“Alright.” Dormael swung down from Horse’s saddle, handing the reins to Bethany. “I’ll try and track the place down. I’ll send word when I find it, let you know which way to go.”
D’Jenn nodded, and led Mist further up the line to speak with Allen and Shawna. Dormael gave Bethany a wink at her questioning look, and walked away from the party as they moved along. He tread up the side of a hill to find some high ground, turned his magic upon himself, and slid into the form of the gyrfalcon.
The wind buffeted him until he climbed over the wilder currents, and higher into the sky. Farra-Jerra wheeled beneath him, a vast expanse of waving grasses and solitary trees. The clouds to the north were foreboding, and Dormael could almost feel the thunder rumbling in the distance. Turning in a great arc, he flew to the northeast and left his friends behind.
He had to skew his path northward in order to make headway. The wind tried to push him to the south, and he had to fight in order to maintain his path. Dormael beat his wings and climbed as high as he dared, though the upper currents were stronger than those closer to the ground. The approaching storm made the going difficult.
He’ been up for an hour by the time something appeared in the distance. Dormael turned in its direction and fought the wind, slicing through the air currents toward the structure on the ground. As soon as he got a better look at the place, Dormael knew he’d found the ancient temple. He turned in a great arc around the site, looking for a good place to land.
It was a large compound, and sprawled over the entirety of its own hillside, overlooking the land around it. A stone fence encircled it, though it was falling apart in various places. The temple itself was organized around a large central courtyard, long ago left to the plants that choked its grounds today. It had two wings on either side, and one between, making a shape like a squared-off horseshoe. The roof had fallen in along much of its length, and with his falcon eyes, Dormael could see the damage the weather had done over the years.
I think I’ve found it, he sent to D’Jenn as he circled around the place.
Are you sure?
Unless there are other ruined temples out in these hills, Dormael sent back, weaving a sarcastic twinge into his magic. I’m going down for a quick look.
Be careful, D’Jenn said back. I’ve a bad feeling about this place.
You’re not the only one.
Dormael lined up his approach with the courtyard, and began coasting in for his landing. The wind tore at him as he pierced the different layers of current, but he was an experienced flier, and able to navigate its temperament. He flared his wings and dug his talons into the dirt, coming to rest in the courtyard. Using his magic once again, he slid back into his own skin.
The temple was as still as a corpse. The courtyard shielded Dormael from the wind, creating a lull that felt more ominous than welcoming. The structure was crawling with creepers, as if the ground was reaching up leafy fingers to pull the temple down. The stone beneath was gray and weathered, with water stains left by years of absorbing the rain.
A circular platform sat in the center of the courtyard, with eight columns arrayed around it. Other curved slabs of stone sat atop the columns, though one of them had fallen at some point in the past. In the center of the platform sat an altar, and atop that altar, a large bowl made of stone. It was full of water, and had some type of plant growth sprouting from within. Even in its ruined state, though, Dormael recognized it. His guts tightened at the sight.
His memories placed the struggling woman over that altar, kicking at the two men who stretched her over the bowl. He saw the kneeling man—Ishamael, if the stories were correct—praying before the altar, a sprig of bright green ivy resting in its center. This was the place. The certainty of it settled in his chest like a cold weight of ice.
He spent some time walking around the courtyard, kicking at odd bits of detritus. He examined the eight columns arrayed around the ancient dais, trying to trace the weathered lines that had once depicted the gods. These were an old representation, and perhaps the gods had even been called by different names when they’d been carved. He could make out what looked like a staff on one of the columns—possibly a representation of Eindor—and another which had a motif of leaves to represent Devla, the Eternal Mother and Mistress of Beasts. Each of the columns faced inward, toward the bowl at the center.
A noise alerted him to something moving behind him, and Dormael spun just in time to see something—or someone—disappear into the shadows of the eastern wing of the temple.
