.
Which left the apostates. Slithering things of blood and flesh. Walking foulness clothed in the skin of the ilythiiri, if they had skin at all. Spore-things. Craven things. Bulging, sickly, moldering, stitched. Deviants of the holy form, final parting gift of the Queen before eternal imprisonment.
Fleshcraft. Goddess forfend.
He observed one such example, laid open and living upon the table. A middle sister, well-trained as Excrutiator and vivisectionist, had done a job sure to bring this branch praise, if not attention.
"We offer you fair terms," he said, to the creature on the slab. The duty of asking had fallen on him, as the holy implements had fallen into his sister's hands. They never took the terms. Still. It was only polite, to ask.
The creature gurgled. Its face was a ruin, may once have been that of a particularly beautiful ilythiiri male. Only some of the ruining had been at the House's hands. The rest was blasphemers’ work. He wondered, as he often did, where these sinners found so many "converts." Thoughts turned to all those fresh adventurers, newly arrived from a hundred different cities. The lifeblood of their own city, living and dying in their scores to bring wealth and temporary respite to these caverns. It was from this stock the apostasy pulled, perverted, putrefied.
"Terms offered as follows," he continued, watching the thing's lungs fill and empty. It must have been painful. It was intended to be painful. But this was the way. His sister took up sanctified scalpel and did something surprisingly noisy. The creature twitched. Clamped its mouth shut as much as it could. He knew it could speak just as surely as he knew it wouldn't.
This was necessary. Not in the singular sense. This single digit of the greater beast masquerading as a house hardly mattered. It would feel it the same way he felt hair plucked from his scalp.
No.
This was for them.
This was to remember.
remember
Bone-bite rumble of explosively sealed tunnels. Shrieks of outrage. Horror. Down the hall, deep in the old compound. The baying of hellhounds trained and pacted to detect a breach. To scent out the whiff of corruption. They found it, for the first time in decades. The nursery. Turned now into a mockery. A webbing of fused and gasping flesh. Caretakers and their charges. Guards. Heathen fleshwarping, and at its pith, a nine-pointed holy icon clutched in the hand of a man who had, until that dark, been perfectly loyal. What was left of him, anyway.
remember
try to breathe
sentimentality is a weakness
you did not seal your helmet, draw your sword, and slice your way to the creche inhabited by your sister and her new son
that would not have been drow
would not have been merciless and heartless
you were not joined by brothers, aunts, cousins, crowding into what should have been the safest place in the compound
this does not happen because everyone knows that it could not have happened.
drow have no hope to break. no hearts to wound. no tears to shed.
Drow have hands, and blades, and the Queen's own cunning. Nothing else.
remember.
"By agreeing to this contract," he continued, face a placid mask, hands unshaking, "You will be granted temporary asylum in exchange for answering our questions to the best of your ability."
The creature on the slab sucked air and gurgled.
He kept talking, reading the ever-long terms of a soul-shredding contract while the Excrutiator made the question more pointed.
you marched into the slaughter-House in your sealed armor, by the dozens. through the front door, bold as you please.
"You will be offered enough comfort, medicine, and healing magic, for your aid,"
the Excrutiator (which sister was it?) had gotten up and left the room. "To ensure full reconstruction of the body, if not mind," there is no divine sanction for what you all do when the word spreads of what has been done to the House's young.
"If you agree to even partial questioning," he says, and the sword is in his hand again, the mask over his features. Nameless House Servitors, turning the fleshworks into a true abattoir.
you read the pact, even said some convincing words. he maybe, almost, agreed. the excrutiator was surprised. your mother was proud. you got closer than any of them ever had to turning one of the apostates.
except.
except
remember
Remember the subtle nod of your sister, the torturer, as she left the room. The wicked dagger, thrice-cursed and baptized in the blood of its owner's closest sibling, that she had left. Remember how near she looked, exhaustion creeping into her features, to the sister you both lost that dark in the creche.
you didn't. you wouldn't. what was done with prisoners was set in stone.
except. that dark in the mutants’ compound. and there was so much fury it bled out of gums and from your ears and made the world tip just a little bit sideways and of course, of course, it was right and holy to destroy the apostates but
No buts. He was a good son. It was right and holy to destroy the heathen, the betrayer.
The creature on the slab burbled as the world began to tip. To skew.
Just a little.