A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners

by D Elias Jenkins

  "Our blessings. Our Angall's Whisper. We have to direct them onto this. It's what opens the door."

  Sebastian turned to them with a dismissive snort. Alfred could see the terror in his eyes despite his bravado.

  "Our blessings are the only thing with a hope of keeping those monsters back. I'm damned if I'm turning mine into little more than a candle to offer to that door. The rest of you can do what you want."

  Dunc looked down the tunnel. In the shadows at the edge of their combined light, the multitudes of possessed and mutated husks approaching. They could smell the rot before they could see them.

  "He's right, Alfred. As soon as it goes dark, those things are on us."

  Alfred looked to the bronze disc.

  "It's a puzzle. A lock that uses holy light as the key. I think I can open it if I have a few moments."

  Deena glanced behind them. The swarm was shambling around the corner and the behemoths dragging themselves close behind. Their tendrils snaked across the stone walls, searching for the scent of warm skin.

  "I don't think we have more than that, Durnling. But we'll keep them back as long as we can."

  Alfred looked deep into her eyes. He wanted to protect her. He did not want to die here in the dark. But there was no more room or time to be scared. He nodded and turned to the sealed door. In a few deep breaths he calmed his respiration and released the mote from his throat. It drifted forward and connected with the bronze plate, working its way into one of the grooves. Alfred had a good understanding of what this lock was.

  It's a maze.

  Using the light from Deena's blessing in the centre of the disc to see, Alfred focused on his own light. The glowing speck worked through the bronze spirals and alleyways. Alfred guided it with his mind, cursing each time he hit a dead end.

  He heard Manzak's voice behind him.

  "How much longer, Alfred? They're here!"

  Alfred heard the slash of swords and the shouts of fear and anger.

  "Nearly there."

  With all his might Alfred blocked out the carnage around him. The stench of the swarm. The screams of rage and fear from his companions. He tried to become the peaceful little mote of light as it journeys through the bronze maze towards the centre. Towards Deena's light. Behind him, the creatures upon them. Deena, Manzak, Sebastian and Dunc fought with all their fading strength.

  Their lights dimmed and the exhaustion descended on their limbs. Deena swung the big curved sword Cyrus had given her, taking off limbs and heads as they came close. But with each animated corpse that fell, another five scrambled over to grab at them. It was becoming darker in the tunnel as their magic depleted. The circle of protection around them was growing smaller.

  Alfred focused hard as the mote negotiated the last of the maze and merged with Deena's in a burst of light and colour. He heard a satisfying clock and then a slow straining grate as the door began to slide open.

  Alfred turned to his companions.

  "It's open, we can-"

  To his dismay he saw the light of the other aspirants flickering and dying. They fought but now the unnatural amalgam of fused bodies that was the behemoth had found them. It lurched forward with makeshift tentacles, black tendrils feeling their way along the walls. Alfred shouted.

  "It's open. To me!"

  The others back off, slashing their swords at anything that came their way. Deena was forced to duck as the behemoth's mutated limb hurtled through the air at her head. It crashed into the wall, dislodging some masonry in a cloud of dust. Manzak hacked at it but it thrashed backwards, knocking him from his feet. Sebastian had backed off close to the door. He yelled.

  "Come on for Light's sake! Just run."

  Deena staggered towards the door, stunned and confused. Dunc crouched and pulled Manzak to safety, who got to his feet and almost fell through the opening door. Dunc stood his ground, flailing his sword to keep the giant beast back. Alfred stepped towards him.

  "Dunc this way. Hurry!"

  Dunc turned his head and flicked his chin towards the door with a dark smile.

  "Get through."

  Alfred picked up his sword and made to assist Dunc but in that instant Dunc's legs dragged from under him. A wreath of black tendrils wrapped around his ankles and began to drag him into the morass of undead. Alfred shouted out.

  "No! It's got him!"

