He calmly led his group to the doors of the church. He found them locked, so he gave a solid rap on the doors. After a long moment, a low scraping sounded from the other side as someone removed the large bolt and tossed it to the floor. The doors whisked open, and a Mutation looked at them for only a moment before baring its teeth and crouching for an attack. The Tepish squad shrank back in surprise.
“Hold it!” Vladimir ordered. The Mutation paused and stared at him, quizzically. Vladimir had won them over as a friend before turning them loose earlier, and the Mutation apparently remembered him – or so he hoped. “Remain here,” he said to the creature. Vladimir gestured to his squad and they followed him into the church, each one carefully avoiding any level of contact with the Mutation, who only watched them pass with a confused look. Vladimir glanced around the room and saw two more dead Rastem along with one of the Mutations, but no more than that. Given that the Rastem outnumbered the Mutations prior to the battle, he was satisfied that the Rastem had only killed one.
He led the squad between the pews through the expansive sanctuary hall and then through the door at the front of the sanctuary. There, he found the nine other Mutations looking down a carved tunnel that led into the catacombs beneath the church. He paused for a moment wondering why they had not followed their prey down the tunnel. So far, they had been mindless beasts with very limited cognizance of their surroundings, and yet the only problem he could find with the tunnel was a lack of light. Surely, they are not afraid of the dark, he thought. He walked up behind them.
“Excellent work, my friends,” Vladimir said, startling them. They hissed and jumped out of the way, some of them even landing on the walls and sticking there. Vladimir found this to be a strange reaction, but they had always behaved a bit mindlessly, so it did not concern him. He gazed in surprise at the Mutations who crouched on all fours on the walls. Whatever his young friend had done to the serum, the effects continued to surprise him. He had no idea they could cling to the walls, and found this ability both useful and disconcerting.
After a moment, he found his voice again. “We can take it from here,” he told them. Collectively, they crawled away from the Tepish and backed into a corner of the room. There, they just watched.
Vladimir turned to the damp entrance to the catacombs and wondered again why the Mutations had stopped. He had planned to follow the Mutations just in case the Rastem went underground, and the fact that the Mutations did stop allowed his troops to move that much more freely. His one concern was the Mutations mistaking his squad in the catacombs for the Rastem and attacking them as well, and now their reluctance to enter the tunnels alleviated that issue.
He pulled out his self-lighting torch and fired it up. He longed for the days when they carried lanterns powered by churning pools, but Karian’s rash takeover of Erim and irresponsible rules drove out anyone who specialized in these things, which left them with their primitive beginnings. Looking again down into the pitch black of the catacombs, he felt it was all too probable that since the Mutations had no light source, they were unwilling to head into the darkness. As easy as it was to get lost down there, he could not blame them. The darkness was another reason that Vladimir brought some Tepish along to finish the job, just in case.
He turned to his Tepish. “Somewhere in this maze are our enemies,” Vladimir said. “They have subverted us for long enough. Spread out and find them. When you find them, kill them. No questions. No prisoners.”
Several Tepish drew self-lighting torches and lit them as others drew their swords. Vladimir stood aside, and the Tepish charged recklessly into the depths of the catacombs.
* * * * * * * * * *
Tiberius followed Yori as she led the six remaining Rastem at a brisk walk through the maze of coffin-riddled catacombs under the old church in Erim. Behind Tiberius was Kaltesh, followed by Tyran, Boltash, and finally Falta. At their pace, the flame on the self-lighting torch she held ahead of her trailed well behind its source, only barely remaining lit. Its light flickered off the dirt and stone walls, along with the wooden supports they periodically passed that prevented the tunnels from collapsing. The tunnels were just wide enough for one person, so they were forced to walk single file.
Because the people of Erim had used these tunnels for centuries as tombs, thin, wooden coffins lined nearly every inch of space on the wall. The holes for the coffins were carved out of the wall, one at floor level and another at waist level. The opposite walls were usually carved at the same points so that they passed four coffins at a time, two on each side. The tunnel opened up in at regular intervals to a circular room where new tunnels would branch out and there would be pairs of coffins in the same stacked holes between each tunnel of the four-way branch. It was nothing short of a nightmare to navigate and a wonder it did not intersect with the sewer system.
“Yori, do you know where this will lead us?” Tiberius asked desperately.
Yori let out a brief chuckle. “Tiberius,” she said with more than a touch of forgivable irritation in her voice, “I don’t even know IF there’s a way out. We heard the fighting and ran back without searching much of it.”
“How are your instincts?” he asked.
“Perfect as ever,” she said turning briefly to him. “If there’s an exit, I’ll find it.” She turned back to the front and Tiberius heard her mutter, “Hopefully.”
“On the bright side,” Tyran pointed out from behind him, “the maze of this place will at least slow down our pursuers. There hasn’t been a sound of them since we got down here.”
“Doesn’t mean much,” Boltash said. “We didn’t hear them earlier. Just saw them.”
“You know,” Kaltesh said, “we’re not going to have much of a chance if they corner us.”
