“It’s a Temple statute, you know.”
“Of course it is.”
“Elves eat people, Valen.”
“That’s a children’s story and you know it.”
“It’s in the Temple histories.”
Valen grit his teeth.. “Thank you, Galian. Don’t you have a post to get to?”
Galian tapped the holy symbol at his throat by way of salute, and headed to his place against the wall. Valen shook his head and headed towards the altar. The morning prayer-dance was underway, the gold-clad priestesses moving through its steps with as much serenity as a Herald.
He noticed the High Priestess sitting on a chair placed below the dais. He moved to her side and waited.
She nodded at him when she noticed him, but remained silent with her eyes fixed on the ceremony. With no reason to shorten the dance, the ritual dragged on and on, testing Valen’s patience.
He started running through the Paladin mantras. The one about obeying Temple dictates was unhelpful.
“What do you have to report, Paladin?” the High Priestess said as the priestesses streamed off the dais.
“I found what’s been making the patterns.”
“Found?”
“They ran.” He might as well spit it out. “They’re human. With weapons and armor that…seem demonic, smoking and unnatural.”
She fixed him with a sharp look. “What?”
“Four of them,” he continued, “I took Galian out on his day off and we fought them off, killing one. His armor evaporated and he was human. His body rotted away to dry bone in moments.”
She turned to stare at the dais. He waited. “That isn’t possible.”
“It is what happened.”
“I know. There is no drama or delusion in you.” She gave him a small smile. “Lyrica’s favorite, they say, to the envy of many. Help me up. I am not feeling well today.”
He helped her lever her way out of the chair. She didn’t steer him to the back of the shrine, this time, but around the edges. She moved very slowly and he bore most her weight.
They’d made it halfway around the shrine before she spoke again. “What you tell me is something out of a ballad composed by starving drunk bard, Paladin.”
“So is the war, High Priestess.”
She frowned grimly. “That is true. The Tribunal holds back darkness from our world, you know, but I feel as though…as though that hold is growing weak. Not merely feel it in the course of events, but in the weariness of my bones.”
“I’ve met demons before, and godshards, but I’ve never heard of...this. Not as anything real.”
“You’ve heard of demon cults. I know you studied them as an initiate unless you skipped lessons, which you did not.”
He thought back. There had been legends, not the sort of thing formally included in an initiate's lessons, and some discussion on the strange cold spirits the northern and southern peoples appeased with offerings. There’d been something else, too, now he thought on it, a short note about shadowy practices. “You mean the sort of thing done in thieves’ dens and brothels? Spells and hedge-witches, rituals in the dark of the night.” He believed there was some truth to it, but they were the practices of people in dire straits, a kind of comfort, if a heretical one.
“They’re about. When I was younger, there was an effort to stamp them out in the poorer quarters of the city. I helped purge some of their altars myself. One was beneath a brothel. It had been built of tiny skulls and grew larger every time it was used.” Her voice was hard and he knew she was reprimanding him for his thoughts. “Just because men are poor and desperate does not mean they cannot do terrible things, just as rich men do not always do good things. No end justified that altar. Or the others."
Valen swallowed. The image, the idea was terrible. He wondered, for a moment, if any real siblings of his had died that way, in some poor quarter full of unwanted children. “Were they stamped out?”
“No. We quieted them. It’s not like the Temple. There were just scattered small groups. They had a unified purpose, that was clear-- searching for something. I didn’t think it was demons like this, but here we are.”
“Anyone who worships a demon would just be looking to cause chaos and pain. Weapons would make sense, especially with the war.”
“Hmm. Yes.” She winced. “Too many mysteries these days. I wish Lyrica would illuminate answers.”
Too many mysteries...Valen stopped, not really thinking, drawing her short and getting a brutal glare. “High Priestess, have you ever heard the word Immor?”
Her brow furrowed. “It’s Elvish.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard it from godshards just before I came back.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that demons had spared his life twice now. It was too much, causing a sick and sour feeling that twisted his stomach. “Several times.”
