Flashback Heaven Hath No Rage...

[Razkar]

The Power of Bones, as Razkar knew, was not a "showy" or theatrical craft. At least not to the observer. Those practicing it would feel a whirlwind of djed buffeting them as doors were pushed aside and things perhaps best left to rest were recalled... but to everyone else, it seemed laborious.

Not Razkar. He knew the power simple carvings and runes and the blood to seal the deal could bring about.

"We shall begin..."

Mayla did not waste time. He placed a small wooden box onto the... wait... not wood. It was bone, so old and burnished that it was yellowed and even harder, each bone pressed together and hinged so-

-when it opened, he could see the even more ancient carving tools inside. The picks and tiny hammers needed for what they would do.

"Do you know the appearance, Razkar?" She said, but not her words had the trace of an intoning, a benediction or a curse, neither younger Myrians knew. "The pattern of the binding circles?" He voice dropped into a whisper. "Have you seen it...?"

Razkar nodded, face still and serious by the single cooking fire inside the hut. He reached out and turned the massive skull with one hand, so all three of them could see it, and stabbed a finger down, just above the middle of it's forehead.

"The main circle will be here, and it will be larger. Around it... will be three others."

His finger moved again slowly, and pointed out three more locations around where the largest circle would be. Two above it, on the left and right, rising above like horns or wings... and the last underneath it, just above the bridge of the nose.

Mayla "hmm"-ed at that last one, Wolf recognizing the strangely universal appraisal of a trade person, not a witch. A bony finger pointed steadily at the bottom circle, or where the circle would be.

"The curve of the eye sockets would make that one difficult, but I think I can accomplish them. Do you remember our last arrangement, Razkar?"

The male nodded. "You carve the circle, and I make the words... and give the blood." He couldn't stop himself from adding. "And will safeguard us both while we summon what is beyond."

Mayla's eyes glistening with amusement once again and with one slow but deft move of her hands, her cowl was pulled back-

Razkar willed himself not to react. He felt Wolf stiffen next to him and actually managed a wry smile.

"You are a model of informed preparation, Honored Elder?"

Mayla smiled, stretching the ash-and-ink mix covering her face from neck to hair. Dozens, perhaps scores of bones were woven and braided into her hair, almost to the point he thought they were her hair, and every one had a tiny rune of image scratched into it.

A jawbone from some long-dead and much-ferocious creature was attached to her chin, dragging out her smile into something even more chilling. And crowning her visage, the Eye of Myri, much like Razkar's, shone in blood from her forehead.

"Think you I need to be reminded of my duties to my clan, child?"

"No, Honored Elder. Please forgive any impertinence."

Another dry, rasping chuckle, and Mayla's hand reached out to drag the skull towards her. Wolf blinked. So old and wrinkled, and yet she pulled it over without the slightest tremor in her fingers, other hand selecting a heavy pick without even looking down.

"No words from here on, children..." Mayla said, shifting the skull so it faced her and staring down at it. "Keep your minds focused on the task..."

Silence after that... and then scratching. Scraping. Digging. No movement save Mayla's twisting and grinding hands as she began to gouge the circles into the skull of the Dhani. And then... the murmuring. The whispers. First they came from Mayla, her lips barely moving yet words spilling forth in a long and almost non-stop litany. Wolf could barely make them out, and wondered if they were the same as the ones Eagle was muttering-

That was when she realized he was muttering, too. Eyes fixed on his prize, his Elder and what was being crafted, his whisper seeped into the air.

"Praise be to Myri, Queen, Mother and Goddess... our light in the darkness... our strength against the storm..."

[Tinnok]

A venerable old witch, Mayla certainly was. Tinnok was taken aback with awe for the ritual that must have surrounded the...thousands of bones littering the woman's hair, and how much she herself looked like the skeletons she worked with.

Still leaning upon her crutch she watched the two bone sorcerer's hash out the details of the proceedings, a strange crawling setting into the base of her spine. This...what they did. It was not the natural order of things. It was one thing to take trophies, but to make the dead live again for you in another form? Something sat wrong with Tinnok about the idea of torturing the Dhani further. Then again...perhaps that was the penance it was due.

