by Sever Bronny
Well look at that, he had weight again—and never did he feel heavier. After floating around for so long, he felt like his entire body was made from solid iron. Combined with the mental and physical exhaustion, the hunger and pain, he simply couldn’t rise. And so he simply lay there for a while, regaining his strength. When at long last he stood, it was with a mighty groan.
The tunnel was crudely hewn from the rock. There were no torch scones, or much of anything really. He glanced toward the gaping door, a door that led to an eternally dark and weightless void, before turning his back on it. As fun as flying was, forever floating around in a near limitless tomb garnered little appeal. He snorted thinking about Mrs. Stone’s understatement calling it a “dangerous cavern best avoided”.
Augum doggedly stumbled along the tunnel, lips sand dry, tongue swollen. Visions of sucking greedily from a water skin consumed his thoughts. His palm light steadily dimmed along with his energy, until it went out altogether. Yet he trudged on in the pitch-darkness, exhausted from the repetition of the tunnel. Would it go on forever like the void?
Suddenly one of his dragging feet stuck out into thin air and he fell, body connecting hard with stone steps. He tumbled, rolled and slammed his way down until, beaten, bruised, and head pounding woefully, he somehow managed to wedge himself between the walls with his feet and hands. Gasping, he caught his breath.
“That sucked,” he croaked in the darkness, feeling the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. “Ugh …” It took quite a bit of effort to get himself to continue down the stairs without stumbling. When he did at last strike up a shuffling, dragging pace along the wall, one foot before the other, he again dreamt of water.
Something eventually appeared in the far distance. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, until he drew closer and realized it was fire. And as he drew closer still, he was able to make out a fiery window within a door. He had barely noticed the air had become hotter down here, reminding him of the deep caverns below Bahbell.
“Closer to hell,” he mumbled, delirious. “And the devil …”
Using the wall as a brace, he stumbled on until he found himself at the very bottom of those stairs looking through the grimy ancient glass window of a door. Yet what he saw puzzled and frightened him, for beyond that ancient window were shadows moving to and fro.
The shadows of upright lions.
Frail Lions
Augum fumbled with the ancient mechanism of the door. A latch finally clicked, the old planks swung out, and he stumbled through, falling on his face. The lions, who had been working on who knew what, stopped what they were doing to stare at him. He tried to lift himself but was simply too exhausted, too injured and in pain.
A pair of furry paws padded near. They were clawed and black with soot. Augum was lifted to his feet, and for the first time, he got a good look at them. They were tall but withered, their manes wispy and faces lined with creases. Some had no manes at all. Those had to be the females, as he recalled from one of Sir Tobias Westwood’s books. All were starved to the point of emaciation, and wore thick leather blacksmith aprons. Haggard, mournful faces watched him with ancient tired eyes.
“Who … are … you?” Augum managed to croak.
The lion that was holding him replied. “Thou knowest who.” The accent was thick, the voice deeply guttural, much like two millstones grinding together. Augum had heard that kind of voice only once before, back when he and the girls were listening in as his father spoke to his commanders.
“Dreadnoughts,” Augum whispered. “You’re Dreadnoughts …!”
“To our great woe, we thus are.”
“I’m not … hallucinating?”
“Thou art not.”
“You talk … funny. Like … Fentwick …”
“Thou art in dire straits.”
“Water …”
The Dreadnought exchanged a look with his cohorts. A lion with a bedraggled black mane said something guttural in a tongue that sounded ancient and crude. The first one replied sharply before turning back to Augum.
“I beseech thee to wait.” He nodded at the one with the black mane. “Brother, if thou may.”
After a cold stare, the dark-maned lion strode off.
The Dreadnought gently placed Augum on a stone block. “Mateo, so nameth I.”
“My friends … where are they?”
“Others had cometh with thee?”
“Yes. An old woman … two girls my age … and a husband and wife.”
“Mmm. I lament I doth knoweth naught of thy party.”
