by Noam Oswin
“Some silly myth her people believed.”
“It’s not a myth!” she cried. “Bloodfamish vultures are drawn to places where the soil will forever be tainted with blood. Once they eat and devour without end, they channel the voice and aura of an Anathema, driving whoever hears the words it speaks insane.” My cloak shuddered and rustled. “If you make the mistake of helping one, you will be shadowed by them forever! Forever! And you can’t stop it until you die!”
Voice of an Anathema? That was not what I recalled. I had heard Oblivion’s voice. Was that why Oblivion spoke to me using the bird? The creature could be used to channel powers?
“Ignore her,” Wunder said, waving his hands. “Leporinians are an odd lot with unusual beliefs.”
“How unusual?”
“Very. And the majority of them are very… vocal about it.”
“I still remember the five-hundred and fifteen chronicles of Haresen the Most Wise, Lord and Founder of Leporinians, as recorded in the Lagomorpha.”
Ah, so there was a rabbit-man Jesus. I turned to Wunder. “I thought you said I should forget everything about what I was before I died?”
“You should,” he glared lightly at my cloak. “Arol was some sort of priestess and Erzili has already tried and failed to wash away her devotion. Somehow, that is the only thing that refused to die, no matter how ridiculous.”
“Leveretism is not ridiculous!”
“Your people believed sex with rabbits three times daily would grant them the enlightenment of sages. They believed directly sucking the genitals of powerful sorcerers was the key to unlocking one’s magic, and that eating meat would shorten your lifespan.”
“And they were right!”
I tried not to laugh, only vaguely managing to obscure my snort. Of the three things I had heard, arguably, Arol was right about at least one of them, though only when it was done in excess. The other two were on a level I could not even begin to have any reason to believe was true. Correlation did not always imply causation, and it was more likely a cunning sorcerer tricked them into believing it to get a supply of oral sex in exchange for giving them magic than it was that the oral sex gave them magic. Still, I knew too little of Alamir to make a judgment on that, and it was possible to be true.
As Arol and Wunder bickered back and forth, the albino vulture stared straight at me. White pristine feathers and a piercing gaze, I noticed it was not focusing on its meal. No, it was not focusing on its meal or anything but me. Each passing second where it unflinchingly gazed at me became increasingly uncomfortable.
It felt as if it was trying to… communicate.
“…nus.”
“…nus.”
“Janus!”
Wunder obstructed my view, his heavy hand landing on my right shoulder. “We’re leaving Janus. What are you looking at?”
“The – the vulture. I mean, it’s staring at me.”
Wunder looked, skeptic. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought into Arol’s tales.”
“No, I mean, look at it –”
I gestured my hand forward. Except there was nothing there. “Wait… where is it?” The vulture was gone. “It – it was right there. It was right there and looking at me.”
“Right,” Wunder said, dryly. “Of course.”
“I told you those things were cursed!” Arol emerged from my cloak, crossing her arms. “Anything connected to an Anathema is nothing but trouble.”
Anything connected to an Anathema. I was not fully sure what separated an Anathema from regular nightmares, but I could guess. “So, what if, there was a Nightwitch… who was the Avatar of an Anathema, and that Nightwitch named a nightmare. Would that nightmare… technically, be connected to the Anathema?”
Wunder frowned. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On which Anathema.”
“What if it were… Omega?”
Wunder’s eyes latched on me, his face was devoid of humor. Arol beside me had gone extremely stiff. There was an increasingly mounting pressure I could feel coming from the gaze of both nightmares.
“Janus… is your Nightwitch… the Avatar of Omega?”
The pressure began to increase. I noticed, slowly, how Arol cautiously reached for her macuahuitl, how Wunder’s black quills began to grow ever so slowly, how both of them were tense, coiled, and almost ready to strike.
“No.” I lied. “I’m a skeleton… remember? What are the odds of a skeleton being named by someone like that?”
“What’s her name?”
“Her?”
