I stood for a time, gazing down at my torturer, breathing heavily and joining the darkness inside in revelling in her death. I found the kind of peace in that moment that had eluded me ever since merging with the resonator, its anger sated by our combined assault on the giant and legitimised by my matching desire to bring about her bloody death. Even the kill in the tunnels earlier didn’t bring the kind of peace this time offered, standing there and no longer at war with my own soul, or at least with a temporary truce in place. That truce was immediately tested as Clara hobbled towards me and laid a hand on my shoulder.
“She’s dead, Dav,” she almost whispered, “come back.” I tried to look at her but my angry gaze remained locked on the corpse for the longest of moments, gripping my blade tightly. The darkness murmured one last time about more blood, but relented, the hunger sated for now. I suspect it felt as battered and tired as I did with the adrenaline no longer surging through my system. Even the pain that had become my reality had served to sustain me in some way, and the light burning that was once agony to me from the green light simply felt like a mild discomfort. With effort I turned my face to my rescuer.
“How long?” I croaked through cracking lips and a hoarse throat as I met her eyes. Once again I saw that flinch, that terrible flinch as she looked at my face in the light, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection, of blackened obsidian, of eyes like the darkest pits, but simultaneously mercifully and painfully she looked away as she answered.
“Too long. Days maybe?” Clara swallowed deeply as she turned from me, “I fell behind a rock when the spores kicked in, she must’ve missed me. When I woke I had no idea where you’d gone, so I… walked.” She licked her lips, which looked as dry as mine felt before continuing as she remembered what must’ve been a terrifying journey through the dark. “I walked so far. But then I heard screaming through the tunnels. Your screaming.” The pity in her eyes as she looked at me again was almost too much to bear, a worse pain than anything the witch could inflict. Pity at my condition, pity at my torture, pity for everything that made me who I was. This time I was the one who looked away. Pathetic.
“Well, thanks.” I replied, and began cleaning the blade, my blade, on the giant woman’s ragged clothes. Clara started to reply and took a step towards me, but cut herself off before saying anything, instead turning to slowly make her way over to the hut and by extension The Architect. After a moment I stood and followed her, quickly catching up with my body whole as she limped, but slowing to match her pace. As I reached her, I took a breath and took her arm, supporting her. She flinched as her flesh met mine, the green light making it coarse and cold, but her breathing eased as I took the burden off her wounded side, and she didn’t pull away.
“Well, thanks.” she echoed in a parody of my limp apology from moments before, but grinned to remove any sting from the words. We continued towards the hut, leaving the still-warm body of my captor to rot in the darkness. I hoped she’d be eaten by some predator of the dark, but it’d probably take some time. I got the impression the witch had been in that cavern for some time, and they’d be smart enough to avoid a monster that large.
As we neared the dwindling fire and the tiny form of the architect lying near it, I let out a sigh of relief as my fears were put to rest by his subtle wriggling. It seemed at some point he’d gone from unconscious to merely bound and gagged, trussed up against a piece of wood that looked suspiciously like a spit. I guess Clara’s rescue was fortuitously timed for more than one of us after all. I rushed over to him and quickly cut his bonds, and he rolled free, not immediately standing but stretching out on the ground like a floppy-nosed rug. The sight brought a smile to my battered face and despite the pain she was in, Clara let out a chuckle. The Architect’s eyes cracked open.
“Is she dead?” he croaked, and we sobered slightly, looking back to the still hulking shape lying in the darkness.
“Yes.” I replied, as Clara walked over to the wall and slid down to rest. “I think so.” The Architect nodded slightly, his nose wobbling in the firelight, and we all sat and lay there for a time, each recovering in our own way. Eventually I felt my eyes begin to droop. It seems even monsters eventually need to sleep after being awake for an unknowable amount of days of constant torture, and I embraced it.
In hindsight, that was a mistake.
