Maranath saw nothing particularly interesting about it, beyond the fact that they would need to get through it. It was dark below, until he decided it wasn’t. It was clearly the way they needed to go. Maranath grunted.
Maklin scowled. “Unimpressed, are we?”
Maranath shrugged. “Do you have a point?”
“Well, go on then, open it.”
He said it as if it were a challenge, which Maranath found quite suspicious. “What are you not telling me?”
Maklin scoffed. “Oh, nothing. It’s a simple grate to a simple mind. Go on, then. Chop chop.”
Maranath, now convinced there would be some sort of explosion, gingerly reached for the grate and pulled experimentally. No fireworks ensued, but neither did the grate budge. He pulled harder, to no effect. Fine, it’s not quite normal, then. Mentally, he pictured the grate as wet noodles, and twisted at it, fulling expecting it to comply.
Maklin barked laughter as nothing happened.
Maranath straightened up with a wince and scowled at Maklin. “While you’re gloating, why not educate me, too?”
“Oh, I’m getting to that,” Maklin tittered. He held out a moment longer, then confessed, “It’s charged, and quite heavily. It must be nigh invulnerable. Incredible craftsmanship. I’ve never seen such an amazing piece of work. The whole place is like this.”
Maranath was in no mood for such ribbing. “We’ve just come from arguing with a dragon. One has to keep his perspective.”
“I wasn’t awed by the power of it, you old coot! I was awed by the beauty!”
Maranath scoffed. “Here’s an idea. Why not be awed by the beauty of a woman sometime, eh? It would do you wonders.”
“Bah, waste of my time.”
“Probably too old to do much more than look anyway, eh?”
Maklin looked wounded, but seemed in no mood to surrender. “Are we really having a discussion about my mechanical parts here? I can show you things work just fine, if that’s what we’re doing! Give me a month or so and I could probably improve on your shoddy design, too!”
Maranath shook his head and chuckled. “No, let’s be about our business before a certain woman arrives.”
Maklin cackled. “We’re neither one of us going to be awed by her beauty, I’ll tell you that.”
Maranath was about to respond when he was interrupted by what sounded very much like screams. The sounds were distorted, echoing off Mei only knew how many walls, but Maranath was certain they were screams. “Mei! It sounds as if someone’s being tortured!”
Maklin’s humor had also fled. “That’s the rumor, you know.”
Maranath looked past the grate, seeing only shadows, then realized there was a light source somewhere below. The details slowly resolved themselves, and he could see a set of spiral stairs leading down into the heart of the pyramid. “Do you have any idea where we’re going, or are we just going to stumble along blindly until we’re eaten by whatever monsters reside down here?”
Maklin waved a hand. “I’m not worried about ‘monsters’. What were you just saying about perspective?” He bent to study the grate more closely.
“They managed to kill Lothrian.”
Maklin shrugged, still absorbed with the grate. “A hundred years ago. Are you anywhere near the weakling you were a century back?”
“Even so, you didn’t answer the question. Do you have any idea where to go?”
Maklin’s face lit as he found some mechanism only he could see and activated it. “We’ll go ‘in’, won’t we? It wouldn’t be much of a fortress if it didn’t surround the interesting parts.”
Maklin hauled on the grate, a triumphant look on his face, and came to a sudden, jerking stop. As Maklin’s face fell like a disappointed child’s, Maranath cackled briefly and sniped, “You were saying?”
Maklin gave Maranath a dirty look. “I was saying there must be some other way in, I think.”
Maranath snickered. “Let’s hope so.” He pointed to a flight of stairs off to the side of the room. The large iron gate that allowed entrance to the stairwell stood open, which Maranath counted as fortunate. It’s probably warded, too. “That seems as likely as anything else.”
Maklin started that way. “It’s not like we have any choices.”
They descended the staircase in relative silence, broken only by Maklin’s constant hacking and spitting. The light source was invisible, but moved with them, a fact Maranath found interesting but not surprising. It was a fairly normal occurrence from his viewpoint.