Regardless of her own personal opinions on this whole matter, Tinnok kept deathly quiet as the ritual began, eyes widening ever so slightly as she heard the prayers murmur echoed from the Eagles mouth. She could have sworn the temperature in the room suddenly dropped as she sat their observing the proceedings, fascinated and appalled simultaneously. Her fingers were still, body stiff with echoing pain from her injuries, as well as a distinct awareness that soon the three of the them would not be the only ones in the room.

How did one chain power to these bones anyhow? Well...she was about to find out.

[Razkar]

One thing Razkar didn't explain to Wolf before they entered the hut was how time-consuming the Power of Bones could be. Carving deep enough to last for centuries into thick, truculent bone was not an easy or quick process. For what seemed like bells, Wolf and Eagle watched and whispered as Mayla's hands moved slowly but surely over the skull.

His mind wandered, or tried to. Whenever he felt it drift to thoughts of food, or clan, or Aya, or fang, he wrenched it hard back to the present, not an easy thing to do for a twenty-something to do anywhere in the multiverse.

But Razkar needed his mind here. He needed to conjure words, and soon the with of the wilds would-

"It is ready."

-finally take her hands from the skull and turn it towards him, and he would see the four circles gouged into the white and grinning bone. One large, almost the size of his fist, dominating the forehead. Three smaller ones, half the size, two crowning it like horns and one resting under it.

Flickering light from the fire bathed it in shadows and false illumination. Razkar stared at it stone-faced, but Mayla could see his eyes were wide... afraid.

"What follows is from your own heart, male," she said, voice a shade softer than usual as her hands stretched out and a pick was offered, "Take caution you do not speak too much, nor speak the wrong words, nor your hands shake and a misstep make. You know what will seek you..."

Wolf saw Eagle's eyes flash at the merest hint of a challenge. His mouth hardened into a cold, white-lipped line and that moist vulnerability in his obsidian orbs vanished, replaced by a gleam as firm as the stone they resembled. He took the pick - though it was nearer to a snatch - and dragged the skull closer.

"I know what I bring up." He said, voice firm but low. "I slew it in this world, I will bind it in the next... and I do not suffer the dead..."

If it had been any other time, perhaps the male would have noticed the faint shuffle of unease from Wolf when he spoke those words. But his eyes and his mind and everything else was focused on the skull... the circles... the pick in his hand...

For long chimes he paused, thinking. Mayla had told him that words and images and runes were crucial in the Power of Bones. Essential, in fact. Without them, there was no real control, but a portal to the next world where djed would spill out ceaselessly and hungrily. The circles were one thing; but the language and words of the caster were needed, also.

What were you... What was your story...

Story.

Razkar's hand began to move. One thumb on the top of the tip so he had an extra measure of control, but not so hard that he would pierce through the bone. Heavy and thick though it was, it was still bone, and bone could shatter. Eagle watched as with painstaking care that she knew galled him, he started writing the symbols that served as their people's language.

It took the best part of a bell for the first circle to be completed. Mistakes could not be risked in the Power of Bones. One word out of place, one character's calligraphy sloppy or compromised, and it could undermine everything. So Razkar went smooth... and slowly... until she could read the nine symbols in there top left smaller circle. The lettering was small and tight, but his patience had paid off, and they were all clear...

Twisted And Damned
In God-Smote Storm
Hunter, Murderer
In Land Of Shorn

The monotonous, careful scratching commenced again, and Razkar began the second circle. No pause this time. The words were coming, and with them, the Power.

[Tinnok]

Tinnok waited, and watched. Even if she grew bored by the length of the procedure as Mayla slowly etched the circles in the Dhani skull, she wouldn't of dared say anything, and so instead she focused in on elements of the room, trying to discern the nature of the woman that lived within it.

The first thing she realized was that most of the bones within hadn't actually been carved, which either meant Mayla was working on a very long list, or perhaps...the entire collection was more for show than intention to actually use in her malediction, which piqued the half breed's curiosity. She would occasionally glance towards the Eagle, wondering exactly how his time with the power of bones began, and wondered what Aya thought of it. The Scattered Bones were a clan heavily set in traditions and honors to the dead, enemy and ally alike, but Tinnok did not remember any shaman like Mayla inhabiting their clan.

