Hollows of the Nox

by Matthew E Nordin

  The air gave no scent of decay or rot. A passage to nowhere and yet, everywhere. And perhaps the answers he sought.

  Only the light spilling in from the entryway would have to guide him. No windows were available to lend him aid.

  His better judgment told him not to reach along the walls. He imagined grabbing fistfuls of spiders or other creatures that liked to burrow in such forgotten places. But he could not resist.

  His fingers stretched out along the wall to steady his descent. Smooth and hard, like coal or marble. The space was sealed tight enough that a breath wouldn’t be able to enter. He felt intrusive on the sacred tomb. The first one to cross the threshold in ages.

  The bottom of the stairs expanded into a corridor. The world above him faded from existence while he traveled farther. He had to be close to the main chamber.

  His left hand dropped into an opening to another room. The smooth surface on his right cornered in as well. The doorway and the walls extended out beyond his reach.

  This was the room.

  He wanted to remember the layout, but the brief glimpse he had weeks ago did not give him enough information. The light from the opening of the stairs gave him no assistance either. It was an encompassing blackness.

  He tried to step into the room, but his foot hit an object. The impact shifted his weight forward as he fell into the abyss before him. The ground seemed to come up at him.

  His shoulder ached. All sense of direction was gone. Putting pressure on his arm to sit up caused a spike of pain. He gritted his teeth and shook off his suspicions. Nothing broken.

  A soft glow filled the doorway from where he had fallen. The light bobbed slowly down and became brighter as the source approached the open room.

  “Eldritch?” Sayeh’s voice whispered from the corridor.

  “I’m in here.” Eldritch coughed and rolled onto his back. “I must have tripped on―”

  Sayeh stepped into the room. Her skin glowed in the candlelight, exposed by her low cut robe. She smiled.

  “You are beautiful,” he stammered trying to think of a better way to describe her, but his mind was dizzy from the fall and the way the silk clung to her body.

  Her leg showed the scar as she stepped closer to him.

  “Did you fall? Are you hurt?” She placed the candle on a stack of books an arm's length from his head.

  He was speechless as she bent toward him. She had changed from the awkward girl he befriended in the bookshop, to a woman he found himself lusting after now. It was almost unbearable.

  He turned away and looked at the ceiling. The boards were formed tight together, except one area. Where Sayeh had fallen. The same charred formation that infested her leg scabbed over the wood.

  Her hand rubbed his leg.

  “I will let you explore these chambers,” she said. “But first, you must explore me.”

  The pain in his side came back, but he paid it no heed as he pushed himself up to her embrace. Her warm skin shivered at his touch. She curled inside his arms and softly kissed his neck.

  She moved her lips to his, and his mind floated in celestial bliss. The kiss shattered time and all his insecurities. She was all he needed, all he desired.

  She stopped kissing him and coughed.

  Eldritch opened his eyes again. Something in the air burned into his nostrils.

  “What’s that smell?” He noticed one of the books emitting a cloud of gas.

  The vapors clouded his vision, but he could see the ceiling glowing and smoking with the same eerie cloud.

  A pain shot through his arm from Sayeh’s fingernails digging into his skin.

  Her scream echoed through the catacomb.

  She released Eldritch and he crawled away. He could taste blood mixing with the sulfuric residue in the air.

  “Get it off! Get it off me!” Sayeh cried.

  She collapsed to the ground scratching at the scar on her leg. It too smoked and cracked with the rest of the room. The light from the candle intensified with a surge of energy. The ceiling turned to a deep red glow like coals in a fire.

  “It’s this place,” Eldritch said grabbing her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  His shoulder burned with pain from the fall as he lifted her from the ground. He had to get her out. The scar turned a deep red.

  Sayeh's tears and sobs stopped between her cries of pain while he carried her up the stairs. He clenched his teeth through the grip of her fingers clawing into his back.

  At last, they reached the top. Eldritch laid her down and she collapsed onto her dress from before. She must have thrown it off in haste to slip into the robe.

  She cowered in the garments, trying to cover her leg and shaking from the shock.

  “Please, let me help you,” Eldritch said between breaths. He pulled a cloak from his bag and wrapped it around her.

  “I’m fine now,” she said in a whisper. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m sorry. I wanted to show you how much I care for you.”

  “I know, Sayeh. I know how much you care for me. You don’t need to do anything at all.” He couldn’t look away from her leg that had swollen around the scar. “I do want to be more than friends.”

  She smiled at him and stopped rubbing her leg.

  “The candle. I think it’s still down there. I can’t―” She tried to stand but fell back down.

  “Stay here. I’ll get it.”

  Eldritch returned to the stairway. A smile crossed his lips as a new desire consumed him and carried him deeper into the chasm. No whispers in his ear were necessary.

  The stench from the sulfur hung like a mist low to the ground. Although the candle tried vehemently to light the room, its small flame did little to drive out the embracing darkness.

  Scattered shelves of books drew a haphazard circle around the center table. The maps and ancient tomes coiled together in their preserved state. A layer of dust and splinters covered the area where Sayeh had broken through.

