The hum rose into a drilling scream. It bored through thought, through bone, through whatever held me together. A shining tendril of light slithered from the mask and wrapped around my throat, choking me.

I couldn’t breathe; couldn’t scream. My spine arched, my limbs frozen in terror. The tendril pulsed squeezing my throat as my early templar memories began to tear loose, unspooling like rotten thread. I would have chosen death. Gladly.

Two more luminous tendrils lashed out, plunging into my eyes. The suction was maddening as it felt as my eyes were about to burst. Memories were torn free even faster now. The tendrils bored past my eyes, drilling into my skull. I felt it reaching the memory of my journey to Rocky Hill.

I was being hollowed out.

I wanted to scream. I was ready to die if it meant a stop to the torture.

Then came a sound. A high, piercing whistle.

It cut through the blackness. The tendrils hissed, recoiled. A second whistle followed, sharper, angrier. Then a third whistle, soft, yet filled with terrible weight; it hummed with power. Deep in my bones, I knew: Soso had intervened.

Light rushed back.

The masked figure staggered, then fell to one knee, choking and spasming. I collapsed beside her, hands clawing at my face, terrified I’d find gaping holes where my eyes or skull should be.

A metallic clink.

The mask struck the floor.

The arch-sadhus gasped, eyes wild with terror.

“Sorry, Eitros,” she rasped, “I had to be sure…”

Then she gave a raw, wretched heave.

“Cursed mask - may that witch of Abalach-Re remain buried. ” she let out.

We both laid on the floor exhausted, just staring at each other. I couldn’t believe what I’d just survived and who I was staring at. It was only a couple, maybe three, years since I last saw her: Blaimgoida, the lying witch, famous for her bracelet made from the teeth of her former lovers - one of Abalach-Re’s very own defilers. Too weak to be forged into a proper kuotagha, I met her when she was made into a minor sadhu of Badna. Her mastery of illusionary spells had made her well-liked among the Servants of Badna.

I spat on the floor. “By the Dragon’s tail… is that really you? Or did I lose my mind?”

She tried to smile, then clamped a hand over her mouth to stop another heave.

“And that?!” I pointed at the mask, the Third Litany’s Mask. I also wanted to point at her beautiful face, which seemed to have aged thirty years in less than three years, but I could already guess those two things were related.

She coughed. “At Rocky Hill, a templar went mad trying to turn it against House M’ke”, the teeth on her bracelet clicked softly when she lowered her hand. “No wonder I almost lose mine every time I wear it.” She stood up shakily and eyed me. “Did they send you to help me?”

They? Did she mean M’ke? The thought curdled; I almost told her the Dragon would bring rain before I worked for those bastards. Then I remembered the tendrils in my eyes, and the whistles cutting them away. Had Soso fed her a decoy memory?

I wet my lips and kept my face blank. “House M’ke? Help?” I let the lie breathe. “To trade, rather, and to know how things are going.”

She let out a loud sigh and massaged her bracelet made of teeth, which made a peculiar clicking noise and seemed to emit a faint glow. The aging on her face seemed to have regressed. Not to what it once was, but her beauty shone tenfold. This wasn’t one of her illusionary tricks, or at least that’s what I believed; her beauty had always been striking. “Follow me, friend,” she said as she stood up and went to the door.

We walked through the estate. Someone waved. A guard, maybe, or a noble. Or just a slave. Hard to tell, they all had shaved heads, the same rags, and the same half-mad stare. Jewelry was the giveaway that they were probably nobles. My erdlu was being unpacked. Blaimgoida looked disgusted at the goods offered for trade. She clearly hoped for something else. “They really will bleed it dry…” she muttered under her breath. She paused for a moment. “I can trade some of the Manthir family jewelry for it, but to be frank, I’d rather you take the matriarch off my hands.”

I waited in silence to let her play her cards. She kept playing with her bracelet, sliding it back and forth like a nervous habit. I passed my tongue over my gums as if I were counting my teeth, knowing two were missing from a youth fight, but that none of mine were on that bracelet.

We entered an old erdlu stable. The stink hit first: the blood, sweat, and rot. The place had been remade into something between a torture cell and a shrine.

Tied to two large wooden X-frames lay a dwarf, severely beaten, covered in bruises and cuts, and unconscious, or at least one would hope so. I had to observe his chest to see if it was moving. It was. That had to be Keypridok.

