I was but one of many, a horde too numerous to count. Most had fallen on the karstic plain or drown-ed in the lifeless sea. Of the few who had made it far enough to enter the upper city, how many had suc-cumbed to the Hermaphrodite’s poisoned tongue? Of those who had, those who walked the Pattern, how many had partaken of the knife, carving their own flesh to suit the whims of a hollow covenant? Perhaps they had joined with the emptiness behind the altar, losing themselves in the fallacy preached by the crea-ture. Perhaps none had ever made it far enough to walk the Pattern. There was no way of knowing. All that was left to me was to follow my own instincts; to live these next few moments by whatever precepts, whatever covenant I so chose.
Striding forward I stepped over the first trailing slash of the Pattern. The heel of my boot clacked against the cold stone, the sound echoing about that great empty space. I waited, listening, my hand again straying to the hilt of my sword. After several pro-tracted moments had elapsed without incident I took another step. There came again the sound of my boot on stone, then silence. Shaking my head I took a third step and then a fourth. I was now within the confines of the Pattern, the swirling gouges spiraling away on all sides.
I continued to wait, searching myself and my surr-oundings for the slightest hint or revelation. None came.
I shrugged and began to walk.
There were no pangs of guilt or searing bolts of pain. I was not assailed by supernatural forces or by the voices of gods or demons. I made my way furth-er into the antechamber beset by nothing and no one.
The gossamer blue glow and the clack of my boot heels were, for a time, my only companions. The light showed me a corridor supported by columns and roofed by sweeping arches. The further I moved from the antechamber the dimmer the glow became. Even-tually I found myself walking with arms outstretched, trying as best I could to navigate the hall in the fading light. When it seemed I was destined to walk in full darkness, unable to see whatever pitfalls might await me, I ceased my forward progress.
For a time I stood in the Stygian blackness con-templating the possibilities laid before me. I had esch-ewed the Pattern and walked off into the darkness of my own accord. Now, I was faced with only two op-tions. Either I return to the beginning of the Pattern and walk it in the hope that it would guide my way or, staying my course, continue to move forward into utter blackness.
My decision was not long in coming.
Should I stumble and fall, then I would stumble and fall. If this happened I would then pick myself up and continue on. There was nothing else for it. Tho-ugh I made my way through utter blackness it was by my own choosing. I would accept the consequences of my actions.
On I went, hands held out before me, groping my way along like a blind man. I continued in this fash-ion, shuffling endlessly forward until I could walk no more. With fatigue gnawing at me, my body aching, my joints aflame, I slumped to the floor. I had with me no water and no food. I could do nothing but lay myself down and hope that when I opened my eyes it would be on a better world.
• • •
Above me swirled another twisting bank of fog, thick and nearly opaque. I sat abruptly upright, my heart leaping into my throat. To where had I stumbled after passing through the darkness at the back of the ante-chamber? Was I again at the shore of the lifeless sea, or was I within the upper echelons of the necropolis? Perhaps I was somewhere else entirely; some feature-less limbo without solid ground below or arching firmament above. For a brief, terrifying instant I was sure that I had found my way into a new sort of hell, one without even the obscenities of the necropolis or the endless wheeling stats of the plain. I had trans-gressed; I was sure of it. I had defied the Pattern and made my own way. I had stepped with impunity over the design laid out for me and was now doomed to spend eternity amongst this shrouded nothing.
If this was so, then there was little to be done about it. There was, at least, some light by which to see. This was far better than the velvet darkness in which I had laid myself down to sleep. Slowly I rose to my feet and stood, squaring my shoulders. If I was to be punished then I would meet my torment head on.
The fog continued to swirl in formless, insub-stantial waves. It rolled by, silent and peaceful, while I gazed about; waiting, watching. Nothing in my imm-ediate surroundings suggested that I was to be perse-cuted. There was nothing here, just as there had been nothing in the antechamber behind the altar.
Adjusting my kit and brushing back my cloak I started forward. My muscles still ached from my or-deal in the necropolis and my throat was parched. A dull throbbing had settled behind my eyes, keeping time with the beat of my heart. I sighed. It seemed I was to be punished after all. Resignedly, I moved on.
