"Are you ready?" Suhuy asked, a serious expression twisting upon his wizened face.
I surveyed the room around me. All my training was supposed to have prepared me for this moment.
It hadn’t.
The place smelled strongly of rotting bone and sinew, as the castoff remains of failures lay crumbling against the walls. But under that, there was a wild essence, the scent of entropy.
A writhing, fiery...creature? Being? Lay before me, beckoning, whipping tentacles around like a flaming squid gone mad.
To walk it would be the completion of my first trial, the first step to becoming a Hendrake Captain. Captain T’Gana. It had a certain ring to it. One that I was willing to lay aside all self-preservation instincts to achieve. The honor of leading troops into battle myself, instead of following behind...
I would have survived the Logrus, become something greater than myself. A true agent of Chaos.
It had not been easy. My pre-qualifications under Suhuy’s instruction had nearly incapacitated me. I had not been tested in magic, of course, but my shapeshifting abilities had been pushed to the limit. I needed three days to recover afterwards.
I had also submitted to the frightening prospect of my first mind-to-mind contact, a Judgment Scan. Would I be able to handle the responsibility of bearing the mark of the Logrus while commanding Hendrake troops? Belissa had overseen the procedure herself, as one of the House psychics riffled through my mind. It was disorienting, as I tried desperately (and futilely) to keep certain things hidden. In the end, though, I was pronounced fit. Belissa smiled then and said, "That’s it. You Walk tomorrow."
Here I was, facing a veil of fire. Suhuy chuckled and muttered to himself, an old demon in his uncanny abode.
"Eh? Yes, it’s time now," he said to nobody in particular. He nudged me. "Go on, girl."
I took a deep breath, and stepped upon the nearest tendril--
The room went dark and disappeared. All that remained was the Logrus, burning like a brand. The Heart spun slowly before me impossibly far away, and I realized what my task was--to reach the center by way of its tangled arms.
I took another step.
It was then I was grabbed, pulled upwards, and turned upside-down.
The gravitational pull of the rest of the room obviously did not apply here. My feet were static, as if glued to the Logrus. I would not fall, I knew.
I started to walk. Resistance increased dramatically...and so did the heat. It became blazingly hot. I could have sworn my skin was beginning to literally melt, and my throat burned from taking in superheated air...
That’s it! I thought, and I began to shapeshift as fast as I could. Harden my skin, toughen esophagus. Tiny, third-lidded eyes. Push my internal organs farther in and closer together, protect them with layers of fat.
Ah, the warmth of the flames...
A dkyykochan, fire-eater. Distant cousin to the salamander. Lived among the shallows of the Abyss. Normally they levitated instead of walked, but I could not help that.
It hurt, but it was necessary to preserve my life.
I continued to step from tendril to tendril in this manner, making minute adjustments to compensate for fluctuating air pressure, until the climate changed again. Extreme cold, this time, and the morph into a white-furred wampa was grueling. It was as if my molecules were ripped apart and separated by millions of miles, only to be rushed back together once more in the span of a few seconds...
From pole to pole, I thought grimly. I was beginning to understand how this worked.
The air around me suddenly changed color. I found myself gasping for breath then, and only a partial change into an osmotic cyanide breather prevented me from passing out and probably joining Suhuy’s collection of failures.
Should have caught that earlier, T’Gana.
How was I supposed to know?
You are supposed to be able to anticipate these things. That is the mark of a good soldier. And the mark of a child of Chaos.
But I AM of chaos, I protested. War and entropy are my business. Who can predict the dealings of the Logrus itself?
The Serpent, perhaps.
I am not the Serpent.
Not yet.
Never will be.
We shall see.
The tendril in front of me ended. I reached up to grab the one above me that was running parallel to it, inching forward like it was a rope between two buildings. Once my feet left the bottom tendril, I was effectively walking on my hands. Blood rushing to my head, I morphed again, switching my hands for my feet, till I was standing upright again.
I traveled safely for a few feet (at this point I was walking perpendicularly to the floor) until I was faced with a break in my path. An enormous pressure built up behind me, forcing me forward. It was too far to jump, and the gap was coming towards me faster and faster...
