The white torches dimmed behind Phaser as he stepped forward, their light drawn toward the deeper pulse that now led to the heart of the temple. He walked down a narrowing passage. The corridor opened into a circular hall.
The chamber was massive. A perfect dome rose into the unseen. It was so high that the top vanished into shadow. In the center of it floated seven tablets, each one orbiting slowly in a perfect circle like planets around an invisible sun. They were made of black stone and though no words were inscribed, the hum of Xana resonated from each. Phaser could feel seven frequencies.
His eyes lifted to the middle of the chamber.
A woman's statue was suspended just above the ground. Her body was clothed in flowing stone garments, yet they rippled as though caught in a wind that didn't exist. An obsidian sword was driven clean through her chest that pulsed with faint white veins of light. Her hair, carved of marble, drifted weightlessly behind her, and her face seemed to breathe between death and sleep.
Glowing words appeared all around him, drifting in a spiral through the air. They glimmered like constellations rearranging themselves, and his system translated them.
[Here lies the First High Priestess of the Hidden God, Enheduanna.
Only one chosen by Chronos' own hand
May awaken her from this stonebound span,
By blood, by pain, by mortal brand.]
The words dissolved into light.
Phaser's eyes narrowed as he turned to the seven floating tablets. Each tablet hummed with the power of a Flux God. He muttered under his breath, half-smiling despite the unease crawling up his spine.
"Well, I'm a God-touched Fluxer of the Goddess of Nature. What could possibly go wrong?"
With reckless curiosity, he stepped toward the woman. His boots echoed once on the smooth onyx floor. The moment he reached her, the air thickened. The sword was beautiful. It was a weapon not meant for mortals.
He reached for it.
His hand trembled. The second his fingers closed around the hilt, he felt the weight of centuries press against him.
"Alright. Let's see what history wants."
He pulled. The blade slid free with a sound like shattering glass.
Pain ripped through him. His veins lit with burning sensations as his Flux rebelled, twisting and lashing under his skin. He couldn't let go. His hand had fused with the hilt. He dropped to one knee. His body arched as his Concept Flux surged on its own, the crystalline throned tendrils spiraling up his arms. They pierced into his skin, anchoring him in place as if his own body refused to release the sword.
His throat tore open with a soundless scream. The pain wasn't like being cut. It was like being erased and rewritten at the same time. Every nerve and cell was being flooded with the sword's energy. His Flux pulsed violently. His muscles convulsed. His vision fractured into colors he'd never seen before.
The vines reached his shoulders, splitting his flesh and replacing it with crystalline tendrils that glowed with pale blue light. He could feel them burrowing into his ribs and crawling toward his spine. Blood spilled from his nose and mouth.
He wanted to let go. Every instinct screamed at him to drop the blade but his body was no longer his own. The vines coiled tighter, whispering a single command in the core of his mind:
"Finish it."
His body obeyed.
Phaser gritted his teeth, shaking violently as his arm moved against his will. The sword trembled. The veins along its blade pulsed until he realized what it wanted him to do. The vines tightened around his chest, pressing the tip of the sword toward him.
"No…"
With one convulsive motion, he drove the blade into his chest.
He felt his heartbeat stop and then restart in reverse. His vision dimmed as cracks of light spread across his skin like broken porcelain. He tried to gasp, but the air burned him. The sword's energy rushed into his heart, rewriting him. His knees buckled but the crystal vines around his legs surged, locking him upright, forcing him to stand in torment.
Every inch of him was dissolving into light. His nerves burned like molten lava. He could feel the sword fusing into his very bones. His Concept Flux tried to heal him but it couldn't. The damage was conceptual.
He raised his eyes and saw the statue's lips move. For the briefest instant, Enheduanna's eyes opened and the entire temple quaked.
Phaser's mouth parted in a gasp that never came.
The world folded into silence.
------
The seven tablets floated around the still statue, each resonating to the pulse of something newly awakened.