Her face softened. “Godshards are mad, Paladin. You know that better than perhaps anyone.”
She wouldn’t help him. No one would, whatever this was. All he could do was try to stop those cursed warriors from getting at the heartstones and wait for whatever doom he would bring to come down. He would try to fight it. Perhaps it wasn’t inevitable. “Of course, High Priestess. But I did learn from the dying man that they want to break into the Reliquary.”
“Hmm. Yes. Those who deal with demons would no doubt like to summon more of their kind. You have my permission to make use of the Keepers to secure it. I will put it in writing momentarily.” He felt like she was tossing him a bone, attempting to give him something to do to keep him sane. “Stay with us, Paladin. I know you’ve ridden far and brought down many dark powers. I fear darker things are yet ahead and I will need your sword.”
“Whatever you need, High Priestess. It is my honor to serve the goddess and her holy ones.”
She had him guide her to her chair at the dais. “Those willowy ones will be here soon enough to rehearse the Midday Dance. I fear I can no longer run it, and it must happen, you know. It is times like this when we most need Lyrica to know we hold to her mandates. I will have a scribe brought to me and have the Keepers place under your authority starting this evening.” She settled into the chair’s cushions with a sigh.
“When will you evacuate the Temple, if it comes to that?” The question tore its way out of his throat before he could control it.
“When it comes to it. Go get some rest, Paladin. Find some comfort before the storm comes.”
He bowed his head deeply, stepping back to keep his grimace hidden. He left the shrine, left the Temple, left the city gate, needing to move. He couldn’t ride out, not with everything happening here, just take a horse and follow the Road in some direction, but he wanted to so desperately it ached.
Instead, he tagged onto an Orishalite food wagon. Some of the white-robed clerics cast him dark looks as he joined their group, but the ranking woman just nodded in acknowledgement. Orishal’s followers weren’t fond of Lyrica’s as a general rule. The dictates of the protector of mankind could clash with Orishal’s mandate of healing and charity, and Lyricans had been known to use force to get their way.
The Orishalites stopped at campsites and distributed food to fairly orderly lines of people—orderly only because of the sight of Valen’s blue cloak, no doubt. Valen kept an eye out for trouble, but also assisted in handing out hardtack and dried meat. He wanted to feel useful, to make an impact, even if it was small.
He could not get High Priestess Sola to evacuate the Temple. He could not stop the mysteriously vanishing and reappearing, but always encroaching, army of Lord Beriskar. He couldn’t even truly understand, only dread, everything that went with being Immor.
Immor. Doomwalker. It would have been whispers of mad gods if it weren’t for the way anything demon-touched had spared his life.
He split off from the food wagon at some point late in the day to help a burly man erect a small shabby tent for his family, giving it, him, his wife, and six children a brief blessing that he h
oped desperately was worth something.
That was how Maryx found him.
He finished his blessing, hand extended, and then turned to her, nodding to acknowledge the family’s thanks.
She glanced at them, then said, “There are rats running everywhere in the city. It just started this afternoon, a flood of them across the streets. Running panicked.”
Valen frowned. “Can demon magic do that?”
The elf shrugged. “I imagine they’d have to get inside the…” She blanched, which was a strange sight on someone already inhumanly pale. “Damn.”
“What?”
“Come on.” She hurried back towards the city, with Valen hot on her heels. “There is more than one way inside Crownshold.”
“Right, that’s how you’ve been here before.”
“It’s underground. Not through the sewers, but close.”
They slipped through traffic and side alleys. Maryx skidded to a halt in a shallow, shaded dead end. She crouched and lifted up a large cobblestone. He recognized it as one of the access hatches to the sewers, though there was no hint of the usual stench.
A rush of animal instinct made Valen lurch back from the opening.
“The tunnel only leads here,” she said, “Near as I know.”
“So they could be in the city. I need to get to the Temple.”
