The Key

[Valeriya]

Valeriya hunted growls in the dark. Hers were the eyes that glowed in the dark and frightened normally ferocious beasts.

When the Ijiraq appeared, chills tickled her skin. When it spoke, the breath caught in her throat. When it morphed into the black skin of a demon, red glowing from the depths, she was frozen with fear.

Armande’s will stretched, though, and the dark demon threatened. Valeriya gripped her knife as the snarl of mounting defenses twisted her lip. She was ready for its attack, but one never came.

It circled, poked and prodded, speaking in a strange tongue with Armande. He commanded it to obedience.

The red of the bloodstone clawed its way through her mind. The images she saw within flooded her bones with resolve. She grit her teeth and pushed in front of Armande.

That hellish gaze focused on her. She locked her eyes on its, until the red of its hollow sockets came to stillness. Like stones; blood-red-stones.

It flared and pulsed. Radiance of its heat flashed her face. For a second, she doubted this would work, but like those beasts Below, if it sensed a moment of weakness, it would strike. Her lips curled into a snarl. Her fists clenched.

It hissed at her, but Valeriya stepped closer to the hot creature. The blackness of its leathery skin swirled like soot on lava. They were near to height. Eyes level. The hook of its nose was hollow, like the empty socket of human skulls. Its teeth pearled white. She could picture them sinking into her flesh, but she had teeth too. She bared them just as she flung out her arm.

She slapped her palm upon its forehead. The heat of its body sizzled into hers, but she pushed away the pain and closed her eyes.

The Eye commands, she spoke to it.

Its screams were inside her head.

The pressure against her hand released. The blackness softened, faded to pallor, then misted away on the air.

Valeriya’s heart was pounding when she looked upon the blush of her palm. It would heal, though. She endured worse scars.

[Armande]

It sneered at him as it taunted him, helish eyes daring him, challenging him. Its coal black skin seemed to ripple, the fissures of red glowing hot. And it refused to move. Refused to obey him.

Armande cast his mind back to the scroll, tried to think if there was an override command he had missed. This could not fail.

He was aware of Valeriya but refused to look away from it. He could not show fear or submission to it in any way.

And suddenly, she was in front of him, between him and the ijiraq, stepping up to it. His arms went out to move her out of the way when suddenly she slapped her palm to its forehead.

He heard a hissing sizzle and she spoke so softly he could not make out the words. The creature went stiff.

And then, just as suddenly, its skin swirled and it was mist again. It said nothing, just sped away into the night.

The quiet was deafening. The whine inside his head had disappeared the moment she touched it. He came around to look down at her, a sense of awe touching his voice. "What did you do, Valeriya? How?"

He took her hand gently, holding it, lightly touching the burn on her palm, tracing it with his finger. It was an angry color. He thought he saw a shape, though that may have just been his imagination.

His blue eyes were cool as he studied her curiously. A slight breeze stirred her dark hair. His queen.

[Valeriya]

Vale lifted her chin. ”I spoke to it.” Her statement was matter of fact. Until a flicker of confusion buried her brows low. ”I didn’t understand it at first, but it changed its words to match mine. Then we fought.”

The fight was unlike any of claw and knife before. It was one of will. Like the two of them burned in the line of each other’s eyes. Until she won the day and it yielded.

”It hates me for what I did. It would kill me if it could.” The idea was disturbing, even for the Khylsty. ”I don’t think it can. Did it speak to you?” She studied him quizzically.

[Armande]

Armande paused, her hand forgotten in his, not really seeing her. Looking through her. The ijiraq's words chilled him. He tried to make sense of it all. It had been so different the first time around. He remembered it vividly.

The Ijiraq's solid form seemed to explode and the silver black mist....quivered violently. Where the eyes had been glowed an angry dark red and he could almost feel its heat. The creature appeared to be trying to move, hanging there floating. It reared back and surged at him and stopped as if it had hit glass, mist billowing about in waves.

But he had held the tablet. He had said the words. He had pressed the key. And though the scream had tore through him, the creature blew into mist and had finally fled down the tunnels to its hunt. This time, though...

Something had changed between now and then. In him?

His deep voice was firm but quiet.. "It spoke. It taunted me. Goaded me. Like I was its prey. For what reason, I do not know..." His words trailed off, eyes focusing on hers. He gave his head a slight shake. But the chill remained. The difference... He seized control of his emotion.

Armande tilted his head slightly, studying her. Finally, quietly, "Valeriya. You only spoke the once, though I could not discern the words." He searched her eyes. "And it never spoke. From the time you struck it to when it fled only seconds had passed. And yet you conversed with it. Fought it..."

A slight smile touched his lips.

He realized his finger had been gently tracing her palm where she had struck the creature.

[Valeriya]

The graze of his thumb burned. She pulled her hand away and studied the angry red skin of her palm. 

She looked in the direction that the creature fled. There was no trace of it any longer. Only the tablet remained. "A predator only taunts the prey it wants to devour. Maybe it disliked your command and wanted you destroyed so to be freed of its duty." 

Otherwise, she had no explanation. When she told Armande that they spoke, she shook her head. "The Eye spoke, beloved. The Eye sees all."

Armande liked to dissect and examine. He would not leave the question unexplored. Valeriya didn't care why the creature obeyed. It did, the reason didn't matter.

She lifted her hand to the light, then. If turned just the right way, it almost seemed like there was a shape within the swollen ridges.

[Armande]

Armande was frustrated with her. In many ways, she was a child. Not physically, of course. And certainly not when it came to responsibility or ferocity. But for her, if it worked, that was all that mattered. There was no deep seated hunger to understand the why's and how's that sat at the center of him. For him, understanding those were the key to power. They were the levers and tools he used. Everything was a puzzle to be taken apart, looked at from every angle until it was clear how it functioned. 

Thales of Miletus had changed the world with this philosophy that was the heart of the scientific method. New truths could be arrived at through painstaking logic. Until then, the civilizations of the Yellow River Valley, the Nile, the Indus and those of the Fertile Crescent had all been at the same level, technologically speaking. But it was Thales who gave the Greeks and then the Romans the philosophical tools that allowed them to shoot far ahead. Absorbed by the Arabs and Indians and then fed back to Western Europe through the Moors, these tools had placed the western world at the forefront. 

Of course that model was his epistemology. It was how he took in knowledge of the world.

But Valeriya had the simple faith of a child- complete and utter trust that what was, was what should be. He did not begrudge her that. But it could never be his. He had surrendered to fate, was Khylsty in heart and soul, not because of emotion- or at least not just because of emotion. He'd done it because he had been shown his errors, had been broken down and had had it logically presented to him. And he had seen proof, time and again, that Maya or fate was behind all of this, that he and Valeriya had been chosen.

But he doubted he could make her understand why he needed to know- or why it mattered. It didn't matter to her. They were two different sides of the same coin.

She had already dismissed the question and was, instead studying her palm. She must have seen something too, in the brand. He stifled his irritation. "Come, my love. Let me treat your burn. And we can get a better look at it in the light." He lead her back into the safe house.

[Valeriya]

For once, she followed as bid without complaint. The salves of the Above were miracles...