Dungeon Master 4

by Eric Vall

  “I will go first, then Annalise, then the rest of you will follow,” I instructed. “We must be prepared for anything. Understand?”

  Annalise, Rana, and Carmedy sounded their agreement, and though she clenched her jaw, Morrigan nodded as well.

  I stepped surely through the hall sideways and maneuvered my way through as I grabbed onto the thick icicles with my gloved hands for support. The floor beneath us was solid slippery ice, and one wrong move would impale us on one of the sharp ends. I turned my head to watch as Rana slipped out of her boots and slid them into the pack on her back. The fox-woman gave me a wicked smile and a thumbs up as she too moved out onto the ice after Annalise.

  “I move better without those damn things,” the redhead laughed as she grabbed onto a giant icicle and hauled herself over it with ease, and then she ducked down underneath another.

  Morrigan came after the fox and moved with the distinctive assured ease I associated with all elven people. Watching her move was breathtaking, almost like the woman floated instead of walked, and I knew that inside her mind, she was panicking, but it never showed on her stoically beautiful face.

  “Do you guys really think the Tichádáma is evil?” Carmedy asked as she too entered the perilous corridor.

  “Yes,” the high elf growled between her teeth as she ducked under a huge mass of sharp icicles. “She had her people kill those animals, then those three people, and now she’s taken away Fea and Macha. She may have placed a human soul into an animal’s body, but what type of life is that? Being forced into a foreign body? I believe her to be nothing but vile.”

  “Though I agree with Morrigan,” Annalise struggled out as she concentrated on not being speared, “some things make me think otherwise.”

  “I’m in the middle,” the fox-woman chuckled as she moved easily on her bare paws. “She’s done things that are evil, but maybe she’s not inherently evil? I mean those drawings on the wall and the shark. Haruhi told us she was in love with a human, and seeing those carvings made it seem like that human was killed. I mean, if someone killed Master, I certainly wouldn’t be the nicest person after.”

  “If we lost Master …” Carmedy whimpered as she paused for a second. “I don’t know what I would do.”

  “Yeah, then you’d have no one to make ghost-noises with,” Rana joked over her shoulder, and the feline’s cheeks bloomed red.

  “I too would be lost without any of you,” I told them honestly. “If any of you were lost to me, I might act out the way the Tichádáma does.”

  “Do you think the Dáma is evil, Master?” the petite alchemist called up to me, and I feigned thought for a moment as I did not want to reveal what I already knew just yet. “Or do you think she’s only misunderstood?”

  “I believe the Dáma is a lot like me,” I told them without turning my head to look at them. “I think the Dáma holds pain in her heart and cannot communicate to the people of Kanashimi what ails her the most. She, like the shark we witnessed, is in pain but has no way to tell anyone. I can’t tell you for sure until we look upon her ourselves.”

  I reached the end of the hall and waited for my minions as they crept through. Annalise came after and held her sword at the ready for any attackers if they were to show themselves. The odd music was louder here, and it was coming from an open doorway in the rock wall. Bright yellow light cast shadows through the doorway, and I could see a person moving inside.

  “Oops, careful there, Carmedy, you almost gave yourself an impromptu piercing.” Rana laughed as Carmedy held on tightly to the tip of a large icicle pointed straight at her stomach. The cat laughed nervously and tiptoed sideways and away from the pointed tip that had narrowly cut her.

  “My momma said I’m not allowed to get any piercings,” the alchemist said with a laugh as she ducked under one of the ice protrusions that resembled a broadsword.

  “You’re an adult, you can do whatever you want,” the fox giggled back, and Carmedy lifted her head to retort, but her right ear got caught on one of the smaller slivers of ice.

  “I know I’m-YOW!” she screamed as her paws came up and found the splice had come entirely through the cartilage of her ear. Rana stopped laughing and turned around as blood began to trickle weakly out. She hustled backward toward Carmedy carefully and brought her paws up as the small cat started to cry.

