02-15-2019, 12:29 AM
While Valeriya summoned choice Khylsty to the front, Armande approached with a message. She nodded and accepted the kiss with carnal flashes ripping her eyes. “You will conquer, Great One. The Eye has seen it.” As he departed, three others took his place. All three men, they were draped with monk’s robes, their hands folded in wide sleeves and hoods drawn to shade the eyes. The first, Illarion, stood with quiet reverence. Rowan already met him. The second, Matvei, the Hand of the Khylsty, watched with deadly interest. The third, a brother Khylsty some years older than even Matvei. He was one of the oldest among them: maybe fifty years old.
While a Sister Khylsty prepared and fire, others closed the clothes across windows and lit the room with candles. Valeriya drew Rowan by the hand to the center of the room and knelt before her on a rug.
Others came to circle around them. “I will explain all. We are the Khylsty, Rowan. Persecuted in the Old Days, before the fall of the Tsar and Tsarina. We were a church. The Great One, Gregori Rasputin, is our father. My father.”
“He saved us when the Empire fell and the war that followed by preparing a way. He burrowed into the earth and there we stayed until the Great One returned to lift us from perdition.” She glanced in the direction Armande had gone. She previously introduced him as the Great One.
“Rasputin was the Eye of the Khylsty. That was how he knew to save us. His offspring and the line since him have passed the Eye. I am the current Eye.” That time, when Valeriya glanced, the Khylsty surrounding them bowed as though to their queen. Even Matvei recognized the power of the Eye.
“The Eye showed me all of this long ago.” Her hands raised as the odd words she came to treasure in her heart rolled forth: “sun, sky, trees, plants, light..” A covetous smile contorted her lip. She would never relinquish these priceless treasures again.
“The two most sacred rituals are Radenyi and the Awakening.” Rowan may not know the meaning of Radenyi – it was a very old word. Nor did it apply to them today. Perhaps in the future if the Eye willed it.
“Awakening can only occur when we realize that we are dead in sin, and rise from our own tombs, summoned as though beckoned by the necromancers of old. But we cannot awaken if we have not known sin. Therefore, we honor our sins for they allow us to awaken. Finally, you are open to the great spirit. To awaken, I will explain.”
She glanced as a hooded figure laid a satchel near them. Bound together, the contents within were hidden. The herb that Rowan suggested was soon burned. Its aroma filling her head with pleasant cotton. They were offered drinks that numbed the fingers and tongue; numbed the senses. Singing began to rise around them, and Valeriya rocked gentle sways where she sat. It was womb-like, this cocoon of khylsts.
Once the spirit was open, she concluded the story. “Poison drives out poison.”
She pulled the satchel to her lap.
“Sin drives out sin.”
Opened the cords, and unfurled the bindings.
“Pain drives out pain.”
An array of tools tumbled forth.
She summoned the elder. He opened his mouth and revealed the stump of a tongue. Matvei held a hand, one finger missing from the left. Illarion pushed back the hood, the branding of a cross prominent across his forehead.
Valeriya pulled her sleeves from her shoulders, worming from the top until she was completely bared from the waist up. Candlelight flickered on the curves of her body as she twisted around to show off a carnage of scars from self-flagellation, barbed whips that clawed their way across her skin. Armande often commented on them when they laid together. They were quite prominent.
She turned back and offered Rowan the tools of her choosing.
“It is your choice,” Valeriya whispered. “Let the Eye show you what to do.”
She offered Rowan more to drink as the chanting rose.
While a Sister Khylsty prepared and fire, others closed the clothes across windows and lit the room with candles. Valeriya drew Rowan by the hand to the center of the room and knelt before her on a rug.
Others came to circle around them. “I will explain all. We are the Khylsty, Rowan. Persecuted in the Old Days, before the fall of the Tsar and Tsarina. We were a church. The Great One, Gregori Rasputin, is our father. My father.”
“He saved us when the Empire fell and the war that followed by preparing a way. He burrowed into the earth and there we stayed until the Great One returned to lift us from perdition.” She glanced in the direction Armande had gone. She previously introduced him as the Great One.
“Rasputin was the Eye of the Khylsty. That was how he knew to save us. His offspring and the line since him have passed the Eye. I am the current Eye.” That time, when Valeriya glanced, the Khylsty surrounding them bowed as though to their queen. Even Matvei recognized the power of the Eye.
“The Eye showed me all of this long ago.” Her hands raised as the odd words she came to treasure in her heart rolled forth: “sun, sky, trees, plants, light..” A covetous smile contorted her lip. She would never relinquish these priceless treasures again.
“The two most sacred rituals are Radenyi and the Awakening.” Rowan may not know the meaning of Radenyi – it was a very old word. Nor did it apply to them today. Perhaps in the future if the Eye willed it.
“Awakening can only occur when we realize that we are dead in sin, and rise from our own tombs, summoned as though beckoned by the necromancers of old. But we cannot awaken if we have not known sin. Therefore, we honor our sins for they allow us to awaken. Finally, you are open to the great spirit. To awaken, I will explain.”
She glanced as a hooded figure laid a satchel near them. Bound together, the contents within were hidden. The herb that Rowan suggested was soon burned. Its aroma filling her head with pleasant cotton. They were offered drinks that numbed the fingers and tongue; numbed the senses. Singing began to rise around them, and Valeriya rocked gentle sways where she sat. It was womb-like, this cocoon of khylsts.
Once the spirit was open, she concluded the story. “Poison drives out poison.”
She pulled the satchel to her lap.
“Sin drives out sin.”
Opened the cords, and unfurled the bindings.
“Pain drives out pain.”
An array of tools tumbled forth.
She summoned the elder. He opened his mouth and revealed the stump of a tongue. Matvei held a hand, one finger missing from the left. Illarion pushed back the hood, the branding of a cross prominent across his forehead.
Valeriya pulled her sleeves from her shoulders, worming from the top until she was completely bared from the waist up. Candlelight flickered on the curves of her body as she twisted around to show off a carnage of scars from self-flagellation, barbed whips that clawed their way across her skin. Armande often commented on them when they laid together. They were quite prominent.
She turned back and offered Rowan the tools of her choosing.
“It is your choice,” Valeriya whispered. “Let the Eye show you what to do.”
She offered Rowan more to drink as the chanting rose.
The Eye of the Khylsty