I retained knowledge, skills, abilities and experience points – but it never said anything about retaining objects, which I could do, and certainly made no mention of apparently retaining minions across realities.
“Is that…” Erzili’s eyes shone. “The Nightscripts? You – you have the nightscripts? You can read them?”
“How… interesting…” Slim rasped. “Does that mean… a Demiurge has graced himself before us?”
Mutters and whispers rapidly cut across the nightmares of the fort. Excitement, caution, disbelief, awe – the full range of emotions were visible from face to face, being to being. “Perhaps, this will help?”
I reached for Erzili’s severed finger, the one she’d given me in the previous timeline. Casually, I lobbed it in this Erzili’s direction. She caught the object, staring at it for several seconds. “…Erzili does not remember making this. But…”
The finger morphed into a dark, liquid slime, before merging into Erzili’s body. Several tense seconds of silence passed, and Erzili’s eyes re-opened, with a somewhat familiar glint to them.
“My, my, Lord Janus. You tricked me. Your power isn’t going back in time… is it?”
“You remember.”
“Leader Erzili…” said Onna. “I do not understand. Who is this masked being?”
Erzili’s hands went up, open and wide. “Darlings!” she announced. “Erzili wishes to introduce you to Erzili’s own darling Master! Bow before the one before you, before Lord Janus! The Demiurge who Erzili has deemed worthy of following, worthy of crowning the King of Nightmares!”
There was no hesitation. There was no deliberation. Erzili’s announcement came with an order, and all followed that order. The Nightmares of Fort Zyvar did not question. They did not doubt. As one, the rendered themselves upon one knee and gestured their heads down. As one, the entirety of Fort Zyvar bowed.
“All Hail the King!”
“All Hail Lord Janus!”
The chants grew. The praise, continued. Increasing. Nightmares stamped their feet upon the floor in beat and rhythm. Others made roars and cries in my honor.
“Tonight!” roared Erzili. “We feast!”
Cries of jubilation rang throughout Fort Zyvar. My lips, against their own will, found themselves turning upward into a grin behind my mask, as I thrust my fist up into the air, and the crowds went utterly wild.
/∞/
After the celebratory greeting with the nightmares of Fort Zyvar, I found myself once more in Erzili’s Quarters. The Slithercreep sat casually across the bed as I raided her bookshelf, gathering all the books I could find on Alamir’s myth and lore, and placing them flat over her table.
Finally –
It felt like eons since I had been to Alamir. Since I’d been a worm. Since I’d found myself, finally here, finally ready, to start making sense of this world through my own eyes and my own understanding. The first book I picked was filled with yellowed pages and frayed along the edges, but it was still with tender gentleness that I opened it and began to read.
Then, it was with a bit of annoyance that I discovered another hurdle. “I can’t understand a word of this.”
“It’s Alhamisi,” Erzili said. “The language of the humans of Alhamis.”
I picked up another book with different, squiggly looking lines. “And this?”
“Marién. The language of the Marisian people.”
I held up another one. One that looked like it was written in cursive script. The words seemed to almost resemble Latin if Latin somehow had a bastardized offspring with Egyptian hieroglyphs. “How about this?”
“Qe’al Sos. A dialect of Qe’al Mot – the Elvani spoken tongue.” She pointed at the rest of the books. “That one is Qe’Valer, another Elvani dialect. That one is Qe’Sa Dus, another dialect. Then there is Khel, the language of the Saba’in Tribe. Golos, the language of the Gaban Dynasty. Leporima, the language of Leporinians, and Jezik, the tongue of the Midwarfs. Unfortunately Erzili doesn’t have much on the Druids… as they are an oral culture that never cared much for writing. There also exists Takumian literature… but Erzili has never been able to attain any.”
“Quite the collection.” I placed the book down on the table.
“Would you like Erzili to teach you?”
“Teach?”
“To read.” She said. “Erzili has tried attempting to teach some of her darlings, but none of Erzili’s darlings quite took an interest in it.”
Learning how to read. I traced my gauntleted hand down the spine of the books. Nostalgia bubbled up from the sensation. “A part of me never believed I would reach this point,” I breathed. “Being able to have the luxury of a bed and a book. Talking with someone, who shares a love of literature. I felt it would be ages… an eternity, before I could have such minor comforts.”
I pressed my lips tightly against each other. “I’d love to learn, but perhaps another time. There are a lot of more urgent matters that need to be addressed.”
Erzili acquiesced, shrugging her shoulders. “You’ve changed since when last we met.”
The Slithercreep followed me closely with her eyes. Her enchanting eyes. I swallowed the uncomfortable build-up of saliva at the back of my throat. I reminded myself, surely, that the beauty to which I saw in Erzili was nothing more than a façade. A transformation. Behind the enchanting eyes and gorgeous, tempting lips, was a squiggly, gelatinous monster.
“Have I?”
She rose, approaching me with slow, trailing steps. “Your power.” She whispered. “It radiates now. Shines. As if you became a thousand times stronger.”
I tried to avoid averting my gaze. She was not wrong. Numerous levels and an evolution was enough for me to be, easily, a thousand times stronger than I was before. Erzili’s eyes lit up in a smile of innocence that had something jerking at my chest. I was glad for my mask that hid my face, glad that it hid my eyes from being seen, prevented my expressions from being read.
“But more than your power… there’s something different, about you. Something has changed.”
I focused
