by Lucas Thorn
Across the horizon, a dull pink glow threatened the dark. Barest sliver of thinned blood leaking into dank blue ink as morning hunted the night.
The dark waters of the small cove looked clearer. A small cloud of bats weaved in from the forest, searching for cavernous cracks in the temple’s walls. She could also make out more of the temple’s intricate structure. More defined lines to the savage angles and spinal archways. Spearlike shards of stone thrusting like tusks from the walls.
Some draped in bodies both fresh and ancient.
Foes or willing sacrifice, she couldn’t say.
But in their tortured poses she felt witness to suffering even she hadn’t inflicted on anyone. Unsure how this should affect her, the elf felt only a vague sense of awkwardness as she realised that while she recognised their pain, she didn’t empathise with it.
Something was, she accepted, missing inside her heart. Perhaps even from her soul. It was something she’d lost on the streets of Lostlight. Something she doubted she’d ever find again.
Wasn’t even sure it was something she should even be searching for.
Rockjaw had been searching for it. Searching for that piece of him he’d lost when he’d become a soldier for the Dark Lord. Maybe he’d found something of it. A fragment, which he’d tried to nurture like it was a limp plant struggling in dead soil.
In the few moments he’d fought, he’d almost lost that shard and shown his true self. A self born to war. But his determination to run from what he was made him weak. Instead of regaining something he’d lost, he was losing the last true fragments of himself.
Only, he didn’t see it that way.
He was a ghost, hiding in the shell of a monstrously effective creature honed for violence. And he was trying to separate the two. To become a ghost.
She looked down at her hands.
Despite the pain, she knew no matter how much agony squeezed through constricted muscle and shadowy worms, she’d still keep fighting. Fighting even when she couldn’t stand.
On her knees.
On her belly.
She’d fight until there was no more blood left inside her body.
As the Shadowed Halls opened to swallow her soul, she figured she’d still be fighting.
One hand on the gates, the other on her knife.
Yet, there was something there. Something like an echo of eloquence. It hummed in the back of her mind. A distant memory invited to expose itself by the tortured desperation of Rockjaw to find a shred of decency of his own.
A memory of a time when she’d given instead of taken.
When she’d smiled instead of snarled.
So long ago that even the memory seemed buried in clouds of fog thicker than that which was swirling into the cove.
She turned her head back toward the temple and wondered how much it was affecting her train of thought. Was its ancient darkness working primitive magic on her brain? Was it dredging her soul in search of despair?
The thought of something influencing her like that made her tighten her mouth and lift the knives in her hands as though she could slice the invisible strings free. And, as her muscle worked to move her arms, she felt the gloom dissipate a little.
As though one single act of defiance was all it took to shed the downward spiral.
She looked over her shoulder and noticed the two girls had fallen silent. Their heads bowed, they stared down at their feet. Shoulders slumped. Hair falling down around their faces.
Though they held hands, their fingers were scarcely touching, as though the bond they’d formed was slowly being picked apart.
“Don’t let it beat you,” she hissed, the icy ball in her belly spinning wildly. “It’s the temple. It’s fucking with your head.”
“Very observant,” Lux said, almost surprised. “I didn’t expect you to notice. You’re right, of course. It’s the temple. Its defences work to keep Nath and his men at bay. But the magic here is unfocussed. Like its master, it has slumbered too long. Or, perhaps we underestimate its ethereal nature? Yes. Perhaps we do. Dreams are more powerful than most men realise. So if we underestimated it, you can be sure he did, too.”
“What’s that?” Mija pointed through the trees which were beginning to hide the sea from view.
At first, the elf thought it was the glow of dawn. The shimmer of gold which announced the sun’s first rays. She thought she could see some darker shapes weaving through the fog.
Solid and square.
Like sails. Ships moving like ghosts.
But then she shuddered as the blind deathpriest sniffed the air and sighed. “It is him. The Madman. He’s heard the temple’s call at last. It has penetrated his crazed dreams.” Lux looked uncertain for the first time. He paused, shuffling his boots as he clearly considered going no further. “It is too late. His mind is working to clear the mist which has bound him.”
