He who cannot be named

He who cannot be named Part 4

Vad is in the castle market, looking at the passerby's. The stalls are tall and sharp, pointing to the sky, looming in toward him. He is looking everywhere, trying to find Mel Barrington. Everyone in the market is a young girl, dark hair, blue eyes, but blank faces. Which one is she? He sees her, fleeing him, somehow he knows its Mel. He runs toward her, calling her name, telling her to stop. Mel laugh's and keeps running, finally running into a strange looking church, and the one in Shire. He enters the church right behind her.

He's on the side of MountFiraga, stuck on a ledge, Mel Barrington not in sight. He looks all over, wondering how he got there. It's nighttime, the two moons high overhead. They are bigger than he ever saw them, glaring down at him. They look like mad eyes, the eyes of O'Maley's gardener. The gardener practiced the art as Vad did, casting an illusion for people to see him at his shack as he murdered his master's family. The moons start moving, getting closer and closer until they merge in one giant serpent eye. Hewhocannotbenamed Vad thinks, the serpent eye is his symbol, this is his night. You are my servant the eye says, I am your master. Your body and soul are mine. The eye moves toward him coming closer and closer, to take his soul. Vad screams, frozen in terror, sure that his practice of the dark arts has doomed him for eternity.

Vad sees a speck in the eye, growing and growing. It's a strange metal bug, on fire, falling. His head is ready to burst...

Vad had a terrible headache. Someone keeps slapping him, even with the headache, making it worse. “Whaaa...?” he groans. He tries to ward off his attacker, but he can't move his arms or legs. He hesitatingly opens his eyes. A man in a black robe and cowl is standing above him, arm raised, ready to slap again. Above him, he sees the giant serpent eye.

“He's awake.” the man in the robe says, “We can now begin.”

The world came into focus. The serpent eye above him is a large painting, eerily like the moon, blood dripping from it. He is on a cold stone slab, spread eagle, wrists and ankles tied to the corners. Vad is completely naked, but it's warm in there, the place radiating heat. He is in a big building, a wide-open hall, with long benches at the bottom. There is the strange coloured windows with pictures, but the pictures inside are different. They are snakes devouring people whole, naked woman hanging, with bloody wounds. In the middle are big golden doors. The slab is an altar on a stage, there is a crowd, more people in robes and cowls, all standing, their undivided attention on him, and the man with him. He is in the church in Shire.

“Behold this weak servant of the Weak One, and his dog of a servant the Prince. Behold this false prophet. You have heard his lies. His dog master has sent him among us, because they are afraid. Afraid of our strong God, HEWHOCANNOTBENAMED, The Master is here! I can feel him! Feel his might! His terror! His malevolence!”

Oooohs and aaaahs from the crowd, they were lost in a trance. “Vicar” Ventalli was the master orator, brainwashing them with his words. Most were swaying toward the stage, a few even coming forward, to get a closer look.

“Oh great serpent lord, I spill this blood in your name. Take this slave of the weak one, and devour his spirit, as I eat his beating heart!” Ventalli pulls out a knife, Vad's ritual knife, and raises it above him, over his heart. “I sacrifice this fool with the weak one’s own weapon, as we will strike all the weak ones fools from within!”

The crowd now is in a frenzy, screaming and falling to their knees in religious fervour. Vad, sweating now from the heat, and his own fear, sees some of them rush the altar, wanting to be the first ones to taste his blood. They have knives in their hands. Ventalli, intent on his task for his dark master, tenses and he gets ready to plunge Vad's knife into his heart. Eyes wide, mouth open, he holds the knife longer, building tension, dragging it out. Blood drips out of Ventalli's mouth...