by T. S. Adrian
Sorrow and Rage United
The Unpublished Story of How Verthandi Came to Live in a Box
By
T.S. Adrian
MIST COILED over the mountain and wrapped around him like a shroud. The stink of his own body offended him and his boots grew heavier with every step. Why had he not yet seen the temple at the summit? There should be something! The thin air forced a halt and he peered over the edge at the valley below. Jade domes and broken pillars, echoes of a forgotten age, were drowned bodies reaching out of a cloudy sea. A ziggurat smothered in vines, its fallen monuments speaking of gods once worshiped, formed an unnatural peak on the horizon. He snatched a handkerchief from his vest and dabbed the sweat off his brow. It had been a mistake to attempt the stairs just after he had discovered these ruins. It would be prudent to postpone until after a good night’s rest.
The shriek of a fowl broke the stillness. He glanced east away from the stairs. How marvelous all this must have been when the citizens of Ash walked the streets below. Bridges arching over canals rushing with mountain water. Meridian trumpets declaring the end of siesta. Scholars arguing in public forums under the scrutiny of armored men—all of it consumed by the jungle and forgotten. Had they seen the death that had come for them? Had they imagined their entire civilization would become—this?
A breeze carried a hint of jacaranda and oncidium orchids from the jungle below. Better. A hint of the sea, a half-day’s march through hostile greenery, beckoned him to return to the refuge of his life. On its distant northern bank crouched the Imperial port city of Alessandra. A further thirty-day march north, past villages and guard keeps, sprawled the trade city of Anderholm, where his employment lingered. Had they even noticed the absence of the auditor named Isaak? Probably not.
A clatter of pots and heavy breathing drew his attention down the steps. “Be careful, Mentor,” his apprentice said between breaths and shifting their bulky pack. “The stone is not stable.”
Startled, he stepped back. His boot had been perched above a fatal drop. How had he failed to see that danger? “Thank you, Pip.”
He sighed. Fate was a cruel mistress. Once, under a former name, he had been a prophet and his voice had swayed the passions of thousands. Now I am a clerk in a trade bureau, unenvied and unloved. He repeated the alias he had loathed for five long years—Isaak—and crammed the damp cloth back into his pocket. He mustn’t stop now, not when he was so close.
He glanced up the fading stairs then at his apprentice. Pip’s loose shirt sagged off a shoulder that seemed more bone than muscle. His hair resembled an overturned hen’s nest left out in the rain. Without protest, he had carried their supplies all the long road from Anderholm, and had kept their clothing and rations dry as they sailed south across the Azure Sea. If that lanky boy can make it this far with our pack on his back, so can I. Drawing as much of the damp air as he could into his lungs, he resumed the climb. At least they had risen above the suffocating humidity of the jungle valley, but his legs burned and his shoulders could no longer support his head. Insects scuttled into his ears and nostrils, but he lacked the strength to bat them away. He counted the steps; just one hundred more and he would rest. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. Perhaps there was no temple at the top of this stairway. Maybe he would enter the mist and stumble off an unseen cliff. All that he had sacrificed and endured these many years would end with his body rotting on sharp rocks. This venture was futile. Pointless…
The clash of pots and Pip’s small hands kept him from teetering off the edge. He gazed down at the drop. So close! Too winded to voice gratitude, he patted the young man’s arm and peered up into the fog. Damn it all! Still nothing. No temple. He sat with a groan. Damn the feebleness of age. Mortality was much overrated.
Pip crouched, the pack balanced on his back. “It can’t be much further, Mentor. We’ll be there soon.”
He grinned and clasped the young man’s knee. Optimism in the face of uncertainty, an admirable trait. He had trained many apprentices over his long life, but Pip was exceptional. Few would have followed him on this expedition, not without demanding to know where they were going or how he had known the way. Three moons before, he had revealed to Pip his true calling and his command of ancient magics. The young man could have alerted the Triad Sacreds or the Innocenti and earned a bag of silver for his patronage, but Pip never betrayed him.
