Wheeling around, Cole flexed his starlight brighter. He was in a circular room with a single hall branching off opposite the wall of arms. Grunts and clanging weapons echoed, rushing louder and closer. Dashing to the side of the threshold, Cole pressed himself flat against the cool stone wall. He left his starlight floating above the prone Domina. A few breaths later, a dozen more of the beasts rushed into the room, barking their garbled language as they brandished wicked blades and axes.
The Domina ran past Cole and approached their fallen comrade, hesitant and confused. Cole wove his Wisdom and raised the woman’s body from the ground, making it look as if she stood on her own accord. One of the Domina bellowed in alarm, jabbing a clubbed fist at the woman, who now stumbled towards them. Cole sneaked around the distracted Domina, careful not to touch the wall of arms. There was a scuffle of cloven feet and hacking weapons as the Domina attacked the woman.
Quick and light, Cole hopped onto the wire-haired back of a Domina, digging his bladed feet into its hips. Clamping his fingers into a blade, he drove his munisica into the base of the beast’s skull. Before its body flopped to the ground, he leapt to the next one, dispatching it just as quickly. Masked by the commotion at the front of the group, Cole felled three more before the remaining Domina took notice.
Releasing his spells on the woman’s body, Cole dimmed his starlight to an almost invisible granule, simultaneously casting another spell to dilate his own pupils. The remaining Domina gnashed their teeth and weapons blindly. One drifted too close to the wall of hands, bleating madly as it tried to free itself. Tip-toeing through the chaos, Cole snatched up a thin sword and stabbed it into an eye, an ear, a neck. The blind Domina fell in heaps, leaving only the one still fighting against the choking arms.
Cole approached the final Domina, restraining his bloodlust and focusing instead on the stone room within himself. Determined not to rely solely on Rage, he attempted to infuse the struggling creature with empathetic Passion so that he might release its thralls. The smell of releasing bowels and gore filled Cole’s nostrils, stunning him. The scene was simply too horrific, too inhumane for him to invoke Passion upon. With a few sharp jabs to its chest Cole silenced the squealing beast, watching with disgust as the wall of arms proceeded to yank and twist it apart.
Cole was sure the commotion had grabbed the attention of everything in the temple. He dismissed his starlight and donned a few spells Chiron had taught him. If there were Corpulants nearby he would have his Rage at the ready.
After a few minutes working, Cole drained roughly half his focus into the enchantments. His body was light, though his munisica were heavier and thus deadlier. His senses were sharpened, tuned to specific sounds and smells while masking white noise. He stomped a heavy munisica on the stone floor, chipping and sparking pieces off without making a sound. Every few seconds a blast of Passion pulsed from him, detecting any living thing within ten paces. Finally, he placed within his throat a filter, which would hopefully block any noxious Fear gases. The spells took a constant effort of will, but Cole had spent sleepless weeks with Chiron practicing and perfecting the juggling act.
Cole left the room and his fallen enemies, plunging deeper below the temple to a hall filled with ghostly blue light. His self-generated Fear was quickly replaced with a sense of apprehension and confidence. The fact that he’d just killed over a dozen Domina on his own bolstered his resolve. Surely there couldn’t be anything more dangerous than that.
The hall wound deeper in a wide spiral. Azure flames rippled in sconces set into walls covered in a sheen that mirrored the cold sweat on Cole’s forehead. Every so often he would tap a munisica on a step, checking to make sure he was still muffled. He considered casting another spell to shield his skin as he had when passing through the wall, but he was already nursing a light buzz from his current efforts. Tapping further into Rage would be ideal, as the shroud would cover him inside and out, but he didn’t want to make himself easy prey for a priest of Grotton. He needed balance.
Rooms sprouted from the sides of the spiraling hall. His Passion detected no living things within, but he checked them anyway. Each room was a small library, or they had been at one point. Books lay split and burned throughout or chopped up into heaps. From the covers that still had words on them, it appeared they were a collection of healing spells, songs, artwork, recipes. The subjects reminded Cole of the Arts District.
