The Reward of The Oolyay by Liam Alden Smith Page A

darkness. It was the voice of that foul Hagayalick who had broken Inlojem’s Temple and trampled over the ways of his home, under the guise of a shared allegiance. This voice belonged to Ilquast.
    The face emerged. The narrow-jawed, young face of a Royal bred blood-lust-addicted fiend challenged the face of Inlojem through the thick tufts of snow that fell around them. Black and gold cloaks abounded as several other Hagayalicks surrounded the travelers and Ilquast himself, with modern projectile weaponry and wrinkled in brows that implied a sense of fatality. The stalking Hagayalick Necrologist moved around them in a pacing circle, sizing up his catch. His dark crimson eyes scanned each of their bodies from head to toe, catching the woman’s frame specifically in his focus.
    “What have you done to her people, Ilquast?” Inlojem asked.
    “I’ve sacrificed them, that much should be apparent. We’ll do much the same to the four of you. One at a time, in procession, in order to show Ihio our love for him. There was mention, from those that were sacrificed down there, that there is even a portal to the Nothingness below this site…perhaps we can step into the Nothingness as well.” Ilquast explained.
    Iquay spat at him and pulled her knife out, about to engage Ilquast, before Inlojem wrapped his burley arms around her, hearing the clicking of guns like excited Iju snakes behind him.
    “It’s not worth it now!” Inlojem soothed her.
    “That portal is our portal!”  she screamed. “Why would you sacrifice those who are unwilling?! That is execution, not sacrifice!”
    “Execution of heretics !” Ilquast replied. “Besides, there is nothing that you can do now except watch. I have a very special sacrifice to show you, Inlojem.”
    The other three travelers looked at Inlojem with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity in their eyes, as the guns of their captors prodded them up the rest of the path. As Iquay drew closer she recognized the eyes of many of her people, drooped, dead and widened, looking up to the sky. Inlojem sympathized with her, remembering the destruction that had befallen him and so many villages around him as the wars and conflicts between the Oolyay, the Uyor and the Hagayal ravaged the North. He always wondered why the Hagayalicks were so obsessed with putting people on pikes, so obsessed with forms of sadism and execution.
    They moved through Terminus' gargantuan pyrix gate, an ominous Vesh-made arch with green burning torches on either side standing out of the unpolished pyrix cliffs on either side. Hung from the gate were clusters of skulls from those who had approached Terminus before the Hagayalicks had ever arrived. They were a warning for the faithless who dared to try overthrowing Terminus. Inlojem was, in this moment, impressed and angry with Ilquast for performing such a feat.
    “How did you do it?” Inlojem asked Ilquast as they passed through the archway. “How did you take Terminus?”
    “Air transports,” Ilquast replied.
    “Air... the Hagayalicks don’t just have a hidden supply of air transports,” Teftek spat back.
    “We killed your soldiers and took them from Qol while our masters invaded from the skies,” Ilquast replied. Teftek stared at him like a rabid Kyrun, madness taking over his eyes. Our masters, Teftek thought on the words that had come out of Ilquast- he actually believes those aliens are sent from The Void.
    The pyrix cliff sides dissipated and the flat, carved ground of the pantheon arose, giving way to the grand city of Terminus; it was a symmetrical masterpiece that tore out of the jagged points of mountains around them. One huge Ulgayir jutted up in the middle of the city - a colossal ziggurat hewn from the pyrix itself. Flat stone and teeming gems were abundant and of the sort that Inlojem had never even seen. Hordes of Hagayalicks, dressed in robes and jeweled cloaks, were gathered in the middle of the city as Oolyayn Vesh dressed in tattered rags