Before I had taken a hundred steps the fog began to rise. I watched it go, drifting skyward as if recalled back to the heavens. Thin tendrils snaked about one another, dancing as they rose. I squinted after the retreating mist, surprised to find that I was almost sad to see it go. The fog had been my companion since encountering the wall of bone at the edge of the kar-stic plain. It had blocked the stars, those cold, uncar-ing points of light under which I had first come to myself. The shroud had laid itself over me as I had traveled deeper into this dead land. Now that I had come through to the other side it was pulled away.
Golden light shone suddenly through a gap that had appeared in the clouds overhead. I blinked in sur-prise and raised my hand to shade my eyes. The light poured down; rich, warm, inviting.
Sunlight. True sunlight.
I inhaled sharply. The air was fragrant, alive with the scent of living things. It was moist and earthy, antipodal to the thin, dry air of the plane, the sea, and the city.
The fog, now cut through by the early morning light, rose higher still. I stepped forward, my eyes shaded, and stopped. I looked down, saw that the last jagged lines of the pattern ended but a few steps be-hind me.
Raising my eyes from the ugly, chiseled grooves I scanned the terrain ahead. What I saw split my face in a spontaneous grin.
Ahead me stretched a gently rolling field on which grew waves of tow-colored grasses flecked with dew. A gentle wind blew out of the west, making the drop-lets glisten as the stalks swayed. From the rich earth tendrils of steam rose skyward. These too caught the light, breaking it into motes of lambent gold. Just ahead was a small copse of trees surrounded by low bushes, their leaves shimmering as they danced upon the breeze. I could smell fresh water and hear the babble of a nearby brook. Casting about I saw that the streamlet wound its way past the trees and thro-ugh a patch of reeds beyond.
Raising my foot I made to step from the stone slab. I hesitated and set my foot back down.
I looked over my shoulder, half-expecting to see a looming stone edifice covered with carvings of the tormented and the damned. No such vision presen-ted itself. There was only the mist and the last rem-nant of the Pattern. Behind me, somewhere, shroud-ed by the fog, was the cathedral and beyond that the city, but they were no longer in evidence. During the night I had left them behind.
Moving at the behest of some baleful, alien thing I had come to this dead city in this dead land. I had been rewarded for my dogged pursuit of this intan-gible lure with cold monuments and deserted streets. The strange people that had built these twisted edi-fices had abandoned them long ago. I had been left to the machinations of its last remaining denizens. What they had told me was hollow; the words as insub-stantial as smoke. Behind it all had been…what?
A pattern.
A construct.
Something created by those who had looked upon themselves and had seen flawed and weak things. Things that needed to be rent asunder, punished sim-ply for the misfortune of having been given life. They had been willfully blind to the potential nobility of their own existence.
I had strode over the etchings of the Pattern, the magnum opus of those aberrant creatures, disdaining the path it had laid out for me. It sought to replace, to supplant, to act as an unchanging substitute to the world its creators had looked
upon and scorned.
It had called to me―of that there could be no doubt―and I had heeded that call. But upon seeing the construct I had known it for what it was; a false-hood, a spurious thing whose promise of order led only to emptiness, decay, and dust.
Now I stood looking out at what lay beyond. Be-fore me was an open field, a gentle breeze, and the sound of running water. Nothing tugged at my mind, nothing propelled me towards an unknown destina-tion. Here, in the light of a new day, the only thing I felt was the joy of possibility.
With a deep and quavering breath I raised my foot and stepped from the brink.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G. Owen Wears was borne in Pasadena, California in January of 1982. Despite his West Coast origin he has spent the last thirty odd years living along the Colorado Front Range. After high school he attended a local art college where he discovered that he prefers writing far more than painting. Currently he is the editor of “Exterus”, a fantasy and horror anthology that began publication in 2015. He makes his home in Loveland, Colorado where he spends his time reading, writing, and walking the many paths that line the Big Thompson River.
The Place of Stars and Bones: A Novel of Weird Fantasy Page 9