The stairs leveled out and widened to a wooden archway curtained with strings of glassy beads. Through the strands, Cole saw figures striding about a large chamber. There was a lack of a sense of urgency in their movements, hinting that they might not have heard the commotion upstairs. Or perhaps, they assumed the Domina were still indulging in whatever had wandered in. Just as Cole had waited and watched Brimhallow from the outskirts, he crouched behind the curtain listening to what the voices within might reveal.
There were three people within the chamber. One was female, her sandpaper voice humming a sort of lullaby. Her hunched figure worked over a statue set upon a dais in a far corner. The other two circled around, busy with whatever was on the tables at the edge of the room. Large objects hung from the ceiling, dozens of them all twirling slowly while rattling with twitches. Cole inched closer until his nose kissed the glassy beads, his eyes squinting through the gaps. The hanging things were bodies. He was at the larder.
“What’s taking your Domina?” said a man in a strained voice. He was tall and freakishly skinny, his shoulders and elbows poking through his robes like tent poles. “I can’t shell all this marrow on my own. My fingers are getting raw.”
“How should I know?” replied another man from a chair. His portliness was audible through his voice, as though his tongue was several times too fat for his own mouth. “Once they take a second thrall they don’t respond to anythin’ that doesn’t involve hot meat. Probably feastin’ on that runty Domina as we speak. I knew she wouldn’t last a week.”
“You’re one to talk,” the taller man grunted as a snap rang throughout the chamber. “We can hardly get you to do anything unless there’s a reward of warm flesh. Where will you stick it now that the women have gone cold? Pass me that, would you?”
Something flew through the air, clapping into the skinny man’s waiting fingers.
“Oh I suppose I’ll make do with the little ones here.” The fat man kicked at something on the floor. “Shame they can’t wake up. Maybe I’ll keep one around, grow it into somethin’ worth my girth.”
“Girth? Bah!” the skinny man let out a wheezy chuckle as he scooped something into a bowl. “I’d be surprised if you felt anything at all with the grown women. I see the way they laugh at you. It’s no small wonder that you have to force your girth upon them. Now if you’re quite through flattering yourself, get your dogs back down here. We’re running out of time.”
The fat man rose from his creaking chair, crumbs falling from his rotund belly like a waterfall. “What’s the rush? The odium hasn’t even been blessed yet. Megdalina’s still workin’ on the little ones.” He jabbed a thumb towards the woman at the dais.
At the mention of odium, Cole zoomed in through the gloomy torchlight, noticing huge vats lining the walls. He also saw what the woman kneeling on the dais was doing. She was placing squirming infants into a row of open cadavers. Chilled, sickly Fear pulled him to the floor, shaking his spells loose. Cole slapped his hand over his mouth, biting back vomit.
“Ah, well that makes sense then,” the skinny man said with rising inflection.
“Wah? You’re actually agreein’ with me?” asked the fat man.
“Of course not, fool.” He turned from his table, slowly wiping his hands and rolling his sleeves. “The Domina haven’t returned because they’ve been killed, and the person responsible is lurking on the other side of that door.” His eyes fell straight upon Cole as his thin lips stretched into a sneer. “Come on in and join the party then.”
With a lurch, Cole felt his grip loosen as some invisible force pul
led him into the room. He bumped through the hanging bodies, coming into full view of the two men. His spells and munisica faded, replaced by rancid Fear.
The skinny man’s smile widened, revealing a large gap between his front teeth. He approached Cole, fingers outstretched. “What a handsome lad. So young, so brave, so full of fire!”
Cole was utterly frozen. Some microscopic part of him remained cowering in his center, but the man with the grin had him now. He felt as if he were back in the stone tub watching the Devotion. In fact, the priest of Decreath was currently pulling that very memory to the fore of his mind, indulging and amplifying it. In a matter of seconds the priest sifted through his worst moments as easily as skimming through a book.
“How can you tell he killed my Domina?” The portly man yanked Cole’s chin, locking his gaze into the man’s black marble eyes. “Did you kill my pets?”
Cole could only manage a gagging whisper.
“Look at his munisica, dolt!” Decreath’s priest snatched Cole’s hand, bringing it up to eye level. His shroud receded to his fingertips, then vanished. “Do you think he just skipped his way past thirteen Domina?” He dropped Cole’s hand and licked the blood from his own fingers. His face twisted into a disgusted scowl. “Those are your dogs for certain.”
