DavidRM
New Member
Chapter 4. After the Fire - Summoned and Summoner
It had never felt pain before. Now pains and indignities heaped one on the other and swirled together, a miasma of agony and frustration.
The pain of separation, pulled out of its world and brought into this place.
The outrage of Summoning.
It reached out, sensing the Summoner, feeling the power, wanting to consume the power, crush the Summoner. But something blocked it. Then cut it off from its world as though closing a door.
The pain of isolation.
The pain of open space.
It could return, it could re-open the door. It knew the way. It had the power.
But then the affront of Binding, of having the door locked, unopenable.
The pain of structure, of hardness that offered neither nourishment nor admittance nor integration. Need--the need to avoid the Binding as it fell or risk being bound forever in this world of pain--taught it how to use the pain and push against the pain, endure the hardness, and adjust its presence within the agony of open space so that the Binding would not touch it, would not be inadvertently consumed by it.
Distracted, it realized, by the Summoner. So that the final indignity could be perpetrated upon it.
The indignity of Command, and knowing that it must obey.
It tore at the fabric of the world but found no purchase. It was Bound. The way home was closed to it, and locked.
It sought to envelop the Summoner, to crush--
Stopped. By the Command of the Summoner and by the impression of the Summoner's--his?--presence.
The Summoner laughed at it, mocked it.
And it could do nothing to stop--him?--the Summoner.
Impressions, thoughts emanated from the Summoner, concepts, fears, hates, but on top of it all pride and power and--amusement. A spectrum of mind and emotion, rippling and flashing and oozing. Beauty and putrescence, depravity and art, desire and disgust, fascinating and repellant. It could only observe, amazed that such an entity as the Summoner could exist.
It felt the Binding, observed--her?--saw a different spectrum, though with similarities to the Summoner. The Binding's emanations dimmed, became smoother, less erratic. It felt a new impression from the Binding, and towards the Binding, a part of it reaching out, but not a part of itself that it recognized.
Then from the empty space, new impressions, vibrations that struck and moved across it, vibrations that originated from the Summoner and meshed with the mental emanations from the Summoner, and it now knew itself as the Summoned. Not its True Name, but a name it had to accept. Its name in this horrible, empty, hard world.
But the Summoned remained itself, even with the pain and the indignities and the compulsion. It remembered its world, the warmth and constant contact, the consistency and the softness. And it remembered the Binding. A jarring of unexpected memory, disjointed images and a tangle of emotions that it could not interpret and did not recognize as its own.
The Summoner spoke--a combination of vibrations and thought, the Summoned realized--speaking the Summoned's True Name again, and it felt the new Command course through its presence--its body, a concept it pulled from the Summoner's mind--a compulsion to find and kill PAULRICHARDCAMPBELL.
A man, it saw, it felt, it heard from the Summoner. A man named Paul Richard Campbell. And as it processed this, it felt the Command and with that came, from the fabric of the world, from the cold empty space and hard structure, from the surface thoughts of the Summoner, the knowledge of direction, of distance, and it knew that Paul Richard Campbell was ... that way.
Away from the Binding.
A reluctance to leave the Binding fought against the compulsion of the Command and it hesitated.
The spectrum of the Summoner transformed, becoming darker, hotter, and the vibrations became harsher, whipping at the Summoned, forcing it into motion, action.
It moved. Shifting the mass of its body along the direction that would take it to Paul Richard Campbell.
The horizontal structure that it moved across changed, became vertical. It paused to consider this.
The Summoner came close to it, even darker now and redder than before, but with a hint of mockery now, as if the Summoner found the Summoned's dilemma both frustrating and amusing.
Enraged, the Summoned flowed away from the vertical structure--wall, it learned from the Summoner--and around the Summoner, encompassing him, willing itself to absorb and consume. And again it could do nothing. It was Bound and Commanded.
The laughter and mockery of the Summoner followed it as it shifted its body to ascend the wall. The wall led to another horizontal structure, with a texture of pain from contact that was entirely new. But the laughter from the direction opposite its movement--behind?--kept it moving forward.
When the horizontal structure went vertical again, this time it was negative, down, and the Summoned fell.
For long, painful, lonely seconds, the Summoned found itself surrounded by empty space, without even the painful contact of a hard structure.
And then came contact again, hard, forceful, incredibly painful contact that caused its mass to spread out in a thin layer, and some parts of itself to tear away and land inert.
Lost in its own vortex of pain and confusion, it didn't notice the other entities that it had landed on and near, except as distractions and hindrances to pulling itself back together and seeking out its missing parts. All around it, entities, spectrums of thought and emotion, bombarded it with images and vibrations, many of them as confused as the Summoned.
Then it noticed the taste, the new flavors that brushed its palette, from the contact with the entities--people?--when it struck the--ground? concrete? sidewalk?--and as it recovered.
The spectrums of the people around it began to shift as it piled itself higher and higher, exposing more surface area that it might receive more impressions, as it sent out its first--tendrils? tentacles? pseudopod?--reaching, trying to touch the nearest ones, to sample their flavors...
