Mind Throne

The Junior Cleric shuffled over the dusty runner covering the bridge-way spanning the blackness to the Mind Throne. Head Rector Mautorum was in Holy Commune. He would not want to be disturbed.

The thick cables leading away from the Throne crackled with the incredible flow of power, and occasionally jumped like dreaming eels. One jumped now, just at the bottom of the steps before the Throne, and the peak of a single wave ran down the length of the cable, past the Cleric, and disappeared in the dark to die alone. The Cleric swallowed glumly and peered over the bridge-way’s edge. He brought his eyes level, and then craned his head up. Nothingness all around, a void, heavy and pure. A black hole, not from within, but lacerated and wrapped around them like the hide of some great dead beast. But this beast still lived, and they hid between its massive jaws. The Cleric swallowed again.

He returned his attention to Mautorum, but the Rector had not moved. He was rapt in the agony of Commune. He sat hunched on the Throne, forearms leaning on knees, with his head down and face—mercifully—obscured beneath his drab hood. Runes from the Interspace Cryptoscripts covered and surrounded the Throne on hexagonal tiles, and behind them the cables converged in a writhing mass. The smallest cables, distilled down to a power that would not be immediately fatal if one were ordained, hung down from within Mautorum’s hood. Their quantum god fed its will directly into the Rector’s mind. The Cleric had let himself become overcome by awe, and now remembered the reason he was here. He approached the Mind Throne and prostrated himself.

“Begging your immeasurable forgiveness, Head Rector Mautorum. Your presence is urgently needed in real-time.” The cables continued their crackling. The Cleric realized he’d been holding his breath and let it out. “Head Rector—”

“I know.” Mautorum’s voice was like distant thunder. “Your purpose has been served.”

There was a vibration, a quaking that came not from the cables. The Cleric looked up and saw the bridge-way between himself and the Mind Throne was crumbling away, falling into infinite abyss. He stood and turned to run in horror, but the bridge-way crumbled likewise from the direction which he came. Bit by bit, it dissolved into the maw of a spacetime rent, until he stood one-footed on a tiny pedestal in the black. He had but only a moment to see the Rector on the Mind Throne, still in Commune with their ancient, bottled god, and then he fell into the endless void.

Notes: I used an image as a writing prompt for this piece. You may be able to find the image on the artist’s ArtStation page. Image by Mathieu Lamble, used with permission.