From behind his back, Roiland pulled out a large loaf of bread, and handed it to him.
Valor snatched it. “A thief and a mage?” he said, ripping it in three pieces, handing one to Orrin, and the last piece to Roiland.
Valor looked at his brother. Orrin’s gaze stayed fixed on the floor while he stopped. Even in dark times, Orrin’s hands were never so quiet. Valor remembered as children how talkative his brother had been, before losing his voice, and after. There were things to be talked about, and Orrin had always been the one to do the talking, especially about sensitive things, things like losing your mentor and father figure, escaping from prison, or watching people die needlessly.
But Orrin was quiet now, and Valor was lost for words.
The sprite shimmied energetically, and made off down the edge of the mountain wall. Roiland gripped the moldy, wet rock, and ran. The boys followed, trying their best to eat and run.
“Yes,” Roiland said. “There are many things I can’t do. Some I simply will not do. If you are asking how well versed I am, in the totality of all spells that exist in the world... eh. Fairly far along, so to speak.”
“What happens if we run into more guards?” Valor asked, jumping in between crags. “We’re just tiring ourselves out. We can’t keep this up for much longer.”
Roiland nodded. “I can use magic, but sparingly. We’ll need it to escape.”
“Burning out?” Valor asked.
“In a sense.”
Valor swallowed and chewed on thick saliva. “I find it interesting how you only sort of answer my questions, and then answer other ones that I didn’t ask.”
As expected, Roiland said little. “Hug the walls.”
They did as he asked, crawling as if the edges were the only thing keeping them from falling off into the dark. The noise of the nameless things was almost gone.
After the passing of what felt like forever, they turned into a darkened corridor.
Sparse torches lined the walls, as did relief carvings of unknown harmian things, cut up between images of the Everburn, the pheonix with a tail of fire. The lighting of the rough tunnels displayed them frighteningly well.
After a few minutes, they turned again but this time through a false wall, hidden again by expertly painted, web like fabrics, a carefully constructed intersection of shadows that appeared to be solid crags,
The corridor looked new, smelled new. The scent of freshly carved rock sharply hit his nostrils. Though he knew the caverns were essentially endless loops that went on for hundreds of miles, they had traversed much of it, and were constantly lulled into a false sense that they knew anything of its true depths.
Despite the need for focus, Valor could not break his mind from the images of the nameless things tearing into Emberless. He had no sympathy for ferals, but perhaps the fate they now faced was more than they deserved. Between the flames and smoke and blood, he had barely been able to make out whole people. The only things that remained still were either broken or dead.
His heart beat through him, vibrating his ribs. He tried to control his breathing, remembering Jerryl’s teachings and his lessons in the silence, but that forced him to think of Jerryl, and then of Lobosa.
The sights of violence only brought him to desire more of it. He looked at Orrin, wishing he could duplicate his brother’s numb response to such things. Roiland seemed to let the whole thing pass over him. Valor could only assume the silver haired mage was more used to such situations.
Together, they skulked in the shadows, three cockroaches scattering across the room. The feral groups were easily heard, and the sharp crags against the wall allowed them to hide from any incoming sights or sounds. The ferals spoke in their own language, so none could understand the orders being barked. All Valor could understand was the desperation in their voices.
Valor looked at the faces of the feral soldiers. They were visibly tired; spit dried on the outside of their chins, eyes more red than their cloaks, and backs hunched over with hunger pains.
They should all starve, he thought.
The sprite suddenly bounced in front of him. Valor swatted it away, annoyed. It knew when to hide, and when to come out, but he didn’t trust the glowing thing. Once they found wherever the ober had been processed, he hoped the thing would disappear back in between Roiland’s hands.
It has to be okay, Orrin thought. There cannot be so much pain without answers.
Orrin had known for years what it was to be gripped by an emotion, and driven to act upon it so wholly that you felt consumed. But the feeling in him now was one he did not have words for.