-David
It had never felt pain before. Now pains and indignities heaped one on the other and swirled together, a miasma of agony and frustration.
The pain of separation, pulled out of its world and brought into this place.
The outrage of Summoning.
It reached out, sensing the Summoner, feeling the power, wanting to consume the power, crush the Summoner. But something blocked it. Then cut it off from its world as though closing a door.
The pain of isolation.
The pain of open space.
It could return, it could re-open the door. It knew the way. It had the power.
But then the affront of Binding, of having the door locked, unopenable.
The pain of structure, of hardness that offered neither nourishment nor admittance nor integration. Need--the need to avoid the Binding as it fell or risk being bound forever in this world of pain--taught it how to use the pain and push against the pain, endure the hardness, and adjust its presence within the agony of open space so that the Binding would not touch it, would not be inadvertently consumed by it.
Distracted, it realized, by the Summoner. So that the final indignity could be perpetrated upon it.
The indignity of Command, and knowing that it must obey.
It tore at the fabric of the world but found no purchase. It was Bound. The way home was closed to it, and locked.
It sought to envelop the Summoner, to crush--
Stopped. By the Command of the Summoner and by the impression of the Summoner's--his?--presence.
The Summoner laughed at it, mocked it.
And it could do nothing to stop--him?--the Summoner.
Impressions, thoughts emanated from the Summoner, concepts, fears, hates, but on top of it all pride and power and--amusement. A spectrum of mind and emotion, rippling and flashing and oozing. Beauty and putrescence, depravity and art, desire and disgust, fascinating and repellant. It could only observe, amazed that such an entity as the Summoner could exist.
It felt the Binding, observed--her?--saw a different spectrum, though with similarities to the Summoner. The Binding's emanations dimmed, became smoother, less erratic. It felt a new impression from the Binding, and towards the Binding, a part of it reaching out, but not a part of itself that it recognized.
Then from the empty space, new impressions, vibrations that struck and moved across it, vibrations that originated from the Summoner and meshed with the mental emanations from the Summoner, and it now knew itself as the Summoned. Not its True Name, but a name it had to accept. Its name in this horrible, empty, hard world.
But the Summoned remained itself, even with the pain and the indignities and the compulsion. It remembered its world, the warmth and constant contact, the consistency and the softness. And it remembered the Binding. A jarring of unexpected memory, disjointed images and a tangle of emotions that it could not interpret and did not recognize as its own.
The Summoner spoke--a combination of vibrations and thought, the Summoned realized--speaking the Summoned's True Name again, and it felt the new Command course through its presence--its body, a concept it pulled from the Summoner's mind--a compulsion to find and kill PAULRICHARDCAMPBELL.
A man, it saw, it felt, it heard from the Summoner. A man named Paul Richard Campbell. And as it processed this, it felt the Command and with that came, from the fabric of the world, from the cold empty space and hard structure, from the surface thoughts of the Summoner, the knowledge of direction, of distance, and it knew that Paul Richard Campbell was ... that way.
Away from the Binding.
A reluctance to leave the Binding fought against the compulsion of the Command and it hesitated.
The spectrum of the Summoner transformed, becoming darker, hotter, and the vibrations became harsher, whipping at the Summoned, forcing it into motion, action.
It moved. Shifting the mass of its body along the direction that would take it to Paul Richard Campbell.
The horizontal structure that it moved across changed, became vertical. It paused to consider this.
The Summoner came close to it, even darker now and redder than before, but with a hint of mockery now, as if the Summoner found the Summoned's dilemma both frustrating and amusing.
Enraged, the Summoned flowed away from the vertical structure--wall, it learned from the Summoner--and around the Summoner, encompassing him, willing itself to absorb and consume. And again it could do nothing. It was Bound and Commanded.
The laughter and mockery of the Summoner followed it as it shifted its body to ascend the wall. The wall led to another horizontal structure, with a texture of pain from contact that was entirely new. But the laughter from the direction opposite its movement--behind?--kept it moving forward.
When the horizontal structure went vertical again, this time it was negative, down, and the Summoned fell.
For long, painful, lonely seconds, the Summoned found itself surrounded by empty space, without even the painful contact of a hard structure.
And then came contact again, hard, forceful, incredibly painful contact that caused its mass to spread out in a thin layer, and some parts of itself to tear away and land inert.
Lost in its own vortex of pain and confusion, it didn't notice the other entities that it had landed on and near, except as distractions and hindrances to pulling itself back together and seeking out its missing parts. All around it, entities, spectrums of thought and emotion, bombarded it with images and vibrations, many of them as confused as the Summoned.
Then it noticed the taste, the new flavors that brushed its palette, from the contact with the entities--people?--when it struck the--ground? concrete? sidewalk?--and as it recovered.
The spectrums of the people around it began to shift as it piled itself higher and higher, exposing more surface area that it might receive more impressions, as it sent out its first--tendrils? tentacles? pseudopod?--reaching, trying to touch the nearest ones, to sample their flavors...
-David