by B. V. Larson
The temple stood in the Northern region of the palace. The structure was unexpectedly small and round, like a squat pillar built of black stone. Each brick was differently sized and shaped, and yet they all fit together precisely, like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle. The entrance was a grate of thick bone.
Gruum stepped up to the gate and attempted to open it. He found it did not budge. He looked for a lock, which he felt sure he could master, but found none. He rapped on the bones, but they only stung his knuckles.
“Hello?” he called into the darkened interior. No response was forthcoming.
Becoming annoyed, Gruum cast about for another entrance. Could they be avoiding him? Was he too dirty or unsightly to be allowed into the temple? He, who had met their god personally? For the thousandth time, he grew weary of Hyborean slights.
Then he found something. A tiny silver bell hung above the bone grate. He reached up and tugged at the hanging chain harshly. It rang with tiny, tinkling notes.
Soon, a shadow appeared behind the bone grate. He could tell by the shape it was a female in the black robes of Anduin. He was unable to make out any more details, however.
“How do you wish to serve the Lady?” asked the priestess.
“By completing the King’s business,” Gruum replied.
The priestess remained motionless. “The King has sent you? What does he seek? We have no more geyser lizards—”
“It is about his daughter.”
The priestess stood for a moment longer, then turned and vanished into the chamber behind her. Gruum lifted a gloved fist to rap harder on the grate when he realized it was retreating upward, silently rising. Soon, the entrance stood open. Gruum ventured inside.
The priestess had a light now, a flickering taper of black wax. Gruum followed her between long rows of benches. He guessed this might be a place of worship. Gargantuan statues stood all around, looming over them. Each stature was in the shape of the Black Dragon. The statues depicted the Dragon with claws extended and eyes blazing. Red rubies flickered in the eye sockets, reflecting the light of the priestess’ taper. Gruum felt a pang of wanting. The rubies were exquisitely cut and each was the size of a human iris.
“Where are we going?” Gruum asked his guide as they reached the back of the chamber.
“Down to the Necropolis.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“Most live upstairs. This tower is only a small part of the temple. When we are not at rest or worship, we now work for the defense of Corium and our Lady’s honor.”
“Work? Where?”
“As I said, they labor in the Necropolis below the city,” the priestess said.
Gruum saw two staircases. One rose up into the hanging gloom of sweet incense. The other wound downward into the bedrock of the city. The priestess vanished downward. Gruum followed her down a set of slick, black steps. They wound around seven times, reached a landing, and then wound around nine times more. He had been deeper than this before, he knew. Therian had led him deep below the dungeons themselves.
Gruum felt cold air from below wafting up into his face. He wiped away a few droplets of chilled sweat and wondered what kind of work could be going on so far below the city streets.
-7-
“Some places beneath the city are cold, while others are hot,” Gruum said.
“Very observant,” the priestess commented.
“Could you please explain the discrepancy?”
The priestess glanced back at him. He caught sight of one almond-shaped eye. He had the immediate impression of youth and beauty. This surprised him, as he had expected a crone.
“The South temple belongs to Yserth and sits near the hot springs. The North temple honors the true Dragon, Anduin. Lacking a source of steam, our Necropolis is cool.”
“Frosty, more like,” said Gruum, pulling his cloak around him.
“We find a cool region is best for the storage of the dead.”
Gruum nodded, unable to argue with her logic on that point. The stairway ended in a broken, cracked section of steps. Gruum eyed the jagged stones, but did not ask how the stairs had become damaged. He took a large jump from the final intact stair, then turned and offered his hand to the priestess.
She pointedly ignored his proffered hand. She took small, cautious footsteps down the outer stone lip of the stairway on one side instead, as the framework around the missing stairs remained intact. Gruum shrugged and looked away from her. He took the time to look around. Thick stone columns rose up in abundance, holding aloft the vaulted ceiling. The chamber looked to be one third columns and two thirds void. In the spaces created between were great arches. On the ground were piles of head-sized stones which were stacked at random. Looking up, Gruum realized the palace must be sitting upon this foundation. How fantastically heavy all that stone above must be, he thought. Just looking up at the arches made him want to shiver with a claustrophobic reaction.