Is this justice? Or revenge?
Orrin knew his brother hated the ferals, and he had no love for Lobosa or his kin. But the sight of dead babies was more than he could bear, and he had no desire to push his emotions under. He would be free, perhaps very soon; free to do anything, free to feel everything.
They continued their pattern of hiding, crouching, walking then running, then hiding and crouching again many times. They hid from ferals and fellow prisoners alike, both sides fighting with a mob mentality. He had been a child when he accidentally stumbled upon the ober forge, and had no memory of these tunnels.
Orrin squinted and rubbed his eyes. He thought for a moment that his vision was becoming hazy, but soon realized there was a real mist pouring out from somewhere. He inhaled deeply. It smelled like melting iron and burnt blood. He tapped Valor on the shoulder and signed, [ We must be close. ]
Two left turns and a final right brought them to a circular portion of the cavern. The sprite stopped, and seemed to bounce around, its light heavily faded by the mist.
The sprite bubbled in front of Roiland, shimmering and chiming before disappearing into the wall in front of them.
“It’s here,” Roiland said, drawing his battleaxe close against his chest. Orrin crouched low, and his brother copied him.
“Where?” Valor asked.
Roiland whispered, “Search the walls.”
Orrin ran his hands along the wall opposite from the one Valor chose, and together they worked their way towards each other, walking in a circle.
It was not long before Orrin’s hand touched something sharp. He backed away, fearing it to be the weapon of an enforcer. Stepping back revealed a much different image.
A large, ugly set of twin doors appeared, black iron and haphazardly built, unadorned and not particularly special, other than its lopsided shape and general ugliness. Its only distinguishing feature was the thick bar of wood across its frame, held in place by three massive L-shaped brackets.
“What are they trying to keep in?” Valor wondered out loud.
Orrin clicked his tongue, one of few sounds he could make. All three men drew close together. Roiland swung his battle-axe just hard enough to part the mist, revealing that the door had been cracked, splintered, and jammed again by the wooden bar. Metal shards reached towards them, all corners of the frame broken and out of place.
Orrin leaned in close, and could hear the sound of iron striking iron. Howling winds murmured from the exposed door seals. He looked down, and saw the oblong footprints of the nameless things littered in the light sand. They had tried to get in, and something had stopped them.
Roiland swung his battle axe twice more.
In a messy pile by the right door, three dead guards laid upon one another, half eaten, covered in the saliva of nameless things. Roiland stepped closer to investigate.
“Nameless things…” he turned to the brothers, motioning them towards him. Once they were close enough, he whispered. “Boys, I must ask of you, whatever we see in there, I must see it, you understand? I have to know what they are doing. To simplify - if I can’t see it, I can’t stop it from happening in the future.”
Orrin nodded. He looked at his brother, who gave no verbal or physical promise.
Together, they pushed the bar up and away from the brackets. It groaned, kicking up dust, and a sudden terror gripped Orrin.
&nb
sp; He looked to his brother, who shared a similar wide-eyed expression. “Do you feel that?” Valor asked.
Orrin nodded yes. Orrin reached for Valor’s door, which was leaning a bit more towards the ground, the top hinges compressed tightly from damage. The nameless things had almost gotten in.
He pushed harder, and the doors cracked apart, leaving Orrin standing in view of everything, the first to see the white forge.
White ghosts and phantasms raced towards him, gripping at his body. Suddenly there were ten, twenty, thirty grabbing him, fingers so cold that it stung his skin. Their moans were lower in pitch than the nameless things, but just as terrifying. Bright flashes of light and the strong scent of blood clawed into his nose. The ghosts exploded again and again, outwards, disappearing into a searing mist that burned upon contact. It was not enough to break the skin, but as if one were to hold their fingertips just close enough to the flame for it to hurt.
