The Regent had realized that he could sense whether something was ancient.
Ever since that first contact with the Void, with the endless, bottomless creature that filled up space with nothingness... Ever since he felt his life and a thousand others rush through his veins and his marrow in a crack of agony and ecstasy, Camdis knew what timelessness felt like.
It was a weight to ones bones, as if they were being dragged through the earth itself. It was a heaviness to the lungs, as if the all encompassing existence of another was too much, was pressing the air from the world. It was a thrumming pressure in the base of his skull, a ringing in his ears, a film over his tongue; it was what he felt in the presence of Caligo’s Shade and it was what he felt as he lay across the back of her ebony servant.
Bile rose in his throat as the serpent ignored his pleas, replying in a dialect of the common tongue that hadn’t been used in an era. He had to escape the clutches of this creature, this ancient wraith dressed in the skins of mortal equine, but he was too weak - goddess be damned, how could he do Her bidding if she left him as a pile of bones jumbled inside a bag of skin? He felt a scream work it’s way into his throat, though it did not escape his lips. Indeed, there was some small sense of self preservation that clamped his mouth shut, that stopped the leaking of information that would surely label him as a madman.
Camdis could not seem weak in front of Caligo’s henchman, and it was that realization that he latched onto through the malnourished, fever-addled mess that was his mind.
If she thought him too weak, she would find another to carry out her plot - whatever it was - and she would dispose of him, this Coward King, this False Regent.
A shudder passed through his thin frame, though this time, it was more from fear than failing Health. Then, a bark and the voice of an angel - if angels could be bawdy and callous and drunk - rang down the passageway, fear lacing the words as Damaris growled. Camdis clenched his jaw as he worked to focus upon the blurred form of Rostislav, that horned head of his stretching toward Camdis’ frigid skin in a show of comfort.
“Rosti...” Came the Regent’s pathetically weak reply, “Fetch Reichenbach, fetch the Crows. I need..” He swallowed thickly; what did he need? His thoughts were interrupted by the slippery words of the wraith, imploring Rostislav to move, hollow and scornful and oh so horribly ancient. Clenching his teeth once more Camdis allowed his fear of the unknown and of this harbinger to override his judgement as he whispered “Stay... the world is not... it is not as it seems.”
And with the last bit of strength that he had slipping from him, Camdis let his crowned head droop against the wraith’s side.
@Rostislav @Ammon hi have a crappy phone post!!