After some time her eyes drifted into a haze from the rhythmic scratching and echoing chants. Her eyes got a somewhat glassy quality as her gaze focused on the skull of a Loris, strangely small with massive eye sockets, curious of what power one would gain from such an oddity, mind slowly becoming blank.

Then the both of them were speaking, and that feeling of unease came back to her, drawing her out of the strange reverie and back fully into the hut.

Tinnok scooted her stool back slightly, to get a better view of the two mages, one old, one young, and the skull in between them. No more time for drifting off.

She glanced upon the words written in the Dhani's skull, curious to see what would come next.

[Razkar]

Monster Strength
Nightmare Rage
Killer Without Bar
Of Cunning Ways

Some part of Razkar's mind knew his hand should be hurting him by that point. With more runes than the last circle, the second "horn" had taken him over a bell to finish. His fingers should be tight and aching, his hand cramped and his wrist sore and yet... he was barely aware of it. The male shook them languidly to get some blood flowing back to them more out of practical purposes than to relieve his pain.

The male looked at his hand, and it was... was it really his? There was a haze around it like he was in a dream, or a-

"It is a trance, male. This kind of craft requires your mind to be elsewhere but focused while your body works. Others would call it meditation."

Mayla. Could she read his thoughts? He didn't know, and given how the shadows were lengthened around her now as the fire burned down, he could not tell from her face.

"Continue, male. Much left to do..."

Razkar just nodded and his hand returned to the pick and the skull both. His breathing became a rote suck and blow, nothing more than the bellows of his body powering his hand... and the words came as the images did, remembered... from Taloba to the moment the light... in its eyes...

Warriors Hounded
Twisted Snake
Myri's Champions
Did Vengeance Take

The runes in the third circle were scratched into life, inch by inch, Razkar's lips moving silently in that same prayer he had been repeating for hours. But now Tinnok saw his eyes begin to glaze, stare retreating far into his own mind, leaving on the bare essentials to continue his work.

He turned the skull without so much as a blink. Only the final circle remained.

Eagle flashed a look at her, and she almost jumped. She didn't even think he was aware of her anymore, but his gaze on hers was distinct. Appraising. Suspicious. Unsure... and then suddenly resolute.

Scratch... Scratch... Scratch...

[Tinnok]

That sensation, that something was altogether not right about the entirety of this ritual, continued to grow like a seed taken root somewhere in the bowels of her being. She was entranced by the whole procedure, but a sense of revulsion hung about her as well. Part of her believed even witnessing this magic spoke of some kind of latent blasphemy on her part to Caiyha and Kihala.

But she was too curious about what the eagle would carve next, and time seemed to slow itself, the abomination unaware of its passage in the strange light absent hut.

Her reverie was broken when his dark gaze caught hers. She could see that he was fully immersed in this action, this strange combination of craft and magic, within the dark ritual. So when dark orbs latched onto hers, searching for an answer he didn't need her to give, her pupils widened somewhat in surprise.

Somewhere in the depths of a strange leather and wooden chest deep int he woods of the jungle wilds lay a bone of another sort that Tinnok held above all others. A fang. Sometimes she had wondered if she should not do something useful with it, perhaps utilize it in the magicks of those mages that dealt with bringing he power of spirits back to their own bones. Thinking of it now...the idea left a strangely stale taste within her mouth at the thought.

Clawed hands gripped the edge of the browned table surface, curiosity and unease forming a strange ball of tension that wanted to know more and have this strange ceremony over all at once.

[Razkar]

Razkar hand was paused over the final circle, even though he knew now was not the time for hesitation. He could feel a silent wind begin to gently blow through the room, a breeze that had nothing to do with storms or movements of the earth and clouds.

Something was stirring. Something that wanted to rest, but would not be allowed to. Not yet.

The male frowned as he studied the circle, words upon words tumbling and gusting around his head like a million leaves in a cyclone. The final circle was the most crucial, for it dealt with the death of the bone's owner and the deal to be made with... whatever was out there.

Razkar knew what it was, and the past tense there was the problem. Hate was so much easier when there were no other factors in feeling it. But Tinnok sitting next to him, unnerved and with just a lick of fear in her eyes... it was causing new thoughts to burden him.

But it gave him pause, and he found a resolution.

The pick began scratching again, slower and more carefully, though the circle was much larger and would allow for more runes.