I woke to a sharp pain in my throat, a strange weight on my limbs and a wide, rictus grin, which fell off my face quickly as I opened my eyes and blinked to awareness. I tried to move my body but found myself unable to move. I panicked, thrashing and straining, the horror of the past few days of my life returning. This caused the knife that was apparently at my throat to saw into me, drawing dark blood, but it drew back with a startled curse in Clara’s voice. I froze, straining my neck looking back. There she squatted, knife in hand. Just beyond her The Architect cowered, Stoneshaper at the ready. I realised that the camp was dark besides the sharp green glow of their devices, the fire overturned, and we were a short distance from the hut.
“Clara?” I called out, and her eyes widened as I spoke.
“Dav? Are you back with us?” She replied, tersely.
“Back with- what happened?” I demanded, a sickening feeling in my stomach telling me I already knew.
“A little while after you fell asleep you went crazy. Started talking about rending, punishing, doing awful things… then...” Clara trailed off and gestured towards the body of my giant crone torturer, which was considerably closer than when I’d gone to sleep and considerably more torn apart. “When we tried to stop you…” again my eyes were drawn back to her, to her torn armour and fresh injuries, to the black eye The Architect now sported. I let out a breath of horror as I realised what I had almost done if they hadn’t stopped me.
-We could’ve killed them, they didn’t stop us.- the beast sulked as I felt the last vestiges of the shock the Architect had clearly given me before locking me in stone still ripple through my body.
“Gods Clara, I’m so sorry.” I met her eyes and looked at her blade for a long moment. “Maybe you should just-”
“No!” she interjected, fiercely.
“But what if I-”
“Then I put you in a wall until you calm down again.” The Architect interrupted me this time, walking unsteadily up next to Clara and putting his little hands on his hips. “Life is too precious to waste, and you are much too interesting.” A little smile quirked across his face as he mangled a proverb of his people that echoed in my memories. Life is too precious to waste, and cheap to give freely for others. I heard a snort in my head as the beast inside listened in on my thoughts, and somehow reached to grab it inside of me. I don’t know how best to describe the goings on of my soul, so you’ll have to forgive me if this sounds bizarre. I visualised somehow grabbing it by the scruff of the neck like an unruly puppy and giving it a shake… quite unlike a puppy. I wouldn’t shake a puppy. Just for the record. It snarled at snapped at my mind, making me visualise all the horrors it would inflict upon everyone if it could.
“Enough!” I snapped back, both aloud and within. My friends, for that is clearly what they were to not kill me the first time around, readied their weapons once more and I shot them an apologetic look. “Sorry, one moment, having words,” I nodded to them hurriedly, much to their confusion, and closed my eyes to focus within. The beast had stopped thrashing quite as much and my mind was clear. This time I spoke into my own mind, hoping it could hear me. “I thought we were clear on this, but we need to be clear here. I am in charge. You are an unwanted passenger. You will not hurt my friends under any circumstances. You will not bother me for pointless whining about blood and you will never take control unless I give permission for some obscure reason. Are we clear?” The beast simply laughed at me until I visualised, well, I’d rather not say, but my recent torture and the images it showed me have given me a very clear imagination when it comes to ways to inflict pain on a person, or a dark beast setting up shop in your brain in this case.
Either works. Finally it spat an agreement at me.
-Enough. Yes. I will submit, so long as you kill your enemies and let me drink their suffering.- The last part I was a little bit reluctant to agree to, I like to think somewhat naturally, but I’m pretty sure that was all I’d ever be able to get out of the creature, whatever it was.
“Agreed.” I spoke both aloud and inside, and visualised a handshake, which the beast somehow warped to change his half to a horrifying colossal claw, the likes of which I’d never seen, not even from the other monster from the city. I felt a smug satisfaction as the beast got the last word and I instinctively mentally recoiled, and a chilling laugh filled my mind. I somehow doubted that would be the last conversation we had on the matter. My friends eyed me warily as I opened my eyes. “Just having words with myself. Nothing to worry about.” They seemed… unconvinced, but freed me anyway.
