by David Benem
Alisa stiffened. “Quiet.”
Bale followed her gaze and spotted three Necrists crowding together in the shadows of the nearest wall. The hooded figures pressed close then one raised a hand, pointing a pale finger toward Bale and his companions.
Alisa turned to Bale, brown eyes ablaze with the light of the chamber’s flames. “Follow the stone. A’Sha, can you deal with them?”
The Harkanian combed a hand through his beard. “I can,” he said, his baritone sounding tinged with melancholy.
Bale stood slack-jawed for a moment, counting the many Necrists gathered near the edges of the chamber. A dozen at least.
“Move now!” Alisa snapped, grabbing hold of Bale’s other arm. She and Lorra pushed him ahead in their rough grasps.
Bale glanced back to see A’Sha standing in his rainbow-colored robes while the clutch of black-clad Necrists moved toward him from the shadows.
Sweet Illienne…
Alisa squeezed Bale’s elbow. “The stone? You’ve not lost sight of it, have you?”
Bale shook his head and pointed. “It moved along the stair, away from those Necrists…” He listened as much as his rattled nerves would permit and after a moment heard it still, the rasp of stone upon stone. “There. That way.”
Lorra strode ahead and dragged Bale along, her stare fixed on the stone’s trace. Bale followed in her tow.
Alisa trotted behind them. “You see it?”
Lorra nodded and led them round the column of stairs, all the way to the end opposite the entrance. It was a bleak, blackened area where no fires burned. Bale searched the shadows and found nothing.
Lorra stopped, tugging Bale to a halt beside her.
“What is it?” said Alisa.
“The stone,” Lorra whispered. “I’ve lost it.”
Alisa crept ahead. She rubbed her Coda and the illusion of her pilgrim garb melted away. “Do you sense it, Bale?”
Bale rubbed his nose. “I…” he faltered. “I can try…” He stared into the darkness and slowed the stutter of his heart. For a moment he pulled within himself, inside that place of solitude he’d always treasured. He’d spent much time in the sheltered secrecy of the Abbey’s library, where any manner of sound niggled at his concentration. He thought of himself there now, reading. Reading and at ease and tucked away from the troubles of the wider world. Enveloped in comfort and silence and safety.
He thought also of Castor, of Lyan the Just, of Kressan. He thought of the words of the Spell of Divination—quietly reciting them over and again—and of the stone upon his palm, twitching and poking…
All fell quiet in his ears.
And then he sensed it. No more than a tiny, mouse-like scratching.
He knew not whether his ears or his mind perceived the sound but he was certain he heard it, ahead and against the chamber’s wall. His eyes widened and he eased toward the noise, uncertain at first but his stride gaining confidence. He pressed a crooked finger outward. “There.”
He looked to the blank wall, searching the rock for some sign of the Sentinel though he knew not what to search for. Some golden titan? Some bloodied husk?
Lorra and Alisa drew to his sides and together they found the wall’s rough surface. Bale bent low to recover his wayward stone and felt it twitch about, seeking the wall and whatever stood beyond.
“Another chamber,” said Alisa. She examined the wall with deft hands. Her Coda seemed to wake, thin lines of text upon it glowing with a faint, greenish hue.
Just then a hideous roar shook the chamber, a feral scream that ripped through the heavy dark.
Bale jumped and hunched close to Lorra, his empty hand seeking hers. “What was that?”
“A’Sha,” Alisa said. “He’s buying us time.”
“Will he be safe?”
Alisa spun from the wall and squared to him. “You must worry only about our task, Bale. The greater good always demands sacrifice. A’Sha knows that. You should as well.”
Bale sucked in a slow breath of the foul air and held fast his seeking stone. The stone and air both had a chill to them now.
Another roar echoed through the chamber, as did a clamor of voices and weaponry.
“I find no seam or latch,” Alisa said, again inspecting the wall. “Nothing.”
“There must be something.” Bale’s eyes strayed, looking farther down the wall. All was cloaked in darkness. He rubbed his nose, wondering how many Necrists lurked nearby.
Dare I?
Is there any choice?