“To where you keep the Heartstones.”
“The Reliquary.” The name prompted a raised eyebrow from her. “Are you good to keep watch here?”
“Yes. If they haven’t already come through, I’ll do what I can to stop them.” She sat on the access hatch’s edge, preparing to push herself down. “Quickly, Paladin Longshanks. Three on one is a problem even when they’re not wearing demon armor.”
He nodded, touching his holy symbol in typical Lyrican salute, and sprinted through the streets. Some people moved for him, others cursed as he dodged around, but Valen had grown up running through Crownshold. The crowd was an easy obstacle.
He rushed into the Temple, making the guards jump, and into the Lyrican complex. The courtyard was bustling with some combat class for initiates, but he pushed through the chalk circles of arenas without hesitating, only stopping when he slammed his hand into the Reliquary’s star on the wall.
A Keeper popped his head out a moment later, as annoyed as last time. “Paladin Valen,” he said, spotting him, “We received the High Priestess’ command. This is most unusual, and while I will obey the orders of Temple—“
Valen shoved past him and into the tunnel. “Someone is trying to break into the Reliquary.”
He was expecting disbelief but the Keeper’s eyes widened and he shut the hatch above. “I will call my brothers. Someone needs to watch the door even if the tunnels are breached.”
Relief unknotted something in Valen’s chest. The Keeper believed him. “You’re all armed?”
The Keeper pulled a cord of some kind, connected to a pulley system like the star he’d touched for access was. “Of course, Paladin. We know what we guard. My brothers will be here in a moment.”
“They’re…carrying magic weapons. And armor.”
The keeper nodded grimly. “They would be. Anything that comes here wouldn’t be normal.”
✽✽✽
“The tunnels extend out this way without any heartstone vessels,” the lead Keeper said, extending a torch into the wide dark chamber, “We’ve petitioned for a gate but the expense is always deemed too great for the benefit.” He huffed. “Besides, the Reliquary isn’t even technically on Temple ground.”
Valen lightly placed his foot on the broad stone stair that jutted out of the ground, acting as a threshold. “You’re certain that these pressure plates would alert you to a breach?”
“I have lived in these tunnels since before I needed to shave, Paladin. This is the only entrance besides the one in the courtyard. The Keepers know we can’t afford to forget our secrets.”
“I wish everyone else thought like that,” the Paladin muttered. And here he had always thought the Keepers to be vaguely insane, but recent events had certainly changed that. He peered out into the blank darkness. He may have caught a whiff of sewer stench, but that might have also be his imagination. The moment he leaned outside the threshold, the desire to run overtook him. He stepped back. “Did any rats flee into here?”
The Keeper’s eyes crinkled in a grin above his mask. “Rat’s a delicacy. Even mad with fear, they wouldn’t come here.”
Well, maybe the Keepers were still mostly lunatics, but he probably wasn’t in a position to judge. “I can’t stand guard here.” Maryx might be bleeding out or dead even now if the demon-touched had reached her.
“That’s wise, Paladin. The vessels were created by High Priests’ blood painted in the shape of Tribunal sigils. We’ve never tried to crack one, and the wards never tremble, but supposedly a very blessed cleric’s blood, shed by violence, is what it takes to break one. By all accounts, you’re a very blessed cleric.”
“I’ll let you know when it starts to feel that way.” He took the torch and steeled himself to step outside the threshold. “I’ll try to find them before they ever come near the Reliquary.”
Scuffling footsteps from behind made him turn, drawing his sword in the same motion.
“By Lyrica’s sandals, Valen!” Galian said, stumbling forward, trailing one of the other keepers behind him, “Why did you run all the way down here?”
Valen lowered his guard. “The demon warriors are somewhere in the tunnels under the city.”
“People always said there was a secret entrance…is that why there’s rats everywhere?”
“Yes.”