Hate And Pain
You Knew And Sowed
Killer Of Kin
Black Heart Serpent
Death Was Earned

His hand stayed for a moment as the final words fell together like blocks at the apex of a pyramid. Firm, solid and... right. And as he wrote, Mayla's eyes darkened and narrowed, a flicker of confusion clouding them for a brief moment.

Bind You Not For
Death Is Done
But Strength Will Yoke
For Myri's Son
Rest In Dira
Be Judged By Gods
But Leave Thy Strength
And Fearsome Speed

That done, and the circle almost completely filled with a spiral of runes that began at it's peak and snaked around in a circle to the middle, Razkar put down the pick. Only then did the witch look into the male's turgid eyes, a question writ large in her own coals. Razkar straightened his back slightly and met it without turning away.

"It is dead. Honor is satisfied, vengeance was taken, our lands are safe. I will not bind it's soul to mine through it's carcass." He spoke without regret in his words and without even a glance at Tinnok. To do so would cast doubt in Mayla's mind that he knew would fester unto the rest of his clan. "Strength. Speed. Ferocity. These things I want, and these thing I can attain without keeping it further in this world. Let it's twisted soul go on to the hells. I would prefer that."

Mayla pondered this for long moments, eyes unwavering and finger drumming a slow, steady tattoo on the edge of the table. Finally, the tattoo stopped... and she nodded.

"It is all your will, Razkar. All of this. I am merely mediating. But this beast-" he nodded at the emblazoned skull "-was insanely twisted by djed and chaos. Whatever is summoned will be... wilder, than the last time you sat in my hut. It will require more binding."

Razkar seemed to understand instantly, and nodded. "More blood, you mean."

"Yes."

Tinnok almost flinched as there was the flash of a blade, Aya's double-handed dagger suddenly in the male's hand, his wrist over the offering bowl set to one side-

-a cut, the hiss of a pierced vein, and she stifled a gasp as he opened up his arm, crimson stream dribbling and gurgling into the bowl. Razkar's face was a pinched and inscrutable mask, but she saw the tightening of his jaw as his life source was emptied.

"Then I shall use that instead of ink to make my runes permanent." He said decisively, uncaring to a degree if it cost him a pint of blood to make it so. "What is needed is what is needed, and you would not bind a tiger with twine when chains are necessary..."

Mayla just nodded, and then there were no more words left to speak by any of them until Razkar quickly bound his wrist with a thick bandage, bowl half-full with sloshing, fresh scarlet. The same prayer was on his lips again as Mayla handed him a different tool. This one Wolf could see was a little broader, and there was tiny, fine hairs at its end, almost like a miniature paintbrush only with harder bristles.

When he dipped it into the blood, fat globules of it hung there, and she saw that whatever he rubbed into those tiny valleys caused by his pick would stay there for years.

No scratching for the next bell. Just a faint, soft, almost wet rubbing as metal and blood met carved bone. Wolf and Eagle watched as the shadowy grooves shone and twinkled as blood filled them... and the wind...

Somewhere it blew stronger... somewhere it was waking...

All three of the Myrians in that hut blinked as the words, no, the idea behind the words shook them. They saw the trinkets and fetishes start to sway a little stronger, a little faster, as something groaned from far away. Mayla's eyes turned to Tinnok and answered the question before it had fully formed in the half-breed's mind.

"You chose to be here," she said, words half an accusation, "So you fill be witness to this. You will not feel what he feels, not even close. But you will feel it's return..."

Before further questions could be asked, the pick-brush was placed down, tiny sound almost booming in the ominous and darkening hut now. The fire had nearly burned to nothing and more light shone in eyes and from blood than from crackling kindling.

Razkar and Mayla's eyes met. The old witch nodded, and placed her hands near the base of the skull.

"I will fulfill my promise, male. I will lend my strength to this endeavor, since your own skill is not yet strong enough. You will be able to finish the ritual."

Razkar just nodded, and spoke one more time, without looking round.

"Wolf. If this goes badly, run. Do not touch me. Do not speak to me. Run."

Then he placed his palms on either side of the massive skull, and the djed shot through him like every nerve in his body screamed at once and his head snapped back as if struck by a mighty blow, mouth open, eyes closed.