  Eldritch retrieved the candle to get a closer look. Piles of ash coated the table. It covered all the books, save for one.

  Drops of dried blood mixed with the debris around it, but the cover remained unscathed. Its leather skin stretched tightly around the pages, covering whatever mysteries lay inside. It smoldered from the smoke.

  Eldritch stepped back in terror. The blood had not missed the book, but it had shaken it off somehow―like a living creature. The book trembled and smoked once more as he stumbled back.

  He caught himself on a nearby table, placing his hand onto another strange book. The cover felt similar to wet grass. As he moved his hand away, the illustration twitched from his touch.

  This one did not strike him as evil. He brushed the cover again, watching the plants in the artwork sway under his fingers, before opening it.

  The crude illustrations of plants looked to be done by an unskilled illuminator, yet the words around each drawing required a master calligrapher. The language was indistinguishable. The shapes and patterns jumbled together, mashed from different dialects like a combination of languages.

  He traced his fingers along the drawings and words. The picture looked more alive than not. It began to have depth and volume and reached up from the page.

  As Eldritch grabbed onto the illustration, the plant stretched and pulled itself from the paper. He held it closer. A new species. Its roots and leaves were almost familiar but from separate plants. The flowers upon it were altogether strange. He placed it beside the book that had the old crude drawing of the plant on the page again.

  Eldritch turned to the other book still smoking and shaking. Like the sensuous lure in Sayeh’s eyes, it beckoned him to touch, to take whatever he wanted from it.

  No. Something sinister about the way the blood pooled away from it. He was not ready.

  He grabbed the small plant and the book that it came from. It would require more study to unlock its mysteries, and he didn’t want to leave the chamber empty-handed.

  The dark book let o
ut a shrill cry. Eldritch felt the desire for it again. He could grab it too. There was plenty of room for both in the bag he carried.

  He inched closer, the desire to read it growing stronger with each step.

  There were no words on it. Only the symbol of a tree which seemed to grow into the book itself―like the scar on Sayeh’s leg. The roots appeared to hold the pages together inside its locked seal.

  The blood around it sizzled. Sayeh’s blood. She had to be worried. He left her alone for too long.

  His hands reached for the book against his will.

  “No!” he yelled.

  He thought he heard growling as he struggled against the power driving him closer.

  “Let me free!”

  A force rammed into his chest, knocking him and the candle over with one last burst from the wick.

  He could hear the book boiling in Sayeh’s blood. It gave him direction in the darkness, the opposite way to get out.

  He crawled through the entry and climbed into the dim light.

  “Sayeh, are you there?” Eldritch reached the top of the stairs and found his cloak lying on the ground where she had been. “The candle fell over, and I couldn’t find my way out.”

  No response. The pulsating of his heart and the strange sounds of the dark book echoed in his ear. Maybe he should have grabbed it.

  “No one should know what is down there,” he said to himself. The power would be too great for a weaker mind, it was almost too great for his. He needed to be stronger.

  He pushed on the other side of the shelf to close the secret doorway. It gave a low thud and locked into place. The book that turned the locking mechanism was not there.

  “Did Sayeh take it?” he muttered to the empty room.

  The trance from the book could have lasted for hours or seconds. There was no distinct way of knowing and the only remaining light coming in was from the moon.

  He hated himself for leaving Sayeh, but she had likely gone home. Any chance he had with her that night extinguished with the candle. The thought of the dark book in the chamber made him tremble. He needed time away from the bookshop.

  “We will wait, we are always waiting.” The familiar whisper came again. This time it crept outside his mind, somewhere in the direction of the hidden door.

  Eldritch shook his head and checked to make sure the other book of plants remained in his bag. He would have plenty to study for a while, and his parents would need him for the harvest. The cellar would wait for him to return. When he was ready.

  Chapter Five

  “Eldritch, wake up! You’ll never believe this son.” His dad’s voice was followed by banging on the door to his room. “We will have to get an early start to get all of it collected. Meet us at the grove as soon as you are ready.”

  Eldritch groaned and sat up. The sun had not entered his room yet. Although the mysterious plants from the book created a mixture that helped his body sleep less, it was more precious to him now. His entire meditation would need to be restarted―later.

  He pulled his blanket off and stumbled toward the book of plants. Dried leaves and fragments of roots littered the table. He needed to focus on the correct ingredients to make him more alert. When he first discovered the mixture, he consumed it too late in the night and slept for most of the next day.

  Of course, the directions gave little aid on when and how much he should use. The language of the book was a jumble of old and new words, more so than the compounds of herbs and plants it produced from its pages.

  “Where are you?” He flipped through the pages, trying to keep his eyes open.

  He turned to the page with the bright green plant that had clusters of red berries. They needed to be dried and roasted before giving the proper effect. He grabbed a handful and started downstairs.

  “Is anyone here?” he called out to the empty house.

  His father wasn’t joking about leaving right away. His parents had already gone out to the apple trees. There was no time to prepare the berries. Perhaps he could find a way to roast them and make them into a drink. He shook his head.

  “One thing at a time,” he muttered and jammed the berries into his mouth, spitting the seeds into a container. They could be used later.

