by Brian Fuller
“Lights on,” Argyle ordered. Helo pulled the little handheld LED from one of his pants pockets and lit it up. The twinge in his mind struck again, but he shoved the odd sensation back, blinking his eyes to focus. Argyle wedged his way into the slit, the two BBR’s slung across his back scratching the walls of the narrow passage. One by one they followed, a draft of cool air trying to chill faces immune to its power.
Helo entered last, the cave swallowing the sunlight. Finny was hunched over as he walked, eyes pegged to the floor. Was he scared of caves, too?
“All right, Finny,” Sparks said as they walked. “Would you rather—and this is as a mortal, now—would you rather stick your head in a wasp nest for sixty seconds or stick your head in a crocodile-infested river for ten seconds?”
Finny’s shoulders straightened up. “Well, it’s hardly equal. Wasp nest, for sure. No chance of death.”
“Wrong there, mate,” Sparks said. “You get stung enough, it could kill. You will get stung. A lot. And it hurts. Tried to break down a big nest with a bat once. Face looked like I was a mutant potato for like a week.”
“But there isn’t enough information to make a decision,” Finny said as the cave suddenly slanted down, slowing their progress. “No one knows the statistical risk of sticking your head in crocodile-infested water.”
Argyle baby-stepped it down the incline, signaling for Shujaa to follow.
“I bet that Faramir guy does,” Sparks said, close on Shujaa’s heels. “Thinks he knows bloody everything. But—”
The conversation suddenly died, and Helo discovered why once he reached the bottom of the incline. From seemingly everywhere reverberated a low hum, like a lonely engine running somewhere in the distance. Not powerful, but loud enough to demand attention. It seemed to leak in through his boots and into his shoulder where it butted against the coarse wall. But it wasn’t the physical quality that demanded the attention. Like the twinge in his mind, the hum demanded an audience. It was like it wanted to speak.
“Come on,” a tight-lipped Argyle said, motioning the group forward. Another twinge. Helo pinched the bridge of his nose and shuffled his way behind Finny. The humming intensified, and so did the feeling that came with it: it was anticipation. It was a kid on Christmas. A reunion with a loved one. A prisoner about to be set free.
Then the first chamber opened around them, the ground leveling and smoothing out. Sparks whistled. Everyone else gawked, flashlights gashing over a multitude of recesses carved into the walls. Filling those recesses were small padded sacks, all vibrating like the bullet Goliath had cast the evil spirit into. The sacks muffled the sound of their movement, but the whole room felt like the wasp nest Sparks had talked about. Alive. Anxious. Dangerous.
Clink!
Twinge. Somewhere ahead of them, though still distant, something had cracked or broken open. Argyle raised his hand, signaling for silence, and unshouldered his rifle. Shujaa, Finny, and Sparks followed suit. Helo hoped Argyle would pass back his rifle now, but apparently the creepy hum and mysterious clinking sounds didn’t warrant the risk of Helo having a weapon.
Chamber after chamber they went, the scope of the centuries-old evil-spirit-storage project dawning on Helo. Thousands upon thousands of evil spirits were stashed away in the mountain. It was staggering. The low hum of their frantic, impatient vibrations was like the clawing of a hundred fingers grinding against a stone wall, trying to get out. Desperate to get out. It saturated him, creating a pit in his stomach he couldn’t ignore.
Clink!
Twinge. It was the second time the sound had echoed around them. It was close now. Some of the sacks, cloths, and other wooden containers that had housed the objects lay strewn about the floor, and the farther in they went, the more they carpeted the ground.
The last chamber they came to opened wide, so wide and tall it felt like stepping onto a stadium after the constraining chambers they had crossed. Shuffling steps echoed in the emptiness, adding to the uncomfortable din. A massive rock column slanted down from the ceiling. Row upon row of carved recesses rose about twenty feet high on the chamber’s walls. This was the oldest chamber. Very few of the vessels here were encased in the newer cushioned bags that were clearly the product of modernity, though some had been retrofitted. But a full third of the lower recesses were empty, the ground strewn with the bags, boxes, and contraptions that had housed the vessels.
Clink!
Twinge.
