by David Benem
“Troubling…” Gamghast mumbled. “Perhaps we’ve wilted to such weakness that our enemies no longer need give us regard.”
The old man gave no answer.
“Herein,” Jalim heralded in his frail voice, “is Rune’s greatest treasure. I have a dear memory of beholding it once—only once—before losing my sight.”
“Stay here, both of you,” Gamghast said. “Tannin, watch for any unwanted eyes.”
Tannin nodded. “Do as you must, Prefect, but do it quickly.”
Gamghast moved into the circular chamber constructed deep beneath the earth. It was vast, a hundred feet or more across and the ceiling nearly as tall. Eight massive pillars in a ring supported the dome-shaped ceiling above, a rare allusion to the Sentinels being counted with the High King in the number of Illienne’s divine fragmentation.
Perhaps one symbol the High Kings hadn’t the courage to alter…
The room seemed to vibrate with a low hum, and a radiance emanated from the chamber’s center to illuminate the domed ceiling above. Magnificent, glittering mosaics decorated the ceiling, though Gamghast took only scant notice of them, so focused was he on the source of the light.
The Godswell. His eyes widened at the sight of it, a shimmering pool, roughly round in shape and several yards in diameter. The very hole torn into the earth when the gods Illienne and Yrghul descended to oblivion.
The Faith held that, in order to be crowned king, a prince needed to prove his worthiness—and divinity—by touching the waters of the Godswell. The Faith held also that the king was the only person capable of touching the well’s waters, and that any other would be destroyed by the fury of the dead gods.
The Faith charged the Sanctum with two primary duties: tending the High King’s body and praying over the Godswell. Gamghast was well-versed in the healing arts, but his experience with the Godswell had been rather limited. He had seen it only once, twenty-nine years before, just prior to the coronation of High King Deragol. Prefects weren’t permitted to attend the Lector’s annual ceremonies at the well.
And now we have no Lector, no idea what such prayers entailed, nor why they were necessary in the first place. He chuckled at a sudden thought. Perhaps Karnag the murderous highlander will say a few reverent words for the pool.
He walked with tentative, shuffling steps toward the well, oblivious to the pains still nagging his back, knees and hip. The hum grew stronger as he approached, his bones trembling. He’d never been this close, and curiosity consumed him. Intense light shone from the waters, the illumination nearly blinding. There seemed a pull, also, a force that seized the body and drew it near. Gamghast wondered for an instant if he could tear free, but knew he had no desire to turn from such a wonder.
The very grave of the dead gods. A grave still alive with their divine energy.
Though the gods were far distant, the well held power. It contained the most fundamental element of divinity: the power of the infinite. The power over endings and limits, the eternal defiance of death and decay. The Faith claimed the well held echoes of Illienne’s wisdom and righteousness, and Yrghul’s ambition and mastery of the dark…
He came to the pool’s edge, pressing quivering hands outward. The water—utterly still—glowed with a silvery hue, and there seemed no way to plumb its depths. A seemingly bottomless well tunneled through earth and stone, to a place where time and space ceased to exist, a place from which even gods could not escape.
Gamghast gazed intently into the well, mesmerized. The waters were crystalline, luminescent. Yet, there seemed at their deepest point a dark mote, a distant object.
And then there was movement, a shadow sweeping across the well’s depths. The distant portions of the well darkened, and the darkness pressed upward. Fingers of shadow clawed along the radiant walls of the well, darkening the waters as they rose.
He furrowed his brow and strained his old eyes, hoping to see more clearly.
The water flashed brilliantly, blindingly, a great plume of light that spewed from the well to illuminate the golden mosaics adorning the domed ceiling. The massive chamber glowed for a brief moment with the very light of midday, every nook brightening as though the sun blazed within the expanse.
But in the light’s wake followed an ever-deepening shadow. The radiance faltered and dimmed, and the great room darkened.
Within the well’s shadow he saw something, something that caused his heart to stammer. The skeletal head of some great beast crowned with a tangle of twisting horns. It roared through a maw of fangs, its eyes blazed with fury. Its body was a mass of swirling shadow, slithering about the well’s waters like a massive, black serpent.
