Page Eight

 Several days have passed since VerNous’ revival from the dead, yet there had been little noticeable change in his failing condition. Day by day, life seems to drain from his vessel, his soul drifting somberly back to the gravesite. Meanwhile, his amber skin grows paler, loosing the patches of warm blush speckled through out his body, and the skin flakes from contact with the cold, Dentenstagem air. Niseka’s distress over VerNous’ sluggish recovery was scrambling the entire atmosphere of the realm like an emotionally charged weather front. The city now carries an unmistakable haze of gloom that drifts through the narrow streets and devours the shimmering infrastructures, a fog that not only tarries in the city’s alleys, but also seeps into the palace’s corridors and carpets its chambers. The citizens are dumbfounded about the cause of this uncharacteristic gloom in Quaikodum; what would make the master of the land so fretful that it weighs upon the entire kingdom. No one knows when the city would regain its vigor, ending this melancholic stronghold. Days drag slowly like an obese, elderly beast, the master issar counting the hours he must bare with scant hope to ferry him through the unrelenting mist. Until one morning when the dense fog appears to be receding, a warm blanket of radiance remedies the land. Niseka awakes that morning with a crisp strip of golden light draping his face and refracting within his white irises.

Niseka and Nelet begin the day carrying out civil business in his retro-technologically outfitted study, which doubles as command central for hostile engagements. They are carefully reviewing a registry of aspiring demi-issars who wish to enter into his glorious sanctuary. Niseka walks his fingers through page after ephemeral page of accolades, titles, family lines, Nipercarian ties, and other monotonous, though essential, pieces of data. Suddenly as if to relieve him from his assignment, a muffled shattering of glass freezes both issars in their duties. They gaze at each other for a second as if to wait for another sound, but Niseka is impatient and quick to assume from where the crash originated. He bolts from his chair with a heap of papers swooping up in his windy trail, and dashes madly to his chamber. He swings the leaden doors open effortlessly, his eyes piercing through the darkness to find the cause of the noise- a glass of water that had splintered on the floor sending razor sharp shards everywhere. The glass was sent falling by a boy who now tosses and turns in the bed, kicking his knees up into the air as if caught in a nightmare. Niseka rushes to him and tends the confused VerNous,

“VerNous! VerNous! It’s okay!” Delicately, he places both hands over his cheeks, sending a soothing pulse through him, causing the boy’s body to settle and lie completely still.

“Relax, VerNous, relax. Don’t cause yourself any more injury. You’re in a safe place now.” As the boy regains some control over his person, Niseka loosely holds his hand so he wouldn’t feel burdened by his touch. VerNous’ breaths are deep and painful to listen to, his body so desperate for the air to inflate his chest. His head wrenches to the right and his chest tilts upward, sliding his gown down to his neck. Like putrid water spewing from an old, clogged facet, he heaves black, tar-thick bile from his mouth, leaving the bedding sauced in century old fluids. With his mouth coated in tacky residue, he turns back around, peeks opens his eyes, and faces the ceiling- revealing his rose colored sclera dotted with tiny circles of yellow-orange irises. Niseka swoons peering into those rosy wet globes once again and offers him more comfort,

“That’s right, open your eyes, they’ve not seen the light in ages.” VerNous’ eyes creep open like the gentle rise of light in the morning. Their color intensifies until his eyes glow like taillights in the night. His body grows stiff like a day old, immovable corpse, hands mechanically cranking a bushel of bedding into his boney fist. Niseka watches in awe as VerNous is transfixed, the contours of his muscles and joints intensely taunt as his being roars to life like an automaton. In sync with his reanimation, an unusual low rumbling rises outside the room before creeping inside. The bed rattles first, then the floor, furniture and walls, causing objects to tip and crash to the floor. Nelet warns Niseka immediately,

“ Master, take your leave of his person! So much fury buried for so long- I fear he may lash out.” Niseka heeds the signs happening all around him and reluctantly steps away from the boy and joins Nelet braced by the wall. After his hasty retreat, VerNous pivots at the hip and sits up at a right angle. He crawls to his feeble knees like a blind cripple; his sighs and moans soft and pitchy like the whistling of wind through a thin passage.  Dry heaves cause his back to rear up and down, readying to expel another heaping of toxins from his stomach. But instead, his head slowly arches backward with precision and like an impaled warrior undergoing his suffering; he lets out a guttural scream that jettisons from his throat. The two issars cover their ears the best they can, the pitch of the scream heinous enough shrivel one’s eardrum. Meanwhile a host of precious relics, papers, décor, and bedding are pulled into a tornado that whirls around the boy. 