“You good?” Clara asked as I clambered to my feet and brushed the dust from my already shredded clothing.
“I think so.”
“Then let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.” She shot me a tired smile on haggard lips, and I realised how literal that statement was for her. We made our way back to the camp, the scattered embers of the fire all but burned out . As Clara increased the intensity of her Lightmaker to compensate, I winced involuntarily. Familiarity with the sensation and my recent suffering had mostly inured me to the low levels of pain it gave me, but it caught me off guard. Noticing my reaction, Clara stopped and lowered the light’s intensity once more. Before I could let her know it was fine, she moved to the fire pit and began digging through her pack to produce a flint and steel. In moments we had a small crackling fire going once more. The firelight let me look at myself in my normal state again, which was a relief. Sure, I could see in the dark, but it was a strange, otherworldly type of vision. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been transformed into a horrifying monster, but there’s something very reassuring about looking down and seeing pink flesh instead of obsidian. As we settled by the fire I shot Clara a thankful smile and she nodded back with a grin of her own. The Architect, however sat across from me and stared thoughtfully at me.
“So you communicate with it?” he asked, finally, after a frankly creepy amount of time staring through the fire at me. “Whatever that being is inside of you.”
“Sometimes,” I shrugged. “I don’t really want to, but it insists on talking to me and trying to murder my friends, so I thought this time we’d have words.” The Architect’s hand twitched, as if longing to take notes, and I got the inkling that his near-silence was more due to him restraining his scholarly urges out of compassion than thoughtfulness. I chuckled and continued so that he didn’t have to ask. “It sounds… terrifying. Like its voice could shake me apart if it wanted.” I heard a distant rumbling laugh at that, but disregarded it. “It can hear us too. It sometimes responds to what I think or what we say.” My companions exchanged a quick, slightly worried glance, and Clara scooted slightly towards me.
“So it’s listening right now?”
-Tell her that her flesh looks delicious.-
“Yep. He says hi.” I did not tell her that her flesh looked delicious. I mean, it didn’t look delicious. Not that I would’ve resorted to cannibalism even if it did. Whatever makes me sound less creepy. As if the thought had summoned it, The Architect had produced a small package of meat from inside the hut and skewered it over the fire. Clara and I looked at him in horror.
“What?”
“Do you not have a problem with taking unidentified meat from the hut of a giant cannibal?” I asked, incredulously.
“Technically it’s not cannibalism, she was Tuathel, we are not.”
“That is so far from the point I’m trying to make here…” I looked to Clara for support and she nodded furiously.
“He’s right, Archie, we can’t trust her pantry! What if some other person walked in here and she’s been storing them for a while?”
The Architect sighed.
“This is clearly the meat of some subterranean creature. It does not have the shape or consistency to come from either of our body types. Please, trust me.” Despite my objections, the combination of the increasingly delicious smell from the cooking meat and curiosity at his words rapidly drove the fight out of both Clara and myself.
“Fine. What’s a Tuathel?” Clara swerved, distracting herself by asking the same question that was on my own lips.
“She was.” The Architect nodded towards the mutilated corpse that presumably still lay out in the darkness. “They were our friends, once. They tend to grow increasingly insane when they get old. She must’ve been extremely old indeed.” That made a lot of sense, and my stolen memories chimed in to confirm it. It’d be nice if they told me things before I learned about them myself, but demonically possessed beggars can’t be choosers. I’m pretty sure that’s the expression. The smell of the meat was making me salivate and I prayed The Architect was right. I wasn’t sure what’d be worse, eating the flesh of some other innocent wanderer, or my own. She had taken large chunks out of me after all. Shaking my head as if to dislodge the disturbing thought, I turned to Clara.
“So what happened to you?” I asked, softly. He face blanched as she recalled her ordeal.
