Stepping into the Void
STEPPING INTO THE VOID
by Jon Messenger
Brohmin shoved his hands deeper into his pockets as he leaned against the constable’s sawhorse. The wind was brisk and tussled his unkempt hair, blowing it over his eyes.
“Get off there,” the constable demanded, nudging Brohmin’s elbow with his nightstick.
“I was invited,” Brohmin replied.
The police sergeant hurried from the nearby alleyway and placed a reassuring hand on the constable’s shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s with me.” Moving the sawhorse aside, he led Brohmin toward the crime scene. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Brohmin shrugged. “It’ll be on your bill.”
As they entered the alley, they were swallowed by the deep gloom. The setting sun was blocked by the tall buildings surrounding the narrow street. It took Brohmin’s eyes a moment to adjust before he could see the corpse lying face down halfway down the alleyway. A robed constable stood on the far side of the body, his hands caressing a Slate.
Brohmin’s stomach twisted in knots. There was only one reason the Rynmark constabulary would have contracted him and he already dreaded what was to come.
“Dead bodies are your jurisdiction, not mine.”
The sergeant nodded. “There are no visible injuries.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. His heart could have given out.” They had played this game before, the sergeant leading Brohmin to the inevitable truth.
“Witnesses say he was acting unusual, yelling gibberish before screaming in pain and collapsing.”
He held up his hand, silencing the sergeant. “Why’d you consult with me?”
The sergeant knelt beside the body and pulled down the man’s collar. The tip of a thick, puckered scar stretched from beneath his shirt before ending just shy of his hairline. Brohmin sighed in defeat. There was no way to avoid the uncomfortable truth. He knelt beside the sergeant and pulled up the corpse’s shirt. Just above the man’s right shoulder blade, a mound of scar tissue spread like a tumor, tendrils of nearly white flesh stretching from a single point.
“He was connected to the Void,” Brohmin began, “though from this scarring it doesn’t look like it was a mutual decision.”
“Something latched onto him.”
Brohmin noted that the sergeant didn’t pose it as a question so much as a statement of fact. He felt his hackles rise in frustration.
“An incarnate, though it’s hard to tell what type just from this scarring.
“A riven,” said the robed constable. He touched the Slate again. “Riven usually spawn as a result of traumatic loss. Likely someone close to the victim was murdered and he sought to balance the scales. He’s exactly the kind of host a riven would seek, though their relationship isn’t normally so… parasitic.
“What is this?” Brohmin asked. “If you know something, tell me so we can stop playing these games.”
The sergeant nodded to the aetherist. The robed man walked over to Brohmin and handed him the Slate. The Slate showed a mirrored reflection of the alley in which they were standing, though the colors seemed dulled. Lying in the mirrored alley, in roughly the same location as the victim in the real world, was a gray-skinned body. It was small, about half his height, and hairless. Its small hands ended in claws that appeared more like needles. Unlike its uninjured host, the riven had been torn apart. Long slashed covered its back and arms and a pool of similarly gray blood pooled beneath it.
“The riven was killed. If you already know that, then you don’t need me.”
“We know it was killed,” the sergeant replied, “but we don’t know why.”
Brohmin shrugged. “Then scry more.” He could feel that pit in his stomach growing as he was slowly being talked into something he didn’t want to do.
“I can only see the Void,” the aetherist explained. “That’s not the same as feeling the ground or touching the body. We need someone who can examine the riven’s body and tell us if it was killed by chance by a passerby in the Void or if…”
“If it was murdered intentionally,” the sergeant finished. “If something happened to this riven, could it have killed the man here, in our realm?”
Brohmin paused, choosing his words carefully. “Killing a riven in the Void might affect the host, but that would take a substantial amount of magic. It wouldn’t be something that could likely be done from this side… or by mere happenstance.”
The sergeant placed his hand on Brohmin’s shoulder. “We have to know. We need an Aspector.”
“Spektor,” Brohmin corrected. “There’s no reason to be so formal. It comes with a cost, you know.”
