by Eric Vall
I was torn between feeling pity for the Dáma and being enraged that she forced her people to do such things, but the more I listened to the animalistic cries that vibrated up the cave mouth, the more doubt was seeded in my mind. These were not the sounds of a god happy with the offerings sent down by its followers. I could sense her power as it emanated up from the cave mouth, and I could feel the sadness and sorrow vibrate from its sickly blue color.
No, these were not the callings of an overjoyed god. These were the sounds of a broken woman.
My minions were worse for wear as I moved my eyes over them. Carmedy sobbed in the swordswoman’s arms, Morrigan held onto me with feverish intensity, and Rana held her paw over her mouth as if she would be sick any minute. I pulled them close then, to be a comforting presence and a rock in this storm of horror.
As the sounds of the Tichádáma died down and the cave mouth fell silent, the townsfolk, who still celebrated and sang loudly to one another, turned and headed back down the path towards the bright lights of the city. My minions and I stayed put where we stood as we watched the receding backs of the townsfolk and observed as they danced and threw their hands into the air in celebration.
We had witnessed not one but three murders in two minutes, and these people were acting as if they were the most beautiful things they had ever seen. I was disgusted by the citizens and how they acted after hearing the wailing. I assumed like with most human sacrifices, the three men were either thieves or enemy soldiers, and if the latter were true with where Akuno’s trust lay, then they had been Tamarisch soldiers. I already knew Akuno was a twisted man, looking only to better himself with the riches and standing of other countries. After I was finished with the Tichádáma, I would come for him, too.
The ground was stained red from the blood of the three men and the whale, and I clenched my hands into fists, enraged my minions were forced to witness a ritual that upset them. I didn’t care who was killed in front of me, human or animal, but it was something I wouldn’t subject my minions to. My visibly distressed companions and I waited until the citizens of Kanashimi were out of sight, and then I turned to them. Their faces already told me what I wanted to know.
“We go now,” I rumbled as I pulled the God Slayer from my pocket and held it out at my side. I watched as Carmedy sniffled loudly but clenched the bundles at her waist, Rana pulled out her elven daggers, and Annalise unsheathed Bloodscale. “We strike while the iron is hot.”
They didn’t speak, only turned and faced the darkness that seeped from the open mouth of the dungeon. We passed the golden pillars, and I took a moment to examine the ancient runes placed inside. They were put in place by the Holy Band of Mages, that I already knew, and I felt my throat constrict in rage. I realized what was going on here, but I didn’t let my minions know, I wanted them to hold onto their rage for a little while longer. If I had told them, it would have put their minds at ease, but then it would make traveling through the dungeon harder if they knew the secret of the Tichádáma. If they were still angry and their minds filled with rageful images of revenge, then getting through the trials of the dungeon would be easier. They saw red while I was calm, and I led them down past the pillars.
“Holy moly, it’s cold in here,” Rana complained as she drew her coat tighter around her shoulders, and Carmedy nodded in agreement.
The fox’s observation was correct. Once we stepped inside and went deeper, the temperature in the cave dropped significantly enough that our collective breaths rose in the air like smoke. I knew it was the doing of the Tichádáma, another one of her spells to protect the Kanashimi people. She had taken the frigid temperature from outside that was usual for this area and brought it into her dungeon. In a way, it was another way to ward off adventurers from entering the dungeon. Though I was an immortal god, my avatar still felt the cold, and it seeped in deep to my bones.
“Here, guys, take one and use it quickly,” the cat-girl said as she used shaking paws to mix up a warmth potion. The bright orange mixture sat in our palms, and each of my minions downed it quickly. Soon, the color returned to their faces, and they moved about livelier than before. Heat pulsed from my belly and soon warmed my whole being, and I too was able to move about comfortably once again.