Orrin did not feel fear, only pain. He looked to the side, and saw Valor trying to swat them away. [ Stop, ] he signed to his brother. [ They won’t hurt you. ]
Valor signed back. [ When did you become an expert on ghosts? ]
Orrin grabbed his brother roughly by the collar, signing with one hand. [ Look. They are trying to get out. ]
To Orrin’s surprise, Valor did look. The phantasms stretched their smoky figures out in the hall, disappearing before they could reach the door.
Every hand that touched Orrin nearly brought a gasping beat from his heart.
Whoever’s doing this will pay, he thought. Orrin finally recognized the emotion that gripped him. It was revenge. He had thought that opening the doors would frighten him, scare him, make him think twice about his choice to walk in first. But nothing came.
Only revenge sat inside of him, waiting impatiently, tapping its foot.
Much of the spirt energy billowed up into the never ending ceiling and along the cavern walls. Orrin looked out for more nameless things, or other nameless things scaling the ceiling, anticipating carnage.
Orrin led the boys as they rounded a sharp corner.
There they saw the forge, churning with white fire, some thirty paces in front of them.
Ferals dressed in terrible, jagged armor and faceless helms hammered ober again and again. The crooked rocks did not change shape no matter how many hammer strokes they took. They seemed not to notice the interlopers.
Behind the smiths sat giant glass tubes, small offshoots of crooked metal funneling into the forge. Whatever was fueling the fire could not be seen, as hard as Orrin tried to focus.
“Harma’s grace,” Roiland whispered. “They’re integrating the white death into the ober. Trapping it.”
Orrin dug a thumbnail into his index finger, pushing back the desire to stop what was happening before him.
The smith’s hammered away with fury in their limbs. The forge itself was a spastic collection of metal shapes, with large crates boxed and sealed behind it, high as the ceiling, slathered in a white glow. With every bang of the nine hammers, more spirits exploded from the ober.
Orrin could not see the back end of the forge, but the shadows gave away the intentions of the ferals behind it. Finished product was undoubtedly being shoveled into the crates. The unmistakable sound of thick nails being driven into creaking wood told them the rest of the story.
There were empty glass containers too, globes and hourglasses and thinner cylinders, piled up in corners on the floor. Seals with unreadable runes lay next to them, tossed about like stepping stones of all different sizes.
Behind the crates was another something, spinning and grinding away like iron spokes on a castle wall. Orrin could almost feel the tiny, unseeable fragments of metal flaking off from the rubbing together of two steel parts. A pale, white glow was cast from behind the boxes.
Orrin saw everything before him, anger continuing to build inside of him. He marked these things as targets.
As the blacksmiths smashed against the seemingly unyielding ober, some of the spirits were sucked back into it, while the rest dissipated. As the three men looked on, they could barely make out the actions in front of them. There they saw ghostly faces and limbs, either being absorbed by the hammer or the Ober, Orrin couldn’t tell.
Orrin turned in unison with the others, spirits strobing everything into pure blackness and then extreme detail. His eyes hurt, but he strained to keep them open, hard enough for tears to begin running down his cheek.
Orrin turned to Roiland with his hand outstretched.
“If you’ve seen enough… I think he wants your axe.” Valor said.
Roiland held it out.
With only a moment’s pause, Armun handed Lifeweaver to Orrin and stepped away. Memories of vengeance crawled into his mind’s eye, blanketing the real image of Orrin, who with three blasts of haunted light had already taken two of the men.
Valor rushed forward to assist. Armun stayed back. The room was dark, and more than two assailants would cause too much battle clutter, potentially causing more injury than infliction.
This was their moment. Whatever the boys were, whatever they had done, he thought, they deserved this rare moment of vengeance.
Armun had always been taught that vengeance, in the end, gave you nothing. He remembered his old master telling him as a youth that vengeance was like a shovel, and that although many dig themselves deep, few could dig themselves out. This time, reality trumped pretty words by a twenty-year bowman’s practiced pull.
