He doubted she would, but the possibility was still there, however remote. He wouldn’t refuse her if she asked for his sexual loyalty once they were married. Love was funny like that, and in the same way that it compelled some men to sneak around behind the backs of those they were committed to, Damon knew on an innate level that it would give him the strength to be true to Ria, if that was what she felt she needed.
With that said, he hoped that giving her his commitment didn’t require him to pull back like that, especially from Malon and Vel. He wanted to marry Ria, if only so their love could be recognized and respected by her people. There was a logic to it that went beyond what lay within their hearts.
He hardly noticed the looks he received from the various Remenai people unused to having a Merinian in their midst as he made his way toward the edge of the city. The way in which the flowers and trails running between them slowly opened up into dirt and yellowing grass gave Damon a much better sense of how much work went into maintaining Yvvestrosai’s beauty.
Ria’s directions to reach the Glittering Spire had basically amounted to head east out of the city, and then look up. He wasn’t expecting it to be a long or challenging journey compared to his recent adventures, and perhaps that was why he let his guard down.
As Damon made his way up the rolling hill flanking Yvvestrosai to the east, he got the distinct sense that someone was following him. He continued for a while longer, reaching the top of the slope and using the moment as an excuse to peer back across the City of Flowers, a collage of color and beauty tucked away amidst the forest.
A flicker of movement from a nearby tree flipped the atmosphere toward something more tense and concerning. Damon didn’t draw his myrblade or give any immediate outward indication of what he’d seen, but he did start walking in a direction that would let him intercept whoever was following him.
There was another rustle in the leaves, and he saw no reason not to seize the moment. In a burst of motion, he drew his myrblade and attacked. Metal clattered off metal as another sword deflected. Damon sighed and took a step back, feeling as though he should have expected his pursuer.
“Austine,” he said. “What a predictable surprise.”
“Damon.” Austine stepped forward with a smile and a bow. “Do you want your mask back? It worked as I’d hoped in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t, and you can keep it.”
He made to keep walking, and as expected, Austine followed him.
“You’re shameless,” muttered Damon.
“Hey, I was a respectful gentleman! My delicate partner was more than willing to share her bed with me last night.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Austine let out an abashed chuckle and shrugged. “Can you blame me? I knew you’d have an idea about where to seek evidence for the truth about the Athlatak. Following you is just searching efficiently.”
“Searching efficiently,” said Damon. “It’s impressive how you can spin your laziness into sounding almost like a cunning strategy.”
“Oh, but it is,” said Austine. “I could always go to the Athlatak and reveal why you’re in his presence.”
“You couldn’t, at least not without giving away your own intentions and purpose within Yvvestrosai.”
“As they say, birds of a feather…”
Damon sighed and resisted the urge to argue against him further. Having Austine tailing him wasn’t ideal, but it didn’t change his objective. If he found evidence of the Athlatak being one of the Forsaken, he’d deliver it to Wrath, as promised. Whatever happened past that point was none of his concern.
“Fine,” he said. “You can come along, Austine.”
“You have such a morose tone. This could be fun! We never get to spend time together these days outside of drinking together and trying to kill one another.”
“And whose fault is that?” asked Damon.
Austine laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. They set off together, chatting amicably, though their conversation never truly dipped below the surface.
CHAPTER 27
The terrain of the eastern Old Wilds was ancient and open. Trees loomed like towers, stabbing up into the sky and casting long, purposeful shadows across the landscape below. The forest was otherwise surprisingly thin, intermingled with stone ruins and evidence of prior cultivation, long since abandoned by the Remenai of the modern world.
They encountered few others on their way, but Damon sensed that they weren’t alone. He feared, for good reason, an encounter with a roaming Remenai clan who might recognize them as Merinians and act accordingly. Getting into a needless fight with the locals was far from his objective.
“Is that where we’re headed?” Austine moved ahead of him, cresting the top of a bushy knoll and pointing into the distance. In the valley a few miles distant, Damon could see an oddly shaped mountain, tall and sheer and thin. It felt lonely… Lonely, and judging from the white dusting its steep peak, rather cold.
“Yeah,” said Damon. “I hope you’re ready to climb.”
“There must be a path leading to the top if the Athlatak visits regularly?”
“I’m sure there is,” said Damon. “I’m also sure that if we took that approach, we’d risk being spotted. It defeats the point of us discovering the Athlatak’s identity if he discovers what we’re doing before we can use the information for leverage.”
They closed the distance to the Glittering Spire over the next hour. Damon got a better sense of where the name came from as he noticed the way minerals within the rock caught the sunlight, sparkling like tiny stars against the otherwise dark surface.
Even before they’d started up the initial slope around the mountain, the wind began picking up, pressing them back and forward, side to side, an obstacle onto itself to overcome. Damon slowed to a stop as he reached the first stretch of steep rock, the immensity of the task only then settling upon him.
“I didn’t come along just to beguile you, Damon,” said Austine. “I can help with this.”