  Before any of them could move, Dunc was dragged further in and the corpses descended on him. One chewed at his cheek, another on the bones of his fingers. Dunc was stoic and tightened his jaw. With his last energy he closed his eyes and drew on the reserves of his blessing. As the tendrils closed around his face to drag him deeper in, Dunc locked eyes with Alfred. Then his blessing bloomed in a dazzling moment of light that burned the flesh of the Sorrow all around him. Alfred shielded his face. When he looked through his fingers Dunc was gone, lost in the swarm. But the creatures at the front line seared and blistered.

  Deena grabbed Alfred's arm.

  "He bought us a few moments. Come on. Come on!"

  Alfred stared down the tunnel. His vision was blurred with tears and bedazzlement. The swarm was regrouping.

  He got off his knees and backed through the doorway. On the other side he saw Deena pushing against a metal lever on the wall.

  The door began to grind shut. Alfred, Manzak and Sebastian hacked at every rotting limb that reached through the diminishing crack. They saw the bulk of the first behemoth closing in on them, trying to block the door from closing.

  Alfred's last sight before the stone slammed shut was Dunc's limp arm being dragged into a tangled army of undead.

  Then the door closed, the sounds of the Sorrow muffled and distant through the barrier.

  Alfred leaned his forehead against the thick slab of cold stone. He felt the thumping of the Sorrow on the other side like a monstrous heartbeat.

  In that stolen moment of safety, his strength almost left him. Alfred felt his legs shake and his guts turn to water. Deena's light was at its lowest ebb and they could see the chamber they stood in. But they sensed it was huge.

  Cold air washed over them, drying the fevered sweat on their foreheads. Alfred breathed out onto the stone door.

  "It's just a matter of time before they get through."

  Deena walked over and leaned her back against the wall. Then she sank to her knees in exhaustion.

  "Yes. And we're almost out of light."

  Alfred turned around and walked past Manzak and Sebastian. He stood at the edge of the fading light of their blessing and stared off out into the dark. He breathed in the cool breeze and tried to gage the shape of the vault.

  "Well this is it. This is where the blessing led us. The writing on that door said that this was Angall's Hall."

  Deena struggled to her feet and limped across the join the others.

  "What else was written on the door?"

  Alfred stood looking out into the gloom as the monsters slammed against the door behind him. He closed his eyes and with his last reserves he bloomed into a faint sphere of light. It cast a pale glow into the vault around them. The roof was high, lost in darkness. The floor was engraved with symbols and writing.

  "It was a warning."

  Manzak cast Alfred a sidelong glance. His dark brow rose.

  "What did it warn against?"

  Alfred breathed out a deep sigh. He felt like he had led them all into their own private tomb.

  "It said don't come in."

  Manzak gazed around them into the gloom with his sword readied.

  "Anything else?"

  Alfred raised his own sword. He considered his next words before he dared to say them.

  "It said don't wake up what's in here."

  Manzak stepped back to back with Alfred. Deena and Sebastian joined them. They stood looking out into the vast gloomy chamber with their swords up, breathing hard.

  Deena spat blood on the floor and readied herself for battle one last time.

  "Isn't that what we came
in here to do? Isn't that what Bluheart and Invar and the old texts and all the rest assured us was the right thing to do?"

  Alfred doubted all of it. He wondered if all the nonsense about destiny and blessings and hope was all a big cosmic joke. He wondered if he was just a freak trying to give meaning to his cursed strangeness.

  "Something about Angall's Whisper. Something about it being a blessing and a curse. And about it making us a worse danger than the Sorrow. It says we would become destroyers of worlds. It said that a human heart communing with these angelic beings would be a weapon no one could control, too dangerous for anyone to hold. I might have read it wrong, I was a bit rushed with all the corpses and such."

  Alfred, Deena, Manzak and Sebastian stood there back to back, leaning on each other for support. The warped swarm of the Sorrow pounded against the door outside. The masonry was beginning to crumble.

  Alfred's magic was spent.

  And he had nothing to show for it.