Betrayal. There was a word he knew well.
His last apprentice had betrayed him. Back then, long before he had become Isaak, he had gone by the name Valerious, and had risen to great heights, only to be brought low by poison. Magic had saved him, but it had also taken all he had possessed—his followers, his fortune and his destiny. Pip didn’t know about any of that. To him, he was ‘Mentor’ and that was enough.
He flicked his fingers at the pack on Pip’s back. “Why don’t you put that down? We won’t need any of it where we are going.”
Pip shook his head. “Wild animals will get the last of our food, Mentor.”
The jungle below teemed with life, most of it hostile. He had used a cantrip to keep the fauna at bay, but the spell did nothing to repel the insects that took his blood and left itchy welts.
“You’re a good man, Pip,” he said. “I’m honored to share your company.”
Pip brightened at the praise. He peered beyond their unplanned camp—then pointed. “Mentor, there!”
Could it be? Yes! Clouds continued to seep between the mountains, but the ghost of a temple had materialized. A cry of relief escaped his lips. At last! He had sacrificed so much to be here, and now all that he desired was finally within his grasp. He seized Pip’s shoulder and laughed—and a pang stabbed his chest. He would sacrifice more before this day was done.
The temple’s appearance put strength in his legs. He took the final steps one at a time and shuffled through an archway that had once held mighty doors. Trees grew within the temple walls, their vines enveloping pillars and their roots splitting marble. Overgrown steps led higher to bulwarks, and further up, to the skeletal remains of the temple’s dome. But what he sought lay below, not above. They passed arches to halls clogged with stones that had once provided access to the temple’s interior until they came to steps leading down. He released another breath of relief. He had feared the way would be buried beneath rubble, but only the roots of a mighty tree stood in their path.
Pip took off the pack and set it aside. A small monkey screamed at him from the branches until he threw a stone at it. The stone missed, but the animal leaped away. He glanced at their supplies and searched the trees above.
“We won’t be long.” He pulled free a pair of torches strapped to the pack and handed one to Pip. A surge of ether ignited the one he kept. “Come now.”
Pip touched his torch to the lit one and squeezed between the roots. He followed. Their footfalls scraped on damp stone as the steps became a passage that angled down. Statues placed in alcoves, each chiseled from the finest marble, gazed at them with soulless perfection. Amazing! On the streets of Anderholm, just one would sell for enough gold to buy a good horse.
“Think of it, Pip, we are the first to walk these halls in over a thousand years.”
Pip shivered despite the fire burning inches from his face. His teeth chattered as he searched the darkness ahead. “One can only hope, Mentor.”
He laughed. It was good to laugh once again. “You think there might be trolls and basilisks down here to feast on our flesh and suck the marrow from our bones?”
“This would be the sort of place for it.”
He clapped his apprentice on the back and made him stumble. “Fear not. Such things haven’t walked the earth in ages.”
“We are beneath the
earth, Mentor.”
His laugh bounded down the corridor. A fine jest, even if unintended. He squeezed and patted the bulge in the pouch at his side. Soon, all he’d lost would be returned to him. The voice in the tower had promised that and the owner of that voice never lied. Pip had carried their supplies all the way from Anderholm, but not what lay hidden in his pouch. No man would separate that from him. Within that pouch rested his greatest treasure—a box with nothing in it.
The hall twice doubled back, but always descended. They passed archways to corridors that hinted at deserted chambers. He thrust his torch past one of the dark openings. A passage with several closed doors continued beyond his light. How much of this complex still remained? Were there dining halls with long tables and chapels with pews and altars? Perhaps there were bathhouses, long dried up, but with mosaics of tiles that told stories of what they had once worshiped. Or, if Fate was kind, even libraries filled with books and living quarters with desks where the faithful sat and wrote in journals! The ancient knowledge may not have been lost, after all. His old training as a historian demanded he explore, but he resisted the urge. Now was not the time.