Guns snapped up. The sound had come from behind the massive rock pillar, and a few moments later, a red aura stepped out. Argyle snapped off a round at the Dread but missed, the bullets slamming into the sandstone and cratering one of the recesses.
Twinge.
The naked Dread didn’t react to the shot, its mangled head visible in the lights trained on it. Everyone with a gun had a bead on it, but Argyle had raised his hand to signal them to hold. The Dread seemed oblivious to their presence. His left hand had no fingers. His head was an egg with craters for ears. With his good right hand, he fumbled along the recesses until he found one still occupied. He pulled out a bundle of cloth, and it crumbled at his touch. A vibrating stone was left, and the Dread turned.
His eyes were gone. His nose was gone. He faced away and shuffled back toward the rock pillar one unsteady step at a time, feet feeling for what was in front of them as much as walking.
It took a moment for it to register. A moment longer to believe it. It was horrible.
“Holy hell,” Helo said. “That’s Archus Ramis.”
“The Archus who’s been missing?” Sparks said.
“Yeah,” Helo said.
Argyle froze. Helo jogged around him. If it really was Ramis, he was being controlled by the pendant, for sure. How had Avadan found this place? He circled the pillar just in time to watch Ramis place the twitching rock on a low shelf of stone. Ramis fished a sledgehammer off the floor, felt for the rock with the stumped wrist of his left arm, and then brought the hammer down. Clink! The rock shattered, pieces skittering to join the detritus from what looked like a hundred similar shatterings. The evil spirit was free.
Twinge.
The rest of Sicarius Nox filed in behind Helo. Like a senseless robot, Ramis stood, making his way back toward the recesses in the wall. Shujaa, face grim, raised his rifle. Helo pushed it down and Hallowed the ground around them. As soon as the hallow enveloped Ramis, he stopped, tottering before falling to his knees. His mouth fished open and closed, incoherent grunts issuing from a mouth devoid of teeth and tongue.
Argyle turned away and walked toward the wall, leaning against it. A fire rose in Helo’s belly. Avadan had mangled Ramis before turning him. This was malice. Malice without boundaries or rules.
“Where’s the Legion Stone?” Helo asked. It was no good. Ramis was deaf. He was blind. He couldn’t speak, though he tried.
“We’ve got to find the Legion Stone,” Argyle said from across the room, face still turned away.
“It’s not going to be here,” Helo said. “Avadan’s already got it. He might have already freed Legion, for all we know.”
“Impossible,” Argyle said, half turning toward them. “He couldn’t have gotten it this fast. There’s no way. Not even Ramis knew where this place was! We’ve got to look.”
“He’s been at this awhile,” Sparks said, kicking aside some of the detritus with his boot. “I say we put the man out of his misery.”
“It’s a trip to hell,” Argyle said, finally walking back toward them, eyes on everything but Ramis.
“He’s already there,” Finny said softly.
“No,” said Argyle. “We’ve got to try to rehabilitate him.”
“Really?” Helo said. “So you won’t even try to rehab Aclima, but you will Ramis?”
“Ramis isn’t a Loremaster,” Argyle said coldly. “I’m going back out to get instructions from command. Wait here. Do NOT touch him. And look for the Legion Stone. We have to look.”
Argyle marched out, the glow of his fla
shlight disappearing into the far chambers.
“Well, he’s lost it,” Sparks said. “If Ash Angels had to piss, there would be a puddle in his boots for sure.”
Helo couldn’t blame Argyle. Ramis’s visage was hard to stomach. Helo could only imagine the hell Avadan had put Ramis through.
“Well, guess I’m in charge,” Sparks said. “Helo, keep him in the hallow. We’ll see what we can find.”
It didn’t take long. On the far side of the chamber, Finny found a stone box banded with metal over the lid. The rusted lock lay at the base, busted apart. “This has got to be it,” Sparks said. “Look at the engravings on the metal.”
Helo edged over, making sure his hallow still enveloped the mutilated Ramis. The metal bands around the box crisscrossed in such a way as to form a metallic cross on the lid. Engraved into the longest band was a herd of pigs running for the edge of the box and then pictures of them falling continuing down the side.
“Clever,” Sparks said. He extended his boot and kicked the lid upward. Finny tried to stop him, mouth agape in the opening phases of a “No!”