Tiberius did not admire the pessimistic outlook, but he could do nothing about it. He shrugged. “Well, we can at least give them something to talk about,” he said, “if those creatures talk at all. Regardless, if we go down, we go down fighting.”
“Comforting thought,” Falta mumbled, clearly unhappy with the idea that she might die among the corpses down here.
The path quickly started to look the same as they passed the sets of coffins on either side of the walkway followed by the round junctions containing eight caskets. Yori took turns seemingly at random, but Tiberius could at least tell based on the patterns of crumbling dirt and decay of the coffins that they were not going in circles. Tiberius wished they had another torch to light the rear of their line, but the combination of Tepish and Mutations attacks had killed the other Rastem who carried their torches.
“Boltash, do you hear that?” Tiberius overheard Falta saying from the back of the line. He stopped and turned to the darkness behind them. Yori walked back to stand behind Tiberius, illuminating his back with the torch.
“That sounds like more than ten,” Boltash said. Tiberius listened carefully to the sounds of the tunnels around them. There was a low rumble from behind them – definitely more than ten. The sound grew louder and sounded from around them. Their pursuers were not only following them; they were filling the catacombs.
“Those aren’t their new Fempiror,” Tiberius said. “They’ve set their Tepish warriors on us. We need to find a place to hide.”
Tiberius looked to Yori who shrugged. “These catacombs are as unfamiliar to me as everyone else,” she said apologetically. “I have tried to keep us going upward, or at least level, but I don’t know if we’re getting anywhere. I know I can get us out. I just don’t know when that will happen.”
“It’s all right, Yori,” Tiberius said. He looked around. They were in a junction room containing eight coffins and four ways out. Tiberius saw only one unpleasant solution to their problem.
“Listen, everyone,” he began. “We’re going to have to crawl into the crypts. It will not be fun, but I’ll spend the night with a stiff if I can wake up tomorrow. Yori, give me the light.” He held out his hand, and Yori handed him the torch.
�
��You five get in,” Tiberius continued. “I’ll go last. Cover your faces with your cloaks, or you’ll choke on the dust. Do not get out until I give the signal. You’d better get comfortable. I’m not going to get us out until I’m satisfied they have gone, and I have a feeling that could be awhile.”
The other five Rastem walked to five of the rotted, wooden coffins in the room and reluctantly opened the lids. At once, they grimaced at the remains inside, but they were at an impasse. While no one looked forward to what they had to do, no one complained as they climbed into their coffins and closed the lids. The thunder of the footfalls continued to grow louder around him as Tiberius turned to his own coffin.
Tiberius took one last breath of fresher air than he would have for some time to come. He opened the coffin and looked upon the decayed remains of someone who had been there for over a hundred years. He knew when he climbed in that his body would crush the remains into dust, but he also did not want to join this corpse forever down here.
He doused the light, climbed in, and closed the lid over him. He immediately regretted his decision.
The darkness was stifling, but the smell was worse. He held back coughing as well as he could for the dust in the coffin that surrounded him as if the spirit of the person he shared this space with was unhappy with being disturbed by the living. The footfalls grew louder until a small army of Tepish charged by their position. Then the thunder rolled away like a summer storm further and further down the tunnels until the darkness and dust was joined by complete silence.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Revelations
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
David and Beth awakened as the persistent pounding at their room door continued. They glanced at each other concerned, since the pounding sounded urgent and not altogether friendly. David jumped out of the bed, and as they both considered the town potentially hostile, neither had changed into nightclothes, but remained ready for anything. David walked to the door and opened it to find Frinyar waiting for them, his hand ready to continue knocking. He dropped it to his side.
“You will accompany me,” Frinyar said bluntly.
“Why?” David asked.
“That is not for me to say,” Frinyar replied. “I just follow orders.”
“Did you sleep well?” David asked him. Frinyar’s gaze narrowed angrily. He was not going to acknowledge the question.
David nodded and turned to Beth. She just shrugged and slipped on her shoes. David did the same and in moments, they were following Frinyar down the stairs toward the entrance. As they passed Fiona, David noticed that she did not look as friendly toward them as she had when they arrived. A glance to Beth told him that she had noticed the same look. He was tempted to ask Frinyar again what this was about, but Frinyar had refused to answer the first time, so there seemed little point in persisting.
The faintest rays of the sun still shone over the horizon in the early evening of the 14th, but the townspeople had apparently started their work immediately after the sun was low enough to get out. In the center of town, they had planted two very large, thick poles. Large enough to hold against the strength of a Fempiror, David noticed. Townspeople were actively piling logs around one of the poles.
David turned to Beth. “This can’t be good,” he said softly. She shook her head in response. Whatever had transpired while they rested, he feared they were going to be in trouble very shortly. Still, it was too soon to flee. They both understood that they needed to let this play out to find out the truth behind Kelïrum.
Frinyar led them to the steps of the town hall where the mayor, Obadiah, awaited their arrival with a smile. “Good evening,” he said smugly.
“Mayor Obadiah,” David greeted him without a trace of the nervousness he held within him, “what’s going on?”