The stairs were quite long, with a number of switchbacks. By the time they reached the bottom, Maranath estimated they were several hundred feet to the side of the pyramid center. To some degree, he was relieved by the notion. Surely, if there is a welcoming committee, it would be at the bottom of that spiral staircase. He paused there, tugging on his beard, thinking. Well, unless the open gate was part of a trap.
Maranath put the notion out of his mind. Trap or no trap, he intended to move forward, and anyone in his way was going to have one remarkably bad day if he had any say about it. He stepped out of the stairwell, gesturing for Maklin to follow.
The pair found themselves in a large, open antechamber. It took a moment for the light to fill the room, but when it did, they both gasped in unison: “Mei!”
At the far end of the room, within a glass display case, a figure stood motionless atop a small, stylized ziggurat, his face contorted in fury. Light from somewhere within the ziggurat shone upward to shade his high cheekbones and sharp features into something almost demonic. His long, blond hair and blue robe were frozen in place, posed to appear as if they were streaming behind him, blown by a fiery wind as his mad, blue eyes gazed balefully down at his victims. Beneath his foot was a figure from a nightmare, a tentacled, twisted distortion of a man. It clutched at its neck, as if it were being strangled by the first figure’s boot. More perverse, tentacled corpses, dozens even, lay sprawled along the ziggurat tiers, some burned almost to ash, others slashed and in one case decapitated. Behind the blond sorcerer, a single monstrous creature stood poised with a spear, ready to run him through.
Maklin gaped at the display, then turned the Maranath, his eyes blazing. “What in Mei’s name is this, then?”
Maranath took a deep, shuddering breath before speaking. “Art. They revere pain.” He craned his neck to get a better view. “From what Ariano told me, they’re quite serious about it.”
Maklin looked back at the art for a moment, then turned back to Maranath and snorted. “I believe I mentioned that upstairs.” He pointed to the figure atop the ziggurat. “This one seems out of place.”
Maranath glared at him. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what!” Maranath shouted. “Stop pretending like you don’t recognize him!”
Maklin started to speak, then stopped, looked at the central figure on the ziggurat, then spat on the ground. He turned haunted eyes toward Maranath and hissed “It’s not him!”
“It damned well is!”
Maklin sputtered briefly, shaking his head in disbelief. “But it’s madness!”
Maranath nodded as he stepped up to the display case and began to brush dust from an engraved bronze plate. “It is, indeed. But that doesn’t change facts.”
Both of them read the text of the plate in silence and growing horror.
Victory and Defeat: This monster told us his name was Lothrian before he was at last defeated, and so I note it here. He was a juggernaut that only death could stop. Because of this, he suffered very little before he died, and could not be made into art in the conventional sense. I decided to create this piece because Lothrian brought me the worst agony of my existence, and I knew his beauty must be preserved. Three of my own brothers died in the battle against him. I used their bodies and several others who were close to me to complete the work. My eldest brother lies beneath his heel. This scene does not show the true havoc he wrought. Forty-seven of us were slain before we fi
nally managed to overwhelm him.
Chapter 13
Elgar’s Wrath
Aiul made his way along the wall, the single torch his only light, trying to build a map in his head. The chamber was octagonal, and similar in construction to the smaller pyramids, but vastly larger, at least a hundred feet across. Circumnavigating the room, he found hatches, like the one they had entered, on each of the other walls, leading to passages that were, likewise, all too familiar. At least they weren’t collapsed and flooded.
He and Logrus would have to make a decision on which exit to use, and Logrus had a better head for direction. Hopefully, he’s up to the task. Whichever they chose, it would need to be soon: the torch would burn out before long, trapping them in the darkness. Aiul did not think much of their odds of survival should that happen
It had taken quite some time to make the complete circuit, and Aiul had found nothing even remotely useful to bind Logrus’s ribs. I’ll have to use his pants leg, I suppose.
As Aiul neared his starting point, the hiss of the torch loud in his ear in the otherwise silent, tomb-like chamber, he felt a brief surge of terror as a figure loomed out of the darkness. His fear faded quickly as he realized it was merely Logrus. It’s easy to get jumpy down here.