I moved confidently forward, and my minions followed after, and soon we came to an open archway that led to a large expanse of frozen ice. It was hauntingly beautiful where the crackled opening in the ceiling showed where the once active volcano would have spilled molten rock up and out. Light from the full moon filtered in and cast moving shadows over the ice. I stepped out onto the ice and felt my boot slightly give in an upper crust of slush. Then I raised a hand into the air, and my minions froze behind me as I tested the frozen water with both feet.
I sunk in slightly, but the ice underneath the slush stayed firm as I took another step. With a feeling of safety, I nodded and then motioned for my minions to fan out around me. They did as they were told and stepped one by one onto the slushy surface. We were about halfway across when my alchemist minion froze, and her black ears twitched this way and that. Her sparkling emerald eyes stayed on the ice below us, and Rana stopped next to the cat with her fox-ears flat against her skull.
They shared a worried look, and I turned back to them as I held the God Slayer tightly in both fists. I opened my mouth to speak, but Carmedy shook her head, placed her paws into the air then lowered them, a signal for me to speak quietly.
“What is it?” I hissed in a low whisper, and the feline’s left ear turned completely around as she listened.
The redhead rogue turned to look at me over her shoulder, and her blue eyes were huge with fear. “There’s something under the ice. Don’t you hear it?”
“No, but there is magical power here, I can feel it,” Morrigan muttered as she examined the walls with her dark eyes, and I too spied what she saw there.
Carved into the far wall where the ground dipped down, where I assumed the natural stream underneath our feet flowed in, were four different pictures carved into the rock. They were elegantly drawn, a masterful hand had placed them here, and I wanted to move closer, but as my two minions warned, there was danger near. The first carving was of an incredibly tall woman with long flowing robes, seated in a huge throne. I recognized her immediately from the banners at the festival earlier and knew it was the Tichádáma. Standing to her right was another tall person, this one a man. His face was chiseled, and from the intricate detail, I could tell whoever had made this put more time into him than anything else.
The Tichádáma and the man were surrounded by baskets, statues, and other offerings as we had seen at the ritual. The Tichádáma’s face was serene, and her doe-like eyes were trained on the human beside her. The second carving depicted only the human who I assumed was her lover and another man who looked suspiciously like Akuno. A knife was held against the lover’s throat in front of two towering pillars. The Tichádáma wasn’t in this depiction, but as my eyes moved to the next, she looked much different than she did in the first. Her long hair flew around her in an invisible wind, and her delicate, long-fingered hands were lifted into the air as they caught a sizeable swirling orb. Her face was solemn, and tears flowed from her large eyes. She held the sphere with a tenderness that only a wife or lover can know. Next to the Tichádáma, on a raised dais, the corpse of her lover lay, and next to it, the carcass of a colossal shark. I had an inkling now what type of power the Tichádáma possessed as the next picture showed her holding the orb and pressing it into the belly of the gigantic beast.
That’s when I turned my attention back to the magic in the air. I glanced down at the ice at my feet and saw a shadow pass directly underneath me. I realized now that the shadows on the ice were not from the light filtering in but instead the creature trapped underneath.
“Everyone,” I whispered hurriedly as I took inventory of the space between us and the other side of the room where solid rock waited. “Do not run, do not make a sound, but get across as
quickly as you can.”
“What is it, Master?” Annalise murmured back as she searched both of our faces for any clue as to what was going on. I didn’t want to frighten them, especially when Rana and Carmedy were already on edge from the danger they sensed near us.
“Do as I say,” I muttered back as I took one step forward and watched the shadow below me change direction.
They obeyed, and it was painstakingly slow as we moved forward and tried not to disturb the beast below our feet. We were nearly to the edge when Fea beat her wings, and Morrigan’s dark eyes widened. She spoke quickly in the elven language, but the bird only beat her wings harder and more franticly. To my dismay, Fea opened her sleek black beak and cawed loudly. I turned, and the shadow beneath the ice hovered for a second as if listening to the sound and trying to figure out which direction it came from.