“After you and Archie were taken, I tried to follow, but I got lost in the tunnels. I still had my light, but without you and Archie I had no idea where I was going.” She paused for breath and I could see her frown in the firelight. “I walked for I don’t know how long. I slept more than once, I know that much, but I can’t keep track of time in these damned caves. I had to fight a few creatures I can’t even name, almost got killed by some freaking moss…” she trailed off, and I don’t blame her, some of the things that try to kill you in the dark are just plain weird, but it’s never a pleasant experience.
“But then you heard me?” I cut in, pulling her from her memories.
“Yes. Distantly at first but it was hard to miss. The screams… echoed.” she looked at my sympathetically, and I turned to look into the fire under the pretence of checking the questionable meat, which was looking pretty much done and delicious. Clara continued speaking but I unintentionally tuned her out, lost in thought about my ordeal, until I caught her saying something about wind and my heart skipped a beat.
“Wait what was that last part?” she gave me a hard look.
“I said the crystals tried to kill me. Are you not listening to me?” Uh oh. Back it up, Dav.
“Ah, no, I meant I just realised that you said there was a breeze?” I backpedalled but couldn’t hide my excitement.
“Yes, in the stone garden.” Her face was still hard, but I could see the gears turning. “Wait do you mean-”
“Yep.” I interrupted triumphantly. “Breeze means surface. We’re getting out of here.”
A smile finally broke on Clara’s face before she broke mine for not listening to her, and we dug into the meat, triumph overshadowing any lingering concerns that we might be either eating me or another innocent delver. If it was me, I was delicious. I may not need to eat often, though after my ordeal I did feel the beginnings of a pang of hunger, but some things can be eaten for pleasure as much as sustenance, and my new body didn’t reject the hunk of meat The Architect carved off for me, his eyes sparkling with delight.
We slept once more, too exhausted still to keep watch despite our earlier nap, and this time to my delight I didn’t awaken to find myself at the throat of my friends, or as they’d earlier proven was more likely - them at mine - though I suspected for all its bluster the Beast had gone easy on them, given their usefulness. Maybe the thing could be reasonable after all. While the world in the dark seemed little different, I woke feeling as if it was finally morning after an endlessly long night, the promise of sunlight and escape seeming as sweet as water to a man dying of thirst in the wastes. From the expressions of my companions as we set about gathering our things from the hut of my captor, I could tell they fel
t the same way. Wordlessly we set about our task, stripping the place of anything useful.
No words were necessary, we all knew our goal and we all knew the steps we needed to take to accomplish it. I’d seldom gotten to work with a true team under my previous employers, occasionally saddled with a brute tasked with ensuring I didn’t run off, or having to virtually carry a less experienced delver who’d found themselves in the same trap I’d drunkenly stumbled into. They never felt like comrades, though, people I would give my life to protect and they the same to mine. I smiled grimly; without the whole days of savage torture, possession and mind-numbing terror bit, this trip was actually shaping up to be one of my better delves.
Interlude 2: The Beast
Hunger. Pain. Rage. The hunt. The pain. The Beast thundered through caverns, a mass of screaming and tortured horror. It paused to sniff but the scent of the brother, the scent of the prey, the scent of the other, it was so weak. These caves were not like its prison, not ordered, not filled with the screams of the past. There was prey in these caverns, but none so sweet as those that came before. The Beast felt the pull though, leading it through the twisting mass of dark tunnels better than any scent. The brother ran far but did he not feel the call? Drawn along like a fish on something the voices inside had long lost the words for, the Beast followed, his route never straight, never near, but inexorably reaching for the Brother. How dare the Brother leave the Beast? Stealing the prey, stealing the other, burning with light, trapping, trying to cause more pain? When they became whole again, he’d see. The voices would teach him. The Beast ran on, in passing idly decapitating a hulking creature hidden in the darkness that had tried in vain to defend its territory. Whether it even noticed, who can say?
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