Aiul shook his head in amazement at his companion’s resilience as he closed the distance between them. “I told you I needed to bind it before you walked,” he admonished, and immediately felt foolish. Now that he was closer, the torchlight told him a different story. Logrus was most definitely not well, and seemed to barely notice Aiul’s presence. He was trembling violently, whipping his head back and forth, and muttering beneath his breath.
Logrus came to a sudden stop, shook his head violently back and forth several times, and clutched at his chest with a wretched wail, as if he were being stretched on a rack. “Elgar, my lord, it is too much! Take this from me!”
“What?” Aiul shouted, starting toward him in alarm. He grabbed Logrus by the shoulders and gently turned him, trying to get his companion to focus. “What happened?”
Logrus stared at him with mad, uncomprehending eyes, and gibbered incoherently between ragged breaths. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with saliva trickling from the corners of his mouth and into his beard.
Aiul shook his head in utter disbelief at the timing. Here, of all places! He pulled at Logrus, trying to lower him to the ground, but the hunter was stiff as a corpse, all of his muscles rigid with strain.
Aiul tried a different tack. “I think you’re having a heart attack,” he told Logrus, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I need to you lie down.”
“Fool!” Logrus snarled, twisting in Aiul’s grasp. He hammered his own fist into his broken ribs, and, with a gurgling grunt, collapsed to the floor, insensate. Aiul felt panic rise within him as he struggled to decide on a course of action.
The physician stepped forward in his mind and demanded calm, explained that, for the moment, Logrus was still among the living, and that only a cool head could ensure it remained so. Aiul smiled at the knowledge that the physician was not, after all, dead. He had merely been sleeping until he could be of some use.
Aiul went through the process by the book, counting, categorizing, comparing, but in the end, he was baffled. There was nothing obvious beyond the broken ribs. Logrus was pale, covered in sweat, and semi-conscious. His temperature was close to normal, perhaps a little high. His breathing was irregular, his pulse strong but fast.
Pain could account for the color, but the sweat was a clue. It looked very much like a heart attack, but the pulse did not match. Punctured lung and internal bleeding, or a stroke maybe? If it were internal bleeding, Aiul had very little time to reach a decision and intervene, but considering the location and circumstances, almost any course he chose would have poor chance of success. He checked Logrus’s pulse again, and fancied it seemed a little hard and fast, which made him lean toward internal bleeding, but he wasn’t confident enough to cut the fellow open yet. Maybe he can tell me.
“Not what you think,” Logrus croaked, as if reading his mind.
“Keep talking, Logrus,” Aiul said, and squeezed his shoulder. “Stay with me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
Logrus voiced a low, bestial whine. “Hate,” he whispered.
Aiul blinked at this unexpected answer, but nodded as if it were understandable and continued, “I mean physically.”
“Pain.”
“Where?”
Logrus’s eyes snapped open, glaring and, for the moment, perfectly lucid. “Everywhere!”
Aiul found himself taken aback by the sudden display of emotion. Up to now, Logrus had been as placid as a frozen lake, absolutely unflappable. Something is very wrong, and I have no idea what! That alone was enough to bring panic surging again, but it was at least a familiar panic, well-known terrain he had walked many times before. Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do, but you keep trying until you can’t anymore. He worked to make his voice as soothing as possible as he spoke. “I know it’s difficult, but help me help you. Take a deep breath and try again.”
Logrus, eyes wide, glared at him a moment, then drew in a great, ragged breath and let it out again. It seemed to help. The tension in his muscles eased a bit, and his eyes seemed to focus. “Flame burning me,” he mumbled. “My head being sawed open. Cracking my chest with some kind of vise. Cutting at my heart.”
Mei, it’s a stroke. That would explain this sort of sensory malfunction. Aiul struggled to keep his own fear from overwhelming him. There was little he could do if his suspicion were true. “No,” Aiul told him, keeping a comforting hand on Logrus’s shoulder. “That’s not happening. You’re safe. Do you know where you are?”
