The Trial

Pohl stepped out of his cell into the Passage.

The Heilt Sacah, the steady dry wind of the Passage, blew as always from his right hand side, the Upwind side. You had once been able to see forever down this hall. People like mice against the vastness; traders moving Downwind and other acolytes running chores. As a dare he had once walked Upwind as far as he could. The Heilt Sacah was not strong, but it was relentless. After four hours he was panting. After six hours he was exhausted, slumped down on the red stone of the floor. A Trader passing by had snorted at his foolishness. After he caught his breath he stood up, defeated, and headed back Downwind to the dormitory.

That had been an age ago. Now the Passage was dark and utterly deserted. Pohl looked Downwind and saw Nym, the only other acolyte stepping out of her cell a few doors down, dressed in the same gray robe.

‘Well’ she said. ‘It’s time.’

Pohl fell in next to her and they began to walk Downwind together. Pohl glanced across at Nym. Her brown hair sat short and rough. ‘You sliced your hair?’

Nym looked at him. ‘I didn’t want long hair getting caught up in the Trial’

‘We don’t know what the Trial is, maybe long hair might help’.

Nym snorted. Pohl didn’t know what else to say.

They continued on in silence. Ten minutes later as they reached the Crest, Pohl felt Nym’s body tense. Downwind from the Crest was the only short slope in the known Passage. The floor dropped by only a foot over a hundred yards, but in the unrelenting flatness of the Halls, this was vertiginous. It was great sport amongst the acolytes to sprint down it. Even today, of all days, Pohl knew Nym could not resist racing. As they touched the Crest Nym cuffed Pohl on the shoulder yelling ‘shalat’ and sprinted down the slope. Pohl raced after her, his longer legs catching up easily. As they reached the bottom, Pohl shortened his stride slightly, and Nym crossed ahead of him.

She turned to him, eyes bright and breathing heavily. ‘I knew I could beat you.’ Pohl tried not to look at her chest heaving up and down. It had filled out considerably in the last year. He smiled. ‘I am shalat. You win.’

Nym grinned victoriously. ‘A good omen’.

‘Good for who?’ replied Pohl.

Nym’s grin faded.

‘Come on’ said Pohl. ‘We’re nearly there.’

The door to the reliquary stood in the wall of the Passage like every other door. Only the covered lantern hung outside distinguished it from the thousands of others. Behind the door, a long straight passage took Pohl and Nym to the sanctum sanctorum. Of the thousand candles that had once burned in this place, only a handful still spluttered on their dying wicks. Even as the acolytes entered another one snuffed out, lowering the gloom even further. A hoarse, stentorian breath echoed from the recesses.

‘Ah, and here we are. The last pupils of Yallasht, come at last.’

In unison, Pohl and Nym knelt on the floor. ‘We are the pupils of Yallasht. We are the hope of...'

They both trailed off as a figure limped into the candlelight.



At some time in the past, he had been skinned alive, and then had his flayed flesh wrapped back around his body with rivets and staples. Slowly, very slowly, he shuffled, the agony of his torture still fresh as blood seeped through his skin. He stopped and stared at two kneeling on the floor. 'At last Mishka,' he slurred through his mishapen lips. 'We come to the binding of all things through the whorl of mind's eye. Two and two. The thrones of Yallasht. Two there are for the children of Yallasht.'

Pohl glanced at Nym and then up at the figure before him. 'Your Holiness. We have taken instruction. We come for the Trial.'

The tortured figure continued. 'I broke the marrowbones of kings and lived through the Fall. Passage bought is passage taken.'

It turned to the high altar in the centre of the chapel and touched the frontspiece. With a slow grating rumble, the tabernacle turned, revealing an open doorway. Pohl and Nym moved forward. The space behind the door was not just dark. It was an utter void. Nym reached and took hold of Pohl’s hand and together they stepped across the Final threshold and out of this world forever.

Step.

Nym’s head was fastened in the jaws of the beast. Its talons had slowly ripped a wide, black tear in her stomach. As Pohl watched, a wet, scarlet tongue slowly slid out of the opening, tasting the air.

Pohl looked down at his arm. The skin had dried completely and turned to parchment. He could only stare at his other hand as it reached across and began tearing at the dry flaky substance, ripping deep into his paper flesh.

Pohl screamed.

Step.

Ahead of them stood a skeleton throne, topped by a grinning death’s head. Pohl looked around. One throne. He looked across at Nym, her torso hung off the slick, black creature crawling its way out of her stomach. Her head lolled drunkenly as her eyes bulged, staring into nothingness. Pohl looked back at the throne, his body in agony as his hands continued to rip away his own brittle flesh.

Step.

Pohl had reached the throne’s pedestal where blank faces had been carved into the relief. Nym lay next to him, her nightmarish prodigy had finally worked its way free, leaving a gaping red wound. Her eyes flicked to the grinning skull on the throne, and then met with Pohl’s. The madness faded away and she began clawing at Pohl, tearing away fistfuls. With his last remaining strength, Pohl thrust his leg out against Nym, pushing her back into the embrace of her creature. It hungrily snatched her up , and began tearing into her skin again.

Pohl crawled up onto the throne. As he finally shrugged down into the skull’s cold embrace, another long red tongue snaked out of Nym’s body.