  14

  The remaining aspirants stood in the final chamber. The air tasted old and still. The only reminder of the outside world was the deep insistent thumping of the Sorrow as it battered against the door.

  Alfred, Deena, Manzak and Sebastian all fell to their knees exhausted on the floor. A pool of pale light spilled down on them like a private moon. A fine mist of dust drifted down within it as the masonry high above in the dark was shaken. Something moved in the shadows high above them but none of the aspirants could make it out.

  At the end of it all. Entombed somewhere in the timeless dark.

  They had no more strength and no more courage. Just four young people chosen by the gods for a trial no mere mortal was capable of. Deena wiped tears from her filthy cheeks.

  "He should be in here with us. He was a worthy as anyone could be."

  Alfred tried not to think of Dunc's screams as the foul creatures dragged him down into the dark. Of the horrible sound of him being eaten. Deena's voice was quiet but it echoed out into the dark.

  "He shouldn't have died down here in the dark, helpless and afraid."

  Alfred reached out a hand towards her but stopped short and rested forward on his hands and knees.

  "He's not in the dark any more Deena."

  Manzak let himself fall back and lay there flat out on the cold stone, staring up into the pale light that seemed to have no source. Between the mighty thudding of the behemoth, the scrabbling of the dead could be heard on the stone outside. Hungry for the living light within the chamber.

  "Why did the gods have to be quite so thorough?"

  Only Sebastian remained on his feet. He was standing at the edge of the pool of pale light, staring off into the dark. It was impossible to tell how big the chamber was that they were trapped inside, but the echo alone made it feel huge. Sebastian's voice was clear and haughty as it always was.

  "To weed out the unworthy, Manzak. It was always a test. To see who was strong enough to bear what comes afterwards. To see who is a true general in the fight against the Sorrow."

  Manzak offered his infectious laugh despite their predicament.

  "Ah yes, look at us Seb. Four noble generals ready to lead the armies of the Light to victory. I don't know about you bastards, but I'm having trouble standing up."

  Sebastian turned and sneered at him, and then resumed his gaze out into the gloom.

  "Well, I always wondered why you were gifted a blessing in the first place, if I'm honest, tinker-boy. It's a filthy home for an angel in that sullied flesh of yours."

  Manzak thumbed his pierced nose at the tall blonde lad.

  "Yet here we all are your skinny lordship."

  Alfred pushed himself up onto his knees and forced his mind to start working. He tried to filter out the constant thumping of the behemoth on the door but it was like a timeless headache.

  He stared out into the dark and asked the obvious question.

  "Yes, but where is here?"

  Deena frowned and looked around her. It was impossible to tell how vast the chamber was but they all sensed it went far beyond the pool of light where they sat.

  "This is supposed to be it. The Tomb of the Messengers. But there's nothing here. It's a bleak and cold as every other part of this ghost city."

  Alfred stood up. He had an ominous feeling.

  "There's something in here with us. Watching us."

  The other three stood up too. They huddled back to back as they had been taught and drew their short swords.

  Not one of them called on their blessing or tried to use any magic whatsoever.

  Yet at that moment the torches ignited high on the walls all around them. They revealed that the four youths stood in an enormous domed chamber with pillars that arched to a central point at the apex.

  But that was not what took Alfred's breath away.

  High above them floated entities of such alien geometry that his brain had trouble taking it in. Wheels moved within wheels. Wings of gold and crystal enveloped them. Myriad eyes peered in all directions. Wreathed in flames of all colours that danced. Blades and spears orbited around them. The entities triangular and spherical at once. Their forms writhed and twisted in ways that the eye could not follow. The entities at their core metallic, but with organs and veins that seemed grown from metal rather than forged. And within them golden lights pulsed like heartbeats. Each time they pulsed Alfred had to shield his eyes from the power of that light. He sensed that these metallic entities lived.

  He also sensed that their true form was within, and impregnable to mortal eyes.