Augum glanced about. He was in between a series of chambers with doors similar to the one he had walked through. The crude windows on those doors glowed orange. The place was hot and dimly lit with sooty iron torches.
“Where … am … I?” Augum wheezed, coughing from the dust in the air.
“The forge, wherein thou ought not to be.”
“So this … is the place … you make his weapons … and armor here.” He was having a hard time concentrating past the ravenous thirst.
A nearby door burst open and out marched a soldier in newly-minted matte black Dreadnought plate. He glanced down at his mailed gloves and squeezed them into fists. His spiked helm glinted dully in the torchlight as he slowly drew his gaze upon a gasping Augum, who saw that the face inside the helm was a skull. The man was a revenant.
For a moment, the pair only stared at each other, before another Dreadnought exited the same glowingly hot room and barked a command. The undead soldier gave Augum no more heed and stumped off down a rocky corridor. The other Dreadnoughts soon returned to work. Some dug shovels into heaps of coal, others worked with hammers.
Mateo had been watching Augum curiously. “Necrophytes allowed here are not. I have to report thee, young sir, otherwise beat me they shall.”
“Please … don’t,” Augum gasped, watching the Dreadnoughts work. He noticed their backs were crossed with scars. He wanted to say something relatable, like tell them his back was scarred too, before realizing that was a stupid idea. He had always pictured Dreadnoughts as being powerful, invincible even. And maybe they would have looked like lizards or something. He never would have guessed they were broken and malnourished lions.
“I lament I must, young sir.”
“I have something to tell you,” Augum mouthed, too tired to speak aloud, while waving the Dreadnought closer.
“Mmm?”
Mateo leaned forward. He smelled of salt and earth and stone, of grime, animal sweat and suffering.
“I am … his son …”
Mateo frowned with his great bushy brows. “Thou is the son of who?”
“The Lord of the Legion … I’m his son … and I need your help …”
Mateo gave Augum a grave look. He was about to reply when the lion with the dark mane returned, carrying a pottery jug of water. He threw it into Augum’s lap, spilling some.
“Drinketh,” said the lion.
Augum immediately tipped the jug to his lips and sucked greedily. The water tasted like earth and stone, but it was still refreshing. He could feel his strength surge back.
Meanwhile, the lion turned to Mateo. “An attack there has been. An attack … and a breach.”
“Indeed, Fasa. Indeed.”
“Beat us they shall. Tired am I. Tired you are.”
Mateo gave an exhausted low growl much like a sigh.
Augum lowered the now half-empty jug. “My ancestor … he let you sleep.”
The lions turned to him.
“Atrius Arinthian … let you sleep.”
The lions exchanged a look.
“Who be this young cub before us?” the one called Fasa asked.
Mateo hesitated. “Proclaims he to be the son of the enslaver.”
“Merciful Fates …”
“Please, I need to find my friends,” Augum said between more gulps. “Please—”
“Thou knoweth what this circumstance couldst mean,” Mateo said to Fasa.
“I so verily do.” Fasa stared at Augum with ancient lion eyes that seemed to have seen through the eons of time. “Involved we shouldst get not. Beatings of the many it shalt mean.”
“Perhaps worseth. But bethink of the alternative, Fasa. Bethink of the alternative.”
The other lions seemed to understand something grave was being discussed and had once more ceased their work to watch.
Mateo glanced at each of them in turn. “Night eternal,” he said to them.
“Night eternal,” they each replied in rumbling tones.
“What does that mean?” Augum asked.
“When all lost is,” Mateo only replied. He glanced about at the simple surroundings, at the pile of coal, at the rough tools laying about. “Who wouldst have bethought the decision wouldst falleth so thus here, amongst the coals.” He glanced down at his grimy paws. “With paws weary of soot and toil.”
Fasa surrendered a nod as he stared off at nothing. “The importance of the small—”
“—as meaningful as the grand,” Mateo finished in a quiet voice.