 

After a torturous few seconds, the sound of the scream plummets from existence as if sucked out the room, and VerNous releases an orgasmic, sinister moan that percolates through the enclosure after having released a scream that sat in his belly like hot lead. Within the moan’s resonance are three distinct, pride-filled laughs, one after the other like three strikes on a drum. After his short-lived relief, he cracks innumerable joints though out his body, and then scopes his surroundings with those glowing red eyes, sensing he wasn’t alone in the room. Finally he discovers two issars hunching over by the wall, and his grin melts away, seized by the anxiety over proximity of the strangers. The sheets rip from over his body and he levitates over the bed like a hollow doll- staring scornfully at his prey. Niseka is mesmerized by the vision before him: a lean, burly-limbed boy having conquered his ailment, floating like a shank-less angel who commands the forces of nature to encapsulate him.  He leaves the safety of the wall, lured by the Vernos’ external storm. Nelet reaches out to grab him, the winds still rapidly laying waste to the chamber.

“ Master! No! Stay clear of it!” Yet, Niseka is bewitched, and approaches VerNous without fear. He clasp his chest with both arms and charges VerNous,

“Come. Come to me, magnificent VerNous. How I longed to behold your unparallel majesty and cower before your presence once more. I know you can recognize my soul, a soul you’ve despised with a passion for all these years. But we’ve entered a new age, one where inimical ties need not be! For my act of servitude has freed you! When no one else heard your cold-blooded cry from the grave, I did. When you were buried alive after that shameful lynching, I took your cause. And when they abandoned you to rot to death over two hundred years ago, I was the one who fearlessly reversed that egregious folly.” He lowers his eyes and prostrates himself, “And all I can do now is beseech you, oh matchless, languished VerNous, and offer you protection, my devotion, and my strength. If it pleases you, if my soul you can pardon. Show me favor and draw nigh to me peacefully like the mighty hunter who draws nigh to his dying, suffering game- and together we will herald the second age of the Vernos.” By now, the room is wrecked beyond recognition with VerNous proudly hovering in the whirlwind for what seems like an eon, silent like a lord considering a servant’s woeful plea. Yet, the rage is so full in his body that it seizes his senses and compassion, causing the request to fall on deaf ears. VerNous scrowls. A snarl unfolds on his face with a triad, slug-like tongue slithering forth in three directions out of his mouth. With a severe warning shriek he lunges for the issars like a rabid beast, his jaw concealed by that mutant tongue. Nelet pushes his master out the range of the boy’s charge.

      “Master! Watchout!”

In the process of protecting Niseka, VerNous lands on Nelet’s body, and grips him by the neck. Niseka gleefully witnesses Nelet trying to save his face and neck from VerNous’ bite. This fills his being with gladness and relief, for the boy is spirited and up to his old vicious antics. Niseka cries to Nelet,

“Nelet, careful now, don’t hurt him.” But Nelet disagrees,

“Not in the least! He’s the one killing me!” Nelet concludes his distress in a yell. That’s when Niseka effortlessly puts an end to the isolated storm ripping apart his chamber by calmly raising his arms and lowering them. The wind ceases and object crash to the floor, setting off Niseka’s nerves. Niseka shakes his head in frustration and places a hand on the back of VerNous’ head. He flinches ready to snap back and attack Niseka, but is overwhelmed by a narcoleptic episode, which sends him to the ground in a deep slumber. He says in disappointment to Nelet,

       “That’s just perfect. Guess I can wait another seven hours for his second awakening.”