  He recalled Invar telling him that these Archangels, the Burning Ones, could clothe themselves in the material of the world, these garments just a vehicle for beings of pure soul. Intact, complete, sentient souls. Invar and every other paladin that had ever lived had communed with just a fraction of one angelic soul. And those fractions were of the foot soldiers of the heavens.

  True Archangels, the generals of Angall's armies. Power beyond anything that any paladin in history had ever witnessed.

  The aspirants stared in wonder. Their minds could not come to terms with the geometry of these beings. But not one of them was in any doubt about what they were.

  Alfred reached a hand up as if to caress one of the Archangels high above. He felt tears rise in his eyes at the sheer awe he felt. He glanced across and saw that Deena was the same. A humble servant of god seeing the divine for the first time. She met Alfred's eyes and shook her head in disbelief.

  "They're impossible. They're not of this world. But they're so beautiful."

  Alfred nodded in awe. He had conversed with Angall in his private prayers for years. These prayers had taken the form of casual conversations with the familiar. He had seen his Lord as just another man in form, wise and kingly. Something comforting and homely.

  But these beings.

  These entities from the dawn of time were as far from that as he could imagine. And now he was terrified. He was more terrified of these things than he was even of the army of rotting souls that battered on the door, hungering for their blood. No other options now. Alfred knew that they were trapped here in this deep lonely chamber, surrounded by Sorrow-infected corpses and eldritch abominations. They had no hope of fighting their way out.

  The only option was to do what they set out to do. To commune with these being of fire and living metal. He turned to Deena.

  "Deena, we must gather out blessing in ourselves, like Invar taught us. Hold it there and let it build."

  Alfred turned to Manzak. "You too, Manzak, let your fire kindle."

  Manzak took a deep breath and his eyes began to glow. All three of them felt the communal warmth as their motes of magic recognized each other and drew closer. All except Sebastian.

  The tall boy had stepped away from the rest, his arms held up in rapture. His face was giddy with power and he smiled up at the revolving angels. He shouted to the others.

  "The enemy is at our door, Alfred. We don't have time for this ritual. Jus
t let your blessing go and let one of them choose you!"

  Alfred reached out to Sebastian.

  "Easy Seb. Invar told us how dangerous this was. We have to commune with each other. Find our quiet and approach them ."

  Sebastian looked across and his face was a mask of haughty scorn.

  "Alfred these are engines of war! They are the weapons that will turn the tide. Look what peace done for us. The Sorrow picked us all apart piece by piece. Now is a time for rage and the trade of war. And I will be its vessel."

  Alfred begged the boy again.

  "Sebastian please. Be careful. Commune with us and we will do this together."

  Sebastian snorted his head to the ceiling. He held up his arms and his throat began to glow. Before anyone could stop him, the mote of Sebastian's magic had left his throat and drifted up in a graceful dance towards the ancient angels.

  It blew on an invisible breeze past one. It almost touched another, and then it came to rest upon the living metallic skin of a third.

  Alfred, Deena and Manzak watched in amazement as the engine of Light within the structure burned brighter. The wheels and machinations that served as its body ground faster and a low hum emanated from its core. Then a ball of slow moving fire emerged from within the structure. It drifted down to Sebastian and he held out his hands to receive it. The fire flowed over his skin but he did not burn. When it covered his body and enveloped his face, Sebastian just stood there, smiling and wide eyed in wonder.

  "I can feel it! I can feel its mind flowing over me. It wants to know me."

  Sebastian stood with his hands held high as the cool flames flickered across his body, investigating him.

  Alfred stood in awe as the angelic being searched Sebastian for something.

  And found him wanting.

  Sebastian's expression changed.

  He began to twitch and jerk within the flames as if he was being stung by ants.

  "Wait. Wait, stop, this hurts. It's too hot, make it stop."

  Sebastian had only a moment to look up and connect eyes with Alfred before the flames around him turned blue and then white. Sebastian had time to scream before he was vaporized and the flames extinguished. All that was left was a cloud of ash that settled to the ground.