Obsidian Chapter 4

4

In this devastated post-war world, people do not live to a ripe old age. And so she hoped that death would come for her soon. She began to speak inwardly to her savior again, but not to the divine one. Her pleas were directed in the opposite direction.

"Give me back Janek, or come and get me!" she repeated in a fiery voice, over and over again.

She wandered through the swamps on the dreary days of December, hoping that one day someone would take her. She did not return to the Mountain of Kings, as that place had nothing to offer her. The swamps were the right place for her. She left the house and walked straight into the deep forest. The path she had trodden, along with the forest animals that used to follow Janek, led her to a mysterious lake.

Mariana thought it was completely normal, but local superstitions claim that dangerous will-o'-the-wisps appear on the shores at dusk and fairies appear above the water. Both types of creatures are deadly dangerous because they cast an ominous spell on anyone who accidentally sees them and lure them either to the middle of the lake, where they drown, or to the swamps that are hidden in the undergrowth under moss and leaves.

Mariana has been coming here since childhood and has never seen anything like this, not even out of the corner of her eye, so for her it's just nonsense, made up by scarecrows. Although the truth is that in all weathers and seasons, an unnaturally thick fog rolls across the surface in the morning and evening hours.

The day she walked around the lake was December 24th. The autumn-colored leaves had fallen from the trees a month and a half ago and now formed a rotten carpet on the ground. It is always gloomy in this region, and the sun shines only a few months a year. It rains often, and the forest is very humid. Mariana passed the lake and stirred up the mist above the ground with her footsteps and body, reaching a little beyond the shores. A startled bird of prey flew out of a tree, and an owl hooted in the distance. Twilight is approaching again, she thought. It gets dark after three o'clock. She loses track of time; in fact, she doesn't have any clocks at home, so she estimates the time of day by the light and her internal rhythm. But when it's cloudy from the morning, like today, it's hard to estimate.

Today, she thought, there is a strange twilight all day long, which is perhaps why it lured her into the forest even in such bad weather. Something draws her there. She used to run a small farm, and they lived mainly off what they grew and what their animals provided. Now she has nothing. Instead, she has great wealth at home on the table, which she doesn't know what to do with. She doesn't care, she's tired of life.

"Please, let Janek come back to me, or let me die!" she cried silently from the depths of her soul. "Free me from this torment!"

She had no idea who she was talking to. Or rather, she knew, but as a devout woman until recently, she didn't want to admit it openly.

And when she lifted her eyes from the ground covered with decaying leaves, she found that he had heard her.

It started raining heavily, but Mariana, despite her wet face and dewy eyelids and eyelashes, stared intently at the dark figure right in front of her. It was tall and cloaked in black. She could see only a black outline, nothing more, but judging by the height, she guessed it was a man. He walked through the forest, and no leaf rose under his feet, no twig cracked, as if he were a ghost. Then he stopped, as if he had sensed her furtive gaze, and looked at her. At that moment, the cloak on his body disappeared, and Mariana saw what he really was. It was a creature of inhuman appearance. His body was covered with fur, he stood on animal hind legs, and long horns protruded from his head. His face was goat-like and his eyes were terrifying, yellow.

She was not frightened, she just said to herself, "Finally." She breathed a sigh of relief, almost falling to her knees, and wanted to start kissing Beelzebub's feet for finally giving her his attention. He would rescue her from the hell that was her bleak life. She thought that everything would change now. That he would take her somewhere, take her with him to his dimension. She almost cried with relief.

Samael, in one of his forms widely used on Earth, chose the form of the devil most common in people's imaginations, stood still and just stared at her motionlessly. At first, he looked as if he had been unpleasantly surprised by her appearance, but now it was clear from his gaze that he was here precisely because of her. Suddenly, with a strange movement of his whole body, he conjured up a black ball and held it with his animal limbs so that Mariana could see it clearly. He looked at her again, hunched over, and placed the ball on the ground. He nodded at her with his long beard and grinned. Then he calmly and silently walked away toward the rocks, where the black Mountain of the King could be seen in the distance.

She knew that the forest was a magical place, and if mystical creatures of all kinds hid there, why wouldn't the devil himself linger there? She remembered his nod and knew that the thing he had left on the ground was for her. A gift from hell itself? But it was Christmas Eve. She ran over and stopped a step away from the black thing. As soon as she looked at it, her gaze was caught by its shiny, alluring surface and couldn't tear itself away. She fell to her knees and took the cold ball in both hands, her eyes shining. Suddenly, she was a different person. All her worries disappeared. This was what she needed, this was her salvation! She suddenly felt so light, freed from the burden of sadness.

Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Yes, this was what she had been longing for! Her sadness and grief were drowned in the black stone given to her by the emissary of hell himself.

And so Mariana obtained the enchanted obsidian, and from then on, Izachiel's worries multiplied.