“End, it could.”
“End, indeed, it could …”
The two lions glanced to their brethren. Each straightened and gave a single nod. At last, Fasa and Mateo locked lion gazes.
“To the commander thus.”
“To the commander thus.”
Through the Ages
The group of emaciated soot-stained lions silently led Augum, who was now able to walk under his own power, through a labyrinth of hot and smoky tunnels, passing many glowing doors behind which more Dreadnoughts worked. Augum heard the sound of hammers pounding on metal, the hiss of hot steel being plunged into water, the whip of backs being beaten. At one point, they traversed a bridge spanning a great room of boiling cauldrons and magma basins that stank of sulfur. In another room, a second bridge took the group over a great chasm that seemed to have no bottom.
“I flew through a cavern,” Augum blurted.
“Then thee did so travel through a cavern that hath killeth many,” Fasa replied.
“Fortunate shouldst thee consider thyself,” Mateo added.
“What kind of room was it? Why was it made?”
Mateo strode purposefully beside Augum. “An ancient Rivican construct meanteth to explore the idea of arcane flight.”
The Rivicans had fashioned the great complex under Bahbell too.
“Were they successful?” Augum asked. “Did they actually fly?”
Mateo stopped beside a dingy room in which a young-looking lioness was sitting, attentively polishing a majestic Dreadnought steel chest plate. He turned to Augum. “Thou art having difficulty understanding the way we speaketh, young sir. I can see it on thy face.” Mateo knocked on the open plank door. “Young Esha. A boy from this age. Translate thus so.”
The young lioness stopped polishing and stood. She was wearing a simple linen gown stained with soot. Her tail whipped about. She caught it and bared her teeth in what Augum understood was a smile.
“Oh, Father, how grand doth this be! Doth thou meaneth I can practice the new tongue?”
“It doth, Daughter,” Mateo replied. Then he switched to an ancient guttural but fluid tongue. He spoke at length while Esha frowned in concentration, nodding along. After one particular point, however, her gaze flicked to Augum with understanding and her shaggy lioness brows rose in surprise.
Esha bowed lightly when her father finished speaking. “I am honored to meet the progeny of the enslaver, and the descendent of the one who hath freed us at one time.”
Augum felt the need to bow in return. “The honor is mine, Esha.”
“And your name doth be Augum Stone, is that not so? I have read about you. You are famous in this kingdom and in this time. Many humans secretly look up to you. I see it behind their eyes when they so speaketh thy name. I have learned to read their—I meaneth, thy—tongue. Thou calls it ‘common’, is that not so?”
Augum couldn’t help but smile. “It is. I have a lot of questions to ask you—”
“—questions must wait. I have to translate for Father first. Your question was whether the Rivicans learned to fly. You also asked why the cavern was built.” Esha gestured politely. “Let us walk as we so speaketh.”
Augum smiled politely in turn and the two walked side-by-side as the other lions flanked them in front and rear.
“My father answers thus, Augum Stone. Back in the Age of Enlightenment, when arcanery was but in its infancy and a joy to explore and share, many things were possible that you humans, in this age, would not believe even if your own eyes would lay themselves upon these … ‘miracles’. What you call ancient arcanery, was once thus nothing more than common and joyous knowledge.”
Fasa said something in his guttural tongue.
“Uncle Fasa says history is long,” Esha translated. “You are a particle of sand in a great hourglass.”
“And you? How old are you?” Augum asked.
Esha covered her mouth with the fuzzy tip of her lion tail and giggled, which came out like a friendly chortle-roar. “Age, we do not. But we have seen much time. We have experienced much time, yes.” She gave him a shy look. “Sorry I am, that I am not making much sense. I do not converse much with humans, though I have been studying you in every age I have lived through. You change much. Every age, you change much indeed. You change clothes often. Very different, yes. In some ages you like to war with each other, slaughtering your people like insects. In some ages you war on other kinds, on the wolf kind, and lizard kind, and so on. In other ages, like this one, you pretend none of those kinds of peoples exist. And in some other ages still—precious ones, I think they be—you share knowledge, and you seek it like parched beasts fresh from the desert.”