He shivered in the chill of the mountain depths and moved on. How had Fate led him to this moment? There was a time when lords and advisers to monarchs had journeyed to his palace with offerings of gold for a few hours of his wisdom. Guests seated within his lavish pavilion had swooned from the aroma of rich delicacies. In the evenings, lovely girls with soft eyes and veiled desires had eagerly offered him their passions. For nearly two decades he had cultivated the Innocenti from a few fanatics into a following with thousands of faithful throughout the empire and the northern realms. The memories of it all haunted him as he followed the downward slope of the corridor. All of that had been traded for poison in an assassin’s cup. But he hadn’t died. He had used the magic of his box to occupy the assassin’s body. It had saved his life, but had also made him a hunted man. As his zealous followers searched for the one who had murdered their founder—for him!—he fled into the desert where he had hidden in caves. How many years had he spent there, drinking the morning dew on brown grass and eating lizards raw? He couldn’t answer. Eventually, he had crawled back from that madness and had journeyed north, to Anderholm, and traded a ring he kept for a bath, a shave and decent clothes. He had forged documents that proclaimed him a learned scholar and mathematician then had accepted a post as an auditor named Isaak.
Another shiver racked his body as a sour odor pushed against their descent. He tightened his cloak. Just a little further and he would no longer be Isaak. He would require another name, but for now he needed to focus on the matter at hand. Dinner first, then dessert—as a nanny had once told him.
Pip clamped a hand over his nose. “Ugh! What is that stench?”
The sour odor became a nauseating stink. The passage emptied into a chamber with walls outside the flickering of their torches. Through watering eyes, he lifted his light and caught movement above. The thick silence was rent asunder as bats, carpeted across the ceiling, screeched at their intrusion. Dropping by the hundreds, the bats swarmed at them in a deadly black cloud.
Pip leaped forward and swung his torch in great whooshing sweeps. “Run, Mentor! I’ll hold them back!”
Running was the last thing on his mind. Isaak would run, but he was no longer that pathetic clerk. He cast down his torch and lifted his palms to the oncoming swarm. Black energy crackled between his hands as he gave a command to release his will. “Abysm take you!” Lightning surged from his fingers, each bolt striking a shrieking creature and forking to others. The chamber filled with acrid ozone and the stench of charred fur as small, burnt bodies pelted the floor. The remaining bats, hearing the death screams of their companions, veered through a hole in the ceiling until only a few remained.
Pip gazed at the ceiling, his torch burning above his fist. He pivoted back. “Did you do that?”
Did I do that? Was there another mage here? He recovered his torch and trod past his startled apprentice. “I told you, there was nothing to worry about. Come now.”
Slipping in guano and stepping on bats, some of whom gave a dying squeak under the crunch of their boots, they passed between rows of mighty pillars until the end of the chamber came into the light of their torches.
“There it is, Pip.”
Stone gargoyles scowled down from a pair of low columns placed well before a massive door within an archway. Highlighted in the golden flicker of their torches, the bas-relief worked into the metal told the saga of a battle between the living and the dead. Skeletons in armor battled with knights on horseback, while reapers, soaring above in flowing cloaks, lifted the souls of the slain to the land of spirits.
“It’s incredible, Mentor,” Pip said, his gaze darting from one scene to the next on the great door. “I’ve never seen its equal.”
An ancient sconce mounted on one of the columns below the gargoyles provided a place for his torch. The artistry was impressive, but if the voice in the tower had told true, the door was nothing compared to the wonder that lay beyond it. “What we seek is past the door, my friend.”
Pip turned from the looming arch. “You’ve never named me friend before.”
He clutched the young man’s shoulder. “Then it is long overdue.”
Pip’s cheeks flushed. “I owe you everything, Mentor.”
Another stab of regret pierced his chest. “You are my future, Pip. I would become nothing without you. Now, let’s see to this door.”
His apprentice watched him a moment longer then looked back at the arch. “How will we open it?”
“I will make a spell.” He pointed at an adjacent sconce. “Place your torch there. Give us more light.”
Pip walked to the other column below a gargoyle and jammed his torch into a holder green with age.
