Lilliad Chapter 13

“By the order of the Esteemed Queen Freilye, this district is quarantined and no one can enter. Citizen, what are you doing here?” The guard stated, in the kind of monotonous tone that made Lilli suspect they’d been turning people away for hours straight.

‘Maybe not really going to be workable to try and charm them, then.’ She swallowed.

“I was curious about why the district was closed off.” Lilli attempted to look like a good citizen and not like a garbage animal that had been seconds away from attempting to climb the wall.

There was a scuffle of feet behind her, and a gasp of breath “-We’re just good citizens.” Elathor wheezed out. “Here to help.”

The guard huffed. “How would you help, exactly?”

The clanking of metal alerted Lilli to the fact that another armored person was coming around the corner. She felt her entire body seize up with anxiety.

‘This honestly feels more dangerous to me than the ktharyis inside,’ A muscle in her jaw involuntarily twitched.  ‘I know exactly what guards can do to me.’

Elathor nudged her over, placidly smiling at the guard. “Oh, I’m a magician, you know. I’m here to help with the” they leaned forward “little pest problem.”

The guard’s left eyebrow lifted, but not by much.

“Got another do-good er?” the second guard asked, leaning against their pike.

‘Another?’ Lilli kept quiet. ‘It’s probably better to let Elathor handle this, actually.’

“And just who are these-” the guard in front of her looked Igni up and down with care. “Uh.  Fine people.”

“My assistants, of course.” Elathor reassured. “Surely you don’t think that I carry things, cut open bodies, or open doors myself. I’m a magician.”

“You certainly are.” The guard said drily.

‘Yeah, I guess their elitism is fairly famous.’ Lilli tried to keep her fingers from going to her daggers to rub the hilts for reassurance. It would seem like she was threatening. And she definitely didn’t want to be seen as threatening.

“So, I’ll be  needing you to let myself and my assistants into this-” Elathor waved their  talons in the direction of the wall-

“District?” The newer guard asked, just as drily  as the first.

Elathor’s head snapped back. “You mean people live down here?”

“They did.” The newer guard crossed their arms in front of them, still very much attached to their pike. “Now they’re dead.  Or gone.”

“Gone meaning…?” Elathor asked, evidently treating this as a mere curiosity instead of a horror-filled admission.

“Well, either those monsters got  ‘em, or they escaped.” The first guard gave the other a stern look.

“That knight said there might still be people alive in there.” The other protested. “That’s why she went in.”

“Well, then,  there’s precedent.” Elathor bowled over their growing spat gracelessly. “So  we’d like to be let in, then.”

The first guard heaved a sigh, and fiddled with their beard- rolling it between calloused fingers. “We’re really here to keep anything in. Orders said that we could let people in, if anyone was daft enough to try.”

The guard let that hang there in the air.

‘That’s not good.’ Lilli felt her chest tightening.

“But we can’t let you back out.” The other guard chimed in, ruining the moment.

The guard with the beard sighed heavily. “Obviously, Reainsfirt,that’s what I was implying. You don’t have to ruin everything, do you?”

Reainsfirt looked affronted.  “I just think it’s best to be clear, is all.” They bit back defensively. Then they turned back to Elathor, Lilli, and Ignii. “We can’t let you out again until and unless all those monsters are dead. We can’t let them out.”

“Yes of course, of course.” Elathor sounded blase but Lilli could see a tenseness in their body  language. “We’ll kill all the little beasties and let you know.”

The serious guard huffed. “I doubt it, but I won’t waste my breath trying to stop you.” He led them back to the gate, and took out a heavy-looking ring of keys. They jangled in his hands as he searched through them.

When he selected a particularly  foreboding-looking iron key, Lilli felt the acid in her stomach rise again, just a little. She took a steadying breath.

The key turned in the lock, and the guard ushered them through quickly.

“And don’t think of trying to come out again, unless they’re all dead.”  He said shortly. “I’m tired of hearing the screams of the dying. If you don’t want to go in, this is your last chance.”

‘As if there’s really an option otherwise.’ Lilli grimaced and passed through the first door into the interlocking gate. ‘If I hesitate now, I’m going to run away and never come back.’

The gate shut behind them with a resounding clang, and she could hear the jingle of keys as it turned in the lock.

The trio looked towards the second set of iron doors.

“Well. If we’re going to die, I say we get this over and done with.”  Elathor chirped with false confidence. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

“Up to you.” Igni grunted. “I don’t think magical constructs can die.”

Lilli followed them into the  gate, and past Igni’s arm as they held open the door.

“Here goes nothing.” She muttered. “So glad I could help.”

“That’s the spirit!” Elathor said, jovially. They glided past her and right into the district.

Walking into Poureoin, what struck her most was that it was quiet.