  “Well … you may not have wanted one, but you got a piercing anyway,” Rana snorted as she grabbed the back of the feline’s head and eased her forward.

  “Oh man, that really stings,” the alchemist cried as she latched onto the redhead’s shoulders.

  “Stop wiggling around, and it’ll hurt less, you big baby,” Rana soothed in her own way, and the feline’s huge round eyes began to water as the fox pulled her forward, and the small needle-point of ice drew out of the cat’s ear.

  Blood dripped from the point, and Carmedy’s paws tentatively went up and felt around the area. She frowned as she touched the small hole and her expression fell even more as she brought up a spare piece of cloth and pressed it against the tiny wound.

  “Oh man, my mom is going to be so disappointed,” the cat-girl murmured as she held the cloth in place and made her way behind Rana as they too exited the hall of ice.

  “I mean, you could always get a really cool gold earring, and you’d look like a pirate,” the fox-girl joked, but Carmedy shook her head vehemently as she pressed against her hurt ear.

  “I don’t want to look like a pirate,” the cat-woman whined as she swiped at her eyes with her free hand. “No one is going to take me seriously as a doctor and alchemist if I have a big gaudy earring!”

  I came forward with a soft smile and took the cloth and Carmedy’s cat ear into my hand. I pressed once to make sure the bleeding had stopped and pulled the fabric away carefully. There indeed was a small puncture where the ice had stabbed through the ear, and I did like the idea of a tasteful gold earring being placed there, but I didn’t say that to Carmedy.

  “Is it bad, Master?” the feline whispered as the rest of my minions crowded around and comforted her.

  “It’s not too bad, my love.” I smiled to her as I stroked the tip of her black ear. “I can heal it if you like, but I too think you’d look beautiful with a golden earring or maybe an emerald to match your eyes.”

  “D-do you really think so?” Carmedy stuttered out through a smile and brightened as she usually did when I spoke softly to her.

  My other minions looked at her thoughtfully, as if imagining it for themselves. Annalise and Rana nodded while Morrigan only blinked once in agreement, and then we turned toward the waiting doorway and the goddess that was beyond.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I turned towards the entranceway and the soft, eerie music coming from inside. My minions placed themselves around me, and I led them forward. I was the first to enter, and my eyes grew wide at the scene inside. The room was large, and half of it was submerged under the same azure water I assumed came from the Riese. The rest of the room, like most of the dungeon, was made from ice and rock. At the far side of the chamber, a towering woman stood in front of a dais quite like the one depicted in the wall carvings. On top of the platform, the carcass of the whale lay, and her pale hands moved in the air above the ropey intestines that were curled in a pile on the floor. As she moved her hands, the guts lifted by an unseen force, and she pushed and placed them back inside the body with her power.

  Her power was incredibly strong, and it engulfed me like a wave. She didn’t turn as we entered, but Fea and Macha, who rested backward on her shoulders, bobbed their heads and cawed loudly at the presence of their master. Morrigan’s dark eyes widened, and she beckoned them. The two birds launched themselves into the air and coasted to her. They cooed and clicked loudly through their beaks as they spoke to the elf in a language the rest of us couldn’t understand.

  “You have lovely birds,” the goddess said without turning. She only continued her work on the carcass of the magnificent whale. Her
voice was soft and lovely though sadness seemed to seep from it. Her long dark hair shifted behind her as she moved, and I caught glimpses of her beautiful face.

  “What did you do to them?” Morrigan growled as she stepped forward and ignored the piercing shrieks of her ravens.

  “I did nothing but enjoy their passing company,” the Tichádáma said over her shoulder, and when she spoke, I saw her pale lips didn’t move at all. I glanced over at Annalise, and from the confused look on her face, I knew she couldn’t hear a word the goddess was speaking even though the rest of us could. “Did you think I would harm such innocent creatures?”