“I see no dead,” Gruum said.
“They may not wish to be seen.”
Gruum looked at the priestess in alarm. “They walk?”
“Those that are able,” she said. She stepped away into the gloom.
Gruum paused. He looked up at the broken stairway. He longed to leave this place, despite the fact he had only just arrived. Finally, recalling his promise to the King, he trotted after the priestess before she vanished completely around one of the massive, squat columns. The floor was full of fallen rocks. They were heaped everywhere, unevenly. Walking here was difficult.
“You said the priestesses of Anduin are working for Corium’s defense. What did you mean?”
She did not answer.
“Can you tell me your name, at least?”
“I am Gawina. Now please, stop asking so many questions. They do not like it.”
Gruum blinked at her, but stopped speaking. He followed the woman for a time, stumbling over large, loose stones. The air between the columns hung motionlessly. It felt cold and thick. It clung like a fog to the skin and the mind.
The priestess stopped at last and lifted her arm, pointing. Gruum followed her gesture. There, he saw a pool of dank, still water. Beyond the pool, he saw a shape moving. He frowned… was that a table?
He turned to ask the priestess, but she had left. He craned his neck and spotted her, wending her way back with the taper guttering in her hand. He snapped his head back and forth, eyeing the movement out over the pool of water and the retreating priestess, who now was only visible as a tiny, bobbing yellow flame. Had she left him here for a sinister purpose?
Gruum sighed and drew his heavy saber. He knelt and rested the saber across his legs. It glimmered in the darkness, still shining with its own internal light from whatever sorcery had been infused into it when he’d lost it in Anduin’s world.
He produced a small lamp and struggled to light it with flint and tinder. He struck the steel box again and again, but although the flint sparked against the box, the wick refused to light. He cursed softly, and flicked at it several more times.
Gruum heard something then, something strange. He thought it was a wheel moving, rolling over stone. He looked up and saw the thing he had thought to be a table. He realized now it was a cart, not a table. Four wheels rolled and creaked as it drew nearer. He stopped trying to light his lamp, as the cart had twin lights of its own. They were lit from inside, but not by any natural flame. Green, ghastly smoke roiled within the twin globes. Worse, much worse, he saw now that the cart had no animals pulling it. Neither was there a driver. Instead, it seemed to move of its own volition.
Gruum stopped breathing. He stared at the cart as it drew closer. Things were lying on the flat bed of it, he could see them now. Forms that were not entirely still. When the cart bumped over a stone, the shapes flopped and shifted. Feet and hands lolled off the sides. Not until the driverless, horseless cart reached the water’s edge and splashed into the still pool that separated it from him did he stand suddenly, thinking to flee.
“Be still,” a small voice said behind him. “Make no light or movement, and it will stop seeking you.”
Gruum froze. He knew the voice, for it was Nadja’s. Having her come so close without his knowing did not ease his state of mind, however. If anything, her nearness caused the hair on his neck to bristle even more. Being a veteran of her father’s strange habits, Gruum did manage to keep from screaming and running away blindly into the dark.
The driverless cart had rolled ten paces into the pool before it squeaked to a halt. The brass wheels were half-submerged. There it paused, as if uncertain. Neither Gruum nor Nadja moved.
“It cannot hear, nor see, but it can sense movement,” said Nadja quietly.
“It cannot hear?” asked Gruum. “Then we can speak. What is this thing?”
“They call it a gatherer. It hunts for the dead.”
“I see no dead.”
“But they are everywhere, silly Gruum! You are standing on them.”
Gruum startled, but froze again before he alerted the cart. His eyes slid to his feet. It was too dark to see the ground, even with the ghostly green light of the cart’s twin lamps. He thought of the rocks he had been stumbling over as he crossed the uneven flooring.