“I have so many questions …” Augum said, unable to hide the wonder from his voice. He could barely comprehend how much this gentle lioness knew, what she could teach, what she had seen through the eons. It was … incomprehensible to him. He didn’t even know where to begin, which questions were the right ones.
Fasa gave him a dark look and growled something in their native tongue.
“But you always have so very little time,” Esha translated.
Mateo said something in his ancient tongue as he walked.
“And that is what all humans seek,” Esha translated when he finished. “That is the thread that binds you.”
“What is it we seek?” Augum asked, a little lost.
“Time. You try to understand it, to slow it. Many of you want eternity. You resist what is, instead of embracing truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
Mateo replied in his tongue.
“The moment,” Esha translated. “The moment is truth.”
Augum was shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”
Esha gave a kind smile. “You are limited by this age, Augum Stone. It is not your fault.”
“Do … do your people grow up? Do you have … err …”
“Offspring? We do not. Once we are killed, we are killed. Our people are damned, Augum Stone. Damned to grow fewer and fewer, like that Agonex army of yours.”
“You know about that?”
“The black robes talk about it now and then. I listen. I learn. Like I do in every age. Like I shall continue to do, until I am no more, until my people are no more.”
They crossed yet another bridge that spanned through a great cavern. There were lines and lines of reavers being fitted with armor. Augum only knew they were reavers because of the flaming swords. Each stood in attention as if awaiting the command to attack.
Augum couldn’t help but stop and place his hands on the grimy stone parapet of the bridge. What he saw here was a gut punch. “Where are the humans? Why aren’t you equipping humans—?”
The lions exchanged looks.
“Knoweth he nay,” Fasa said.
Mateo gave the slightest nod.
Augum squeezed his temples. “You’re equipping the
undead with Dreadnought armor …” He made a sweeping gesture. “All this …” He turned to face the Dreadnoughts. “Is for the undead?”
Fasa growled something.
“We only do as we are commanded,” Esha translated.
Mateo added another growl.
“Bound by a sacred ancient oath,” Esha translated again, something she continued to do as the two lion brothers traded off with their thoughts.
“A curse.”
“For our sins.”
“We were once warriors.”
“Who betrayed their father.”
“I remember this story,” Augum whispered. “You’re supposed to be the progeny of an Unnameable. The sons and daughters of a god.” He would not say the Unnameable’s name.
Mateo shared a knowing look with the other Dreadnoughts.
“Speaketh story so,” said one.
“Time it be,” said another.
Mateo turned to his lioness daughter and spoke a phrase in his guttural tongue. Esha in turn placed her gaze upon Augum.
“Think of an insect looking up at a human. To the insect—”
“—I know this story!” Augum interjected, the hair rising on the back of his neck. Peyas had told him a version of it. Augum continued in a sacred whisper. “To the insect, the human appears a god. To the human, a powerful warlock appears godlike—”
“Now imagine a warlock so strong, so old, that he then appears a god to those around him.” Esha paused to allow him to appreciate the significance of this. “And thus the Unnameables were born.”
Mateo, Esha’s father, spoke at length, during which Esha translated, often pausing to allow him to finish a point before translating it to Augum.
“We are fortunate to have seen old stories come to be what they are. A story becomes a fable, a fable turns to legend, a legend becomes myth, and lastly, if the story is powerful enough, myth becomes faith.”
She paused to hear Fasa say something. “Knowledge is a strange thing when perceived through the prism of eons. Simple deeds done simply take on mythic proportions generations later.” Then she translated something one of the other lions chimed in with. “For example, two supposed Unnameables walk the ground in Ley.”