He reached into his cloak and drew out two handfuls of throwing knives. Tossing them in the air, Austine used the power of his crest to arrest their motion. He sent them into the rock at high speed, each one sinking into the stone with a hammer crack as though it were soft wood.
“Nifty,” said Damon. “And those will support our weight?”
“I’ll go first if you have doubts.”
“I trust you, at least when it comes to this,” said Damon.
“You trust me with your life, you mean?” Austine shot him a smile that had Damon immediately doubting his conclusion.
“In this context, I suppose I do,” he said. “It would be uncharacteristically spiteful for you to kill me in such a cowardly way.”
He gestured to Austine, still letting him head up first in case the positioning of any of the throwing daggers needed fine-tuning. It made what would have been a treacherous, if not outright impossible climb into something far more reasonable.
They took breaks often, stopping each time they reached a ledge with room to stand. The wind, which had been rumbunctious even at ground level, became an unpredictable threat after the first hundred feet of the climb. It gusted with enough strength to sway Damon’s body from side to side, forcing him to pull closer to the rock to lower his profile.
He struggled, but not nearly as much as Austine above him. Damon hadn’t realized, likely due to his myrblade, how taxing the unrelenting cold was for someone unprepared for it.
“Austine,” he called up. “Let’s take a break for a bit on the ledge.”
“Sure. If you need to.”
Damon let his friend have his pride as they rested, smirking a bit at the way Austine attempted to warm his hands without being obvious about it. They still had a long way to go, but they’d risen high enough for the temple to resolve into view overhead. It looked small against the rock, and disconcertingly lonely.
Snow began to fall, first in fluffy
, disparate tufts that could have been mistaken for old powder blown loose by the wind, and then in earnest. Sheets of the stuff came down upon Damon and Austine as they continued up the mountain, clinging to freezing cold daggers which, more often than not, were secured in sheer ice.
Austine attempted to reposition one as Damon moved off it. The spot into which he chose to direct it forward with his magic yielded too freely, and a horrifying crack spread from it toward the other daggers below.
“Ah!” screamed Austine. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—"
“Shut up!” cried Damon. “Just… hold on and be quiet!”
He shifted, putting himself in the precarious position of having one hand on his myrblade, one hand on the ice, and no hands on the dagger supporting his weight and supplying his life. He did a strange sort of armpit hold against it as he manifested Myr’s enchantment.
It was easy to work the sword’s magic in such cold temperatures. He concentrated on mending the still spreading crack in the ice, and it froze back together as though that was what it wanted, as well. A hidden will of the base element, the will of all things to continue being.
“There,” muttered Damon.
“I hate this,” said Austine. “This was a horrible idea.”
“A horrible idea which we are now fully committed to,” said Damon. “Now hurry up and climb.”
“I’ll climb, but hurrying is not on the horizon.”
They made slow and steady progress. The snow came down in heavier sheets, but it brought with it a calmness on the air that was welcome in place of the ripping wind. It muffled sound as well, and despite being no more than a few feet apart, Damon found himself having to shout up to Austine when he needed his attention.
With agonizing slowness, they made their way along the last, precarious section. It pushed out from the spire, forcing them to climb at an even less comfortable angle. Damon had already resolved himself with the fact that they would not be climbing down the same way for reasons of basic practicality. He simply didn’t think it possible.
Austine was the first to the top and let out a triumphant laugh, followed by a celebratory whoop that triggered a rumble of snow somewhere distant.
“If you could hold off on triggering an avalanche for just a moment, I would be so very grateful,” said Damon.
“Sorry.”
Damon joined him at the top, catching his breath and only then realizing how sweaty he’d become through the ascent. The view was magnificent, extending to Yvvestrosai and beyond. He could see the badlands he and Ria had crossed, along with the edge of the desert.
“I see why they built a shrine up here,” said Austine.
“Yes…” Damon could also see why a Forsaken like Craven might choose to attempt to build a dungeon there. Not only was it inaccessible, but the sightlines were unparalleled. An army could never approach the Glittering Spire in stealth.
The shrine had disappeared behind curtains of snow as the weather shifted, but they had no trouble finding it. It was clearly a well-kept building, not over-large, but impressive for such a remote location.
Not a single immaculate red tile was out of place from its roof, and an impressive stained-glass window filled much of the wall on its east side, likely placed to catch the sun in the morning.
“What are you expecting to find inside?” asked Austine.
“Proof,” he said. “Craven supposedly likes to repurpose and build dungeons. I have no idea whether the current Athlatak has been in power for long enough to make a serious go of it here, but if he’s been visiting regularly, there should be some sign of his activity.”
He moved forward to the door, boots displacing the snow that was deep enough now to lick at his ankles. Damon was surprised when he tried the handle and found it unlocked. He pushed the door open and stepped through into a large cathedral-style chamber.
It took his eyes a moment to recognize the nature of the décor and make sense of it. The shrine wasn’t in worship to the True Divine, Rovahn and Leandra, but to Jad, the Remenai World God. There were other small, stylistic differences in the furnishings, sitting mats in place of benches, walls painted directly rather than adorned with tapestries.