“Wait!” Dormael called, rushing toward the place they had disappeared. He summoned his Kai as he ran, and sent his senses delving ahead of him, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever had been watching him. He reached what may have been a door at one time, but was now just a ruined hole in the side of the building. Shadows beckoned from inside, but Dormael stopped short of entering, a nameless fear taking root in his chest.
“Hello?” he said into the darkness. The word echoed through the ruined halls, cutting the silence that lay within. Only the sound of his own voice came back to him.
“Hello.”
Dormael started back, shooting his eyes around him. The voice had been a whisper, and he could have sworn he’d felt the breath on the side of his neck. Shivers went down his spine, and he backed away from the entrance.
“Is anyone here?” he shouted, his eyes searching. “Come out!”
Something moved past one of the windows to his left, and Dormael pulled on his magic, readying a strike. He stared at each portal in the vicinity, but all was quiet. His Kai returned a threatening melody to his senses. It was as if he could feel the very air coiling like a snake, ready to swallow him whole.
Dormael turned in every direction, making his way toward the entrance to the courtyard. He had a sudden urge to bolt, and tear down the hill away from this place. The walls now felt oppressive, the courtyard full of malice. It took all his discipline not to run for all he was worth.
Lacelle’s story about the village came to mind, and the children who had become lost within these walls. What evil had taken those kids, taken those who came looking for them? The silence in the courtyard felt loaded with danger.
“To the Six Hells with this,” Dormael muttered.
“With you.” Something pushed him from behind. Dormael felt the clear sensation of a pair of hands striking his shoulders, and he almost fell into the dirt. He spun, ready to blast whomever it was with his magic, but there was no one behind him. His Kai returned nothing but the sensation of empty air.
Panic gripped him, and Dormael surrendered to its frenzy. He poured his magic back into his body, and tore into the skies. He clawed for altitude, and beat his wings until Orm was just a dark blotch below. Even high in the winds above, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something invisible was close behind him, chasing him from its dark little abode. He didn’t stop flapping until he spotted his friends, and circled in for a landing.
“I found it,” he said, breathing hard from the flight. D’Jenn dismounted and came over to offer his waterskin. Dormael took it, and nodded in thanks as he took a long, hard drink.
“Where?” D’Jenn asked. Allen and Shawna trotted their horses over, Bethany close on their heels.
“Maybe a day’s ride to the northeast, just as you said.”
“Good,” D’Jenn said, nodding to himself as he turned back to his horse. “We’ll ride until we reach it, and camp there for the night before exploring it. It might be good to have a roof over our heads if the storm comes while we’re asleep.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dormael said.
“Why?”
Dormael took a deep breath. “There’s something there, D’Jenn.” He looked to Allen and Shawna, who had listened to Lacelle’s story during their time together on the road. “Lacelle was right.”
“Lacelle was right?” D’Jenn asked, giving him a questioning look.
“Aye,” Dormael replied. “Something’s th
ere, cousin. Something foul is there. The curse is real.”
The Old Man and the Lurker
The gods stared down at Dormael and his friends.
All eight of them were depicted. The statues were enormous, blocky things, carved in a style that, while more detailed than the ancient sculptures he’d seen in the courtyard, was still antiquated. They stood in regular intervals across the southern face of the temple, towering on either side of the entrance. Each one of the gods was wearing a scowl, their eyes trained upon the temple approach. Even Neesa, the Goddess of Love and Music, wore disapproval on her weathered features.
Ivy, moss, and all manner of growing things had long since conquered these ruins. The statues were stained by generations of bad weather, and had runnels of discoloration in every corner. Thunder rumbled overhead as the approaching storm gathered its strength, and the wind sent pebbles tumbling down an unseen corner of the structure, leaving the sound to bounce from the hollow corpse of the temple’s bones.
Or maybe its the bloody curse rolling over in its sleep.
“If the Mekai was correct, there should be something here,” D’Jenn said.