“Not to me,” Logrus gasped. “To others. Here. In Torium.”
“Take your time,” Aiul told him. “Try to focus.”
Logrus’s eyes snapped open and he raised his head, staring at Aiul in blind fury. “My gift, fool!” he hissed. He let his head fall back to the floor. “Wait. Just wait.”
Aiul did so for many long, confused minutes, keeping watch of Logrus’s condition, which seemed to improve by the second. At last, Logrus sat up, buried his face in his hands, and began to sob. Aiul simply waited. After a while longer, Logrus rose to his feet and wiped his sleeve across his wet face. “Come with me,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I need light.”
“Not much left of it,” Aiul noted grimly as he followed Logrus into the dark center of the room. “I saw some doors on the far walls. Maybe there’s a way out. If we don’t find something soon…”
“I know,” Logrus answered. “But we must do this. Then we can leave.”
Aiul stopped and gave Logrus a wary look, feeling a cold chill slowly creeping up his spine. This isn’t something medical. This is something to do with Elgar. “Tell me.”
Logrus shook his head and beckoned for Aiul to follow. “You’ll see. Just ahead.”
Aiul hesitated as the fear in his gut grew, but he pushed it down and moved forward, knowing somehow, without having been told, that he had no choice, that this was the reason they had come. His anxiety surged again as more figures loomed in the darkness, but he quickly realized that they were merely statues.
Hundreds of them, in as many different poses, stood arrayed in the center of the huge room, each unique. The flickering light from Aiul’s torch played over the still forms as Logrus and Aiul approached, sending shadows skittering over floor and statues alike in a slow retreat from the advancing flame. Aiul marveled at how lifelike the statues were, how well-proportioned and anatomically correct, but he felt a strange disquiet, as well. There’s something odd about the poses.
Five feet from the nearest, he realized what was troubling him. The statues were obscene depictions of men, women, even children, in unspeakable agony. They were incredibly lifelike, detailed as well as any of the books Aiul had studied in his surgical training. Missing limbs showed bone and muscle beneath. Open chests showed the orga
ns all in their proper locations. The artist may have been twisted, but his skill was unquestionable. He had captured the very essence of horrifying death and chiseled it into his art, over and over, and none the same.
Aiul almost whispered when he spoke. “Mei! What madness drives a man to work such things into stone?”
Logrus shook his head slowly, his face trembling. “They are not stone,” he said, his voice a cold monotone, fists balled at his sides.
Horror gnawed at Aiul’s guts as he moved forward for a closer view. “What are you saying?” He reached out to one of the statues, a man with a face contorted in horror, his head rent nearly in two by a huge gash that showed exposed brain. As Aiul’s finger made contact, his mouth filled with a coppery taste at the feel of pliant flesh, the tacky, cold sensation of wet, dead blood, and a bolt of pure agony tore through his head. He jerked his hand back, recoiling as he suddenly understood that this was, as Logrus had just said, not a statue at all, but a real human, somehow preserved like this! The world seemed to spin wildly about him as he staggered away, close to hyperventilation. He could feel the wrongness, the monstrous evil of it, as if it were a physical force weighing him down. His knees buckled, and he sank to the ground, retching and struggling not to vomit.
“So you have it, too,” Logrus said. “Weaker, like my zombies. But you have it.”
“Yes,” Aiul moaned, wiping at his mouth as he struggled to his feet. “As soon as I touched it. Mei, how can you stand it?”
“It is necessary.” Logrus glared at the garden of corpses. “This one,” he said, pointing to a child’s body. “He died screaming, begging not for his own life, but that they spare his mother.” The hunter choked back a sob, and pointed to a woman. “This one, they forced to watch as they cooked and ate her husband. They made her eat of him, too.” He covered his face with his hands, as if to ward away the visions. “They are all like this. All of them.”
Aiul ran a hand over his now sweating scalp with an involuntary shudder. “How can the gods let such things occur?” he asked.
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