Jagat-Ban’s shriek echoed, raw and visceral, a sound that tore through the rising clamor on the bridge. He clawed at his split belly, the crimson fissure widening with each frantic movement, revealing the rippling, avian bulk beneath. The air itself seemed to thicken, heavy with the stench of salt, bile, and something else – something primeval and hungry. Jagat-Ban coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and then, impossibly, rose to his feet. His gait was a grotesque shuffle, his knees buckling, but a manic strength pulsed through him, fueled by agony and the nascent life tearing him apart. “Father!” he gargled, his voice a broken thing, but laced with a new, terrifying authority. Olor-Ban, pale and trembling at the edge of the bridge, had been frozen by his son’s transformation. Now, Jagat-Ban lunged, an avian-limbed grapple, not with a blade, but with the full, writhing force of his body. He slammed into Olor-Ban, knocking the smaller man off balance. The elder let out a choked cry as Jagat-Ban’s taloned fingers – or what used to be fingers – dug into his robes, dragging him. There was no finesse, only brute, cursed momentum. Jagat-Ban didn’t lead his father; he *pulled* him, a sack of grain, across the swaying planks. Mokhwa watched, impassive, as Olor-Ban stumbled and tripped, his pleas swallowed by the wind and the cacophony from the deeper levels of Ghol-Doro. Jagat-Ban’s eyes, usually clouded with entitlement, were now wide and wild, fixed on Mokhwa with a feverish intensity that demanded action. “The… the altar!” he gasped, a spasm racking his frame. “The Great Altar of Ghal-Tar! Now! Do it! The… the transfer!” He dragged Olor-Ban down the main arterial walkway, past the now-deserted merchant stalls, the acid-scarred prayer banners flapping like tattered wings. Panic had stripped the upper tiers bare, the remaining elite huddling in their fortified homes, their wails of terror a constant, mournful hum beneath the groaning of the storm. The Great Altar of Ghal-Tar stood at the nexus of the highest bridges, a massive, circular platform of warped, blackwood planks, ringed by carved effigies of monstrous swamp creatures. It was where the Ban-Heir bloodline had offered sacrifices to the delta’s beasts for generations, their ancestors’ names carved into the decaying supports, now half-submerged in the rising, foul-smelling mist. Olor-Ban fought, flailing with panicked, futile kicks. “Jagat! My son! What madness is this? Release me! She tricks you! She means to kill us both!” But Jagat-Ban merely tightened his grip, his ruined hands surprisingly strong, his body shuddering with an internal tremor that threatened to tear him apart at any moment. He heaved Olor-Ban onto the altar’s rotting platform, sending him sprawling amidst the dried bloodstains and ceremonial bones. His gaze never left Mokhwa, a silent, agonizing plea for relief. “Help me,” he whispered, the words ragged, “Please… take it… take it from me!” Mokhwa stepped onto the altar, her mud-stained tunic a stark contrast to the elder’s silken robes. The air here was colder, heavier, charged with the morbid history of the place. She knelt beside Olor-Ban, who glared up at her, trapped. “You think you can trick the spirits, old man?” she said, her voice a low murmur, audible only to him. “Your ancestors built this place not for transfer, but for payment.” “Bind him,” Mokhwa commanded Jagat-Ban, her voice clear and calm, cutting through his delirium. “To the stakes of supplication. The spirit demands it, for the ritual to begin.” Jagat-Ban, surprisingly, obeyed. His movements were clumsy, painful, but driven by a primal need to be rid of the agonizing burden. He fumbled with the thick, hempen ropes that hung from the altar’s four corner posts, designed to secure offerings for the deep-dwellers. With a guttural grunt, he bound Olor-Ban’s wrists and ankles to the lichen-crusted, blackened stakes. The elder squirmed, spat curses, but Jagat-Ban’s grip was unyielding. The ropes cut into Olor-Ban’s flesh, drawing thin lines of blood. He strained, but the bindings held fast. “This is an insult!” Olor-Ban shrieked, his face contorted in rage and fear. “You dare treat me, Olor-Ban, as a common offering? I will have you both flayed, when this passes! My guards—” Mokhwa leaned in close, her face inches from his, her eyes unblinking. The stench of his fear was sharp. “Your guards are gone, old man. Eaten. Your brother, devoured. Your hunters, hollowed. All by the brood you invited into this world. And your son… your son, whose agony you ignore, has brought you here to be consumed.” Olor-Ban’s struggles ceased. He went rigid, staring at Mokhwa, searching for a lie, for any flicker of compassion. He found none. Only a chilling, resolute calm. His gaze flickered to Jagat-Ban, who was slumped against a stake, gasping, his abdomen still a gaping wound, the dark feathers within twitching restlessly. “There is no transfer, Olor-Ban,” Mokhwa continued, her voice devoid of emotion, like the river current that eroded everything in its path. “Only a feeding. Your consumption of the Nang-Tuk’s marrow, your greed, it made you the perfect vessel. A rich, spoiled feast for the mother-spirit. Your bloodline is merely the delivery system.” A choked, rasping sound escaped Olor-Ban, a strangled realization that ripped through his last shred of composure. His face went ashen, then mottled with purpling fear. He finally understood. His own son, his heir, had dragged him to this place, to this gruesome end. “You… you monstrous child! You planned this! You betrayed us all!” he screamed, his voice raw and ragged, pleading with the indifferent fog. Mokhwa simply stood, her silhouette stark against the swirling mist. Jagat-Ban coughed, a wet gurgle, and slumped further. His energy was spent, his purpose fulfilled. He was merely a husk now, awaiting the next stage of his transformation. From the roiling, caustic fog that had swallowed the lower reaches of Ghol-Doro, a shadow detached itself. It was vast, an archaic titan stitched together from decay and vengeance. The platform of the Great Altar groaned under the spectral weight, the very wood seeming to wither and blacken under its presence. The air grew frigid, the stench of stagnant mire and death suddenly overwhelming. Two points of ethereal light, like distant, malevolent stars, pierced the gloom, eyes that had witnessed eons of the delta’s slow, agonizing digestion. And then, slowly, inexorably, a massive, skeletal beak, barnacled with fossilized river silt, lowered itself, resting with an expectant, silent *thud* on the very edge of the Great Altar, inches from Olor-Ban’s horrified face.

The Altar of Rot