“Illienne…” he whispered, stretching his hand toward the dark and focusing with reverence upon the words. “Illienne abralide y ganode allum.”
Light exploded from his hand, burning away the shadows with brilliant radiance. It was as though the chamber’s ceiling had been torn away and the searing sun now burned within. Bale shielded his eyes, blinking and nearly blinded.
Alisa gasped. “What—”
“Look!” said Lorra.
Bale stood with mouth agape. About the chamber stood many doors and passages and above, far above the giant throne, stretched countless bridges all the way up the great tower’s height.
Nearest them, just a dozen feet away, stood a squat door carved into the tower’s basalt rock. No Necrists or guards stood beside it, though Bale spotted two figures robed in black retreating toward the chamber’s far side.
The stone sought it, jerking in Bale’s hand. “That must be it.”
Alisa leaped ahead and Lorra moved after her, tugging Bale along the wall. Together they came to the door.
A roar sounded again, fiercer and louder this time.
Bale’s concentration wavered, and as it did the light vanished. The opening before them disappeared.
Bale furrowed his brow. “How—”
“Necric charms,” Alisa spat, swiping her hands swiftly about. Her Coda glowed. “Their vile sorcery closes the passage though it seems your powers may reveal it. Cast your light again!”
Bale threw his hand upward. “Illienne abralide y ganode allum!”
Once more the light erupted, pure as it blazed against the dark.
Before them stood the door, a square of stone resting on iron hinges. Upon it were carved the same glyphs that decorated the tower’s exterior, the same blasphemous, nauseating symbols that poisoned Bale’s mind. He felt a terrible unease as he looked upon them, a gut-wrenching sensation that made him want to flee this place and never, ever return. He turned to Alisa. “No guards?”
Alisa found a latch. “Such a door requires no swords to protect it.” She eyed him. “You feel it, don’t you?”
“Bale…” Lorra said beside him, a rare fear upon her voice. “What is this?”
There came the ring of steel and then another roar. Harsh voices and things clattering upon the stone floor. Then, silence.
“Hurry A’Sha,” whispered Alisa, staring out to the throne room.
Bale looked nervously about the room. He spied only the two Necrists huddling against the far wall more than fifty feet away.
Just then A’Sha rounded the ring of stairs with a lumbering stride, his rainbow robes reduced to ribbons. His black skin shone with blood and his linen undergarments were stained red.
“A’Sha,” Alisa said, her tone one of relief. “Can you continue?”
The large Harkanian trudged near. Bale noticed more splatters of blood coloring his shaking hands and sweaty face though he saw no wounds on the man. His breathing was labored and his expression grave. At last, he nodded.
Alisa turned the latch and the square door groaned upon its hinges. The chamber’s cold air rushed to fill whatever lay beyond, whipping through the long strands of Bale’s graying hair and fluttering across his robes. The door swung wide and the light of Bale’s spellcraft failed like a candle snuffed.
“Go,” Alisa whispered. “We’ve not much time before the Necrists recover and learn where we’ve gone.”
Dead gods.
The descending passage—dimly lit
by no apparent source—struck Bale as something carved through the old hells themselves. It was a twisting, cramped tunnel, a wet space choked with creeping, thorny growths and reeking of death. The floor was moist and it moved, rising and falling like the slow pulse of a living thing. The chittering seemed louder here, echoing through the corridor as though given voice by every wall.
Lorra pressed close. “Bale, this is a bad place.”
Bale glanced back, wondering when a horde of Necrists would come chasing them. “Perhaps the worst of all.”
“I’m with you,” she said, “wherever you go. But this feels wrong. Like a nightmare, only real. Your Sentinel cannot be here. If she is, then she’s not someone we should be trying to find.”
Bale held his stone and felt its dreadful pull. “I must…” he said, eyes drifting down the strangled passage. “I must,” he said again, quelling the tremble in his voice.
Alisa tiptoed down the tunnel, one hand upon her glowing Coda and the other pulling her green cloak tightly about her. She turned her head. “The stone?”
The small rock held firm upon Bale’s palm, seeking some unseen place. “It shows the way.”