Just kidding. The smell hit her like a physical slap, because there were literal piles of bodies. She felt her jaw stop as she stopped. Metal clanged shut behind her, grim and final as the chain was latched shut again.

People here had been trying to get out. She felt her eyes drawn to one body, a smallish person with black insects crawling all over their visible skin. Their hands were a bloody, broken mass of black blood. Slowly, she tracked her gaze to the wall and gate, which had bloody smears on it.

“Ah, the little man was not being flippant,” Igni said. They were looking around as well. It was impossible to read any emotion in their tone. “There must have been screaming for a while.”

Lilli took a deep breath that only made her feel sicker and tried to keep her head up and eyes off of the carnage of the desperate dead. They walked on. The only sound was their footsteps, buildings creaking, and the buzzing of insects.

Normally, a district would have thousands of people living inside. Living together, shopping, walking the streets.

This one was strewn with viscerae and congealed blood, heating up in the sun. The smell of it crawled into Lilli’s brain and seeped into her clothes. She shivered, and tried to shake it off.

Then the back of her neck started to prickle, and her brain was suddenly screaming-

“Down!” She screamed, in a tenor she’d never heard before. She tackled Elathor to the stinking, wet ground.

Claws scraped against the back of her head, snagging little bits of her hair.

She scrambled to grab her daggers, but she and they were slick with stinking blood.  She wiped it off on her slightly cleaner shirt, and yanked a dagger out.

Then she spun around, looking for where the Ktharyis had gone.

But the area seemed to be empty. Lilli didn’t look down to her waist, but slowly pulled out her other dagger and looked around at what she now felt was an overexposed empty space. Her  back was to the gate wall.

She could feel someone’s outstretched hand under her shoe. A little bone cracked as she shifted.

Her stomach roiled.

Elathor slightly sat up, and wiped some organs off their robes.`”Thank you, I think.” Then dug into their pouches.

“So that was a ktharyis.” Igni stated. “Rather ugly, if you ask me.”

“Really hideous.” Lilli agreed, her mouth dry.

Then the feeling came back- and she could identify it better this time. It was like a little scratch in her hind brain, something that wasn’t quite right but said it was ok and just to sit down, all while her nerves started to twitch to run. Her body was literally fighting itself- the ktharyis’ control over some of her senses and brain, and her body’s innate desire to survive.

This time, she was ready with her daggers.

‘You don’t need weapons.’ the ktharyis in her head said. ‘You’re being irrational.’

“No!” Lilli choked out.

Then, pain. It shook her to her core and made her knees shake.

The world seemed to be shaking from her eyes, things were blurry.

SHe closed them, hard, and opened them again. Her vision was black. It was as if she was in a world of darkness, and the only lights were the daggers in her hands. They glowed an eerie fey blue, and she held them up to try to see-

“Fuck you!” Igni roared from her side, and there was shaking. Then a crash.  A thump.

Her vision returned, bubbling out from her daggers and into the world around. Igni was standing with their fist embedded in a stone wall. There was blackish bubbling acid blood erupting around the stone fist.

Igni yanked, and a bit of rubble tumbled out.

“They’re squishy.” Igni said placidly. “Not very exciting.”

“Interesting!” Elathor scribbled frantically in their notes. Lilli blinked.

‘This… was very different from my first experience.’ She felt a little weak in her joints, as if she was being held up by conviction alone.

“So Lilli, you can perceive them easily, that’s useful.” Elathor mumbled, more to themselves than to her. “And they’re easy for Igni to squish. Of course, Igni isn’t as fast so with a larger group that may not work as well, but it’s very useful data. They aren’t immune to massive blunt force.”

‘Most things aren’t.’ Lilli stopped herself from swaying. She gripped her daggers harder, feeling a sort of strength and assurance from the touch.

“I think you might be too overexposed at the moment for you to be as useful in combat as I’d expected, perhaps due to their mental influence over you.  Judging by your unprompted screaming, anyway.” The notes were rolled up and tucked into a robe sleeve. “I’m sure that further exposure will inoculate you to their influence.”

“Uh-huh.” Igni was looking at Lilli. Unfortunately, it was impossible to interpret what an immovable stone face meant.

“Anyway, we have a do-gooder to  find. None of these corpses are wearing armor,  so they must be further in.” Elathor stepped gingerly over more piles of corpses. “Doubtless, we will encounter many more ktharyis further in, so we should be ready.” They raised their hands and made strange motions in the air, and Lilli felt a warmth as a protective purple light enveloped her body.

“That might help ward off their mental influence.” Elathor sniffed. “Let me know if it doesn’t. Let’s go!” Then they floated past Lilli and farther into the Poureoin District.

She blinked. But they just kept walking.

“Well,” Igni lifted Lilli out of the pile of corpses and onto the dirt with one great arm, “I suppose we should get going after them.”