There was a click that barely registered above the incessant, ever-increasing hum, the emotional weight of anticipation almost unbearable. Helo flinched in unison with Sparks and Finny, then waited until the dust settled. After a few moments, Sparks leaned over the open box to find it packed with explosives.
“That’s a lot of C4,” Sparks said. “Why aren’t we smoke, Fin?”
Finny shined his light in the box, revealing a wafer of circuit board and a lump Helo thought might be a battery. “I think it’s live. It just hasn’t gone off. Might just be shoddy work.”
“How long?” Helo asked, backing away toward Ramis.
“This isn’t the movies,” Finny said. “There isn’t a timer or some beep counting down. I might be able to defuse it. Everyone else get out.”
“I’m not going bloody anywhere,” Sparks said.
“Brilliant,” Finny said with a dose of sarcasm.
Shujaa grabbed Ramis by the arm and dragged him up, then looked at Helo. “Let’s go, Angel Born. I’ll carry the Archus.”
Shujaa set his gun down and hefted Ramis, who went rigid once lifted out of the hallow. Even though he’d never liked the former Archus, Helo pitied him. No one deserved the fate Avadan had fashioned for Ramis. Shujaa’s aura flared, probably Strength.
“This is not a standard explosives package,” Finny observed from behind them. Helo quickened his pace. “It’s hodgepodge. Some idiot messing around.”
“Um, there’s this light that’s turned on all of a sudden,” Sparks said.
“Yeah,” Finny said. “I see—”
Boom.
Chapter 9
Ramis
Rapture re-formed his body amongst a pile of the bits and pieces of vessels that had once held evil spirits, spirits now free to tempt and torment the addicted and the desperate. The explosion that had sent him into the White Room had enough power to blow the majority of his heart’s molecules almost all the way back to the slit in the cliff that was the cave entrance. Somewhere behind him, someone was hammering on stone.
Helo swatted the dust and shards of vessels off his body. Avadan. Cain was bad, but Avadan was worse. Why didn’t the psycho Loremaster blow up the Pit when he had come for the Legion Stone? Why had he set Ramis to the task of smashing the vessels one by one?
Helo had gone over all these questions while he floated in the nothingness of the White Room. For sure, Avadan’s appetite for theatrics surpassed Cain’s, but for both, a victory wasn’t a victory unless the enemy’s defeat was also a thorough demoralization. The Ash Angels had never been hit this hard, and Helo couldn’t imagine what the repercussions would be. Avadan had already taken down Deep7, Deep 6, and now the Pit. He had crippled the Occulum. What else was on his list?
Boots scuffing on stone from the direction of the cave entrance brought him to a crouch. Two friendly auras moved toward him, and he shielded his eyes as one of the Ash Angels blinded him with a flashlight.
“That’s one of them,” a man said. “Helo, right?”
“Yeah.”
A pile of clothes landed next to him, the black camo pants and shirt of the Michaels uniform. No boots.
Helo grabbed it. “Find anyone else yet?”
“You’re the first,” the Michael said. “Report to camp. Make way.”
Once Helo had pulled himself to the cave wall, the Michaels passed by, heading deeper into the gloom, boots crunching on the broken vessels. The pants and shirt they’d provided were a little small, and he began morphing his waistline and shoulders to accommodate the clothes.
Now dressed, he traversed the short distance to the cave entrance but found the outside only a couple of shades lighter than the inside. A brooding blanket of swollen clouds flurried down, double-sized snowflakes lazily working their way to the stone floor of the notch. Another Michael waited by the rope, and a brace of guards stood sentry at the bottom. After his descent, one escorted him back to camp where Commander Crane waited inside a canvas tent. Soldiers whispered around camp lights, no doubt wondering what had happened up there. Crane would get the news first.
Helo pushed the tent flap aside and went in. Crane sat in one of a handful of camp chairs around a folding table, an LED lantern harsh against his face. As usual, his expression held a slight edge of disdain.
Helo sank into a camp chair.
Crane studied him for a moment. “What happened after Argyle left?”
“We found what we think housed the Legion Stone. Sparks kicked the lid off, and it triggered an explosive. Finny said it didn’t look professionally done. He was trying to figure it out when it went off. Shujaa and I were carrying Ramis—”
“Archus Ramis,” Crane interjected.