“It always does.”
With a resigned nod, Brohmin walked to the other side of the alley and removed his coat. He folded it neatly before setting it beside him before sitting down against the wall, resting his palms on his knees as he crossed his legs. He took in the sights and sounds of the alleyway, imprinting them in his mind. The corpse sprawled across from him. The scuffle of shoes as the constables moved back and forth. The murmur of the growing crowd straining to see the crime scene from the street beyond. It painted a scene he needed if he were to anchor himself to a point on the other side.
Closing his eyes, Brohmin took one final deep breath. Slowly, his body went limp and he tilted to the side, sliding down the wall until his head came to rest on his folded jacket.
When he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the alley. He sat upright as he tried to gain his bearings. The alleyway looked almost the same, so long as he didn’t try to look too hard into the details. The colors were more muted here, as though the life of the buildings had been drained. The shadows were all darker, inky pits that could have gone on infinitely. Beneath him, the ground gently rose and fell, as though the city were alive and breathing.
The nausea struck him immediately, as did the headache behind his eyes. His brain was trying to make sense of a world that was so foreign it defied definition.
It was the Void.
Brohmin tried to find an anchor, something to help him lock onto the realm in which he now found himself. His gaze fell to the dead riven. Seeing the body helped him
focus, to find something familiar in a truly alien landscape.
Brohmin tried standing, but as he pushed against the wall his hand passed through the stonework as though he were ethereal. He stumbled before catching himself and cursing silently. Finally standing, he stepped closer to the riven, careful to avoid stepping in the congealing blood.
There were plenty of creatures in the Void that could have killed so small an incarnate, but this hadn’t been a senseless killing. The slashes on the corpse were broad and deep, the type he’d expect to see in a powerfully summoned daemon. Someone killed the riven on purpose, knowing the impact it would have on the Daonn host. This was a contracted hit.
He looked around, partial hoping that he’d see nothing and partially hoping that something would have served as a witness. There wasn’t anything nearby, but there was one that would have seen what happened. One that saw everything.
Brohmin shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head until his hair fell over his face once more. Turning sharply, he stepped through the closest building as he cut across the Void version of Rynmark.
It was a short jaunt before he emerged from a ghostly tavern and into a busy square. Daemons and sprites moved and glided through the square, scowling at the Spektor who came to their realm uninvited. Their animosity was palpable, a blunt instrument that struck him whenever he passed too close to one of the denizens of the Void.
Ahead, he saw a familiar creature. “Gal’goth!”
The creature turned and blinked a dozen eyes. “Brohmin, you’re either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to come back so soon.”
The pain behind his eyes flared as he tried to look at Gal’goth. He had no idea what the creature actually looked like, only that it seemed to be an amorphous mass of eyeballs whenever he stared at it. Whether that was its actual form or just his mind’s interpretation was a mystery, though the pain in his brain told him the truth was far more terrifying.
“Let’s just split the difference and call it a bit of both.”
“What do you want, young Daonn?”
“You see all, Gal’goth. I need to know what you saw.”
The mass of eyeballs shook as though it were laughing. “My services come with a cost.”
Brohmin smiled at the irony. “It always does.”
Brohmin awoke with a start. The colors in the alley were rich and vibrant, as though infused with a life of their own. He often took advantage of the world around him until he visited the Void and was reminded just how much darker reality could be. The sergeant appeared beside him and helped him into a seated position. A wave of nausea washed over Brohmin and he had to breathe deeply to avoid vomiting.
“Are you okay?” the sergeant asked.
“I will be,” Brohmin lied. “You were right; your victim was definitely targeted.”
As he explained what he’d uncovered to the sergeant and aetherist, Brohmin’s thoughts drifted to his experience with Gal’goth. The creature’s price had been steep, almost too steep for his liking. Brohmin didn’t envy the person who eventually had to pay it.
Jon Messenger|http://www.jonmessengerauthor.com/
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