  “I would not be surprised!” the high elf shouted, and the shoulders of the Tichádáma tensed. “With all that you have done to the other animals and creatures sacrificed in your name, you dared to take my companions from me for a second and expect me not to be enraged? You’re a murderer of all things good and pure! You take lives and throw them away!”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” the Tichádáma asked with a whisper of a chuckle, but from the way she tensed up, I knew she was growing angry, and I readied the God Slayer if she chose to strike out. “The elf stained and tainted by black magic thinks I am evil? I do not care for your thoughts on what is right and what is wrong. Kindly keep them to yourself.”

  “No!” Morrigan hissed as she took a few steps forward, and the hands of the Tichádáma froze in the air as she waited for my minion to continue. “Look at how you defile the corpse of such a glorious creature! You are not a protector of these lands and the creatures who inhabit it! You are a ravager, you smite with greedy and lustful hands! Continue what you are doing to that animal, and I will kill you where you stand!”

  Morrigan raised her hands into the air, and the same sickly emerald light from before at the battle with the Tintagal soldiers, beat from her palms. In a split second, the Dáma whipped her head around, and my elven woman was knocked to her knees. Then the goddess’ black hair whipped around as she flew across the room toward the elven woman.

  I held up the God Slayer, planted my feet, and blocked the goddess from attacking my lover.

  “You will not touch her,” I warned the goddess as I stared into her eyes. Though I was sure I understood this goddess already, even felt a strange sympathy for her actions, I would still allow no harm to come to them.

  The Tichádáma stared down at me. Her mouth was pulled open in a scream, but no sounds came out, and after a moment, she spoke again, more to Morrigan than to me, though her eyes never wavered from mine.

  “Do not speak on things that you do not know,” the Tichádáma snarled, and we glared at each other for a passing moment before the water to our left broke and the massive fin of the shark slid along the surface. The Tichádáma’s face softened for a second as she watched it move lazily under the water. “You didn’t kill him?”

  Her voice was hushed and tinged with sorrow as her gray eyes moved along with the great shark’s movement. I cut my gaze from her face and looked behind her at what I had expected to see. Along the wall, long shelves made of ice were hung, and on the expanse of each, one large aquamarine orb of water spun and swirled. Most of the shelves were empty except for one, and I could sense the life within them, the souls of the dead sent down to her earlier in the evening.

  “No,” the high elf growled through her teeth as she stared up at the goddess. “He has a human soul. We spared the human life within him.”

  “I wish I could thank you,” the Tichádáma said, and then she tore her eyes away from the shark’s fin as she turned to look down at Morrigan, “but I almost wished you had killed him.”

  “Why? Because you enjoy the suffering and the death of all creatures?” the High Elf snapped back, and surprisingly, the Tichádáma shook her head and turned away from us as she floated back toward the dais and the dead whale.

  “No, you are wrong. I assume you heard the story of when I was born, the oceans sprang to life with all the aquatic animals that live there,” the Tichádáma told us as I took a step forward and prepared to skewer her on the end of the God Slayer. “Kill me, Dark One, it doesn’t matter much to me, but please allow me to finish what I’m doing.”

  I allowed her this as she looked over her shoulder at me with pleading gray eyes. She moved back to the table, and Carmedy, the most curious of my minions, tentatively stepped closer as the goddess put the innards back inside the carcass. The goddess glanced at the feline and gave her a soft smile as the alchemist watched the goddess work.

  “The souls of all animals are clean and untarnished by the wickedness of the world,” the goddess told my alchemist as she placed a long-fingered hand over the whale’s form. Slowly, a white ball of light lifted from the corpse, and she took it into her hand. The Dáma showed the ball of light to Carmedy, and the feline stared down at it in wonder. “Animals, like your elven friend said, are innocent, and with that, I must agree. Animals do not know hate, they are incapable of such a human emotion. They only know what is natural to them, and that is what makes their souls so pure.”

