Pain shot through her flesh as Kat died. It was a curious sensation, truly—death. The feeling was not at all how she expected it to be. The stories always made it out to be something peaceful, a gentle bliss awaiting the fallen warriors, a quiet smile descending over the blood-covered faces. It was the light that shone brilliantly at the end of their path, the glowing stairs that led them to whatever heaven they deserved. In the stories, death was always something noble and calm, a final sacrifice.

The stories, she decided with a hoarse scream, were full of shit. There was nothing but pure agony that laced through her veins, that seared her flesh with every labored heartbeat. Her body was on fire, her bones shattering into pieces underneath her skin. Her muscles were being shredded, the very fibers that constituted them being torn into pieces. This was no noble death: she was being ripped apart until her body was nothing more than broken scraps.

The skal’va were consuming her, in whatever strange plane of dreamscape or hallucination this was. The stone under her fingers seemed real enough, the blood spurting from her mouth felt real enough—surely this was truth, then? The swirling blackness around him was filled with buzzing whines of the skal’va their indiscernible wings scraping out the wails of a thousand dying men. Those wails were what filled her ears as the black dust tore into her skin, gnawing minute holes into her flesh like so many needles.

With birth, must first come death, Faith whispered into her mind, the calm, quiet voice somehow still maddeningly audible despite the hysteria that surrounded her. She wanted nothing more than to see that wretched thing in front of her, to strike it in the stomach with a good punch and see it crumple in pain. The crow-cursed bastard, she swore inside, unable to give voice to the notion with her shredded throat. The skin flapped uselessly with that hole in her neck, only serving as a futile doorway for the stream of skal’va that poured in. Breathless lungs could do nothing but give that silent scream as they filled with black shadow, to the point where she almost thought that she was drowning.

The edges of her vision were already tinged with red, flickering and fading as she felt her consciousness begin to swim. Her gaze turned down emptily, and she saw what little remained of herself below her. Her entrails slipped out uselessly, guts dangling like some pathetic rope. Bones and tendons could be seen through the muscle on her legs, the white starkly noticeable through all the squirting crimson. Flecks of black squealed and buzzed hungrily as they dove in deeper and deeper, puncturing in through even the bone to feast upon the marrow inside. Truly then, they were going to suck her dry. She saw Faith’s withered body before her once more and she wondered if this was what had happened to the wretched man as well.

Twenty silvers says that he didn’t have a hole punched through where his stomach was, though. As the agony flared once more, she found what scattered remnants of thought remained flying away in the wind, leaving her only with a scream that none could hear. Her torso was gone next, the damned things working away under the ribs like she was some pig fattened up for slaughter. Her arms went as well, her fingers becoming little more than pieces of bone connected by shreds of clear tendon. More and more of her was taken away, it a sensation horrifying similar to when she had used the waygate, until at last it was only her mind once more.

Like in the waygate, she was utterly detached—a mere presence floating without any restrictions of the flesh. Yet unlike in the waygate, she did not feel so weak, as if a slightest of breezes would threaten her to scatter. There was another presence around her, a shield that wrapped around her mind and held it together like mortar to bricks. You feel it, Faith whispered hurriedly, hungrily, and she spun about trying to find him in this sea of black. You feel my god—our god. That is Atal’s blessing, to shield the mind and soul from the ravages of creation. Without a vessel, a spirit would disperse and decay. That is the fate our god saves us from.

You’ll not find what you’re looking for, the voice replied almost humorously, as if aware that she was trying to locate the source. Yet the effort proved infuriating; one moment it came from behind, then to the left, and even still from above at the same time. In this shapeless, formless sea in between dreams and death, it came from all directions and none. The answer, then, is that I am around you, and a part of you—much as you are a part of me. You can feel me, can hear my thoughts after all. But this is the embrace of Atal, a taste of the world before it all came into being. Comforting, is it not?

Her thoughts swirled—for that was all she was now: bits of thoughts held together by a dwindling soul. As much as she hated to admit it, there was a certain peace to be found here; despite the hellish baptism that it had taken to arrive. No body to feel pain, no dangers to be felt in this warm caress. She felt an inexorable urge to let go of whatever it was that still held her together, to mere drift in these unfelt currents and let them take her where they would. It would be a simple thing, truly—she was but a speck, a minor part of the colossal whole. From this amalgamation was she made, to its womb ought she not return?

No! The sudden warning jolted her back from whatever trance had taken her, pulling back all the loose threads of thought that had begun to fray and pull apart. Dammit, you bastard. Are you so eager to see me die? Yet all that she heard—that she thought in reply was a rasping chuckle.

You are already dead, you who was once Katherine of House Black. Your body has been taken, returned to Atal. All you are is an imprint, a vague memory that may still prove to be of some use.