I stepped forward, the God Slayer prepared for anything, when the shadow grew bigger, and I realized it was swimming upwards. The crash that came soon afterward was deafening, and I slammed the polearm down on the ice beside me. It cracked the ice from the impact, and my minions scurried out of the way as massive jaws broke the ice and snapped at the air. The rolling eyes which I thought would be black were instead vaguely human and sage green. They shifted around the room for a second before the beast sunk back down into the frigid water.
The thing had emerged enough for me to identify it. While I had seen sharks in my lifetime, I had never seen one this big. Its head was nearly the size of the carts the bearded man used to haul the whale up the mountain. The ice cracked and separated, and while most of us remained on one ice floe, Carmedy was forced to cling to a severed piece with desperate paws, her emerald eyes wide and her mouth open in a loud shriek.
“Pussycat!” Rana screamed as she rushed forward, but I stepped out in front of her and focused all of my dark energy on the frothing water around the ice the feline clung to. The shark’s huge teeth broke the surface of the water as it circled Carmedy, and I inhaled deeply through my nose as black and magenta light pulsed around the ice the cat-girl was on. Then I lifted a hand and pulled the wobbling ice over with my power right as the beast burst from the water once more.
The alchemist was able to scramble off and rejoin us right as the shark lunged forward, large jaws wide, and bit the floating chunk of ice in half. The shark swallowed what it had bitten off, then stayed on the surface and examined us with those strange, human-like eyes. I growled deep in my throat and pulled back the God Slayer, but Morrigan reached forward and placed a hand over mine. When I turned to her, she wasn’t looking at me but instead at the creature and the dark mage markings that worked their way up and down its exposed sides.
My minions usually stood aside while I did what needed to be done, but when they stepped in, it was usually for a good reason. The pale elf’s expression was the same as it was when she watched them slice open the whale’s belly and slid its innards down the cavern. All my minions gathered around me as the shark once more fell below the surface then used its powerful tailfin to launch itself towards us. It made it halfway up onto the ice, biting and snapping the whole time, and we drew backward. I wanted to kill it right then and there, but when I pushed Morrigan’s hand away, she instead stepped out in front of me and blocked my view of the massive beast.
“What are you doing?” I asked her in my calmest tone, and she leveled her dark eyes at me as the mage marking on her forehead began to glow.
“We must leave him be, he is in enough pain as it is,” she warned me.
I tilted my head curiously at her as I peeked over her shoulder, and one of the sage-green eyes examined me below the surface of the water.
“I listen to all of your requests, my love, but this is one I must ignore. This creature is evil and deserves to die,” I told her in a commanding voice, but the elven woman didn’t move out of the way, only stood her ground stubbornly.
“I will not allow anyone to harm another creature in my presence, not today, not after all we have seen, Master.” The pale-woman looked over her shoulder sadly as the shark circled the hole it had created in the ice. “This one is different. We shall not harm him, it is my request.”
“What do you mean this one is different?” Rana protested angrily, her paws clenched into fists as she stomped forward. The great shark dove deep under the ice again and peered up at us through the frozen water. “It’s a shark, how can it be different? It’s a maneater, look at the size of that son-of-a-bitch!”
“He is different,” Morrigan said as she leveled her eyes calmly at the fox-girl, “because he has a human soul.”
“What?” Annalise and Carmedy asked together.
The High Elf didn’t speak, only pointed to the far wall and the carvings there. I had already noticed them, but it seemed my other minions had not. They studied them for a few seconds then turned back to Morrigan and me in confusion. I understood, knew long before my minions did, but this beast still tried to kill one of my minions and deserved to be slaughtered and sent to his watery grave.
“He is confused,” the elf said in a quiet, sad tone. “He does not know what he is doing. He is only following the instinct of the beast’s body because it is the only way he knows now. He is scared, so let us leave him, Master.”