Yrghul.
Gamghast’s hands found the hood of his robes and he tugged the cowl overhead. Terror gripped him and he sucked in a desperate breath.
“Prefect!” sounded a voice behind him, distant as though from a dream.
“This cannot…” he said, eyes fixed upon the horrifying creature within the depths.
“Now!” came a hiss in his ear. It was Tannin, the one-eyed guard yanking Gamghast by his shoulders from the well.
Gamghast staggered to his feet, stumbling backward as Tannin pulled him away. “No…” he breathed, utterly confused.
“Someone approaches,” Tannin growled, dragging Gamghast toward the deep shadows of the chamber’s edge.
Gamghast stammered wordlessly, eyes searching the cavernous space.
“Listen,” Tannin whispered, pulling Gamghast behind one of the gargantuan pillars rounding the room.
Gamghast steadied his breathing and tried to focus his senses. At first he heard nothing but the well’s hum. After a moment, though, he detected the echo of voices and the sound of boots upon stone. He looked to Tannin, who gestured with a shift of his head toward the chamber’s opposite side.
Gamghast nodded, then noticed Jalim hunkering beside him, his dimensions so thin he’d be hardly noticed. The older man’s face was blank, his milky eyes twitching about.
“It’s the chamberlain,” Jalim whispered. “I know the sound of his stride.”
Gamghast studied the chamber with a deeper sense of dread. An opening was carved into the far wall of the chamber, opposite where they’d entered. Gamghast knew this to be the chamber’s formal entrance, a short tunnel at the base of a tall stairway that descended from the Bastion above.
“There are others with him,” Jalim continued. “A number who walk with soft steps.”
Gamghast drew back behind the pillar, peeking around it with just one eye. He pressed down his beard and steadied himself. Now, Alamis, let your true friends and allies be revealed.
Six figures emerged from the opening, one tall and well-groomed and clad in an elegant robe of blue silk.
Alamis.
The others were far more unsettling. Five hunched figures draped by black robes, their heads sickening checkers of sallow flesh joined by braided stitches. An aura of shadow surrounded them, flowing from thin fingers and shifting slowly about their frames. A chill settled upon the air as Gamghast stared.
Necrists. Here, at the most sacred place in all of Rune.
“Dead gods!” Tannin hissed. “What are those things?”
“Our oldest enemy,” Gamghast said, anger staining his tone, “escorted here by our dear chamberlain. Escorted here no doubt to try to draw their dead god’s power from the grave.”
Chamberlain Alamis and the Necrists approached the Godswell, though Alamis stopped several yards short of its edge. He gestured with a graceful sweep of his arm and the Necrists moved ahead. They crept in unison to the pool’s lip and stared together into the depths. The waters set aglow their faces, revealing mismatched skin stretching against the stitched bonds and quivering grotesquely.
The Necrist at the group’s center dug within its robes and withdrew a stoppered wineskin made of some pale leather. The Necrist uttered a long series of jagged-sounding words in a strange tongue, then opened the wineskin and poured into the well a
crimson liquid Gamghast felt certain was human blood.
The blood of High King Deragol?
“Great Yrghul!” the Necrist screamed in a voice shrill and shrieking. It threw its arms outward, the sleeves of its black robes falling away to reveal arms covered with the same piecemeal skin as its face. “Forger of night and sculptor of shadow, conqueror of kings and defier of death! Behold your servants!”
Gamghast trembled, gripping his walking staff while his mind sifted through the various spells Erlorn—Castor—had taught him, seeking something to strike down these abominations. There were incantations, words that could bring divine light and dispel dark spirits, but nothing he was certain could destroy all of these things, and nothing that could repel the many guards who’d likely respond to the chamberlain’s call. Gamghast was a practical man, and reckoned it best to choose a different moment for any confrontation.
The well’s hum intensified, shaking the very stone of the chamber. The room quaked and suddenly the pool shot forth a great plume, a spray of silvery water erupting toward the apex of the chamber’s dome. The five Necrists quickly withdrew, sinking to their knees and pressing their heads reverently upon the floor.