And Tinnok heard it. Faraway but gathering strength, sick and gurgling, wet and angry, echoing a hundred times over and pitch perfect all at once, hateful... accusing.

She knew that voice, and though there was neither mouth nor tongue nor form to speak the words, she heard them all the same, booming from the silent skull.

"Yooooooooouuuuuuuu...?!"

[Tinnok]

She gained a new respect for the Eagle then, and simultaneously wanted to grab him and shake him. His words were of a dark poetry, a beauty which surely...she could never match. Yet when his arm ran dark with blood that he didn't have to spend, she was risen, stool clattering to the ground. What in the fool hells was he doing?

She wanted so badly, to grab and shake him, to shove over the old woman and smash the skull, to end this nonsense. She was trapped, however, caught in this endless spiral of blood and death, and just as she went to grab him, she felt that sickly breeze....and heard its voice.

A shiver flew down her spine, and she saw a glare directed at her from Mayla, just daring her to try to interrupt this procedure. If the hostility of the beast had radiated off of its body in life, the room was now filled with that vibrant wrath, thick like a mist that Tinnok felt likely to choke off of.

She saw her friend, her comrade, her ally, stare down the beast, and took a shaky step backwards, nearly tripping over herself in her weak condition, her hand resting upon the skull of some other poor creature for support. The winds of death pressed against her, and if Mayla's words were correct, this was nothing compared to what he was feeling. Why couldn't he have waited until he was healed?

Her mind flashed to a pink fleshy tongue running over her scaled flesh, and eyes filled with a hunger that couldn't be satiated no matter how much death it caused. Why would one want that power in their possession, wouldn't the cost of it outweigh any benefits?

The half breed rolled her shoulders, body pressing against the oppressiveness that grasped the room, the snake screamed...and the eagle spoke back, his words filled with grim determination against a foe that must be conquered...again.

[Razkar]

"Yes... the one that released you..."

There was no form, as you and I would know it. No body to offend ones eyes. But there didn't need to be. One sense may have been robbed, the object of it consumed and skinned and boned and gutted and destroyed... but the other five? And the others beyond them? They were working just fine.

Razkar felt the malformed spirit's confusion at his words, which had been his intention. Gloating and threats it had probably been prepared for, woken from a dreamless sleep or an interim in the Nether, pulled back for it's killer's sport. But to hear words spoken like that?

The male heard the massively invisible coils twist and rattle uncertainly, stroked the top of the skull with his thumb and... and... and... tried.

So much rage. So much anger and disgust, not at them alone, but... at itself. At every patch of water it passed and destroyed, filled with earth or leaves so it could not see the atrocity wreaked upon its flesh by blind djed loosed in the skies.

Hate. Endless and wallowing hate that had festered to an insanity that bellowed through Razkar's brain, undiminished by death.

"Leave...!" The voice snarled, bone shards hanging around them vibrating with fury. "Leave in peace!"

"Not yet, snake. I have one more use for you."

Surprise gave way to the cold numbness that Razkar recognized as shock. It was strange, adjusting to identifying emotions by their feel, rather than their appearance on flesh or visage, but... not that hard. Everyone knew how those emotions felt, after all. They just knew how it felt for them.

"I do not need suffer the living anymore!"

Razkar chuckled and a icy blast of fury impacted on him. But he closed his eyes and let the summoned soul see the runes he had etched, the bindings he had wrought... the two females, one old and powerful, the other young and fearful of what was transpiring... and there followed a roar from another plane.

"You... You would imprison me?!"

"Your strength. Your speed. Your stamina."

"I refuse!"

Another chuckle... and that time Wolf felt herself gulp. There was an... echo... of something. Something that reveled in pain. Something both her and Eagle had etched and scarred into their minds thanks to their time in the deep darkness. And now that sound was coming out of Razkar's mouth, slow and pleasurable, head shaking slowly.

"Still you do not understand, snake-"

Something... was that an arm? Something moved and... no... it couldn't be. Tinnok knew that it was will that mattered in that world Razkar was in, not body. After all, there was no body to dominate. So while she did not see an arm flash out, dark and tattooed, and grip a scaly throat, squeezing... she knew that was the effect. That was the power Razkar was projecting, sheltered and augmented by a mumbling and swaying Mayla...