“The Nightwitch that gave you your name, Janus. What. Is. Her. Name?”
“I never said a Nightwitch gave me my name,” I said, calming myself. Calm. Calm. “I was named by a Nightshaman… a Nightshaman named Mavros Cuvar.”
Arol’s eyes widened. “The Mavros Cuvar? No way!”
“You… you’ve heard of him?”
Wunder’s quills began to shrink to regular size. “Erzili possesses an ancient artifact called the Book of Nightly Ones. Within its self-updating pages are the name of every Nightwitch, Nightshaman and Nightchild to ever live. Arol and I have gone through it.”
“What a rather… useful thing to have.” I kept my voice level.
“It is.” Arol quipped in. “There are very few ways for you to know the name of a Nightly One unless you’ve met them. So we’d have known if you were lying.”
Wunder shook his head. “You have to be careful with tossing around questions like that Janus. I almost thought you were named by the Mad Sage herself.”
“Me?” I tried to laugh it off. “Like I would be that… lucky.”
Wunder patted me on the back. “If you were, every single living being in Alamir that enjoys living would do their best to hunt you down and kill you.”
“…because I was named by the Mad Sage?”
“Because you were named by a being who is the chosen one of the incarnation of the end.”
“The end of… what?”
“Everything.”
There was not much left for me to say. Not much left I could hear. Wunder and Arol discussed something and bickered, but I zoned them out, too busy thinking. Zlosta had always told me from the beginning that her goal was to end suffering. End suffering by ending all those who suffer. Yet, she had been sealed away, locked up for several thousand years, and the minions that willingly followed her had also been cut off from the rest of the world. Now, nightmares were not the same. Nightmares like Wunder and Arol – they did not want to end the world. They wanted to live in it.
My mind was whirling with a thousand thoughts. I can’t let them know. The truth, unfiltered and spoken without care would get me killed. For now, I would keep my goals to myself. More than that, there was no way for me to even think about starting an army as I was. Arol and Wunder were both much stronger than me, and their leader, this Erzili, no doubt was stronger than them.
I had come a long, long way from a worm. Yet, somehow, I had never stopped feeling like one. Zlosta, Hoplite, Apophis, and now Wunder and Arol. Everyone felt leagues above me. Everyone was leagues above me. I needed to change that. There were methods I could use, each one more underhanded than the last, more repugnant than the last… and I questioned if I would remain the same once I used them. Yet, it was either that, or sit back and let the earth be changed, let my memories vanish, and become nothing more than a mindless monster.
How much of my humanity would I lose for the purpose of saving my humanity?
I did not know. But I knew, sooner or later, I would find out.
[Midnight Reached]
[Daily Tasks have been reset]
I knew I would dislike the answer.
Chapter 6: Fort Zyvar
Fort Zyvar was nothing like I anticipated it to be. Moss-dressed walls and weed-bursting paths, vine-ensnared gates, and grass-blanketed walkways, the fort could be mistaken for an abandoned ruin deep in the vestiges of Brazilian rainforests – the type in which a plucky,
hat-wearing, whip-cracking archeologist would visit to avoid perilous pitfalls, traps, and dangers in search of ancient and mystical treasure.
Each step I took further entrenched it in my mind that the Fort had most certainly seen better days. Portions of the wall were crumbling like stale bread, the giant iron gates were married to thick brown rust, and the weeds grew with reckless abandon wherever it was possible for them to grow – between cracks, on aged wood, on broken statues – without anyone seeming to attempt to trim them.
With so much green, the fort seemed less a man-made structure and more something that was sprouted by the earth. Blending into the forest with ease, Fort Zyvar was the first real architectural building I’d seen since coming to Alamir, not counting the Rift. I could not help but be intrigued. Going by the look alone, the Fort had to be at least several hundred years old. The aesthetics of it almost seemed to lurch a deeply buried desire for adventure. What great secrets lay within its walls? What mysteries and wonders would I find? Tomes of a forgotten era? Remains of ancient warriors?