Gamghast shivered, a deep cold biting his bones. What is this?
In the water’s wake came a column of shadow, a twisting spire of black that swelled as it spun. At first it seemed comprised of thick smoke, but it soon resolved into hundreds of wispy shapes roughly humanoid in form, elongated wraiths with drawn-out faces marked only by gaping hollows for mouths. Hundreds of apparitions formed the spire’s spinning surface, no doubt heaped upon a core of many more.
Dead gods.
The black column wound upward until it reached a height of more than thirty feet. The chamber’s glow flagged and faltered, its silvery incandescence surrendering to an oppressive dark.
“Children,” came a great, booming voice from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Gamghast ducked behind the massive pillar, suddenly seized by an overwhelming fear. He saw Jalim and Tannin pressed against the stone with similar terror. He knelt upon the chamber’s floor with complaining knees, fighting back a flood of tears.
“My children,” the all-present voice continued, bellowing through the hall. “Those many sacrifices have fed me life. I am becoming, children. Form will forever rest beyond my reach, but the day soon approaches when my power shall return to this realm. With it the light will fail and the descendants of Illienne will be forever lost in darkness—my darkness—as what I have prophesied to you in blood will come to pass in your world. The night will belong to you and to my son. Send word to him that I regret I possess no eyes to set upon him when he returns here, but remind him I will give then my power as my gift.”
Gamghast cowered, making his arthritic form as small as he could in the shadow of the pillar. Tears spilled across his face and his body shook. He drew his creaking knees as close as he could to his heaving chest, and did his best to slow his frantic breaths.
“I am,” said the voice, the entire chamber shuddering, “and he shall be! Bring me my newborn son!”
The words thundered through the chamber, but then darkness yielded to light and the shadows shrank away. Slowly, the great space became illuminated once again by the light of the Godswell.
Gamghast wept with more tears than he knew his eyes contained. His entire body quaked, and he found it impossible to rise until several minutes had passed. When at last he could stand, he peeked around the stout pillar and saw that the chamberlain and the Necrists were gone.
He squeezed his staff, shaking his head and quelling at last his emotions. He gestured to Tannin. “Get up,” he said, bringing a certainty to his voice that his heart no longer possessed. “We have fewer moments than we have friends. Much falls upon us and those others still loyal to Rune.”
Yrghul comes, as does some other horrid thing. The highlander did indeed speak Castor’s confession. What will become of us?
9
NIGHTMARES
“Fencress,” said Drenj, a solitary tear wetting the olive skin of his cheek, “please tell me this isn’t so. Please tell me this nightmare will shortly end. Tell me I’ll soon wake beside my wife and daughters, all safe in our home in Raven’s Roost.”
Fencress tugged at her cowl with a gloved hand and looked to the young man. “I wish I could, Drenj. I truly do.”
Drenj slumped in his saddle, the bright light of morning unable to chase the gloom from his face.
Fencress tightened her grip on the pommel of her horse’s saddle. “It sounds to me we’re headed to war…” She smiled. “But think of the possibilities! We’ve a chance to be real soldiers now, killing folk in epic battles rather than skulking in the shadows. Imagine the honor and glory! I’m Death’s Dancing Mistress, remember? What plaudits and poems might celebrate my heroics? Perhaps even you, Drenj, will finally be able to kill a man!” She laughed and shook her head. “So long as Karnag doesn’t get to all of them first.”
Karnag rode well ahead, ranging a couple hundred yards down the dusty path that wandered amidst the tall grasses. He listed atop a massive black stallion, a magnificent beast that would’ve fetched a fine price at market. Fencress, though, knew Karnag had paid no coin for the animal, and wagered its former owner had paid the dearest of prices trying to keep it.
“We’re not soldiers, Fencress,” said Drenj, leaning toward her from his saddle such that his loose clothing seemed ready to drip away from his thin frame. “The furthest thing from. We’ve no business in battle.”