“The stones? The dead lie beneath the stones?”
“Yes. The flooring here is a vast pile of cairns. This entire place is a mound of dead, covered in heavy stones. But sometimes, the dead are strong enough to push their way free. That is when the gatherer comes.”
Gruum swallowed. “I have no desire to be mistaken by this cart for one of the escaped dead.”
“That is wise.”
They stood as still as they were able. The gatherer began spinning its brass wheels again at last, and exited the pool the way it had entered. It turned ponderously, wheels bumping and rasping over the innumerable stones. Then it rolled slowly way, seeking more lively game.
When it had vanished beyond a column, Gruum slowly turned to face Nadja. He gave a start. The girl had grown dramatically in the short months since they had returned to Corium. She was much taller, there could be no doubt of it. Before, he had thought her to be three. Now, she could not be a day under six.
“It’s good to see you, Gruum,” she said.
“Thanks for telling me about the gatherer, princess,” he responded. He bent down to work his lamp. The only light he had was the faint blue-white glimmer of his sword, but that was not enough to travel the Necropolis. The flint and tinder worked this time, allowing the wick to spark and flare. A guttering, yellow light illuminated their faces.
“Did my father send you?” Nadja asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you always do what father says?”
“Usually,” Gruum admitted.
“Did he command you to take me back to him?”
Gruum thought about it. “No. He only said I should find you.”
“Good! Then can I show you where I like to play?”
Gruum looked this way and that, but saw no sign of the rolling gatherer. Nor did he see any sign of an exit.
“All right,” he said to Nadja at last. “Show me what you know of this place.”
-8-
There was a large structure up ahead. From it, shafts of cold white light shone through the natural fog of the under-city Necropolis. The fog gave the light a ghostly quality, Gruum thought. Or was the effect caused by the Necropolis itself? He was uncertain.
Ahead of him, Nadja hopped lightly from stone to stone, never seeming to misstep. Gruum, on the other hand, found that every rock rolled when he pressed his foot down upon it. Normally a sure-footed man, he found the Necropolis more difficult than ever to traverse as they moved closer to the source of the cold light.
Gruum stopped. Something felt wrong beneath his feet. The sensation did not hearten him. The stones were harder to navigate because they gave way under his weight when he trod upon them. Each stone sank downward, ever so slightly, as if the ground beneath were spongy turf or shifting mud. He shuddered uncontrollably. He knew then, without a doubt left in his mind, that he walked upon mounds of the dead. The rocks covered them, but they must be thicker here, more common and perhaps—fresher.
“Come on,” hissed Nadja, turning back to wave him forward. She held her skirts up so they wouldn’t drag, pinching up folds of cloth. Her quick feet blurred over the stones. Perhaps her light body had less trouble with the shifting stones.
Wincing, Gruum pressed onward. He focused on the girl and the light and tried not to think about the bodies beneath him. Then a new thought struck him.
“Nadja?” he called.
“What?”
“Why does it not reek down here?”
“Because, silly Gruum, we are not barbarians!” Nadja called back, giggling as if she ran in a sunlit field. “We preserve our dead.”
“People should be allowed to rot properly,” Gruum muttered. He swallowed and forced his legs to keep striding after her. He had a thought as he marched grimly onward. Perhaps this process the girl hinted at, some kind of preservation, had something to do with the tendency of the dead to walk here. What if the process went awry at times—what if it went too far? Occasionally, instead of keeping a body from rotting, the alchemical rituals and ointments might provide a corpse with some semblance of false life. As disgusting as his theory was, Gruum felt it might explain a lot.
They came in time to the source of the cold, white light, and found it to be a mausoleum of sorts in the midst of an area empty of great columns. Dozens of figures moved here, and Gruum sprang forward to snatch up Nadja.