“Right,” Allen said, scowling at the statue of Evmir. “That sounds like something you and Dormael should look into. I think I’ll stay here and guard the horses.”
“Guard the horses?” D’Jenn gave Allen a flat look.
“What? I’ll defend them with my life.”
“Do you think there are trolls inside?” Bethany asked. “It looks like there are trolls inside.”
“There’s something in there,” Dormael said. “I told you all before. There’s something wrong with this place.” He looked to Shawna, and found her staring up at the statue of Aastinor, God of War. Her eyes were haunted, fingers caressing the hilts of her swords.
“We’ll stay together,” D’Jenn said. “No traipsing off down corridors—got it, little one?” He gave Bethany a meaningful look, which the girl answered with a nod. “Alright. Let’s get this over with, then. I don’t like the sight of this place.”
“It feels wrong,” Bethany said. “It’s hurt, and it’s mean.”
Dormael’s eyes snapped to the youngling. Tamasis had said much the same thing. It is like a wound. Was there some significance to her words, or was he just reading too much into circumstance?
“Dormael,” D’Jenn said, pulling him from his thoughts, “you should probably grab the Sign.”
“You think that’s safe?” Shawna asked. “The last time that thing came out of its box, it nearly roasted us all.”
“As Lilliane put it, we’re looking for a door that only the ‘Hammer of the Gods’ can open,” D’Jenn said. “I don’t like it, but the situation can’t be helped. We’ll just have to be careful with it.”
“That hasn’t helped so far,” Shawna muttered.
Dormael went to the horses, and fished around for the Nar’doroc. It was already awake when he pulled it out, though its song was muted. The armlet, it seemed, was no more comfortable with Orm than Dormael and his friends.
The pattern spreads.
He tied the armlet on a leather thong, and hung it around his neck. It crooned to him in greeting, but went quiet afterward. Dormael waited for something terrible to happen, for the armlet to crawl up his neck and strangle him, but it stayed quiet. He shared an uneasy look with D’Jenn, and nodded.
“Ready.”
He heard the quicksilver whisper of one of Shawna’s swords as they stepped into the courtyard. The building loomed like a great beast, closing them into its ruined arms. Bethany stayed close to Dormael’s side, and a quick glance showed her clutching her knife. He could feel her magic, its power crawling over his skin like an army of spiders.
Dormael kept his own magic ready, but muted. He didn’t want to sink too far into the song of the ruins, to open himself to whatever sort of evil inhabited them. The armlet stirred in his senses, wary in its silver-sweet melody. The air was pregnant with dread.
The courtyard had once been a great gathering place. Dormael could see it in his mind’s eye, watching as D’Jenn moved around the fringes of the overgrown enclosure. In its time, the grass would have been manicured. Perhaps flowers would have been planted, perhaps gigantic wreaths had been woven. At some point in the distant past, feet had stomped over this ground in religious fervor. This place had seen weddings, births, funerals, and the largest religious festivals of the ancient Vendon world.
It had also seen slaughter.
The Second Great War brought a horde of Dannon barbarians to Sevenlander soil, some three hundred years in the past. The Dannons had always been known for their blood rites, their regard for brutality. With the help of a Thardish army, a Dannon horde had ravaged across the northern Sevenlands, bringing the entire continent to its knees. During the height of the violence, Orm had been sacked by the invaders. All the inhabitants—men, women, children—were ravaged, their blood scattered over the statues of the gods. What had once been the most holy site in the west was thus cursed with blood of its own flock.
That move had pushed the Conclave into action. It had been the justification for the wizards to march to war, which had seen great devastation. The effects of that sordid history were still being felt. Even an effort to make amends by later generations hadn’t healed the deep mistrust that the west, and especially the Conclave, had earned from Alderak in the wake of such violence. It had all started here.
The pattern spreads—he could almost hear Tamasis saying it.
