Once Were Men

by Marin Landis

  She felt something like a cool breeze float through her brain. And then it was gone. She was past the guardian. She didn’t look back.

  Roughly four hours later she was annoyed to see another traveler on the road to Fallset. What were the odds? Hardly anyone ever traveled this way and now a man by the looks of it, going slower than her. There was only one way to go so she’d have to pass him and any lone traveler to Fallset would probably be someone whose fingers she should not try to break. He seemed to stumble onward, probably the aftereffects of his meeting with the guardian. Maybe he wasn’t that much of a threat at all.

  She caught up to him. About average height, dressed like a farmer, carrying a backpack slung across his right shoulder. He must not have heard her approaching because as she came level with him, he turned his head and let out an exclamation of pure shock.

  “Ahhh,” he yelled, then narrowing his eyes angrily, “what in the Hells are you doing here?” He stopped, as did she, curious as to this person’s business in Fallset.

  “Traveling to the city, I suppose the same as you.” She didn’t put on any false airs, she was becoming more certain that she could beat this creep without any need for tricks.

  “Wait a second! You’re not her, who,” he stuttered, “you look just like Finulia,” he finished lamely.

  Now she was really interested. Finulia, her sister, whom she had not seen for years, yet knew had been successful in securing the worship of Ain-Ordra in Amaranth. She had never personally been there and it sounded awful from what she knew.

  “You will fail to be surprised then by our connection, friend. We are sisters in blood.” She regarded him carefully. A member of the church then.

  “A more pleasant version I hope, seeing as we will be travel companions for at least the remainder of our journey.” He nodded in a more friendly fashion and, remarkably, without any leer or up and down look. “I am Accus, I am pleased to make your acquaintance…” he trailed off purposely.

  “Runild,” she offered. She knew of Accus. Second to Finulia. This wasn’t what she expected from a Necromancer, but who knew what lay beneath a plain exterior. He was bald, purposely, not through an accident of blood, but didn’t wear any of the makeup or jewelery of the Death Mages she had previously seen. Samarkus and his crew all wore robes and many affected the look of corpses with face paint. Accus was quite plain. At least he might not be terrible company. Not better than no company at all, but they were siblings in the service of the Dark Goddess. “I serve the Temple. What is the purpose of your pilgrimage?”

  “I am hoping to further my studies, nothing more.”

  He was a terrible liar.

  “Well, I’m a librarian, I’ll be able to help you with that.” She laughed as gaily as she could manage. His return laughter was also fake.

  The mistrust hung between them like the stench of putrefaction as they walked on towards the Necropolis of Ain-Ordra.

  There was little chit chat as they followed the road east towards the Necropolis. It was anyone's guess when they were officially in Fallset, but Runild was sure that to the north somewhere were the entrances to the Caverns of the Moon, the semi-legendary cave network of the followers of Noor. Often perceived as evil, Noor was indifferent to considerations of ethics and morality. The mysteries of magic Her only concern. Her followers lofty and arrogant and rare.

  Runild divulged this in answer to Accus's queries only after he had assured her that Finulia was well and thriving. She cared little for her sister in reality, but wanted to make sure that she wasn't as successful in her endeavors as Runild was in hers. When he asked what her purpose was in Fallset, she faltered. Why was she making this journey? Did she really need advice that badly? Yes, yes, she did, was her self-reassurance.

  That damned Dark Elf had spoiled her plans, she was sure of it. One moment, she had spies in the midst of the re-creation of the Temple of Sehar, the next they had been expelled. She had tried to make contact with Luchis but he avoided her assiduously and there was no way she could infiltrate their commune. All of this following what was plainly counter-espionage by the rogue Dark Elf. She spied on the Temple of Sehar, and he spied on her. She couldn't have been more careful but couldn't control what others did. She was under the impression that the Talvar were all bookish scholars, not silent killers who moved like he did. Had she not noticed how he was looking at her bosom she might have been done for, but like all men he was ruled by his lust. Maybe not all men, this Accus hadn't even looked at her when her cloak slipped open, if anything he kept his eyes from her at all times. Mayhap he liked men, or something else. Maybe she was too alive for him. He was a Necromancer after all. She laughed aloud, wickedly, causing him to look over.

  "And south of here are the Kehenre grasslands. Somewhere out there are their habitats. None know what they look like. They're as secretive as the rest of us," that includes you, Accus, was her unspoken thought. She was eager to get to the Temple, as much to be rid of him as to seek advice and reassurance from her mentor.

  He nodded politely, his mind elsewhere.

  Night was falling when they reached the entrance to the Necropolis. It looked like nothing but a small graveyard, the burial markers aged and crumbling. A rusty gate swung in the wind and a light mist floated amongst the stones. The road ended here and there were no signs of life anywhere. No birds flew in the sky, which was darker than it should be and clouds were lower than they had a right to be. The crypt that stood in the middle of the small cemetery was also crumbling with age. Nothing gave away that this was the entrance to an underground city of the dead, one who had never been here would have to brave the dark portal that led into the crypt.