I felt guilt. I’d copied hymns for years without believing a word in the Badna’s scripture. Never believed in much of anything, honestly. But it was my calligraphy, the one thing I’d taken pride in, that had become a tool for this. Keypridok’s work had allowed the community of this estate to survive. Mine? A dying estate with a mask that ate minds, a witch who couldn’t control it, and a dwarf beaten for praying to the wind instead of the Dead Queen’s corpse.

I made a step forward toward the tied shaman, only to be thrown to the floor by an invisible energy that felt like a violent gust of wind.

A laugh came from one of the cells. An old woman with black holes instead of eyes was rattling at her bars.

“Eitros,” said Blaimgoida, gesturing with a flick of her head. “Meet Lady Manthir. She tore her own eyes out before I could even introduce her to the very holy Third Litany’s Mask.”

“You cursed witch, you brought your false god to die on our land!” spat the matriarch.

By one of the small windows, I caught sight of a tari tail. Then came the quick tapping, the way tari communicate by drumming their tails against the ground. They were all around us, I felt relieved.

“By Badna, I’ll see you sold to an obsidian mine, hag,” the beautiful witch snarled back, then turned on her heel.

“You must be starving,” she said as we walked toward some tables set outside in the shade, where her disciples busied themselves preparing some food. “We all are, as a matter of fact.”

The meal was poor, to say the least; almost as bad as our worst days in the desert wasteland. Warm, watery gruel with some tiny slices of dried vegetables. Were they purposely starving themselves?

As if she read my mind, Blaimgoida answered my question: “No other merchant house dares to trade with us anymore,” she said. “Not that we’ve much to offer. Let’s hope it makes House M’ke happy.”

We ate in silence. Only a child’s voice broke the quiet; a young disciple standing on a bench, singing a hymn to Badna I’d never heard. Melancholic, haunting, and completely foreign to my years of faithful service.

“I don’t recognize that one,” I said.

Blaimgoida looked at me, surprised. “They didn’t use your talents after the schism? I always thought some of those were yours.” She tapped on her mask still in her pocket, making a faint clink. “No matter how good the words are, I still need that cursed thing to keep the zealots in line.”

Schism? New hymns? I blinked. A schism for a dead queen’s cult in a collapsing city-state was insanity. It had already been difficult to get the average Raamite to bother showing up for worship while Abalach-Re was still alive. However, if M’ke had their hands on more than one of the three arch-sadhus masks of Badna, they could command what remained of the faithful throughout Raam. Was that what they were trying to do here?

“When I arrived, none of them practiced the rite any longer, they even had taken out all the Badnaite runes. The Manthir estate had gotten that fool of a shaman as a retainer and began trading with the Draji merchant house, looking toward Draj for protection,” continued the witch. “Now look at this, did anyone ever display such zealousness?” There was pride in her voice.

“Well, the Third Litany’s Mask must have come in handy,” I ventured. That mask was never meant for daily use. It was an annual ritual device, and clearly dangerous. No wonder the place felt off. She smiled and winked at me, as if to say everything will be alright.

Yet, as she stood, she turned white. I noticed she looked shaky. Her hands clutched the edge of the table. “You’ll have to excuse me, friend, I need… to rest before…” she hesitated. “The mask takes more each time. I must be ready before the Last Light ritual.”

She nodded at the mute slave, who stepped forward without a word. “He’ll attend you,” she said, then turned and walked toward the rear chamber.

The moment the curtain fell behind her, the mood around shifted. The disciples who had seemed so alert in her presence now sat slack-jawed or rocking slightly. A woman who had earlier stared at me with dagger-eyes was now tracing circles in the dirt with her thumb, whispering nonsense syllables. Another stared at the sky and smiled at nobody. Their zeal had bled out; only confusion kept them upright.

The mute slave stood at the doorway. He stepped closer, hesitated, then shaped the words with his mouth: “Ba-dna No God.”

I stared back, unsure if I should respond, or if it was a trap. He turned his gaze forward again and resumed his post. As if nothing had happened.

The mask’s power was fading. The spell over the estate was fraying. Whatever this “ritual” was, it couldn’t hold them all much longer.

I needed Soso.