The Amulet: Origins

The full moon hung in the cloudless sky like a wide-open, grey eye. It's surface features were as brilliant as the surrounding landscape; craters visible creating a simulacrum of a human face, winking yet indifferent. The chill in the air was thick and cloying, numbing bodies to their bony core. Warm clouds of exhaled breath wafted in the light breeze, spewing constantly from the collection of cowled adults gathered in a complete circle around a hundred candles and a chilly stone tablet set atop a marble altar. Though the atmosphere was brittle, the heat radiating from the chanting men and women could almost be seen as shuddering waves cascading into the night. Chanting, low and murmuring, rose in a baritone crescendo. United ancient words melded together in one, coalescing tone into the brisk, crisp air. And on the pedestal, in the center of the tablet -undulating in rich, deep reds and chromatic pewter- sat an amulet; pulsating, thrumming, beating... alive.

Six men, six women. Their circle complete. Their order was offset; one woman, one man, one woman. Each wore a black, woolen robe with a hood that completely concealed their faces save for their chanting, moaning mouths. Underneath their robes, they wore nothing, as was the way and the law of the Sayer. The Sayer had many rules: each member must be united with the next, and he united with her, and so on until all twelve had become, essentially, one; and each single member, though afforded a meager dwelling, had to spend every sixth night with another member. Often times, this meant several with one, so said the Sayer, and all believed this inter-mingling to be an accepted way of life. The sixth month, on the six night, for six hours beginning when the moon was high in the sky, the twelve returned to their sepulcher and prepared the Amulet for 'The Variance': the combining of their souls into the 'Eye of the Sayer'. The formed their circle, they repeated their chant, and they lost themselves to The Sayer and its Eye

Each of the twelve was a respected member of the society of their village: Engruu. They all held lofty positions in the hierarchy including judge, treasurer, chief hunter, village elder, and war general. Each, as well, was a receptacle for pure evil. They willingly opened themselves to darkness, sorrow, hatred, disrespect, anger, and callousness. They each became a vessel for each and every feeling and desperate act that would otherwise cripple the village. And so, imbued with these feelings, they led their tribe and waited, patiently, to purge themselves at the Sayer's Eye. For days, weeks, and months, the twelve absorbed every ounce of evil, and every bit of deviltry only to expurgate in the circle. And so the Amulet; the 'Eye of the Sayer', supped at the people's negativity as it ebbed and flowed into it like a tide. The Amulet grew into an object of such unspeakable horror and ghastly repugnance that it soon began to extrude its consumed power over everyone and everything in Engruu.

It was time to find others.

THE AMULET: Kindred

Kimmy stared at the door. She breathed, and paid close attention to her heart as it pounded rapidly in her chest. She sniffed, rubbed her nose, and thought to herself for just a second that maybe she'd imagined-

knock knock knock

Tanner's low growl steadily built its crescendo erupted into a series of sharp barks. Kimmy jumped a little at he dog, and slowly patted his head. She almost felt like screaming herself. She swallowed and turned to Tanner.

"What'll we do, boy?" She whispered harshly.

"Hello? I-i-is anyone h-h-here?" The tiny voice from the patio said.

knock knock knock

The voice certainly didn't sound as threatening as Kimmy's mind was attempting to make it. She scooted off the couch with Tanner immediately at her heels. She tip-toed to the front door, cupped her hand, and pressed it and her ear to the wood.

"My n-n-n-name is Molly. I-I-I-I've been walking a really long time... with this pitchfork. I'm really tired and lost! Hello?"

knock knock

She sounded to Kimmy like she was on the verge of tears. Kimmy sidled over to the curtain and slowly pulled it back just enough to see the porch. There, in denim overalls, without shoes, filthy and obviously exhausted, stood a little girl maybe twelve years old. And next to her on the concrete was, as she said, a huge pitchfork. The tines were tinted with what could have either been dirt or, possibly, blood.

Kimmy watched with a bit of sorrow as Molly plopped on the porch, hiked up her knees, and began to sob. She knew there was literally no way that Molly was any kind of threat. Kimmy turned to the door and saw Tanner jump u to his hind legs and begin to whimper. Somehow even the dog knew that this little girl was as innocent as could be.

"Okay boy, get down. We'll check it out. But we'd better be safe about it..."

Kimmy stepped to the table and grabbed the ax. She returned to the door, and slowly turned the handle. There, on the stoop, was the sad sight she'd seen from the window, curled into a shuddering ball before her.

"Hi. I'm Kimmy." She said lowering herself into a crouch.

Molly shot her head up and instinctively covered herself with her arm. This, in turn, threw her off balance and she basically spilled onto her back. Molly scurried to her feet and quickly snatched up the pitchfork that was obviously far too heavy for her to handle with one hand. Kimmy just stood silently with a side-long grin on her face.

Suddenly the door flew from Kimmy's hands and the large do that would no longer be corralled lunged forward, barked once without a hint of malice, and wagged itself up to Molly and began licking her hands and face.

"Whoa!" Molly gasped with a hint of a laugh and tried to swipe away the dog's fluttering tongue.

Kimmy giggled and called back her dog. "His name is Tanner and I think he's made a new friend!"

Molly let him finish licking until he leaped to Kimmy's side and obediently sat at her side.

"As I said, I'm Kimmy. I live here with my..." She choked a little as the word 'parents' caught in her throat. "I-I live here..."

"I'm Molly. I live... over that way." She pointed east toward the more rural section of the outskirts of town where the farms and acres of land stood spreading into the horizon. "I had to get out. I had to k-k-kill my daddy..."

Suddenly weeping again, Molly did the only natural thing a girl her age could do. She dropped her pitchfork and ran into Kimmy's waiting arms. They both stood on the patio in the setting sun and cried into one another's caresses. Molly, between hitching breaths, told of how she had to murder her father because of an evil coming from an amulet. Kimmy nodded in complete understanding and relayed her own tale of death and destruction and how she, too, had an amulet. Neither one understanding just how much worse the situation had gotten. Not yet.