The fat man jerked Cole’s hand up, popping a finger into his mouth. Cole could feel his tongue swirling and sucking around it. He popped it out, an evil smirk pulling across his face. “Oh I’m gonna take my time with you laddie. We’re gonna get real intimate, you and I. Rage user huh?”
A fluttering moan slipped out of Cole’s mouth.
He pulled Cole closer. His breath smelled as if all the reek from the temple had been condensed into his enormous tongue. “When you can’t take no more go ahead and call that Rage of yours. I can see it in there.” He tapped a stubby finger into Cole’s sternum. “Like a little bomb itchin to go off. I’ll have it sooner or later, but try your best and stay strong. Grotton loves the chase.”
Cole tried in vain to pull himself from the man’s grip. The priest’s fetid breath hammered him like a fire hose. His heart felt as if it were trying to escape through his chest, but a chilled hand of Fear held it fast. He receded to his center, but could no longer find it. The Fear had him. His Wisdom was frozen solid by it. He struggled to keep his Rage in check. The red magic snarled at his side like a rabid dog on a leash of dried twine.
“A Rage-wielder changes things a bit,” Decreath’s minion said, raising an eyebrow. “I hear they make for a most delicious meal. He can’t have much of it though. It shouldn’t be this easy for me to hold him with Fear. Nevertheless, he’ll make a nice addition to the Colossus. When Megdalina finishes with the base stock we’ll see if she won’t make him chosen. If we do it right we won’t even need the odium to strip him of himself.”
Both men looked to the woman kneeling at the dais. Her head rolled about with closed eyes, as if she heard music no one else could. Spit frothed and dripped from her mouth as she worked. Cole tried not to watch what she was doing, instead bringing his gaze to the dais. There was a huge open basket of sharpened bones perched behind the bodies. It was a Colossus’s nest.
She finished sewing one of the cavities on the headless cadavers, urging it awake with a flash of purple light from her palm. The body crawled its naked form up the side of the nest, impaling itself on the bones. Fleshy tubes wriggled out of the nest, and wormed their way into every open wound and orifice of the body.
“She’ll be a minute by the looks of it. Sorronis’s arts tend to take a while, ‘specially as she’s doublin’ up on the nest,” Grotton’s priest said. Hunger blazed in his black eyes. “She won’t chafe us for indulging a bit. We’re doing her a favor anyway.”
“I believe you’re right,” Decreath’s minion said, scraping a length of curved metal from his table. “Let me have him first. Take him for Domina when he breaks, but only when he breaks.”
“Be it your wish,” Grotton’s minion replied, dragging a too-small chair close to Cole. He stuffed himself in between the armrests as the chair screamed in protest. “I like to watch anyhow. Tickles my grittles like you wouldn’t believe. Just don’t go breaking him too quick.”
“Please, this is art.” Decreath’s priest slapped the tool into Cole’s shoulder, poking it through the armor. “The art will dictate the pace. It will not be fast, or slow. It will be perfect.”
His eyes narrowed as he dragged the hooked tool down Cole’s chest, cutting through the armor with an effort. He continued the blade down Cole’s stomach before crossing over and repeating the movement from the opposite side. Clamping the tool between his teeth, the man jerked Cole’s armor open, exposing his chest, which now bore a great, crimson ‘X’.
Repeating the motion on Cole’s backside, he stripped the armor from Cole’s torso and sleeves. Cole hung there, frozen like a scarecrow left out in winter, unable to muster the courage to move. It was all he could do to keep his Rage from breaking loose and betraying him.
“We’ll start small then, if it pleases you.” Decreath’s priest returned to his front, the tool back in his spindly hands.
The point of the hook stung into one of the scratches in Cole’s chest. Spiking pain jolted across his skin, making Cole’s arm twitch involuntarily. The priest pulled and yanked the tool with careful precision, ripping the cut wider as he worked his way down. Cole’s Rage barked all the while, its leash fraying and snapping as a low moan slipped from his lips. A minute later the priest finished his tracing of the first cuts.
