It was below him; he could feel it calling, beckoning to be free. A wealth of power calling to be released from its prison of cold, dark earth.
There was no spade, no shovel to aid him in his purpose, just his hands. His hands bled with every new handful of dirt, and his nails had long fallen off—ragged strips of what had once been flesh covered his hands. If there was ever a moment when his sanity had fled him, it was then.
Tears mixed with blood as he inched closer and closer to his goal. Hours had passed and had continued to pass. He didn't know why, but he wanted to scream. To Yell down the gods and spirits that had cursed him with such a clear but far away goal.
No sooner than Maral had left had he begun to dig, and dig and dig. She had made a man of him, yet as he sat there in a hole of his own making, he had barely thought of her. What mattered, though he couldn't say why, was what was below him.
With great effort and will, he dug more. When the clouds began to mix his tears with his and filled his hole with water and muck, it only drove him further. He tossed handfuls of water and mud at a time for an equal amount to leak back down in an attempt to bury him. He cried and dug more; he cursed the maliciousness of the gods for sending the rains and weather.
The hole was so deep it was twice the height of the largest stallion. So deep he had no choice but to throw the chunks of mud up and over. Soon enough, he was half-buried himself, churning the mud and loosening it.
The intensity of the power below him had grown so blinding, so powerful he fought to hold back his vomit until he couldn't no more. He vomited as he dug further, vomited until nothing more but bile came out, and then, as even that ran out, he vomited blood. The magic seared his mind's eye, unseen but felt, it fought him even as it called out to him.
"You're not strong enough."
"You're not worthy enough."
It mocked him In its unspoken language, a language of power and spite and greed and everything good and bad.
Its words struck him in a way none had before. For the first time in his life, he lost control of his most basic of emotions. Tears of pain turned to tears of joy, tears of fear, tears of the most vulgar kind.
A primal instinct urged him forward, he felt through mud and blood and vomit. It was there, he knew it was there, but he couldn't find it. Then he knew what he must do. With a cry of pain that had become so common, he focused on the searing power of his mind. It was so painful and so intense he lost control of his mind. He was trapped in the aether realm, the realm of gods and magic. He felt the nips and bites of the beings angry at his intrusion; they wanted to consume him, he realized. They wanted to take his body and destroy his exposed soul. He sensed their intent and warded against it in the ways Tartar had shown him.
It was the struggle of the Titans. It wasn't him resisting, he understood; it was the power of unimaginable beings vying for the rights to his body, an ethereal match of tug of war. Every alarm in his mind rang, he knew he was in danger.
He found the power he had dug so long for and reached for it. With every mental and magical muscle he could muster, he trapped it in a mental cage even as it fought him for every inch of control. He heaved and tugged it to him until he held it in what passed for his hands
The beings that ached to consume his soul and wear his skin screamed as he stole away back to himself, with his hard-fought treasure in hand. Unimaginable clawed hands and mouths that opened to reveal more mouths raked after him unwilling to let their prey escape.
With one final pained-filled heave, he forced himself through the barrier that separated the magic realm and the mortal realm.
His breath was ragged and heavy with his efforts; his mind was cloudy and weary. It took all his effort to remain conscious as he climbed out of the muddy hole. It was quiet, peaceful even, it made him realize just how obsessed he had been to retrieve the item.
"Item?' what was it he had retrieved? It was not physical, whatever it was, he was as naked as the day he had come into the world. Besides that was his suit of mud and blood that caked him head to toe.
He was tired, almost too tired to care. The sun was retreating again, at least a day had passed.
"By now, the funereal procession is over. They will be missing me." He thought. He would have to wash off first, they would question him about his state and he was too unfocused to come up with anything to say.
"The stream." He had passed it with Maral on their way to this location, it would do.
"UGhhhhhaaaa" He could not stop the scream from leaving his lips. Something struck him with force and pain as he stood. It stuck again and again and again, like a barbed whip used on slaves. It shredded his back as he curled into a fetal ball, warm and thick blood poured down his back.
He could not see what was striking him, even as the strikes moved from his back to his legs, to his stomach and arms then finally his chest. His flesh was flayed and laid open for the world, he convulsed from the pain. A streak of light slashed into his stomach and gut him from groin to chest laying his organs out for all to see. Invisible hands reached into his body and piece by piece removed them.
He knew he should not be alive; he had doubts that he even was alive. When all his organs floated above him, before he could believe he was done, the hands came back. They took his bones next, cracking them apart and removing the pieces with a precision that betrayed the miscarrying nature of the attack. Then they took his muscle that lay half ruined beneath the torn flesh, unraveling it like one would unravel a shirt with a loose string.
His brain was next, wrinkly and wet; it was more painful than all the others. The fingers that dug into his mind interrupted his thoughts and replaced them with thoughts of unnatural beings and visions. Things that had happened before or perhaps that were to happen eventually. He could not begin to guess, so much information flowed through him at once.
Then, only a pair of organs remained. He knew they or it or whatever it maybe would take them, but he wanted to fight, but he had no strength. It was like a spoon reached into his face and fed him a great nothingness. With his eyes gone, he had nothing, not even his thoughts were his own anymore.
"I have taken, now I will give"