His words filled her with rage, her thoughts seething and coiling like so many agitated vipers about their nests. This was not the bargain we struck, she hissed at the presence of Faith. You promised me skal’va to slay the demons. Where are they?

So eager, the voice laughed. Are you truly so quick to meet the Mother? What was that supposed to mean? Ought she wait then? Ought she twiddle her thought-fingers and whistle a little tune, exercise a little patience until the threads of time slipped off the spinning wheel? An inexorable rage swelled up inside of her, a frustration with the choice that she had been forced to make, at this teasing mockery that had been made of her sacrifice for her people.

Peace, peace, unnamed arbiter. As you will, then. Let us meet the Mother. The currents around them swirled, a sudden tugging filling her as she felt like some driftwood being plucked out of a raging sea, guided by some unseen hand. There was a tearing as she was wrenched away from that warm embrace, from that gentle, calming presence. The winds howled in her ear, a thousand shrieking, jostling pressures thrusting themselves upon her in an instant. She found just to remain conscious, just to remain together as they threatened to pull her mind apart.

Not so peaceful, is your world now? Without Atal’s blessing, you would not last half a heartbeat. Faith’s voice once more echoed inside of her mind, but this time it felt strained—like a child’s voice sent distantly through a pipe. I am not so eager to gaze upon Her once more, you must forgive me.

Her? The thing once named Kat could not help but wonder as she felt her presence plunged into the bowels of the earth, guided and shielded by that blessing of the dark god. Heat and pressure bore down her with a viselike grip, and she fought not to be pulled apart. So turbulent was the journey that she did not even know when she had arrived, only realizing after the world around her began to calm and ceased its spinning.

There was some massive cavern before her, far larger than any mere city—far larger than any cavern of man. It stretched on into the horizon, its features indistinct and blurred by ever-shifting shadows that squirmed and writhed in the dark confines. Near the center of the motion, she felt a horrendous presence that bore down on her, that sank its fangs into her very spirit even from this distance.

She fought as the dark god’s will drove her closer, ever closer to that repulsive travesty that lay in the middle of the shadows. The Mother, some dim part of her noted as was borne into the nest, shapeless shadows squirming as they grazed her. She felt their oily touch against her, slipping off as they glided around with a disgusting curiosity. After a moment, they withdrew from what they were protecting, leaving it bare for her to gaze down with sightless eyes.

The Mother, that same part of her laughed sadistically as she beheld the perverse creature that was carried aloft by her children. Her distended body was fashioned in a pantomime of a woman, the mottled flesh spilling out over the caverns with great rolls of tissue. Her arms hung long and thin by her sides, almost stick-like compared to the rest of her rippling size. They did not move with the rest of her, as if they were lame and useless. Spider-like legs wormed their way out of the bottom of her body, tens of the appendages twitching against the ground, seeming too small to possibly carry her. The most that they could manage was turn her about that position in the cavern, leaving her trapped in this echoing prison.

Yet most horrific was her face, so reminiscent of beauty yet hopelessly twisted. Her eyes were clawed out, nothing but empty sockets in her misshapen skull. Her nose was sunken and fractured numerous times at the base, its once-perfect shape now covered with pustules and gaping wounds. Her mouth was nothing but a pair of pale lips, stitched together by some black shadow that throbbed as if alive as it ran through her flesh. Every so often that mouth was twitch as if it wanted to scream, only for the shadowy stitch to pulse and tighten to bind her ever tighter. The stitches continued to circle around her head, continuing up towards the back of the skull where the flesh bulged out. It was as if something had burst out of her skull, the shards of bone visibly breaking through skin as that worm-like extension in the back of her head twitched and moved of its own accord. The expression on her monstrous face was one of utter agony, one of helpless suffering and resignation.

Below that monstrosity of a torso, bulging holes could be seen lining where hips and legs might belong. Black veins pulsed and throbbed with an irregular heartbeat, covered by a thin, clear film of what might be skin, or might be liquid. Every so often, they would squirm and contract, driving out a black, mist-like thing that oozed its way through the clear barrier to join its brethren in the cavern around it. There were countless numbers of holes on her massive body, perhaps enough to match the population of the Capital at its peak.

The Mother, she screamed silently, feeling its sightless gaze fall upon her and its presence rip into her own. For an instant, she could feel agony spearing through every part of her mutilated body, her own flesh turned into a prison that she could not escape. She felt something, hopeless dark and twisted inside of her stomach, squirming and throbbing with an abhorrent heartbeat as it split and propagated within her. She felt the Mother’s pain, and she wanted nothing more than to have a throat that she might slice, to have a pair of wrists to slit. So cruel was it that she was already dead, that she might be denied this opportunity to die when she truly desired it.

Well then, nameless arbiter? What name would you give her children?