“To their sanctuary?” said A’Sha, frowning. “You are certain of this path?”
Bale nodded. “Kressan must have been taken prisoner, somehow. Alisa? The Variden know nothing?”
She clasped her Coda and stared ahead. “We know precious little of Kressan the Kind. Rumors only, and all those ancient. Like many of the banished Sentinels, she’s not made her whereabouts well known.”
“You’ve not heard of her taken prisoner?” Bale asked. “Or… being in league with the enemy? Nothing?”
Alisa shook her head. “Your stone has been our only hint in ages.”
Down and round they went, through other doorways and down many winding paths. All the while Bale’s stone guided them, leading them deeper beneath the tower. The slope sharpened and the wet floor sucked at their feet and the thorny growths clawed their clothes and skin. The harsh chatter upon the fetid air grew steadily louder, sounding like the song of many locusts.
Bale’s heart thumped and his breathing grew shallow. Cold sweat dripped through his hair and across his brow. He pressed ahead, trying to dull his senses and focus only on Lyan’s charge to find Kressan. He felt as though he moved according to forces both powerful and divine, an unwitting pawn of the dead gods.
His hands tightened upon the stone, its draw like shackles dragging him onward. I am too weak an instrument!
They trudged down the pulsing, curving burrow, deeper and deeper beneath the Spider King’s throne. The odd, faint light assumed a reddish shade and the air thickened to a steamy, coppery stink.
Soon the passage forked, one way a twisted and looping drop and the other a rising slope bending toward places unseen.
“Bale?” Alisa asked, slowing to a halt.
Bale gripped the stone. It shook in his hands, its pull undeniable. She must be close. He leaned his head to the left. “Upward,” he breathed. Lorra placed a hand upon his shoulder, though even that granted no comfort.
Alisa paused, silent, her wide eyes upon him. Then she nodded and turned, slinking up the passage with A’Sha just beside her.
Bale rubbed snot from his nose and drew his robes close. He felt cold—terribly so—and it seemed all the stones of the massive tower above weighed upon his skinny shoulders. “We’re not far,” he whispered with far more apprehension than relief.
“Let’s go,” came Lorra’s soft voice in his ear. “As bad as this is, it’d be even worse to turn back. Either we face this fear or we fail.”
He sighed then yielded to her hand. She eased him forward and together they plodded up the twisting pathway.
After only a few steps up the winding passage they came upon Alisa and A’Sha, both standing motionless. Bale peeked between them and beheld a chamber roofed by a low dome of black rock just taller than a man. In the room’s center yawned a wide, circular maw from which drifted scarlet smoke.
“What is it?” Bale said, struggling to take in details between A’Sha’s thick form and Alisa’s long cloak.
Alisa turned sideways, allowing Bale to move within the space. “I fear we may have found Kressan.”
Bale stumbled through and onto a flat ring of black stone that surrounded the opening. His eyes darted about. “Where—”
“There,” Alisa said, standing aside him.
Bale looked downward into the opening and saw, far below, a great pool of blood-colored liquid. About that pool knelt hundreds—hundreds!—of Necrists draped in their black robes. Their insectile drone swelled from the depths and seemed to tremor though the rock. Great creatures stood amongst them, massive, misshapen beings that seemed cobbled together from lesser things. Someone screamed, a pained, terrified shriek. Bale tilted his head to see a dozen or so naked prisoners cowering in a corner as one of their number had its arms ripped away by some bestial thing. Other abominations held the man in place while three black-robed Necrists worked knives upon the body. The man’s screams soon fell silent and his skinless, armless body was cast into the well, the blood-red liquid swirling and rippling unnaturally as it swallowed the corpse.
Bale shuddered and withdrew.
“She’s not in that damnable pit,” said Alisa, her tone grave, “but just there.”
Bale felt the stone’s pull and his gaze followed it to the opening’s opposite edge, just across the domed room. His jaw dropped. “Dead gods…”
He beheld two wretched figures dangling limply from the lip of the circular maw. Their skin held a pale hue like the bellies of dead fish washed ashore. Their bald, ashen heads stretched unnaturally, mouths agape with gruesome spikes jutting from them. Grotesque hooks protruded from their elbows and hands, too, fastening them against the opening’s rim. Blood drained from their wounds, dripping down their drenched, ragged forms to fall into the well far below.