  As we watched, the hand that held the whale’s soul retracted, and she held it close to her chest. With one swift movement, the goddess pressed her hand flat against her breastbone, and the whale’s pure soul disappeared inside of her with a flash of white light. For a moment, the spot where the soul had immersed itself glowed and flickered on her pale flesh and then was gone.

  “I keep them safe from the evil of the outside world,” the goddess said softly. “When your Master takes my life and absorbs my power, he will absorb them along with me. I hope he will keep them safe, too.”

  When she finished, she tilted her head as a single tear fell from her wide doe-like eyes, and then she waved a hand slowly over the seam the bearded man had cut into the whale’s belly. What happened was soundless, and all my minions watched in awe as the slit closed, guided by the goddess’s hand that moved farther up the body. She turned to me when she finished and raised one finger into the air for me to wait.

  Then the Tichádáma crossed the room and lifted the large orb formed out of swirling water and brought it over to the carcass. The goddess closed her eyes, and another tear slipped out of her eyes as she spoke the god’s language. I know Annalise couldn’t hear and the three minions listening couldn’t understand what she was saying. The Dáma then pressed the sphere into the flesh of the whale’s belly. It took a second, but slowly, the aquamarine orb gradually was transferred into the whale’s body, and a loud cry rose into the air. We were silent as at first nothing happened, but then the large tail fin of the whale twitched, and a soft moan escaped the huge mouth. The Dáma came around the now fully moving body and lifted both pale hands into the air.

  The now-living whale thrashed and smacked against the dais violently as it struggled for air, and with one smooth movement, the goddess pushed both hands away from her body. The whale slid from the platform, across the cold stone floor, and flopped into the water. The water received the whale, and the large tail fin smacked the water three times as the whale propelled itself down and then was gone from view. The Dáma blinked slowly, and a faraway smile spread across her thin lips as she watched the water smooth.

  “Do they return to the sea? What about the shark? Why does he stay here?” Carmedy asked in a hurry as she followed after the goddess enrapt by her power.

  “He was the first, and he will be the last to leave me,” she explained sadly. “He once had a name and of course, like the others, once had a body to call his own but that was stripped of him. The souls of humans, though they are not pure and unpolluted like the souls of animals, are still sacred in their own way. There are good humans, and there are wicked ones, and I am sad to say my land of Kanashimi has been contaminated by the latter.”

  The goddess turned back to us and looked at each of us in the face. “I was cast out of the heavens because of my love for Klaus, but to my surprise, they cast me down to the island that worshipped me and, in turn, let me stay with my beloved. The gods
took away my ability to speak to them, but I was still allowed to look upon his face. You understand, don’t you, Dark One? You knew once before what it was like to love a human, and here you are again, but with four more loves.”

  “She was taken from me, and I was trapped far away from her,” I admitted, and the sympathetic pang in my dark heart bidded me to listen to her whole story.

  “I gave this land to a leader I trusted, a man named Yoi,” she continued with a nod toward me. “He was a good man and served for many years under my instruction, but old age twisted his mind. The more time went on, the more skewed the offerings the people sent to me became. Though I couldn’t speak to them, I conveyed my displeasure to Klaus, and he went to the high chiefs of the city and told them what I had said. They didn’t agree and named him a heretic.”

  “Oh no … ” Rana breathed in-between her whispers to Annalise that kept her up to speed on what was being said.

  The goddess nodded sadly. “The man I had loved, the human I was cast from the god’s realm for, was the first human sacrifice sent down to me, thus creating the tradition that is passed down to today. His body lay on this stone floor for months, perfectly preserved by the cold and ice, but I knew I couldn’t keep him here. The longer his body remained, the more his soul decayed inside its flesh. Long ago, before any of your times, there were beasts who ravaged the seas named the megalodon, twenty times larger than the sharks we know today. Sadly, these great creatures have not lasted the test of time, but one of the few remaining was sent down to me and … ”

  “You placed Klaus’s soul inside of it.” I murmured as I watched the great fin cut through the water then stop as it stared up through the water at the Tichádáma.