The Withered Land, The Empire Falls: ABYSSIUM

ABYSSIUM, Part Three

Off in the distance, on the underside of the cloud line, he could see a dark jade shadow, a blurry vertical curtain-fall, in the space between the sky and horizon and he recognized it as a storm -- a violent, celestial-based squall that had crossed many, many Cosmonautical Units of Space from the rift anomaly known as The Wound to reach Pex'Insava and Teshiwahur. He didn't like seeing that angry tempest assail the surface of his world, the knowledge of what it was and what it could do haunted him, made him feel small and ineffectual, and so he directed his gaze to a different part of the sky.

Across the upper quadrant of the sunside face of Pex'Insava, at a distance that, if measured in Terran-Earth terms would be equal to six hundred and seventy kilometers away from Hookara'ie Wadi and Tuwerbleek Atun, Lord Eragoze Hehlgrummyte watched an approaching aeroskiff skyship cut through the cloud-dense atmosphere above the moon's floor with a mix of apprehension and irritation. Lord Hehlgrummyte, a renowned Astromancer and Celestial Cartographer, was a bit of a hermit and not at all fond of taking meetings with strangers at his home base, a pear-shaped structure that resembled a mechanized spiral snail that was suspended inside a ring held aloft by massive tentacular cables between a trio of multistory-high, tapering stone columns.  The structure was referred to as "Hehlgrummyte's Whyrligaegem".

He was awaiting the arrival of Orakun Maadregul, a Qrypfathenne Psyonikant who was the favored ambassadorial Second-in-Waiting to Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher.

Eragoze Hehlgrummyte was a big man, middle-aged by Teshiwahurian human standards, exceptionally broad and muscular, with weathered flesh the color of sand burnished with traces of copper. Though he was predominantly a scholar, Hehlgrummyte was an aristocrat, the Fifth Lord of Reishenschall, High-Magister of the Court of The Confluence. He was also a battlefield officer, a soldier, who had fought with valor during the Seige of Ahmdugriss-Shendi, a failed city-state in the western Pil'ayyat-Reishenschall Valley interior on Teshiwahur's continent of Qundin. Like many men who had extensive experiences during wartime, Hehlgrummyte spoke very little about his martial past. He concentrated instead on his scientific interests and the expansion of his knowledge about the natural world, only occasionally delving into spiritual philosophies born from his discoveries.

Dressed in a leather tunic atop a form-fitting, breathable, neo-plas exo-suit, the suit overlaid with a torso-protecting cuirass and plackart of gray armor, and partially enveloped in a flowing scarlet cloak that fell to just below his knees, Lord Hehlgrummyte was an ominous figure. His large, scarred hands were wrapped in a crisscrossing fingerless mitt made from flexible, rubberized gray bands. The features on his long face above his rectangular jawline were mostly hidden behind a filigreed black gold half-mask that was topped at each temple by a pair of small curving horns. His eyes were hidden behind almond-shaped, red crystal lenses.

He was a fearsome looking figure. That was intentional. He wanted, actually moreso needed, Orakun Maadregul to feel unsettled and apprehensive during her meeting with him. He needed to intimidate her and throw off-balance her haughty and immodest Qrypfathenne demeanor. She needed to know that he, Eragoze Hehlgrummyte of the Cid'Ammar bloodline, the oldest, wealthiest, and most politically powerful of Teshiwahur's familial sub-cultures, was someone whom she could not humiliate or humble as a consequence of her assumed Offworld alien superiority.

Psyonikant oracular telepath or not, no Qrypfathenne colonial mutant mercenary was going to browbeat or terrorize Hehlgrummyte within the walls of his own domain, and Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher be damned.

The crescent-shaped conference room was on the southwestern third of the Whyrligaegem's five levels. It was a tastefully decorated astronomical-museum populated by various-sized display cases surrounding an oval table with magnetically-resonant suspended hover-chairs. In the room with Lord Hehlgrummyte, two of his most trusted personal sentries were in attendance, one a slender, somewhat serpentine woman named Esteffyah and the other a solemn, vulturine man who called himself Xylander. Both were dressed in form-fitting, pewter-colored, metallic mesh clothing embellished with segmented and striated, blue-black protective plating. Other than an articulated neck collar-guard, their uniforms were similar with the armored plating covered their torsos, knee and elbow joints, and their shins. Mostly similar and sexless, their attire differed greatly when it came to their head coverings. Esteffyah's face was covered by an enclosed, eyeless, cybernetic helmet of vaguely medieval Maximilian-design while Xylander's face was adorned by a leather half-mask that was partially hidden under a hooded cowl made from a woven fabric with Kevlar-like properties. Each of the pair was outfitted with a rakishly-designed, pistol-style particle blaster that was sheathed inside a holster on their multi-compartmented utility belt.