Scene 01: Beneath the Archway of the Portal of the Dead and the Living
The trolley had the unfortunate tendency to move to the right. The tools upon it clattered together as he pushed it into the light of a single torch, beneath the archway. This placed him within arm's reach of the single occupant of the portal. Years of study and colour collection and expenditure had amounted to this creature's arrival. It was a pathetic enough sample in most lights, he mused. Still, as it hailed from another realm, long unfathomed, it was an achievement no one else had brought about. Now if only he could rouse the withered thing to more than a semblance of animation.
"Wake up or I'll throttle you again." His voice was a promise sworn to be upheld and easily. The figure this threat was directed at moved awkwardly, lying almost still on a collapsible, portable cot. Its arms seemed to want to motion in circles but there was no greater intention evident. The hands of these arms were tight fists. Perhaps the figure sought to fight with the owner of the voice? The movements were too odd to decide whether this might be so.
The speaker's hands had no such issues with illustrating their intention. Long fingers moved toward the prone figure's neck. The knuckles on his hands were enlarged, giving them a non delicate appearance. Their touch might not be welcomed as these were somewhat clumsy hands...
"Kkhhhhaaaauuussssss." This was all the prone figure could manage, its hands still moving in their private, swirling dance. Fists still balled. The other shook the hapless figure more than violently. This was rage and frustration. His hands did not care that they might do worse than had already befallen the hapless figure.
"Tell me where you've hidden the sphere, you useless husk!" The shaking ceased. A moment's pause to see if the figure would speak.
"S-Sffffff."
"Yes, yes!" Gleaming eyes lit the portal arch's ceiling with their fire.
"Sph -- sph- Here?"
"What? No, no! Where is it? Give me the place. A name, and creature of the lost, I will give you peace." His shining teeth dripped jaundice-hued menace.
"BBB-allll." The figure sighed more than spoke.
"Sphere. Ball. No matter. All the same, dear creature, genius of corpses. Tell me and feel free of the pain."
The supine figure's right hand dropped to the side of the low cot, landing limply on the tiled floor, like a wet, burial shroud. The other arm circled up, still spasmodically, to a place between the two beings' faces.
"Aaaaha-hah!" Laughter. "You seek to hurt me? How defiant! How confused! Take that curled fist away. You had better be sensible." He not only commanded but slapped the raised fist aside; swatter on beetle, cane switch on skin.
The fist returned to interpose itself.
"Creature..." His menace was bigger now. More immediate. Soon to be enacted.
The fist remained. The prone creature haltingly said, "Ball."
"Your fist is in my face!"
"Balls... fear..."
His jaw snapped shut. Surprise and annoyance. " You -- I remember you always being a mouthy son of a bitch. Good to at least know I have the right person! I can't believe you're wasting you're precious breath and last moments on uttering obscenities, and not very good ones either."
The figure on the low bed shook its head violently. It moved back and forth almost too quickly to follow. The other wondered if this was simply more of the spasms the creature had arrived from the other realm with. He watched intently for a few seconds. No, these movements were just that slight bit different. More controlled, if only a little. The creature's head was moving in a side to side, negative manner.
"Not an insult, is that it? What then? Ballsfear. Balls fear. . . Ahhh, ball/sphere! That's right you half-dead, dung beetle-riddled corpse! The Sphere, where did you put it? I have summoned you. You will not rest until I know. Do you understand?"
The figure's balled fist opened. Inside, a tiny phosphorescence could be discerned. While minute, it was clearly a red spherical object, reflecting in the dull light that filtered from beyond the arch. Finely crafted, it looked like a jewel. Some kind of personal adornment. A stud perhaps though it seemed not to have a way to be attached for that use. The Sphere began to change, flattening as it enlarged as though at the touch of some unseen potter's hands.
His eyes sparkled, lit red by the jewel as it grew and became and became a disc. It slowed its transformation. Stopped. Not seen prior, twin arms in some dark material, metal likely as not, gently cradled the red disc at a single attachment point. At a point a few inches below the disc, these arms formed a circlet. The disc's substance, all still a deep red colour despite its having expanded, measured ten inches across.