  Runild did not hesitate, nor did Accus, moving alongside her. Both had means of seeing in darkness, he by his Gravesight, her by the gifts of Tumar and so the lack of illumination in the crypt posed no problem. This was yet another difficulty which would deter the casual investigator, if the eerie landscape and atmosphere did not, if the guardian did not and the remoteness of the locale did not.

  Down, down, they went, this the entrance not to a crypt but a long passageway, not too steep but one could fall if attention was not paid. Eventually, or so it seemed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes the incline ceased and there was a leveling out for thirty or so feet and then the narrow passageway opened up into a magnificent and huge natural cavern. They were easily three hundred feet above the bottom of the cavern on a small ledge with two narrow walkways traversing the vast pit of the cave. Their passing disturbed bats who made disturbing and echoing squeaks as they fled from the intruders.

  “This is it then. Luck on your quest, Accus.” Runild sounded pleasant. She very often sounded pleasant. She turned to walk onto the right hand walkway which he now saw was a wooden bridge of sorts, with no visible means of support. It didn’t seem to concern Runild as she walked on to it unhurriedly and was soon lost to his sight in the further reaches of the cavern.

  He watched her go. At least this gave him an indication of where to go. The left walkway. He was glad she had left, she was hateful and false. The time he had spent with Melvekior helped him to appreciate honesty and forthright behavior. You knew where you stood with Melvekior and you could change where you stood. They had started as enemies, he had been complicit in the young knight’s attempted abduction, but he had a enormous amount of mental fortitude and was able to fight off Runild’s sister’s mental attack, smashing her face into a wall and almost kicking Accus’s head off his shoulders. He smiled at the thought of Finulia’s broken teeth. She really was a vile sort, her sister as bad, he imagined. When he parted from Melvekior he did so unwillingly, but they had parted friends. Even brothers. Which made what he did now so difficult.

  He had taken vows and he had taken them for a reason. The world had rejected him so he rejected the world and sought out the afterlife. Through necromancy. He’d found power and recognition and acceptance. He’d learned though that quite possibly he’d been the one
at fault, not the world and the acceptance he had gained was from awful people. Nevertheless, he owed Ain-Ordra and Her priesthood a debt.

  Ironically, the old Accus would have merely shrugged of a perceived debt and gone about whatever business he saw fit. Now, he sought to extract himself from the Death Goddess’s service and in turn offer information about the Neral, the Seed of Ain-Ordra. He felt there would be little that could be done with that information, but there was no other way for anyone here to find out the things that he knew.

  He took a deep breath and took the left walkway, it was wide enough for him to walk confidently ahead without fear of falling. He didn’t know what was ahead, but he’d walked equally scary paths with Melvekior and would not let this one deter him.

  The walkway crossed the pit and he didn’t look down, it would have made things more difficult for him. There was a light breeze, extremely cold and a sound of scraping and scratching from below, which made him even more determined to make it across safely. Were this a path through a forest it would have been plenty wide enough but for some reason it seemed difficult not to stray. He found himself consciously moving back to the center of the path and wondered why walking deliberately was so difficult. He took a deep breath and stopped moving. The world seemed to pulse around him as though it were breathing in and out. Pull yourself together, this is a test of some kind, he thought angrily to himself. He sat down and centered himself, counting his breaths, moving his Gravesight beyond his body. There was death all around. He felt comforted and repulsed at the same time. There was a huge amount of negative energy coming from the pit, so much so that he could feel it physically pulling him in. How many people must have died for such an accumulation of death force to be present. He expelled that thought from his mind. He dealt with death but was sure that he didn’t want to actually cause any death. He was also sure that there was no precedent for such a person in his order. Generally Necromancers were uncaring of others. Accus was worried that this wouldn’t be taken well by his superiors.

  Finulia had recruited and trained him, this place was beyond his imagining. No wonder they didn’t bring people here to initiate, he thought as the walkway ended on a small platform upon which was a doorway. The single pathway continued, but now enclosed and there were doorways on either side. Doors were in short supply. What did the dead have to hide?

  He stared to see other people and then on closer inspection he realized that they were not people, not any more. He knew Finulia took people from all walks of life, removed their life force for future use and rapidly resurrected their bodies, performing dark rites on them to prevent them from destroying themselves, which they would if they ever became self-aware. It was rare but it happened. The horror of realizing that one wasn’t truly alive was enough to bring about violent impulses of self-destruction in every case. Once the bindings had been cast on the walking corpses she would send them off to their eventual destination. Often it was to Fallset. The creature would then walk, without pause or rest, food or sleep, directly to their commanded place of station. She wouldn’t ever reveal who ordered the ones that didn’t go to Fallset, but sometimes she sent out word for particular types of people to be slain and brought to her. Slain in such a way that the corpses would be unmutilated. Toys for the rich and depraved, no doubt.

  The beings here walked as though without purpose, but they would certainly have a purpose, directed by whomever owned them. They would have only minor dexterity but the strength of the heedless. As bodyguards they were exceptional, showing no mercy nor any fear. As secretaries or laboratory assistants, useless.