  The sweet juices made him choke on some of the pits. He took a swig of water and stuffed the extra fruit into his pocket. Their magic would give him more energy while he walked to the grove.

  He understood his father’s surprise when he arrived at his family’s apple grove. The red, green, and yellow fruit glistened in the morning light, nearly twice the size of an average crop. With the drought, his parents had been searching for even a bucketful of edible ones.

  “You came quicker than he thought,” his mother said meeting him on the path. Her wheelbarrow overflowed with apples. “We may need to use the horse and the larger cart to get all of these in today. Whatever strange smelling concoction you put around these trees really worked.”

  “I told you they would work,” Eldritch said. “But I wouldn’t have guessed it would be this much.”

  “Where did you find the information on that anyway?”

  “I’ve been studying books on how some of the other cities can thrive during droughts,” he lied.

  No one could know the secrets of the plant book he found. While most of them were for growing and harmless spells, some were more like poisons and could wipe out entire populations.

  “Well, we appreciate the help around here.” His mother lifted the wheelbarrow up. “I hope you’re not just helping us because you are avoiding Sayeh.”

  Eldritch stared at the ground in silence and kicked a stone along the path.

  “Some of the others have been saying she hasn’t been right lately. Tell your father I’ll get the horse.”

  Eldritch nodded and looked down the path to the grove. The town rested farther down with Sayeh and the bookshop. He hadn’t returned since their last encounter. He couldn’t bring himself to check on her after his embarrassment.

  The time of the harvest was passing quickly as his days mixed with his nights. He studied as much as he could, yet the magic he used on Sayeh’s leg eluded him. The recipes he found in the plant book would help someone heal faster or numb the pain, but there was nothing like the shell that formed around her leg.

  “Hey, son.” His father waved at him near one of the outside trees whose branches hung low with the heavy fruit. “Can you get the horse for us? Your mother keeps running the wheelbarrow back and forth.”

  “She’s getting it now with the cart.” Eldritch grabbed an apple and placed it on top of an overflowing barrel.

  “Remarkable isn’t it? Not any marks of a pest or rot. Almost like they formed overnight.”

  “They might have,” Eldritch said under his breath. He stepped over a dark root that curved up from the tree. “What is that?”

  “Come.” His father motioned for him to follow. “I reckon it is where all of the nutrients are coming from for the trees. I’ve never seen one like it in any of my travels.”

  “Not that you travel much,” Eldritch muttered once his father was out of earshot.

  More of the dark roots spiraled around the trees to the center of the grove, the source of the power. A looming aura of strong magic pervaded the air. The sounds of the chirping birds faded from the place.

  In the midst of the grove, a lone tree reached up from the ground. It was waist high, but Eldritch sensed it contained more power than he could fathom. He had seen such a tree before―on the cover of another book.

  The dark tree seemed to be pulling him closer. The lure of destiny. He needed to get back to the cellar.

  “Let’s get as much harvested today as we can.” Eldritch turned to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to hide his grimace. “I’m sure it will be good to pick tomorrow as well.”

  “We will surely have more than enough this season.” His father crossed his arms and smiled. “You’ve been working a lot lately. After to
day, you should take some time off. Maybe visit that bookshop you’re always running off to.”

  Eldritch looked up to meet his father’s gaze. He nodded. His father likely thought he wanted to go see Sayeh, but it didn’t matter, whatever got him back to the cellar, and the book. But he couldn’t do it during the day, he would have to sneak there under the cover of night.

  He had much to plan when he returned to his room. Though the sun had recently descended over the horizon, he needed to start his sleep cycle. To make sure his parents would not notice him, he slipped a special mixture into their drink while they ate that evening.

  Their snoring echoed up from the room downstairs. They probably didn’t make it past the table.

  Sneaking into the town at night could cause suspicion. It was best to remain unseen. He scrounged for his longest cloak to dye. The color had to be dark. Darker than the shadows. One with the shadows.

  “We will help you,” the voice whispered at him. “Unlock the words.”

  He thought back to the tales of bandits who would inscribe their garments with symbols allowing them to slip through dark places. Doors of pure shadow. The fabric could be purchased from great enchanters in larger cities.

  It was too late to try to purchase one from an enchanter, even if he knew one. He should have followed Grinley. All the books in Raikrune contained stories of the magic, not the spells themselves.

  “I do not truly belong here,” Eldritch said to himself.

  He thought he heard the voice echo his words. The voice that crawled into his mind and unlocked his ability to heal Sayeh. He had used an enchantment, and it ran into the blood-soaked pants from that fateful night, draped over his chair.

  He snatched it and threw it in a basin full of his writing ink. If any residual magic remained, it would enhance the spell. His cloak drank up the ink instantly when he dipped it in.

  An odd sensation filled his mind, and his voice seemed to be whispering in through the breeze. He pulled the cloak back, completely dry. The enchantment created a fabric blacker than a starless night.

  The last glow of the sunset from outside faded away, and clouds blanketed the sky. The darkness would be perfect. No one would see him coming. If not for the mixture of plants to aid him, he too would be lost in the shadows.