Nearne pressed a hand to her head, clearing the last of the temple’s effects. “What do you mean?”
“He wakes,” Lux rasped. Pursed dry lips. Then rushed forward, cloak flapping heavily around his thighs. Staff beating the ground, sending dirt and stones skittering like frightened insects. “Hurry. We must hurry and hope Ihan is still alive. Nysta, stay close to me. I know you thirst to kill Nath and his fools, but they are nothing compared to what is coming. Focus your mind on the thing you should fear more than any other. Keep it always in sight. And don’t lose the bell!”
“But if the Madman’s coming, that’s a good thing,” Mija said, confused by the deathpriest’s sudden urgency. “He hates Caspiellans. He protects us from them. Doesn’t he? Maybe that’s why he sent his warriors to the town? To root them out. Maybe they weren’t after us at all.”
“It’s true, part of his mind was bound by the need to protect this place,” Lux said. “To protect the temple. His home. But there’s a part of him which has slept, tormented by nightmares. It’s that part of him which is insane and feels no desire to protect this land. The part which earned him the name you know him by. If that part wakes, it will rule him. Any protectiveness he feels toward you will be lost. He will feel only loathing for what he has become. And that loathing will drive him to destroy.”
“You can stop him, though?” Nearne was pale, eyes searching nearby trees for draug she feared would leap out at any second. Dead hands reaching.
“The bond with his priest is weak. It needs to be strengthened. If we can’t do that, then we must try to stop him. Stop it.”
“How? How can you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Reckon you know more than you’re telling,” Nysta said. “You know what I’m carrying, and what it does. Figure that tells me what he is. A Vampire Lord.”
“Once,” Lux admitted. “Once, he was. But his magic stripped even that from him a long time ago. What I know of him is he is twisted and repugnant. Powerful beyond understanding. He perverted the arts of demonology and necromancy, forcibly binding them with his own blood magic in a way even his peers found frightening. He was expelled from their covens. Shunned. Dismissed by the Vampire King. And he was here, in these waters, when the Night Age ended. Something happened here. Something dark. Something potent. He cast a spell of desperation. A spell of such complexity that even he couldn’t hold it. Couldn’t contain it. And it consumed him. Left him shredded, mind fragmented and hovering in a place between life and death. A dreamlike place which has imprisoned his consciousness for all this time. Twice before he has risen from the deep. Insane and uncontrollable, he wreaked havoc. Both times, he was sent back to his dreams.”
“If you know how to send him back, why do you need me? Why should I risk my life trying to kill him?”
“Because I don’t know how to send him back. There’s no records of how it was done. Rule took what records there were of the Vampire Lords and their magic, and he burned them. Grim didn’t stop him. On this one subject, the Dark Lord never quarrelled. But there are rumours. Legends, you see, refuse to die. They become
whispers in the dark. Tales murmured with only campfires as witness. And they tell of a goddess. A goddess who brought fire from the sky. A goddess who beat the ice from these very shores. Who fought the Vampire Lords when they ruled the icelocked lands with their inhuman fists. She destroyed the strongest of them. Those who might have been gods themselves. It was she who made the Madman tremble. His fear of her drove him back into the deep.”
A bead of sweat trickled down the nape of her neck. Swirled into her shirt and was absorbed, but not before it made her shiver. “A goddess.”
“Yes. And the it wasn’t just the Vampire Lords who were afraid of her. The Dark Lord and Rule feared even her memory so much, they hunted her children. They found her temples and erased all trace of them, even blasting their ruins to dust to ensure nothing was left. So, there is nothing. Just vague hints and guesses. Each more improbable than the last. More desperate, perhaps.” He kept moving, picking up his pace. “There. You now know everything I know. There are no more secrets. Everything else is the product of tavern tales and the golden tongues of minstrels. And if you believe those, then you’ll believe garlic will keep the Madman at bay. Perhaps it will. I know I’m not fond of the stuff.”