They approached the ancient monument in the center of the courtyard, the place that the armlet had shown him in his dreams. The old poem that the Mekai had read to them called it ‘The Place Where the Gods Listen.’ It looked more like a place the gods had forgotten.
The eight familiar columns stood facing inward, the gazes of the gods on the bowl in the center of the dais. The bowl was open to the sky, and was overgrown with greenery. Even in its ruined state, the altar was unmistakable.
“Is that it?” D’Jenn asked, pointing to the bowl with the head of his mace.
“Aye,” Dormael said. “That’s the place the armlet keeps showing me.”
“I thought we were looking for a door,” Allen said.
“We are, but that could mean anything,” D’Jenn replied, peering into the darkened corners of their surroundings. “We’re dealing with ancient magics—spells that may have been put in place by Indalvian himself. I expect that whatever we’ll find will be something more clever than a simple door.”
“Sometimes a door is just a door,” Allen shrugged. D’Jenn sighed, and ignored him.
“Is that thing speaking to you?” Shawna asked, nodding at the armlet.
“Nothing yet,” Dormael said.
“It doesn’t like this place,” Bethany said. Her words echoed from the walls around the courtyard. “It feels pain.”
No one said anything in the wake of Bethany’s comments. Dormael shared an opaque glance with D’Jenn, and a worried one with Shawna. Wearing the artifact around his neck was like having a live, poisonous snake at his throat. Bethany’s closeness with it chilled him.
“We didn’t come here for nothing,” D’Jenn said. “Take it to the altar. Let’s see what it has to say.”
Dormael wanted to clutch the thing as he stepped toward the ancient monument, afraid it would come alive if he got too close. He clenched his jaw and moved forward, waiting for something dire to happen. The eyes of his friends were pinned to him, intense gazes propelling him onward.
When his boot hit the outer edge of the stone floor, the armlet came awake.
Pain—the sensation of being ripped asunder, unwoven. A thousand, thousand stars in the Void, whipping past him so fast they became streaks in the never-ending darkness. An anger, timeless and burning, filtered down until it became liquid and pliable. The certainty of destruction to come.
“There’s something—I think it’s—,” Dormael said, but the armlet seized him.
CHAINED.
COMPELLED.
He felt his knees hit the stone.
SUNDERED.
“Dormael!” D’Jenn snapped.
When his eyes cleared, Dormael saw the faces of the gods staring toward the bowl, stark in the light being cast from the armlet’s ruby. The shadows jumped in the vermilion light, as a glowing mist eked from the depths of the gem. The alien song of the Nar’doroc sliced into the daylight, and Dormael could feel its anger.
The bowl went up in bright flames. Everyone stepped back, eyeing Dormael with dread. The plant matter in the bowl burned in seconds, but the fire kept right on going. The stone began to glow, then melt, and Dormael was forced to backpedal from the heat. It melted through the stone dais, and left divots in the floor, before the fire abated. Black, angry smoke billowed the charred wounds the bowl left behind, hissing as errant raindrops began to pelt them.
With the bowl destroyed, the armlet calmed itself.
“Maybe we should put it away,” Allen said, staring at the remains of the molten stone.
“It wouldn’t matter now,” Dormael said. “It’s awake. I don’t think we could stop it if we wanted to.”
“I want to,” Allen said.
“Were you seeing anything when you were staring into space just then?” D’Jenn asked. “Did it show you something?”
“Impressions,” Dormael said, unsure how to put it into words. “The Void, maybe. Anger. It’s hard to make sense of its messages.”
“Anything pertinent?” D’Jenn said.
“I think we all saw what it had to say,” Dormael replied, nodding at the ruined dais. “Bethany’s right—it doesn’t appreciate coming to this place.”
D’Jenn nodded, and looked around. The rain began to gather speed, and thunder grumbled overhead. Dormael looked to the sky, and the dark gathering of clouds above.
“We may as well get this over with,” he said. “The weather is turning.”
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 109