  He ignored them and walked on through the stone hallway until it opened out into a large room. This must be it, he thought. Three scribes sat in the room, at a long table each copying the words from one book into another blank book. Books were precious to the order. Other than the table there was nothing else in the room, save a door, an actual door, in the rear of the room. In front of the door stood two gigantic flesh golems. One of them had three arms and carried three clubs. The other was a normal sort of shape, just seven feet tall and all of its limbs were misshapen and crooked.

  Accus approached the table on the other side to which the scribes were sitting. They all wore identical cream colored robes and their heads were bowed so he could see nothing of their identities. They all looked up in unison and he was devastated to see that only the one in the middle had eyes. The others boasted empty sockets and horrid scars on their cheeks and foreheads. Someone had commanded the two newly risen bodies to gouge out their own eyes at some time in the past. Being as clumsy as they were, it would have been a ghastly sight to have seen and he had to rapidly force the thought of it from his mind.

  “Hello, I am Accus, Mage of the Second Order, Priest of Her Dark Majesty, Ain-Ordra,” he canted dramatically.

  “You didn’t really have to add that last bit in,” the man in the middle said caustically. “What is it you want?”

  Accus noted that the eyeless ones were writing furiously. Were they keeping a record of this conversation? He felt unhappy with that for some reason. “I’m here to see a senior priest,” he realized when he said it that he didn’t know any senior priests nor had he met any but Finulia. A feeling of doom settled upon him. Had he somehow been duped?

  “There are some back there, you’ll have to look for yourself.”

  “What are you here for then, if not to direct visitors?” Accus was feeling tetchy now that his stress levels had risen.

  “Visitors? There are no visitors here.” He returned to writing, the other heads bowed already.

  Suppressing an insult, he walked past the desk and opened the door. The change from where he had come, dramatic. Dramatic was the perfect word for it in fact.

  He had always found Finulia particularly fake. Everything was over the top and histrionic. He understood that the types of people that became members of a death cult were a certain type of individual and needed the pomp and ritual to convince themselves that what they were involved in was suitably evil and occult. She though, didn’t just fill that role for the sake of others, but for herself. It was attention she sought and without the blather and showmanship she would have been severely diminished.

  Feeling even more superior to Finulia now, he had a closer look at the hallway he had entered. The floors were carpeted and the walls hung with paintings every dozen feet or so. He couldn’t see any side exits from where he stood. At his feet was a mat, probably for people to brush off their footwear, and a bucket full of hard handheld brushes. The deadservants were indifferent to filth and mess and would drag in all manner of dirt. There was probably an instruction to rub it all off here. He was as fastidious as anyone so walked on down the corridor without scuffing or wiping. He moved slowly, in no major hurry, so better to examine the paintings and feel at last as though he was in a civilized place.

  The art, unexpectedly maybe, was not all morbid death scenes but the sort of thing that any moderately wealth person might have hanging on his or her walls. Scenes of Gods and Goddesses from legend, notables from history, the odd eerie scene but there was no trend towards the macabre. The Church of Ain-Ordra was rich beyond what another Church with a similar sized congregation might be. There were numerous reasons for this, not least that none here really had much need for physical wealth. Believing themselves above the need for material goods, many death cultists led lives of abject poverty and died while relatively young. He and Finulia, on the other hand, lived a life of luxury, the money stolen from the disinterred corpses they used, wealth surrendered by members of the church and other, more nefarious activities. People were stupid and superstitious and will part with their cash easily. More than one wealthy widow had parted with the lion’s share of her inheritance for the opportunity to once more spend a night with a deceased husband. Minor temporary raising like that wasn’t a common ability, but not outside the abilities of even a minor priest such as he. Blackmail, murder and simple menacing were all practices used by Fin
ulia as well. She was genuinely terrifying which made it all that much easier. ‘Was’ being the operative word. Melvekior had put a huge dent in her confidence.

  He walked for about a minute and was becoming impatient. Surely something would present itself soon. He open a door and wished he hadn’t. A figure was within with its hands in the guts of a corpse. He closed the door rapidly and walked on. He heard the figure open the door behind him and mutter something which he ignored. Essentially a coward, Accus didn’t want to confront anyone unnecessarily.

  “Wait,” a voice said. It had an authoritative tone and he turned ready to extricate himself from whatever situation he’d caused. The man, and it was definitely an alive one, stood outside the door wiping his hands on a rag. He was dressed similarly to how a butcher might dress; an apron and high boots, his head bare.

  “I’m very sorry, brother, I admit to being a little lost.” Accus hoped to sound apologetic.

  “It’s easy to be lost here, there are no signs or anything to distinguish one room from another. I often walk into rooms other than my own. What do you seek?” He walked closer. He was a handsome fellow, taller slightly than Accus, though at least a decade older.

  “A senior priest. Might you be…” he started.

  “Yes, I am actually, Krovius,” he held out his hand and swiftly pulled it back. “Don’t shake my hand, you will get offal on your clothing.”

  Accus nodded. “Pleased to meet you Krovius, Accus from Amaranth, do you deal with information? Forgive me, I have never been here.”

  “Isn’t that we all do? What information do you seek?” He seemed willing, even eager, to be of assistance.

  “I seek to provide it, Krovius. It relates to the Mother’s seed. I have seen it and understand its origins. I thought that…”