Ekron

The Parasite - 6

When the black dog entered the cave, Irkalla already had Agatha and the Osmógreh connected to the mainframe. Just a little part of Agatha's brain needed to be extracted to implant the electrodes and chemical hoses into her skull, so she was awake and could sense the brain signals from the octopus like her own, it was a disgusting and painful experience. Irkalla putted some sort of crown on the dog's head, it was connected to the mainframe through a bundle of wires. The control signal passed from the dog's brain to the computer, where it was recoded, to Agatha's brain that made a psychic link back to the dog; allowing the signal to feedback on itself and oscillate in frequencies changing several times per second according to the dog's commands but maintaining the original reference. Even Maria was unaware of the real dynamics behind that part of the system as she was mostly following instructions given to her in a dream, that's why the dog and Agatha were indispensable for the control system, that relied heavily in their psychic power. That oscillation was modulated by Agatha in a way that the octopus could understand and then passed to the octopus' brain. Finally, the Osmógreh performed a spiritual connection with the worm inside Hoszusárnyu.

After a short test where Agatha screamed and the Osmógreh trembled, Irkalla said, "Don't mess it up," he took a bag from the floor and headed out of the cave.

"Where are you going?" asked the dog.

"Next phase, you don't need me here, behave and don't break anything."

Irkalla entered a forest, covered with shiny leaves and black fog, he climbed to a tree and waited for a goat to appear. All religions need a nemesis, a demon, evil incarnated to project the imperfection implicit to nature, that they dare to defy. The Three Angel's faith was no exception, they projected absolute evil in a creature incapable of speak or build, only attack, possibly the original inhabitants of Qatra. They hunted them for millennia, until only a few hundred remained confined to Dobruj. They avoided extinction thanks to their resistance and the lethal accuracy of their instinct. The goats of Qatra reached a length of ten feet, their hind legs were long, with three joints and had exoskeleton. Like flea rear legs, their impulse was so powerful that could project the animal a hundred yards ahead, with a force ten times its weight. Their front legs were short and had sharp claws to cut their prey's meat. On their heads they had two pairs of massive, curved horns, hard as iron. Their necks were almost as thick as their heads with a robust set of near metallic bones and muscles to endure the impacts of their attacks. That almost metallic protection continued down their backs, protecting their spines. Their eyes were black and compound. A pair of vulture wings that could reach a span of twenty-five feet on their backs, allowed them to fly long distances and nest on the tops of mountains.

Irkalla spotted a goat fifty yards away. The moment he looked at it, the goat looked back at him, it made some carving on the ground, and projected itself at half the speed of sound to reach the trunk of the tree Irkalla had climbed in a little more than a quarter of a second. The tree collapsed and Irkalla jumped to the nearest one, then the goat jumped up and stabbed Irkalla's left leg with its claws and dragged him down. When they were falling, Irkalla bent down and touched the goat's forehead between the horns. He fell over the goat that had fainted and then carefully removed the claw from his leg; it was broken so he had to splint it with a stick and rope from his bag. Then he whispered verses in the goat's ears, while giving it white blood from his wrists to drink. With more rope from his bag, he made reins to mount the goat like a Pegasus.

Irkalla went back to the spacecraft riding his goat, made it sleep and hid it in an armored compartment in the back of the ship, near the engines. Then he flew on his ship over the oceans of Qatra until he reached Sibara. He dived the ship into the Humner and emerged back near its shores shooting electromagnetic blasts to the undead creatures and ghosts. Some of them ran, but some others pounced on the oiled ship and Irkalla simply landed it, as if they would be inflicting some damage on it.

In her flat throne, Llacme was informed of the foreign attack from the shores of the Humner and rushed her flight to face the enemy, followed by a myriad of acolytes that quickly overrun the ship, covering it from every angle and hitting it with sticks and stones like cavemen killing a mammoth.

"Whatever is inside that thing, I want it alive," said Llacme to her army.

After a couple hours, Irkalla opened a side hatch of the ship and came out, limping with his hands in the air. A ghost grabbed him by the neck and took it to Llacme, that pierced one of his arms with her arthropod claws and lifted him in the air like a doll. Strangely for her, Llacme felt that a quantum of energy left her the moment her claws touched Irkalla's flesh. If she had known that that creature could leave her blind and stupid just by blinking, her attitude would have been much different.

Irkalla looked at Llacme and said in her precise dialect of Qatra's language, "No matter what you do to me, I will not reveal the secrets of my master."

"We'll see," replied Llacme and dragged him to her castle, clearly biting the hook.

In a wide pit used as dungeon, Irkalla had his arms chained to a wall while Llacme pierced different parts of his body and had eaten one of his fingers. The torture had lasted about an hour when Irkalla decided that it was convincing enough.

"Tell me, who is your master?"

"Never."

Llacme pierced the splinted leg and Irkalla exaggerated a cry of pain.

"No, no, please, not there."

"Who is your master?"

"I serve Cymra, Beast of the Abyss."

Llacme hesitated for a moment but remembered Teremy's prophecies were always accurate.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm a scout, but my ship malfunctioned, and I got stuck in the shore."

"What were you scouting for?"

"I... I can't tell you."

Llacme pierced his wounded leg again.

"We have plans to invade this planet in the next few days, I've come to identify your castle to attack it first when we arrive. We will come through a portal that Cymra has opened for us in the depths of the Humner and take you by surprise."

"What is your planet?"

"The third, blue one."

"Where is your base?"

"There is a sea at the north, with a big, scorched crater south of it, that is our base."

Llacme thought twice about her next question, and finally asked, "How did you blind one of our gods?"

"What are you talking about?"

She sank her claw so deep in Irkalla's leg that almost separated it from his body.

In a whisper, the Macsk answered, "Cymra said that he would eliminate them, one by one. We don't have the power to do something like that, but he is the most powerful being in this planet, after the gods."

Llacme stood in silence for some moments, then she climbed out of the pit and ordered, "Eat him," to a couple ghosts guards standing there.

She left her castle and ordered an attack on the Humner. The ghost guards went into the pit and smelt the banquet before them, but then Irkalla blinked, and they collapsed to his feet.