Mayla. Whose eyes were rolled back to the whites and blood dripped gently from her nose, lips moving endlessly...

"... I am not asking. I am telling what I will do." Razkar squeezed further with his mind and a gurgle of pain rippled through him. "I only give you a warning, our of... sympathy, for the pain you suffered in the storm. Such a fate was... unthinkable."

Wolf saw his voice soften for a moment, felt the surprise of the dead, departed and deformed Dhani mingle with hers... and then his sightless eyes narrowed again, every ounce of pressure back in his mind.

"Too much like a Dhani would devise... and I am not yet that cruel. Give what I demand." The wind rose, a soul's lament that battered Tinnok's eyes. "I dragged you back from Dira's embrace to gift thy strength to your skull! And you will submit to me!"

A hurricane of thought and sound buffeted them both, but she did not see Razkar sway... at least not in his eyes. Not his mind. Not his soul. But on his body he saw wounds blossom again under clean bandages, saw his teeth clench so hard one of them cracked before her eyes.

Saw him sway and lean harder on the skull, bracing himself... no... pouring himself into it.

"I... do not... suffer... the dead! You released you from agony, snake, but I did not do so out of kindness! You were evil and twisted and here, between the wills against you, you are as weak as you were in the flesh!"

A final roar of definat agony nearly blew the hanging bones from their nails and perches, but Razkar hung grimly on as a whirlwind erupted from the still and wailing skull.

"SUBMIT!"

[Tinnok]

It was vicious angry, regretful, sorrowful. The abomination was torn somewhere between hatred for the monster being trapped, and for the sorcerer doing the trapping. She was already done with this strange contest of wills, what it meant, what it stood for.

And then he screamed, and then...it was over.

She heard the healer's words in her head, echoing somewhere faintly as she watched his body collapse onto the ground. Saw Mayla's dark eyes stare at him with a distinct lack of emotion or caring, and felt her body groan in pain as she fell to the floor, arms crushed beneath his weight as the Eagle fell to the ground and into her grasp, head lolling, blood continuing to run down his arm. Her arms held him as tightly as possible for a moment there, before becoming distinctly aware of those beady eyes upon her neck, drinking in the information she was being given.

"You would let him do this thing...in his condition?" Her words were surprisingly calm, but a veiled threat hung beneath them. The old witch's lips cracked in the smallest of smiles.

"Personal health has little to do with the process...as you well saw."

Tinnok snorted and tried to heave Eagle's bulk to her feet. Even in a healthy state it would have been a difficult task, shifting his unconscious weight into a position that she could carry. In her condition? It was impossible. Even if she did manage to get him onto his feet, there was no way she could make it more than a step without collapsing because of it. She turned to see Mayla inspecting the skull with a keen eye, seeming to nod in some sort of approval.

"What will it do?" She asked, slowly rising with the aid of her crutch.

"He will not know until he wears it..."

Tinnok shuddered, regretting that she had asked, and instead moved as swiftly as she could out of the cabin.

"Zek? ZEK!" It was true that she could have searched the camp more silently, looking for the Eagle's father, but she was much too furious at both the magic users in the tent for patience.

Heads turned, glaring at the injured abomination, and she glared right back. After a moment, a child running, muttered calls, she saw the wiry form of the man...who had been nearly civil to her, making his way towards her. Dark eyes scrutinized her, perhaps searching for any of the qualities his son so easily found. Tinnok gestured behind her.

"Eagl- Razkar, he...it...he's injured, I couldn't carry him." A needling tone of desperation entered her voice, one she immediately regretted revealing. She saw one of Zek's eyebrows raise ever so slightly, and a controlled rage light up beneath his gaze, realizing of a sudden, the anger was not for her...but the witch within.

To his credit his voice was even and tempered by the time he entered the bone hut.

"Mistress."

"Male."

And Tinnok could hear the shifting of the Eagle's body as his father lifted him off the ground, carrying him through the entrance, face set and grim. Tinnok followed them like an injured puppy afraid to stray to far from those it cared for, sitting outside of the hut where Ruwama cursed and raved at the unconscious Razkar. Legs curled up against her body, bandaged arms wrapped around them in a vice the Abomination sat outside of the house, wanting to enter...knowing that it would be a final step too far if she did.

"You test Dira too much friend...one of these days she'll take the bite."