“Please remain very still.” He took out a handful of white sand. “And don’t speak. Even the slightest disturbance could foil the spell.” He crouched and, allowing the sand to stream from his thumb and the curve of his fingers, he drew lines and symbols on an area of the floor in front of the massive entry. The voice in the tower had told him what to draw, putting the images in his head until he could see them as clearly as if they had been drawn on paper. They were quite complex and he feared he would run out of sand, but at last he stood before his creation. He gathered his will and sent a flow of ether into the sand. The glass melted into perfect white lines. Marvelous! Faultless! His eyes filled with tears. There had been a time, not too long ago, when he couldn’t have accomplished even this.
His apprentice came to his side. “It’s beautiful, Mentor.”
“Thank you, Pip.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“Do you think I could learn to do that?”
“I’m sure you could, but not today. Help me, please. Take these.” He reached into his robe, pulled out a bundle of candles and handed all but one to Pip. “Place a candle at each point. Don’t step on the lines. The glass is fragile.”
He waited as Pip obeyed. Could there be another way to open the doors? No. He must follow this journey to its conclusion. He had already sacrificed too much.
Pip placed the final candle. “Now what?”
A pass of his fingers lit the candle he held. He handed it to his apprentice. “Stand in the middle and light the candles around you. Don’t step on the lines.”
Pip walked gingerly to the center of the diagram. He crouched low and extended the flame to each of the candles he had placed. When he finished, he stood and waited.
“Now what?”
Bathed in the candle’s light, his apprentice had taken on the appearance of an acolyte of Ouranos, one of the holy children who had helped spread the lies of the false gods. His anger simmered and he welcomed it. He would need wrath to endure what was about to happen.
“Now we wait.”
Pip stiffened. “Mentor, I can’t move. I’m stuck.”
It was just as he had expected. The magic of the diagram had seized Pip like a horseshoe in a blacksmith’s tongs. “I know.”
The candles flared, tripling in strength.
“What is this?” Pip pivoted his head left and right while his body and feet remained still.
His gaze lingered a moment on his apprentice. Should he apologize? Should he try to explain how much he regretted having to do this? He couldn’t have taken just anyone off the street. Only an act of betrayal would crack open the prison. The voice in the tower had told him that. Betrayal was sorrow and rage united.
Stepping forward and pushing back his cloak, he drew a dagger from a sheath on his belt and stabbed deep into Pip’s stomach. He avoided looking into Pip’s eyes and shut his ears to the screams as he slid the blade out and plunged it back, again and again. The stink of bowels pinched his nose and blood soaked his hand as he pulled free the dagger a final time and held it level over the diagram. Blood dripped from the blade and spattered the runes he had drawn.
The symbols and lines glowed red.
Casting aside the dagger, he stepped back and waited, his hand dripping. Pip said something, cried something. He didn’t listen.
Air and dust churned and thrashed Pip’s shaggy hair as a red glow smothered the chamber. He gazed up to a maw that swirled and opened like the apparatus on a lantern. The torches and candles were snuffed out as a living black rope lashed down, wrapped about Pip’s waist and hauled his dying apprentice up. Howls of agony echoed beyond the portal. He ground his teeth. There was no backing down now. If you falter or show weakness, all is lost.
He furrowed his brow. Were those his thoughts, or the voice in the tower? It had to be his; they were too far from Anderholm for the voice to touch his mind here—unless the aperture above him opened to the place where the voice was kept. That must be it.
The portal opened wider. A nightmare of gray muscle plunged down, its clawed feet shattering the glass lines into dust. The ground heaved under his boots and the boom of a sledgehammer cracking rock rebounded throughout the high chamber. The remaining bats screeched and fled as the beast stood from a crouch until its chest towered over him. The sagging folds of its grotesque head, concealing all evidence of a neck, turned blazing eyes down on him. It flexed massive biceps and shook its shoulders as if it had awoken from a deep sleep. A horrid maw pierced with fangs the length of daggers stretched and gnashed, bringing a stench of raw flesh and Pip’s blood.