“We are preparing a celebration of long awaited freedom,” Obadiah said with a great deal of pride. David noticed that several Fempiror had walked up behind both he and Beth while Obadiah had spoken. David and Beth exchanged worried glances and then looked back to Obadiah.
“Freedom?” Beth asked. “From what?”
“You,” Obadiah said. Instantly, three pairs of hands seized David from behind. They were all Fempiror and David was unable to struggle against them. Three more seized Beth as well. She looked at him with determined eyes.
She was not worried yet. He looked back to Obadiah. He knew they had done nothing wrong in the town, so the innocence behind his look was genuine.
“Why are you doing this?” David asked.
“You don’t know?” Obadiah asked, surprised.
“Are we acting guilty of something?” Beth asked indignantly.
“Over the past few weeks, people have turned up missing,” Obadiah explained.
“What should we know about that?” David asked.
“We’ve barely spent any time here,” Beth pointed out.
“Don’t play innocent with me,” Obadiah snapped. “You two are spies for the insurrectionists called Rastem and Elewo. You seek to subvert the current rulers and cause nothing but trouble. You have come here to take people for your cause, whether they like it or not. We are not fighters!”
Beth looked at him, confused. “Where did you come up with an idea like that?” she asked.
“Our leader knows who you are,” he said and then gestured to the Fempiror holding them. “Tie them up.”
With three to one odds, neither David nor Beth struggled against the Fempiror who violently dragged them across the short distance from the steps of the town hall to the poles in the center of the main road. Two Fempiror waiting for them near the poles walked forward and tied both Beth’s and David’s hands using japrinsa, the strong, but light, rope that Fempiror cannot break.
They tied David to the pole surrounded by the logs, while Beth’s pole was clear of the wood. All around them, the townspeople pulled the strikers on their self-lighting torches creating half a ring of fire around the two of them, leaving the view to the town hall open. He did not like where this was going at all.
“If you know anything,” David said to Obadiah as the townspeople tied him to the pole, “then you should know that neither the Rastem nor the Elewo recruits any one against their will. That is the way of the Tepish.”
“That is what an insurrectionist would say,” Obadiah spat at him. “Our leader knows you. You can address your pithy remarks to him.”
Obadiah backed away from the door to the town hall. Behind him was a shadow who had been silently watching the entire affair, just waiting for his moment to come forward. David knew it had to be a Tepish to have filled the people with the lie about the Rastem and Elewo. Further, this Fempiror would be a Tepish who knew David, and possibly even Beth. The list of those other than Vladimir and Karian were very few. He wondered which one had escaped him over the years.
The Tepish walked into the light of the torches and David’s jaw dropped. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Beth was just as stunned at their true host in this town. Their attempt at operating undercover never had a chance here. Standing on the step of the town hall, looking at him with a triumphant smile was–
“Abraham!” David exclaimed.
“I don’t believe it,” Beth followed. “What are you doing here?”
Abraham Barber crossed the short distance to stand just outside where the ring of fire would have ended if it had circled all the way around. He looked between the two of them.
“I might ask you the same question,” Abraham said. “You come here with your story of having been recently changed, but the truth is you were changed ten years ago ... both of you.”
“But you,” David stuttered. “You were fine. I left you as a human.”
“Yes, you did,” Abraham said with a condescending nod. “You tossed me off of your Levi-Cart to die in the plains around Hauginstown.”
“It was within walking distance!” David exclaimed.
“You must have forgotten that your
friend was fighting a Tepish,” Abraham reminded him angrily, “whose sworn duty is to transmutate humans.”
“Vladimir!” David recalled in an instant. Of course, he had not known it at the time, but by the time David had dropped Abraham off the back of the Levi-Cart, Vladimir had beaten Zechariah. He might have even followed David after David flew out of the cave and then stumbled across Abraham.
“Yes, Vladimir,” Abraham confirmed. “He changed me. I consider it a favor, since I was able to find you and punish you for what you did to her.” Abraham turned his gaze to Beth, and his anger softened upon seeing her.
“Abraham, I forgave him,” Beth told him gently. “He didn’t know what he was doing!”
“Irrelevant,” Abraham quipped, resuming his anger and moving to stand in front of David. “Vladimir said that Zechariah told David repeatedly not to return, but he disobeyed. In fact, Vladimir indicated that you were immensely disrespectful during the entire time he knew you. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”
“So stand up to me, and we will fight,” David said, struggling fruitlessly against the japrinsa. “Don’t destroy me without so much as getting your hands dirty. What kind of revenge is that?”
Abraham chuckled. “Not so easy,” he said. “You were taken in by the Rastem. That sword you carry is your own, and in ten years of training, you’re at least formidable. I received only minimal training before the Tepish recognized my abilities and moved me into researching what they now call the Mutation.”
Abraham looked to Beth and walked to stand in front of her.
“And you,” Abraham said harshly. “I loved you. I really did, but you rejected me. So taken with dear David that even after you thought he was dead, you wouldn’t have me. You come to town unarmed, but with him. So either you remained together, which I find unlikely, or you were trained as an Elewo, and are more lethal unarmed than he is.”
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