I looked back down at the great beast below our feet, and it had sunken down deeper into the water and was no longer a threat. I nodded and pulled the God Slayer back but didn’t retract the menacing blades in case we were attacked again. We crossed the ice together, and when we reached the rock, Morrigan was the only one to look back. She spoke something in her elven language, and the massive tail fin of the shark lashed out at the ice and broke it up even more, but that was all.
We pressed on. The deeper we journeyed, the colder it became, and soon, we were huddled tightly together for warmth.
The path we took was steep and angled downward as we journeyed deeper into the depths of the mountain. I could feel the Tichádáma’s power as it pulsed towards us. It was intense, stronger than any other god’s we encountered before, and the scent that wafted up the cavern was earthy and salty at the same time though not unpleasant.
With each stepped we took, I was that much closer to taking her powers.
We turned a hard corner, and strange music flooded up to us. I could hear the Tichádáma humming to herself, but there were other sounds below it I couldn’t place. My minions were visibly off-put by the music, but the more I listened, the more I wanted to find out where it was coming from.
We came to a point in the path where it separated into three different tunnels, and my minions looked to me for direction. The music seemed to come from all three different halls, and I looked to Morrigan for her ravens’ help. No words were necessary as many times as we had done this, and the elf nodded once and then looked to the black birds perched on her shoulders. Without even a word, the two ravens took to the air and flew down two different entrances. The white-haired woman’s eyes went wholly black as she watched over the two birds.
We waited and minutes went by, then Morrigan’s mouth dropped open in horror as two loud squawks echoed up the separated halls. Her dark eyes returned to normal, and she looked to me in fear.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and the elven woman moved to race forward then whipped her head between the two tunnels her companions went down.
“S-she took them!” Morrigan whispered in horror as she moved to the entrance of one tunnel then looked back at the other, unsure which way to go and which raven to save first.
“Why would she do that?” Annalise said as she peered into one of the dark tunnels with Bloodscale held out in front of her.
“I do not know!” the elf yelled, one of the few times I had seen her raise her voice in the entire time that I had known her. “She plucked them from the air and then all I could see was white. I know they are not dead because I can still sense them, but she … she took them from me!”
Before I could reach out an arm to stop her, Morri
gan bolted down the middle tunnel, and we followed quickly behind her. Light was filtering in at the end of the tunnel, and I could clearly see the details on the back of the elven woman’s coat as she ran into the light. Right as she reached the end, she stopped then slid out onto another expanse of ice, this one clearly more dangerous than the one before. The hall was tight, and sharp icicles protruded from the walls at all angles to form a deadly series of obstacles. Morrigan dug in her heels and was able to slow herself to a stop before she was impaled by one of the ice daggers.
I was by my elven lover’s side a moment later, and I lifted her safely to her feet as I looked across the room. It was much colder here, and snow billowed down the tight hall in huge drifts. I scanned the room for any other way through, but there was none. We would have to cautiously move through the tunnel filled with sharpened ice to finally reach the Tichádáma. I could barely make out the room beyond, and it was much bigger than any other in the dungeon. I knew it must be her nexus. A loud caw sounded down the hall, and Morrigan lifted her head and her face hardened with determination at the sound of one of her companion’s voices. I grabbed the white-haired woman by the shoulder before she could plunge forward into the deathtrap.
“Master?” my wife asked, and I lifted my head to her as I examined the ice pointing jaggedly through the wall. “Should I try cutting through them?”
“Yes, my love, though I am unsure if it will work.”
Annalise lifted Bloodscale over her head and brought it down through the thick ice. It clanged, and the vibration made her arm wobble up to the elbow as she dropped the sword with a cry of pain. The icicles were as solid and hard as stone, and not even the mighty sword could break them. I stepped forward and inspected the spire of ice that the swordswoman had hit, and there wasn’t a break or dent in its frozen surface. If we couldn’t hack our way through, we would have to pick our way through carefully.