“You boys know I feel the same. I’ve no wish to work along the front line of a war. I’ve no quarrel with blood, so long as there’s coin in it, but blood spilled for faith or fealty seems like blood wasted in my eyes. But war brings opportunities for the likes of us, ways we can find profit.” She looked ahead. “And besides, this is friendship.”
Drenj pulled closer, wiping away another tear. “You spoke of a tiger, once. Before we saved Karnag from the Abbey. You told a story warning one not to tempt the most dangerous beast. Will we not be doing just that? Will we not be stretching our necks inside the tiger’s cage? This is war, Fencress. Even the best killers get killed when enough blades swing their way.”
Fencress gritted her teeth. “You have a choice, Drenj! Ride now. Ride away. He’ll not hunt you down. Take the chance he’s mistaken about folk hunting us. Take the chance those witches and whatnot we saw back in Shank’s Hollow won’t track you down and kill you.”
Drenj stifled a sob. “Will my daughter die, just as he says? Would I reach Raven’s Roost to see her if I left? Would I see her before I’m slain?”
Fencress exhaled slowly. She was tired, and her usual cheer faded at Drenj’s words. “I don’t know,” she said, staring down at the fancy reins looped about her gloved hands, the leather straps decorated with tiny inlaid gems. “We take a gamble no matter what we do, and there are no safe choices anymore.”
Drenj’s thin form trembled. “Every choice I have is fraught with fear. If I leave him, I fear I’ll be hunted down and slain. If I stay at his side, I fear I’ll see things worse than death…”
Fencress nodded. “There are only nightmares.”
Fencress awoke in the dead of night, ears ringing from the echoes of a horrid scream.
The scream sounded again, far across a rolling field drenched in moonlight.
She looked hard into the dark, eyes finding nothing at first. Low hills of tall grass, shoots swaying gently beneath the moon and stars. A copse of thin trees. A deer feeding nearby.
She thought for an instant of rousing Paddyn to fell the deer for food, but the scream sounded once more and the beast darted from sight.
She looked back to their small encampment. Paddyn and Drenj were both awake, squatting on their bedrolls and scanning the same dark as she. But Karnag’s bedroll was empty, his sword gone.
“Shit,” she spat, then tugged on her boots and cloak and grabbed her twin swords. She darted upright.
“You’re going out there?” Paddyn asked, mouth agape and eyes wide.
“Our pursuers!” Drenj hissed. “Those wizards we saw in Shank’s Hollow! We should flee!”
“I don’t know,” Fencress said. “Whoever it is, it sounds as though Karnag might be killing them off in the worst of ways. I mean to find out what is happening. I’m heading into the dark.”
Paddyn and Drenj looked to each other, confusion written across their young faces.
Fencress smirked in spite of her fear. “You can always just sit here and shiver, wondering which of you will be the first to piss himself.” She winked. “The smart bet would seem to be a tie.”
The young men cursed in unison and fumbled for their weapons. Drenj looked to her meaningfully. “Just promise we’ll not get too close to danger.”
She held out a hand and helped Drenj to his feet. “If there’s danger,” she said, “you stay clear. I’d like it much if you were able to see your daughter again.”
They moved in near silence through the night, their only sound the rustle of the tall grass. The screams, though, persisted, growing louder as they approached the source. Fifty or so yards ahead cowered what appeared to be a man shrieking beneath a tree.
A dread settled upon her as Fencress wondered what parts Karnag had removed from his latest victim. From the shrill howls she knew the lungs remained intact, as well as the mouth and throat. Perhaps he’s taken the liver? Or the thumbs or the jingles?
The man shuddered and screamed. He fell back against the tree’s trunk, then slumped to the ground and became lost among the grasses. The shrieks softened to an awful, mournful whimper.
Sounds like the jingles.
“That doesn’t have the sound of danger for us,” Fencress whispered to her companions. “Sounds to me like utter desperation.”
Drenj and Paddyn nodded but showed no intention of going nearer.
“Very well,” she said. “Stay here but stay alert. There might be others lurking about.”