Blackened, taut lips licked by leathery tongue. "An armband perhaps? A mirror for a lady's dresser? A scrying lens meant for the caster's bench, I wonder?"
"No."
"How's this now? Finding your voice are you?"
"No."
"Make sense. What is this object? Brought it from your realm? Where else, where else?"
"No."
His eyes flamed, made baleful by the red disc's colour. "You look to deny me this... jewel? You're not in any way able to prevent my acquiring it. I'll just relieve you of it before you damage it with your spastic clumsiness."
Boney hand reached out for the precious object. Clasped it by one of the arms. Not by the disc! That might not be a good idea. To an observer what then happened might be amusing in a dark fashion. Another hand, this of the prone creature clutched the opposite arm of the jewel. There then followed a silent combat far away from the heroic tales. Each hand pulled on the metal arm as a couple might contest with a fowl's breastbone. The disc moved toward one then the other. The figure on the cot was weaker but the other could not lift the jewel beyond the point where the figure's weight began to add to the burden. A full month-minute passed in this way. This same observer might also note that the object of this struggle seemed well made, as nothing about its delicate construction seemed about to break from the stresses it was being put to.
"Fine! You hold on to it. I'll just cut your wizened hand off at the elbow. That'll suit me just as well!" With that the fiery eyes looked to the nearby trolley on which many blades were located. Their gaze fixed on the saw. Perfect for the job!
"Unggh". This came from the cot.
"Yes, yes. You'll not feel much and being on your way back to that solemn place of unlivingness, I doubt you'll miss a hand, eh?"
"No."...
If he hadn't been distracted he might have noted that the voice had changed in a small way.
" Not the monosyllabic stuff again! Now then --". He turned to size up where best to remove the limb. The creature was standing. Erect, he realised that the being was less of a creature than he had realised. More humanoid in stature. Legs strongly muscled, waist tucked, lean, corded. As were it's forearms. Not as they had been moments ago then! Filled out, somehow. Head no longer a withered thing, all jawbone and scaberous fur. Now fleshed out. Fur and skin shone. Its eyes might beat his own for menace! Black glittering depths that spoke of hues of the dead and of hallowed loss. Atop the 'creature's' brow, as though sized for it, sat the disc.
"A head ornament!", he exclaimed.
"My crown." The other said with a voice that though whispered, might wake the Dead.
"I have summoned you?" He had meant this to sound more forceful than a query. His doubt could not be hidden. He had miscalculated.
He thought quickly and spoke hastily, "I am Delich. I have no fear of death as I am long since taken beyond it. My vital colour is safely hidden in a grove too far away to be found by such as you. Let us reappraise this meeting. I have farmed this crown of yours and led you to be restored? I'm sure you'll be grateful." Teeth as always, bared in a yellow smile, lips too wizzened to hide much.
The other said, "Grateful? You know it! As to being restored by you, I will be once I've eaten. It's been an Age since I ate. Here you are and like the others of my kind, I don't gnaw on the bones of the living."
The portal's archway being heavy stone, rang to the sounds of breaking bone and dry-snapping ligaments. Similarly loud gnawing could be heard and when it was near finished, a sucking sound as through a tube. Delich of course being as far from living as dead, had had no marrow to speak of. This fact caused a last sound. A rather heartfelt, disappointed sigh.
Stroking his long ears and making certain with various muscular contractions of his scalp that they were fully functional, Anubis stretched his arms over his head, laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
"Well, Nube", he said to himself, "You're one ninth complete. Wonder where the others are?"
Realising he might need a hand in this, he decided rather than looking by himself, he would probably do better with the help of those who might be reminded of his existence -- and their loyalty!
He set his mind to the task, which naturally in his current weakened form, meant his crown did much of the work. Anubis sifted the short list of results. He sighed again but then brightened some, " 'Rebirth', haha! Trust him to call himself that. Airs and graces!... Unless he doesn't remember but only senses his past? It happened before to greater than he. When that other answered to Wakim in the Hall of the Dead."
Anubis adjusted his crown even though it fit perfectly. He motioned as if to go.
Doggone.
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