Bale sank to his knees. He felt like vomiting, his stomach filling with the sickness of abject failure. His hands went slack. As they did, the stone slipped from them and fled toward the figures, landing against one with a wet, ugly squelch.
“No…” he whimpered. He looked upon the desecrated bodies and thought of the many, many miles he’d come, the many horrors and hardships he’d endured. He thought, too, that someone younger or stronger or braver could have made the journey in less time, and perhaps could have found Kressan before this had happened to her.
Someone other than Zandrachus Bale could have saved her.
Tears welled in his eyes.
I am too weak an instrument.
Alisa jabbed an arm under his and began pulling him to his feet. “Get up, Bale,” she said gruffly. “We cannot countenance a Sentinel being left this way. A’Sha? Lorra? Help us.”
Bale resisted at first, fighting away a sob, but Alisa seemed unwilling to allow him a moment. He sniffled and straightened upon creaking knees and followed Alisa round the ring of black stone. Lorra came to walk beside him though she said nothing, eyes fixed on the grim gathering of Necrists beneath them.
Bale came to the dangling figures, heads and arms nailed just level with the stone floor. They were nearly identical in appearance, both smallish and seeming hardly more than children.
He drew low, stretching shaking hands outward though he was not quite sure what to do. He noticed then his seeking stone. It moved slowly between the two beings, touching the palm of one and then sliding across the stone rim to that of the other. “Have we found two Sentinels? Two Sentinels slain? And… if one is Kressan who is the other?”
Alisa stood above him with eyes distant, her hand gripping her glowing Coda. “Retrieve them both. Then we must leave this place.”
A’Sha knelt beside Bale. He grabbed one of the figures by a wrist then worked it away from the hook piercing its hand. “Can you get the other?”
Bale nodded and scooted over. He seized the creature’s wrist—slick with blood—and moved it about the tw
ist of rusted metal affixing it to the stone. He squeezed and pulled and at last it came free. He did the same with the elbow but the weight of the arm caused it to droop and Bale was pulled with it. “Ah!” he yelped, heart in his throat as he stared wide-eyed upon the vast drop into the pit below.
Lorra grabbed his shoulder and withdrew him from the edge. “I have it,” she said softly, easing him back and taking hold of the figure. Together she and A’Sha removed the thing from the nasty spike impaling its mouth—its skull scraping against the rough metal—and dragged it to the floor beside Bale. They then moved to the other.
Bale sat with eyes upon the sad creature laid beside him. Its limbs were thin and its pallid skin almost translucent. Its eyelids tilted open, revealing orbs entirely white and lifeless. It seemed so weak, so frail, and so very unlike a being of eternal power. Blood pooled beneath it.
Gravely wounded? Dead, maybe?
Could this have been Kressan?
Soon its twin was stretched aside it. It looked no different, no less pathetic.
Or this one?
He spied his seeking stone caught in a sunken groove between its protruding ribs and moved delicate fingers to retrieve it. As he pinched, he realized the stone’s pull had faded. It was a simple rock now, no more than an ordinary object in his hand. He wondered if its stillness meant the Sentinels had died.
Just then a terrible cry arose from the pit, a pained shriek voiced from what sounded a hundred throats. A horn sounded, too, a shrill wail that came from every direction.
“Carry them!” Alisa cried, her voice cracking. She stared wide-eyed through the opening. “We must leave!”
Bale listed about, swooning. He pressed his hands against his head and heaved a ragged breath. Everything about him seemed a hopeless, horrid madness. The futility, the smell, their awful surroundings. It burdened his every thought.
“Bale!” said Lorra, bent at his side. “We’ve come too far. Get up!”
“I…”
She snatched his chin in her hand. “You’ll stand and you’ll move! You said we’d see this through and you said we’d not fail. I’m not dying in this hole because you’ve decided to give up!”