“Not everything,” she said. “Why build a temple? And why make a covenant with the people here? If he wants dominion, why protect them?”
He flicked a hand impatiently, clicking his tongue against the dry roof of his mouth. “It’s one and the same reason. The creature is mad. Driven by his insanity. There was … a token. Those who touch it feel a compulsion to build. To carve the rock which once filled this cove. The stronger the bond, the greater the compulsion and, it is guessed, the deeper he sleeps. Some of my peers suggest the Madman simply wants a castle. A monument fitting to his rank. But I’m not convinced. There are still ruins of Vampire Lord towers. The mages have used one for centuries. Grim even took one for himself and called it Grimfrost. They are places where shadows shift. The Dark Lord attempted to replicate this with his Wall. The experiment nearly broke the world and he wasn’t able to repeat it.”
The elf thought of the shifting rooms. Also remembered the walls of the Vampire King’s keep. Gave a short nod of acceptance. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”
He cocked his head as though this was new to him.
Listening to his thoughts, he paused before speaking. “Yes, you did, didn’t you? Then you know you can’t trust your eyes in places such as this. Lucky for me, I’m blind. So where my peers see a home, I see a purpose. An intent. And there is nothing. Not even a whisper or a legend, which hints what that intent might be.” He stabbed the staff into the ground, almost as if to build his confidence, before continuing onward. “All of this is meaningless to you. A pointless waste of my breath, because you don’t even appreciate what it took to learn even that much. The sacrifices I made. The time. The patience. The sheer desperation. Because I know this creature is more dangerous than anything else on this world right now. And, even with that terrible blade you carry, I am uncertain we’ll succeed in holding him back. It wasn’t made for him. Wasn’t made for anyone but the Vampire King. In the right hand, perhaps… Who knows? It maybe turn out to be the last hope we have.”
Ice crept into her voice. “You knew I was coming here. You knew it. You were waiting.”
“I knew.” He touched skeletal fingers to the dark sockets of his ruined eyes. “These are not the only way to see the world, Nysta. There are others. You might even learn a few of them in time. And before you let your anger ride free, I admit I was waiting. But I didn’t lead you. Didn’t even need to manipulate you. It was luck, if there is such a thing. Luck on a scale which makes you wonder if the Dark Lord is truly dead.”
The bitter sneer died quickly on his face as the path was swallowed by soft beach sand.
A few ferns wrestled with clumps of saltbush and the sound of waves worked natural magic on the elf’s ears. Only the sight of the yellow fog breathing into the cove kept her from succumbing to the gentle promise of peace offered by the tide.
She sighed, then looked to the temple which sprawled before them in all its dark majesty.
Gaping archways invited them inside, crooked stone tongues glistening and moist.
Awkwardly at first, the blind deathpriest led the way. Whispering softly under his breath, his thin fingers danced up the shaft in his hands. Brushing the symbols and studded markings. As though reading them.
He shook his head, aiming his cheek to the entrance of the cove. Feeling, perhaps, the sluggish approach of a waking Vampire Lord.
The two girls kept close to the elf. Nervous, though equally determined. But how long would they survive against both the Grey Jacket raiders and the Madman’s draug? How long would any of them survive?
She glanced up, but couldn’t see the path through the trees anymore. Couldn’t see if Rockjaw was still up there. Wondered if he had the right idea in wanting to flee.
But escape wasn’t something she figured she could search for. Something had been driving her across the island. It was almost like it was she, not the Vampire Lord, who was living a dream. Ever since Talek’s Cage had opened to release the darkness into her body, she’d felt that way. Sure, some of that feeling had dissipated since she’d left the Wall, but echoes of it still clung to her. Still pushed her mind into blankets of fog.
As if dragged on a leash, she followed the blind deathpriest. Followed with knives bound to broken hands. Followed with violence in her heart and hatred in her belly.
Violence waiting to release.
Waiting to be unbound.