She squirmed and he clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Be still, girl,” he whispered in her ear. Her hair smelled of dust. “We don’t know who these people are.”
Nadja stopped struggling, but when he caught sight of her face, he saw she was glaring at him. He removed his hand from her face.
“I almost bit you,” she said. “You don’t want me to bite you, Gruum.”
“Sorry, but I—”
“I know who they are,” Nadja said. “I’ve been here often. The priestesses are here, working on their great project.”
Gruum eased her back onto her feet. “Sorry. Just the priestesses, you say? Not the carts or the walking dead?”
Nadja grinned. There was a dark delight that danced in her eyes. “Oh no, there are dead, and there are carts. They bring their loads here to this spot. And there is one other. Someone special. Come, I will show you!”
She trotted off again, giggling. Gruum chewed his lower lip, gazing after her. He really didn’t want to see anything new. He’d seen enough, and he hadn’t liked any of it. But he had accepted Therian’s assignment, so he felt he must see it through to the finish. He’d said he would find her, and would a father not want to know what his daughter had been up to? With a heavy heart, he followed the child toward the mausoleum.
The outer part of the great structure was white marble. Open columns held up a slab of thicker marble. The huge slab formed a roof, a single piece of stone, mottled-gray and unimaginably heavy. Gruum was reminded of an acropolis.
The priestesses were surprised to see him. There were dozens here, bustling about. They dragged pallets full of oddments. Strips of what looked like tanned leather. Mounds of thick dishes—or were they seashells? Stacked shafts of thick… Gruum stopped and stared.
“Are those bones?” he asked a passing priestess.
She flicked her eyes to him, then to Nadja. “You do not belong here. Leave us to our work, for the good of Corium.”
“I am the King’s man, on the King’s business,” Gruum said.
“Long live the King,” muttered the priestess. She pressed past them and kept going toward the central chamber. Behind her, she dragged a pallet of what had to be fifty gray-white shafts.
“Of course they are bones, silly,” Nadja said. “And the leather strips are carved from the backs of the dead. Only their backs have long enough single pieces without folds
or creases that weaken the leather.”
“And those seashell things?” Gruum asked numbly.
Nadja tapped herself on the top of the head. “They are skull caps.”
Gruum nodded. They were indeed harvesting the dead. But for what strange purpose? He dared to stop another passing woman. She dragged behind her a mass of hair. It was uniformly long, straight and black. Perhaps fifty scalps had been scraped clean to create such a mound of hair.
“Milady, excuse me,” Gruum said. “I am on the King’s—”
“We know who you are.”
“Well then, please direct me to your mistress.”
She stared at him, glanced at the girl, then pointed a long finger toward a side chamber. Gruum turned and headed that way. He did not watch to see if Nadja followed. He knew now where she liked to play. He could find her again if she vanished.
Inside the chamber, Gruum found an ancient crone. White hair hung down to drag upon the marble floors. Her bare feet shuffled from spot to spot as she walked around the chamber, touching various idols and gleaming instruments.
“Priestess of Anduin,” Gruum began.
She whirled on him, eyes wide and bulbous. He recoiled from her ancient, half-mad face. “You’ve gotten what you came for,” she said. “Leave us to our work.”
“I serve King Therian. I would ask, in his name, for some description of your work which I might take back to him.”
“Don’t you know by now? Or are you as thick as you appear?”
“I believe you are harvesting the dead that wander here,” Gruum said. “I believe you are doing so to fashion a weapon for the defense of Corium.”
The crone nodded. “Not as thick as I first thought,” she said. She shuffled forward and put her hands on her knees, staring at Nadja. “This is the offspring, eh? I’ve been told of her, how she flits about among the dead as if she picked daisies in a field.”
“I’m not sure I care for your tone,” Gruum said.
The crone ignored him. “Someday, this creature will be more dangerous than the thing we are making here,” she said. She continued to gaze into Nadja’s face, as if she studied an asp found coiled in her garden.