the ruined and the tarnished

PART 1: oathbroken, Chapter 1

SUMMARY

pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic, even if only from a distance

Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

In its final death throes, the Nautiloid breathed slowly, the membrane shifting back and forth from soft, gelatinous texture to firm, contracted muscle. Blood and rot from the corpses of intellect devourers hung fetid in the air, barely overpowering the aroma of fish sizzling over the campfire. Shadowheart knelt a few paces away from him, muttering prayers under her breath. They had made camp amid the half-buried wreckage of the ship; the spongy, overarching walls provided ample cover from any intruders. He turned over the fish, one for each of them, scavenged from the dead fishermen’s baskets. His gut stirred when he’d stood over their carcass — not a worldly hunger, but one that reached beyond their piscine supper.

“So,” said Shadowheart, “The ‘Dark Urge,’ is it?”

“I remember my name now: it’s Ajax.”

“Well, Ajax,” she said, her eyes narrowed in open appraisal, and he wondered what she saw, “are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’ll take first watch, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“How chivalrous,” said she with a sardonic smile, “but I’m talking about the lit fuses in our heads. Each hour that passes, the thing inside us grows.”

“I know, I can feel it wriggling in there.” He pointed to his temple, and as if on cue, the worm in his skull writhed.

She shuddered. “We must find a capable healer, as soon as we can.”

“Agreed,” said Ajax, “First thing on the morrow.”

He watched as she nestled into her makeshift bedroll, a pile of clothes stripped from the ever-accommodating fishermen. They wouldn’t need them anymore, she’d said, urging him to take everything they had, and now, in their respite, they settled with food to keep them full and blankets to keep them warm. Shadowheart slept with her back to him, too trusting, too easy to let the blade slip into her flesh. Ajax observed the thought as it came to him, the tadpole squirming behind his eyes, a curious little thing.

The thought wandered around in his head, lingering since he’d woken in the Nautiloid. Nary a memory in his waking stupor, only the acid rage and bilious disquiet, coalescing into a single thought: to take vengeance on whoever did this to him. ‘This’ was a vague notion; blood had covered him, both congealed and fresh, but upon palpating his body, he found himself strangely intact and untouched. Yet, an ache pulsed in his gut. An ache to hurt and inflict and maim, to take vengeance — on who, he’d asked, and the question was met with the stabbing pain of hunger. Everyone, it answered, and it spread through him like rot, infecting every nerve and muscle with a taste for bloodshed. The rot festered from his core to his arm, extending to the length of his greatsword. It radiated with necrotic energy as he struck down imps and devils; and every sweep of his blade bathed him with a perverse bliss he’d always known. A familiar touch, a loving caress. He followed it like a starving dog — that urge to slash his way through flesh and guts and sinew, a harbinger of death and decay, every synapse firing off thoughts of nothing but rage and revenge and blood, blood, blood.

The relentless onslaught wore him out, his muscles raw, his innards still aching for more. He craved reprieve from it, a solace, or something — anything — to sate it, to head it off, to control it before it controlled him.

He would find it in a tucked-away druid grove: a man who’d jumped to their rescue, a hero who saved their hide from the goblin raid. Descending from the rocky walls of the grove, the man had entered the battlefield with casual strength and ferocity, parrying goblins left and right and stabbing them with a flourish. As Ajax buried his sword into a worg, the man stepped next to him to provide cover, his movements graceful and calculated. He greeted Ajax with a blade-up salute and a smile, before stretching his arm and lunging at a goblin warrior behind him. In turn, he raised his gauntleted arm to briefly shield the man, taking a splash of acid from a goblin booyahg just as Astarion stabbed it in the back.

Inside the druid grove, the man’s demeanour had transformed. The once fearsome warrior now appeared kinder, gentler, his furrowed brow easing as he offered words of encouragement to the tiefling children. Voice softened; shoulders relaxed.

The parasite in his skull merged with his, as with all his companions before. Through his eyes, Ajax saw the wastes of Avernus, and in the midst of oblivion stood a one-horned devil, set ablaze. Determination emanated from his chest, flooding him with a rush of adrenaline. As the connection severed, a shadow of terror passed across the man’s face, swiftly replaced with geniality as he stretched out his hand in greeting.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “You fought well out there—”

Once more, their minds entwined. Another memory engulfed his vision, this time more vivid: the same fiend raised her bloodied greataxe with a scream, poised to strike. The man dodged the blow, and his hand came alight with a dark power—

The mental link abruptly cut off, leaving Ajax with a pounding headache as a migraine began to take hold.

“Shit, you saw her,” said the man. “Advocatus diaboli.”

“Who is she?”

“Karlach. An archdevil’s soldier I swore on my good eye to kill,” replied the man, pointing to his left eye — his deep brown eye, a stark contrast from the ashen stone of his right. “I was tracking her throughout Avernus — and nearly got her, too — but the damned illithids infected me before I could finish her.”

Ajax studied the man before him, noting the contours of restrained fury etched in his composure. The rigid set of his jaw. The tight line of his full lips. The minute twitch of his brow. A most familiar sentiment.

“Apologies, how rude of me,” the man said, offering his hand once again, “I’m the Blade of Frontiers, but you can call me Wyll.”

“Ajax,” he replied, taking his hand to shake. “We’re all infected, too.” He gestured to the company behind him: a gith warrior, a human wizard, a half-elf cleric, and an elven thief. “Word is, there’s a healer in this grove.”

“Ah, yes. Master Halsin,” said Wyll, nodding. “Let’s check in, but know that my first duty is Karlach. I’m oathbound to go after her.”

The word oathbound sent a chill down his spine. A vivid memory flashed in his mind’s eye, unbidden: Ajax on his knees, the words of an oath proclaimed like gospel, its tenets branded onto his forearm. Then he’d raised his blade, bathing everything in divine crimson radiance.

Back in the present, Ajax gripped the hilt of his sword, sheathed within its scabbard. No such divinity surged from it; only godless, oathless power fuelled his smite. His gaze flickered to his right forearm, encased in a steel gauntlet. If he took off the gauntlet and the sleeve beneath, would he unveil the words from his vision etched underneath his skin? An itch crept through his fingers, a desire to reveal the truth. But not here, not now. Not when the folk hero, the esteemed Blade of Frontiers, stood before him as witness.

“You all right?” said Wyll.

He nodded, swallowing his thoughts. “Shall we head into the druids’ den?”

“After you.”

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