Cracks began to trace their way along the petrified body of the woman. They spread until the stone shell shattered into dust.
From within the ruin of stillness emerged Enheduanna, The First High Priestess of the Hidden God.
She drew her first breath in millennia, her lungs filling with air that no longer remembered her name. Her bare feet touched the ground softly. Her yellow irises with black sclera looked upon the man who had freed her, a man who now lay lifeless at her feet.
Phaser's body was limp, his hands still locked in rigor around the sword that had once been buried in her chest. The floor beneath him shimmered with the last remnants of his Concept Flux, now dissolving into fine, glass-like dust.
Enheduanna's gaze softened.
"So it is you. The one He spoke of."
Her eyes drifted toward the seven floating tablets. They shimmered faintly, rearranging their orbits as though greeting her return. She raised a hand into them.
"Hidden One, my god beyond the veils, is this the moment you spoke of? When the circle would close and the one bearing your mark would come? You told me I would serve again. You told me I would know him."
One of the tablets detached from the circle, descending toward her hand. The stone cracked open with a flare of white light, revealing words that weren't carved, as though whispered by the Hidden God Himself. It was a message from the Hidden God to her.
Her lips parted in reverence.
"So… the time has come."
She turned her gaze back to the fallen man. His body was broken but beneath the death that had claimed him was something divine. She knelt beside him, brushing away the shards of crystal that clung to his chest. Her fingers trailed along his jaw. A faint smile touched her lips.
"You fought it. You followed the pain instead of fleeing it. Only one who understands sacrifice could have endured the sword."
She tilted his chin upward and pressed her lips against his. The kiss was a covenant in motion. The instant their lips met, light surged.
The vines vanished in a single pulse, leaving trails of shimmering air. His wounds began to seal themselves with faint traces of black and blue crystal patterns. His heart stuttered, then roared back to life with a sound that shook the hall.
Enheduanna drew back, her eyes glowing faintly.
"There. The pact has been made."
She reached toward the sword that had pierced her heart long ago. It floated into her grasp, its surface etched with shifting sigils. Blood stained its edge. It was the blood of the man who had died freeing her. She exhaled softly upon the blade.
Her breath wrapped around the sword, cleansing it. The blood evaporated, replaced by faint void mist along the metal. She turned the weapon slightly, smiling faintly as she saw her reflection in its sheen.
"Hello again, old friend. You've tasted gods and mortals alike and yet, here you are, returning to serve me once more."
She looked down at the tablet still resting in her palm. Its inscriptions shimmered once more then liquefied into pure darkness. The stone melted into a sphere of shadow. She lifted it above Phaser's chest.
"This is my covenant to the one chosen by the God of Chronology. If this is His will, then I shall bind myself to you."
She pressed the sphere into his chest.
The black light seeped into the wound, spreading beneath his skin. His body convulsed. His eyes flickered open for the briefest moment before they closed.
The floor trembled.
The other six tablets aligned, forming a perfect ring in the air. Their light cascaded into the center where he lay, and Enheduanna raised the sword high above her head.
"By the covenant of the Hidden God, I bind my existence to His chosen. Let my essence be his, and his soul the vessel through which the unseen shall act."
The air split open behind her, revealing for an instant a vast silhouette. Her eyes met a being veiled in endless shadow.
The Hidden God had heard and He approved.
"The Archeon of Bondage has been awakened inside him."
Enheduanna turned back toward the man. She knelt beside him once more, brushing a strand of blue hair from her face.
"You do not know what you've inherited, do you? You have taken my curse and my freedom."
She laid the sword beside him, its point resting gently on the stone floor. hen, looking toward the heavens that weren't visible from that buried chamber, she spoke one final prayer.
"If it is Your will, my Hidden God, I shall serve this mortal flame. Through his breath, Your silence stirs, and I am born again in Your name."
As she finished, light enveloped both of them, the chamber fading into a tranquil twilight glow. The six tablets ascended, sealing themselves within the firmament of the hall.