In a burst of pain I grew a set of gliding wings, used the pressure behind me to build up momentum, and, reaching the very edge, leaped--
It was a wonderful feeling, one that nearly took my mind off the aching pain of my body. I was flying. Gliding, really, on the air pressure that had so recently tried to force me into oblivion. For a few brief seconds, the stress of the Logrus seemed far away. I could see the tendril below me, like a runway. I started to angle down...
Suddenly the air current cut out, and I tumbled, falling to my hands and knees upon the Logrus track.
You IDIOT!
SHUT UP!
I tried to rise to my feet, but my hands and knees and feet seemed to be stuck to the golden-orange tendril.
You didn’t shift fast enough! You could have prevented this!
I was thrown sideways, still clinging to the Logrus by all fours. I could not extricate myself.
Apparently, I would have to walk the rest of the way as a quadruped. I started to crawl towards the Heart.
I told you you weren’t ready for this. I told you! What sort of a captain would allow this to happen?
Allow WHAT? I thought furiously. An accident?
You think too much. To be a part of primal chaos you must act on instinct, not through logic! You do not deserve to finish.
Logic is what separates us from demons and lesser creatures.
Who says they are lesser? You? Who are on your knees like a supplicant, rather than a soldier?
The world grew heavy around me as the gravitational constant increased a hundredfold. My limbs began to shake, and I had to readjust my center of gravity and thicken my arms and legs. I became little more than a blunt, animate sawhorse.
I continued to struggle with the Logrus.
The changes were coming fast and furious now. Adjusting my eyes to see different wavelengths, lengthening or flattening my body as needs dictated. I could not think anymore, I simply FELT. It became a blur of motion and agony and fire and confusion...
I was nearly at the center. I could rest there, in that spinning oblivion of pure chaos, rest until I healed. I would become one with the universe, even if it meant my distruction.
As I approached the threshold I heard a shrieking cry from behind me. I grew eye stalks and swiveled them.
The tendrils of the Logrus itself had come together, animated as the beast known in many languages....
Firebird. Phoenix. Maliko, the reborn one.
It saw me and dove, beak wide, spitting fire.
You are too weak.
I was so tired. It would be so easy to allow the bird to engulf me. My body could not take any more. I could force myself to turn one last time, face my death like a Hendrake. I was beaten by supernatural forces. Probably the only thing that COULD beat me.
You are weak.
Yes, you are right. I am human, and this is a task to be undertaken by gods.
I am weak.
A small voice piped up.
Weakness does not matter if your brain still functions.
Yes it does! The brain is secondary to the senses and instinct.
Do not prove that right, T’Gana. You are more than base functions. Much more. You are intelligence and thought and knowledge.
You have made it this far. You know what to do next. Think!
I forced myself past the breaking point, limbs converging and melting together, my eyes growing beady and glinting in the reflected light of the Logrus. I could feel the hood sprout from my neck, opening wide in anger and excitement.
I drew myself up to full height and spun, not even realizing I had been freed from the Logrus’s grasp. I stared the Phoenix in the eye, head unmoving. My body swayed back and forth slowly, rhythmically.
You are mine.
The serpent, the lifelong enemy of the bird. Both prey and master. The metronome of terror and death. A hiss escaped as my tongue darted out, tasting the wind.
The firebird cried out again, swerving to avoid my gaze. It took a position behind me again, beyond the Heart of the Logrus.
I caught its eye again as it swooped in to strike.
Another scream, this time one of anger and fear. The Logrus bird shuddered and dropped like a stone into the center of its own creator.
I darted forward lightning fast, and, rather than finding my jaws clamped around a meal of phoenix, propelled myself into the center of the Logrus.
I began to spin in the cold heart of Chaos.
All went black then, and I did not wake for many hours. When I did I had regained my human form and was floating, weightless, surrounded by fire.
In the end I was right. You had to revert to instinct to survive.
No, you were not. My instinct was to meet my destruction head-on. I chose to survive. That is the difference.
"I do not know how long I hung there, within entropy’s womb. I was held by the Logrus,
a part of it as it was a part of me, forever entwined."
Beyond the twisting tendrils I could see the room again, and the bodies that still lay there.
I was not one of them, not this time.