What truly made the space feel different from the Merinian shrines and churches Damon had been inside was the smell. There was a subtle hint of stale smoke, not heartlift weed, but scented with that similar promise of intoxication. He folded his arms and made a note to ask Ria if their religious practices might somehow be relevant to their investigation.
“That’s a set of stairs in the corner,” said Austine. “Let’s see where they lead.”
Damon nodded, and the two made their way into the shrine’s lower level.
CHAPTER 28
Damon was impressed, though not entirely surprised, by the crypt underneath the Glittering Spire’s shrine. The nature of the terrain meant that they must have taken advantage of a natural depression in the rock. It was hard for him to imagine how difficult it otherwise would have been to sink a foundation into solid stone.
It was that small understanding of where they were that left him feeling increasingly skeptical of the prospect of a hidden dungeon connected to the shrine. It seemed too large of a task for someone, even one of the Forsaken, to commit to building in such an unwieldy location.
The crypt had a sanctified air that made Damon remiss to start prodding around. There were five different tombs, each one represented by a statue of a different animal atop a sarcophagus. The same burnt incense staleness clung to the air, and it was clear that at the very least, the shrine was an active place of worship.
“This is it,” said Austine. “The door leading to the dungeon must be hidden amidst these burial grounds.”
“A hidden door,” said Damon. “That doesn’t strike you as slightly unfeasible?”
“What purpose would an accessible dungeon atop a steep, dangerous mountain peak serve to anyone?” asked Austine. “No. If there is a dungeon here, it’s cleverly hidden and likely full of immense valuables.”
“Are you speaking from a place of logic or a place of hope?”
Austine didn’t seem to hear him as he began running his hands along the smooth stone of the walls, searching for a hidden door handle or disguised trigger. Damon was content to let him look, and it was an extension of the task he’d come to accomplish.
“Try the back of the room,” he suggested helpfully. “If there was a hidden passageway leading deeper down, I would think that would be where they’d put it.”
“Good thinking.” Austine circled the edge of the room, stooping down on his knees in a few places to press his hands to the floor. “Hmm.”
“Nothing?”
“Perhaps… There might be a trigger inside one of these?”
Austine stood up and set his hand down on one of the sarcophagi. Damon had a good chuckle until he realized that his friend wasn’t joking.
“You’re serious?” he said. “Austine. You’re talking about defiling graves on the off-chance that, what? Someone decided to make the most inconveniently accessible hidden passageway in existence?”
“It’s not as though I can simply return to Avarice without doing a full and complete search,” said Austine. “I’d imagine Wrath would punish you similarly if she found out you were cutting corners.”
“Wrath isn’t my master, so I’m not operating out of fear of punishment.”
Austine scratched his chin and gave a dipping, exaggerated nod. “Right. Of course, she isn’t.”
“She’s offered me her crest before, in deals, if not outright,” he said defensively. “I’ve turned her down each and every time.”
“But you’re still here, doing her bidding,” said Austine. “You still fear her.”
“I respect her,” he said. “We’re closer to friends, or even lovers, than a master and a servant.”
Austine snorted and slapped the side of the stone statue nearest to him. He paled as he realized Damon wasn’t joking.
“Hold
a moment,” muttered Austine. “You… you didn’t? You couldn’t have? You… and Wrath?”
Damon smirked and furrowed his brow. “It was a one-time thing.”
“You’re serious,” said Austine, voice near reverent. “True Divine. And I thought I was crazy.”
“We’re wasting time,” said Damon. “If you feel you must open those, then best make it quick.”
“Right. Can you lend a hand? These lids aren’t exactly light.”
It was far from Damon’s proudest moment in life. Together, he and Austine lifted and slid back the lid of the first sarcophagus. The smell that wafted from the ancient body was chalky and unpleasant, and the ghoulish sight of withered bones and ancient jewelry was even worse. Damon knew and hated the fact that he expected the image to make a recurrence in his dreams.
Austine grunted and pushed the lid further open. He reached a hand in and, without much care or restraint, began groping around the coffin’s interior. Damon took a step back as the vigorous motion stirred a well of decrepit dust into the air.
“Is that really necessary?” he asked.
“Look! I found a bunch of old coins.” Austine pulled a hand covered in chalky bone dust loose and proffered a palm full of ancient money toward Damon. “Want one?”
“I feel as though the word no doesn’t adequately express how much I don’t.”
They moved on to the next sarcophagus, and then to the one after that. Damon was at the point of arguing that it was a needless, disrespectful, and by definition, unholy search.
“Just one more,” said Austine. “We’ll skip the last one if there’s nothing here. Sound good?”
“It sounds like you would have been well-suited to the life of a graverobber,” said Damon.
“I feel the need to disagree with that on principle, but… I do find this fairly interesting.”
They sank down next to one of the unopened sarcophagi and muscled its lid up from the lower portion of the coffin. The smell was different this time around, and neither of them expected what they found within.
Sin and Soil 9 Page 14