The fight would have been a massacre under normal circumstances, but the smiths were taken completely unaware. It also became clear then that the boys expertly knew how to move through darkness.
Armun watched as best he could, releasing his aura further to enhance his vision. To Armun’s surprise, the clunky smiths backed up with wide, awkward steps, hammers swinging, the spirits of memories throwing themselves against the chiseled bodies.
The spirits flowed out, parting like swift streams, breaking quickly against Valor and Orrin. But like all rivers, the boys parted ways, and dispatched each smith with precision. Valor knocked loose one of their protective helmets. Armun studied the face now revealed.
It was an old face, wrinkles as curved as ocean waves, eyebrows longer than peacock feathers. These were ferals withered by age and the work they performed. Armun’s eyes met with one of theirs for a brief moment, just before Valor slammed a hammer into the side of the smith’s skull.
Armun watched the brothers as they moved, crossing behind one another, taking great advantage of the flashes of darkness and light to throw the feral smiths positions off.
One by one, the old smith’s fell, one or two with each flash of wailing spirits. He turned away, allowing them to have their vengeance without a spectator.
The boys then turned their destruction towards the glass tubes. Orrin pushed them over, while Valor used his hammer to smash them. The memorias spewed forth, some of the ghost faces shooting skyward, others leaking out onto the ground like spilled water from a glass, spreading quickly.
Armun turned his eyes to protect them from glass shards, until he heard the last one shatter on the floor. He scanned the area through the darkness and the mist, but could not see the brothers.
Armun’s armor tipped a hammer off of a nearby workbench. It struck some leftover ober on the ground, sending five or six spirits spiraling around the room, screaming in whispers as they floated away.
As Valor and Orrin slumped to the floor, Valor took his brother in close, pretending to hug him, whispering.
“Orrin, listen. If he gets us out… we run.”
Valor reached over to a gleaming knife, planted in a sheath against the hip of a nearby dead smith. “It’s got green tongue on it. I can see it even in the darkness. Listen… I know you trust him, but I don’t. Who knows what he’s really involved in.”
Orrin raised his hands to speak, but Valor was already shaking his head.
[ Whatever he really wants can’t be worse than the thin
gs we’ve done. ]
“You don’t know that.”
[ I do. We have done the worst things. ]
Valor pulled Orrin’s forehead against his. “No. There has to be worse things. And there also are better things. We can live however we want.”
Valor pulled his brother closer as Armun approached them slowly, banging again into the table as he stumbled forward, groaning in pain.
Valor whispered lower. “Just follow me. I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.”
Another table edge caught Armun close to the groin. His cheeks puffed as he let out a long groan, backing away with small steps. He kept one hand one the sharp edge, moving around it and to the right.
Slowly he turned his eyes up, squinting, then saw Valor and Orrin, huddled together on the floor. Armun moved slowly towards them, fumbling in the darkness. He engaged his aura, raised a hand, and a small globe of white gold appeared into his hand, illuminating the room. Armun made a serving motion towards where he thought the two boys were, simultaneously jamming his groin into the end of a recently cooled poker.
His aggressive words were stunted when the orb flowed down to the ground just behind Orrin and Valor. Armun recovered from his solitary embarrassment, and saw the boys slumped over one another’s bodies. Orrin’s hands were bleeding, as was his face, chest, and Valor as well, in matching pieces, wounds gathered from slamming themselves into the spiked armor of the ober smiths. Valor was still holding his hammer, dark red from blood. He reached towards them, again hitting another spiked table, all but ruining the delicacy of the moment. Parts and pieces fell to the floor, clanging.
Armun wondered what it was that they were feeling. The looks on their faces were smooth and serene, lips turned neither way.
They don’t know peace, he thought. Maybe now, some small amount.
There was no time to waste, though, so he moved towards them, and helped them to their feet. The boys moved as if in a trance, but the vacant stares on their faces told him that their minds were far off.
Memorias: Deep in the Arnaks Page 31