You don’t have time for an adventure Janus, I sternly reminded myself, curbing the inquisitive instincts within me. My quest was time-sensitive even if I did not know exactly by how much. There was no time to go spelunking into hidden caves unless I had a guarantee that there was something within such places that would be of value to me, such as a powerful weapon or tool.
The broken statues in front of the Fort were something I could not simply ignore however. Most of the statues were gone, but from those mostly intact, I tried to glean some knowledge. The style of clothing on them was anachronistic, I could only vaguely claim they were reminiscent of ancient Zulu warriors wearing the helmets of Roman legionnaires. If such an odd combination made any lick of sense.
“Who are they, in the statues?”
Arol, dragging along two corpses of dead kobolds, stared at the statues I gestured to. “I think they’re humans. The humans that built this fort a long, long time ago.”
Statues in front of a fort? Why? For decorative purposes? As far as I knew, Forts were usually not the type of places one placed expensive ornaments. More than that, there was some eerie sensation I got from the statues. As if they were… watching me. The eyes never seemed to move, but with each advance, the gaze of the statues almost seemed to watch my every step, and it was unnerving.
“Do you know what race of humans?”
“Humans have different races?” Arol asked, squinting. “Wunder, do humans have different races?”
The Barbeast, hoisting up on one hand three kobold corpses, shook his head. “All humans are one race, but they have different origins and live in different settlements, so they do not see themselves as one.”
“Did they have a name, the people in those statues?”
“They’re humans,” Wunder responded.
“I know they’re humans, I mean, the name of their empire, or their culture.”
“Humankind,” Arol said, cheekily.
I was not getting anywhere with this line of questioning. “What tribe of humans are they?”
“No idea.” Arol turned to Wunder. “Any clue?”
The Barbeast hummed. “No, I don’t know either. Perhaps Erzili might know.”
Arol nodded in tandem. “Leader Erzili knows everything!”
Erzili this, Erzili that. I wanted to meet this Erzili fellow and find out what made them so special. Deciding to relegate that task of asking about the freakish human statues that seemed to be trailing me with their eyes to a later time, I noticed something odd.
The further we approached, the more I began to pick up the sounds of different noises. The noises were coming from deeper in the Fort, and it sounded almost as if they were… cheers? Cheers. Nightmares cheering? Was that a good sign?
“Who approaches Fort Zyvar?”
A deafening voice thundered. Bouncing back and forth between the forest, I could not pinpoint the origin until the footsteps followed. Thick pounding footsteps, shaking the earth. Ripples appeared in the air and before me was a creature with a man’s face and a lion’s body. The creature was chiseled out of something that resembled stone, but I felt for it through my connection to the earth and realized that it was made of an element I possessed no knowledge of. Something that was purely unique to the world of Alamir.
Arol blurred forward. “Sniffles! It’s me Arol! I’m back!”
Sniffles? I could only stare at the oddity as Arol began to lightly pet the creature on the underside of its chin. The eyes on the creature’s head began to glow. A red light flashed, and vanished. “Fort Zyvar welcomes you back, Lady Arol, Lord Wunder.” The sphinx-like creature boomed. “I sense one here that does belong.”
The creature’s red eyes locked on my form. The sound of something sharply whining began to reach my ears. My instincts of self-preservation went haywire, as the creature’s red eyes continued to glow, higher and higher and brighter –
“Relax Sniffles!” Arol said, jumping in between the creature and I. “This is Janus – he’s just a skeleton we met out in the forest.”
Wunder chuckled. “He’s an interesting sort. Managed to survive Arol’s hits, but lost his arm in the process. We’re bringing him up to Erzili to heal up.”
The creature seemed to placate itself. “Be that as it may, it is my duty as the guardian of Fort Zyvar to decipher the purpose and intent of all those who enter its walls.” Red eyes once more landed on my form. “Tell me, Janus, what is your intention in approaching this Fort?”