“They’re trying to get the heartstones. Right.” Galian put a hand on his sword. He was wearing particularly elegant finery today and looked ridiculous in the dark cramped tunnel, lit from behind by the other Keeper’s guttering torch and the blue glow of the heartstone vessels. “Whatever you need, Valen.”
“Aren’t you on duty?”
“I’m still guarding the Temple if I’m guarding it down here.”
Valen smiled in spite of himself. “We’re not even really on Temple grounds.”
“There’s Temple access, and sure as the Tribunal’s robes, there’s Temple interests.”
“I don’t think it’s an issue,” the lead Keeper said, looking Galian up and down, “An ordinary Paladin’s blood couldn’t break the wards on the vessels. Another sword is appreciated.” He hefted his own from where it leaned against the wall, a heavy and archaic thing. “Stay behind me, Paladin, if it comes to it. Do you have the map?” he asked Valen.
Valen lifted his wrist, where a piece of parchment dangled from a bit of yarn. “It should be easy enough. It doesn’t seem like it has too many turns.” Though worth noting was that there was no sign of tunnels extending outside the walls on the map.
“Remember the map is old but not that old. Your goddess’ grace and your own instincts will serve you better.” He grunted. “And watch out for that giant naked mole rat. No one else believes me, but it nearly ate me when I went a-wandering as an initiate.”
Valen touched his brooch and set foot into the darkness.
✽✽✽
The torch had died somewhere after the third turn, but it mattered less and less as Valen walked on. Light nearly flooded these tunnels, barely there at first, but eventually it was as bright as the inside of Lyrica’s shrine. Near as he could tell, it came from shafts cut up into the ceiling, which was probably why the tunnel air felt fairly fresh as well.
Maybe it was some kind of divine blessing, though. Crownshold was full of ancient surprises. The gods had raised it themselves on the ice-riven ruins of the elven world, after all, forging its foundations and walls from the stones of their own hall.
Every muscle in his body wanted to turn and run. It was a gibbering, instinctual sensation, as if he were walking into the den of dangerous predator. Constant repetition of prayers kept him going. He wondered how Maryx ha
d managed to seem unaffected earlier.
There was occasional a dim sewage scent, but only near certain small holes that might fit a rat but not anything larger. He saw no living thing and walked in silence, just the sound of his boots on the rocky floor.
He reached the tunnel he was looking for and was not surprised to see it extended out past where the map ended. The extension looked newer and smaller, not a feat of old and grand divine engineering but smuggler’s work done by shovel and willpower.
“Nothing,” Maryx said, dropping catlike down from one of the light shafts. Valen jumped, hand going to his sword. “But not for long, I think.”
He settled himself and hoped she didn’t notice. “The Reliquary is alert and safe, so far.” He eyed her, surprised by her the way she stood so calmly. “How are you doing with the spell?”
“The thing that made the rats run? It’s annoying.” She cocked her head at him. “It’s getting to you?” She tapped her sword’s hilt. “My grandfather swore by this blade for reasons he said I might never know. I suppose this would be one. Or it isn’t meant to target elves.”
“Either way,” he said, unsheathing his own sword, “Don’t let me run.”
“What am I supposed to do, hamstring you?” She drew her own weapon. The elegant curve of it glinted bright silver in the light. “Flush them out?”
He looked down the smuggler’s tunnel. It took a turn not too far down. His desire to run intensified as he thought about going that way. “Yes. Let’s go.” He forced himself forward, Maryx behind him, both gratingly and reassuringly calm.
They took the turn and Valen’s body rebelled against him. He froze, desperately wanting to flee, willing himself to push on. He could see a series of interconnected lines on the tunnel wall. They twisted, repetitive patterns arranged in a nauseous swirl, emanating black smoke and blunt animal fear.
Valen halted in his steps. He wanted to run, but he needed to keep going. Something had made this, something terrible, ugly, something that would kill him slowly, tear his guts loose and consume them before his eyes, tear down all he loved, cast his soul beyond the Tribunal Court to be devoured by the things wandering outside the world...
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