Helo would give him that much respect. “We were carrying Archus Ramis out. We’d just made it out of the main chamber when the thing went off. Archus Ramis is probably a dust pile.”
Crane’s forehead tightened. “What did Archus Ramis look like? Argyle said he was a Dread.”
Helo straightened. “He didn’t tell you what Avadan did to him? Wait, where is Argyle?” He’d been acting weird before he left.
Crane’s mouth formed a straight line, and he leaned back in his chair. “He left. Resigned as commander of Sicarius Nox.”
Helo frowned. Argyle had left Sicarius Nox? “Because of Archus Ramis?”
“They were friends,” Crane said.
Helo could believe it. Ramis liked results and people who followed orders, and no one loved following orders more than Argyle. Still, to just up and resign his command?
“What did Avadan do to him?” Crane pressed.
“Cut off his ears, outside and inside. Cut out his tongue. Blinded him. Chopped off his left hand, left him his right. Had him up there smashing vessels one by one with a hammer. When I Hallowed around him, he was out of the pendant’s control, but . . .”
Crane slapped a palm down on the table and stood. “Hundreds of years of work trapping those bastards and it’s all blown to hell. Why did Ramis do it?”
“Archus Ramis,” Helo reminded him
Crane rose and paced the back of the tent. “Why did he take the pendant? Why did he sell us out? I don’t care how much you’re tortured, you don’t give up secrets like this!”
“Don’t judge till you’ve been there,” Helo said. “Avadan is the Dread equivalent of Micah, only Avadan’s been experimenting on Ash Angels for way longer than Micah studied Dreads.”
“And you’re sure the Legion Stone is gone?” Crane asked.
Helo described the markings on the box and what was inside. “If the Legion Stone was still in there, it’s destroyed and Legion is free. I don’t think it was. I think it was taken.”
And that was all he knew. He had no idea what the Ash Angels would do now, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. He couldn’t let them detain him indefinitely when he had to find Aclima and restore
her to Ash Angelhood before the AAO exterminated her. But if the Ash Angels would leave him in the field, he had a better chance of learning about Dread movements and finding her.
“So who’s in charge of Sicarius Nox now?” Helo said casually. “Sparks?”
“I am,” Crane said, “until I can find someone I trust to put in the saddle.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Helo said. “You going to throw me in another box somewhere?”
Crane eyed him. “You and your wild-stallion routine might have charmed Goliath, but I’m with Archus Mars. You aren’t thinking straight. You’re more of a circus than a rodeo, and I don’t like the circus. But it’s not up to me.”
A Michael poked his head in. “Sir, it’s going to be at least an hour. They broke through into the first chamber, but the stone had collapsed again, not too far in.”
“Any sign of Archus Ramis?” Crane asked.
“No, sir,” he said.
“Report back on their progress in half an hour,” Crane said, returning to his seat.
“Anything else?” Helo asked, standing.
“Well, there is the matter of what to do with you right now,” Crane said. “Highland!”
A few moments later, a lanky Michael stepped into the tent. “Yes, sir?”
“You have the Speed Bestowal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You watch Helo,” Crane said. “Make sure he doesn’t leave camp until we’ve got orders on what to do with him.”
Highland wasn’t much of a talker, and Helo didn’t mind. They’d scrounged up some oversized boots for Helo’s bare feet and he wandered the camp, waiting for news. After two hours, the Ash Angels pounding away at the collapsed stone still hadn’t managed to reach the main chamber of the Pit. Overhead, the brooding clouds slowly broke apart, and from time to time a spectacular ray of sunshine would splay against the dusting of snow and the red rock, creating scenes worthy of postcards and placemats.
It wasn’t until nearly noon that a commotion in the camp brought everyone toward the cliff face leading up to the Pit. There, dangling from a rope tied around his waist, was Archus Ramis the Dread. All eyes followed his descent, his body twitching like it wanted to scrabble back up to the Pit. It was like watching a spider slipping down a web. Helo couldn’t believe it. How had he survived? The fire should have incinerated his heart and sent him—and it was hard to think it—down to hell. His body did bear the burns of the explosion, but he had survived.