I opened my mouth, but Arol stopped me. “Sniffles can tell when you’re lying, so you might not want to do that. He doesn’t really like liars.”
So a sphinx, but for lies instead of riddles - fantastic. I thought through my options with increasing speed and realized I did not have much time to come up with a convincing lie.
“I have come to Fort Zyvar to get my arm healed.”
“That is not your only purpose here.”
“You said I should tell you about my intention. You never said how many I had to tell.”
“No, I did not.” The sphinx agreed. “Very well then. A question, Janus. Do you, or do you not, approach Fort Zyvar with the intent to kill any of its inhabitants?”
Shit. Arol and Wunder stared at me, waiting. “I… do.”
Arol’s neck snapped in my direction.
“Why?”
“For the experience.”
The Sphinx gave a long sigh. “Another one falls to Erzili’s ranks. You may enter Fort Zyvar.”
“You-you're letting me through?”
“I am the Guardian of this Fort, beholden to it and nothing more. I must stop those seeking its destruction, not stop those who approach in search of death.”
“I’m not here to die.”
“You are here with the intent to kill. Thus you are here in search of death, be it your own or that of another.”
The sphinx, turning around, walked back to the Fort. Ripples emerged from the air once more, and before I could so much as question it, the creature was gone. The Guardian of the Fort. Chills ran down my spinal cord and up to my tail. Something told me that I did not want to fight that Sphinx.
The slowly building thickness in the air also told me that I did not want to fight the two nightmares who stood behind me, both of which had just heard me openly admit that I wanted to kill someone within the fort.
“Janus…” Arol’s voice was low. “…what do you mean by, you’re here to kill… for the experience?”
“It’s very self-explanatory.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I thought this sort of thing was common –”
“You don’t understand,” Arol shook her head. “You literally can’t do that. You’re too weak to be a threat to anyone in Fort Zyvar. Attack anyone and you’ll die.”
I stiffened, staring at the duo. “Well, I managed to survive three of your hits, didn’t I?”
Wunder let out a large laugh. “Yes, yes, you managed
to survive three hits from Arol. Impressive.” He continued laughing, and I felt my irritation rise.
“What’s so funny?”
“Should you tell him, or should I?” Wunder asked, rubbing his chin.
The redhead frowned at Wunder, before turning back to me. “I’m the youngest nightmare in Fort Zyvar.”
“And?”
“And?” she furrowed her brows. “A nightmare’s power is dependent on how long they’ve lived. The older you get, the more stuff you survive, the stronger you become.” She pointed at herself. “I’ve only been a nightmare for four decades… that’s why I’m not as strong as everyone else.”
“Rubbish.” The word escaped my mouth before I could stop it. “You’re a poltergeist that’s untouchable. You expect me to believe you’re the weakest?”
“I’m not the weakest!” she protested hotly. “I’m just the youngest, and don’t have as much experience as everyone else.” She pointed to me. “But if I can beat you, everyone else can. How long have you been a skeleton anyway? Five years? Ten?”
I could not answer that question. How long? I reincarnated into this world about two months ago. I was made into a skeleton roughly a week and a half after my appearance as a worm. So as a skeleton, I was only about seven weeks old, give or take a week. Even if I accounted for my previous life, I was twenty-five years old before I died, and Arol would still be older than me.
The problem was, giving that information could be problematic, considering I lied about who my Nightshaman was. The dots would not connect. The more truths and lies I mixed up, the easier it would be to expose myself.
I pointed to Wunder. “…Even he is stronger than you?”
“Want to test it?” Wunder gestured to his chin. “Give me your best shot little skeleton. I won’t move. I won’t dodge. Let’s see what you can do.”
There was a temptation to take up his offer. I thought about the strongest moves in my arsenal. [Excruciating Toxic Bite] and [Diamond Bullet]. Neither of those two moves seemed as though they would be effective against Wunder. His pitch-black, spine-covered form would protect him from most poisons, but as for bullets –