As if sensing her doubts, Nearne said firmly; “We’ll make it. We will.” Aimed her voice to Mija. “You’ll see. It’s all going to work out, and we’ll be in Dragonclaw soon. Away from everything. We’ll be safe.”
Mija’s voice was small, but comforted. “You really believe that?”
“Of course.” Matter of fact. Harsh. “Right, Nysta? It’s all going to be fine.”
“Sure,” she said. “It’ll be easy. They’re Grey Jackets. A bunch of fucking religious fanatics is all. Given this is also a temple, all we’ve got to do is be more faithful than they are and they don’t stand a chance.”
Mija looked from one to the other. “Faithful?”
“Sure.” She lifted her weapons. “Prey harder.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Up close, the temple bore the stains of thousands of years spent pressed against the sea. Small crustaceans lurked in the shadows, spewing bubbles of wet sand and staring at them as they passed. If they had thoughts, those thoughts were alien and chilled to the core.
Barnacles clung to the pitted surface, waiting for the rising tide.
They didn’t flex.
They didn’t move.
Just waited with unearthly patience.
Lux held his hand up, muttering words of power which brought the familiar acrid taste in the back of her mouth. He was scrying, she realised. Something she’d seen Chukshene do on occasion. But the blind deathpriest seemed better at it, for he only needed a few quick seconds to decide his path.
He zagged through a series of archways, leading them deep inside. Archways which drooled long threads of algae. The ground, though rough from the work of an obsessed chiseller, was made treacherous by the slime.
What surprised her was how the temple had looked to be cramped inside the cove, but once inside the embrace of the structure itself, it seemed more open and spacious than it should. As though walking through the arches had caused them to shrink or the world outside to grow.
Either way, the stone blocks seemed larger. More massive. The towers much higher. The bridges spanning above their heads were out of reach. And the main corridors which should have been tight were wide and regal.
The strange cubes which suckled against the walls now looked more unsettling. Their edges too fine. Corners too sharp. Faces far too smooth. Looking at them made her feel uncomfortable, so she averted her gaze. Gargoyles and monstrous creatures car
ved into the stone all screamed in silent agony, twisted arms bent and fingers flexed.
Runes etched into the stone sizzled with energy. Some jettisoned fistfuls of sparks as they passed.
The small group moved slowly, hugging the shadows. Unconsciously trying to avoid hidden eyes. Eyes the elf knew were watching.
She could feel them. Inhuman eyes. Eyes wet with placid hunger.
Here and there, a bone lay forgotten and gripped by rot. Reminder of the ultimate price expected by the mad creature whose nightmarish whims had caused the temple to be carved.
Wind crept through the tunnels and swept across the ancient masonry with a nervous keening whistle. Dulled by the thrumming waves pounding against the shore, it gave voice to the fears lurking in their hearts.
The elf shivered.
She’d crawled through many places considered haunted. The tombs beneath Lostlight’s own temple had been her first. A temple abandoned by Veil, its own dead goddess.
Then she’d hunted through the Deadlands. Had found abandoned fortresses and twisted Vampire Lord remains.
But this was something else. This wasn’t a ghost. It wasn’t a broken enchantment.
This was alive.
And it breathed. It hungered.
It hated.
And, as a shriek rang through the corridors, it reached.
The elf tensed, splayed across the ground and ready to pounce. But the echo of the shriek died quickly, smothered by shadows which sought to feed on it.
She looked from the two girls clinging to each other, to Lux. The blind deathpriest aimed his cheek to the dripping roof and nodded slowly. Reached up and dropped his cowl so his ears could drink more distant sounds. “Nath’s fools reap the reward of their stupidity,” he said. “Be careful now. Draug shuffle through these halls, and the Madman’s feet tread this cove.”
“I wonder who it was,” Nearne mused aloud.
“It sounded like Alfur,” Mija said. Voice calm despite the panic in her eyes. Panic which made the knife in her hand twitch. “I hope I’m wrong, though.”
“You liked him?”