Chapter 9: Playthings

[Black Eye Guy]

The darkness shrouded the grave yard of the Sedlec Ossuary, except for two figures which made their way through the graves, weaving in and out before reaching the Church.

The two entered the church, which was filled with so much death, you could feel it. Bones surrounded them, and the feeling of death enveloped them.

Taking the hood from their cloaks, Dru and Indra stood admiring their Prize. The Scythe.

After winning their new toy, they wasted no time to flee Nepal and made their way to the Czech Republic...

[Indra_RPG]

The journey to the ossuary had been long and arduous, especially for Indra. Her injuries had not killed her, as it turned out. The gift from the devi, that preternatural strength that had awakened in her the day she met Drusilla, kept her alive and healed her wounds with strange alacrity. Now, a week after leaving her home, she barely limped.

:: Frowning, Indra wondered if she was immortal. It seemed that nothing could kill her. ::

Not even leaving my son.

She had thought that might kill her.

Before that final departure, when she stood trembling and bleeding upon her great-grandfather’s Persian rug and forced herself to follow Kali out the door, she had turned. She had turned her aching head and cast her eyes one last time upon her home.

What she had seen was her husband – and her son. On the stairs, Rajnath stood transfixed, his jaw agape in horror and dismay as he took in his wife’s grotesque, mangled appearance. In his arms, he held the baby.
Urgently, Indra raised her eyes to Rajnath’s. She did not want Raja to see her like this.

Her eyes still open wide, she tossed her head and motioned in the direction from which Rajnath had just come. Silently, he had nodded and retreated. It was the last she had seen or heard of either her husband or her son. It was likely the last she would ever see of them. Leaving had been her last gift to them. In its way, it was a noble, selfless gift. Had she remained with Kali, she had no doubt that Drusilla would have grown hungry.

A week later, her heart and, indeed, her entire body ached more for her son than from the force of all of her injuries combined. Though unbidden and unasked for, maternal instinct was an undeniable part of her being. It coursed through her very veins, causing a constant, vague yearning. In moments of idleness, she instinctively turned toward Nepal just as a Muslim might turn toward Mecca. Raja’s face filled her dreams. When she was able to force him from her conscious and unconscious thoughts, the longing for her son manifested itself as a physical illness; her chest felt tight as she strained to breathe, her breasts felt tender and ached to suckle her young, and her muscles slowed and strained with every step that took her further from her son. So deeply ingrained was the biological imperative that even Indra, who was not a very good or attentive mother and who truly loved her devi above all else, found herself barely able to muster the energy to gaze admiringly upon the scythe for which she had left her life behind.

Indra felt dull. She felt burnt-out and dry, like a corn husk. Without her son, she seemed half-dead. It was a peculiar experience for one like Indra, one who was oftentimes not even convinced of her capacity for love or maternal affection.

:: Half to distract herself from a misery that had no cure, Indra glanced around the ossuary and spoke: ::

Drusilla: “The location suits you, my devi.”

This was a temple built to honor another God, the Christian God, and yet it should have been built for Kali.

Above their heads, there hung a massive chandelier composed entirely of human bones. The torches that lit the night rested upon human skulls. These, in turn, rested upon an elegantly arranged platform of pelvic bones. Each light was joined to the body of the chandelier by a gently curved spine, each of which was draped with a garland of humerus bones. The main body itself extended upward in a tapered succession of decreasingly complex layers that began with a ring of skulls at the bottom and worked its way up until a series of femur bones joined the entire piece to the ceiling. The entire temple was decorated in like manner. It was a temple to death and destruction.

The Christian god has no place here, Indra thought disdainfully.

Hers was a goddess of creation and destruction, birth and death alike. The Christians celebrated in their god only rebirth, eschewing that essential duality on which the constant ebb and flow of life depended. In due time, she was certain that she and her devi would drive out that other, lesser deva.

:: She would begin by removing his symbols, Indra decided, and so she turned from the scythe and went about the process of removing from the temple walls all crosses. ::

Drusilla could not touch those. It appeared as if the Christian god, trickster that he was, had charmed them so that they burned the skin of rivals.

:: When the crosses had all been removed and the temple was rendered comfortable for Drusilla, Indra turned back toward her goddess and toward the weapon that called to her every fiber almost as her maternal longings coursed through every cell. ::

Indra wondered if that was how deeply Drusilla longed for her William. For her devi]s sake, she hoped not. She would not wish her pain upon anyone, least of all upon her Kali – and due to Indra’s own failure, as well.

Drusilla: “What is our plan for the scythe?”

There was the mission to consider. The mission, at least, could distract them both from their terrible yearning. Perhaps after it was complete, they could return for those they loved.