Air whooshed into the priest’s mouth as he fiddled with the center of the ‘X’. He dug his nails in and yanked a corner of skin from Cole’s chest.
The leash broke. Cole’s Rage flared, his munisica ringing clear in the dank air.
“Tut tut little warrior,” Grotton’s priest hissed from behind, pressing a soft finger into Cole’s lower back. “Not so fast now.”
The Rage hit an impenetrable wall. It shriveled and siphoned out into the Hungry mind of Grotton’s priest. Cole shook, weak and powerless. Decreath’s priest brought his hands to the flap again. Cole saw bits of his own flesh hanging in small chunks from the nails.
Something wriggled loose from Cole’s center, bright, wholesome, and soothing. Passion flowed from him. Rosy light blared from his wounds, knitting and closing them together.
Decreath’s priest flinched, his face twisting in disgust. “Flowery filth…how can this be? Come round and look at this.”
The chair creaked as Grotton’s priest scrambled to his feet and waddled to Cole’s front. “What’s that now? Passion?”
Decreath’s priest ran a bloody nail down the freshly healed skin. “It seems so. It’s not common to wield dualities in their magics, is it?”
“Definitely rare, but not unheard of. Can you stop it?” Grotton’s priest asked as he rubbed his stumpy fingers over his collection of chins.
“No, only Megdalina can. But this does make the game more fun,” he replied with a grin that showed every one of his gapped, fuzzy teeth. “I want to see if he can fix it faster than I can pull it apart.”
Before Cole could even draw breath, the sickle tool thwapped into his shoulder. Decreath’s priest worked the tool like a knife, wriggling and burrowing it deeper. The point of the hook suddenly struck a nerve that not even the Fear could stifle. Cole screamed on his invisible crucifix.
Decreath’s priest uttered a lustful shudder, twisting the tool deeper, bathing in the agony. “Go on, look at it,” he said, sliding his tongue over his lip.
Jaw trembling, Cole reluctantly brought his eyes to the wound. The tool was hooked entirely under his collar bone, its needle end and handle protruding from either side.
Cole had received worse in training from Roth, but this was different. This was deliberate, careful, and purposeful. The husky breathing and perverse bliss on the priest’s face was nauseating. No one should take pleasure in such things. This was evil.
“Please…” Cole
breathed.
The priest’s eyes went wide. His voice was gravelly and wet. “Oh! There it is! You don’t like that do you, you want it to stop? What will you give me to make it stop? Show me your jewels, warrior.”
With the hooked nail of his pinky finger, the priest waggled the tool in little circles, striking the nerve with each turn as spurts of ruby blood shot onto his face. Cole’s wailing rose and fell with each rotation of the tool.
Still working the tool, the priest brought a gnarled hand to Cole’s face. Putrid Fear poured from his palm in an olive cloud. With every scream Cole’s Fear deepened and widened as he sank further into the black trench. The room flickered, then vanished. The Fear was too much. Cole would have driven the tool through his heart to escape it. He was drowning.
The dark magic subsided, bringing the room back into focus. Decreath’s priest shuddered, taking a long ragged breath in between his thin teeth. The priest swelled like a balloon. The sunken gaps in his robes puffed out as his face filled with tone and color. He looked decades younger, and his body was no longer reedy, but stout and healthy.
With a snarl, he tightened his grip and yanked the sickle straight out, snapping though bone and flesh as easily as ripping the hook out of a fish’s mouth. Cole screamed as loudly as he could. When his lungs were empty, he refilled them and screamed again.
Every drop of agony filled Decreath’s priest with renewed vigor. His shoulders broadened as thick knots of muscle bulged under his robes. He waited, panting and grinning.
Cole didn’t know when he’d started weeping, but now he couldn’t stop it. This was what they wanted. They wanted to see him cry, to break him. Reluctantly, he wrapped himself in Passion and set to healing his wound. Warm lavender glowed from his collarbone, bathing the priest’s wicked visage in the light of the magic. From behind, Grotton’s priest let out a high, hacking chuckle. A minute dragged by and Cole healed his wound, though he could no longer feel his arm. Chiron had yet to teach him how to mend nerves. He couldn’t keep this up for long.
Saving The Dark Side Book 2: The Harbingers Page 43
